Tricked 136: Eighty Taels

Pingping often felt as if she were being overlooked.

She was still at the age where she should be watching cartoons, yet she constantly overheard conversations that really ought to be censored for children. Feeling helpless, she stared straight ahead and sighed deeply.

After finishing her sentence, Jin Yuebai seemed to recall something, the curve of her lips gradually flattening.

“It’s nothing to be particularly happy about.”

“I heard it from the girls on Flower Street. Old Master Wang’s never been able to get it up in this lifetime. The more he lacks something, the more he desires it, and his favorite pastime is tormenting others. He’s a real pervert—if it weren’t for his family’s wealth handed down from generations and the fact that he managed to get ahold of some firearms, he would’ve lost his hold over Lingren Village long ago.”

You could tell from Old Master Fang’s resigned patience toward Fang Xuyu that these old masters valued this above all: they had to be able to pass on the family line, and their sons needed to be able to father sons as well—otherwise, the lineage was severed. If someone with congenital issues ended up on equal footing with them, they couldn’t stand it; their displeasure would show in their manner and actions.

Losing face before these men, Old Master Wang sought to regain it from the girls.

“Those girls…”

Jin Yuebai waved a hand at herself as if to fan away some stifling air. “The last girl I brought home was so naïve. She kept dreaming she could change Old Master Wang, but since when could a man be changed? Once a man’s rotten to the core, don’t bet on a prodigal’s return. I saw her once, before she died. Her arms were covered in scars, all at different stages of healing, every one a fresh lash mark.”

“Layer after layer of scars—it was horrifying.”

The full moon had climbed high; the night was now as deep as could be.

Jin Yuebai was about to leave but looked back at Jiang Yan.

“You’d better warn those girls who came in with you to steer clear whenever possible.”

She cautioned, “The two troupe leaders are close with Fang Xuyu. If seriously wronged, Fang Xuyu will force Old Master Fang to step in, and although he has the gentlest temperament in the theater, he has used the threat of death to get his way before.”

“Old Master Fang’s influence is greater than Old Master Wang’s, so Wang can’t touch their protégées openly—at most, he’ll harass them. But as for you apprentice servants, if he wanted to take you away, no one could stop him.”

Jiang Yan nodded. She looked at Jin Yuebai.

“Thank you.”

To meet someone by chance and be offered such words of advice and comfort—it only cemented in Jiang Yan’s mind that Jin Yuebai was truly a good person.

“No need for thanks.”

Jin Yuebai smiled casually. She leaned on the second floor’s railing, lifted her hand, and with a cinnabar-stained pinky nail, gently scraped her right eye corner, wiping away the dust that had settled beneath her eye. Then she turned, taking Pingping with her, and left the theater.

Jiang Yan watched Jin Yuebai leave before heading back to her room.

By now, Shen Xiaoxiao was already inside. Yu Renwan and Shen Huanhuan lived next door; since they were apprentices, their room was considerably better than hers.

Making sure no one was around, Yu Renwan slipped in from the neighboring room, a handful of small, green-red apples in her hands.

“They were on the table—there’s more inside. You two eat these.”

The apples were small and tasted both astringent and sour. Jiang Yan took a bite and the sharp tang made her tongue tingle, but this was the reality for ordinary folk in Lingren Village. This was no place to save lives, nor any utopia.

A year of drought had left the refugees with nothing more to choose from. No matter where they went, they struggled to survive, so they had stubbornly chosen this as their last, ideal destination.

Yu Renwan sat beside Jiang Yan and spoke of Shen Huanhuan:

“Huanhuan went out. She got a few bruises during today’s training, so Senior Liu Shaochun took her to the pharmacy—said to apply medicine, rub it in, and it’d be gone in a few days.”

“How’s your throat?” Jiang Yan asked her.

“Doesn’t hurt much anymore. The herbal medicine the troupe leader gave me works wonders,” Yu Renwan replied.

Jiang Yan made a sound of acknowledgment and, not wasting the apple in her hand despite its taste, finished it bite by bite, brow furrowed.

Hearing her elder sister had gone out, Shen Xiaoxiao immediately walked to the window. Hooking both hands on the sill, she leaned half her body out.

“When did Sis leave?”

Yu Renwan thought for a moment. “About ten minutes ago. No need to worry—she’s not coming back just yet.”

Shen Xiaoxiao nodded but didn’t pull herself back inside.

“We’ve pretty much been here a whole day, right? From morning till night,” she said. “Today felt so slow, as if we experienced an awful lot—so exhausting—”

Jiang Yan’s lips curled faintly. “We have been through a lot.”

