Chapter 57 Return: For the first time, he embraced her with a gesture of acceptance...
That day, it didn't snow, but the roads were icy, and the cold was so intense that there was nothing one could do.
In the evening, Ye Jianguo, drunk, brought a strange man with a burly face and a thick gold chain around his neck home.
"Come here, Mr. Wang, look, this is my daughter," Ye Jianguo said with a fawning smile, pointing to Ye Yuying who was washing dishes in the corner, "Provincial champion! She's got a very strong physique! She's definitely good material for bearing sons!"
The boss, Mr. Wang, sized Ye Yuying up from head to toe with his murky, malicious eyes, then nodded in satisfaction: "Not bad, not bad. How many did you say you wanted, twenty?"
Ye Yuying felt as if the blood in her body had frozen into ice in an instant.
She knew that her hellish life was about to enter its most terrifying phase. She couldn't wait any longer; she had to escape, immediately!
However, she suppressed her fear and anger, and continued to face the two of them with that numb, submissive, and lifeless expression.
Ye Jianguo and Boss Wang used those filthy words to treat her like a skeleton made of pork, but she did not show the slightest dissatisfaction, nor did she reveal the slightest fear or disgust.
Years of living in hell taught her the most important survival rule: in the face of a demon, only by pretending to be a more harmless and compliant prey will he mistakenly believe that you have given up and gradually relax his guard, thus creating an opportunity to deliver a fatal blow.
"Go, pour Mr. Wang a cup of hot tea. Have some sense!" Ye Jianguo was clearly very pleased with Mr. Wang's satisfied attitude. He turned around and impatiently ordered Ye Yuying.
“…Okay.” Ye Yuying obediently replied, lowered her head, and turned to walk towards the greasy kitchen, where only a dim yellow light shone in the corner.
This is a golden opportunity.
The kitchen has a back door that has been in disrepair for years and can only be opened from the inside by a latch. Outside the door is a large expanse of barren fields outside the village.
Ye Yuying's heart pounded wildly, as if gripped tightly by an invisible hand. Yet her movements were terrifyingly calm.
She didn't immediately pour tea. Instead, she scooped half a ladle of rice from the rice container, pretending to rinse it, to buy herself some time. Then, she went to the stove, turned on the gas, lit the fire, and placed a large iron pot filled with cold water heavily on the stove.
Outside, frost and cold had settled.
Inside the room, the unrestrained laughter and drinking games of the two men became the background noise of her actions.
Listening to the sounds outside, she silently moved to the closed back door. With all her might, she slowly and silently lifted the rusty, cold iron bolt upwards.
Opening this door would be too noisy. It was the only exit that Ye Jianguo hadn't sealed off, and she had never touched it, precisely because she didn't want to attract his attention.
The kitchen is usually locked and only opened when she needs to cook. Ye Jianguo is usually present, so there is no chance for her to tamper with the door latch.
Whenever deafening laughter erupted outside, she would seize the opportunity to grab an iron spoon and tap the latch an inch.
And so they worked tirelessly, inch by inch, to help her escape.
"Click".
With a very soft click, almost drowned out by the men's laughter and curses, the door bolt opened.
Just then, the pot of water on the stove began to gurgle and spew out huge amounts of scalding steam.
The time has come.
Ye Yuying picked up the pot of boiling water, brewed a pot of tea, and carefully walked out of the kitchen.
Under the dim light, her face appeared somewhat blurred by the steam, but her eyes were unusually calm and frightening.
"Mr. Wang, have some tea." She walked to the table, her voice still as submissive as ever.
Just as Boss Wang and Ye Jianguo turned to look at her, their faces showing impatience and lewd smiles, Ye Yuying lowered her head and obediently said, "I'll go cook for Boss Wang."
"Hahaha! See that, Boss Wang!" Ye Jianguo slapped his thigh proudly, then patted Boss Wang's shoulder forcefully, boasting, "My daughter may not have any other skills, but she's sensible, obedient, and caring!"
He waved his greasy hand in Ye Yuying's direction: "Not bad, not bad, I like obedient girls like you. Go and cook us a couple of good dishes to go with our drinks! You'll be well taken care of if you follow me!"
Ye Yuying gave a forced smile and a low reply, then turned around and walked obediently and slowly toward the kitchen.
Just as Ye Yuying's body was completely enveloped in the dim shadow of the kitchen doorway and disappeared from their sight—
All the docile and timid air about her vanished instantly!
A startling, fierce, and insane light burst forth from her usually quiet eyes!
Without the slightest hesitation, she turned around abruptly, like a cheetah that had been gathering strength for a long time and finally breaking free from all restraints, and burst out towards the fields outside the kitchen with the fastest and most decisive speed she had ever experienced!
