Tigerhead Mountain kept its hostages inside caves. There were two caves in total, with men and women held separately.
Chu Zhao and the others first went to the cave holding the male hostages. The entire cave was dark and damp, with rats and cockroaches crawling everywhere. The sour stench of rotting flesh permeated the air.
Before this, to prevent the hostages from escaping, the bandits had always stationed guards at the cave entrance. Some captives, unable to endure the torture, had tried to flee during moments of chaos, only to be caught before they got far.
To make an example of them, the bandits had chopped off the legs of one escapee on the spot. The man later bled heavily without receiving timely treatment and died of blood loss before the night was over.
After that, no one dared escape again.
As a result, even today, when the sound of killing shook the entire stronghold outside,
even though the bandits guarding them had already fled, the captives still huddled inside the cave, not daring to step even half a pace beyond its entrance.
Not until Chu Zhao and the others entered.
By the light, one man saw their orderly silver armor, polished and neat. He also saw the stern righteousness on their faces, utterly unlike the bandits. These were unmistakably government troops!
Summoning his courage, the man asked in a trembling voice:
“Y-you are…? Could you be soldiers sent by the authorities to rescue us?”
“They're government troops! Their clothes look like something only government soldiers would wear!”
Another man cried out through sobs. “Wonderful! We're saved! Boohoo, we're really saved!”
“Boohoo… I can finally go home. I miss my mother…”
Chu Zhao walked into the cave and looked at the group before him, skeletal and covered in wounds.
His heart grew heavy. His hands even trembled. In his previous life, he'd only been an ordinary person. When had he ever directly witnessed anything this horrific?
To keep from losing composure, he turned his head away and ordered the guards behind him:
“Find them a doctor. Treat the severely injured first. Prepare hot water and clean clothes as well. Once they've recovered a little, send people to escort them down the mountain.”
Some among them had been imprisoned for months, their faces bloodless. Some had had ears or noses cut off, or hands and feet severed.
The worst were already barely alive, like walking corpses whose bodies had been gnawed by rats until they were almost unrecognizable.
It was said that some hostages whose families took too long to gather ransom money were used by the bandits to vent their rage. Their limbs were cut off and they were left to bleed to death, after which their corpses were thrown into the rear mountain to feed wild wolves.
Now, at last, rescue had come!
For a time, weeping and words of thanks mingled throughout the cave. The hostages struggled to kneel and kowtow.
“Thank you, sirs, for saving our lives!”
“Thank you, benefactor…”
The guard Chu Zhao left behind to settle everyone was a young man who wasn't good with words. Faced with this scene, he became completely flustered. He hurried forward to help them up and explained:
“Everyone, get up quickly! You've misunderstood. I'm not your benefactor. The one who truly saved you is our prince—His Highness Prince Xuan. He is your real benefactor!”
He then told them how Chu Zhao had come up the mountain to suppress the bandits, discovered them, specifically sent a doctor to treat them, ordered hot water and clean clothing prepared, and arranged to have each of them escorted down the mountain once they had recovered enough.
When the hostages heard how carefully Chu Zhao had arranged everything for them, warmth surged through their hearts.
Prince Xuan…
They repeated the name over and over, looking at the clean clothes and warm water before them, feeling as though they were trapped in a dream.
To prove whether it was real, someone even pinched his own thigh. Only when pain struck did he break into a delighted smile.
In that instant, every one of them remembered the name Prince Xuan.
They had been trapped in this lightless bandit cave and had thought their lives would end there. They had waited and waited, but no soldiers from Liangzhou ever came to rescue them. In the end, it was Prince Xuan they had waited for—Prince Xuan who saved them!
They would remember Prince Xuan's lifesaving grace forever!
[Ding! Reputation Points +10!]
[Ding! Reputation Points +10!]
[Ding! Reputation Points +10!]
Meanwhile, rapid electronic chimes sounded continuously in Chu Zhao's mind. Within seconds, the Reputation Points on his panel shot upward like a rocket, rising by more than eighty points in the blink of an eye!
Chu Zhao stared at the suddenly soaring number until his eyes went wide.
[Holy crap! System, what's happening? Why are my Reputation Points rising like I've turned on a cheat?!]
[Congratulations, Host!] the System said cheerfully. [This is the Reputation bonus triggered by collective favorability. It's precisely because you rescued those hostages just now, moved them, and earned the recognition of the people!]
Chu Zhao suddenly understood!
Still, Reputation Points earned purely through his own ability gave him a real sense of accomplishment.
