Chapter 83: The Human Market (I)

Except for Xiao Zishan, none of the others had ever engaged in trans-temporal trade activities. Seeing that the “Crystal Rosy Jade Mirror” was clearly just a plastic-framed oval mirror from Wenzhou, sold in piles at the small commodity market, the best quality one was no more than ten yuan. Here, it was actually sold for one hundred and fifty taels!

Guo Yi and the others, seeing so much silver being used to buy a glass mirror for the first time, were so shocked that their mouths gaped open and their eyes widened. They couldn’t help but shake their heads. For a moment, they couldn’t accept it. Xiao Zishan whispered, “How about it? Are you confident now? Guangzhou is not like other regions. It is the most prosperous city in all of East Asia in this time and space.”

Yan Maoda nodded and said with infinite emotion, “I really didn’t expect Guangzhou to be so prosperous in this era. I’m also confident in opening a jewelry company here.”

At this moment, a clerk came over to greet them. Yan Maoda wanted to get a feel for the market, so he asked him to take out some pearls—the transmigrators had brought a large number of freshwater cultured pearls from another time and space. The clerk took out a few plates of pearls from the counter. The largest one was about an inch in diameter, and the smallest was the size of a pomegranate seed. Most of them were very round, and some were long and oval. Even with the limited light in the room, the brilliance of the pearls on the plate could still be felt.

The small ones were ten to twenty taels each, and the largest one was priced at four thousand taels. Yan Maoda had learned a little about the history of pearls in the jewelry industry in the past and knew that pearls were highly valued in all past dynasties. Moreover, these were all natural pearls, which were very rare. But he was still shocked that a large pearl could be sold for four thousand taels.

But the most peculiar among them was a plate of slightly long and oval purple pearls. Yan Maoda looked at them carefully for a long time. The clerk said that they were from the West. Because the color was rare, such a large one would also sell for two hundred taels each.

After going out, they walked into a nearby alley where there were fewer people. Yan Maoda said, “We can make a fortune just by selling that one hundred kilograms of freshwater pearls.”

“They don’t seem to be as beautiful as those,” Lu Rong said.

Yan Maoda said, “The color of the pearls is indeed not as good. But that’s not a big deal. The problem is that plate of purple pearls. That thing is a saltwater pearl from Australia. I really didn’t expect Guangzhou to have them.”

“Perhaps they were harvested from there? It’s not too difficult to get to Australia from Southeast Asia.”

“Probably. This means that someone has been to Australia, at least to its outer islands.”

“Developing Australia is actually not a bad idea…”

They talked and laughed as they walked, looking at the scenery. Lu Rong was very interested in the street food, but he was afraid of getting sick after eating it, so he had to endure his drooling all the way. The street scene ahead gradually became deserted, and wasteland appeared from time to time, but there were still human voices. Liu Gang stopped and said, “There is a human market ahead. There is nothing to see. It’s all scenes of families being separated, very miserable. You should go somewhere else.”

Xiao Zishan hesitated for a moment. Before coming to Guangzhou, the Executive Committee had privately discussed the matter of buying people. The local labor force in Lingao was limited, and it was necessary to supplement it with some immigrants from the outside. But the problem now was not this, but the “physiological needs” that many transmigrators were gradually revealing.

The problem of physiological needs was a matter of food and sex, a common human feeling. For a long time after D-Day, everyone had a heavy workload every day, and they were also on tenterhooks, guarding against possible attacks. They were physically and mentally exhausted, so naturally no one made a fuss about this. These days, the situation has gradually stabilized, and there is more free time, but there is a lack of recreational activities. Most of the more than 500 people are young men in their prime, so it is inevitable that they will think about food and sex. The problem is that there are only a dozen or so people with wives and girlfriends. Most people rely on watching AVs to vent. As for AVs, it is better to say that they are adding fuel to the fire than to say that they can vent. Therefore, under the excellent social situation, some disharmonious things have inevitably occurred: such as peeping at girls bathing, taking upskirt photos, and so on. The most serious was the incident of someone trying to rape Sarina at night—of course, they seriously underestimated the strength of this ATF agent. Sarina was not harmed except for being slightly frightened, but one of the three people who tried to do it ended up in the hospital.

Ran Yao quickly found out the culprits. For the sake of maintaining stability, the matter was covered up. The three offenders were sent far away to work at the Bopu camp to avoid conflicts with Sarina.

The matter was resolved, but the Executive Committee also saw a dangerous sign from this incident. Sarina was not the only woman in the camp, but there were very few single women. In other words, the transmigrator group itself could not solve the need for male-female interaction. If this continued, once a rape incident occurred again, or if there was an adultery problem, the Executive Committee would not only have to face a crying woman, but also a furious cuckolded husband. How to deal with it? What would be the result after dealing with it? These were things they dared not imagine.

