The young girl met her mother but didn't mention what happened in the courtyard. She just gave the money pouch to her mother, telling her and her younger brother to find a place to settle down, live well, and wait in peace for their father to return from the battlefield.
Fifteen girls returned to the courtyard, only to find two brawny men wielding large knives standing behind a middle-aged man with a pale, beardless face. The brawny men stepped forward and, without a word, decapitated four of the girls.
In the blink of an eye, four corpses lay on the ground, bloodied and with their eyes wide open in death.
The remaining eleven girls trembled, not daring to make a sound, not even to cry.
The two brawny men used white cloths to wipe the blood clean from the blades, then returned to stand behind the middle-aged man with a pale, beardless face.
The middle-aged man with a pale, beardless face asked playfully, "Do you know why they died?"
