Chapter 101 A Man's Voice Emits from the Eyeball...
Wang Tao glanced at Ping Yu: "Mother, this is not good."
Pingyu grabbed the hem of her skirt and looked down at her toes. She pretended to be mute and deaf, acting as if she didn't exist, trying to minimize her presence.
Madam Wang frowned and said, "What's wrong with it? We didn't steal or rob. This child was bought with my money."
Wang Tao: "It won't work."
“Go register her in the household tomorrow, and she’ll be part of our family,” Wang Xushi poked her forehead hard. “No way, this child will be your daughter-in-law!”
Ping Yu listened intently, trying to glean information from their conversation: Compared to other villagers, Wang Xu's home looked much more respectable. At least the chickens she raised were all glossy and healthy, and everything was kept tidy. Her family wasn't wealthy, but they could certainly afford to feed another mouth. Ordinary families, even if they wanted a son, would want a son, not just any girl. Buying a child bride might be understandable, but families where marriage required a monetary transaction… usually had a man with a disability or intellectual disability.
As she was thinking, she suddenly felt a poke behind her. Pingyu instinctively turned around, but there was no one there. She suddenly remembered what was in her backpack—the severed hand was inside. It absolutely could not be discovered by anyone else! Pingyu broke out in a cold sweat and tried to release some spiritual energy to warn it.
The severed hand said it had been too lonely and had stayed at the bottom of the enclosed lake for too long, so it was unwilling to enter the storage space. It seemed to know that it couldn't be too unrestrained outside, so it simply pressed against the girl's back, peeking out its fingers from the gaps in the square cloth bundle tied at the four corners.
Pingyu froze, too afraid to move, the fingertips of the severed hand tracing patterns on her back.
Each stroke is carefully constructed to ultimately form a few simple characters:
[Legs, in the well]
Is the severed hand and leg in the well at Wang Xu's house?
Receiving this suggestion, Pingyu was shaken. She looked up to follow, only to meet the gazes of Wang Xushi and Wang Tao. The two looked up, seemingly surprised that the girl was also looking at them. As their eyes met, Pingyu, preoccupied with her own thoughts, felt inexplicably nervous. After a brief moment of stunned silence, Wang Xushi recovered. She had misunderstood and explained, "Don't worry, I don't intend to send you back."
The woman, perhaps upset by her argument with Wang Tao, softened her stiff tone. Wang Tao remained silent, turning her head away as Wang Xu spoke. The woman, nearing forty, reached out and pulled Pingyu's arm, saying, "Child, come here."
Without a word, she placed the girl's palm on Wang Tao's swollen belly: "This is your future husband."
Ping Yu realized his earlier guess was correct. They had indeed bought her to be the wife of their unborn child. A marriage purchased with money could also be for another reason: to bring good fortune. However, the woman chosen for this purpose had strict requirements regarding her birth chart (Ba Zi). If this family knew her birth chart, she'd probably be cursed as a "jinx" and thrown out on the spot!
Pingyu wondered: Why didn't this family ask about my birth date and time, and why do they want to marry me off to someone disabled or intellectually challenged? Or rather…
What exactly is she carrying?
Sensing the second life beneath the woman's skin through her belly, the girl gathered her complex thoughts. Regardless of the interpretation, it was the worst possible start for Pingyu; she had walked into a wolf's den. Wang Xu observed the girl's reaction; her gaze was blank, as if she were lost in thought. The child was too young; she didn't understand relationships outside of family, hence her slow reaction. After a moment, Pingyu pretended to just realize what was happening. She solemnly said to Wang Xu, "Auntie, I will protect the little brother in Sister Tao's belly!"
Wang Xu chuckled: "Once it's registered in the household tomorrow, you'll have to start calling me Grandma."
After saying that, she led Pingyu into the house: "Good boy, look at you. You should wash your face first."
Until she was led away, Wang Tao didn't turn her head back even once. The house was simply built, with the rooms and halls neatly arranged in a beautiful square. Ping Yu entered through the front door and exited through the back; the Wang family's well, which she had been longing for, was in the backyard. Several pieces of clothing were drying in the backyard, enough to form a curtain to conceal the two of them. The well was made of stone bricks, and looked neither large nor small, but rather unremarkable. Ping Yu glanced inside; the bottom of the well was deep and dark, and she couldn't see what was inside.
