"Yes, Shen Hong was killed by me, Wu Xiuchu was also killed by me, and the next person I want to kill is Liu Wu." Wei Fu laughed maniacally for a long time, until her tears were about to overflow her eyes, and finally she looked at Zhong Li and told the truth.
"Why, why did you kill people?" Zhong Li asked her.
"Because I was poor!" Wei Fu gave an answer that surprised everyone.
She seemed to have anticipated everyone's astonishment and nonchalantly swept over every face in the hall, saying, "Do you know Wei Village near Lin'an City? Have you ever experienced what it means for people to eat people?
I was born in Wei Village twenty years ago. I was the fifth child born into my family. In the first year, the men of Wei Village were conscripted to resist the invasion of the Northern Di. In the second year, there was a locust plague. The city, already short of men for farming, had its bark stripped clean. Do you know what the common people did to survive?"
As Zhong Li listened to Wei Fu's words, her heart sank. She recalled Lu Wuxie telling her about the internal and external troubles of Nan Yue twenty years ago. Lin'an City, as the first city to defend Nan Yue, must have been the first to be affected.
If the end of the war brought not peace but a locust plague, then what kind of terrifying hell was Lin'an, where Wei Fu lived at that time?
As this thought flashed through Zhong Li's mind, Wei Fu sneered and continued, "At first, everyone still had some reason and ate Guanyin soil to fill their stomachs.
But as everyone knows, you can't defecate after eating it, and people died of bloating with distended bellies.
As days passed, Wei Village was filled with corpses with swollen bellies. I don't know who was driven mad by hunger and began to drag the dead home to cook them. Over time, cannibalism became commonplace in Wei Village.
But the dead will eventually be eaten. What then?"
Swap children!
Wei Fu did not say the answer, but Zhong Li had already come up with the result in her mind.
"Girls were the least valuable in Wei Village at the earliest. They couldn't farm, didn't know hardship, and couldn't serve the country. But Wei Village nineteen years ago was different. Girls were the most valuable because their meat was the most tender and delicious.
When I was two years old, my mother could no longer afford to raise me. To survive, she found families who also had daughters and swapped children. They say people don't remember things before the age of three, but I am different. I clearly remember that family happily burning firewood and heating water, looking at me with greedy, extremely desirous eyes, while I could only hide in a corner and tremble, waiting to be slaughtered and cooked like livestock.
But perhaps heaven took pity on me. That day, there was a sudden earthquake. The walls of the houses in Wei Village had already been stripped of most of their plaster. With this one event, Wei Village completely disappeared from the map of Nan Yue.
"And you?" Zhong Li asked. She was very curious about how Wei Fu was saved.
"Perhaps it was my fate. I was pressed into a crevice between large stones, and a passing Taoist priest rescued me. From then on, I lived with that Taoist priest." As Wei Fu spoke, her expression suddenly became extremely strange. Her mouth twitched a few times: "Do you think I could live a normal life after that? Now that I think about it, if I had died so confusedly at the age of two, it might have been the best for me."
As Wei Fu finished speaking, as if recalling something, her body couldn't help but tremble.
At this moment, no one in the hall urged her. They just looked at her quietly.
After a while, Wei Fu slowly calmed her emotions and chuckled, "That Taoist priest raised me until I was seven years old. At first, like everyone else, I thought I had met a good person. Until one night, he climbed onto my bed..."
Suddenly, Wei Fu's expression became ferocious. She stared with bloodshot eyes at the empty air opposite her, clenched her fists, and said, "At first I was so scared. How could my benefactor treat me like this? Until I felt a piercing pain below, I was completely awake. I took a wooden hairpin he gave me from my head and stared fiercely at his neck, once... once... and again!
Haha! Then he died. He lay on top of me, and blood flowed from his neck onto my face. It was so hot, so warm. I even couldn't help but stick out my tongue to taste it, only..."
Wei Fu spat and said, "That blood smelled too bad, just like his smell!"
"How did you survive after that?" Zhong Li looked at Wei Fu, unsure whether to pity her or something else. But what she wanted to know more was how this demon became the top courtesan of Huanxi Lou.
"I killed people. I naturally couldn't stay in Lin'an. So I came to Suqing. At first, I lived by begging there. Then I was taken in by a down-and-out opera troupe leader, and I specialized in singing lewd songs and performing bawdy plays to make a living.
After the old troupe leader died, I drifted to Jincheng. Wu Xiuchu saw that I had potential and took me in eight years ago. And here I am today." Wei Fu said the rest very blandly, with no change in her expression.
Zhong Li knew that the days Wei Fu spent afterward were the best days of her life.
"Since Wu Xiuchu adopted you, why did you kill her? Don't you understand gratitude?" Xu Qing stood aside and couldn't help but interject. In his opinion, how could such a pure and beautiful woman become the most poisonous serpent?
Wei Fu turned her head and looked at Xu Qing, sneering as if looking at an idiot.
Xu Qing was stunned and felt his face lose some dignity. Just as he was about to scold her, Wei Fu said, "Gratitude? Are you talking about gratitude to someone who crawled out of hell? Are you sick?"
"You!" Xu Qing roared through gritted teeth.
"I've told you, I want Huanxi Lou, and I'm afraid of being poor! Why would I be grateful for Wu Xiuchu's little kindness?" Wei Fu shook her head and said to Xu Qing, "You people who live in Jincheng, your thoughts are always so naive."
"Wei Fu, you actually used this official for your own purposes. Do you believe this official..."
"Xu Qing!"
Wei Fu completely enraged Xu Qing. He raised his hand to slap Wei Fu, but Lan Heng stopped him in time.
Wei Fu glanced at Lan Heng, her eyes devoid of any emotion. She tilted her neck and said, "I have three or four lives on my hands, and I die with no regrets. Lord Lan, please deal with me as you see fit, haha! Haha!"
After she finished speaking, the corners of her mouth turned up, and she smiled ferociously and wildly.
Lan Heng frowned and looked deeply at Wei Fu.
At this moment, Wenchang Street outside Dali Temple was bustling with activity, but the people standing in the hall felt no warmth. Instead, they were covered in goosebumps from the laughter.