Taohong walked over, holding a steamed bun in her hand, and offered it to Chunyan.
Looking at the plump, white bun, Chunyan swallowed her saliva but refused.
"Sister Taohong, I can't take it."
"You look down on me? Think I'm dirty?"
"No. I can't take your food." Chunyan shook her head. She had seen the price Taohong paid for a bite to eat.
Chunyan felt she couldn't accept it.
"Take it, consider it me repaying you." Taohong stuffed the bun into Chunyan's hand and turned to walk toward Brother Ma.
Chunyan stood up to return it but was grabbed by Ye Yunniang.
"Eat it. It will make her feel a little better."
"I don't blame Sister Taohong. It was my own carelessness that got me into this."
"Hurry up and eat. Don't just hold that bun and tempt us," Wen Nuan urged.
Seeing the hungry gazes from the others, Chunyan stuffed the bun into her mouth.
Sister Taohong gave it to her; she couldn't let anyone else have it.
After the traffickers finished eating, Ye Yunniang and the others were herded onto the cart to continue their journey.
The bumpy, pothole-ridden road was endured until dusk.
The cart stopped by a small river.
The task assigned to Ye Yunniang that day was, once again, gathering firewood.
With a guard following behind, Ye Yunniang dared not make any move and obediently gathered wood.
After two trips carrying firewood back, she was allowed to rest.
She had just sat down when she heard a low moaning nearby.
The woman whose leg was broken last night had developed a fever. Someone was tending to her, applying a damp cloth to her forehead to reduce the fever.
Without medicine, whether the woman lived or died depended entirely on whether she could pull through on her own.
"Food!" Monkey shouted.
Two women carried a bucket over.
Each person received one cornbread bun and a bowl of soup.
The fish hadn't been cleaned properly, making the soup very fishy.
Ye Yunniang forced herself to drink a few mouthfuls; if she didn't, she'd have no water at all.
After finishing the bun, they rested for a while.
The traffickers came again to bind their hands and feet.
This time, apart from Taohong and the woman with the broken leg, none of the other women resisted. They submitted meekly to having their limbs tied.
The trafficker doing the tying, disappointed by the lack of struggle, tied the knots brutally tight.
The women, bound painfully, let out muffled groans but dared not make any more sound.
Ye Yunniang and Wen Nuan leaned against each other.
Ye Yunniang glanced at the traffickers not far away and asked in a hushed voice, "How much longer to the border?"
"Can't take it anymore?"
"Mhm, how long?"
"A month."
"We have to endure this for another month," Ye Yunniang murmured.
"These days are hard to bear, but at least we're still alive."
Wen Nuan gave a bitter, ironic smile.
Ye Yunniang turned her head to look at Wen Nuan. "Last time, didn't you deal with your stepmother?"
"The old man protected her too well. Before I found a chance to act, he schemed and sold me to the Xing family as a concubine."
"Assistant Prefect Xing's family?"
"You know of them?"
"Yes, I've met Miss Xing. Very... flamboyant."
"You mean Xing Jinxiu. She's doted on by Xing Wenzhi. Arrogant and domineering, money-grubbing.
My being sold had her hand in it."
Xing Jinxiu took 1,000 taels of silver from Wen Nuan's stepmother. It so happened that Xing Yuanchang's chambermaid-turned-concubine had a second miscarriage.
She, the rather disliked concubine who had been childless for years, was pushed out as the scapegoat.
Wen Nuan's sale also had some connection to Ye Yunniang's affairs. With a sigh, she reflected that how things unfold is often beyond expectation.
"Do you still have feelings for Xing Yuanchang?"
"A spoiled playboy? Who would have feelings for him?" Speaking of Xing Yuanchang, Wen Nuan's whole body radiated disdain.
If not for her father's scheming, Wen Nuan would rather have married a beggar than entered Xing Yuanchang's rear courtyard.
It was also because Wen Nuan made no secret of her contempt for Xing Yuanchang that when she was sold, no one in the Xing family lifted a finger to stop it.
