Chapter 16
The sound of heavy footsteps echoed in the alley immersed in the rain. In the misty rain, Opesa walked out step by step with Sinderel on her shoulders.
She was shivering with cold, her teeth chattering constantly, and she could only grit her teeth and force herself to hold on.
She was originally quite strong for a girl, so carrying a Sinderel was no big deal. But this body, pampered and never exercised, had slender limbs and was panting after just a few steps.
The rain showed no sign of stopping. It was still early winter in Furlan. At her turtle-like pace, she would be lying on the ground due to hypothermia before she could drag the person to the street.
The key point is that she didn't bring any money and couldn't even find anyone to help.
She had no choice but to find a place to shelter from the rain. The black market was not short of those shady and dilapidated shelters.
If she had no other choice, she would never have entered any of the black market shelters. Every shelter here was like a modern telecom fraud den, and it was difficult to guarantee that you would enter and leave safely.
There is a high chance that your boss will target you because of your appearance or certain characteristics, and then drug you and turn you into a slave living in a cage.
In order to prevent herself and Sinderel from becoming prey, she deliberately left half of Holly's tongue, cut off the fabric of her skirt and wrapped it around her and Sinderel's faces, disguising herself as a killer who came from afar and stayed there with her partner because of the rain.
There are many businesses like this in the black market, but there are few killers, because killers in Furlan need to be certified to work, and they need to pass various assessments and be proficient in various skills, disguises, techniques, etc. If they fail the assessment, they will be executed to prevent the leakage of information about other killers. Even if they can achieve financial freedom, few people will gamble their lives.
There will be no illegal killers in Furlan, because those private killers will be executed by official killers, and no one will challenge those killers who can sneak into the palace without being noticed and are considered to be the strongest individual combatants.
To exchange death for another risky way of dying, a profession like killer requires only desperadoes, and Opesa couldn't imagine anyone else choosing it.
This is the information obtained after the last investigation. There may be some slight discrepancies, but it is absolutely safe to use the killer's identity. No one dares to risk their life to ask for the killer's information.
No one dared to be as bold as her, claiming to be a killer and asking for free accommodation.
After confirming that the disguise was in place, Opesha carried Sinderel into an orphanage.
The shelter was small, with a musty smell. The entire lobby consisted of a counter, a table and chairs, piled high with empty bottles and trash, and a wooden staircase leading directly to the second floor.
The rotten wooden floor creaked underfoot. Opesha walked to the counter and knocked politely on the table, calling out to the male owner who was drooling at the counter. Then, she deliberately lowered her voice and said, "Accommodation."
The male boss was enjoying a nap and was naturally annoyed by the interruption. He opened half an eye and looked over. He seemed to notice that the visitor was a woman. His eyes fluttered open and he rubbed his hands with a smile and said, "Are you two women? Women pay half price. A room that cost fifty copper coins should be twenty-five."
As expected. Opesa glared at the boss and said, "Do you think I'm a woman? How rude! Aren't you afraid of losing your life?" Then she feigned displeasure, placed the "package" she had made earlier on the counter, and pretended to give change, but in fact she was secretly and "inadvertently" opening the "package" that contained her tongue.
Half of the tongue, still bloody, lay on the counter. Opesa was about to put on a show, but the boss just smiled and waved his hand nonchalantly, "This customer has a really hot temper. Is this a new slave? He looks a bit old, damp and... um... has some bad breath."
Opesha: ...
Damn it, forget that some slave owners would cut off the tongues of their slaves to assert their sovereignty.
The only way to save her life was no longer working. Opesa was carrying Sinderel and could not run away. She also lost half of the umbrella rib. Now she was completely like a chicken waiting to be slaughtered.
"Well, it does smell a bit bad." She pretended to be calm and tried to wrap up the smelly tongue with one hand. As a result, the edge of the cloth lifted up, and the dagger that was hidden to wipe off the blood was exposed.
When she struck hard, she felt the blood splattering on the dagger, which was disgusting, so she wrapped it up. Holly had a very poor sense of oral hygiene, and she was thinking of finding a craftsman to file the dagger when she got home, or even getting a new one.
Opesa was about to wrap the dagger back up when the boss suddenly jumped up with a kick. The two green beans stared at the dagger in disbelief with their eyes wide open: "This...this..."
Opesa was startled by his trick. She thought the dagger was very valuable and was afraid that the boss would snatch it away with a slap, so she quickly grabbed it and said, "No bargaining."
The boss waved his hands quickly and suddenly became cheerful. "Yes, yes, no bargaining, no bargaining. There are many empty rooms in the store. You can stay for free. Anywhere is fine. Anywhere is fine." Seeing that Opesa was still carrying someone on her shoulders, he ran out of the counter panting and said attentively, "It's my honor to serve you. I'll just do it."
Seeing the boss's sincerity, Opesa handed the burden to him. She followed him up the stairs, turning the blood-stained dagger over. The plain blade and handle made it difficult to associate it with the word "priceless".
