Chapter 1674 – Conquering Nan Sheng, Killing An Huan (82)
Kang Xintong dropped her wooden bowl in fright from the sudden turn of events.
With a loud clatter, the meat soup splashed out of the bowl, splattering onto the food table.
Not paying any mind to it, she hurriedly rushed to support Lü Zheng, who was pretending to vomit.
Kang Xintong was so terrified by the event that her mind went blank, thinking Lü Zheng had been poisoned.
“Adoptive Father, is there poison in this porridge?” Kang Xintong recalled the fractured relationship between her adoptive father and Lord Jiang, and her first reaction was to suspect An of poisoning, her heart ablaze with anger.
Lü Zheng was still bent over, retching, his eyes brimming with tears as they turned red at the corners, adding to his frailty.
Kang Xintong could only gently pat his back to help ease his discomfort. When he finally vomited everything, even bile, Kang Xintong stood up to fetch some rinsing water for him. After Lü Zheng had emptied his stomach, his face transformed from ashen to pale, devoid of color.
“It’s not poisoning…”
Lü Zheng suppressed the nausea rising in his throat, rinsed his mouth with the water Kang Xintong handed him, and felt somewhat better.
Kang Xintong looked at him in surprise, a hint of fear and anxiety in her eyes, timidly asking, “Not poisoning… could it be that the meat has gone bad?”
Lü Zheng bit his lip, remaining silent, but analyzing his expression and eyes indicated that this bowl of meat porridge was far from just a “bad meat” problem.
Could it be—
Having been under Lü Zheng’s tutelage for a few months, Kang Xintong’s perspective and knowledge had advanced significantly.
Lü Zheng’s various reactions filled her with a terrible premonition.
She lowered her head to glance at what Lü Zheng had vomited, inspecting it with her gaze.
Suddenly, Kang Xintong noticed something, her gaze almost frozen. Before she could scream, Lü Zheng’s broad, warm palm covered her eyes.
“Don’t look. Let someone in to clean it up.”
Lü Zheng’s voice sounded husky, as if he was also suppressing something, which gave Kang Xintong a slight sense of relief.
She took a few deep breaths, suppressing the rising sourness in her throat, then turned and rushed outside.
Lü Zheng clearly heard Kang Xintong gagging outside the tent, and a mix of melancholy and mockery floated in his heart.
He raised his hand and poked through the vomit with chopsticks, a flat, thyroid-like object rolled out, still attached to a tiny bone. The strange object that Lü Zheng had bitten into was this… if not mistaken, it was undoubtedly a small piece of someone’s finger bone, complete with its remnants of a nail… Lü Zheng stared at it for a long while, and though he didn’t vomit again, his face turned a shade whiter.
Sitting on the bed, he lost himself in thought, not even noticing when Kang Xintong opened the tent and came in.
When he snapped out of it, he hastily attempted to hide that piece of whatever it was, but alas, he was a moment too late, and Kang Xintong had already seen it.
“Adoptive Father, the meat porridge that I accidentally had… it actually contains human flesh, right?”
Kang Xintong trembled as she asked this, her tear-filled eyes brimming with fear.
“During a war, many die… An’s supplies are running low, and their logistics are frequently disrupted, it’s reached a point of exhaustion… Hua Yuan is also secretly obstructing from behind… those gathering supplies might mix in human flesh to remold into meat porridge… it’s not an unexpected occurrence… Xintong, did you see it?” Lü Zheng, seeing that she had noticed, stopped hiding it, instead sitting up straight, pale face adding a bitter smile. He pointed at the half-cooked little finger, his expression complex as he said, “In this chaotic world, it’s the powerless being carved into meat for others. An or Liu Xi, they are ultimately just people struggling against the tides of fate. The truly pitiful ones are those who cannot rest in peace after death, being made into meat supplies for the army in this chaotic time… we must break free from it!”
Kang Xintong trembled at the horrifying prospects.
She had thought what she had experienced before was the worst.
Until Lü Zheng took her to wander through dark alleys, refreshing her worldview. She thought those scenes represented the brutal aspects of the chaotic world, only to realize that this sight before her, not even bloody, shocked her far worse than any previous experience…
“Xintong, find someone to investigate the source of this batch of supplies… I want to see when this farce can end…” Seeing Kang Xintong slowly calm down, Lü Zheng’s expression eased a little as he advised, “Remember to be careful when gathering information, don’t alarm others.”
Kang Xintong nodded earnestly, stepping forward and gritting her teeth to dispose of the two bowls of meat porridge, also cleaning up the vomit on the ground.
Though everything was tidied up, the memory etched deeply in her mind was not so easily forgotten.
The more Kang Xintong tried not to think about it, the more the image of that little finger, with its half-shedded nail, danced in her mind, leaving her pale and drained. After putting in considerable effort to gather detailed information, Kang Xintong wasted no time in reporting back to Lü Zheng immediately.
She clearly recounted, “Adoptive Father, I’ve learned the news. It is rumored that Hua Yuan sent word that the new supplies would arrive in three days, but the military camp’s provisions are nearly gone. An has no choice but to send people to nearby towns to raid the supplies of the common people.”
Lü Zheng, clad in a robe and seated on the bed, couldn’t help but laugh mockingly.
“Absurd! Never mind how many common people live in the nearby towns, even if there are many, last year’s war ravaged their agriculture, and this year Liu Xi ruined their spring planting… What little supplies the common people have left won’t even support them for the whole year, let alone An’s army of hundreds of thousands.”
Kang Xintong replied, “In the end, they used extreme measures to gather a batch of supplies, but it’s still insufficient… supplemented with human flesh…”
As she spoke the words “human flesh,” Kang Xintong frowned, looking as if she was about to vomit.
Compared to Kang Xintong’s reaction, Lü Zheng was much calmer.
It wasn’t that he was more resilient than her or cold-hearted, but simply because he had seen more.
Human flesh was not uncommon in historical records, with mentions of cannibalism and similar atrocities.
Not to mention, over a decade ago, the Four Tribes of the Southern Barbarians ravaged the people of Nan Sheng, leaving the lands barren.
Wherever they fought, they also pillaged and, yes, feasted on people.
When the Nan Sheng allied armies captured the Southern Barbarians, they gathered countless spoils of war. At that time, Lü Zheng’s relationship with An had not yet completely deteriorated; they merely had conflicts. The latter, aware of Lü Zheng’s love for books, had organized the salvaged books and dumped them all on him.
Later, Lü Zheng idled at home, and while bored, he sorted through the books. By chance, he stumbled upon a culinary guide written by a Southern Barbarian author, titled “The Culinary Arts of Human Flesh.” Though the prose was unimpressive, each word made one’s skin crawl.
The first time Lü Zheng read “The Culinary Arts of Human Flesh,” even he, with his extensive experience, ended up vomiting.
