The Kingdom of Bhikshu should have been called something else, and the pilgrims learned why before they reached the palace, because along the main road of the capital stood a row of houses, and outside each house a cage of woven bamboo, and in each cage a small boy, and in each cage the boy was being fed.
Eleven hundred cages. Eleven hundred little boys, none older than seven, kept and fattened along the streets of the capital, and the people who tended them wept as they did it, because they were the children's own parents, feeding their sons for slaughter under a law they could not refuse.
🔒
Chapters 13–78 are for readers
Chapters 1–12 are free. Unlock the rest of the journey—every chapter now, and every new one as it is written—for a single payment.