The Truth of the Story

"This artificial river is too long for W37 to control all of it," Kuang Wenjun said. "Besides, it's some distance from Base City, and there's no river leading directly into the city. Apart from making it harder to get in and out, it doesn't seem to serve any other purpose."

"Looking at it that way, W37 has clearly isolated itself," Zhu Feiyun said after a pause. "No wonder it has such a bad reputation among the other Base Cities."

"Reputation?" Shangguan Xi looked at him. "Did you come from a Base City with people in it?"

Zhu Feiyun hesitated. "You could say that, but it was an abandoned Base City. Most of the people gathered there had fled from other Base Cities or been abandoned, while some simply couldn't get back to the Base Cities where they used to live."

"That kind of place can hardly be considered a good one," Shangguan Xi said pointedly. "Can its information even be trusted?"

"True or not, we can at least hear it out." Zhu Feiyun's youthful-looking face took on a hint of gossip. "I heard W37's mayor used to be the wife of a mayor in another Base City. When the plague broke out, her husband fled with her toward a nearby Base City. But that Base City had a longstanding grudge against them. They let the couple in, but the person in power wanted to humiliate his old enemy, so he publicly raped the mayor's wife... They say some of the onlookers joined in, too. The mayor could only swallow his humiliation and accept that cuckold's cap. He even sent his wife away himself."

"They say the mayor's wife came from a family that had some power. She couldn't have been completely ignorant. After playing along with the men who abused