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墨書 Inktalez
That night, I quietly left home.
The woman next door was named Gu Ju Mei. I knocked on her window, and she opened the door.
"I want to go home. What about you?"
I got straight to the point.
She was taken aback, her eyes filled with hesitation, as if she didn't know how to respond.
"You don't have to rush your answer. Think about your family."
After saying that, I walked away.
That night, I visited several places.
I asked every woman who had been trafficked: Do you want to go home?
They all remained silent.
Deep down, I knew they wanted to go home.
Having lived here for so many years, they had grown accustomed to this life.
Moreover, most of them had children, and their feelings had faded over time.
At that moment, the Village Chief suddenly spoke up.
He announced that he would burn the escaped woman alive in front of everyone.
On the Elevated Structure platform, he shouted into a loudspeaker, "Today, I'm going to burn this scum alive! Let everyone see what happens to those who try to escape!"
"Come here! Tie this woman to the post and douse her with oil. I want to turn her to ashes!"
The woman knelt there, a rag stuffed in her mouth, crying out for help in muffled tones.
A circle of men surrounded her, holding sticks and whips, watching her with predatory eyes.
Fang Xiaoxia was terrified, hiding behind me with her eyes covered, too afraid to look.
"Sister Xia, what should we do?"
She cried urgently, tears streaming down her face.
"Don't make a sound."
I placed my finger on my lips. "There is no law here; the Village Chief is the law."
"But I can't just watch that woman be burned alive!"
She screamed, and I quickly covered her mouth.
The Village Chief waved his hand, and his men threw the torches.
But each time, the torches were deflected, and the woman remained unharmed.
Everyone was terrified, saying it was the Demoness at work.
The Village Chief, not believing in such superstition, ordered someone to stab her with a knife.
The knife flew out as well.
"Who? Who is helping her?"
The Village Chief shouted, but no one answered.
In the end, he decided to leave the woman there without any food or water.
When Fang Xiaoxia returned home, she collapsed on the floor, weakly repeating, "How can this be? How can this be?"
Zhou Tiezhu echoed her words, "How can this be? How can this be?"
I looked at them both and shook my head.
That foolish boy!
I turned around and went into the kitchen to cook.
That night, I sneaked out again.
This time, I went to bring food to that woman.
I walked up to her with a basket, untied her ropes, and stuffed water and food into her hands.
She was very grateful and climbed onto my back.
The next day, I carried her back home.
She sat on the kang in my house, looking restless.
“It's alright. You can stay here. At night, sleep on the kang, and during the day, hide in the cellar,” I reassured her.
She nodded, indicating that she understood.
“Sister, what is your name?”
“Xia Wei.”
“Sister Xia, my name is Zhou Ping. I come from the capital and was deceived into coming here.”
I nodded and helped her clean up and change into fresh clothes.
She hugged me tightly, finally feeling a bit of warmth.
“Sister Xia, I want to go home.”
“You will.”
She fell asleep in my arms.
Early the next morning, I brought her some steamed buns and water. "Go eat in the cellar, and don't come out," I said.
I was busy that day as well.
I dug a secret chamber that no one else knew about.
By evening, the Village Chief called everyone out.
Including us women.
On the stage, the Village Chief looked at us with a grim expression.
His head was wrapped in bandages, indicating he had suffered significant injuries the night before.
"Who took Zhou Ping?"
He shouted through a loudspeaker, "Come out and admit it quickly, or I'll burn all of you alive!"
A man named Li Quan, who often drank and fought, stepped forward. He raised his hand to strike the nearest woman.
As a result, his hand was slapped away once again.
He became frightened, and so did the Village Chief.
"Bring that woman here; I want to burn her!" the Village Chief ordered.
In the end, he still couldn't lay a finger on her.
He was scared—truly scared.
"Bring all these women to the square! I want to burn them alive!"
The men exchanged glances, clearly hesitant.
"What are you afraid of? Once we burn a batch of women, new ones will come!"
The Village Chief shouted in frustration, "If you don’t act now, I’ll burn you all too!"
Suddenly, he crouched down, clutching his head.
He had been struck.
As he fell unconscious, the men rushed to tend to him.
A group of women looked at each other, too afraid to speak.
At that moment, Gu Ju Mei stepped forward and asked me, "Do the words from yesterday still count?"
"Yes," I replied firmly.
"Good, I will follow you."
With that, she turned and walked away.
The other women also expressed their willingness to join me.
After all, this was our only way out.
That night, I gave each woman a sedative and instructed them on when and where to add it to the food.
They were scared but complied nonetheless.
"Sister Xia, I'm scared."
Zhou Ping cried, "But I want to go home too."
I held her close and said, "Don't be afraid. I'm here with you."
That night, we began our operation.
I stayed at home, not venturing outside, while Fang Xiaoxia and Zhou Ping were both quite anxious.
Only Da Zhuang, that silly boy, didn’t understand what we were doing.
"Mom, I'm hungry," he said.
"Just hold on a bit longer," I sighed. "After tonight's operation, you'll have something to eat."
He didn’t grasp what I was saying and simply responded with an "oh."
The village was very quiet; there were no barking dogs or the sounds of men shouting.
The Village Chief had been knocked out and was still lying in bed.
All the women had gone out, leaving me behind.
I grabbed a hoe and stepped outside.
Tonight, I was going to strike the Village Chief again.
This time, it had to succeed.
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