Chapter 59

Xu Yizhuo saw that little jiaoren.

It was curled up in a small pool. Its upper body was like an ordinary human infant, while the fish tail of its lower body was not as long and slender as an adult jiaoren’s. The little jiaoren had not yet learned how to speak and could only make babbling sounds. However, the childish cries of an infant could not summon the love of its elders. The little jiaoren lonely dove into the water, boredly blowing bubbles and playing by itself.

The gills beneath the little jiaoren’s ears had not yet grown hard scales. They were a soft, tender pink, trembling in the water.

How could anyone who saw it bear not to feel pity? Xu Yizhuo thought. But the people gathered around the small pool only had greed in their eyes.

Someone said, “Jiaoren are hard to keep alive. We still have to hand it over to a jiaoren to raise.”

“But it looks very quiet right now,” someone raised a different opinion.

“Hmph, it’s only behaving now. You don’t know what it was like when He Er first brought it back…”

A somewhat sharp voice interrupted their conversation. “Hurry up and make a decision. If you’re sure you want to give it to a jiaoren to raise, then hurry and send it to the main hall!”

“Send it to the main hall?” someone said in surprise. “Aren’t we moving the goddess to the side hall first? So many people come and go in the main hall every day. Are we really going to let this little cub stay there?”

“It’s going to happen sooner or later. Just let it get used to it in advance.”

The people from the Pearl Harvesting Office finally made their decision. One of them stepped forward and took the little jiaoren out of the water. Suddenly leaving the water source, the little jiaoren helplessly waved its small, fair hands. Its face scrunched up, but it did not cry.

Jiaoren tears fell as pearls, but they were not a race that cried anytime, anywhere. Jiaoren washing their faces with tears was entirely the result of being forced by humans.

The few people hurriedly brought the little jiaoren to the main hall.

The Goddess Shrine was not open all day. When the sun completely set, the Goddess Shrine would close its doors and refuse the city residents’ worship. At this moment, it was still early, and the people worshipping inside the hall had not yet dispersed.

Most of the city residents had their heads lowered in devout prayer, but a few people raised their heads when they heard footsteps and noticed the little jiaoren being carried in.

Someone let out a low cry of surprise, their tone full of joy. Xu Yizhuo knew that they were not delighted by this tender young life. They were merely happy that Liuzhu City had gained a new money tree.

A newly born money tree that could still be used for a very long time.

The little jiaoren was stuffed into the goddess’s arms. The stone statue could not refuse, but Xu Yizhuo clearly saw a tear mixed with blood flow down the goddess’s cheek.

Everyone’s eyes were on the little jiaoren babbling in her arms. No one noticed that tear.

Xu Yizhuo could not bear to keep watching and turned to leave.

Earlier, she had once again separated from Yuanwu. At this moment, Xu Yizhuo did not need to wait for anyone. She only needed to lower her head and walk forward. Xu Yizhuo stared at the ground the whole way, not wanting to see the expressions of anyone passing around her.

When she was about to step over the threshold, Xu Yizhuo saw a dirty foot.

One foot was outside the door, and one foot was hidden behind it. The filthy beggar clung to the doorframe and looked into the Goddess Shrine. The people entering the shrine avoided him like the plague, covering their noses and quickly running toward the main hall.

Before long, the guards of the Goddess Shrine heard the news and walked out. When they saw the beggar, the disgust on their faces increased.

“Why are you here again?!” The guard threw a paper bundle at the beggar’s feet with a look of loathing. “Take the food and get lost. Don’t stand here and be an eyesore!”

The oilproof paper had not been wrapped tightly. After being roughly thrown to the ground, it immediately scattered open, and several hard steamed buns rolled out, stained with dust from the ground. The beggar did not mind. He cheerfully picked up the steamed buns together with the paper and held them in his arms.

Yet after taking the food, the beggar did not leave. Instead, he stretched his neck and looked into the Goddess Shrine.

The guard said irritably, “What are you still standing here for?”

The beggar stared straight behind him. “Blood… there’s blood inside.”

Xu Yizhuo, who had also heard his words, felt her heart tighten and subconsciously looked back.

The main hall doors were open. The moment she turned back, terrified screams finally erupted from inside the hall.

Yet Xu Yizhuo felt as if all things had fallen silent.

She could hear nothing. All her senses were used to look at the scene inside the main hall. The main hall faced the sea. The jiaoren who had originally lived in the ocean was now bound by chains in a small pool, shedding tears, gazing every day at the waves that seemed within reach yet no longer belonged to her.

One day, misfortune descended upon this race, and the tragedy had not yet lowered its curtain even today.

The jiaoren was unwilling to let an ignorant clansman repeat her fate.

Xu Yizhuo saw red. A shocking red. Sharp nails sank deep into the infant’s neck, as though even the fingers were going to be sent in as well. It was impossible to imagine how such a soft, boneless hand had erupted with such strength. Blue veins bulged on the back of the jiaoren’s hand, and that hand did not tremble in the slightest.

Blood surged from the wound. In truth, the little jiaoren’s neck had been snapped by the goddess in an instant. It did not know what had happened. It was just about to stretch out its hands to embrace a clansman with the same aura as itself, but in that instant, its life was ended.

