They took the same shortcut into the mountains and disappeared halfway through.
The eldest brother followed in his mother's footsteps, disappearing without a trace.
The eldest son is the pillar of the family. Knowing that his son was likely to die, Ji's father fell seriously ill and passed away within three days.
The family endured their grief to complete the father's funeral. After the coffin was buried, the second brother severed ties with his younger sister right there in front of their parents' and relatives' graves.
They said he was a jinx who caused the death of his parents, and that he should never have anything to do with them again.
The Ji family acted as if they had never had this daughter.
Overwhelmed with grief, Ji Hong fainted in front of her parents' graves. Her younger sister was worried, but her second brother coldly asked someone to take her back to her husband's family.
She woke up halfway through the journey. With the death of her loved ones and being kicked out of her home, Ji Hong didn't blame her siblings, but felt that it was all her fault.
I cried all the way, and then I cried myself unconscious.
Ji Hong looked at the silent Ruan Xianxian, her face full of sarcasm and hatred, "Guess what happened next?"
Ruan Xianxian: ? ? ?
She's eighteen or nineteen years old now, and she's long since stopped playing those childish guessing games. But lately, everyone she meets seems to want her to guess.
Even though she didn't want to cooperate, her cerebellum had its own ideas. It simply combined the truth she knew with the story told by Ji Hong, and the answer automatically came to her mind.
"You're pregnant again."
As soon as she finished speaking, Ji Hong was startled and unconsciously took a step back, blurting out, "How did you know?"
Ruan Xianxian: "Didn't you tell me to guess?"
After the initial shock subsided, Ji Hong's eyes shone even brighter. As expected of a remarkable person who could control a giant tortoise, she knew she hadn't chosen the wrong person.
"Yes! I'm pregnant." The last syllable was drawn out, full of sarcasm.
Upon learning that their granddaughter-in-law was pregnant, the husband's family was overjoyed and slaughtered the last hen in the house that very night to nourish her body and celebrate.
As soon as Ji Hong opened her eyes, her parents-in-law, husband, and the two elders all surrounded her bedside, showing her concern and care as before.
Upon learning of her pregnancy again, and knowing that her husband's family had only changed their attitude towards her because of the child in her womb, it was still a source of comfort for Ji Hong, who had lost both her parents and her elder brother.
It was her hope to live.
My in-laws and husband offered guidance and advice, and I won't go into too much detail about the emotional journey I went through in between.
In short, it was when Ji Hong was more pregnant and gradually letting go of the past, deciding to embrace a new life in the future, that one afternoon, the cicadas were chirping...
The younger sister who said she would never see her again found her...
She remembered that her younger sister hid on her usual walk route, saw her, called her in a very soft voice, and led her out of Baishi Village without saying a word.
Once they left the village, the younger sister, with a cold expression, spoke with a startling statement: "My second brother's legs were broken, the kind of fractures that have no hope of recovery."
Ji Hong felt a sharp pain in her heart and a pain in her lower abdomen. She held her stomach with both hands.
The younger sister couldn't bear it any longer and helped her sit down under the tree. Ji Hong grabbed her younger sister's hand and asked, "Second brother, second brother also went to the back mountain of Baishi Village, right?"
At this point, she could no longer think of the strangeness of the back mountain; it was simply that her brain was not fully developed.
But the younger sister shook her head. "Second brother has repeatedly ordered that even if we starve to death, the Ji family is not allowed to set foot in the mountains again."
The younger sister pursed her lips and handed over a booklet. "Take a look. It's full of information that my second brother collected. That's why his legs were broken."
Because of their father, none of the Ji family's children were illiterate. They could recognize almost all the characters, and their normal reading comprehension was not a problem.
Ignoring the cramps in her abdomen, Ji Hong quickly opened the booklet, where a series of alarming events were recorded.
In Baishi Village, a family had a son who contracted a severe lung cough that defied all medical treatment. In order to save her son's life, the old mother was willing to sacrifice herself at General Mountain.
A local hoodlum committed murder and was arrested by the police. Just as he was about to be executed, his family sacrificed their five-year-old daughter...
Not long after, a group of roving thugs turned themselves in to the police, admitting that he had killed the man, and the scoundrel was released without charge.
An elderly person, terminally ill and near death, sacrificed their granddaughter and lived for another two years with renewed vigor...
Each and every one of these incidents is appalling.
Ji Hong felt dizzy and her gaze towards her stomach changed.
Her sister said, "My second brother had his legs broken while he was collecting evidence. It was both a shock and a warning."
My second brother said that if he continued investigating, the whole family would die.
After saying this, the younger sister left her with one last sentence before turning and leaving: "I'm telling you this so you'll be careful."
"If the baby in my belly doesn't work, let's just get rid of it. I'm leaving."
Ji Hong didn't know how she got home. "After listening to my second brother's words, I didn't dare to ask about it, let alone reveal a single thing about it."
I would gladly die a hundred times over, but I fear only that I might implicate my family again.
After having a clear understanding of the true cause of her parents' death, she began to pay close attention to the actions of her husband's family.
To her horror, she discovered that the two old men's gazes at her lower abdomen had gone beyond affection; they now held a greedy desire that seemed to want to devour it whole.
"After this discovery, I knew that the baby in my womb couldn't be kept. There was still hope for survival if it was a boy, but if it was a girl..."
Ji Hong didn't say anything. Having grown up with her father, who knew a bit about pharmacology, she already had a rough idea of whether the baby in her womb was a boy or a girl.
Even knowing she couldn't protect her and would be letting down her unborn daughter, she would never let her daughter become a sacrifice for those two old men.
Initially, she wanted to have a proper abortion at the hospital, but unfortunately, the astute villagers of Baishi Village discovered this and reported it to her husband's family.
She was taken back and placed under strict surveillance from then on.
To prevent her daughter from being sacrificed, Ji Hong began to recall what her father had taught her: what medicinal herbs and foods could induce miscarriage.
But she was kept too closely guarded by her husband's family. Let alone leaving the village or the mountains, even leaving her husband's family's courtyard was a luxury.
In an attempt to abort the child, she tried falling, bumping into table corners, and even using her cravings as an excuse to get her husband to buy some foods that are cold and not good for pregnant women.
"Can you imagine? No matter what I tried, this child was like it was welded to my belly, and I couldn't get rid of it no matter what I did."
As time went by, I was placed under constant surveillance by my husband's family, whose pretense had been stripped away.
"I'm far along in my pregnancy, and I know this can't go on. If I don't do something soon, the baby will definitely be born."
Thinking about the method she had used, Ji Hong shuddered and laughed at herself.
"Pregnant women are not easily startled, which can easily lead to miscarriage. In order to abort the child, I deliberately fell into the dry toilet to really scare myself."
My husband's family probably didn't expect me to go to such lengths. The plan succeeded, but unfortunately, I was too far along in my pregnancy and went into premature labor. After a severe hemorrhage, I gave birth to a baby girl.
You know what happened next.
Now I know for sure that the baby girl was sacrificed by the police. Their request was definitely not for the safety of Ji Hong's mother. It seems that their request was directed at the two old geezers.
Suppressing the anger in her eyes, Ruan Xianxian spoke in a relatively calm tone.
"So, what do you want from me?"
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