"You've touched and seen my body, so when you grow up, you have to marry ," the woman said, putting away her spoon and bowl.
Her gaze drifted off into the distance, filled with mories, uttering a sentence that seed out of place in the current setting.
Yet, it struck a familiar chord in , sending a teor streaking through my mind, taking back to when I was about 10 years old...
My parents had both passed away by the ti I was just shy of ten, leaving with nothing but a rickety little cabin in the woods.
My father had been a lumberjack, which ant our ho was nestled deep in the forest.
There's an old saying, "In the city, no one asks about the poor; in the mountains, even distant relatives can be rich."
Our poverty ant that our relatives rarely made contact with us.
My mother died in a forest accident when I was very young, and my father raised until he too passed away when I was nine.
So relatives offered to adopt , but seeing their reluctant gazes, I declined.
I chose to live alone in the forest, guarding the small cabin my parents left , spending my days in the company of birds and beasts.
Back then, welfare was nothing like it is today.
Only occasionally would relatives bring so necessities, but most of the ti, I relied on myself.
Fortunately, I had learned many survival skills in the woods from my father, so I managed to get by, dreaming of the day I could leave the forest and make my own way in the world.
Of course, I eventually did, but that's a story for another ti.
To find food, I would sotis set traps in the woods to catch small animals, and even large traps for bigger ga.
One day, when I went to check a large reusable trap my father had left behind, I found a little girl inside, barely alive, younger than .
I quickly jumped into the trap to check on her; she was still breathing.
It took all the strength of my frail body to lift her out of the trap and rush her back to my cabin.
I laid her on the wooden bed; her lips were cracked, likely from dehydration.
I didn't know how long she had been in the trap.
I fetched so water and prepared so liquid food to feed her.
In this forest, my father and I had lived since I was a child.
He had saved many strangers lost in these woods, and many of them returned to visit and thank us.
I had also learned a lot about wilderness survival from him, skills he had painstakingly taught before he passed away.
As I was giving her water, the little girl looked at with half-closed eyes.
Her gaze was weak but carried a calmness that belied her age.
I'll never forget that look.
Her youthful face was innocent, but her eyes seed incredibly mature.
Her legs had been scraped when she fell into the trap, and after so many days, they had started to get infected.
There was no dicine in the cabin, and I couldn't leave her alone to find a doctor, nor could I carry her out of the forest.
From my little cabin to the outside world was an hour's journey.
Initially, relatives would make the effort to bring us food and drink.
But gradually, those visits decreased until they stopped altogether.
Perhaps in their minds, I was already dead.
Having experienced the fickleness of human relationships from a young age, I had matured early.
In the end, I had to resort to primitive thods to save her.
I removed her clothes and pants; I was young but knew enough to feel embarrassed.
However, to save her, I didn't think too much about it, especially since she had fallen into a trap I had set.
In a way, it was all my responsibility.
When I removed her clothes, her youthful face showed reluctance, but she didn't even have the strength to speak, only managing a weak shake of her head, her eyes filled with a mix of defiance and sorrow.
I was quite embarrassed myself, but I persisted in cleaning her wounds, chewing herbs and applying the juice to disinfect her body.
After I covered her with a blanket, my own face was flushed with embarrassnt, but at that young age, it was more about innocence than any sexual impulse.
Her injuries were severe, not just superficial cuts but also bone damage.
I found myself giving her twenty-five-minute leg massages daily, trying to ease her pain.
Every day, I hunted and gathered the best food I could find—fresh ga and wild fruits—driven by a deep sense of guilt.
Under my care, she slowly began to recover.
After three days, she was able to sit up, though she rarely spoke to , mostly avoiding my gaze.
I thought she might be mute, but she could still hear sounds.
Occasionally, her expressions were cold, making wonder how she would turn out as she grew older.
About a week later, a group of uniford individuals arrived at my cabin, accompanied by nurous police officers and military personnel with trained dogs.
When a woman from the group saw the little girl, she rushed to the bed and embraced her, crying bitterly.
Everyone except a man who seed to be the woman's husband stepped outside, giving them space.
I later learned that this man and woman were the girl's parents.
They had been on a family trip when the little girl wandered off and got lost, eventually falling into my trap.
Her parents had been searching for her for ten days, which ant she had been in my trap for about two or three days.
A seven-year-old girl had survived those conditions through sheer willpower.
Her parents tried to leave money, which I refused since I had no use for worldly possessions.
Instead, they left all their survival gear as a token of their gratitude.
They even offered to take out of the forest, but I declined.
As her parents prepared to leave, the girl asked them to step out of the room.
Her tone was commanding, and her parents, perhaps out of extre indulgence, reluctantly complied and closed the door behind them, leaving us alone...
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