Chapter 3 The Way Out Is Here, Eleven Years of Slavery
Judging from Mancao's figure, the difficulty of disguising herself as a man was not because of her protruding chest, but because she was too thin. She had no dignity at all when she went out to do things, so Wen Ya's first instruction to her was to eat.
Eat more, eat well, eat until you are full, and eat until you are strong, so that at least there will be some meat in those sunken eye sockets.
There was no need to go back to Xiyuan, and Wen Ya was too lazy to send anyone else there, so she just left three people to serve. She then ordered her servants to prepare a separate small room in her yard for Song Jin to live in.
Song Jin stood in the middle of the room and looked around. There was a bed, a cabinet, a table, a stool, and even a set of teapots on the table. It was many times better than the original servants' room with a shared bunk bed.
She walked to the dressing table and sat down, looking at the sallow and sunken face in the old bronze mirror, in which her almond-shaped eyes stood out particularly.
From now on, this person will become Wen Zijin, with layer upon layer of disguises making it impossible to tell his true self.
"Crawly..."
Song Jin was in a daze when she suddenly heard someone calling her outside. She turned around and saw that it was the maids from the grandmother's room.
There is a psychic in the family, who can stop being curious?
Du Juan placed a large bowl of noodles in her hand on the table. The white noodles were covered with a thick layer of braised eel slices. The aroma made Song Jin's mouth water.
"Eat it. I asked the kitchen to make it for you."
Du Juan stuffed the chopsticks in her hand into Song Jin's hand, and then the maids gathered around and asked questions in unison.
"Mancao, what god are you communicating with?"
"Can this god give silver?"
"Can this god tell me to sleep a little longer in the morning?"
......
There were too many questions, and Song Jin ignored any of them. He grabbed the chopsticks and stirred the bowl of eel noodles, then ate it in big mouthfuls without any image. In the end, he almost licked the bottom of the bowl clean.
This body is too lacking in oil and water.
Wen Ya treated Ye Wenfu harshly, but Mancao was the first to suffer. This was probably the case of the fire in the city gate affecting the innocent.
After Song Jin finished his noodles, he drank a glass of water, licked the oil from the corners of his mouth into his stomach before starting to answer everyone's questions.
"I've seen so many gods and goddesses that I can't recognize them all."
"The gods don't give you money, you have to earn it yourself."
"You still have to do the work, or Grandma will scold you."
......
The maids were so disappointed. It was the same whether this magical power existed or not. It could not help them at all.
"Oh, right," Song Jin only remembered Ye Wenfu at the West Garden after he got the benefit. "Fourth Lady said she wanted to eat stewed pigeons tonight. If we don't have it, she will definitely ask me."
Du Juan sneered after hearing this: "Why are you still paying attention to her? You don't even need to go back. You were so arrogant when you first married into the family. How many people in this courtyard have you ever been nice to? You knew that the eldest grandmother didn't like these concubines, but you still had to show off. Now that the master is gone, she is the one who suffers."
"That's right," the maids echoed, "She made the eldest lady so angry back then, and we suffered as a result. Now everyone hates her, and it's her own fault."
"The master spent a lot of money to marry her, but she looked so poor when she came in, and her dowry was so shabby. I don't have any money, so I have to live my life according to the eldest lady's mood."
"It doesn't matter now. I'm afraid there will be more suffering in the future."
"that is."
“You deserve it.”
......
Everyone was talking and complaining non-stop, while Song Jin remained silent.
As for sympathy, she didn't sympathize with anyone.
There are conflicts on both sides, and no one takes her life seriously. She just does whatever she wants and curries favor with whoever has money.
"Sister Mancao, you are such a pity." Lianxin looked at Song Jin with regret: "If you could escape from slavery and have a male body, you would definitely become a high official with this divine ability, and then everyone would have to worship you."
"It's also OK for a woman. You can become a fortune teller and she will be very accurate. Everyone will still worship you." said the maid Meixiang.
"You are useless," Du Juan scolded with a smile, "The man is an official, and the woman becomes a fortune teller. It's too unfair."
Song Jin sat there listening, thinking that let alone becoming an official, just getting rid of his citizenship would require a lot of effort.
She remembered slavery in the Ming Dynasty.
Along with the peasant uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was also a slave rebellion in the south of the Yangtze River. It was not easy for them to escape from slavery, but it was not as easy as kidnapping their masters and taking up arms.
She couldn't wait until then to get rid of her citizenship. She didn't want to clean toilets for decades.
There are only two ways to get rid of citizenship.
One is that he has done a favor to his master, and the master is willing to repay him, so he can be released from the household registration by giving him a certificate of release.
Another way is to pay money to redeem yourself.
For ordinary slaves, neither path is easy to take.
First of all, it is difficult for a slave to make his master feel grateful. Another reason is that the slave cannot save up money to redeem himself, and amnesty cannot be extended to domestic slaves, so they are often born into slavery and remain slaves for life.
How could Song Jin be willing to accept this?
You have to save up money to redeem yourself. Once you become the boss's white glove, it's easy to embezzle money.
As for favors, she had hoped for them before, but now she has given up. The man in the main house is not a bodhisattva, so instead of talking to her about favors, it would be better to bring in a deity.
After Song Jin finished his meal, he answered everyone's questions and then returned to West Garden to get the few clothes and jewelry he had.
