Chapter 20: Repaying the Life-Saving Debt with One's Own Body
Gu Dongxing found it hard to keep up with Jiang Mengyu's leap in thinking.
Moreover, if he really suspected her to be a spy, why would he tell her directly? He had previously thought that she was quite clever, but now it felt like the girl was a bit dully cute.
"You suspect me of being a spy, but you also know that I am in fact a person who has been trafficked. This means the spy you are looking for is related to the trafficking of women; in other words, the spy you are looking for could possibly be someone who has been trafficked or a human trafficker who deals in women. Am I right?"
Gu Dongxing was a bit surprised. Upon hearing this, it didn't sound so silly after all.
Jiang Mengyu looked at Gu Dongxing: "I would like to ask you to rescue the sisters who were trafficked to Tiger Valley with me. Almost all of the brides in that village were brought there through trafficking."
Gu Dongxing was shocked: "The entire village?"
"Exactly! So, if you go to rescue my sisters, you might save many trafficked women, which would be a significant merit."
After a moment of silence, Gu Dongxing asked, "I remember you still haven't been sent to Tiger Valley, right? How do you know all of this?"
Jiang Mengyu thought for a moment, then said, "I saw it in a dream."
Gu Dongxing raised an eyebrow.
Jiang Mengyu continued: "Believe it or not, it's up to you. I once had a very long dream, where I was sold to Tiger Valley and lived a miserable Shared Wife life for ten years." When she mentioned Shared Wife, a layer of sorrow suddenly clouded Jiang Mengyu's face.
For some reason, the sorrowful expression on Jiang Mengyu's face caused his heart to ache dully.
Sold by parents, and even to be a Shared Wife for a pair of brothers in the deep mountains—no one could endure such suffering with ease, right?
But in an instant, the sorrow on Jiang Mengyu's face disappeared: "Because of the dream, I know everything about that village. The village is so poor that the men can't afford to marry brides, so they can only buy wives through human traffickers. And after the human traffickers sell the women to the men of Tiger Valley, they still take responsibility for maintenance."
"Maintenance?" It was the first time Gu Dongxing had heard of this: "Do they even provide maintenance after buying a bride? If the bought wives fall ill, do they also heal them?"
"No. If any sold wife tries to escape, the human traffickers will help to catch her back. If it is her first escape, they would beat her half to death before returning her to the buyer. If it is the second attempt, they would leave a profound impression on the sold woman. If she tries to escape a third time, they will break her legs. This kind of maintenance continues until the bought bride gives birth to a child.
So, all the women sold by this Human Trafficking Group are essentially falling into one layer of Hell, with not the slightest hope of escape."
As she spoke of hopelessness, that same sorrowful expression once again appeared on Jiang Mengyu's face.
She sighed, saying, "In the dream, I managed to escape in the tenth year. But when I got to the part where I, in this life, jumped off the cliff, the villagers with hunting dogs caught up to me, so the me in the dream jumped off the cliff. However, a pine tree branch protruding from the cliff caught me, and that's how I didn't die from the jump."
"So when you realized you were truly being trafficked, you chose to jump off the cliff because you believed everything in the dream, thinking you wouldn't die if you jumped?" Gu Dongxing asked through clenched teeth.
He didn't know why he felt so angry.
Jiang Mengyu replied, "I had no choice. Between a possible death or certain life and being definitely sold into the mountains to be a Shared Wife for a pair of strong brothers—which would be a fate worse than death—I might have a chance to escape if I jumped off the cliff. So, I chose to jump."
"But if it weren't for me, you would have been caught and taken back to Tiger Valley." Gu Dongxing said a bit angrily.
"That's right, you saved my life," Jiang Mengyu said as if driven by some ghostly force: "To repay the debt of saving my life, why not repay it with my body?"