Chapter 109 Leaving the Village
The woman in the green jacket smiled and led Chen Yun around the maze-like village once again.
Similar houses, similar roads—if Chen Yun hadn't had such sharp eyesight, she would never have been able to discern the pattern from the two tiny numbers carved on the wall.
"arrive."
The woman stopped at the number thirty-two. Instead of pushing the door open, she raised her hand and knocked.
After three short knocks, the door was immediately pulled open from the inside.
Chen Yun appeared to be slightly bowing her head to tidy her hair, but her gaze swept over the door bolt from under her hand and she immediately noticed the problem.
The lock on the door was on the inside, and the iron chain hanging from the black lock was thicker than Chen Yun's wrist.
This lock is meant to keep out family members, not... people from the village!
Chen Yun pretended not to see it, finished fixing her hair and went to organize her medicine box, but in fact she kept an eye on the middle-aged man's every move as he opened the door.
The lock was opened, the key was taken off and hung on the belt, and a stick was picked up from the ground next to it to serve as a bolt.
"What's the doctor's last name?"
The woman and the middle-aged man mouthed something they couldn't understand, and the next moment the woman in green started asking about Chen Yun's surname.
"His surname is Chen."
"Dr. Chen, please go to the next room to rest for a while. I'll go in and check on my daughter-in-law."
"Okay! I'm really tired after walking for several hours on mountain roads!" Chen Yun stretched wearily as soon as she finished speaking. "Call me if the woman in labor starts having contractions."
"Don't worry." The woman raised her hand to the haggard woman sitting at the door of the main room chopping pig feed: "Cuiyun, take Doctor Chen to the next room to rest for a while."
"Yes, Mother!"
The woman dropped the wood-chopping knife and stood up, her face blank and expressionless, but the fleeting look of surprise in her eyes did not escape Chen Yun's notice.
The middle-aged man followed.
"Where is Dr. Chen from?"
“My husband is from Beicheng, so I can now be considered a Beicheng resident as well.”
“No wonder Dr. Chen’s accent doesn’t sound like that of a native of Beicheng. It turns out her household registration followed her husband to Beicheng…” The man’s gaze swept over the watch strap that flashed beneath Chen Yun’s white coat sleeve, and he grinned, revealing his bright white teeth: “What does Dr. Chen’s husband do for a living?”
“My husband works in the Public Security Bureau, the same unit as my father-in-law.”
The man's eyelids twitched slightly, and the smile on his lips stiffened a bit: "Dr. Chen is so lucky, she's married into a police family!"
“They look glamorous to outsiders, but police officers are busy working outside during holidays.” Chen Yun raised his hand, revealing his watch completely: “My wife’s relatives are all police officers, and we can’t even get everyone together for New Year’s Eve dinner.”
The man's lips trembled, but he stopped the moment he stepped across the threshold.
His fear of the word "police" was not only reflected in his facial expression, but his body automatically moved away as if it were an instinct.
"Cuiyun has arranged for Doctor Chen to be taken care of. It's inconvenient for me, a man, to go in." The man stood outside the door, his fierce gaze fixed on the haggard woman.
The woman shrugged, turned her head timidly, and continued leading the way.
The family arranged for Chen Yun to rest in the second main room.
The room was covered in a thick layer of dust, and the windows had been nailed shut from the outside. After looking around, Chen Yun chose a spot that was relatively clean to sit down.
"Waaaaah...waaaah..."
The haggard woman pointed to the bed, then turned and pointed to the basin, her sobbing sound as dry and harsh as rusty harp strings.
The woman was mute...
Chen Yun smiled and nodded: "Then thank you, sister-in-law. I really want to lie down for a while."
The woman left the room.
Chen Yun's smiling face suddenly darkened, and her hands, which were resting on her knees, tightened in anger, her nails digging fiercely into her skin.
Just as the woman was making whimpering expressions, Chen Yun clearly saw that there was only half a tongue in her open mouth.
Since the woman could hear Chen Yun speak, it meant she wasn't born mute. Considering the half-tongue, the most likely explanation was that she became mute through artificial means.
The midwife was absolutely right... This is a place that eats people.
Quietly suppressing her anger, she secretly took out the pen she had just used to write from her pocket and held it in her palm. She looked left and right but couldn't find any suitable paper to write on. Then she looked down and saw the white coat she was wearing.
When the woman entered the room again, there was only a white overcoat on the octagonal table.
Chen Yun stood behind the door, glanced into the courtyard through the crack, and then gently raised her hand to close the door.
The woman instinctively flinched, quickly turned around, and only relaxed after seeing that Chen Yun had closed the door.
"Can you hear me?" Chen Yun asked.
The woman nodded.
"Then I'll ask you questions and you can answer them; all you need to do is nod or shake your head."
The woman nodded again.
Can you write?
After a slight pause, the woman raised her eyebrows and slowly nodded.
"Okay! Were you trafficked to Changsun Village?"
The woman suddenly became agitated, gripping Chen Yun's arm tightly, the rag she was using to wipe the table dripping water from her clenched hands.
“Here’s a pen. Write down your name and hometown.” Chen Yun held her hand and said gently, “Trust me, I will definitely get you out of here.”
The pen was handed to the woman, and Chen Yun took the rag and started cleaning.
Chen Yun wondered where everyone in the courtyard had gone. She looked out the door from time to time but didn't see anyone pass by. Moreover, the lock that had just been opened was locked again at some point.
The woman took a pen and carefully wrote down her true identity, which had been silent for many years and never been mentioned again, on her white coat.
When the crisp knocking sounded again, Chen Yun quickly returned to the table, picked up her white coat, and put it on.