Tears fell from the stone statue’s eyes, landing on her hand and mixing with the little jiaoren’s blood. As for the vivid red liquid flowing from those eyes, it was already impossible to say whether it was blood or tears.

Someone screamed and ran out of the main hall.

There were also people who rushed toward the statue with faces full of fury.

Xu Yizhuo stood frozen in place as if she had lost her soul. Only when the main hall doors slammed shut did she suddenly realize what had just happened.

The beggar had already run away, and the guards of the Goddess Shrine were urging her to leave quickly.

This was probably the greatest incident the Goddess Shrine had encountered since it was built.

The people of Liuzhu City felt anger and regret over losing their future money tree. It seemed that the only one devastated by the goddess and the little jiaoren’s fate was a person from the future.

Xu Yizhuo slowly walked down the steps. She did not know what places she passed and simply moved forward by instinct. The people who had gone to the Goddess Shrine to worship had run far ahead of her. Along the way, Xu Yizhuo barely encountered anyone else. Only when noisy voices poured into her ears did Xu Yizhuo realize that she had returned to Liuzhu City.

Liuzhu City was still prosperous and lively. The death of a jiaoren could not change their lives. At most, it would become a topic of idle conversation after meals, and a sigh when mentioning the supply of jiaoren pearls.

Without realizing it, Xu Yizhuo heard many things about the Goddess Shrine.

The Goddess Shrine had been established for over a hundred years and had changed goddesses several times. Although jiaoren could almost never cultivate, their natural lifespan was longer than that of the human race. If a jiaoren suffered no illness or disaster, they could live peacefully for three hundred years before using their corpse to return something to the ocean. But jiaoren caught by humans and forced to produce pearls often could only live for about thirty years.

If humans wanted to force jiaoren to cry, the cruder method was directly using smoke. Even if the method was gentler, it still forced jiaoren to consume medicine harmful to their bodies.

This medicine could make jiaoren cry constantly, but it was extremely difficult to make. In the cultivation world, only a few alchemists could produce it. The pills Liuzhu City obtained could only be supplied to each generation of goddess in the Goddess Shrine.

This current goddess had been born in Liuzhu City.

She had been born to the previous goddess of the Goddess Shrine, and the previous goddess had died not long after giving birth to her. At that time, Liuzhu City had no new jiaoren besides her, so the young jiaoren became the new goddess of the Goddess Shrine.

According to a Liuzhu City resident over thirty years old, when he was seven, he went to the Goddess Shrine to worship for the first time. Back then, the goddess had already been this same one. At that time, her appearance was like a human child of five or six years old, and she was already locked in the pool by chains, shedding tears every moment.

That pool was the place where the goddess lived. Because she grew up, the chains on the goddess’s body had been changed several times, but there had never been a moment when there was not a single chain on her body.

To the older Liuzhu City resident, she should have been the most obedient goddess he had ever seen.

Every previous goddess had been captured midway and imprisoned here. Only this goddess had been born in the Goddess Shrine and grown up in the Goddess Shrine. From the moment she was born, she had been raised as a pearl-harvesting tool. In the old man’s memory, she had never resisted. She only silently shed tears and could stay motionless in the pool all day, like a true stone statue.

The old man had not gone to the Goddess Shrine to worship in a long time after growing older, so he had not been present when today’s incident happened. But this matter had already spread throughout Liuzhu City.

“How could she do such a thing?” The old man’s tone was very puzzled.

Xu Yizhuo curled the corners of her lips mockingly. The exploited person’s resistance had brought the exploiters’ confusion, as if they had completely forgotten that this was how the jiaoren should have been.

Humans wanted to treat jiaoren like livestock, but jiaoren could think stolen content like people. They had once lived freely in a stretch of sea that belonged to them. How could they possibly be willing to be penned and slaughtered by humans?

Even a jiaoren who had never spent a single moment in the sea would still listen to the sound of waves coming from not far away and yearn for the ocean she could see every day.

As she passed a teahouse, someone drinking tea and chatting slapped the table indignantly. “That was also a jiaoren! How could she do that? How could she bear to do it?!”

The goddess had killed that little jiaoren.

A jiaoren treated as a stone statue had suddenly made a stunning act of resistance.

She was not cruel by nature. It was only that at that moment, unbearable despair surged toward her and drowned her in an instant.

The jiaoren raised in captivity since childhood had almost already accepted her fate as a stone statue. But when a young, fresh life from her own race fell into her arms, never had there been a moment when the goddess hated her fate as a stone statue more than this.

Judging by the lifespan jiaoren should have had, the goddess was not very old. She was at the age of a human girl. But as a jiaoren who had taken pills and provided jiaoren pearls every day, her life was about to reach its end.

The little jiaoren was her successor.

After she died, the little jiaoren would be locked in the Goddess Shrine with chains just like her, providing Liuzhu City with an endless stream of jiaoren pearls.

Liuzhu City had handed the little jiaoren to her, wanting her to raise a new stone statue.

And in that instant, the stone statue came alive and made the most painful, yet most decisive choice of her life.