Chapter 70 The Green Curtain "Isn't this getting in the way of someone's father?"...
The porters would travel to all corners of the country, carrying local products such as coal, jujubes, and persimmons to other places to resell in exchange for grain, salt, or money. They would then transport products from other places back to their hometown, and so on.
The journey was long and arduous, leaving their homes behind. Some porters traveled far, while others traveled nearby. Cao Dali had been wandering since childhood, traveling between the interior and exterior of the Great Wall for a living, his footprints covering the north and south of the country. He never picked and chose, doing anything, and would also take on some transport jobs for merchants or government officials. Donkeys carried goods, people carried loads on shoulder poles, and he himself carried half a donkey, walking from sunrise to sunset, sweating profusely and wearing out his iron shoes. The hardships and difficulties were self-evident, so Cao Dali didn't embellish or elaborate, and began to recount the ins and outs of the matter.
"About three years ago, I made a trip to the border region and brought back some furs to sell to a cloth shop in Watang. The shopkeeper was quite friendly and offered fair prices. I had bought two pairs of straw sandals from their shop during that trip, and when the shopkeeper heard that I was going to the border region, he asked me to buy some furs from there. I made quite a bit of money on that trip, so I treated myself to a pot of good wine and bought some steamed buns and flatbreads for my journey."
Cao Dali made a living as a porter, carrying heavy burdens on his shoulders year-round. The weight of his livelihood bent his back, causing his body to hunch over. "It was late summer or early autumn then. The weather was hot and the sun was scorching. I remember it was almost evening, and there were many mosquitoes. I was passing by a field of sorghum alone. The land was fertile, and the sorghum grew exceptionally lushly, taller than an adult, with dense, overlapping layers. We called this a 'green gauze curtain'."
Xiao Dinggua had just washed his face, but it was no different than if she hadn't. Cao Dali's face, weathered by wind and sun, was as black as the bottom of a pot. He said, "It was in this field of tall crops that I heard some noises, rustling sounds. Because I had drunk a bit too much, I initially thought it was just pheasants or rabbits and didn't pay much attention. But after taking a few steps forward, I realized something was wrong. The sounds were heavy, even more panting than my donkey. So I grabbed a hammer, mustered my courage, and went into the tall crops. Actually, I was quite scared; who knew what unknown dangers lay inside? But alcohol emboldened me, and I slowly followed the sounds. And then I saw—I saw a country bumpkin with his buttocks sticking out, straddling a girl, doing *that* kind of thing."
The young boy, oblivious to the world's temptations, was so shocked that his mouth dropped open.
Bai Yuan immediately instructed Xiao Dinggua: "Take the hammer and go outside to keep watch."
Little Dinggua refused: "Why? I won't go. I'll stay in the house. I want to listen too."
Bai Yuan did not allow him to protest: "If you find any suspicious people approaching, hit them three times with a hammer and go out to keep watch."
Although Xiao Dinggua was unwilling, he still obeyed the arrangement. He was a little afraid of this woman who knew how to trip him up.
After closing the door, Bai Yuan allowed Cao Dali to continue speaking.
Cao Dali's face showed a hint of pity: "I didn't want to get involved, but in broad daylight, the girl's hands were tied with rope, and her mouth was being tightly covered by that country bumpkin. It was obvious she was being forced. I was furious, especially since that man had no sense of propriety. He covered the girl's mouth and nose while he was doing it to her. The girl couldn't breathe and started to struggle. The more she struggled, the harder the man used. I felt he was definitely trying to kill her. He was afraid people would find out about what he had done to this young woman, so he was going to kill her to silence her. Seeing that the girl's eyes were already rolling back, and that covering her mouth and nose would definitely lead to her death, I grabbed a hammer and rushed out. I hit the man hard on the back of the head, knocking him unconscious. Then, before he woke up, I took the girl out of the sorghum grove."
Those rows of tall green gauze curtains on the walls were indeed a place that harbored and bred evil.
Bai Yuan said, "In other words, you saved her back then."
“Yes,” Cao Dali said righteously. “I couldn’t just stand by and watch that girl be violated and suffocated in the field, could I?! She cried the whole way. A young girl experiencing something like this, she’ll never have the face to live again. I was afraid she might do something drastic, so I comforted her the whole way. I originally wanted to take her home, but no matter how I asked, I couldn’t find out where she lived. Later I found out that the girl was mentally challenged.”
Zhou Yaren frowned: "Idiot?"
“She’s an idiot!” Cao Dali said. “She can’t even speak clearly, she has a lisp, she can’t answer anything you ask her, she just cries and says it hurts. When you ask her where it hurts, she lifts her skirt, spreads her legs, and points to her groin and cries out in pain. Me, me, a grown man, is this... is this acceptable? What kind of normal young girl would do such a thing? Besides, she’s already sixteen years old, and she doesn’t even understand this. Isn’t she just stupid? She’s not crying because she’s been violated and lost her virginity. She doesn’t even understand what’s going on. What does she know? She’s just crying because she’s been bullied and it hurts.”
