Wang Cuihua’s shrill scream was like an awl, piercing through the chaos in the courtyard.
“The money!”
That single word instantly overrode everyone’s fear of the vicious dog. Lin Dajun and Li Guilan’s eyes turned bloodshot in a heartbeat. That was two hundred dollars (even if it had been bargained down to one hundred and eighty)! It was their family’s entire hope for building a new house and getting a wife for Lin Dazhuang!
“Dammit, she’s revolting against heaven!” Lin Dajun grabbed a carrying pole from the corner. Ignoring the mad dog, he lunged toward Lin Xi with a stride so fierce it looked as if he intended to beat her to death against the wall.
The two human traffickers, who had been kept in a frantic scramble by Blackie, saw the homeowners take action and grew ruthless themselves. One of them pulled a glinting dagger from his waist, feinted a strike at Blackie, and roared, “Get lost, you beast!” Taking advantage of the split second where Blackie flinched back from the cold light of the blade, the other trafficker circled around. In a few quick steps, his massive dark shadow already loomed over Lin Xi from behind.
High walls in front, pursuers behind. Besieged on all sides!
Lin Xi’s small face was as white as paper under the moonlight, but her eyes were startlingly bright. She had no time left!
Using every ounce of her strength, she scrambled up the low wall made of mud and broken bricks with both hands and feet. The surface was rough and mixed with sharp pebbles, instantly scraping her tender palms and knees—a piercing, drilling pain.
But she couldn’t stop! Stopping meant falling into a bottomless abyss!
“You little brat, get down here!” Li Guilan’s sharp fingernails were inches away from grabbing her ankle.
Lin Xi kicked out violently, her heel slamming hard into the back of Li Guilan’s hand. Li Guilan let out a cry of pain and recoiled. Taking advantage of that brief breathing room, Lin Xi’s fingertips finally hooked onto the top of the wall!
Her tiny body hung suspended in mid-air, like a leaf that could be blown away by a gale at any moment.
“Huzi!” she shouted with all her might.
Huzi, who had been waiting atop the wall, turned into a streak of black lightning. He pounced down from the wall, aiming not just anywhere, but directly at Li Guilan’s face, which was twisted with rage!
“Meow-wu!”
Huzi let out a piercing cat screech, baring claws that—while small—were sharp enough as he raked them savagely across Li Guilan’s face.
“Ah! My face!” Li Guilan never would have dreamed [Li Guilan] never expected that a wild cat, one she usually beat and cursed at will, would actually dare to attack her! Scared out of her wits, she instinctively covered her face and stumbled back, landing hard on her backside.
This sudden turn of events bought Lin Xi another precious second.
With a muffled grunt, she threw all her strength into her arms, and her small body finally scrambled onto the top of the wall!
She had made it!
On the other side of the wall was the village’s weed-choked, stagnant drainage ditch that led toward the back mountains. Below lay endless darkness and the unknown, but to Lin Xi, it was the grand highway to freedom and a new life!
“Grab her! She’s going to jump!” Lin Dajun’s roar was right in her ear.
Lin Xi turned her head for one final look at this hellish courtyard.
She saw Li Guilan rolling on the ground in a fit of pain and terror; she saw Lin Dajun, face contorted with rage, brandishing a shoulder pole; she saw Wang Cuihua beating her chest and stomping her feet like a madwoman over the lost money; and she saw the two human traffickers looking disgruntled as they were tied up by the dog, Black Tiger.
The faces of everyone there were written over with greed, fury, and ugliness.
There wasn’t a shred of familial love, nor a single drop of mercy.
The corners of Lin Xi’s mouth curled into a cold, mocking smile.
Goodbye.
No—farewell forever.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she tightly hugged Huzi—who had leaped back to her side at some point—and threw herself into the darkness outside the wall!
Splash!
Her body fell into the freezing, bone-chilling water of the ditch. The stench of silt and rotting grass instantly enveloped her. But to Lin Xi, this smell was ten thousand times better than the air in the Lin house, which was tainted with the scent of human scum!
“Where is she? She fell into the ditch!”
“Quick! Chase her from that side!”
A chaotic clamor of shouting broke out behind the wall.
Lin Xi didn’t dare delay. She scrambled up from the icy muddy water, drenched and shivering violently from the cold. Ignoring the discomfort, she pulled Huzi and dove into the person-high weeds nearby.
She didn’t dare take the main road. She could only follow the most rugged and desolate paths at the foot of the mountain, trudging with uneven steps toward the depths of the forest.
Behind her, the village gradually faded into a blurry black speck in the night—that place that had once brought her endless pain and the hopeless house, the courtyard, and those hideous people—she had finally left them all far behind.
The cold wind sliced across her face like a blade, and her soaked clothes clung to her body, draining the last remnants of her warmth. Her legs felt as heavy as lead; every single step she took required the absolute limit of her strength.
She had no idea how long she had been running. It wasn’t until the sounds behind her finally vanished and her legs could no longer move another inch that she finally collapsed beneath a large tree.
Huzi [the little beast ally] nuzzled her icy cheek anxiously, letting out worried, low whimpers from his throat.
Lin Xi struggled to lift her head. Peering through the sparse leaves, she saw the cold, lonely moon hanging in the night sky.
She was free.
Truly free.
From this day forward, no one could ever buy or sell her like cargo again. No one could ever beat, scold, or abuse her at their whim.
That dead-end path from her previous life—the one that led to the mountain gullies, the sweatshops, and eventually to death—had been forcibly severed by her own hands at this very moment!
A sense of unprecedented relief flooded her entire body, making her want to burst into a manic laugh.
However, before the laughter could leave her throat, a violent growl erupted from her stomach. It was followed immediately by a bone-deep chill and uncontrollable shivering.
She looked down at herself.
She was drenched and barely covered by her tattered rags. Her hands and knees were covered in gashes that stung with a fiery heat. Most importantly, she was penniless and hadn’t eaten a single grain of rice.
Escaping the cage was only the first step.
Next, she had to face the cruel reality of how a three-year-old child was supposed to survive in this treacherous, wild mountain forest.
This wasn’t just a simple escape; this was a long, lonely, and lethally dangerous road to survival.
Could she succeed?
She didn’t know.
She only knew that she could never go back.
Her small hands tightly hugged the equally thin Huzi beside her. This tiny, furry life was her only companion and her only source of warmth in this moment.
“Huzi… which way should we go?” she asked in a soft whisper, staring blankly at the pitch-black forest before her.
The only answer she received was the sobbing of the wind.