“Aaaaaah…!” Little Light Ball, can’t you hear my screams?!
It seemed it really couldn’t hear her.
The girl didn’t ask further, figuring that city folks probably just had some weird behaviors.
She carried her buckets and opened the door. Before leaving, she hesitated for a moment, ultimately deciding not to lock the front gate. Instead, she left a gap and cast one deep look at Xuan He in the courtyard before carrying her buckets away.
Xuan He thoroughly manhandled Little Light Ball until it was practically buzzing with electric currents, and only then did she let it off.
She certainly wasn’t full yet, but she was never going to trust any of this little light ball’s suggestions again.
It seemed she needed to find an opportunity to send this light ball back to the factory for a complete rebuilding.
Ignoring the weeping Little Light Ball, Xuan He began to look around her surroundings.
The courtyard wasn’t large. Besides a pigsty at the very edge covered with a shed and surrounded by a fence, there were three houses built of mud bricks.
From one of the rooms came the crackling sound of burning firewood. She pushed the door open and saw steamed cornbread and a bowl of vegetables steaming on a stove.
Judging by this, it should be the kitchen.
It wasn’t that Xuan He completely lacked all common sense; she knew from fragments of the petitioner’s memory that these things were edible.
As for the pig slop earlier, that was simply because the petitioner had grown up in a big city and had no idea what pigs were fed.
Most importantly, she hadn’t gotten around to integrating the petitioner’s memories yet.
Xuan He picked up a dark wotou and inspected it, trying a small bite.
It was a mix of wild herbs and coarse grains, emitting a faint sweetness with a slightly bitter aftertaste, though the bitterness wasn’t pronounced.
The taste was alright; it seemed it was edible.
Xuan He nodded, and as she ate, she began to integrate all of the petitioner’s memories.
The petitioner’s name was Chen Nuo. She had grown up in a big city since childhood and was currently a college junior at the age of twenty-one.
Twenty-one-year-old Chen Nuo was right in the middle of her carefree youth when she received a phone call from home: her mother had suddenly been in a car accident.
Panicked, Chen Nuo asked for leave and rushed home. Because she was in a rush and it was getting very late, she chose to take an unlicensed black cab to get to the station faster. Little did she know that this black cab was a cloned vehicle operated by human traffickers.
When she finally realized what was happening and tried to jump out of the car and scream for help, the traffickers covered her mouth and nose, drugged her, and took her away.
Chen Nuo’s mother did not survive her emergency treatment and passed away. Meanwhile, Chen Nuo’s father, who already suffered from a heart disease, was overwhelmed with extreme grief and anxiety upon learning his daughter was missing. His heart condition suddenly flared up, and he passed away as well.
Chen Nuo had no idea that both of her parents had died. After being abducted by traffickers and transferred around for several days, she was finally sold to a remote little mountain village and bought by a family surnamed Guo.
Guo Da was thirty-eight years old. He had previously bought a wife who gave birth to a daughter on her first pregnancy, which flew Guo Da into a rage of beatings and kicks.
Frequent injuries combined with malnutrition meant that it took over four years before that woman became pregnant a second time.
Guo Da was overjoyed this time. In his excitement, he drank a few too many drinks, and upon returning home and seeing the woman, he habitually threw his weight around without holding back, forcing himself on her and beating her until she miscarried. Ultimately, the woman died from heavy bleeding.
Therefore, to carry on the family lineage, Old Man Guo and Guo Da saved up money for several more years, and when Guo Da turned thirty-eight, they bought another wife, the petitioner, Chen Nuo.
As an only child, Chen Nuo had been doted on by her parents since childhood and had never suffered any hardships, making her personality quite stubborn.
On the very first day she was sold into the Guo family, some older women and aunties from the village came over to urge Chen Nuo to settle down and live a normal life.
Chen Nuo refused to listen at all. Utterly despising the idiotic notion that a woman must follow wherever her husband goes, whether he is a chicken or a dog, she cursed out every single one of those brainwashed women.
One by one, those people stepped outside to engage in all sorts of gossipy chatter, with busybodies mocking that this woman was far too fierce and that Guo Da probably wouldn’t be able to tame her.
Hearing this, Guo Da instantly lost his patience. Without another word, he went back into the room, beat Chen Nuo up, and attempted to force himself on her.
Chen Nuo preferred death over submission and threatened him with her life. With no other choice, since he didn’t want to waste the money he had spent, Guo Da tied her up and tried to slowly wear down her spirit.
However, Chen Nuo was far too fierce and refused to yield at all. Her single-minded desire was to escape this village and return to her parents.
She knew her parents must be looking for her.
Seeing that Chen Nuo was utterly defiant, Guo Da beat her to within an inch of her life and then raped her.
Having suffered abuse over a long period, Chen Nuo became pregnant, which delighted Guo Da and Old Man Guo.
They assumed that once a woman got pregnant, she would settle down, but they never expected that Chen Nuo would still try to run away even while pregnant.
Chen Nuo managed to escape and encountered a ten-year-old child. Assuming the child knew nothing, she gave him some food and helped him deliver a note to the county police station.
Little did she expect that the child would hand the note straight to the adults in his family, and the villagers promptly captured Chen Nuo and dragged her back to the Guo family.
In truth, everyone in the entire village was in cahoots.
Furious, and reasoning that she was merely a tool for continuing the family line anyway, Guo Da used a rock to smash and break one of Chen Nuo’s legs.
Once her leg was broken, she would never be able to run away again!
Chen Nuo was exceptionally stubborn. Even with a broken leg, she never yielded. She constantly dreamed of returning to her parents; her mother’s life or death was unknown after the car accident, and her father, whose heart was weak, must be so worried about her right now!
