Kou Dong: “Folding and cutting?”
“It’s about creating monsters and causing disabilities, “explained Ye Yanzhi.” In the “Qing Ba Lei Ban”, there was a relevant record that bear people and snake people were all made from living beings. When they were abducted, they were forced to choose, while those who were lame, blind, or limbs were forced to become beggars and seek money to fatten their bodies. This is a section of the book’s description.”
He stared at the people in this scene, and sighed softly.
In addition to Kou Dong, there were a few new arrivals, more or less everyone else had pulled out a few coins. He still seemed to be dissatisfied, his eyes searched back and forth between the group of gray children, when the children met his eyes, they couldn’t help but arch their backs, to the opposite direction.
The man said eerily: “Who gave the least?”
After these words were spoken, there was some commotion in the crowd. They looked at each other, and slowly stood to the side, giving way to one of them.
It was a rather skinny boy, and his whole body was still shaking. Perhaps because his appearance was really not surprising, small nose, small eyes and even a little ugly, his looks didn’t let people have pity.
He also wanted to hide in the crowd, but someone still pushed him out.
The man spat on the ground and took large steps towards him.
“Say,” he rasped, “how much did you make?”
He wasn’t exactly strong. But standing next to the boy set the boy off like a chickenshit that had fallen in the water, revealing his fear from head to toe. His hand clenched at the back, his voice small and hoarse: “Three …… three copper plates.”
“Three coins?”
The man laughed coldly, as if he had heard a big joke, then he reached out and picked up his collar, lifting him up completely.
“Did you hear? –three coppers!”
The room was silent, with no sound of laughter. Only a moment later did a child clumsily echo, “Haha, hahaha ……”
This sound seemed to be the beginning, and everyone followed suit, scrambling to laugh.
“Only three coins? Too little, right?”
“If you ask any random person for it, it’s not just this amount ……”
Someone even pointed at the kid and said loudly, “Is he still hiding? He–he looks like a thief!”
.
“Thief!”
“Rubbish!”
The waves of voices grew louder and louder, the childish voices mixed with undisguised malice, causing Kou Dong to furrow his brows. He glanced to the side, and Song Hong also looked uncomfortable, frowning at the group of children.
“No,” the boy’s voice held a sob, “not ……”
He couldn’t even get a complete sentence out.
The man didn’t even look at him, and turned his face straight toward the remaining people.
“Good children,” he said, “what do you think we should give him?”
“The Woodman!”
The remaining children shouted.
“Woodman!!!”
At such a sound, the man pulled a rag bag from his body. He left the mouth of the bag open, revealing only a thin slit, and held it out to the boy.
“Pick one.”
The boy’s arm trembled and shivered but he couldn’t reach into the cloth bag.
“Come on,” the man beside him urged him, “if you’re so slow again, I’ll give you the dog straight away – you’ve got the best head for it, I’d say.”
“–No!”
Even though he wasn’t close, Kou Dong still felt the aura of panic emanating from the other man. His face turned white, his pupils contracted uncertainly, obviously frightened, “I’ll choose, I’ll choose ……”
The boy finally reached his hand in completely.
He chose among them with difficulty, the tiny cloth bag being propped up in a bulge that moved around. A moment later, he drew something out of it.
It was a rough wooden figure with tiny spikes around the edges. As the boy pulled it out, he cut his hand on the not-so-smooth wooden spikes.
A drop of blood stained the wooden figure.
The head, the limbs, and the five senses were all complete.
But the boy’s trembling deepened. He slowly turned the wooden figure around and saw the word: rat written on its chest.
“What a shame,” the man laughed, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes in the slightest, “you’re too skinny to be a proper rat beauty, at best you’re a dry rat boy.”
He tossed the tiny wooden figure to the ground.
The child’s eyes snapped open, as if a bit of hope had been born.
“But since you chose it yourself,” the man laughed twice, “it’s better to have your wish.”
Two stout men stepped through the doorway and twisted his arms like twine. The boy wailed in desperation, the sound was numbing to hear, and a hint of undisguised fear swept across the faces of the remaining children.
But none of them stepped forward.
The boy’s feet finally disappeared from the door as well. After the man left, silence returned to the room.
Only this kind of silence, now also made one’s scalp numb.
Kou Dong asked in a low voice, “What will happen to him?”
“Didn’t you hear?” Song Hong replied, his voice not as smooth as usual, “He’s going to make a rat beauty out of him.”
“Rat Beauty?”
“You’ve never seen it?”
Song Hong gulped.
“Just now at the door, I thought you’d seen it. –that snake.”
The word snake seemed to come out of his mouth with all the difficulty of a million words.
Of course Kou Dong had seen it, at that time, he only thought it was strange, but now he felt his scalp tingle when he linked it with the name of the Rat Beauty.
