Chapter 90: From Property to People and A Life Worth Living

The next day, Yu Liang left the restaurant just after the lunch rush settled. The streets were calm in the early afternoon.

He walked alone with no guards following him in the open today, although he was certain Yan Ruo or one of the others from the group was watching his route from afar.

After some time he arrived at the small compound he had bought months ago on the western edge of the district, tucked behind a row of other warehouses. It wasn’t grand, It was a walled courtyard with five low buildings arranged around an open space. There was a well in the middle, along with enough room for training or a few simple gardens. Yu Liang had bought the place quietly, paid for it in full, and handed the keys over without making a big deal out of it.

He pushed open the plain wooden gate and stepped inside. The courtyard was quiet, with the faint smell of cooking smoke mixing with the scent of fresh herbs. Yue Ling was tending to a small herb patch, her twitched as she pulled out weeds, while an older Body Tempering cultivator swept the stone path nearby. Two Qi Condensation cultivators were sparring near the far wall, keeping their movement in control.

The moment they noticed Yu Liang, the sparring stopped. Yue Ling stood and brushed the dirt from her hands before giving him a small smile.

"Young Master!!!" she said with voice soft but clear voice. "We didn’t expect you today."

Yu Liang returned the nod. "Just checking in. Everything all right?"

"More than all right," the older man said. Lin Feng, Yu Liang remembered. "The roof on the east building doesn’t leak anymore. We fixed it last week."

Yu Liang glanced up. The tiles looked new, neatly laid. He gave a small approving nod. "Good work."

He didn’t stay long. He walked around the courtyard, spoke to a few people along the way, and was back at the gate within fifteen minutes. It had become a fairly routine visit by now, but Yu Liang still liked seeing the place like this. These people now had a proper home, enough food and they seem quite satisfied with the way things are right now. That alone made the short visits worth it.

A few months ago, before Yu Liang had walked into the Iron Chain Syndicate’s warehouse, none of them had known what it was like to have any of that.

It hadn’t been like this at first. During his first few visits, most of them barely spoke to him. Some even shrank back in fear, probably wondering if he had changed his mind and come to take them back for who knows what. But Yu Liang kept coming anyway, sometimes early in the morning and sometimes late at night. He would try to talk to them, and if they didn’t respond, he would simply smile, offer a few words of reassurance, and leave them be.

Slowly, they got used to seeing him. They started talking to him, although little by little, and Yu Liang eventually learned bits and pieces about the lives and how they had lived after getting caught by Iron Chain Syndicate.

Most had started as ordinary cultivators, independent wanderers, minor sect disciples who lost favor or offended someone, beast-kin who strayed too far from their protected territories and ofocure debt was the common thread. A failed caravan raid, a bad loan from a predatory moneylender, a sect war that left them on the losing side, there were numerous reasons.

Then the chains of slavery followed quickly after.

First came the iron collars, then the consciousness seals carved into their souls. Even the slightest thought of betrayal could trigger immense pain. Trying to scape was even worse as each attempts ended in screaming agony or somtimes sudden, merciful death.

The cages had been cold and damp, with stone floors and thin straw mats that never fully dried. Their food was tossed through the bars like scraps thrown to animals.

Some still remembered nights when the guards grew bored and decided to "test" the seals, ordering impossible tasks just to watch the pain spread through a body that couldn’t refuse.

Others recalled the auctions, standing with little clothes covering their body on raised platforms while those buyers prodded muscles, checked teeth and asked uncomfortable questions.

Prices were haggled like livestock.

He also got some information regarding his gaurds. Yan Ruo, for example, had spent three years in that hell of a place. She had watched people around her slowly lose hope, including younger slaves who eventually stopped speaking or reacting to anything around them. She herself had learned to keep her head down and her thoughts hidden, surviving one day at a time.

Her reputation as "unstable" came from what happened when one of the buyers had some cruel intentions for her. The moment Yan Ruo realized what he planned to do, she burned her own soul to fight the seal and slaughtered the entire family. The pain while doing it nearly destroyed her and she suffered for more than a month afterward, her hair turned gray from that immense pain, while the other slaves could only watch her endure it without being able to help.

The buyers thought she had finally been broken and tried to sell her again, only for her to do the same, killing the buyer. It continued to happened again and again. Every time someone thought they could take advantage of her weakened state, Yan Ruo proved them wrong. Eventually, her name became known among the buyers, and no one wanted to take the risk of purchasing her anymore.

She then became, quite simply, an unsellable slave.

As for Hei Lang, he carried scars across his back from the "training" sessions meant to remind him that he was property. Even his wounds were rarely treated properly. Sometimes, when blood ran down his back, he would dip a finger into it and draw crooked little pictures on the stone floor. He would stare at them with a small smile, talking to the drawings as if they were really there. It was of his Wife, Three children and His parents. He would tell the children about the food he would buy them once he got out, promising he would bring back their favorite dishes. Sometimes he even tried to make them laugh, completely lost in the little family he had drawn in his own blood. To anyone else, they were just messy lines on a dirty floor. To Hei Lang, they were the only family he had left and a way to escape from reality... Or maybe a wish.

Chen Lu had once spent three years in solitary darkness after refusing an order that would have harmed a child slave. No one knew much about what happened during those years.

His cultivation and spirit had been sealed, leaving him completely mortal and alone in the dark. When he was finally brought out, he simply smiled as if nothing had happened. To the others, that smile was unsettling, almost eerie and from that moment onwards It never left him. Even now, Chen Lu still wore that same simple smile.

The twins had been separated during transport once, each believing the other dead for nearly a year.

Then after Yu Liang bought and told them they could choose to work for him or leave after the five years, a few decided to leave but after seeing he didn’t do anything to them, some of the new slaves asked him if they can leave now and he agreed then with storage pouches of basic supplies and a small sum of stones they left.

But most of people stayed. Not because of the seals which he had never activated them even once, but because the alternative felt allmost impossible. Where would they go with broken meridians, no sect, and no family? Here, at least, there was food, shelter, training, and the strangest of all was that people who looked them in the eye and said "Thank You" when they swept a floor or did their job at restaurant.

After that, Yu Liang bought them a place to live. It slowly became a home as they settled in. Like the east building got a new roof after the first rain revealed a leak, and Yue Ling planted herbs in the courtyard because they reminded her of her mother.

Lin Feng taught the younger ones some basic forms in the mornings. They shared meals around the same tables, and slowly, conversations started to grow. At first, it was just a few quiet words here and there, but before long, people were sharing stories about their pasts. Then came laughter. It started small, usually over something as simple as someone dropping a bowl or a sparring match ending with someone tumbling into the dirt, which would have made their lives worse than hell previously.

Now, they could easily laugh about it.

They trained together, ate together, helped each other recover, and slowly rebuilt their lives. Though the seals stayed still, they were no longer afraid of it.

They were gradually getting to know the experience of living free.

Some still woke from nightmares, sweat soaked and gasping. Others carried scars that ached whenever the weather turned cold.

But they knew it would get better with time. Slowly, they would learn to leave the past behind.

Now, this place is where "property" had become "people."

Because Yu Liang never asked for their gratitude. He rarely spoke of the purchase at all. But every time he walked through the gate, even for just few minutes, it makes them happy. And for the first time in a long while, life... it felt worth keeping.