But one cannot defy the master’s orders, Lin Yi carelessly picked up a small stone from under the tree, flicked his wrist, and the stone struck Huai Hua on her back.
Ugh!
Halfway through the final retch, Huai Hua’s voice vanished.
Finally free from nausea, Huai Hua collapsed to the ground, utterly depleted, paying no mind that she was lying amongst her own vomit.
"Oh!"
Shui Xian and Yin Xing exclaid out loud, instinctively moving to pull her up, but it was ultimately too late.
Huai Hua sat squarely upon the puddle of green and yellow bile, her pants stained as though dyed in color.
How could Huai Hua concern herself with such matters at this ti?
Even though she had stopped vomiting, her head was still heavy and dizzy, and she truly wished to throw herself to the ground and sleep soundly.
After all, she wasn’t Shui Xian’s own younger sister, so, with disdain, Shui Xian sidestepped the ss while Yin Xing also stepped aside.
Seeing Yin Xing’s look of disdain, Lin Yi actually couldn’t help but snicker secretly; he’d done this on purpose today. This malicious girl and her heartless mother, how they had treated the Yinxing Sisters before, he had made sure to find out about it.
As they say, good is rewarded with good and evil with evil. Yin Xing is kind-hearted; if she doesn’t hold grudges, it doesn’t an others can’t seek revenge for her.
Having taken revenge for Yin Xing, Lin Yi felt an exceptionally good mood for the rest of the day.
Huai Hua took a mont on the ground to regain so clarity, but being clear-headed was even worse than not. The episode that just happened suddenly flooded into her mind—He Lienuo’s look of disdain, the short man’s terrifying and hideous face, and the feeling of emptiness as her body was tossed into the air.
Of course, there was also the subsequent dizziness and the sense of fainting. All these mories nearly caused her to have a ntal breakdown, tears streaming from her eyes.
Regardless of the filth on her hands, Huai Hua held her face tightly and burst out sobbing loudly.
"Mother! I’m so scared, mother, please co, I want to go ho, mother!"
Listening to her desperately crying for her mother, sothing gripped Yin Xing’s heart tightly, reminding her of when their own mother had just died, and she and her sisters had cried together just like this.
What left the deepest impression on her was the night when Widow Qiao had just arrived and wanted to sell them imdiately. Since the eldest sister was already betrothed, she couldn’t be sold, which ant that it was going to be her and her two younger sisters.
The eldest sister didn’t want to part with them, and the four sisters huddled and cried in the corner. They scread for their mother, but no matter how loudly they called, their mother had already closed her eyes, buried in the wild fields at the edge of the village, never to return.
She also vividly rembered that night when Father Yinxing wanted to keep them, pleading with Widow Qiao, saying he could work harder to provide for the family, begging her not to sell his children, that if she sold them, he wouldn’t be able to face his deceased wife.
But what about Widow Qiao?
Widow Qiao scoffed, planted herself confidently at the head of the kang bed, looking down upon their family from high above, pointing at the little younger brother crying loudly in the kang, and snorted disdainfully.
"The wife who has died? Hah, if you really felt sorry for that short-lived ghost, you shouldn’t have forced her to bear you a son! Now that she’s dead, you co to reminisce the past love, such shalessness!"
Widow Qiao’s words were sharp and an, the eldest sister was too timid to utter a word, and the two younger sisters, still small, knew only to cry.
Though only six years old, Yinxing had a spirit of defiance and imdiately retorted, "You’re the short-lived ghost, not my mother!"
Slap!
No sooner had she finished speaking than Yinxing’s face was slapped, burning with pain.
Shocked, she looked up to see Widow Qiao’s daughter glaring at her with a pair of sharp, narrow eyes identical to her mother’s.
"Ptui! Daring to curse my mother, what are you but a trifle!"
Yinxing rembered that this girl was the daughter born to Widow Qiao and her short-lived husband, nad Huai Hua.
After hitting her, Huai Hua turned her head to the brightly smiling Widow Qiao sitting on the edge of the bed and said, "Mother, this little brat has a venomous tongue; surely she’s a jinx. Let’s sell her!"
Yinxing was stunned. Sell her? Huai Hua was an outsider; how dare she dictate in her ho that her own father should sell her?
"What right do you have to sell ! You are the jinx, you caused your father’s death! If anyone should be sold, it’s you. You don’t share the sa father with us, you’re an outsider!"
This word, ’outsider’, thoroughly enraged both Widow Qiao and her daughter. Widow Qiao jumped off the kang (bed platform) and cursed at the honest and subdued Father Yinxing.
"Oh, I see. I married this useless man, let him sleep with , let him ride on ! And in the end, I beco the outsider! Ha, fine. You’re all one family; I’d like to see how you’re going to provide for all these money-draining burdens! Huai Hua, let’s go. We won’t stay here any longer. Let’s go ho!"
Seeing the two about to leave, the Yinxing Sisters were very happy, but their father was not.
Thinking of this, tears began to fall from Yinxing’s eyes. She rembered how her father had desperately begged Widow Qiao not to leave, saying he would cherish Huai Hua as his own daughter and would never let her suffer or endure hardship.
She also rembered the smug smiles on Widow Qiao and her daughter’s faces and their threatening words. If Huai Hua ca, there would be too many girls in the house, and they would have to sell one. If they didn’t sell one, they would leave.
Watching her father’s pained expression and her little brother suddenly crying bitterly in the bed, Yinxing recalled the last words her mother had given her before passing away.
Yinxing bit her lip, stood up, and finally... sold herself.
"Yinxing, Yinxing, what’s wrong with you?"
The call from Shui Xian brought Yinxing back to reality. Yinxing wiped her tears and shook her head: "It’s nothing, just that, I just miss my mother."
Shui Xian had parents and though she didn’t know what it felt like to be without a mother, she felt uneasy seeing her like this and silently helped her wipe away the tears.
Looking at Huai Hua who was wailing like at a funeral, Lin Yuan frowned and chided sternly, "Stop crying, or else I’ll sell you to a brothel!" At these words, Huai Hua’s crying abruptly ceased.
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