Bai Yuan frowned.
Cao Dali, with his sharp eyes, immediately said, "I'm just a porter, a rough, uneducated man, illiterate. My speech is indeed a bit rough, please don't find it offensive, but I'm just telling you what happened. I couldn't find out where she lived, and I couldn't just abandon her. She's so mentally challenged, what if she encounters bad people again? But as a porter, I travel all over the country, living a hard life with the sky as my blanket and the ground as my bed, exposed to the wind and sun every day. I can't possibly be carrying a mentally challenged woman on my journey."
"So I inquired all the way in Watang, but none of the locals recognized her. They didn't know which country bumpkin had abducted her from somewhere, or maybe she wasn't even a local of Watang. I wanted to take her to the government office, but the yamen runners there were like local thugs, with dirty hands. As soon as I left, she chased after me crying and screaming. She couldn't speak clearly, and could only babble and slur, probably because those runners were taking advantage of her being mentally challenged. She grabbed my carrying pole and wouldn't let go no matter what."
“I had no choice. She followed me wherever I went. I couldn’t really chase her away, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was the one who saved her. I couldn’t just rescue her and then abandon her on the ground. That would be no different from not saving her at all, right? With her level of mental disability, any random cat or dog on the street could bully her. If she were even slightly mentally sound, I wouldn’t be in such a difficult position.”
As Cao Dali spoke, his face revealed a deep sense of distress, as if he were genuinely troubled by the situation: "She couldn't find her home or family. Because I gave her food and drink those few days, she followed me all the way, probably thinking that if she followed me, she wouldn't go hungry and would have food to eat." Cao Dali sighed, "What can a fool distinguish? She can't even tell good from bad. She's happy as a fool when given a steamed bun. I guess that's how she was tricked by that man into going to that green cornfield in Watang. We don't know the specifics. I asked her several times, but she couldn't give me a clear answer."
Bai Yuan interjected, "Can't she understand human speech?"
“She’s a fool,” Cao Dali tapped his forehead. “There’s a problem here. There’s a communication barrier. She can understand some very simple things, like if you ask her if she wants to eat rice, she can understand and nod to you. But she can’t understand anything more complicated.”
Bai Yuan: "Does she know her own name?"
“When I asked her, she just said flower, but she couldn’t say what kind of flower or what her surname was, so I just called her Little Flower, and she was able to respond to me.”
Bai Yuan thought to himself, "Is this girl really that stupid? She doesn't even know her own name. If she's born into this world, she's bound to be bullied."
Zhou Yaren began, "And then she followed you all the way from Watang to Fengkou Village?"
"Yes, because I brought her to the village. When her biological father came looking for her, he was going to hold me responsible. But I saved his daughter back then. How could he repay kindness with enmity without even knowing the facts!"
Bai Yuan: "You brought her here, and then her daughter died here. So it's all your fault. If you hadn't brought her here, her daughter definitely wouldn't have died here."
"You can't say that. Nobody judges cases like that. It's true that I brought the person here, but I didn't kill him myself. Why should I be blamed?"
"Who killed him?"
"How...how should I know!"
Things are definitely not that simple. If Cao Dali really only saved Xiaohua out of kindness, then her father wouldn't treat him like this. There must be other reasons. Zhou Yaren asked, "What happened after that? How did Xiaohua live after she came to Fengkou Village? Who did she live with?"
Cao Dali was stunned for a moment, and his eyes flickered: "Of course she'll live with me. If I bring her back, can I give her to someone else to raise? Who wants to raise an idiot?"
"How can a lone man and woman live together?" Bai Yuan asked bluntly without any reservations. "Although she may not be mentally sound, she is still a grown-up young woman. How can she live with you?"
"Let's just live like this. I'm a bachelor, I haven't married, and she has no one to rely on. I don't mind that she's mentally challenged, and she shouldn't mind that I'm too old. At least I can support her."
"But why didn't they survive?"
Cao Dali's lips twitched. What exactly was this woman doing here? Did he mean what she meant by "supporting" her?
Bai Yuan, utterly unafraid of offending anyone, said, "Besides, aren't you considerably older than her? Forty years older? Three years ago, that girl was twenty-eight, while you're old enough to be her father, you must be at least fifty, right?"
Cao Dali: "..." Are you even polite?!
Cao Dali: "Yes, I'm forty-five, thirty years older than Xiaohua. Because of years of exposure to the wind and sun, I look older, but so what? Who does it bother?"
Bai Yuan guessed: "It must have bothered the person's biological father."
Cao Dali said angrily, "Doesn't her own father think about it? How can a mentally challenged child marry into a good family of similar age?"
"Perhaps in the eyes of that jailer, it was you, this bachelor who could never find a wife, who abducted his foolish daughter from Watang." Otherwise, why would that jailer have treated him with such severe torture without any mercy?
This sentence almost hit Cao Dali's sore spot, and his temper flared up instantly: "Nonsense, slander!"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
