Chapter 5: Family
In the night sky, thunder flashed and huge lightning broke through the sky.
The girl holding the wooden sign of the mountain God trotted through the freshly planted rice paddy and saw the entrance to the village.
"Woof! Woof!"
Before entering the village, the girl had heard the piercing bark of the big black dog at the entrance of the village.
This big black dog that used to scare her now sounded friendly.
She happily ran into the village and ran towards the house of her eldest uncle.
The wind tore at the girl's thin body, but could not stop her happy pace of returning home.
Although in the past, the girl had a lot of complaints about her eldest uncle and eldest aunt, they were after all her only family. And at this time, only they could bring her some warmth.
Never before was there a moment when the girl was so eager to go home - to the home that did not belong to her.
When she arrived at the door, she couldn't help but smile when she heard her cousin's shouting inside the house.
"New clothes! I want new clothes too! I also want new clothes like sister Xiao Ai!"
In the house, her cousin was complaining loudly, seemingly pestering his parents to buy him new clothes.
This familiar yelling was still brash and nonsensical, but it sounded so cute at the moment, not at all like the usual which disgusted her.
Immediately after, the house unsurprisingly resounded with the impatient scolding of aunt.
"New clothes! You have been screaming all afternoon! Where is the money for you to buy new clothes? I will ground you if you keep shouting."
The aunt spoke in a harsh and threatening tone.
But obviously, her threat did not work, and her son was still rolling around noisily.
"I don't care I don't care! I just want new clothes! I just want new clothes! Sister Xiao Ai has new clothes to wear, why I don't get new clothes! I want new clothes!..."
In the house, the chubby little boy squirmed desperately on the floor and cried out.
Such a move completely annoyed the peasant woman.
The money they secretly gave to the village leader and the money to buy that new set of wedding clothes had used up all of the family's modest savings. Now she was already in a bad mood, and her son was making a lot of noise. Even though she always spoiled him, she could not stand it.
Viciously picking up the little boy, the peasant woman directly slapped him and scolded, "You keep making trouble! If you make any more noise, I'll send you to the mountain and let the Mountain God eat you up!"
Such a threat immediately had an effect.
The little boy's body stiffened and his expression was somewhat frightened. But in the next second, he shouted again in defiance.
"Liar! You liar! Dad said that after offering sister Xiao Ai to the Lord Mountain God, he will not come and eat me! Sister Xiao Ai has gone instead of me! The Mountain God will not eat me!"
"You just don't want to buy me clothes, you're telling lies to cheat me...You buy new clothes for Xiao Ai, but not for me... You guys are biased! You guys are just biased! She's dying and she's wearing such a beautiful new dress...You guys waste money! Woo..."
The little boy covered his face and cried out in aggravation again.
However, the little boy's crying made the girl outside the door freeze.
She stood in the darkness outside the door, listening to the noisy crying in the house. Her expression was somewhat dumbfounded.
In the story she knew, the mountain God needed child girls, so the village adults drew lots to decide, and finally she was unfortunately chosen and could only wear the new wedding clothes that her uncle and aunt spent money on and go into the mountain.
Because she was chosen, her aunt, who had always hated her, took a rare interest in her and made her several delicious meals. The uncle also sighed several times, complaining about his incompetence, saying that he failed to protect his second brother's daughter, and that he felt very guilty.
Then the girl suddenly realized that although the eldest uncle's family did not treat her well in daily life, they really did treat her as a family member. After she encountered such a thing, her aunts and uncles, whom she usually disliked the most, treated her the best.
That's why after Lord Mountain God let her go back, she was so happy and wanted to run home to share her joy with her aunts and uncles.
"If her aunts and uncles knew that she survived, they would surely be very happy too, right?"
Originally, she had thought so.
But now she heard something completely different.
The girl's expression stiffened a little.
She began to think back to those things before. After being chosen, her aunts and uncles began to treat her well and be kind to her...
Could it be that all that care, all that love, was all fake? Everything they did turned out to be to trick her into being a scapegoat?
The person chosen was not her at all? But the son of the eldest uncle?
That's why her aunts and uncles, who had always disliked her, suddenly changed their attitude.
The girl became frightened and desperate.
After hearing these words, the door in front of her no longer had the slightest sense of cordiality, but was instead terrifying like the door of a ghost gate, at any time there may have a ghost jumping out to grab her.
The constant noise and cries inside the door were no longer warm, but became like the howling of evil spirits in hell, which made her body chill and face pathos.
"Not like this... not like this... don't become like this..."
The girl's hands were clasped tightly to her chest as she kept backing away, shaking her head desperately.
She even gave birth to an impulse to run away far away to escape from here.
"But where can I run..."
The girl was in despair.
Her mother had died of illness, the whereabouts of her father were unknown, and now her only family in the world, her only place to stay, was the hut in front of her.
But people in this house tricked her to be a scapegoat...
