Chapter 60: He Encountered Nothing

What, what’s going on? These women were going to do that to him?!

Meng Huan stood there dumbfounded. The carriage was small with nowhere to hide, and the bandit leader was already coming around to the front to grab him. What should he do?!

These women were ugly and had poor figures. He didn’t want to be with them…

“I just gave birth. I can’t do it. Stay away from me.” He spoke rapidly as if possessed, then tried to move further into the carriage.

The bandit leader didn’t care. “You really are improper, running around right after giving birth? It’s fine if you can’t. As long as you have a mouth, it’ll do.”

Her words disgusted Meng Huan. He really couldn’t imagine what would happen if he were caught. Despite having nowhere to retreat, he still struggled to move back.

The bandit leader had already entered the carriage. Her hands, stained with suspicious blood, reached out towards him. He gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and charged at her.

Coincidentally, he happened to hit the bandit leader’s weak spot. She never expected a frail man like him to resist, so she was caught off guard and stumbled back two steps, falling out of the carriage.

Meng Huan also rolled out of the carriage due to the momentum from his forceful charge.

With his hands and feet tied, it was impossible to cushion his fall. He fell directly onto the ground, squirming and unable to get up.

Wen Xi poked his head out from the carriage. Meng Huan heard him call out “Young Master” before being pushed back inside by the other women who had rushed over.

“Well done. I didn’t expect you to be so wild. Sisters, we’re in for some fun today!”

The bandit leader was pleased rather than angry. She dusted off the dirt and grass on her body and walked unhurriedly towards Meng Huan, who was lying on the ground.

She seemed to deliberately slow her steps, as if stepping on his heartbeat. He didn’t know if it was nervousness or fear, but the more he wanted to escape, the less strength he had to struggle, as if trapped in place by invisible ropes.

“Ah! Don’t touch me! Get your filthy hands off me!”

“Damn human traffickers, you won’t come to a good end! I advise you to stop early, or one day when it rains and thunders, you’ll all be struck dead!”

He couldn’t move, so he started cursing. Though his body was weak, his voice was loud, startling the birds in the forest to take flight and not stay.

The bandit leader and another minion had already grabbed him. He really didn’t know how these women had so much strength. They gripped his arms as if kneading dough, seeming like they could break his arms with a bit more force.

Enduring the pain, he continued to shout, “Human traffickers, your whole family will die! Each one of you is selfish and only cares about yourselves!”

Such vicious words as wishing death upon the whole family finally made the woman’s expression change from one of amusement to a gloomy face showing anger.

“Hold him up,” she said in a low voice. The other woman understood and propped him up, leaving Meng Huan with no strength to struggle in front of her.

“Slap!”

A slap landed on his face. Meng Huan’s ears rang, and he opened his mouth, blood flowing from the corner.

Although he couldn’t see the side of his face that was hit, he could clearly feel it swelling up.

Tears involuntarily welled up in his eyes. He stopped cursing and just stared hatefully at the bandit leader, looking even more frightening than when he was shouting curses earlier.

But he was just a man after all. No matter how scary his eyes were, they couldn’t stop the women who were about to assault him. It might even provoke them and make them inflict more violence on him.

His collar was roughly torn open, and the chill he felt on his neck made his heart sink.

Could it be that he was going to meet his end here today?

Meng Huan didn’t dare to continue that thought. He looked up at the sky, suddenly regretting running away from the Wen family.

If he hadn’t run away, he could still live idly at the manor, waiting for food and clothes to be provided, doing whatever he wanted without anyone bothering him.

In the half month since he left, he had toiled every day without much gain.

It was all the fault of this female-dominant world. If it were the modern world, he wouldn’t be refused at every door just for going out to buy a map or ask for directions.

Even as an adult man, he was easily tricked by human traffickers…

“Ugh.”

The hand tugging at his belt suddenly stopped. An arrow pierced through the bandit leader in front of him, splattering blood on his waistband.

The hand holding him up also suddenly lost strength. He managed to fall on his back on the ground, then saw the woman who had been holding him running away at full speed.

Behind her was a familiar figure, chasing her with a knife.

He was too familiar with the clothes that person wore. He saw them almost every day at the entrance of Qingzhu Garden. It was the uniform of the Wen family guards!

Wen Zhaoyin had come to save him!

Several more Wen family guards rushed over from not far away. He looked up for a long time but didn’t see the person he was hoping for in his heart. He didn’t even see Pei Lan, who was always by Wen Zhaoyin’s side.

