Seeing Chen Yuanyuan hesitate, Gao Erge said again, "Why don't you share a room with my fourth and eighth daughters and squeeze in?"
Chen Yuanyuan looked in the direction Gao Erge pointed and saw two thin, somewhat dirty girls. The older one was about thirteen years old, and the younger one was only four or five years old.
It was indeed a long way to make another trip, and this was the home of her father's sworn brother's older brother. After thinking about it, she nodded in agreement.
That night, she slept inside the kang (a heated brick bed), while the two girls slept outside.
In the middle of the night, she was woken up by the older girl.
The girl whispered in her ear, "Sister, you'd better run. When it gets light, my dad will sell you to someone else as a wife."
Chen Yuanyuan instantly snapped to attention, sitting bolt upright: "What did you say?!"
The girl repeated herself and told her, "My third uncle should have been here. But my third aunt's father passed away the day before yesterday, and my third uncle and aunt went to another province for the funeral. They won't be back for the next few days. You've been deceived!"
Chen Yuanyuan trembled like a leaf in an instant.
She quickly reached into her pocket for the money.
When I touched it, I realized it was empty.
The girl grabbed her: "I took the money. I only thought of saving your life because I took your money—don't even think about getting the money back. I've already done you a great favor! The son of the family my dad is going to marry you off to is an idiot. I saw him eating his own shit yesterday!"
Chen Yuanyuan's mind went completely blank at this moment.
The girl pulled her over, pointed to the small door next to the pigsty, and told her to climb out from there.
I told her the way out of the village again.
Unexpectedly, as soon as she climbed out of the pigsty, she saw Gao Erge holding an iron shovel, guarding the exit.
Their eyes met, and Chen Yuanyuan took off running.
Gao Erge took off chasing after him.
Chen Yuanyuan couldn't outrun him and was slapped hard on the waist with an iron shovel.
With a "crack," a sharp pain immediately followed.
She staggered.
In a moment of desperation, she grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it at Gao Erge.
Gao Erge was blinded by the substance, cursed, stopped, and started rubbing his eyes.
Chen Yuanyuan ran all the way out of the village and into the harvested cornfield before her legs felt weak.
Once she felt that sensation, she could no longer run.
Gao Erge chased after him to the village entrance, but for some reason, he stopped.
Chen Yuanyuan collapsed in the cornfield, panting for a while. When she tried to get up, her legs felt like noodles, and she couldn't muster any strength.
At first, she thought she was scared, and after trying for a long time, she still couldn't stand up.
She pinched her thigh, but Mumu felt nothing, and that's when she panicked.
Just now, the blow to my waist was very, very hard.
Unable to move her legs, Chen Yuanyuan crawled through the cornfield for an hour, until dawn, before finally reaching the edge of the field.
Villagers passed by from time to time, but she dared not ask for help.
She was afraid that the villagers were in cahoots with Gao Erge.
She waited for more than three hours until the sun was high in the sky.
Su Tong arrived by oxcart.
When I left, I felt so suffocated that I didn't want to take the oxcart from Sujiazhuang, so I decided to walk back.
When Chen Yuanyuan saw Su Tong's face, she could hardly believe her eyes and thought she was hallucinating in her despair.
I called out a few times tentatively, and it really was Su Tong!
Even when she was taken to Haicheng People's Hospital, Chen Yuanyuan was still full of confidence, thinking that she had only twisted her waist and that the lack of feeling in her legs meant that the twist was more severe.
She thought she just needed to rest for a while, and even asked Su Tong to help her apply for sick leave.
However, Su Tong learned immediately that she was now permanently paralyzed.
After being hit by an iron shovel, she ran for four or five miles.
However, it was this run of four or five miles that completely robbed her of any chance of recovery.
Her spinal cord injury changed from reversible to irreversible.
Although Su Tong kept it a secret, Chen Yuanyuan still learned the news from the nurse.
Su Tong had to go to work during the day, so she hired a caregiver for her.
While watching the caregiver go to the toilet, Chen Yuanyuan used her arms to climb down from the high hospital bed, tied the rubber tubing for the IV drip to the iron railing at the head of the bed, and tied the other end to her neck.
When the caregiver came out of the toilet, she saw that Chen Yuanyuan had wrapped her face in so much so that it was bruised and purple.
The caregiver panicked, rescued her, and immediately called Su Tong.
After Su Tong arrived, Chen Yuanyuan looked at him earnestly and said, "Su Tong, if you still consider me, Chen Yuanyuan, a friend, please kill me! I would be extremely grateful to you!"
"If I kill you, I'll get shot," Su Tong joked.
He himself didn't know how to face Chen Yuanyuan now.
"Then leave me by the river in the suburbs, and I'll climb into the river myself. That won't count as you killing me, okay?" Chen Yuanyuan was determined to die, and her eyes shone brightly when she talked about dying.
“That won’t do either, that’s premeditated murder,” Su Tong objected again.
"Then...then put me next to the switch, and I'll touch it after you've walked away!" Chen Yuanyuan proposed a new solution.
Su Tong asked her, "Would you like braised pork or braised ribbonfish for dinner? How about ribbonfish? My sixth sister, Ruyi, loves ribbonfish the most. You girls should have similar tastes, right?"
"Su Tong, can you take care of what I eat for a day? Can you take care of me for a lifetime?" Chen Yuanyuan stared into Su Tong's eyes. "How long can your kindness last? Can I live on your charity for the rest of my life? I'm a useless person!"
Su Tong was startled.
Chen Yuanyuan continued, "I have no relatives, no home, and no money. I'm paralyzed, and I can't go to work or earn a penny. I can't survive in this world on my own! Su Tong, letting me die quickly is the greatest mercy you can show me!"
Su Tong remained silent.
He was very clear about Chen Yuanyuan's importance in his heart.
After bringing Sixth Sister back, and learning that his heart disease had been cured, Su Tong admitted that he intended to express his feelings to Chen Yuanyuan.
However, when he thought about how he was still living in his work unit's dormitory and couldn't give Chen Yuanyuan a home, he hesitated again.
On the day of his birthday party, he actually slipped a letter into the book he gave to Chen Yuanyuan.
A love letter.
This was the first and only love letter Su Tong ever wrote in his life.
However, Chen Weixing appeared, and Su Tong's gift was not delivered.
He never sent his books or his love letters.
The fact that Chen Yuanyuan was Chen Weixing's daughter was a huge blow to Su Tong.
In Su Tong's mind, Chen Weixing was someone the Su family couldn't afford to offend, a big shot whom they, as insignificant people, had to look up to.
And he's a bully.
At the same time, he also clearly saw the chasm-like gap between himself and Chen Yuanyuan.
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