Her start, her sprint, her long-suppressed explosive power, honed through countless trials, became her only and most powerful weapon for survival at this moment!
When Ye Jianguo and Boss Wang smelled the burnt smell of the kitchen after the water had dried up, they realized what was happening and rushed into the kitchen only to find the wooden door wide open, with only a thin, fading figure in the field.
"You bitch! How dare you run away!" Ye Jianguo roared furiously.
The boss next to him spat: "Run? Let her run! There are dozens of miles of mass graves and wasteland ahead, no lights and no roads, and it's so cold. Where can a little girl like her run to? In less than half an hour, she'll be crying and rolling back on her own!"
Ye Yuying didn't turn around, but plunged headfirst into the boundless, howling darkness outside!
Beneath our feet lay icy, bone-chilling soil and ice, while in our faces came a biting, knife-like wind.
She didn't care about anything else; only one thought occupied her mind—run!
Tonight, she will be the only outlaw in this dark wilderness, fighting for her own life.
She had to run frantically to scatter the wandering ghosts in the mass grave!
She knew that there was no one in front of her, which was why Ye Jianguo was able to imprison her and Jiang Xinxue for several years. Jiang Xinxue was physically weak, and Ye Yuying was too young to escape at the time. Even if they did escape, they would either die on the way or be caught again.
And for the first time, her legs, which had once won her glory, bore a weight heavier than any gold medal, a weight concerning life and freedom.
It was more intense and magnificent than any match she had ever played before.
Her lungs felt like they were filled with ice shards, each breath bringing excruciating, tearing pain. The muscles in her legs had long since reached their limit, mechanically and numbly alternating between contractions.
She fell, but immediately got up. Her palms and knees were cut and bleeding from sharp stones, but she didn't care.
The fear she had of this wilderness in her childhood has now become fuel for her survival.
She wasn't afraid of any mass graves; a living person like Ye Jianguo was a million times more terrifying than any demon or monster.
She didn't know how long she had been running, an hour, or two hours. Until all her strength was exhausted, and her body temperature was about to be swallowed up by the cold winter night.
Finally, on the distant horizon, she saw a faint glimmer of light belonging to the civilized world.
That's... a highway!
A tremendous will to survive surged from the deepest part of her body once again. With her last bit of strength, she broke free from the desolation that had trapped her throughout her childhood, staggering as she collapsed onto the cold, hard side of the national highway.
On the road, large trucks occasionally roared past, bringing with them a strong gust of wind, but no one stopped for the girl who was thinly dressed and covered in mud in the cold night.
She dared not get into any unfamiliar car, because they were all very likely acquaintances of Ye Jianguo, and what's worse, if she encountered human traffickers, she would fall into a new hell.
She walked along the road like a lonely soul.
The light of hope was right in front of her, but she felt her body getting colder and colder, and her consciousness began to blur.
Just as she was about to collapse by the roadside—
In the darkness in the distance, several glaring red and blue warning lights suddenly lit up, standing out conspicuously on the pitch-black national highway, and also...reassuringly so.
There's an accident ahead!
It's a police car!
This realization was like a powerful stimulant, instantly injecting into Ye Yuying's heart, which was on the verge of stopping!
For the first time, a faint flame of survival rekindled in her eyes, which had long lost their luster and were now ashen.
She stopped walking and, with her last ounce of strength, launched her final and most important sprint of the night toward the light source that symbolized order and safety.
Her legs were already numb, each step felt like walking on knife points. Her lungs felt like a broken bellows, each breath carrying the stench of blood. But she ignored it all, her eyes fixed only on the approaching red and blue light.
When she finally stumbled and staggered into the cordoned-off area of the accident scene, illuminated by police lights, like a moth drawn to a fire, everyone present was startled by the girl who suddenly emerged from the darkness, covered in mud and dressed in thin clothes.
A young policeman strode forward, took off his thick police coat, and wrapped it tightly around the girl who had fallen into a coma and was as thin as a skeleton.
"Quick! Contact the command center and request an ambulance!" he shouted to his colleague. "We've found a minor girl here who may have been abducted or abused. She's hypothermic and unconscious!"
The older police officer immediately picked up the walkie-talkie and reported the situation to his superiors.
...
At 4:00 AM local time, an international flight transiting through Frankfurt landed smoothly on the runway.
Cheng Mingdu was among the first first-class passengers to disembark. He wore a simple black trench coat and his face showed signs of fatigue from the long flight, but his deep eyes burned with an almost tangible, cold flame.