He was silent for a while and asked, “Is it a human?”
Song Hong nodded gently.
“But how–”
“From a young age,” he said briefly, apparently unwilling to say more, “twisted off the limbs, wrapped the body with hot oil and hot blood, and condensed in one place …… for a long time, then it basically can’t be seen. ”
Such evil, made people even produce physical discomfort.
Song Hong softly said: “This time, we really entered the wolf’s den.”
When the sun sloped in the west, someone threw in a dirty basket containing a few dry steamed buns. The children in the room scrambled to grab them, but Kou Dong had no appetite and stayed at the end of the basket, without the intention of getting up to take them.
He was now still a child-like, his eyebrows hadn’t greatly changed, only his eyes appeared large and black, lips red, cheeks round, but more than his adult form, he looked much more well-behaved.
Song Hong knew that this was actually an unusual big brother, but because of his appearance, he couldn’t help feeling a little bit of inexplicable protective desire.
–Growing up like this makes one even have the heart to reclaim the sea and move mountains for him.
“Better eat something,” Song Hong advised him, “I’m afraid there’s only one meal, if you don’t eat, you’ll definitely have a hard time tomorrow.”
Kou Dong glanced at the cold steamed buns, still disgusted, “Won’t eat.”
He also didn’t want to grab food with such a bunch of children who looked like they had been starving for quite a long time.
Moreover, for some reason, there was always a strange sense of dissonance in his heart.
Was this copy of the story …… really like what they guessed like this?
Song Hong said that Ah Xue also followed into the copy, only to come in and then the two were separated. He only guessed when Kou Dong opened his mouth and blocked the fat boy from revealing his true identity, matching the child in front of him with the person in his memory.
But Ah Xue should have also seen that, but didn’t come forward to recognize, which made Song Hong vaguely worried.
Kou Dong wasn’t worried.
He hadn’t spent much time with the little girl, but this not-so-long period of time had been enough for him to see that she was a smart girl. Calm, cool, and unruffled in a crisis, such a person could live a colorful life regardless of gender and in any kind of environment.
He looked at Song Hong and spoke from his heart: “I think she is more reliable than you ……”
Song Hong: “……”
His usually solemn face had a little frustration on it, he thought, but actually had no way to refute: “I have a thick knowledge reserve.”
I am a graduate student!
I’m a graduate student from a top five university!
This sentence was in the way of the possibility of revealing the reality of identity, and wasn’t said out loud.
Kou Dong looked at him like he was an idiot, and after a few minutes, he got up and silently changed his position, sitting farther away from him.
Song Hong: “What?”
Kou Dong calmly replied: “I am afraid that I, a scum with little knowledge, will contaminate your atmosphere of a school master.”
Song Hong: “……”
It clearly sounded like good words, but why was it so unkind when it came out of the young man’s mouth……
Kou Dong, however, put his finger on his mouth and gently shushed, paying attention and listening to the outside. Song Hong also immediately realized what was going on, carefully listening to the movements outside the door.
Outside the thin door, the sound of those people eating and drinking came in faintly, and the people who were originally guarding the door seemed to have gone farther away, going to the courtyard to drink together.
To ask anything, now was the best opportunity.
The two naturally couldn’t let go of this opportunity, and each of them asked about the current situation of these children. Song Hong originally didn’t think this was a difficult task, but when he really asked, he realized that their mouths were quite tight, and they basically didn’t want to say anything to him.
If he asked more, the little beggars’ gazes became wary, and they pursed their lips and stared at him.
Song Hong had been a good person since he was a child, and had never been looked at like this. This child’s gaze made him reach out and touch his hair, wondering if he had become a bald uncle.
After inquiring about three or four in a row, they were all in the same situation. Song Hong couldn’t help but feel a little frustrated.
This was simply a bunch of clams that couldn’t be pried open. Moreover, this clam was still disobedient, and its gaze was always glancing to his right.
What exactly was on his right side?
With a heart to understand, Song Hong also turned his head over, and was startled by this scene. He didn’t know how Kou Dong did it, but now he was surrounded by a group of children, in which he himself had a face like a powdered dumpling, listening to the people around him timidly chatting with him, and the rest of the people were still watching him with reverence, their eyes not blinking-
In that moment, it was almost as if he had been enthroned in this small room.
Song Hong was dumbfounded. He made an effort to move closer to Kou Dong, “How did you do that?”
Kou Dong wanted to show him the old phone he had pulled out. Although the old machine was old, it still had classic games like Tetris and Snake, and with the full buff he already had, it was enough to fool a circle of kids who didn’t have any entertainment to speak of.
Who knew that Song Hong himself came up with the answer first, “Is it possible that it’s because of maternity?”
Kou Dong: “……?”
Song Hong was strangely convinced by himself, “It’s not unreasonable.”
Kou Dong: “……???”