Rescuing Someone

Yueyu Forest was a name changed only later.

"Is that true?"

"Just hearsay. No clue if it's real. Anyway, we're only here to gather Moonlight Grass. Once we've dug it up, we'll leave."

The three carried baskets on their backs as they waited for midnight. Since idle hands made for idle mouths, they chatted about all sorts of rumors and strange tales surrounding Yueyu Forest. Just then, the moon was nearly at its zenith when Wen Xu suddenly heard a jumble of footsteps.

The wind also carried the scents of three people.

"Boss, are we really burying them here?"

"Yueyu Forest doesn't eat people. Hurry up. A man actually got pregnant—Jade Pavilion's old hags definitely won't take such bad-luck goods. If we don't bury him, are you planning to carry him around? Move it, hear me?!"

The three of them: !!!What did they just hear?! A pregnant man?!

Rescuing Someone

Good heavens, had he transmigrated into some trashy cultivation novel where men could bear children? No way, no way? Wasn't it supposed to be that cultivators did not indulge in lust and had no interest in love affairs? A man getting pregnant was actually a thing?!

To be clear, he did not discriminate against men bearing children. After all, everyone had freedom of reproduction, but... fine, saving the person came first. Otherwise, it really would become one corpse, two lives.

Chen Zui blinked, flipped open the booklet in his hand, and pointed at the third rule. "So, should I now uphold justice and act bravely?"

Third rule for cultivators traveling abroad: Should one encounter evildoers harming an innocent person, one may render appropriate aid provided one's own safety is assured.

Wen Xu considered himself someone who remained unruffled in the face of events. When he had suddenly landed in the Cultivation Realm, he had accepted reality quickly enough. But... men giving birth? In Bian Chunchou's words, did you people in the Cultivation Realm really play this hard?

"Let's subdue those two first."

Of the three, Chen Zui was the strongest, whether in cultivation or martial ability. At this, he immediately drew his blade and sprinted over. Wen Xu heard only two cries of "Ah!" followed by the sound of two heavy objects hitting the ground, and knew the pair had already been subdued.

Bian Chunchou and Wen Xu arrived shortly afterward. The pit meant for burying someone had already been dug enormous.

"You two think you're something, huh?! Do you take Yueyu Forest for a mass graveyard? Do you know Moonlight Grass grows here?! Burying corpses and murdering people—you two will be eating prison rations tomorrow!"

The two thugs immediately had their legs shaking like sieves. Chen Zui had swordlike brows and starry eyes, the look of a classically handsome man, but he never cared much for grooming himself. At the moment, his brows and beard were thick and wild, giving him the air of a baleful god descending upon the world. With Bian Chunchou adding threats to the mix, the more timid thug rolled his eyes back and fainted on the spot.

Bian Chunchou: ...What a weakling. No wonder he could only be someone's lackey. Completely useless.

"You! Where did you abduct this person from?"

The thug leader: ...I hate that I'm too brave. I want to faint too!

"Mercy, immortals! I just... picked him up by the roadside. He was dressed as a woman, and I thought he was a pretty little lady! Who knew he was deceiving us? He's fucking a grown man, and he's pregnant too!" What fucking rotten luck.

Wen Xu had already let the man out of the sack. Fortunately, he was still breathing. "How did you know he was pregnant?"

The leader was a huge man, but now he lay trembling on the ground as he spoke. "Well, when a woman is pregnant, her pulse is slippery, like pearls rolling over a tray. It's easy to recognize."

What the leader did not say was that he and his men had been hired by Jade Pavilion to force decent people into prostitution. If they found a beautiful lone woman by the roadside, they would usually sell her to a brothel for money. Men were acceptable too, of course, but absolutely not this kind of pregnant man. Wouldn't that just be asking for trouble for Jade Pavilion?

But Wen Xu had matured early. Back when he had been a beggar, what filth of the streets had he not seen? In truth, there were rarely any girls among beggars, because once people from the flower streets and willow lanes spotted a girl, they would take her away immediately. Even an uglier one could still be used as a servant.

"You two work for a brothel, don't you?"

The leader pressed his head to the ground, wishing he could find a crack and burrow into it.

"Looking at you, you're no physician, yet you know the pulse of pregnant women so well. It's hard for me not to make that connection."

The leader could only confess. He said that today, at a roadside tea stall, they had seen this beautiful woman who was actually a man in disguise. Overcome by wicked thoughts, they had knocked him unconscious and abducted him. They had originally planned to sell him into a brothel, only to discover he was a man. That alone would have been fine, but he was also carrying something in his belly. Yet the man had seen their faces. They feared that if they simply released him, he would report them to the authorities, so they had decided to go all the way and bury him.

"Treating human life like grass, impressive. You haven't done this sort of thing only once before, have you?"

"Mercy, immortal! This lowly one wouldn't dare! I was merely possessed by evil thoughts—I've never harmed anyone's life before!"

Bian Chunchou thought, not even a fool would believe that! Look, even Chen Zui didn't believe him!

"Knock him out. Tie them up and send them to the magistrate's office tomorrow."

Though the Cultivation Realm had no imperial rule, every city was governed by a city lord. Langyuan City's administration was relatively well-established. Even if the city lord rarely involved himself in mundane affairs, the law enforcement and administrative agencies under the City Lord's Office could swiftly deliver judgments. Criminals who forced decent people into prostitution or trafficked people would generally start with fifteen years of penal labor.

Chen Zui did not take part in interrogations, but he was good at hitting people. One punch knocked the man unconscious. He then conveniently tied the two together. "What about this person?"

A man was pregnant. Chen Zui scratched his head. It was really quite strange.

"Should we hand him over to the City Lord's Office too?"

"No, don't hand me over to the City Lord's Office, I..." The man in the sack finally could not help speaking.

Wen Xu thought, so he really had been pretending to be unconscious. He stepped back two paces and slowly said, "Why not go? Those two harmed you. You are the victim. If you do not appear, they may..."

"I won't go! I'm a man, yet I carry this sinful spawn in my belly. I don't want this child! I ran away—I clearly escaped! Why is it still here?! Why is it still here?!"

The man was overwhelmed with emotion, as though he had recalled something unbearable. He suddenly scrambled to his feet and ran outward. Yet after only a few steps, he collapsed not far away from lack of strength.