Chapter 83: Suspicious

"That house is just up ahead."

While Constable Heifu acted as a decoy, tying up the hamlet chief and field clerk, pointing this way and that, and striking up idle chatter with anyone he could to draw the attention of most of the onlookers in the hamlet, Ji Ying and Li Xian, under orders, patrolled the settlement.

The patrol was a pretense; their real intention was to bring "Colt" to that suspicious spot Ji Ying had discovered the last time he came to deliver official correspondence in Blind Mountain Hamlet.

Even before entering Blind Mountain Hamlet, Ji Ying had told everyone about the strange incident he had encountered.

"Didn't I come in the first month to deliver Assistant Clerk Tian's correspondence? After I finished eating, I was looking everywhere for a privy, but ended up getting lost in the hamlet. Wandering along, I passed by a dilapidated little house in the northern part of the hamlet…"

Ji Ying said the house was sealed up extremely tight, with only one small window facing outward. The window was murky gray, and inside there seemed to be thin wooden bars, just like the lockup where the guard station detains suspects. When the people inside heard his movements outside, rustling sounds came from within the house…

Ji Ying was a curious person, so he pressed his face close to look. Because it was bright outside and dark inside the house, it took him great effort to see.

Just then, a person with disheveled hair suddenly lunged from the dark room toward the window! It startled him so badly he jumped backward!

"That disheveled person seemed to be a woman. When she saw me, she beat desperately on the window with her hands, making the wooden bars rattle, and her mouth kept saying 'Save me, save me.' Her voice was somewhat hoarse, and I couldn't make out what she said after that."

"I was so frightened I backed away. Just then, someone came and found me, told me to follow and not to wander off. Another person went over to that household and loudly said something in the local hamlet dialect. Immediately, all sound from inside the window ceased…"

Afterward, a hamlet resident even explained to Ji Ying that the person locked inside was a certain family's bondmaid, who had gone mad and had to be confined; otherwise she would bite people everywhere like a mad dog. They told him to simply pay it no mind.

Ji Ying had not suspected anything at the time. Only when the trail of the abduction case pointed toward Blind Mountain Hamlet did he suddenly recall this incident.

"Perhaps the one locked inside is Colt's daughter!" The incident Ji Ying mentioned was practically the only clue Heifu and the others had.

However, although Heifu had already tied up the hamlet officials and most of the people in the hamlet, the hamlet chief was still uneasy and sent one man to follow Ji Ying and the others. But halfway there, Ji Ying clutched his stomach and said he had a bellyache, urging the man to quickly take him to the latrine. The man had no choice but to tell Li Xian and Colt to stay put and not move.

How could the two possibly stay put? The moment their watcher's front foot left, the two hurriedly headed north. Ji Ying had told them that last time, that household stood alone, right up against the hamlet wall, with a crooked, twisted jujube tree in front of the door — very easy to find.

Before long, they found the household Ji Ying had described. This family lived in isolation, somewhat far from the other neighbors. In front of the door grew a slanted jujube tree. The yard was enclosed by only a simple wattle fence. The house walls, plastered with cow dung, were blackened, and the roof was crude thatch — clearly the home of a poor family.

The little house Ji Ying had mentioned sat right beside the jujube tree.

Colt threw himself at it in great agitation, crouching at the window where Ji Ying had once seen a person, and called softly inside…

"Yuanyuan? Yuanyuan?"

Yet no matter how many times he called, there was no sound from within.

Li Xian, afraid his calls would grow louder and draw others, quickly pulled Colt back. He himself stood on tiptoe and peered inside the house. After scanning the interior, he said, "There's no one inside."

"No one!?" Colt was utterly disappointed. Stamping his feet on the spot, he said, "Could it be we've found the wrong place?"

"No mistake. This is the household."

At that moment, Ji Ying also came trotting over. By some unknown method, he had already shaken off the man watching them.

He too peered in at the window, clicked his tongue, and said this was truly strange — last time he came, there had clearly been someone.

"Could she have already been moved away! This place isn't large, but there are still over twenty households. Are we supposed to search house by house?" Colt grew more and more frantic. Every moment his daughter was found later was another moment of suffering for her.

This was exactly what Li Xian worried about. If the person was still in the hamlet, that would be fine. What he feared was that, after one person after another had seen those suspicious women, Blind Mountain Hamlet had been alerted and moved the women to the mountain forests outside the hamlet.

