“Come on, let’s find a place to stay first, then figure out what to do next. I’ll see if I can find someone to help redo our household registration,” He Youyou sighed as she took her daughter’s small hand. She reached up and touched the two gold hairpins in her hair—these should be worth quite a bit. She could pawn them first and get their household registration sorted.
Luckily, she still had these two items. Otherwise, the mother and daughter would probably be starving by now. Why hadn’t the child grabbed a few more things before leaving? Even a few items from the dressing table could have been exchanged for a decent amount of money.
Sigh… she was still too young.
“Wait, Auntie—the little box, we didn’t take the little box…” Qu Weiwei suddenly remembered the small box she had casually placed beside the cloak earlier. That box was basically all their visible possessions right now.
“What little box?” He Youyou looked at where she was pointing, confused. But the moment she saw the dark red box, her face lit up with joy. She hugged the little girl tightly and kissed her several times before finally letting go.
The box contained exactly what they needed most right now. Just moments ago, she had been lamenting that the child was too young to know what to take. Now, seeing this, she swallowed all those thoughts back.
“How did you think to bring this box with you?” Though delighted, He Youyou was puzzled. She had always hidden this box in the wardrobe—there was no way the child should have known about it.
“I saw it once when I was playing hide-and-seek and hid in the wardrobe. When Fifth Auntie left the Qu family, she also carried a similar box, so I thought I should bring this one too… Was there nothing useful inside?” Qu Weiwei didn’t lie. She really had seen Fifth Auntie leaving with a similar box.
“Yes, yes—very useful! The most important things we have are inside. With these, our life will be much easier. We won’t even need to find someone to redo our household registration,” He Youyou quickly reassured her, afraid the little girl might cry if she said otherwise.
“Auntie, I’m hungry…” Qu Weiwei rubbed her rumbling stomach and looked at her pitifully.
“Let’s go. Tomorrow I’ll take you to eat on another street. People here know us too well—we can’t stay here, or we’ll be exposed.” He Youyou had no intention of letting anyone know that she and her daughter were still alive, nor did she ever want to return to Master Qu.
Back then, she had no choice. If Master Qu hadn’t threatened her father’s life and livelihood, how could she, a girl of only seventeen or eighteen, have agreed to marry a man nearly her father’s age as a concubine?
Now that she had finally escaped, who would willingly go back to that cage? Every day being tormented by the main wife—those days were simply inhuman.
Hearing this, Qu Weiwei understood. Her mother didn’t want anyone to know they were alive, which was why she wanted to stay far away.
After walking for nearly an hour, the mother and daughter arrived at a small courtyard. From the outside, it looked even smaller than the one her mother had lived in at the Qu residence.
He Youyou took one of her gold hairpins and inserted it into the lock. With a simple twist, the lock opened. She pushed the door open and led the little girl inside.
“Weiwei, we’ll live here from now on. This house was secretly bought for me by your grandfather. He even used it to arrange a household registration and your birth certificate. From now on, I won’t be called He Youyou—I’ll go by He Yuping. Your grandfather registered me as a high school graduate from a women’s school. And you won’t be called Qu Weiwei anymore either. Once I use your birth certificate to register you, we’ll give you a new name. What would you like to be called?”
He Youyou wanted to give her daughter a new name.
The name “Qu Weiwei” had been casually given by the main wife—likely implying that the child should live humbly and meekly. She no longer wanted her daughter to carry that meaning or live such a life.
Qu Weiwei wasn’t particularly attached to her name. After all, even her original name had been given by the orphanage director.
“You can choose for me, Mother,” she said casually.
Skipping happily, Qu Weiwei went to explore the house. The courtyard wasn’t large: three main rooms, side rooms on both left and right, a fairly big kitchen, and a thatched shed for firewood. In the back were a toilet, a chicken coop, and an unused vegetable patch.
In the front yard stood a hand-pump well, with the ground around it paved with green bricks. Beside it were a large wooden washbasin and a wooden bucket.
Everything looked like it hadn’t been used for quite some time—dirty, with rust forming on the metal bands.
“Mother, are we really going to live here from now on? But it’s so close to the Qu family… won’t we be recognized?” Qu Weiwei was still worried. It was the same city, only two streets away—anyone paying attention could easily recognize them.
“We won’t stay here long, so there’s no need to buy too many things. We need to save money. Once things settle down a bit, we’ll head south to find your grandfather. This is just temporary,” He Youyou explained. She had already communicated with her father—when the chance came, she would take her daughter south to join him.
She had thought that day wouldn’t come so soon, but unexpectedly, it had arrived years earlier than she had imagined.
“Oh, okay… but we’ll need to prepare a lot of things to leave. And we’ll have to take a car or a boat. Which will we take?” Qu Weiwei didn’t think cars were an option, and the journey south would surely be difficult. They needed to prepare well—it wouldn’t be easy.
“Don’t worry. Mother will arrange everything,” He Youyou said, patting her head reassuringly.
Her father had once been a village teacher, and many of his students had gone on to succeed. Master Qu had hired him as an accountant because of his scholarly status.
After He Youyou entered the Qu household, her father deeply regretted it. If he had never worked for the Qu family, his daughter would never have caught Master Qu’s eye.
Knowing his daughter was unhappy, he had long prepared a way out for her—changing her household registration, buying this house, and heading south ahead of time to seek new opportunities.
He knew that if his daughter ever escaped, she wouldn’t be able to remain in Pingcheng. She was his only child, so he had to secure a future for her.
Half a year after going south, he sent her a letter—addressed to this very house. In it, he wrote that he had already bought a house and land there, and was waiting for her to join him.
He Youyou didn’t tell these things to her five-year-old daughter. But she already knew what to do next. For now, she could finally eat a full meal and get a good night’s sleep in peace.
— Author: Jun Yaling