She walked to the corner gate of the West Garden and stood there listening for a while. When she heard no sound, she pushed the corner gate. Fortunately, it was not locked.
After entering the servants' room, she took out some old clothes and two plain hairpins from the bed, picked up a pair of old shoes beside the bed and prepared to go out, but she met Chunyun who came in.
"Sister Mancao, why did you come back just now?"
Song Jin made a gesture to keep quiet, and then whispered to Chunyun: "Grandma asked me to serve her in her courtyard, so I won't be back here."
"You want to leave?" Chunyun's tears started flowing as soon as she said this.
They had a good relationship, and Si Niang was not a trouble-maker. Usually, they could talk and take care of each other outside. She was young and had always relied on Mancao to help her. Now that Mancao had left, she was left alone outside.
When she thought of this, Chunyun's tears fell uncontrollably.
"Don't cry first," Song Jin reached out and wiped away the tears on her face. "I'll go do something for Grandma. If it's done, I'll tell Grandma to either agree to let Si Niang remarry, or let you come and help me, okay?"
"Can Grandma listen to you?"
"How do you know if you don't try?"
Chunyun choked up and her tears showed no sign of stopping.
At the age of only eleven, how could he deal with that shrew Ye Wenfu?
"Don't be afraid."
Chunyun's face is rounder than Song Jin's, and the baby fat has not yet faded, making her look like a child.
In modern times, that is an age when people are still celebrating Children's Day, but here, that is eleven years of slavery.
Chunyun suppressed her tears and went to help Song Jin keep watch. She made sure that Ye Wenfu was not in the yard before telling her to go out.
Saying goodbye to an old boss is a courtesy in modern times, but it should be forgotten for Ye Wenfu.
She wanted to spit on the face of a man who made her kneel in the rain for hours. And she was saying goodbye? Even if he died, he was not worth her even a glance.
Song Jin returned to Zizhu Garden and put everything in place. Then he went to find Mancao's parents and told them that he had moved to Zizhu Garden. This shocked the old couple.
"Why did grandma agree to let you go?"
Old Lu's face was filled with shock, but Song Jin didn't dare to bring up the spiritual trick again, for fear that the feudal old couple in front of them would really think that their daughter had become a fairy, which would be troublesome.
"Grandma wanted to do something and thought I was just the right person for the job, so she asked me to go."
"What do you want to do?"
Song Jin thought for a moment and said, "I don't know yet, but I will know in the future."
One reason is that it is difficult to explain clearly, and the other is that it is safer if fewer people know about this kind of thing, so I simply don't say a word.
The honest mother of Mancao, Mrs. Chen, said, "No matter what, just do it well when I tell you to do it. Don't make Grandma angry. Don't do the last time you were punished to kneel in the rain. It almost scared me to death."
Song Jin nodded and said he understood.
Mrs. Chen said, "You are already seventeen years old, not young anymore. Look at the people who grow flowers with your father..."
"Mom, don't worry about this. Let's talk about it later."
Mrs. Chen and Old Lu wanted to marry their daughter to Changsheng, the garden slave who grew flowers with Old Lu, but Song Jin naturally didn't want to.
The nobles and the common people could not marry each other, and if a slave wanted to get married, he would find another slave to pair with. That was how Mancao's parents got together, and they added another slave to the Bai family out of thin air.
In the eyes of the two old people, they had never thought about leaving their daughter's country, so marrying their daughter to a garden slave who worked for them was not actually treating her unfairly.
What they didn't know was that there was already another person living in their daughter's body.
"Dad, Mom, I will be busier in the future and may need to go out. We will meet less often in the future. I'm telling you this."
Song Jin thought it was better to see them less often, after all, they were not her biological parents, and she was not close to them. But she felt from the bottom of her heart that the old couple treated their daughter Mancao well, so she remained polite.
"Okay, okay, I hope you're fine."
After hearing this, Song Jin's eyes suddenly became hot. The words that he had never waited for in his previous life, he actually heard in this life from people who were not his biological parents.
She didn't treat them as her parents, but they treated her as their own daughter.
After talking and explaining some other things, Song Jin returned to Zizhu Garden and sat in the small room in a daze.
She remembered clearly that the road permit system was abolished in the middle period of the Ming Dynasty, but she didn't know the exact year. However, she guessed that it should have disappeared at that time.
Without the travel permit system, the next problem arose: the problem of refugees, which greatly facilitated the counterfeiting of medicinal materials.
Without the pass, it would be difficult for the government to track down the person. How could the government find a person who was fabricated out of thin air? The Bai family could only accept the failed transaction.
Road guide......
Refugees...
Song Jin sighed. No matter which one it was, she was destined not to escape.
The pass is issued by the government. The government would never issue a pass to slaves casually. Without a pass, you cannot travel far. You will be caught at the city gate.
As for escaping to a small village, that was simply a dream. The villagers knew each other, and if a stranger came, they would have to report to the head of the village within a few days and would be caught anyway.
After the road permit system disappeared, the refugees were more terrifying than those interrogated by the government. The key point was that this was an era without silver bills. Even if they had money, they would not dare to escape alone with silver on their backs. Even if they had no money, they would not dare to travel with empty pockets. And she was still a girl.
This dead end makes me despair just thinking about it.
Save money! Redeem yourself! Use money to buy your freedom!
This is her only way out.
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