I heard the sound of iron chains and shackles moving along with some female frightened sounds
I stood in the doorway for a moment taking a deep breath and looked forward.
Inside there were dozens of them. Young women, most of them mortal, chained at the wrists and ankles to iron rings set into the walls and floor.
Some were thin in the way that comes from months of inadequate food. Some had the hollow unfocused look of people whose minds have begun to move away from what is being done to their bodies as a form of self-protection.
In one of the side rooms, visible through an open door, there were two who were not moving at all, their bodies covered in small precise cuts and other marks I did not let myself look at for too long.
My hands were very still at my sides.
I turned back to the caravan and called forward the three female cultivators in the group. They came without being asked twice. One look at what was through the door had told them everything they needed to know.
We brought the survivors out one by one into the afternoon light.
The caravan people responded the way ordinary people sometimes cannot when confronted with such situations, something that requires immediate human action and no particular instruction.
One of the cultivators produced folding stools from somewhere. Another started a fire without being asked. A third was already moving toward the food stores in the carriages before I had finished counting heads.
I held up a hand.
"Gather them here first," I said. "All of them together."
When they were assembled before me, sitting or leaning against each other in the way of people who have learned to take warmth wherever it can be found, I took out three cleaning talismans and activated them one after another.
The spell moved across the survivors like a gentle wind, clearing away weeks of accumulated filth and dead skin and the smell that clung to them.
The female cultivators from the caravan had brought clean clothing from their own supplies. They helped the survivors change with quiet efficiency under a cover setup beside the carriages, without making anyone feel observed.
I called over the man who had been moving toward the food stores. "Tea cups, if you have them bring them, enough for everyone of them."
He did.
I took out three vitality tea potions two of 5% and one 10% from my storage pouch.
I poured carefully into each cup, measured by eye, and passed them down to the victims with tea concentration varied from one another based on their injuries and situation, told them to drink slowly.
The color and vitality came back to them gradually. Not all at once but in stages, like dawn moving across a landscape, warmth returning to faces that had forgotten what it felt like.
"Cook porridge," I took out a jade spirit rice bag and told the caravan leader. "Soft, not too hard. Their stomachs will not handle anything heavy yet. And get a fire going for meat grill I will come back in a moment."
"Yes, senior," he said, already moving.
I left them to it and went into the forest.
The Tier-1 early stage spirit boar I found was large and had clearly lived well. It went down quickly with a single attack. I brought it back to the fire site and cleaned it with my farming sickle, which parted the tough hide without any particular effort, and began to work.
I had most of the ingredients I needed to cook in my storage pouch.
My hands moved through the familiar motions without requiring much attention, breaking the carcass down, trimming, seasoning, setting cuts over the fire at the angles that would give the best results.
Pork ribs went on the grill with a honey glaze. Thick chops were seared over the hottest part of the flame and finished slowly. The smell that rose from the fire was entirely different from the smell inside that house.
I noted that several of the caravan members had drifted closer and were watching with an attention that had nothing to do with politeness.
Victims were also mesmerized.
When the food was ready I served it to the survivors first, I minced the meat into tiny pieces and placed it on top of porridge . The caravan group came after. I sat back after giving everyone food and watched and said nothing.
The young victims started to eat hurriedly, I said them
"Don't worry, You are free, I will make sure you reach your homes safely, so eat slowly and recover first, we can talk later and if you want more, ask, don't hesitate."
The crying started quietly and spread. Not from pain but from the particular overwhelm of being warm and fed and no longer afraid, of being treated as humans by strangers who saved them.
Some of them cried for their families. Some said they wanted their mothers. Some said the names of grandmothers, the content was different from one person to another.
The female cultivators from the caravan sat beside them, tried to console these innocent souls and said what could be said and did not try to say more than that.
When things had quieted somewhat I approached the caravan leader.
"Do you have pressing deliveries scheduled? Anything that cannot wait?"
He thought about it. "We are just heading back empty after making a delivery, returning to Qingfeng City." He looked at the survivors. "We have no urgent return schedule."
"I need these carriages," I said. "To take these people back to Wujiang City. There are Sun Moon Spirit Sect representatives in the city, who can arrange safe return of victims to their homes and villages."