She… didn’t come?

Meng Huan struggled to get up from the ground because he saw that the bandit leader wasn’t completely dead yet and was crawling towards him while holding her wound.

He could already imagine that if the bandit leader gained control again, he might become a hostage for these human traffickers to escape unscathed.

He couldn’t let that happen!

He crawled forward with all his strength. Wen Xi, hearing the commotion, poked his head out of the carriage again. Upon finding Meng Huan with his eyes, he got so excited that he tumbled out of the carriage.

“No, you’ll definitely get hurt crawling like that. Just stay where you are. Don’t be afraid, someone has already come to save us.”

“Wuwuwu, Young Master, Young Master, are you alright? You’re covered in blood…” Wen Xi cried.

“That’s someone else’s blood. Don’t wail blindly. I’m perfectly fine!”

Wen Xi was crying his eyes out, already concluding in his heart that Meng Huan was just putting on a brave face. For a man, whether he was injured or not wasn’t important right now. The key was whether those women had touched him…

Even if people from the manor came to the rescue, once the family head learned about what happened to the young master, the best outcome would probably be to cast him aside.

The Wen family guards who had gone to chase the human traffickers had all returned. The traffickers were just ordinary people after all. Although they could control weak men, they were no match for the specially trained guards.

One by one, they were tied up and made to squat on the ground. The bandit leader, who was barely breathing, also lay on the ground.

Perhaps the earlier arrow was a bit off-target and didn’t kill her instantly, leaving her with one last breath. If sent to the authorities, she might still survive one round of interrogation.

After being untied, Meng Huan was taken aside to wait. From the conversation of the Wen family guards, he learned that when he and Wen Xi had just started traveling with that man, the guards had already sensed something was off. Upon investigation, they indeed discovered a problem. It turned out those people were all human traffickers active in Ye Country and their own country.

But since there were only two people following Meng Huan and Wen Xi, it was difficult to fight against so many traffickers with just the two of them. Fearing they couldn’t win, they had one person follow while the other returned to the manor to seek help.

However, they rode their horses and caught up in a hurry, successfully rescuing him.

“Young Master, please return to the manor with us. The family head is still waiting for you at home.”

Wen Zhaoyin was waiting for him at home? Meng Huan shook his head, not responding to that statement. Instead, he asked, “Did the male emperor of Ye Country really relinquish power? Are men in Ye Country no longer allowed to serve as officials or do business?”

In this female-dominant world, men rarely left the house and were unaware of current affairs and politics. However, the women of this female-dominant world, who were all guards of the Wen family, must know something, right?

The guard was clearly stunned by his question, having no idea why he would ask something so irrelevant. But she still answered, “Yes, this subordinate has heard some news that Ye Country indeed has such good news.”

“Previously, the status of men in Ye Country was elevated, causing men from our country’s border regions to flee there. It’s much better now.”

“Good news?” Meng Huan’s face still had traces of dried tears.

What kind of good news was this? It might be good news for the women, but for him, it was a huge blow.

It was like the only hope had been extinguished. What was the point of going to Ye Country? Wouldn’t he still face discrimination, deception, and persecution like he did now?

“Let’s go back. Let’s leave.”

Meng Huan wearily glanced at Wen Xi, placing his hand on his arm to borrow some strength to stand steady.

“Help me relieve myself, and then let’s go back.” He looked at a cliff in the distance beyond the grove, which seemed quite high. He wondered if he would die if he fell from it.

Rather than continuing to suffer, it was better to be free early.

Wen Xi couldn’t see anything from his expressionless face. Nodding, he was about to support Meng Huan over when several screams were heard from afar.

Hearing the shouts, everyone instinctively looked in the direction of the sound and was shocked by the scene before their eyes.

The men rescued from the carriage were placed to the side by the Wen family guards, waiting for the officials to take them back and then search for their families.

The screams came from the direction of those men.

It was the man with the blank expression Meng Huan had seen in the carriage earlier. He suddenly collided with a guard’s knife, which only stabbed halfway in.

The guard hadn’t had time to react, and being startled by the man’s frantic behavior, he didn’t hold the knife steady. The man snatched it from his hand.

Afterward, the man firmly grasped the knife, slit his own throat, and then collapsed in a pool of blood amidst screams.

He lay on the ground, his expression a mixture of relief and pain, his mouth wide open, seemingly struggling to breathe. However, that action only made him lose blood faster, serving no other purpose.

In just a dozen breaths, he lay there, eyes wide open, never moving again.

