The monkey chuckled and looked at Wan Lei, "Do you want to hear more? There are many more stories here."
By this time, Wan Lei was trembling like a sieve. He thought that after experiencing the doomsday of the Golden Immortal Secret Realm, the drastic changes in the Huo family's human nature, and the beastly depravity of the Crying Desire Sect, he had already witnessed the ugliness of the world. But he never expected...
This mere town of ten thousand people, these people living at the very bottom, were also experiencing such incomparably tragic pain all the time.
"Can't you distinguish right from wrong yet? It's alright, I can continue to tell you."
The monkey scratched the fur on its head and pointed to a doorway.
Wan Lei remembered that at that doorway, there was a couple listening to the girl's mother nag.
That family, the mother was loving and virtuous, the man was humble and polite, and the girl was gentle and delicate.
But at the doorway now, only the figure of a man was lingering.
A rotting body, pacing back and forth.
"Xiao Long was a scholar. He loved to study since he was young, had a good character, and a gentle disposition. He had a good reputation in town, and everyone called him Scholar Long.
Besides his studies, Scholar Long often helped other villagers and would also dedicate one or two hours to teaching the children in the school.
The meager silver he earned from teaching, after his daily expenses, was enough for him to live comfortably.
That Xiao Mei, they were childhood sweethearts, inseparable since they were sensible. After growing up, they were also deeply in love. They were known in town as a perfect match, admired by everyone.
Everyone thought they were a match made in heaven...
Except for Xiao Mei's mother.
Xiao Mei was beautiful and had long been coveted by the town mayor's son, who wanted to marry her as a concubine.
The town mayor's son was not bad, at least he didn't resort to forcibly taking the girl. He just followed the customary betrothal rites.
The mayor's family offered a hundred taels of silver as a betrothal gift. That avaricious shrew had never seen so much money in her life and immediately agreed.
When Xiao Mei learned of this, she cried and wailed. Xiao Long also went to her house to plead, hoping that they would marry Xiao Mei to him.
That greedy shrew, determined to sell her daughter, said to Xiao Long, "If you can produce three hundred taels of silver as a betrothal gift, I will marry Xiao Mei to you."
Heh, Xiao Long was just a poor scholar. Even with the few taels of silver he had saved over the years, it was far from three hundred taels.
Such a bride price crushed him.
But he was not discouraged. He and Xiao Mei agreed to elope and seek a living on another island.
They agreed to meet in the woods at the northern end of the town, a place where they often played as children.
But when the appointed time came, Xiao Long waited and waited, but Xiao Mei never showed up.
Worried, he went to Xiao Mei's house to inquire. When he arrived, he heard Xiao Mei's mother's earth-shattering cries.
It turned out that when Xiao Mei was secretly leaving home, her mother discovered her. Seeing that Xiao Mei was trying to escape, her mother became enraged, grabbed a rolling pin, and broke her own daughter's left leg, then locked her in the room.
Her mother told her that if she dared to escape again, she would ask the town mayor to kill Xiao Long.
After all, the town mayor was a Foundation Establishment expert, possessing absolute authority in the town. Anyone who dared to question his authority would die miserably. He was the local emperor, perpetrating all sorts of evil."
Hearing this, Wan Lei glanced in surprise at the town mayor standing beside him.
Oh, of course, this was also a rotting corpse.
The town mayor had left him a good impression. He was polite in his speech...
Never mind. When he first arrived, no one in this town seemed bad. But the reality was that there was so much filth.
"Xiao Mei, fearing the mayor's oppressive power, dared not escape again. But she was also unwilling to betray her lover and marry a beast with a human face.
She dared not run away anymore, for fear of harming Xiao Long.
In a dilemma, she dragged her broken leg, stood on a stool, tore a sheet, tied it into a rope, and hanged herself.
Do you know what Xiao Long heard at that time? He heard that shrew crying...
'You heartless little good-for-nothing! I worked so hard to raise you, relying on you to repay me. You only have this poor boy in your heart.
How could you be so heartless as to die? If you had to die, you should have died after the wedding! Now I have to buy you a coffin and hold a funeral. You damned good-for-nothing!
How could you... be so selfish!' "
At this point, the monkey, usually calm, also sounded somewhat resentful.
Wan Lei was silent. He had not experienced such things. When he was with Fang Xiaoyu, she was the little princess of the Fang family, a top power in the Lei Feng Realm, while he was just a poor boy from a small family. But Old Fang was a reasonable person and had agreed to their relationship from the beginning.
Therefore, in his opinion, as long as people loved each other, they should be together, regardless of their status differences, and only with the person they loved would they find happiness.
He thought all parents wanted to see their children happy.
Although...
There were many parents who, under the guise of wanting the best for their daughters, found them good matches, but inwardly, they intended to solicit high bride prices to fill their own pockets.
Whether the daughter was happy was not important, as long as she could be sold for a good price.
If the daughter did not obey them and wanted to pursue her own happiness, she was selfish, ungrateful, did not understand them, was immature, and had wronged them for their years of raising her!
They would not consider that their child was a person, a person with her own thoughts and aspirations for happiness, not a commodity that could be priced!
The monkey sighed.
"Xiao Long was a good child. His greatest dream was to become a teacher and educator, and to marry his beloved Xiao Mei.
What you are seeing is the deepest fantasy in his heart: a mother-in-law who is understanding, and he and Xiao Mei living a happy and fulfilling life. That's all.
He's nothing special. He just lost everything."
Before Wan Lei could sigh, the monkey pointed to the skeletal rotten corpse in the middle of the street.
"That fellow, Xiao Wan, he was an author. He liked to write books and also liked to research. He had written several books and showed progress.
But no matter how good his books were, people wouldn't read them, because there were too many people better than him.
No one read his books, no one subscribed, no one gave him tips, no one gave him recommendation tickets or monthly passes.
But he didn't care. No, he pretended not to care. He sat in his room all day, working hard to type, fantasizing about becoming a great author one day.
However, the meager royalties he earned each month were not even enough for him to eat.
He was reluctant to eat, reluctant to wear clothes, and didn't even go out, all for the sake of writing the best works to present to readers.
He was starving and emaciated, yet he was engrossed, immersed in the world of typing.
In the end, he starved to death."