When Fen'e, still a little girl, sat at her desk watching moths fly one after another into the lamplight, she looked up and asked her mother, Cen's mother, "..."
"Mom, don't these moths know they're going to die?"
"I know, but they live towards death, even if it's only for a moment."
The gray wings turned to ashes in the firelight, said the girl who had just arrived at the brothel and hadn't yet decided on a name.
"Then I'd like to call it 'Burning Moth,' meaning to live towards death, which isn't a bad thing."
The woman sat on the bed, staring at the snow-covered landscape outside, and slowly recounted the stories of those years.
“I was born into the family that Xiaocao mentioned. I have a younger sister. I’m the eldest, and my sister is about two years younger than me.”
"Anyway, I've been playing with her since she was little. There are so many little girls in the village, I think there are seven or eight, some of them are older than us, but how can they play with us little girls?"
"We don't get along very well normally. We bicker, compare ourselves to each other, and even compare who eats more meat at home and what delicious food they have."
"One day, a girl, about fifteen or sixteen years old, fell into the river and disappeared."
"At first, nothing happened, but in the second year, a matchmaker came to his house to arrange a marriage, a ghost marriage, to be with a rich young master who died young, for fifty taels."
"Fifty taels, that's enough...enough for the families in our village to live comfortably for several years."
Do you know how much money you can get for selling a girl?
The woman held up one finger and gestured.
"The smaller ones are five taels, like a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl, and twelve taels at most. That's the price in the village."
Her voice trembled slightly; this was the beginning of her nightmare.
"At first it was fine, there weren't any girls dying young in the village. Later, I remember it was Xiya's family, who I used to play with since I was little. Her father went astray and started gambling. The casino people came to our house to collect the debts, and they even took away the land deeds and the house, but he still couldn't pay them back."
"If she can't pay back the money, just cut off her hand. Her father isn't stupid; he wants to use Xiya to make money, but who would want a little girl? What can a few taels of silver do?"
"Then the matchmaker came; she was looking for a suitable girl to arrange a ghost marriage."
“Xi Ya’s dad said, ‘Look at my daughter, isn’t she alright? She’s still alive.’”
“The matchmaker said, ‘I don’t do that kind of thing, I can’t live like that.’”
"So it's fine as long as she's not breathing?"
"right."
"The next day, Xiya stopped breathing in the coffin. I don't know why she could turn into that overnight. Her face was bluish-purple, and there wasn't a single good spot on her body."
"Later, every household started thinking about this, and some even considered buying from brokers and human traffickers, but brokers were legitimate, and human traffickers didn't have many girls, so..."
"So they've set their sights on their own daughter?" Huo Xiaolong asked from the side.
The woman nodded.
“That year, there was a flood in Jiangnan, and countless wealthy families died in it. Our village was good at this business, so she came to us immediately.”
The room was pitch black, so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. The only light was the moonlight that was blocked by branches overhead.
"Sister, I'm scared."
The little girl hugged her younger sister, listening to the cries of her childhood friends.
"Don't be afraid, I'll go and beg Mom in a bit, I'll go for you, oh, it's okay."
"Orchid, do you think we might all end up like Xiya?"
“You’re very capable. I heard from the county that this is illegal. You can report it to the authorities and have the person arrested.”
"Yes, all we need to do is escape and report to the authorities, then we can arrest the matchmaker."
The moth that burned back then was called Lan Hua, and she was quicker-witted than the other girls, but it seemed that this was the only way to rescue all the girls.
"Sis, when someone brings the food later, we'll make a ruckus, and then you can run away in the chaos."
"How about we go to the county government office and report to the magistrate, and ask him to come and rescue us?"
The girls knew that going to the village chief or neighborhood head was useless; even if they could escape this time, they couldn't escape it a second time.
Orchid escaped, but no one came back with her.
Back then, the county magistrate wasn't Wang Zheng yet, and no one would travel a long distance for a little girl's sake.
So how do we save them?
Little Orchid stood in the valley watching one coffin after another close. She wanted to go forward, and at the moment the coffins were nailed to each other, she could even see her in the eyes of those girls.
But one by one they shook their heads and waved at them.
Especially my younger sister.
She was clearly terrified, but she still managed to break free of her restraints and shout.
"Sister! Go away! Don't come back! Never come back!"
The screams were heart-wrenching, piercing, and deafening.
Lan Hua didn't look back, she just kept running forward until she fainted at the entrance of Fengyue Tower.
"Then why don't you let us go to the back mountain? Logically speaking, shouldn't the two people be buried together in a ghost marriage?" Huo Xiaolong asked.
Burning Moth shook its head and continued...
"We couldn't bring the body back, as people would check on the way, so we only brought back a small portion of the ashes for burial together."
"The back mountain is where they are buried."
"In the end, they could not have their own names. The inscription on their tombstones reads, 'Whose wife was she?'"
The truth came to light, and those who heard it were deeply moved.
The burning of moths doesn't lie; everyone in this village who did it is guilty.
“When we passed through the village, we saw a house with a black double happiness character pasted on its door, indicating that the wedding was approaching,” Fen’e said, looking up at Huo Xiaolong.
She couldn't even get up to save people, so the girl gestured with her chin and said...
"Don't worry, sis, I'm here."
Without saying much, Xiaocao led her private army to surround the house. The matchmaker from back then was still there, and even when Fen'e stood in front of her, she didn't recognize her.
As for her biological parents, they had locked the doors and windows long ago when they saw the private soldiers in the village.
The little girl was about the same age as them that year, and she was terrified, trembling like a leaf.
Supported by her maid, Fen'e knelt down, reached out and patted her head, saying...
"Don't be afraid, your sister is back to save you."
My sister is back.
She really wanted to ask her parents, "Can money really compare to so many years of blood ties?"
But now, the moth doesn't want to ask anymore.
How should I put it?
Girls were worthless back then. I heard that the family now has another younger brother, who is now twelve or thirteen years old.
It's not uncommon for wealthy young women to seek out men for ghost marriages.
But you see, his parents didn't choose to let him die.
Ultimately, their original sin is their gender; ultimately, they shouldn't have been born into the wrong family.
But things are different now. At least in Beining, under Long'er's rule, men and women are treated the same.
Looking at her sister being punished in front of her, Fen'e smiled with relief.
"Long'er, come with me for a walk in the back mountain later."
"Okay, sis."
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