What if someone had a little bit of awareness—like the three in the Sarina incident, who at least knew that they couldn’t touch their comrades’ wives, and instead went to the surrounding villages to rape women? Rape was the thing that the common people hated the most. In order to win the hearts of the people, from the Red Army to the People’s Liberation Army era, raping women was punishable by death. Would they also have to shoot the rapists? It seemed to violate the principle of “all men are equal, but some are more equal than others” that the Executive Committee adhered to.

Even if they didn’t rape, what about going to prostitutes—not to mention whether there were brothels in Lingao County, it would be another trouble if they contracted a venereal disease in a brothel—the 17th-18th centuries were the era when syphilis was transmitted on a large scale in the coastal areas of China. If they were really unfortunate enough to be “hit by a dart,” the health group would have to waste the already limited penicillin to treat it.

In short, if the physiological problem was not solved, the hidden danger would be great!

Of course, some people also proposed solutions, such as Xiao Zishan proposing to give priority to the construction of cultural and sports facilities, showing movies every night, and organizing sports competitions for everyone. But this was a measure of pouring soup to stop the boiling, and its effect was limited. So someone came up with a bolder idea: to set up a brothel with strict hygiene measures to prevent the spread of venereal diseases. The Executive Committee would issue a “happy coupon” once a month, and the rest of the expenses would be borne by themselves.

This proposal was obviously the most efficient in solving the problem, but most of the people in the Executive Committee could not bring themselves to do it—how could such an ignorant, backward, and cruel thing as a brothel be run by them, the civilized people of the 21st century! As for the measure of issuing prostitution coupons, they found it even more intolerable.

[Note: It seems that many cities in Germany have issued free prostitution coupons in the past two years. It’s very awkward. The German people are happy enough.]

After secret consultations and soliciting some opinions, the Executive Committee decided that it was not too late to buy some women from the mainland as soon as possible and distribute them to single young men in the name of “maids.” Of course, in name, they were only for household chores, but in reality, they could do whatever they wanted.

However, this decision was opposed by some people, and Xiao Zishan also opposed it. The reason was simple: he was in charge of internal affairs. If this measure of distributing wives in disguise was adopted, the result would be the end of the current collective dormitory system—the young men who had such “maids” would definitely not be willing to share a room with others anymore. This meant that he had to expand the housing.

After several nights of discussion, debate, and hearings, the “maid” plan was finally passed. So Xiao Zishan’s trip to Guangzhou had an additional task: to buy women.

It sounded like a very fragrant task, but it was actually not easy to handle. The buying and selling of people usually required finding special human traffickers, but the goods they had were expensive. He had inquired with Gao Ju: a twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl with an ordinary appearance would cost seven or eight taels. If she was good-looking and smart, it would cost at least twenty taels. Of course, there were even better ones: girls like the “slender horses” of Yangzhou, which had no bottom price. The low ones were seventy or eighty taels, and the high ones were several hundred taels.

Moreover, human traffickers often controlled the “source of goods.” Girls who fled from famine or were poor and had to sell themselves would most likely fall into the hands of these human traffickers. It was difficult for outsiders to get involved, unless there was a large-scale famine and a large number of refugees poured in, then it might be possible to buy them directly.

Now that he heard from Liu Gang that there was a human market ahead, he thought it would be good to go and have a look. Even if he couldn’t buy a suitable woman, it would be good to buy some children. Wu Nanhai had specifically mentioned that cultivating the transmigrators’ own talents should start with children. Only in this way could their worldview be completely transformed and new knowledge and ideas be instilled.

“Let’s go and have a look. I want to buy some family members to use,” Xiao Zishan said, and walked forward again.

Of course, this was not a professional human market. It was actually just a large piece of wasteland where refugees from all over the country had gathered. There was a collapsed small temple on the wasteland, and even a few deserted graves. There were makeshift shacks scattered everywhere. Refugees who had fled from various parts of Guangdong, Guangxi, and even Jiangxi and Fujian, with dull faces like living ghosts, were either sitting or lying down. Some could still move slowly with the help of a begging stick. Some were cooking leftover food they had begged from somewhere, emitting a sour and foul smell of swill… It was smoky and foul, emitting a strange smell that was neither musty nor burnt. Against the collapsed temple wall, there was a row of straight corpses, all covered with rotten straw mats, with only pairs of dry and chapped feet exposed. There were still some ashes of paper money left… If it were three or four months ago, this scene alone would have shocked them, but now they were used to the death that was as common as daily meals in this time and space.

There were local militiamen suppressing the scene in the field, and there was also a porridge-giving shed, which at least showed a little relief from the local government. However, there were also some well-dressed figures coming in and out—they were all here to buy people.