“Everyone’s died at least once by now, not to mention the famine, the dangerous journey, the nerve-wracking job hunt… It’s natural to feel drained, all the emotional ups and downs.”

Shen Xiaoxiao replayed the day’s events in her mind, then shuddered as she recalled the way she’d been run through the heart earlier. “Ugh, who knows how many more times I’ll have to die here. The thought of staying so long is so depressing.”

“I’ll have grown old by the time I get out—and even if I do, my mindset will be like an old granny’s!”

Jiang Yan said, “Who knows, maybe we’ll get out in a few days, or a few months.”

Yu Renwan, ever the pessimist, sat on the edge of her chair, shoulders hunched, her mood so low her brow nearly touched the tabletop until she inadvertently banged her forehead against its corner.

Cradling her head, she murmured, “Or maybe a few years… or decades.”

Shen Xiaoxiao flashed her tiger teeth at Yu Renwan. “Take that back!”

Yu Renwan: “I take it back.”

Shen Xiaoxiao nodded in satisfaction, then went back to leaning by the window, eyes fixed on the path below, ready to greet her sister the moment she appeared.

But Shen Huanhuan still didn’t come back.

As time stretched on, Shen Xiaoxiao’s heart suddenly quickened, her palms sweating. She started pacing around the room, then repeatedly walked back to the window to peer outside.

Half an hour had passed since Shen Huanhuan left, though the pharmacy was close and shouldn’t have taken this long.

Clutching her chest, Shen Xiaoxiao anxiously moved for the door. “Sister Jiang Yan, I’m going to wait for my sister at the theater entrance. Don’t worry, I won’t wander off. I’ll just wait by the stairs.”

Given their current identities, sneaking out alone in the dead of night was far too dangerous. Everyone’s actions were restricted by their personas: weak and powerless, unable to put up a fight—if attacked, it would spell real trouble.

Jiang Yan stopped Shen Xiaoxiao. “There’s no use panicking right now.”

“Liu Shaochun is with Shen Huanhuan. If she can’t handle the trouble, neither can we. If Shen Huanhuan doesn’t come back in five minutes, we’ll go find Xiao Congye.”

“Okay.” Shen Xiaoxiao exhaled, returning to the window.

Three minutes later, Shen Huanhuan and Liu Shaochun’s figures appeared on the path outside the theater. No one knew what had happened, but Shen Huanhuan now stuck much closer to Liu Shaochun, quietly following her, glancing at her from time to time.

Shen Huanhuan’s persona wasn’t talkative. Most of her feelings were expressed through fighting; in everyday life, her emotions were restrained and repressed. To silently observe someone like this was her way of showing affection.

“Something big must’ve happened just now!” Shen Xiaoxiao declared with certainty.

At the theater entrance, Liu Shaochun stopped and gave Shen Huanhuan a gesture to be quiet, perhaps to keep her from talking or to urge her to keep a secret. Shen Huanhuan nodded.

The two of them then came upstairs.

A few minutes later, the room door opened—Shen Huanhuan had returned.

She stepped inside and quickly shut the door, leaning against it with deep, steadying breaths. Once she had calmed, Jiang Yan asked, “What happened just now?”

Shen Huanhuan pressed her lips together, then rolled up her right sleeve for everyone to see.

On her right wrist was a red handprint, with gouges at the center where fingernails had broken the skin—clearly, someone had grabbed her with force.

Shen Huanhuan said, “When I was buying medicine just now, I ran into a man. After looking at me a few times, he called two others over to grab me and said he was going to chop off my hand.”

“What?!” Shen Xiaoxiao blanched in horror.

Shen Huanhuan comforted her sister with a look, then explained, “It’s because of my character’s backstory.”

“My and Xiaoxiao’s parents weren’t killed by refugees by chance—it was a plot.”

Before the others could question further, she continued, “I learned this from that man and from the scenario’s clues.”

“Our parents, on the way to Lingren Village, decided they couldn’t stand eating the flesh of roadside corpses anymore, so they conceived the idea of selling me. I seemed healthy to them, a good candidate to be someone’s child bride, so in the middle of the night, they contacted a trafficker to negotiate a price, and got a bag of dried cakes.”

“But even having sold me, they didn’t want me to know. They were afraid I’d survive and take revenge on them one day—even if that was a one-in-ten-thousand chance. So they found other refugees and the trafficker, planned in earnest to make it look like a kidnapping and robbery. But that night, Xiaoxiao overheard their talking and woke me up, and so I heard the whole plot.”

