The imperial guards quickly extinguished the fire, rescuing the young man who was smoke-stained and unrecognizable.
“Who are you?” Ye Hui asked.
The young man, terrified, trembled and couldn’t speak.
“Don’t you remember, Miss? He’s Young Master Hong Wen,” Mo Qi explained, her face covered in soot.
“Oh, the one from the street performance,” Ye Hui realized. She recalled meeting him during her first year in Pingzhou when they were nearly robbed, and Hong Wen had helped them escape.
Hong Wen was traumatized, pale-faced, and could only nod, barely standing without Mo Qi’s support.
Ye Hui demanded to know why they wanted to burn him. The local officials, intimidated by the imperial guards, remained silent.
She ordered a guard to bring the local Qiang tribal leader, who explained that Hong Wen was considered impure because he had worked in a brothel, and his wife had instigated the burning.
When his wife was brought forward – a grotesque, 200-pound woman in her 40s – Ye Hui was disgusted. She had her guards beat the woman and left with Hong Wen.
During the return journey, she scolded Hong Wen: “Haven’t you seen women? How could you be with such a woman? Aren’t you afraid of being crushed while sleeping?”
Hong Wen, now cleaned up and dressed, still shaken, took a drink of water from Mo Qi.
Xiao Ren returned to his hometown after parting with Miss Ye that year. With some silver in his pocket, he wasn’t worried about livelihood, but his family criticized him for losing face. “Hong Wen became aggrieved: “Initially, they sold me to a brothel to pay for my father’s medical treatment, and now they look down on me. Fortunately, I had some silver to support the family, and they weren’t too harsh. But when the silver ran out, my family sold me to a fat woman. At first, she wasn’t too bad, but later she complained about everything. When she heard I had worked in a brothel, she forced me to go out and sell myself. When I resisted, she beat me. In early autumn this year, she got engaged to a cattle herder from the village and planned to burn me alive… What happened next is what the goddess saw.”