What could have caused this boss to change his attitude?
She looked at the dagger again, stared at it for two seconds, and then wrapped it back in the cloth.
Still disgusting.
The boss led Opesha into the room, and after putting Sinderel down beside the bed, he also brought in two towels and two coats.
Although they were just two coats, fortunately they were big enough to cover the knees and could barely serve as temporary clothing.
Finally having a place to rest, Opesa took a quick look around. This room was the largest room the boss mentioned, but it was still simple and narrow.
After closing all the doors and windows, she quickly took off her wet clothes and put on a coat to restore her body temperature.
Her hands and feet gradually went from being cold and numb to having some feeling. As soon as she recovered a little, she walked barefoot to the bed and pressed the bed board. It was a wooden bed, but the sheets and bedding were relatively clean. In a place like the black market, she couldn't ask for too much.
His gaze shifted to the unconscious Sinderel.
She reached out and touched Sinderel's forehead. It was terribly cold, like a dead body.
Opesa quickly took off his outer skirt, leaving only his underwear. She struggled for a long time but couldn't bring herself to do it. She was shy and it was difficult for her to take off someone's clothes on her own, especially since it was someone she didn't know.
She frantically instilled in herself the idea: This poor little thing is soaked from head to toe. After being in the rain for so long, her clothes are about to be soaked and patinated. If she lingers any longer, she's bound to get frozen. You should think about your life. No matter how much you look on your face, it's not as important as your life.
So Opesa, who was mentally prepared, bit her lower lip and reached out to touch the first tie of the other person's underwear.
——
A cold hand suddenly stopped her movement.
Her wrist was tightly gripped, causing her five fingers to curl up unconsciously, and her blood vessels to ache and ached from the compression.
She suddenly glanced at Sinderel—he had opened his eyes at some point, but only with great reluctance, only able to open one with great difficulty. His breathing was still rapid, his delicate brows furrowed, his emerald eyes almost unfocused, yet Opesa could discern, with disbelief, a hint of resistance.
His dark blue lips moved slowly: "Don't... I can do it myself..."
She spoke as if she had only one breath left. Seeing that the sickly beauty, so weak that she looked like she would die in the next second, insisted on getting up, Opesa could only coax her: "Let go, I won't move, change yourself." Hearing the reminder that her character was violated again, she pursed her lips speechlessly, "Change clothes for you, a maid? You really have a cute daydream. Go change now!"
It was unclear whether anyone had heard the first half of the conversation. Sinderel gasped, his chest rising and falling, his half-open eyes dim, yet he held Opesa's gaze.
After staring at each other for a few seconds, he loosened his hand and muttered, "Go away..."
Opesa thought he was as thin-skinned as she was. She hummed and turned to stay in a corner of the room, saying with her back to him, "I'll take it as a good heart and show some mercy to you, a half-dead little piece of trash. I'll respect you for a minute."
After staring at the cracks in the wooden wall for a few seconds, I heard the rustling sound of fabric rubbing against each other behind me. After a while, the sound stopped and I heard a voice saying, "Alright..."
Opesa turned around and saw that Sinderel had already put on his coat and wrapped himself in a quilt. He was curled up on the bed like a white dumpling, with only his wet golden head sticking out.
No. It's not zongzi.
It must be a pitiful abandoned dog, one of those pampered, fine-blooded golden retrievers with knots all over its body, sitting on the street whimpering.
Thinking of this scene and seeing her beautiful "daughter" wrapped up in a ball, Opesha's heart was suddenly filled with tenderness. She wanted to use this false relationship to secretly become a "mother" and take good care of Sinderel.
She was now very adept at dealing with the character limitations of that broken system, and could control the scale and spew out [insulting keywords] at just the right time to reply to the viciousness value.
The corners of Opesa's mouth curled up.
Seeing that water was still dripping from his hair, Opesa seized the opportunity to pick up a dry towel, sat on the edge of the bed, and reached out to wipe his wet hair.
Suddenly, there was a loud thunder outside the window.
In his sight, Sinderel, who was only a millimeter close to him, shrank back, and his drooping eyelashes trembled, as if he was hiding some emotion.
Noticing his retreat, Opesa moved forward, and the white dumpling leaned back again, sticking close to the wall.
There was another thunder, and although it was accompanied by a moment of darkness, Opesa could clearly see Sinderel trembling slightly.
After the thunder, the world fell into a moment of silence.
Then, there was a faint sigh.
Someone forcefully removed the boy's soft and vulnerable shell, and a soft object wrapped around his head. He subconsciously couldn't dodge in time and fell into an embrace that was neither spacious nor warm.
Sinderel opened his eyes and stared blankly ahead.
Half of the sight was filled with brown hair wet by the rain, like seaweed, and the other half was filled with a dark, narrow, simple room that smelled of damp.
This constitutes the entire world in his sight.
"You're not that great..." A slightly sarcastic voice filled his ears. He felt his head being gently rubbed, and his back, which was pressed tightly against her, was also touched by her, and there were bursts of gentle slaps.