He nodded without hesitation. "We can send one carriage ahead with a fast rider to notify our families and the Lan family. The other two will stay here."
"I am grateful." I took out five sword qi talismans and five earth-escaping talismans and passed them to him. "For the riders. In case the road is less quiet than it looks."
He accepted them with both hands without further questions and approached his people and told them about the situation.
It was early afternoon by the time the advance carriage had gone.
An hour passed. The survivors rested in the tents made by caravan people in the hillside light, some sleeping against each other's, some simply sitting outside and looking at the sky with the careful attention of people rediscovering things they had been denied. I sat apart and watched the forest and let the time pass.
When I judged they had rested enough I nodded to the female cultivators.
They woke the survivors gently, and the group gathered again in the open space before the house, the caravan members forming a loose and respectful perimeter around the outside.
I stood before them and took a moment to look at each face.
"Most of you do not know why this happened to you," I said. "Why you were abducted, Why you were kept here and Why no one explained, Why you were made to suffer like this."
"But you deserve to know."
The hillside was quiet. Even the birds seemed to have decided to wait.
"The man responsible for your captivity is the city overseer of Wujiang City. He is a demon practitioner who cultivates by consuming virgin female blood. He is also a member of the Sun Moon Spirit Sect, or he was until this morning."
"When his nature was exposed during a meeting with a sect envoy and he was forced to flee after a big fight."
"His right hand-man was the one who arranged your kidnapping and maintained this place to ensure a steady supply of blood for his cultivation, by taking your blood every now and then." I paused. "You were kept alive because you were useful. Nothing more than that."
Several of the survivors were crying silently. Others had gone still, processing and understanding what I have said.
No one spoke.
"Five years ago," I said, "My childhood friend was killed by the overseer's men . Her name was Xiaomen. She was a kind village girl but was brutally killed by these bandits draining her blood slowly while enjoying her screams so that they can provide the overseer with blood to cultivate."
I kept my voice calm with some effort. "She cried for a long time begging them for help but there is no one. I was not there to stop it."
"I have thought about taking revenge every day since then until today."
I walked back to the carriage I had arrived in and opened the door.
I brought them out one at a time. The overseer first, reduced to something barely recognizable as the man who had once held administrative power over an entire city.
The bandit leader after him, pale and shaking, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of his feet. I dragged them by their hair, threw them down on the grass in front of the victims, who stepped back looking at the bloodied men at the ground.
The victims are terrified looking at the shaking bandit leader crawling on the ground
Wahhh! Wahhhh!
The reactions moved through the survivors like a wave. Some recoiled. Some went rigid. Some cried. Then voices began, overlapping each other, as they told me and the caravan group what this man had done,
The bandit leader who comes to the house every few weeks to collect blood, picks a girl drains her blood and se*ually assaults her and leaves her to the others who will eventually die under their cruelty and what happened after that, so...and...so...and...so...
I listened to each and everyone.
The list of his sins were numerous than his predecessor who kills the victims after a short torture but he showed them hell for years.
When they had finished I walked to the bandit leader and looked down at him, matching his eye level.
"I thought you had some conscious ," I said quietly. "Keeping them alive instead of killing them outright. I thought perhaps there was a line you would not cross." I considered him for a moment. "You are really the worst, treating people like some stock, enjoying them to satisfy your desires."
"Senior..I..I...please show me mercy please senior please"
He said nothing and started to beg. He had run out of things to say.
I turned to the victim's group.
"I have taken my share of revenge already," I said. "It did not feel the way I thought it would. It didn't remove the pain completely, but it still gave me relief, some peace, not everything, but something."
I looked at the survivors. "If any of you want yours to be removed, I will make sure not to let them die quickly and until all of you were deprived of your pain. Whatever state they were in I can bring them back to normal. Even near death so what do you want."
My claim was not an exaggeration.
Then I introduced these two guys these two people to the caravan group and victims, then they were shocked because the overseer was a foundation establishment cultivator then they looked at me, some of them got an understanding of my power.
I motioned to the caravan members. Several of them were already moving toward the storage carriages, returning with sticks, fire starters, short knives, and other items that required no explanation.
They set these things on the ground in front of the victim's group without comment and stepped back.
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