Li Xian told Colt to stay calm for the moment. He himself began to circle around the household. The door was tightly shut, and the yard was empty, without a single soul in sight — the master was presumably not at home.

The yard appeared to hold nothing suspicious, until he had circled most of the way around and reached the backyard — where he abruptly halted in his tracks!

In the backyard was a pigsty, enclosed by a wooden wattle fence. It looked very small. Before Li Xian even drew near, he smelled the thick stench from within, which was deeply nauseating.

When he reached the edge, he stared in stunned disbelief. The pigsty was empty. Beside the trough, which held some water, what lay sleeping was not a pig, but a person!

A woman with disheveled hair, barely clothed!

…

"That's her! The one I saw last time was definitely her!"

At that moment, Ji Ying also came over and immediately cried out.

Colt came over at the sound as well. When he saw the woman curled up in a ball amid the filthy mud and straw inside the pigsty, she truly did seem to bear some resemblance to his daughter. He let out a pained cry and made to climb over into the yard.

Li Xian still hesitated. "Wait. Entering a private home without the master's permission is against the law."

Ji Ying, however, said, "We are handling a case under orders — we won't be punished for this!"

"What if this woman wasn't brought here by abduction?"

"At a time like this, who cares about that?"

Ji Ying paid no heed to any objections and immediately climbed over. Colt followed right behind him.

Just then, the flies and insects on the woman sleeping in the pigsty suddenly took flight. Startled awake, the woman froze for a moment, thinking she was dreaming. But when she saw two strangers already beginning to climb over the pigsty fence, she began to wail loudly.

Ji Ying reached her first. Enduring the vile stench of the pigsty, he crouched down and helped the woman untie the hemp rope bound around her hands. Who knew how long the rope had been tied to her hands — her wrists had been rubbed into thick calluses. Her exposed arms and thighs were also covered in bloody scars; she must have been beaten often.

"Truly the conduct of beasts," Ji Ying could not help cursing. Even if she really were a bondservant, there was no need to treat her like this.

The moment the rope was untied from her wrists, the woman abruptly grabbed hold of Ji Ying and said through sobs, "Save me, save me…"

Ji Ying nodded and said, "We are guard station soldiers sent by the county, here precisely to save you. Are you a woman who was brought here by abduction?"

Perhaps because she had been confined too long, the woman could barely speak clearly, but she still nodded continuously and said indistinctly, "Abduction, yes, I was abducted and sold here, many years ago. They forced me, beat me, and locked me in here… Save me, save me!"

As she spoke, tears streamed from her eyes, tracing two pale, clean streaks down her filthy cheeks.

"See, I was right!" Ji Ying was overjoyed. He turned his head and said to Li Xian, calling him to hurry in and help.

By then, Colt had finally climbed over the pigsty as well. The old man's legs were stiff; he fell, but immediately scrambled up. Staggering over, he knelt before the disheveled, grimy-faced woman, his hands trembling as he took hold of her shoulders, his voice thick with tears.

"My daughter, how you have suffered!"

At that moment, the woman raised her head. Colt brushed aside her filthy, matted hair, caked with straw and mud, revealing her face…

She was originally a young woman not yet twenty, but because of the severe suffering of these past years, she looked to be in her thirties…

Looking at Colt, who was calling her "daughter," the woman was somewhat baffled.

"Who are you?"

Colt, too, carefully studied the woman's features. He let out a cry of shock and hastily scrambled backward, falling to sit at the feet of Li Xian, who had just entered the yard.

"What's wrong?" Li Xian sensed something was off — this was not the look of a father and daughter reuniting.

"She…" Colt raised his hand and pointed at the woman. Though unwilling to admit it, he still murmured, "She is not my daughter, not my Yuanyuan!"

"What!?"

Li Xian and Ji Ying turned pale with shock.

For a moment Ji Ying couldn't figure out what was going on, but Li Xian's mind was already racing.

"This woman claims she was abducted and sold here, yet she isn't Ju's daughter — could it be..."

His expression changed. "In this Blind Mountain, there's more than one woman who's been abducted and sold here?!"

At the same moment, a loud shout came from outside the courtyard.

"What are you people doing?!"

Everyone turned to look and saw three farmers, just back from the fields and still holding their farm tools, standing outside the courtyard.

Under the sunlight, the sweat on their dark bodies glistened, and their faces were dark too — as if someone had laid hands on their forbidden prize — glaring at Ji Ying, Li Xian, and the others with a certain fury...

(End of Chapter)