Chapter 90: Eighteen is gone!
Eighteen woke up, Eighteen was unhappy, Eighteen was very sad.
Today was market day, and Sister Liu and several shop assistants were very busy and didn't have much time to play with her. Being a restless person, she got bored after sitting on the doorstep for a while, then chased after a butterfly, and then followed a peddler into a small alley.
The peddler stopped, and she stopped too; the peddler walked, and she walked too. The peddler became frightened: "Little girl, why are you following me? Have you gotten separated from your family?"
Eighteen pointed to a small clay figurine in his basket: "I want to sculpt a person."
"Do you want to learn how to make dough figurines?"
"Yes! Uncle, can you teach me?"
The little girl had a round, fair face, and wore neat and beautiful clothes without a single patch. She was lovely and spoke in a soft, sweet, and childlike voice that made everyone who heard her feel warm and fuzzy. He would gladly give her everything in his basket, let alone teach her how to make dough figurines.
The alley was deserted, and the spot where they stood was perfectly sheltered from the sun. It was a crisp autumn day, the most comfortable time of the year. A peddler of about forty years old and a little girl of four or five sat on the ground. The peddler taught diligently, and the little girl learned diligently as well. From time to time, one could hear the little girl's frustrated voice and the peddler's encouraging voice.
Finally, a little girl's joyful voice echoed through the alley: "I'm done! Uncle, I'm done! Isn't it pretty? Isn't it pretty?!"
The figure sculpted by the peddler is a young woman. Although the peddler has never seen her in person, judging from the figure, the woman he sculpted must be very beautiful.
"Is the eighteen-year-old girl your mother?"
"No, no! Eighteen made a coin of Eighteen's most beloved person!" Eighteen said, pulling a handful of coins from her chest pouch. "Uncle, how much is it?"
"It's yours, no money required."
"No, no, my sister said I can't take other people's things for free. They have to pay for them! I can't take your things, but I can buy them! My sister gave me money! She told me to buy whatever I like! Uncle, look, I have money, I have lots of money!"
The little bag was heavy; it must have contained at least a hundred coins! To let a child who was only a few years old carry so much money on the street alone, and even open the bag to show him!
This woman has such a big heart!
The peddler silently took ten coins: "Alright, fasten it up and hide it well. I've sold you the dough figurine. Where do you live? I'll take you home."
"No need, Uncle! I know the way myself! Thank you, Uncle! Goodbye, Uncle! You're a good man, you'll definitely make a fortune! My sister always said that good people always make a fortune!"
The peddler chuckled. He thought, "She only taught me how to sculpt a dough figurine and she's already a good person? The bar for being a good person is really low."
The little girl, who was skipping and hopping around, suddenly turned around and exclaimed, "Uncle! You're a good person!"
"Am I a good person?" The peddler murmured to himself, watching the little girl's retreating figure. "So I really am a good person!"
After waving goodbye to the peddler, Shiba was eager to show her work to Zhou Mujiao. She ran so fast that she didn't realize she had already become someone else's prey.
When she was still several dozen feet away from the alley exit, she saw an old woman struggling to walk towards her, leaning against the wall. She coughed several times with each step, looking as if she was so ill that she could collapse at any moment.
Although it was a narrow alley, the road was quite wide. Shiba still darted to the other side of the road, walking with his back against the wall, looking very wary. When he saw the old woman looking over, Shiba took off running.
There was a heavy thud behind him. Shiba turned around and saw that the old woman had fallen to the ground!
The old woman reached out her hand and cried out for help: "Help! Help me..."
Eighteen ran even faster.
Aunt Zhou and the other aunts and uncles from the Zhao family were all fierce and wicked, always trying to harm people. When Shiba was still very young, she would go down the mountain to play on the sixth and ninth days of the lunar month. Many old aunts and grandmothers would deliberately pinch her face hard, pinching her so hard that it hurt her terribly. Therefore, Shiba was very wary of older grandmothers and aunts and would try to hide whenever she saw them.
Zhou Mujiao often taught the children that adults would not ask children for help. Even if a child really needed help, they should not rush over. The best thing to do was to run away as fast as they could and then find another adult.
"Help, help me..."
Without turning his head, Shiba shouted, "I can't hear you, I can't hear you, I can't hear you—ah!"
She bumped her head into a fleshy wall, and her nose was crooked. She cried out in pain, and then she was lifted up by a person.
A tall, thin man, as thin as a bamboo pole, laughed and asked, "Little sister, didn't you hear someone shouting for help? Why are you running? It's not good to stand by and watch someone die."
The eighteen-year-old cried loudly, "I'm not a good child! You're a good child, go save me! Put me down, waaaaah..."
"Hey, you're pretty smart, little girl. Yes, if you're not a good kid, you don't have to save people, but children who aren't good kids get sold off."
"I don't want to... Waaah... Nobody will buy me! At eighteen, I eat five bowls of rice and three chicken legs in one meal! At eighteen, I eat five meals a day! Besides my parents, my older brother, and Sister Jiaojiao, nobody will want me! Sell me to my older brother! You can even sell me to the magistrate's daughter! She likes me so much! She'll definitely give you money!"
The county magistrate's daughter? Is this little baby a relative of the county magistrate?
The old woman who had fallen to the ground got up, tossed her hair, and pulled it out, revealing a head of black hair. Then she reached out and pulled her face, revealing a middle-aged woman's face.
Eighteen was stunned, even forgetting to cry. Watching the woman sway her slender waist as she walked towards him, it took him a long time to finally squeeze out two words: "...Monster!"
The woman slipped, and the tall, thin man laughed loudly: "I told you to walk properly, but you insisted on imitating those prostitutes in brothels! A monster? Hahahaha, definitely a monster... Little girl, you have a good eye!"
"Can you sell me back to my family? My older brother will give you lots and lots of silver. My sister Jiaojiao also has a lot of silver; she'll give you all the silver in our family!"
Eighteen, with tears welling up in her eyes, said, "Otherwise, sell me to the magistrate's daughter. You sell me to her, and she sells me to my sister... That's right, if you sell me directly to my sister, the magistrate's daughter won't make any profit!"
The tall, thin man clicked his tongue: "You're such a fun girl, and so pretty. I wouldn't even want to sell you! Granny Peach Blossom, we're getting on in years. Why don't we retire from this life today, take this girl somewhere no one knows us, and start over under assumed names?"
"Hide your identity? Then run away whenever you see officials? How is that any different from what we're doing now? This little girl is very shrewd. Aren't you afraid she'll turn the tables and sell you out?"
"How could that be? She could be killed with a single finger. She's so cunning, she would never provoke us. Granny Peach Blossom, are you really not going to reconsider?"
Eighteen spoke up: "Yes, Granny Taohong, you should think about it!"
"He eats five bowls of rice in one meal, we can't afford to feed him!"
"Peach--"
"This child has been missing for so long, her family must be looking for her soon. She keeps talking about the magistrate's daughter, she's probably someone from the government! You little devil! Shut her up! Let's go right now!"
Just as the tall, thin man was about to knock Eighteen unconscious, a deep male voice suddenly came from the other end of the alley: "Trying to leave? Did you ask me first?"
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