“Who? What are you doing? Don’t—”
Su Qianqian felt her head was in a fog, completely unaware of her current situation.
She only remembered that it was Qingming Festival, and she had hurried up the mountain to sweep her parents’ graves. Because it had just rained, the mountain path was treacherous; she had slipped and lost consciousness.
But now, the moment she opened her eyes, she found herself in this predicament.
She suspected she had been picked up by some wild man who was now trying to take advantage of her.
She was terrified. Scenes of being violated flashed through her mind, and for a moment, she was so paralyzed by fear that she didn’t dare move.
At that moment, a slightly raspy, magnetic male voice sounded by her ear:
“What, you’re unwilling?”
The surroundings were very dim, and Su Qianqian couldn’t make out the man’s features or expression. She only knew his voice was very pleasant.
However, his tone carried an undeniable dominance. She heard him say:
“I married you with all the proper rites. Now that you’ve married me, you are my woman. Do you understand?”
Su Qianqian was completely stunned by these words, even wondering if she had misheard.
What “married with proper rites”? Was she dreaming? Had she not woken up yet? It had to be that!
Su Qianqian desperately tried to hypnotize herself, but the subsequent actions of the man pressing down on her made it impossible to deceive herself.
Dreaming, my foot! Had she been sold to some remote mountain gully while unconscious to be someone’s little wife?
Thinking of the ultimate fate of trafficked girls, Su Qianqian was instantly moved to tears by fear.
She felt so pitiful. She had never done anything bad in her life; she listened to her teachers at school and her parents at home.
Then, her parents had passed away unexpectedly, leaving her all alone. At school, she was bullied and even framed for stealing.
Now, she had gone up a mountain to sweep some graves, only to be sold into a mountain gully.
She was only nineteen this year. Because she was timid and afraid of being deceived, she hadn’t even dared to date. Now, she was about to be bullied by an old man of unknown age.
In the future, she would have to bear his children, serve his entire family, and if he had a bad temper, she might be beaten or even starved.
The more Su Qianqian thought, the more miserable she felt. Unable to hold it back, she let out a loud “waa” and started wailing.
Because of her sudden outburst of crying, Lu Ye, who was about to get down to business, immediately stopped his movements.
He paused for a moment, then, seemingly a bit angry, he flipped over and got off the bed.
Because his movements were so forceful, the wooden bed, which wasn’t very sturdy to begin with, let out a sharp “creak.”
Su Qianqian flinched, thinking the man was about to hit her in a fit of rage. Out of instinct, she shrank into the corner of the bed against the wall.
Due to the man’s previous actions, her upper garment had mostly fallen away, leaving her wearing almost nothing but a dudou. The moment she touched the wall, the cold made her shiver.
Because of this, her mind cleared slightly, and she finally noticed a few things were wrong. For instance, why was she wearing a dudou?
And why was the only light in the room a tiny flickering flame? Where were the lights?
Even in the most backward mountain village, there should be electric lights, right?
Also, these walls looked remarkably like they were made of mud. And that was definitely thatch on the ceiling, wasn’t it?
As for this man—though she didn’t dare look at his face—she could tell he seemed to have long hair.
There were too many questions. Su Qianqian suddenly felt a swelling pain in her head, and in the next moment, she fainted dead away.
Lu Ye, who had just stepped off the bed, turned around only to find that the little wife he had just married home had shrunk into the corner out of fear.
He frowned slightly, just about to speak, when he realized she had closed her eyes and fainted.
Lu Ye: …
Was he really that terrifying? He just wanted to consummate the marriage with his newly wedded wife.
Since she was unwilling, hadn’t he stopped without forcing her? How did she manage to scare herself unconscious?
Lu Ye felt depressed—extremely depressed.
He had settled in this village about half a year ago. A few days ago, while returning from hunting, he had encountered this little slip of a girl falling into the water.
Seeing that she was about to drown, he didn’t care about anything else and jumped in to save her.
Originally, he intended to let her go home on her own once she was out of the water, but after bringing her ashore, he found she had almost stopped breathing.
In his urgency to save her, he couldn’t worry about the propriety of physical contact between men and women. The only thing he could think of was giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Then, as luck would have it, he was spotted by several village women returning home from gathering wild vegetables. At first, they thought he was trying to assault the girl.
Once they saw the situation clearly, they didn’t say much more, but the girl’s reputation was completely ruined.
Since things had come to this, he had no choice but to help those village women carry the girl back to her home.
On the way back, the women told him about the girl’s circumstances.
The girl was named Su Qianqian, and she had just reached the age of ji ji this year.
A few years ago, Su Qianqian’s father had met with an accident while hunting to support the family. Her pregnant mother, unable to handle the shock, suffered a miscarriage and followed him to the grave not two months later.
Her parents had originally arranged a betrothal for her with Zhang Xiangyang, the younger son of the relatively wealthy Zhang family in the village.
However, not long after her parents died, the Zhang family came to break off the engagement. Instead, Zhang Xiangyang married Su Xiaoluo, the daughter of Su Qianqian’s eldest uncle.
It was difficult for a girl with a broken engagement to find another good match, especially one as an orphan like Su Qianqian.
Consequently, her marriage prospects fell directly into the hands of her uncle and aunt.
What kind of good people could they be, if they were willing to steal their own niece’s betrothal?
Recently, as soon as Su Qianqian reached the age of ji ji, her aunt went to her directly and told her that since her reputation was ruined, she could only be married off to Wang Mazi, the butcher.
Wang Mazi was nearly thirty and a widower. Su Qianqian was naturally unwilling, but in this world, young girls had no right to choose for themselves.
In her despair, she had jumped into the river, and that was how he had ended up involved.
When he brought Su Qianqian home, he had intended to just drop her off, but her uncle’s family wouldn’t even let him bring her inside.
They insisted on making a scene at the front gate. At first, he wondered why this family cared so little for the girl’s reputation.
But the moment the aunt opened her mouth, he knew what kind of evil schemes they were brewing.
Her aunt and uncle used the excuse that he had compromised their niece’s virtue to demand that he take responsibility and marry Su Qianqian. Furthermore, they demanded a bride price of ten taels.
Their reasoning was simple: Butcher Wang had offered that price. Now that her reputation was ruined, Butcher Wang certainly wouldn’t want her anymore, so Lu Ye had to compensate them.
By the customs of this place, the bride price for a wife was usually two taels of broken silver. For a family in better circumstances, it might be around five taels. Su Qianqian’s uncle’s family asking for ten taels showed just how black their hearts were.