He rushed back overnight and bought the fastest flight with a layover in Germany.
He didn't wait for his luggage, but walked straight out and dialed the housekeeper's number, his voice low and suppressed: "I've landed. Send me the exact address of Ye Jianguo's hometown. Have you heard anything from the police?"
Before the other party could answer, a new landline call came in.
Cheng Mingdu was a little confused, so he swiped to answer the call.
"Hello," came a steady, middle-aged man's voice from the other end of the phone, "Is this Mr. Cheng Mingdu?"
"Yes, that's me. Who is it?"
"This is the People's Hospital of Dujiang County, and we are from the County Public Security Bureau. We have a girl named Ye Yuying here," the policeman on the other end of the phone paused, seemingly organizing his thoughts.
“She was brought to us early yesterday morning due to hypothermia and exhaustion, but she is now out of danger. We did not find any identification on her. After she woke up, she provided your phone number and said that you are her guardian.”
Cheng Mingdu abruptly stopped in his tracks.
He stood in the bustling, noisy airport hall, and at that moment, all the sounds of the world seemed to be sucked out of the air.
All he could hear was the policeman's voice on the phone and the clear beating of his own heart.
She escaped.
The girl he was prepared to rescue personally escaped on her own!
The door to the county hospital ward was pushed open, and a tall, imposing figure, carrying the dust and chill of a journey that had taken him halfway around the world, strode quickly toward her.
He had just come from Southern Europe and was wearing only a simple black trench coat.
His face held an expression Ye Yuying had never seen before—a mixture of extreme anger, lingering fear, and extreme tension.
Ye Yuying stared blankly at the figure walking towards her, at the face she had longed for repeatedly in her dreams, in emails, and in every moment of despair.
She didn't expect Cheng Mingdu to be able to cross half the globe immediately, so when she saw him a few hours later, she thought she was hallucinating.
She thought that this was God's way of giving her one last, most tender dream, because He was afraid she would go mad with a broken heart.
Until that figure knelt down in front of her.
Until she heard the man she hadn't been able to face for months call out her name in a hoarse yet clear voice as his vocal cords vibrated.
"Ye Yuying".
Looking at the incredibly real face that belonged to Cheng Mingdu, she couldn't immediately tell if it was a hallucination or delirium. But thinking about everything that had happened in the past few months, she had originally hoped that he would come back in the fall to witness her brilliance in the competition. But later, she hoped that he would not come back, because she had fallen back into the mire...
At this moment, whether it was a hallucination or reality, every cell in her body was filled with trust and dependence on the person in front of her. There was no blood relation between them, and he was sometimes even excessively distant and indifferent, but none of this changed one fact—
Cheng Mingdu was the person in this world who treated her better than any of her relatives, except for her grandmother and aunt.
Her eyes reddened, and she quickly closed them tightly. The vulnerability she thought she had long since dried up, belonging to a young girl, turned into two streams of hot tears, flowing freely down her pale and thin cheeks.
She dared not open her eyes, afraid that if she did, this gentle, real dream would shatter like a bubble.
Cheng Mingdu never came back; it was all an illusion.
He reached out his hand, his movements somewhat stiff, yet carrying a kind of cautiousness that even he himself was unaware of.
The slightly rough, warm touch from my fingertips felt so real.
"Don't be afraid."
His voice, hoarse from the long flight and extreme emotional suppression, carried a calming and reassuring power.
"It's me."
"I'm back."
These three words, like a divine decree, completely shattered all of Ye Yuying's doubts and anxieties.
It was neither a hallucination nor delirium.
It was him.
Ye Yuying could no longer hold back. Tears welled up in her tightly closed eyes. She suddenly reached out and grabbed Cheng Mingdu's wrist tightly, as if she had grasped the only anchor in the world that could pull her back from the abyss.
For a moment, she forgot many things: the dead end that Ge Jie was holding tightly, and the inner demons she couldn't face.
Those were the tears she didn't shed when Ge Jie tormented her in every way.
Those were the tears she didn't shed when Ye Jianguo dragged her into hell.
Those were the tears she didn't shed during countless cold, lonely nights when she forced herself to be strong.
At this moment, in front of him, in this absolutely safe and warm harbor, everything poured out.
Cheng Mingdu didn't speak again, nor did he try to comfort her. He simply turned around and tightly wrapped her cold little hand, whose knuckles were white from the force, with his own body heat. Then, he quietly and motionless squatted in front of her hospital bed, letting her vent all her fear, grievances, and pain completely and without reservation.
For the first time, he embraced her physically with an accepting gesture, a response that felt like a theft and was almost unbelievable to her.
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Author's Note: 50
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