Another, better-hidden cave was narrower and therefore seemed even darker.
Looking carefully, Chu Zhao saw that more than ten female hostages were imprisoned inside.
The youngest looked only fourteen or fifteen, with her hair arranged in two young-girl buns, her eyes still full of childish innocence and fear. The older women wore married women's hairstyles. Seeing so many people enter at once, fear and panic filled their faces.
There was no need to ask. These were all women from respectable families who had been abducted by the Tigerhead Mountain bandits.
Chu Zhao's gaze swept over their clothes, faded white from repeated washing, and their bruised skin. His heart felt painfully heavy.
In an age where a woman's chastity and reputation were considered more important than her life, these women had even been abducted by bandits. Even if they could leave alive today,
what might await them were strange looks and disgust from their parents, brothers, and husbands.
If they were fortunate, perhaps their families would send them to spend the rest of their lives before an oil lamp and Buddhist altar for the sake of preserving the clan's reputation.
In worse cases, they might simply be given a strip of white silk and made to die quietly without a trace.
“All of you go outside and stand guard. No one is to enter without my order.”
Chu Zhao turned and gestured to the guards. Only after their footsteps faded did the oppressive atmosphere inside the cave ease slightly.
He softened his voice, making his tone as gentle as possible.
“Ladies, don't be afraid. I am Chu Zhao, Prince Xuan of this dynasty. I came specifically to eliminate these bandits. Their leaders have now been put down. You are safe.”
“Y-you came to save us?”
Seeing Chu Zhao's gentle manner, one married woman dared raise her head and ask.
Chu Zhao nodded. “Yes. We are people of the imperial court.”
One young girl with her hair in twin buns looked curiously at Chu Zhao and couldn't help whispering to the companion beside her:
“Do you know who Prince Xuan is?”
“I know, I know! My father said princes are the emperor's sons. It looks like we really can go home this time!”
Her companion wasn't much older and spoke excitedly.
“Boohoo… What good does being rescued do? We've been abducted by bandits into these deep mountains. Our reputations are already ruined! If I go back, my parents will be mocked behind their backs, and my husband… he may already have written a letter of divorce!”
The married woman from earlier burst into uncontrollable sobs.
She wasn't like the unmarried girls. She had a husband and understood more about what awaited them.
Her husband cared deeply about a woman's chastity. The mere thought that she had been inside a bandit den—and of the way her husband might look at her when she returned home—made her heart ache until she sobbed aloud.
She didn't want to be divorced, and she didn't want to die. But now that this had happened to her, what could she possibly do?
Emotions were contagious. The women who had originally been hopeful inevitably began imagining themselves in the married woman's place after hearing her words.
Some had been lucky and had not been violated by those beasts. Their bodies remained untouched.
But what did that change?
They had spent so long in a bandit den. Even if they announced to everyone that nothing had happened, who would believe them?!
Thinking of their parents' usual words—that “a woman's chastity is greater than heaven”—only made them feel worse. Grief surged through them, and soon they were all crying together.
Standing in the middle of a cave full of weeping women, Chu Zhao felt his head hurt even more.
Truthfully, even fighting bandits at the stronghold gate hadn't left him this helpless. Now he felt as though he were being roasted over a fire.
If he had a choice, he would rather go outside and face flashing blades than stand before these women.
He truly had no idea what to do!
[System, I know they're genuinely pitiful. But they're really so noisy! All this crying is making my head hurt!] Chu Zhao was clumsy with words and had no idea how to comfort them.
[Uh, well… the System database doesn't contain any tutorial on comforting women either…]
The System was equally helpless. After thinking randomly for a while, it suggested: [Perhaps the Host could say something practical?]
Something practical?
What these women cared about most was nothing more than the fear that their parents or husbands would reject them, and that as women they would have difficulty establishing themselves in the world afterward.
This was ultimately a problem of the ancient world, where society as a whole oppressed and restricted women.
If they had been fortunate enough to be born in a modern, civilized world, so what if they were women?
As long as they wanted, they could choose not to marry or have children. They could struggle and build careers in society just like men, and could even do better than men.
So in the end, women in this era lacked ideological liberation, while society as a whole offered women far too little tolerance!
At that thought, Chu Zhao's eyes lit up. “Everyone, stop crying for a moment!”
His voice wasn't loud, yet it carried a force that made people quiet down.
“I know you're afraid your reputations have been damaged, but reputation lives in other people's mouths!”
The women's crying gradually faded, and they all looked at him.
Chu Zhao took a deep breath and deliberately slowed his speech.
