vstars Chapter 193 Forced Buying and Selling
Chapter 193 Forced Buying and Selling
The voice continued with an unsettling, tentative tone, "That...that girl in the blue dress! Yes, the one who was just talking, the one with the ponytail! I...I've fallen for her! I want to marry her! You see...this is alright, right? Marriage is a matter of personal choice, you can't interfere, can you? I've been single for over ten years, and I've finally met someone I like..."
These words were like a larger, dirtier pebble thrown into a seemingly calm but actually turbulent quagmire of despair! Instantly, they stirred up new and even more unbearable ripples!
The woman in blue's parents seemed to have suddenly spotted a piece of driftwood before they drowned! Xu Xiaoyan clearly heard a series of panicked, stumbling footsteps, accompanied by the rustling of clothes and rapid breathing. It was obvious that the parents were pulling and dragging their daughter, almost dragging her, as they ran downstairs to where the man who had spoken was.
The mother's voice was choked with sobs, yet filled with an excited grasp at a lifeline: "Brother! Benefactor! Kind man! Thank you! Thank you for taking us in! Please! Open the door! Please open the door and let us in! It's too cold outside! We'll definitely live a good life! My daughter is obedient and hardworking! We... we'll repay you like slaves!" The father chimed in incoherently, his voice filled with humble gratitude and urgency.
However, the man's voice rang out again, his tone even tinged with impatience, "Hey! Are you deaf? I remember I made it very clear, I only want the one in the blue dress, just her! I don't want the others! My house is so tiny, I can barely turn around myself, how can I possibly fit the two of you? Hurry up, let her come up herself, you two go wherever you want!"
These words were like a bucket of ice water, instantly extinguishing the flame of hope that the parents had just ignited, and also making Xu Xiaoyan's heart tighten as she listened.
In this suffocating moment, when family ties were distorted by the pressure of survival, the woman in blue, who had been forced to remain silent and was being pulled and sold by her parents like merchandise, suddenly let out a very clear, even slightly mocking, "cold snort"!
Her voice held a chilling, resolute edge, as if she'd already made a desperate decision. "I don't think I've ever... said 'I'm willing to marry you,' have I?!" She paused, then her voice suddenly rose, filled with a powerful, finally erupting emotion, directed at her biological parents, "If you want to marry—you two can marry them yourselves!!!"
Before she could finish speaking, Xu Xiaoyan heard a series of hurried footsteps rapidly approaching and receding into the distance. It seemed that the woman in blue had broken free from her parents' grasp and was heading towards the Fourth City alone.
A brief, deathly silence fell over the street, followed by the panicked cries of the parents, "Daughter! Come back! Where have you been! Come back quickly!"
The man's voice rang out sullenly, filled with frustration and dissatisfaction at his failed plan: "Pah! What a piece of trash! You don't know what's good for you!" Meanwhile, the cold, unquestionable shouts of the soldiers driving them away once again became the dominant theme, drowning out everything else.
Xu Xiaoyan lay on the kang (a heated brick bed), wrapped herself tightly in the quilt, and sighed silently... All of this had happened in such a short time, leaving her feeling a deep sense of exhaustion and sorrow. She added a few pieces of hard firewood to the kang, and looked at the flames that had rekindled in the stove, trying to use this tangible warmth to dispel the chill rising in her heart and to regain her sleepiness.
However, tonight is destined to be a turbulent night, and it seems that there is no bottom to the bottom of human nature, only a lower one.
Just as she closed her eyes and her consciousness began to fade, "Rip—!!!" A piercing, sharp sound, like cloth being violently torn apart, suddenly and without warning pierced through the not-so-soundproof walls. The sound had an unparalleled impact in the silent, cold night.
Immediately following was a young woman's piercing, distorted scream: "Ah—!!! Mom! What are you doing?! Let go! Let go of me!!!"
Xu Xiaoyan was suddenly awakened, all sleepiness gone. She sat up and stared wide-eyed in the darkness.
"It's so cold...minus twenty degrees...whose clothes...were torn?" The thought had barely crossed her mind when she felt a chill run from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. A sense of absurdity and utter despair mingled within her. Was this any way to live? What could be more appalling than military expulsion and human trafficking happening outside?!
Before her confusion and horror could fully develop, a woman's urgent, almost frantic voice immediately "solved" her problem. The voice was filled with a desperate madness and a nauseatingly enthusiastic sales pitch:
"Look! Look! Brother! Look at my daughter! She has a great figure! She... she used to be a print model in the city! Really! She's got a lot of assets!!! And her skin is so fair! Brother, take a look! Look closely! You'd be hard-pressed to find a girl like this even with a lantern!"
Xu Xiaoyan's brows furrowed tightly, and a wave of nausea and discomfort surged up in her stomach, almost making her gag.
"This is... something a normal person... no, this is something any mother with basic humanity... could do?!" Her chest heaved with anger and disbelief. "Tearing her own daughter's clothes in public?! Using this method to 'display' and 'promote' her?! In exchange for a place to live?!" This had completely crossed the line of her understanding, trampling on the most basic maternal instincts and dignity in human relationships!
Immediately afterwards, she heard that familiar male voice—the same man who had previously demanded the woman in blue but failed, and who had later mocked her parents. This time, his tone carried a more blatant assessment, and a hint of condescending condescension:
"Tsk... well... I can't see her face very clearly, but her figure... looks pretty good. Okay, I'll take her. Hey, you upstairs, are you her mother? You're... quite attractive too. Never mind, come in with her! I'll come downstairs and open the door for you! Hurry up! Don't dawdle!"
As the words fell, what followed was the even more suppressed yet deeply ingrained desperate sobs and cries of the girl who had been publicly "displayed," her clothes disheveled. There was no anger in her cries, only boundless humiliation and coldness, and her mother's nauseating "comfort"—her voice devoid of any guilt or heartache, only a sense of relief and relief after a sordid deal had been made, even a hint of smugness.
"Don't cry... my dear daughter, don't cry... Mom is here... Mom had no choice but to do this... We have to survive... Look, this brother is so kind, he's willing to take us in... Be a good boy and listen to me, and from now on... our good days are coming, we won't have to suffer from the cold anymore..." This hypocritical comfort is more chilling than direct violence.