When her leg had healed slightly, she attempted to limp her way into the mountains to escape, only to be caught by the villagers once more and dragged back to the Guo family.
Cruelly, Guo Da used a stone to smash Chen Nuo’s other leg as well.
Giving birth didn’t require legs anyway.
With both legs broken, Chen Nuo knew she would never escape this lifetime, and despair set in.
Caressing her belly, she resolved not to let this child also suffer the poison and torment of this demonic village.
Thus, she seized an opportunity to commit suicide.
Her heart was filled with intense resentment; she hated the human traffickers who sold her, she hated the villagers who dragged her back, and she hated Guo Da and Old Man Guo even more.
Her powerful emotions were captured by Little Light Ball, and thus Xuan He arrived.
When Xuan He first arrived, it was precisely when the Guo family had just bought the petitioner and were preparing to hold the wedding banquet.
The day before, the village women had come to persuade her and had been cursed away by the petitioner. That night, thinking they didn’t need to wait another day, Guo Da wanted to force himself on her. The petitioner fought back with all her might, resisting unto death. Coupled with Old Man Guo saying it was best to consummate the marriage after the wedding rites were properly completed, Guo Da tied the petitioner up and tossed her into the room.
As for the young girl from earlier, the petitioner’s memories revealed that she was the daughter born to Guo Da’s first wife. Guo Da never gave her a name, simply calling her a money-losing commodity or a slatternly girl.
After eating and drinking her fill, Xuan He gracefully wiped her mouth with her sleeve and stood up.
Little Light Ball watched her with a bared expression of grievance and terror, not daring to utter a single sound.
Xuan He stretched lazily, loosening up her muscles and joints.
She felt that while this wotou and the vegetable dish weren’t as delicious as the half-sweet potato the girl had given her earlier, they shared a faint, comforting familiarity that left her body and mind feeling refreshed after eating.
She walked out of the kitchen door.
Xuan He would fulfill petitioner Chen Nuo’s wish, and having integrated the petitioner’s memories, she would live in this world under the identity of the petitioner, Chen Nuo.
The young girl had just finished her chores and opened the front gate, running straight into Xuan He as she stepped out of the kitchen.
The girl froze, looking somewhat startled, which slowly morphed into anxiety.
Why hadn’t this person run away yet?
She glanced behind her, then back at Xuan He emerging from the kitchen, feeling an unspoken frustration that this person was truly foolish, yet not a single word escaped her lips.
“If I leave, won’t you be the one who gets beaten?”
Xuan He said calmly.
The girl froze, her eyes instantly turning red.
For over a decade, as far back as her memories went, she had constantly been beaten and scolded by Old Man Guo and Guo Da. The only warmth she had ever known came from her mother.
Pity that when she was five years old, her mother was beaten to death by Guo Da, leaving no one else in this world to care for her.
And now, she felt wronged by a single sentence from Xuan He, experiencing for the first time the bittersweet taste of someone caring about her.
Xuan He didn’t show much expression. She looked at the girl, a flash of golden light crossing her pupils so swiftly that one might mistake it for an illusion.
Because of the kindness shown through the half-sweet potato, Xuan He was willing to inspect the girl’s fate. If she could lend a hand, she wouldn’t mind helping out to clear this karmic debt.
The girl’s life was destined to be very short.
Due to severe malnutrition, at fourteen years old, the girl was still skinny and tiny, and her period had yet to arrive.
A year later, when she turned fifteen, her menstruation finally started. Lacking any female elders to guide her, the girl was terrified, thinking she had contracted some fatal illness, and was eventually discovered by Old Man Guo and Guo Da.
Old Man Guo and Guo Da were overjoyed; they had raised the girl precisely to trade her off for money.
Consequently, they sold the girl for 5,000 yuan to a family surnamed Zhu in the village.
That family was the poorest in the entire village. Although they had three grown sons, because the boys ate so much, most of the household provisions were consumed by the three males, leaving them too poor to afford a bride.
The girl’s arrival delighted that family immensely.
Since she was just there to carry on the family line anyway, the family decided that the three men would share the girl among themselves.
When the girl learned of this, having already viewed life with dwindling hope and intended to commit suicide, she found herself unable to accept it. Gathering all her remaining courage, she chose to jump into the river to end her young life.
As a result, that family even went to the Guo family to cause a scene. Unable to stand up to the three men, the Guo family returned most of the money while cursing the deceased girl in every possible way.
The girl quickly lowered her head, concealing her reddened eye sockets.
Xuan He paid no attention to the girl’s emotions; she still needed to stay here to fulfill the petitioner’s wish of sending the Guo father and son straight to hell.
She wondered if ghosts and deities existed in this world. If they did, how many layers of hell would the petitioner need to descend into to be satisfied?
Never mind, it was too troublesome and she didn’t feel like dwelling on it. She might as well summon the Underworld officers when the time came and make them send the pair through all eighteen layers of hell.
As Xuan He was calculating this in her mind, she saw the girl approach, tugging at the hem of her clothes in an attempt to pull Xuan He away.
The girl’s thought process was very simple.
Starved of affection since childhood, she was willing to give back everything in return for even a single word of warmth offered by a stranger, even if the consequences were far beyond what she could bear.
Xuan He had no inkling of what the girl was thinking and barely understood her actions.
From outside the door came footsteps, accompanied by the jeering laughter of Guo Da and Old Man Guo.
Hearing this, the girl’s face paled, her fingers instinctively clutching the hem of Xuan He’s clothes so tightly that her fingertips turned white.
Were they still a step too late?
Compared to the girl’s utter despair, Xuan He felt quite pleased.