For most slaves, toiling like oxen and horses was already a blessing bestowed by their noble masters. Whenever those masters were displeased-if, for instance, their bedroom pleasures suddenly lasted half an incense stick less than usual, or left them unsatisfied-they would vent their anger on their slaves.
They were slaves, after all. Their lives could be decided in an instant, and punishments were merely a means of disciplining them.
Hands chopped off, feet severed, eyes gouged out-the methods were countless. The eye-gouging was particularly inventive: a large stone hat was placed on a slave's head, then struck with a stone until the slave's eyeballs bulged out. A sharp knife was then used to dig them out.
They could even skin slaves alive. Zhu Baba had hardly been the first to invent skinning people and stuffing their hides with grass.
As for these punishments being harsher and crueler than Great Shang's new law, the nobles did not care in the slightest. What did that matter? They were only slaves!
Instead, they would turn around and denounce Great Shang's punishments as too severe. Harsh punishment for slaves was perfectly natural; there was no need even to list their offenses. Harsh punishment for nobles, however, was utterly wrong. Even if they really had committed crimes, they must not be punished.
Such was the lot of slaves.
Shi Bufan slowly opened his eyes. That was how he had lived the first half of his life, hovering between life and death. How could someone who had witnessed death countless times, even brushed against it himself, not fear it?
Every soldier in the Dare-to-Bear Army feared death. They feared it desperately.
But there was something they feared even more.
As slaves, any children they bore would also be slaves. Enslaved for one lifetime, enslaved for every