"Woo..."
The girl's heart had been filled with sadness.
And at that moment, a shaky footsteps sounded behind her, and someone was approaching the place.
The girl with a dull expression subconsciously turned her head back and saw the person behind her.
It was a crippled, drunken man with a shaky figure and a face full of stubble - none other than her own great uncle, her father's older brother.
A cripple...
And when the girl turned back, the night sky just crossed a blazing white lightning. And the tragic white light shone on the earth, shining on the girl's face. Her small face with a desperate expression reflected in a tragic white.
At that moment, the drunken man behind the girl clearly saw the weird scene.
Because he was lame, the man who was called as Ai Cripple by the village people stared in horror.
Then he let out a heartbreaking, mournful scream.
"Ghost!!!"
……
A quarter of an hour later, the girl, who had been tied up by the villagers, was escorted to the door of the village chief's house.
The night sky was still roaring with the sound of thunder, and the howling wind was blowing everything in the small village.
All the young and strong men of the village have gathered here and formed a circle outside the village head's house.
The torchlight waving in the gale reflected the expressions of the people in a gloomy and uncertain manner. And the little girl being escorted to kneel in front of the crowd, head bowed, desperate mouth sealed by cloth, even the cry of defensive words can not be issued.
In the front of the house where the most authoritative old man in the village lived.
When a big event happened in the village, everyone immediately gathered here, waiting for the village chief's instructions. And before that, someone had already come to inform the village chief of what had happened in advance.
So they didn't have to wait long, and the door of the house opened.
Immediately after, the village chief on crutches was supported by his son and walked out.
Under the dim glow of the torches, the aged old man walked slowly and eventually came to the girl. The crowd watched nervously as the old village chief lowered his head, looked at the girl in front of him, and frowned.
The little girl in front of him was dressed in a big red wedding dress, exactly the same as when she was sent up the mountain. But the skirt was full of mud, and shoes were already completely unable to see the original color. This dirty look showed that she clearly escaped from the mountains.
After a few seconds of silence, the village chief then looked up at the villagers in front of him and asked in a hoarse voice, "Where did you find her?"
When village chief opened his mouth to ask, everyone looked at the cripple in the crowd.
Being stared at by the crowd, Ai Crippler hurriedly came out and carefully reported to the village chief, "She was found in front of my house, village chief. I thought at the time that she was back to claim a life as a vengeful ghost. I was terrified. The good thing was that we found that she had a shadow and was not a ghost, so we guessed that she had secretly escaped from the mountain, and immediately caught and brought her to you."
"And after she was caught by you, did she plead for herself?" The village chief inquired, but his eyes stayed on the little girl's body.
At this time, the little girl's face was pale, and there were bruises on the corners of her forehead. It seemed that the villagers did not have a smooth process of catching her.
Noticing the village chief's line of sight, Ai Crippler hurriedly defended, "When we caught her, she struggled desperately and said nonsense that she had not escaped secretly and that the mountain God had let her go. She also used her teeth to bite people, in an emergency, we......"
Speaking of the latter, Ai Cripple's voice became smaller and smaller, because the village chief was glaring at him with an incomparably stern look.
When Ai Cripple shut up and did not say anything, the old man then heaved the cane in his hand and stared at him coldly, "No more? Keep talking, tell me how you injured the girl who was sacrificed to the Lord Mountain God!"
The old man's angry questioning made the group of men all dumbfounded, they silently bowed their heads, and did not dare to say a word.
Seeing them like this, the old man became even more angry.
He slammed his cane in his hand to the ground, he was so angry that his hair stood up straight, "a group of pigs! Doing things without thinking at all!"
"Even if you want to catch her, you can't hurt her! Why can't you think of such a simple thing? If you make her scarred, what if the mountain God doesn't like her and wants us to offer someone else? Which one of your children will be sacrificed then? If you are blamed, can you afford it?"
The village chief cursed angrily, but all of them cowered and obediently listened to the lecture, not daring to contradict.
When the old man had almost finished shouting, someone asked carefully, "Then, village chief, what should we do next?"
"Yes, village chief, what should we do? This little bitch escaped from the mountain secretly, the Lord will be angry, right?"
Everyone was worried, afraid of angering the Lord Mountain God as a result.
But the old man shook his head and fed everyone a peace of mind.
"If Lord Mountain God was really angry, our village would have been in big trouble long ago, so how could you guys be worried? There is no movement until now, perhaps he also did not find out about the little bitch's escape."
"So let's hurry now and send this little bitch back to the mountain, maybe it's still not too late. This time we'll send someone to keep watch, we absolutely can't let this little bitch run away again."
Speaking of this, the village chief gave a hard pause on his cane, looked sternly at the crowd present, and said, "Let's go into the mountain now!"
"If Lord Mountain God really gets angry, our Shuisheng Village will be completely doomed!"