The familiar warm fragrance filled my nostrils, and all the anxiety, panic, and fear disappeared in an instant, smoothing my emotions and leaving only an inexplicable calmness.
"Afraid of rain and thunder? How childish..."
What emotion is that, what action is that?
He didn't know and had never experienced it.
Just feeling her breath, all those tense nerves relaxed.
"I asked you to go buy a loaf of bread and you can't even do it properly. You are such a loser. Next time you run around, forget about your slender legs." Her vicious words kept ringing in his ears, but he pretended not to hear them. He just emptied his mind and slowly accepted this completely unfamiliar behavior to him.
Bread? Yes, he was ordered to buy bread in the first place.
Then the woman named Holly appeared - the maid he had deliberately let go, and told him that the woman wanted to eat something else and asked him to go with her to buy it.
He remembered that road; he was so familiar with it, so familiar that every hair, every scar, even his blood and bones felt numb.
All his misfortunes and sins originated from here.
He already knew Holly's background, but he didn't choose to turn around and leave. Instead, he remembered that the woman had been here last time, muttering something that confused him.
He wondered what it was—even though there was the Colosseum ahead.
The hell that gave birth to him and forced him to live a miserable life.
"Pace Trading House".
Even though the old maid had found this place by accident, he would never let her leave, nor would he make these secrets public.
It's raining.
The only thing he fears is thunderstorms.
Fear paralyzed his nerves. The confined and cramped water rushed into his respiratory tract, and the huge noise hammered his skull again and again, shaking his whole body so much that he could no longer support it.
He remembered it being cold.
I also vaguely remember the torn skirt stained with mud; the shaking body; and the dents in my shoulders caused by the pain of bones.
Her arms were wrapped around him so tightly that he could feel the difficulty in breathing, but he didn't want her to loosen up at all. Instead, he wanted her to hold him tighter and tighter.
He was very familiar with this feeling, the feeling of suffocation and restriction. He was clearly familiar with it and disgusted with it.
Why don't you hate it now?
Why?
"……Why?"
He murmured almost in his sleep, without even realizing it.
"What?"
"...It feels different from chains."
"chain?"
Chains. Long chains that locked the slave's fate around his throat.
Opesa was still puzzled by the words that Sinderel uttered. She asked several times, but the person in her arms did not respond or move.
She quickly stepped back and used her cheek to test the temperature. It was so hot!
"Sinderel!" She called out hastily, but she quickly realized her own stupidity. "Why are you calling her? She won't wake up again."
She hurriedly helped Sinderel lie down, stripped off his quilt to cool him down, opened the door and asked the boss downstairs to bring up a basin of cold water.
Not long after sitting down in the cold water basin, Opesa touched Sinderel's forehead, which was cold, and she quickly tucked the quilt in for him.
When she tucked in the quilt, she heard a very faint sob:
“…Leave me alone.”
It was very faint, but she was sure she hadn't heard it wrong. Just like the sound of the chains, it was only a momentary sound.
She looked at Sinderel with even more complex feelings, unable to imagine what he had been through.
A fever is a recurring cycle of chills and fever. After two rounds of this, Opesa was exhausted.
This shabby room had no fireplace, was a bit drafty, and had a wooden bed, so the warmth wasn't adequate at all. She could only grit her teeth and take off her coat to make a mattress for Sinderel, then she got into bed and patted the shivering Sinderel with one hand.
She was only too happy to just lie in bed with her daughter, who was so beautiful and had been born painlessly.
But when Opesa raised her eyes, she was still dazed for a moment.
It was the first time she had such close contact with Sinderel.
It was a face so beautiful that it was hard to tell whether it was androgynous. At first glance, it seemed delicate and beautiful, but upon closer inspection, it was actually more heroic and three-dimensional, but its sharp edges were completely hidden by the overly long hair.
He was pale and fragile, as beautiful as a broken Venus.
His fingers were always trembling, so Opesa held his hands, clamped his fingers through the gaps between her fingers, and warmed them tightly in her palms.
She realized that his knuckles were wide, with distinct bumps and ridges, and his palms were large, covered with rough, thick calluses. Even his fingers were longer than hers. In her memory, Sinderel's hands seemed to have always been tucked into his sleeves, with only half of his fingers showing.
No matter how you look at it, these hands don't look like those of a 19-year-old girl, but more like those of a man.
This thought scared Opesha so much that her scalp went numb. She immediately rolled out of the quilt and lay outside wrapped in two layers of towels.
She wanted to pull her hand out, and when she was thinking about how to do it, she heard another murmur.
"Mother……"
Different from the previous times, this time the word "Mom" sounded awkward and hoarse, like a baby just learning to speak.
Opesa was silent, quietly looking at the sad face in sleep.
After a long time, she pulled out one hand, then stretched out her hand again, and continued to pat Sinderel like a child.
never mind.
Call me older, so be it, Opesha thought.
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