Chapter 55 Past
"Jingjing, my heart suddenly hurts so much, let me hold you for a while."
"So you really don't plan to tell him about your past experiences with Hoh Xil?" Qi Woxue's voice fell, and everything around seemed to quiet down.
Lin Yujing held the white paper "Introduction to the Protection of Hoh Xil", but could no longer concentrate on reading a single word.
The door to memory opened, pulling her back to the cold winter of when she was three years old.
As the saying goes, winter is a hurdle for the elderly.
Grandma Lin ultimately didn't make it through that Spring Festival. According to the customs of their hometown, Lin Daguo had to bury his mother before the New Year.
Chen Yan was pregnant with her second child at the time, so she stayed in the city.
The entire funeral consisted of only the father and daughter. Lin Daguo was in charge of arranging the burial, while Lin Yujing knelt in front of the coffin and wept.
People of all ages passing by couldn't help but cry their eyes out at this adorable and chubby little girl.
But only Lin Yujing knew that she wasn't crying because she was sad about her grandmother, but because she was crying out of fear.
During the three years the old woman cared for her, she would say to her almost every day: "Your parents went to work in the city without you, because they didn't want you. Girls are worthless in this remote mountain village. They should have killed you back then."
"When I, this old woman, die, you'll truly become a little beggar."
She thought, now that her grandmother is dead, she really is going to become a little beggar without parents.
Who knew that she cried so hard that day, someone with red eyes casually said to Lin Daguo, "Your daughter is so sensible and beautiful. When she grows up, she'll definitely marry a rich and good man."
Lin Daguo, being illiterate, misinterpreted the statement as: she was sure to marry a rich and good man, and then use the money for a bride price to find a wife for his unborn son.
So, Lin Yujing was taken back to the city by Lin Daguo.
On the bus that left, she was still resentful, thinking to herself: "Old woman, I knew you were lying to me. My parents would never abandon me."
When they arrived in the city, Li Yan wouldn't let her into her house at all. Instead, she grabbed Lin Daguo's ear and started yelling, "Why did you have to bring another mouth? Are you rich?"
The couple whispered to each other for two hours before she finally entered the two-bedroom rental apartment.
The cozy second bedroom wasn't hers; it was reserved for her younger brother.
Even though he wasn't born yet, and even though he didn't sleep alone until he was six years old.
Lin Yujing was left on the drafty balcony and lived there until she was admitted to high school as a special talent student. Her only request to the school was to be provided with a dormitory room for free.
In the past, all she heard was Li Yan and Lin Daguo's disdain and belittling of her.
“Your younger brother is a boy, and only your younger brother can carry on the bloodline of our Lin family.”
“We raised you and sacrificed so much for you. You should marry a rich man and ask for a dowry to help your younger brother get married.”
"Wasn't it enough to pay for your junior high school education?"
"Why go to university? 18 is the best age to get married, and we can even ask for more dowry."
"Graduate student? You're dreaming. If you study for another three years, you'll be 26. In the village, that's already a mother of three."
Lin Yujing pulled her suitcase, tears welling in her eyes. It was the first time she had ever broken down. "So, when I was three years old, you let me into the family so you could get a dowry for Lin Yuyan to marry a wife, right?"
Li Yan, hands on her hips, cursed loudly, "Otherwise what? Daughters are all money-losing goods, raised by other families."
Lin Yujing retorted stubbornly and resentfully, "Mom, you're a girl too!"
Li Yan was stunned for a moment, then slapped her across the face. "I told you not to study in your senior year of high school, but you insisted on continuing. You wasted a year, and I think you've completely lost your mind."
Lin Daguo sat on the sofa, smoking one cigarette after another. "You can't leave now. I've already taken money from a herding family in Qinghai. Their son is lame, so it's a good deal for you, a twenty-something-year-old maid. Normally, I can only take 40,000 yuan as a bride price, but this time I took 100,000."
Lin Yujing pushed Li Yan away, "Whoever takes you in can marry you. I'm leaving."
Before she could even step out of her house, Lin Daguo punched her so hard that she saw stars.
When she woke up again, her hands and feet were bound with rope, and Li Yan and Lin Daguo were throwing her into a van.
"You are trafficking people!"
“We are your parents, we raised you, so you should listen to us.”
At that moment, Lin Yujing felt like livestock, casually bought by its owner and sent to the slaughterhouse.
Perhaps she was even worse off than livestock. At least livestock have food and water, while she always had to collect beverage bottles and cardboard boxes along the roadside after class to sell for money to buy food and water, otherwise she would go hungry.
Even the most resilient person feels a sense of shattering at this moment.
She thought that maybe she was just really bad, which was why her classmates and teachers had always disliked her since she was a child, and why she was always abandoned by all kinds of people.
The only one who cherished her was also deeply hurt by her.
So, on the way to Qinghai, she lay in the back of the car, feeling utterly hopeless.
Perhaps, her fate was destined to be so fleeting and ephemeral.
However, while traveling along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, she saw a group of college students wearing red vests blocking passing cars to allow a few Tibetan antelopes to cross the road.
Lin Yujing felt that she was an independent person, so why should she be compared to livestock?
She refused to be ruined by the feudalistic ideas of valuing sons over daughters, and she absolutely could not give up the postgraduate studies she had already been admitted to. She wanted to have a bright future ahead of her.
Lin Yujing began to plead with Lin Daguo, "Dad, I can take care of you and Mom in your old age, please don't sell me."
Lin Daguo spat out the window, “Bullshit! You’re a daughter who will get married sooner or later. If your son-in-law is unhappy, you won’t even be able to go back to your parents’ home. We don’t expect anything from you.”