“I was only just exiled to Liangzhou myself, and I'll have to establish roots here later. Right now, I'm short of people.”
“If you trust me, come with me to the prefectural seat and settle there for now. Whether you eventually leave or stay is entirely up to you. If you want to remain, I'll find work for you. An embroidery workshop, a grain shop, even learning bookkeeping—any of those are possible.”
He paused, his gaze passing over every face.
“Once you can earn your own money, support yourselves, and stand with your backs straight, who will still dare say a word against you?”
“As for your families… for those willing to recognize you, I'll send people to mediate. And if some of you truly don't want to return to them, you don't need to worry either!
Since I, Chu Zhao, dare keep you here, I dare promise that in Liangzhou you will have food to eat and a place to live. You won't need to watch anyone else's face!”
The cave went completely silent.
The married woman from the beginning raised her tear-streaked face and asked in a trembling voice:
“Your Highness… do you truly mean that? Are you really willing to take us in?”
“Of course!” Chu Zhao nodded.
“How about this? You've all heard what this prince said. Think it over among yourselves first. You can decide later.”
In his heart, he knew what he'd said just now was only a temporary solution.
This world was far too harsh toward women. For these women to truly free themselves from those ideas and genuinely stand on their own in society might take a very, very long time…
For now, his principle was simply to help whenever he could. As for how much he could help, that depended on whether he himself could establish a foothold in Liangzhou.
Only once his foundation was secure would he have the ability to help them.
Besides, today's suppression of the bandits would surely bring a rich harvest. When the time came, he could use the money to settle people. Once his position gradually stabilized, he could begin building factories and hiring workers.
Otherwise, if he just sat around consuming his reserves and relied on the salary allocated by the court, it probably wouldn't be long before all of them starved to death.
And as for these women, those with homes willing to receive them would be fine. But the ones who… had nowhere to go and were rejected by their families could happen to stay and work in his factories. Women were more meticulous than men, so he certainly wouldn't lose out. Besides, it counted as doing a good deed and accumulating virtue.
Hiss—he really was a genius! He had actually come up with such a solution that benefited both sides!
“This humble woman greets His Highness Prince Xuan.”
At that moment, a gentle voice sounded before Chu Zhao.
Chu Zhao looked up and saw a woman in green, with a mild and graceful face, slowly step out from the crowd.
It turned out she had been standing at the back the entire time. Coupled with the dimness inside the cave, Chu Zhao simply hadn't noticed her before.
From her courteous movements and composed manner of speech, Chu Zhao knew she wasn't the daughter of an ordinary commoner. Her cultured, well-bred bearing suggested she came either from a merchant household or an official family.
Sure enough, the woman in green made a graceful salute and said:
“This humble woman's name is Lu Changning. I am the daughter of Lu Binggong, county magistrate of Anping County.”
Lu Changning straightened, her voice clear and calm.
“On the Double Third Festival two days ago, this humble woman became separated from her elders while we were on a spring outing. When I opened my eyes again, I was already trapped inside this bandit stronghold. Today, I thank Your Highness for rescuing me. The Lu family will never forget this lifesaving grace.”
She had remained in the back just now, listening to everything Chu Zhao had said, and had been both profoundly shocked and moved.
She was shocked that anyone in this world—especially a man—could speak such convention-defying and even ‘outrageously improper’ words.
She was moved because Chu Zhao had so sincerely considered matters from the perspective of women like them. No matter how much her father and elder brothers doted on her at home, the lessons she had received since childhood had all been things like “obey your father before marriage and your husband after marriage.”
When Chu Zhao heard who she was, he was absolutely delighted. He had only just arrived in Liangzhou and had already rescued the daughter of Anping County's magistrate. His luck was practically heaven-defying!
Suppressing his joy, he said gently:
“Miss Lu, there is no need for such courtesy. In a little while, this prince will send people to escort you home so you can reunite with your family.”
Inside, he couldn't help preening:
[See that? See that?! My luck is ridiculously good! I just arrived in Liangzhou and already rescued the daughter of Anping County's magistrate!]
He wasn't the kind of person who demanded repayment for kindness, but as a newcomer in an unfamiliar place, making friends with people was certainly something highly beneficial to himself!
The ancients truly hadn't lied—good people really were rewarded!
Even the System was surprised. It hadn't expected Chu Zhao to be this lucky.
Unable to resist, it secretly checked Chu Zhao's database and discovered that the field for his luck value was completely full.
System: ……
Come to think of it, could this be the protagonist's halo.
