Chapter 769 Donghua was arrested

Donghua was knocked off balance and fell to the ground.

Just as she was about to unleash a torrent of curses, she saw the little girl who had bumped into her tumble and crawl away.

Before she could say anything, four or five burly men suddenly ran up to her and surrounded her.

"You brat, trying to run away?"

"Where do you think you're going? Arrest her!"

The burly man in front grabbed Donghua by the collar and lifted her up.

Donghua was completely stunned.

However, she was quick-witted and quite clever, and she figured out what was going on in a very short time.

She yelled, "The person you're looking for is her—"

She pointed in the direction the little girl had run away, but the little girl had already disappeared.

"You've arrested the wrong person!" Donghua exclaimed. "The person you arrested was wearing a pink dress, and I'm wearing yellow. You've really made a mistake!"

Several burly men stared at her for a while, then exchanged glances.

It's obvious we can't catch that brat who ran away before. If they come back empty-handed, the boss will definitely yell at them.

How about we just go with this girl? She's quite pretty anyway...

"Enough with the nonsense!" The burly leader hoisted Donghua onto his shoulder. "Behave yourself!"

Donghua turned pale with fright.

This is blatant abduction of a woman in the street.

She screamed, "Uncles, aunts, and uncles, help me! Help me..."

There were many pedestrians nearby who stopped when they saw the commotion, but they didn't come over because they didn't know what was going on.

The burly man in the lead glared at her and said, "This is a runaway servant. A girl who signed a contract of servitude and ran away, even if you beat her to death, no one would dare to interfere. What, you want to meddle in other people's affairs?"

Upon hearing this, some kind-hearted elderly people immediately dispersed.

Donghua quickly pulled out some silver from her sleeve: "Whoever saves me, I'll give them money—ah!"

A sudden, excruciating pain shot through the back of her head. She only had time to cry out before losing consciousness.

When I woke up again, it was pitch black all around me, and I had no idea where I was.

She suddenly sat up and touched the cold ground beneath her. Her head started to throb with pain as soon as she moved.

"Damn it, they actually knocked me out!" Donghua cursed angrily. "Do they know who I am? How dare they treat me like this? I'm going to go back and tell my aunt, and she'll send all of you bastards to jail... Oh my god, my head hurts, it hurts so much!"

She stood up cursing, and after her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized that she was in a small attic with a small window at the top. Because it was night, no light came through the window, and the whole room was shrouded in darkness. Her fear was magnified many times over.

"Waaaaah..." She huddled in the corner and cried, "I was wrong, I shouldn't have let Brother Cheng Yi and Sister Qiu Hua go back first, waaaaah, Auntie, please save me..."

"Can you please stop crying?"

Suddenly, a boy's voice came from the other side of the corner.

Donghua was startled and opened her eyes wide, trying to look in that direction. Finally, she saw an even darker figure in the darkness, and it seemed that there was another person there.

She asked in terror, "Who are you...?"

Her voice was still choked with sobs as she tried to hold back her tears and not cry out loud.

"I was captured just like you," the boy said coldly. "You'll be crying later, so save your energy for now."

Hearing that he had also been captured, Donghua breathed a huge sigh of relief.

She groped her way over, stopping a little distance from the boy, and said slowly, "What do you mean by 'I'll be crying later'?"

"This is my fifth day here," the boy said in a cold voice. "In these five days, a total of eleven girls around your age have been brought here. They only stayed here for one night at most before being taken away. As for where they were taken..."

He paused for a moment, then added that he didn't know exactly where he was taking them; it was all just speculation.

He was captured by accident. Because he was a man, he was lucky enough to escape being taken away, but he also had a very difficult five days here.

I wonder how worried his family is. Did they report him to the authorities? Even if they did, they can't find him. Are his parents going crazy?

"Will they be sold to brothels?" Donghua's eyes widened. "How could such a thing happen in the capital, right under the emperor's nose? So many girls are being arrested and sold, isn't anyone investigating... Huh, what's that sound?"

She turned to the side and heard strange noises.

She moved her ear closer to the sound, getting closer and closer to the boy, and exclaimed in surprise, "So you're hungry."

“For the past five days, you’ve only had one bowl of porridge a day, of course you’ll be hungry.” The boy clutched his stomach and moved away from her. “You should rest well and conserve your strength. When they take you out tomorrow, try to escape. You only have this one chance.”

"I'm hungry too." Donghua reached into her sleeve and pulled out a packet of snacks. "Luckily, I like to carry food with me. I'll share half with you."

The boy didn't want them, but he was so hungry that he didn't even have the strength to get up. He shamelessly took the three or four pieces of pastry and slowly ate them.

Donghua hadn't eaten dinner and was indeed starving. She stuffed large mouthfuls of snacks into her mouth and accidentally choked.

"Cough cough cough..." She almost choked to death, "Water, give me water..."

The boy quickly patted her back, saying, "There's no water here."

"I...I have one!" she coughed violently. "I have a bamboo tube hanging from my waist, bring it here...cough cough cough!"

The boy hurriedly took down the bamboo tube, but smelled a sweet aroma, indicating that it didn't seem to contain water at all.

Donghua took the bamboo tube and drank it in big gulps. It was sweet tea she had bought on the street during the day, specially packaged in a bamboo tube. She could take a sip whenever she wanted, and it was so wonderful.

"It's so delicious! I have another bamboo tube here, here you go." Donghua took a bamboo tube from her waist and handed it to her. "Thank you for earlier. My name is Zhao Donghua, what's yours?"

“My name is Li Haoyang.” The boy paused. “You are a girl, you shouldn’t tell your maiden name to a man.”

"You people from the capital always like to be so particular, setting up all sorts of ridiculous rules," Donghua snorted. "A name is just something people call you by. If you want to hide it, then don't have a name at all. Nobody will ever know. In our village, we call each other by our names, and nobody thinks there's anything wrong with it..."

As she talked, she got tired and sleepy, and slowly fell asleep leaning against the wall.

While things were relatively peaceful here, things were in complete chaos at Cheng Wanwan's house.

Grandma Zhao and Madam Sun both thought Donghua would return later, but as it grew darker and darker and it became increasingly late, there was still no sign of the girl.

Cheng Wanwan didn't wait any longer and quickly arranged for all the servants in the house to go out and search.

After making inquiries around, I learned that Donghua had been kidnapped on the street by four or five burly men.

Because those burly men said that Donghua was a runaway slave, no one reported it to the authorities.

At this point, two hours had passed since Donghua was captured.