“I was furious. Only poor, sick families bother with child brides, or old men wanting another concubine. If I didn’t fight, my life would be hell. So, when those refugees tried to carry out the kidnapping, I fought with everything I had. I didn’t even see them as human.”

“After killing two, they realized how skilled I was with a knife, got scared, turned on my parents and stole their dried cakes, even tried to drag them off to eat their flesh. I stopped them, but in my rage, I cut off my parents’ little fingers before letting them go.”

“Then I ripped out the nails of those ambushing refugees, one by one, punishing them for trying to take me. They knew resisting would get them killed, so they obeyed.”

“After that, we made it to Lingren Village and entered the theater, and I ran into the trafficker who tried to sell me again while getting medicine.”

Shen Xiaoxiao suddenly understood. “The trafficker realized you were still alive, and he’s here in Lingren Village, trying to seize you again!”

“Exactly,” Shen Huanhuan said. “He’d taken payment but failed to deliver me, and the buyer had scolded him—so he had a grudge. When he saw me again, he called over two big guys to grab me, both much larger and stronger than me, and I didn’t have my bone knife, so I couldn’t fight back.”

“That’s when Senior Liu Shaochun stepped in. She beat the two men handily, shielded me behind her, and asked the trafficker what the deal was.”

“The trafficker told her everything and said I was heartless. If I hadn’t cut off my parents’ little fingers, they wouldn’t have bled to death and ended up as corpses in the street.”

“He demanded that Senior Liu hand me over, but she refused, saying she’d ransom me instead.”

Shen Huanhuan pressed her lips together tightly. “The trafficker asked for eighty taels of silver. I thought I was doomed, since a girl here usually costs only five taels. But Senior Liu, worried he’d keep coming after me, snuck back to the theater and used all her savings to pay him.”

“Then you all know the rest. I came back with Senior Liu, and she told me to keep it secret—don’t tell anyone.”

After Shen Huanhuan finished, Shen Xiaoxiao couldn’t help but exclaim, “She’s almost too good.”

“How long must she have saved to get eighty taels? In Lingren Village… that’s basically her entire fortune, isn’t it?”

Shen Huanhuan nodded silently. “I asked her about it.”

“I asked how she had so much money, when earning it here is so difficult—everyone’s wages from performing go straight to Xiao Congye, who uses it to pay exorbitant rent, buy food, cover daily expenses—the theater’s always strapped for money.”

“No one can really save anything.”

Yu Renwan was curious. “So how did she save up?”

“She brought it from her husband’s family,” Shen Huanhuan answered.

Shen Xiaoxiao was taken aback.

“Liu Shaochun was married?” she asked in shock.

Shen Huanhuan nodded. “A long time ago—she was a child bride sold to Lingren Village.”

“She got strong looking after her husband and mother-in-law, always being worked to the bone. Planting, harvesting, washing, cooking, everything was on her. She thought that was her life—until her husband became an opium addict. To keep him from spending all the household money on the stuff, she hid most of it. Her husband, after getting hooked, beat her to force her to hand over the money.”

“Then, as Xi Jueyun was passing their house, she saw her being beaten, but wouldn’t leave.”

“Xi Jueyun stared for a long time, finally asked Liu why she didn’t fight back—said she’d waited long enough, what was she waiting for, why not hit back?”

At the time, Liu Shaochun was in so much pain she couldn’t even open her eyes, only thinking how he talked big; fighting back just meant more pain next time, and her husband would get the whole family to join in.

She’d long since grown numb to it.

But Xi Jueyun promised to help her, promised to buy her out.

So Liu Shaochun clenched her teeth and fought back.

She hadn’t believed Xi Jueyun, but thought—what if, just what if, this was her way out?

“That day, Xi Jueyun bought her with eighty taels.”

“Before leaving, Liu Shaochun sold the just-harvested rice and took the silver hidden under the bed. She’d run the household all these years; nobody knew how much she’d managed to save.”

“She meant to give all her money to Xi Jueyun, but she refused and found her a martial arts teacher instead, told her to study hard, saying the whole theater’s future would depend on her.”

At this point, Shen Huanhuan lowered her gaze, her expression complex and subtle: “Now, Liu Shaochun’s used eighty taels to save me.”

“It’s… a really uncanny price.”

“Even though I still feel this energy field is just a play, that everyone has their role, and I’m just some minor, dispensable character thrown in last-minute—”

“I can’t help but be moved.”