Meng Huan quickly withdrew his feet that were walking towards the cliff. The feeling of despair was just a momentary thing. Now, he was frightened by the man’s gruesome death and instantly lost the thought of ending his own life.

What if the cliff wasn’t high enough, and he fell, breaking his entire body, and then ants and insects crawled on him? Wouldn’t that be even worse…

It was better to live miserably than to die well. No matter how bitter life was, it was still better to be alive.

He tugged at the clothes of the guard beside him, then closed his eyes and said in a low voice, “Bury him. Don’t go looking for his family. Just pretend he never experienced these things.”

Based on those women’s actions towards him, they must have harmed other men before. That blank-faced man was probably one of them.

Now that he had taken his own life, unable to bear the burden, he definitely didn’t want to face his family… So Meng Huan would do him a small favor as much as possible.

The guard was stunned for a moment, seemingly not understanding, but still nodded and agreed, “Alright, this subordinate will arrange it right away. You go relieve yourself, and then we’ll start the journey back.”

“No need. Let’s go directly.”

Meng Huan shook his head. He had just used relieving himself as an excuse. Now, having seen that man’s tragic state, he was tired and didn’t want to think about anything.

The guard nodded, first settling him in the temporarily cleaned human traffickers’ carriage, then went to deal with the man’s affairs.

There was no choice. They had come in a hurry and rode horses to travel fast. Men and women shouldn’t have close contact, so they couldn’t take Meng Huan on horseback.

In this remote area, they couldn’t find a carriage, so they could only borrow the traffickers’ for now and switch to a rental carriage when possible.

Meng Huan silently got on the carriage. He didn’t dare go inside because the corner was where that man had been. He only squeezed into a small spot at the very edge, dazed and disoriented as he was sent back to the Wen family.

He had just walked through the side door when he saw Wen Zhaoyin already standing at the entrance waiting for him.

“You…”

“Oh! Young Master, what happened to you? How did you become so disheveled after going out to pray?”

Unexpectedly, Xie Yunjin’s voice abruptly appeared from the side.

Meng Huan looked down at his clothes, which were a bit messy and stained with blood, indeed looking utterly wretched.

Seeing his appearance, Wen Zhaoyin frowned and scolded Xie Yunjin coldly, “If you want to take care of Father, go stay in the small courtyard. Don’t come over here for no reason!”

She had previously wanted to send away the Xie family members, including Xie Yunjin, but Father suddenly fell ill and said he couldn’t bear to part with them, insisting that the Xie family stay.

In the end, she negotiated for a long time, but Father still disagreed, saying that the others from the Xie family could leave, but Xie Yunjin couldn’t. If she insisted on sending him away, he would accuse her of being unfilial and coughed up blood in front of her to prove his point.

Having no choice, she temporarily allowed Xie Yunjin to remain in the Wen family but had Pei Lan speak with him, telling him not to wander around easily.

Usually, he was quite sensible, but today, who knows what news he heard, he happened to appear at the entrance at this time.

“I’m leaving, Cousin. Don’t be angry.”

He came quickly and left quickly. As soon as he said he was leaving, he turned around and departed with his servant.

Wen Zhaoyin walked straight towards Meng Huan, raising her hand, wanting to support him, but he avoided her.

She stepped forward again, raising her hand slightly, and looked at him twice more.

Meng Huan turned his head away, not looking at her. Leaning on Wen Xi, he took two quick steps, bypassing her and walking directly towards Qingzhu Garden.

He didn’t know why, but seeing Xie Yunjin standing not far from Wen Zhaoyin, he felt particularly irritated. His heart ached, and he was filled with inexplicable anger, not wanting her to touch him at all.

He knew that running away this time must have angered her.

She wasn’t lashing out now only because it wasn’t the right time. No matter how obedient his attitude was now, she wouldn’t go easy on him when she decided to take action.

So why should he force himself to do something he didn’t like now?

“Master, the guards said they arrived just in time. The young master kept resisting to the death. Although he looks disheveled now, he’s actually still chaste…”

Wen Zhaoyin raised her hand, signaling Pei Lan not to continue.

She looked at his retreating figure, thought for a moment, and then arranged, “Have someone bathe him and call a physician to check where he’s injured. As for the rest, go ask him what he wants to do and just do as he says.”

“Oh, and tell those who know the truth that he only went out to pray for Zu Jun’s blessing. He accidentally fell on the way, which is why he looks like this. Nothing else happened.”