She guessed correctly; soon the middle-aged woman in green pushed open the door and walked in without even knocking.
The woman was making the bed, while Chen Yun lay on the table, seemingly asleep.
"Get out of here right now!" the middle-aged woman snapped in a low voice.
Chen Yun: "..."
creak—
The door was closed again, and the sound of two slaps coming from outside pierced Chen Yun's heart.
"If you dare say anything you shouldn't again, you can forget about living."
"Get out of here and feed the pigs."
The footsteps faded into the distance.
"If it weren't for your wife, would I have taken such a big risk to bring a doctor from outside into our home?"
"If the village chief finds out that we actually brought the police officers' families into the village, we're all doomed."
"Just one night. If she still can't give birth by tomorrow, we can't let this doctor stay. We'll send her out of the village first thing tomorrow morning."
"Damn it, how did I end up with a family that's all police officers?"
The woman in green mumbled a lot of things in a low voice, then peeked into the room through the crack in the door. Seeing that Chen Yun was still lying motionless on the table, she finally felt a little relieved.
She was reprimanding the middle-aged man who had just inquired about Chen Yun's family.
He sighed regretfully, "It's a pity we can't touch that young woman, otherwise we could keep her as my third wife."
"If you want a wife, let your dad have another one. We can't touch this female doctor." The woman slapped the man's arm hard. "Didn't you hear what Sun Mopan's wife said about the soldiers waiting at the village entrance? You want to kill our whole village?!"
The man chuckled twice: "I know."
"Good to know!"
The mother and son spoke softer and softer until they were completely inaudible.
Chen Yun picked at his ear and slowly raised his head.
Having better hearing than most people is a good thing most of the time, like today when it helped Chen Yun a lot.
They thought their conversation was barely louder than a mosquito's buzz, but she heard it clearly. She couldn't help but secretly rejoice that she had been on the same wavelength earlier and hadn't told the truth.
Chen Yun simply walked to the door, where he could see the situation in the courtyard through the window cracks and also use the dim light to see what the woman had written.
The back of the white coat was covered with dense writing, much of it seeping through the fabric.
Thankfully, the middle-aged woman in green didn't come closer to look, otherwise she would have definitely seen the characters all over her back.
The woman's name is Li Tingxiu. She is from Mihe County, Zhoushun City. Six years ago, she was kidnapped by two men while chopping firewood in the back mountain of the village.
Before being sold to Changsun, Li Tingxiu's tongue had been cut off. The man who bought her was called Sun the Blacksmith. Because his eldest son died young from a fever, he bought two women to have children for his second son.
The Sun family didn't know that Li Tingxiu was literate and could write, and the Li family didn't shy away from telling her anything.
Sun the blacksmith's second son preferred another pretty girl. Li Tingxiu was more of a servant and bed warmer in the Sun family than a daughter-in-law.
Besides having to serve her second son, she was also frequently insulted by her nominal father-in-law, the blacksmith Sun.
At the very bottom of the hem of her dress, Li Tingxiu wrote only four words: "I want to go home!"
Li Tingxiu just wanted to leave this village that was like hell.
Large tears rolled down, quickly blurring the crooked but painstakingly written words on her clothes.
Chen Yun put on her white coat, then took a spare white coat from the medicine box and put it on as well. She even smeared a layer of dust on the wall.
By the time everything was finished, it was already pitch black outside.
The woman had called Chen Yun to dinner once, but when she opened the door and saw that Chen Yun was sleeping soundly in bed, she tiptoed out and took the medicine box that Chen Yun had placed on the table.
After searching the medicine box and finding nothing unusual, they quietly returned it.
In the darkness, Chen Yun's lips curled up.
The Sun family didn't call Chen Yun that night, so it seemed the woman next door hadn't started labor yet. Chen Yun drifted off to sleep until dawn.
Before dawn, the first thing I did after getting up was to take off my white coat covered in writing and stuff it into the inner compartment of the medicine box.
After the rooster crowed for the first time, there was a knock on the door.
Has Dr. Chen gotten up yet?
"Get up!" Chen Yun smoothed her hair, walked over, and opened the door. "Has the mother started labor?"
"No, my daughter-in-law's belly hasn't shown any signs of labor at all." The middle-aged woman in the green dress was still wearing the same jacket as yesterday, and she rubbed her hands apologetically: "I'm sorry to have troubled you to come all this way, but I don't think she'll be able to start labor anytime soon."
"fine."
"I'll take you out of the village before the sun comes up! It'll get hot and hard to walk in a bit."
After the woman finished speaking, she stuffed two piping hot cornbread buns into Chen Yun's arms, then gently pushed Chen Yun towards the door.
I can't wait to send Chen Yun away... It seems something else happened last night that I don't know about.
"Okay! I'll be going now."
Chen Yun readily agreed and followed the blacksmith's wife's lead to walk out.
As she reached the doorway, Li Tingxiu stood in the kitchen on tiptoe and pointed downwards with all her might.
Chen Yun immediately understood and hugged the steamed bun tightly to her chest.
They walked very fast, and Sun the blacksmith's wife even started to jog as she walked behind, stopping abruptly only when they reached the gatehouse at the village entrance.
"Then I'll leave Dr. Chen here."
The gate opened wide and then quickly closed, instantly shutting out all sights of this disgusting village.
"Director Chen!"
Ye Jian, who was already stationed by the roadside, immediately went to greet Chen Yun when he saw him come out.
Chen Yun nodded to him, but the first thing he did was open the bundle containing the steamed buns.
Sure enough, there were a few words written in charcoal inside.
Sun Yaowu returned to the village last night.
Another exit.
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