"What are you dawdling about? You good-for-nothing! Hurry up and change into your new clothes. If the Dragon God Festival is delayed because of you, I'll beat you to a pulp!!"
As soon as Ao Cang entered the depths of Qiao Mei's consciousness, he heard such an offensive insult. After a moment of stunned silence, he looked at the little girl being cursed by a middle-aged fisherman.
Judging from the current situation, it should be early spring, but the little girl's clothes are very thin. In fact, they can no longer be described as clothes; they look more like a dirty and tattered tablecloth with a lot of oil stains on it.
Her entire face was covered by tangled hair, with only her dry, cracked lips visible. In addition, her skin was covered with bruises and welts, and there was a deep cut on her calf that looked like it had been made with a wire.
Ao Cang was stunned, unsure if this little girl, who looked to be no more than twelve years old, was the believer he had met during the day.
After all, there is a world of difference between the two of them.
Just as he was wondering, his perspective began to follow the little girl. After the fierce-looking middle-aged man left, she smiled and took the red dress that looked a bit like the shrouds worn by the dead. She went inside to change.
It was only after she took off all her clothes that Ao Cang discovered that she had even more wounds hidden under her clothes, including burns, scalds, and various new and old wounds that looked like they were from being cut by sharp objects. The extent of the damage to her flesh made it impossible for anyone to have any romantic thoughts about her withered body; instead, they could only feel shock and heartache.
After Xiao Qiaomei quickly changed into her red dress and put on an ill-fitting red suit jacket, the surrounding scenery quickly changed.
She boarded a fishing boat that looked huge. Besides the middle-aged man who had beaten her earlier, there were also many other middle-aged men who looked like fishermen.
And a few other girls, dressed like Xiao Qiaomei but much younger than her.
"Waaaaah... Daddy, I don't want to go to the sacrificial ceremony. Please let me go back, okay? I promise I'll work hard when I get back and I definitely won't slack off!!"
"Waaaaah, I don't want to die, Mommy, I want to see Mommy..."
The youngest of these crying girls looked to be between eight and eleven years old. Although there were few of them, their crying together was still quite noisy.
Soon, a fisherman took out a belt he had prepared beforehand and walked towards one of the little girls, cursing, "What are you crying for? If your bitch mother hadn't abandoned you and your brother, would I be suffering like this all by myself?! It's only right that you go to the sacrifice now! You're paying back your bitch mother's debt!"
"You better behave yourself, or if you dare to yell again, believe me, I'll beat you to death!"
Compared to the other little girls who were being scolded, Xiao Qiaomei was very quiet. She found a corner and stayed there quietly. Unlike the other little girls, her eyes did not show fear or sadness, but rather anticipation and... joy?
Soon, Ao Cang found out why. The giant ship carried several little girls to the sea area near a deserted island and sent them one by one into a house that looked like a floating wooden house. After locking the door, there were not only many thick quilts inside, but also a lot of food.
In terms of quantity, it should last for a maximum of seven days.
Ao Cang followed Xiao Qiao Mei into the locked room and watched as she skillfully took a thick quilt and spread it on the floor, and then took a lot of things that looked like sacrificial offerings and ate them. He roughly guessed the reason in his mind.
The words that Xiao Qiaomei said to comfort the other little girls confirmed his guess.
"Don't cry. If it weren't for this sacrificial ceremony, we wouldn't be able to wear such fine clothes, cover ourselves with warm blankets, or even have enough to eat."
"The sacrifice to the Dragon God lasts for seven days. During these seven days, we don't even get to enjoy such good treatment at home all year round. Don't you understand?"
Her words touched several of the little girls. After they stopped crying, they wiped away their tears and went to get some offerings to eat.
The others continued to cry, but Xiao Qiao Mei ignored them. Instead, she ate her hard bread while looking devoutly at the portrait of the dragon god before her, murmuring softly, "Dragon God, thank you for your protection once again this year..."
Ao Cang couldn't continue reading as he felt his divine power was insufficient, and everything around him was quickly obscured by a thick white mist, forcing him to withdraw from Qiao Mei's divine sense.
When it opened its eyes again, it was caught off guard and met a pair of bright red eyes, which startled it.
"Lord Dragon God, you're awake. We're already on our way to the Sacred Beast Treatment Center. I don't know if you need breakfast, but I've saved some for you anyway."
Qiao Mei activated the autopilot mode of the aircraft, and took out a sandwich she had made herself from the insulated box, handing it to Ao Cangkou.
Ao Cang is a dragon god who feeds by consuming the power of wishes; he does not need to eat.
But seeing the expectation in Qiao Mei's red eyes, he finally sighed and started eating in small bites.
Seeing that he opened his mouth to eat, Qiao Mei dutifully acted as a babysitter, feeding him while chatting with him.
"Aren't you curious why I chose you as my familiar?"
Ao Cang paused in his sandwich-eating, his golden dragon eyes gazing at the girl who was bathed in sunlight, looking radiant and unlike the little girl he had secretly seen in her memory. He nodded.
He was indeed very curious about how she managed to travel through time, from one timeline to another.
Yes, from the moment he entered her memories, he noticed that the place she was in didn't seem to be in interstellar space.
In interstellar space, no one makes a living by fishing anymore, and the oceans are heavily polluted and filled with radiation.
The ocean he saw was so clean that it couldn't have been that clean even a few years or a decade ago.
He had only seen a similar ocean a few hundred years ago, or even a few thousand years ago.
Not to mention the dragon god ritual, which he hadn't heard of in a long time...
Qiao Mei had no idea that Ao Cang had been spying on her memories. When she touched his dragon body inch by inch with her red eyes filled with infatuation, she gave a very vague reason.
"Because when I was younger, I had my life saved by faith in you."
He had also personally saved her.
But Qiao Mei didn't say the last sentence.
She agreed to that promise that if she wanted to remain safely in the world of the book, she couldn't reveal too much of the truth.
Ao Cang could tell that she didn't want to say more, so he didn't ask any more questions. After finishing the whole sandwich in her hand, the aircraft arrived at the Sacred Beast Treatment Center.
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