"Wake up! Wake up, please..." A cry interrupted Ye Yunniang and Wen Nuan's conversation.
They both looked toward the sound. The woman with the broken leg was being shaken vigorously but showed no response.
"She can't hold on anymore," Wen Nuan said calmly.
Ye Yunniang didn't speak, silently agreeing in her heart.
The trafficker Monkey, who was nearby, walked over.
"What's all the noise?"
"Quick, please save her. She... she's unconscious, she's dying."
Monkey walked over, checked her breathing, and slapped her face several times.
The woman with the broken leg did not respond.
Monkey went to report to Brother Ma.
"Dead is dead," Jin Laoliu said with complete indifference.
"Her death is on your head. You get 30 taels less from this share-out," Brother Ma's single sentence wiped the look of amusement off Jin Laoliu's face.
"Brother Ma, that woman was plain-looking, not worth—"
"Got a problem?"
"No, no, of course not. Whatever Brother Ma says goes." Jin Laoliu shrank back timidly.
"Make sure she's dead, then bury her," Brother Ma instructed Monkey.
"Yes, sir." Monkey acknowledged and went to the woman.
Confirming she had breathed her last, he picked two strong women to dig a hole and bury her.
"In their eyes, we're goods when we're alive. When we're dead, we're just trash to be discarded."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Don't act rashly." Having said this, Wen Nuan closed her eyes to rest.
Ye Yunniang looked at Wen Nuan, then closed her own eyes.
The closer they got to the border, the more convoys they encountered.
Due to natural disasters and man-made calamities, more and more people were selling their daughters and wives.
The cart Ye Yunniang was in grew from seven or eight people to over a dozen.
Packed tightly, they could sit but not move.
The cart kept moving, not stopping.
If they needed to urinate, they just had to do it in their pants.
The smell inside the cart became nauseating.
Ye Yunniang didn't want to wet herself, so she endured by not drinking water. Her lips became chapped, and she grew terribly thin.
Her hair was a tangled mess. Even someone close might not recognize her now.
By the time they entered the borderlands, everyone in the cart was haggard and worn down.
The cart stopped at a trafficking outpost.
Each person washed with a basin of water and changed out of their sour, stinking clothes.
After cleaning up, Ye Yunniang and the others were led to an assigned room.
Finally, there was a bed to lie on.
Lying on the bed strewn with straw, Ye Yunniang fell asleep quickly. She was utterly exhausted.
In her dream, Ye Yunniang returned to Jiangcheng and saw her mother and her three sons.
They were waiting, hoping for her to come home.
Ye Yunniang reached out, wanting to hug the children, wanting to tell her mother she was okay, she was alive.
She couldn't reach them, couldn't touch them.
She could only keep calling out, "I'm still alive, I will definitely come back. I will come back."
She opened her eyes and saw the earthen roof.
She was still in the hands of the traffickers.
They had reached the borderlands. Soon, they would be transported out of the country.
Thinking of what Wen Nuan said about sixty dying, forty surviving...
Ye Yunniang made a firm resolution in her heart. She would escape. She had to stay alive to see her children again.
Jiangcheng, Prefect's Residence. At the dining table.
Cai Damei, Li Pan, and the other two children sat with grim expressions.
Bao Min sighed. Ye Yunniang had been missing for over a month now. No trace of her alive, no body found dead, not a single clue.
During this time, Cai Damei and the children had been like a ship without a rudder, unable to muster enthusiasm for anything.
Bao Min ladled a bowl of porridge and handed it to Cai Damei.
"Madam, have some porridge."
Cai Damei took it, forcing a slight twitch of her lips. She looked at the three children. "Eat, everyone."
"Grandma, I can't eat. Last night, I dreamed Mother was kidnapped by traffickers. She's having a very hard time now."
Li Pan's words made the chopsticks fall from Cai Damei's hand.
"You dreamed it too? Mother's hair was all messy. She was wearing a drab, old gray dress," Li An said.
"I dreamed it too. I also dreamed Mother said she would find a way to escape. She would never go to... Yan, Yan..."