Seeing that her gaze was fixed on the well, Wang Xushi smiled and said, "Don't worry, our well is the only one in this village that doesn't lack water. There's plenty of water, enough to wash all the mud off you!"
Ping Yu's ears twitched: What do you mean by "Our well doesn't lack water"?
The mountain peak where she and Lu Ya had settled was lush with vegetation, clearly nourished by abundant water resources. If there's water on the mountain, there shouldn't be a shortage below. The villagers all seemed to be in good spirits, not like they'd suffered from a drought. Ping Yu was puzzled, and a worried expression appeared on her face: "Really? Auntie, Grandma, my grandpa says I'm a money-loser and can't use water. They only use dishwater to wash me... Isn't it a bit of a waste to use such clean well water on me?"
"Tch, that old hag!" The girl's words were so absurd that Wang Xushi forgot to refute the strange address of "Auntie, Madam." She cursed a few times, then said, "You might have to be more frugal in other families, but not here! Besides, how much is water worth? You're just a child taking a bath, it's not like we're going to use this well to fill the river! We're all straightforward people here, so you'd better be clean and tidy when you come in. Wash, wash for a while!"
Wang Xu grabbed Pingyu's clothes and tried to pull them down, saying, "Grandma will help you rub them!"
"Damn it, you can't help me wash! Not only does her clean face look nothing like a mistreated child, but what if this person discovers the severed hand on her back?" Ping Yu quickly grabbed her clothes and shook her head vigorously, "No, no need! I...I...I can wash it myself!!"
As the child grows up, he will also know shame, so Wang Xushi does not force him.
Pingyu recognized the voice as that of a young man, a rather honest and simple tone. The speaker must be a male member of the family; even as she was about to bathe Pingyu, Wang Xushi made no attempt to hide it from him: "Luozi, this is the daughter-in-law your mother found for your son. Why didn't you tell her this yourself? It's so hard for me to shout!"
"How could I come, Mother? Tao Niang said you were washing up!"
“That’s true,” Wang Xushi said, eager to see her son, but finding herself unable to open Pingyu’s clothes, she simply let go. The woman filled a bucket with water and smashed it on the ground, then slipped out: “Then don’t come in, the child is washing herself. Let’s both stay at the door and watch, so no one comes in and startles her.”
Having said that, Wang Xushi's figure gradually disappeared into the distance. The clothes hanging there, overlapping and drying, formed a curtain, making everyone seen through the garments appear like figures in a shadow play, whether viewed from the inside or outside. Pingyu and the well became the only actors on the stage. She went to the bucket of water the woman had drawn. The meditation method Lu Ya Daoren had taught her over the past two days came in handy. Pingyu didn't need to completely submerge herself in the well; she only needed to draw some water and dip her hand in to sense it. Fortunately, the man called "Laozi" returned in time, and with no one around, Pingyu could proceed easily. She tried to put her hand into the well, but her movements were slow and hesitant, as if hindered by an external force.
Her sixth sense was always very accurate, and the conversation the woman had before leaving echoed in Pingyu's mind again and again.
There were no other shadows outside the curtain, which means the man was indeed standing some distance away, as he said. However, sound travels with distance; even if someone speaks loudly, their location can be discerned. For example, the other person's voice just now seemed very close, as if...
Pingyu dipped her hand into the water, and the icy winter well water sent a shiver down her spine. She hunched over, her head tilting downwards to look at the water's surface. For that one glance, Pingyu dared not blink.
Even though her hands were frozen, she didn't pull them out.
She saw a bony finger slip through the seam of the curtain, like a centipede's legs, tearing open a "crack." The crack was narrow, but the person who entered pressed just enough to see one eye close. That eye was bulging, the whites of the eye a mixture of pus and bloodshot veins. It seemed to be shrouded in disheveled hair, staring intently at the girl's back. Pingyu saw that her silhouette projected onto the curtain was long and slender, with a prominent bust.
It was clearly a woman's body, yet the eyeballs spoke in a man's voice. She asked, "Little sister, are you done washing?"
It's as if eyelids are lips, and blinking is speaking.
With each opening and closing of its mouth, the tone was deep and honest, just like the sound of a branding iron.
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