"Then I swear I will never get married, never fall in love, and only earn money to support you and my mother, okay!" At that time, Lin Yujing was so helpless and broken that she would agree to any condition as long as Lin Daguo promised not to sell her and let her continue her studies.
“If you don’t get married, and you live with your brother, your sister-in-law will definitely complain.”
"Then I'll either buy my own house or rent one and live elsewhere."
"Stop talking nonsense and take a break. You should be grateful that they didn't just abandon you in the mountains when you were born and raised you to adulthood."
Lin Yujing, filled with grief and indignation, asked, "What am I to you?"
"What are you? You're a burden, a worthless burden. I shouldn't have let you study in the first place. The old saying is really true: if girls study too much, they'll become stupid."
Lin Yujing sighed and completely gave up on persuading Lin Daguo.
She lay down on her side and began quietly searching the car for something that could help her escape.
Finally, she saw a razor blade that Lin Daguo used for work.
However, the blade was too far away from her, so Lin Yujing dared not make any rash moves.
Fortunately, Lin Daguo couldn't help but go to the toilet halfway through, which finally gave her the opportunity to cut the rope.
After jumping out of the car, Lin Yujing ran away without looking back. She first tried to flag down a car on the Qinghai-Tibet Highway, but none of the drivers dared to stop after seeing her hands and body covered in blood.
Then she thought of going along the Qinghai-Tibet Highway to find the group of volunteers, but it was hard to guarantee that Lin Daguo wouldn't turn back.
Lin Yujing patted her pockets and realized that even her phone had been taken away by Lin Daguo, so she didn't even have a chance to call the police.
She looked blankly at the desolate grassland before her, then steeled her heart and ran in.
At that time, she had no idea that she had stepped into the Hoh Xil no-man's-land, which is known as the "forbidden zone of life".
Mid-June is the season when Tibetan antelopes migrate from their winter habitats to their summer habitats.
Flocks of crows filled the sky, and wolves lay in ambush on the grassland, waiting to hunt.
But even more terrifying than these two was Lin Daguo, who was chasing after them in his car.
She was truly at her wit's end.
Perhaps it was divine mercy that caused Lin Daguo's car to get stuck in the swamp.
He had no choice but to follow on foot as well.
Lin Yujing had been running all the way, and at this high altitude, the taste of blood in her throat had already filled her mouth.
Even due to lack of oxygen, my vision was gradually blurring. I could only see a pure white in the distance, like a radiant deity.
Lin Yujing tripped and fell, touching soft, warm fur, and was then surrounded by radiant deities.
She lay prone on the ground, surrounded by the sounds of sheep bleating, wolves howling, and men being torn apart.
After feeling the warmth, Lin Yujing's vision gradually returned.
She watched as Lin Daguo tripped and fell to the ground just like her, only to be quickly pulled away from the flock by several wolves who bit his ankle.
His desperate struggle and attempt to escape resulted in him being torn apart by the wolves.
He cried out, "Daughter, I was wrong! Please ask those sheep to save me too!"
At that time, Lin Yujing only knew that she was surrounded by a herd of Tibetan antelopes, and all around her were newborn lambs.
It doesn't hurt when the antelope steps on you, but if you count too many, you'll feel a suffocating sensation.
She didn't refuse to save Lin Daguo because of hatred, but because she herself wanted to seek redemption.
For a long, long time after that, her dreams were all about escaping from the car of her biological father, who had almost sold her, only to witness the horrific scene of him being torn apart and eaten alive by a pack of wolves.
Finally, the nightmare will end with a few gunshots.
-
“As staff members of a wildlife conservation station, we are not allowed to damage the ecosystem, so even when faced with wolves hunting Tibetan antelopes, we could only observe and record,” Gongga Jebu recalled that day.
"However, on that day, volunteers from the Hundred Schools Alliance happened to be taking pictures with their cameras. They first discovered that a pack of wolves was tearing apart a suspicious object that looked like half a human body, and then they discovered that a girl was lying in the center of the protective circle formed by the Tibetan antelope herd to protect their lambs."
Gongga Jiebu still remembers that when Lin Yujing was rescued, her white dress was stained with blood.
She remained aphasic for the next few days, and whenever anyone asked her a question, she would just stare blankly at the distant grassland.
"Sigh. This is the first time I've ever seen a biological father sell his daughter for a dowry of 100,000 yuan. To be frank, he deserved to die."
After hearing the whole story, Chen Jingshu suddenly felt a sharp pain in his heart.
He had imagined that Lin Yujing's family background was terrible, but he never thought it would be this ugly.
"Please don't tell her that I asked you about this."
Gongga Jiebu nodded, "Okay, don't worry. I also hope you can make Comrade Xiaolin happy."
Gongga Jebu could not forget the time he saw the girl again the following year, a girl who had been so broken she was almost dead.
With her hair tied in a high ponytail and a bright, youthful smile on her face, she said to him, "Uncle Gongga Jiebu, I want to become the guardian of the Tibetan antelopes to repay their life-saving grace!"
-
After finishing her morning's study session, Lin Yujing took a long time to recover.
As soon as she stood up and turned around, she saw Chen Jingshu standing behind her.
"Have you finished talking with the station manager?"
"Now that we've finished talking, let's go eat."
"good."
Chen Jingshu followed behind her, but after only a couple of steps, he suddenly hugged her.
She sank into a warm chest, Chen Jingshu's lips were close to her ear, his voice was low and hoarse, with a feeling of heartache and helplessness.
"Jingjing, my heart suddenly hurts so much, let me hold you for a while."
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