Freedom

Yang Jie lay motionless under the sweaty body of the man who had bought her for the night. Her arms were flat against the bed, her eyes stared at nothing. The sound of his grunting and various other noises were drowned out by memories.

There was a time when she was free. Her father had loved her. She could almost see his smiling face looking down at her, His eyes telling her somehow it would be OK. She couldn't think of her mother yet it still hurt too much and she wasn't ready to face that scar.

She blinked and another tear slid down, falling into her ear. She easily ignored it, just as she ignored the pain from his weight pressing down on her, just as she ignored how dirty she felt, inside and out.

Fen Hua popped into her mind then. A strange mixture of anger and peace filled her. She had despised her for a long time. She watched as Gui Ren and even Fei Ling doted on her, one talking insistently, the other watching her every moment of the day hoping she didn't notice. But one day she just stopped hating her.

She listened to the conversation between her and Gui Ren daily. It was the only means of entertainment available. They talked about everything and anything, except for one thing, Fen Hua. She never talked about herself. She never mentioned her family, or friends. When Gui Ren talked about his family and the friends he made in his old household, Fen Hua would listen with a strange longing in her eyes. If he asked her about her family, or her friends, her face would darken and the conversation would grow quiet.

She imagined Fen Hua was like her. Maybe it was even her own mother that had sold her as a slave. It didn't take away the jealousy and unfairness she felt inside of her, but it did make Fen Hua seem familiar to her. She started to spend time imagining that she was Fen Hua. At night when the slaver called her, she would go as Yang Jie, but her mind would become Fen Hua. Maybe that's why she had protected her tonight.

Maybe she didn't want Fen Hua to become like her. To become a soiled shell of a human.

When he finished he rolled next to her and fell asleep as if she wasn't there. Her body was dirtied by him. She could feel the filth of it on her legs. Still her eyes held no emotion, and she made no move to wipe it away.

She grabbed the blanket that covered her and stood up from the bed. She tied a loop in it at tossed the other end over the beam of the ceiling...maybe her coming her had never been about Fen Hua at all.

___

Fen Hua woke up to the sound of a man yelling. She was piled next to Gui Ren and Fei Ling, still shackled to the both of them. The slavers slept on the other side of the room. Everyone looked around in confusion for a moment before the slavers realized where the shouting was coming from and headed in that direction.

"Down! Pull her down!!" The home owner was shouting.

The slavers stopped in their tracks staring at the naked lifeless body hanging from the ceiling.

"What happened here!" The smaller slaver demanded.

"When I woke up she was like this," the home owner said. He was naked himself, appearing to have fallen out of the bed. He was scooting away from the dangling body, backing himself into the wall

The smaller slaver walked up to him and smacked him across the face. Then he kicked him. The home owner raised his hands over his face pleading for him to stop.

"I didn't know, I didn't know!" He said between sobs. "Please, please have mercy."

The smaller slaver continued to beat him until he was satisfied and out of energy. He let out one more big kick then sat down. Yang Jie's body was brought down and laid on a table. The blanket she used to kill herself covered her naked body. He looked at her, a sense of loss bubbling in his stomach. This however was not a feeling of regret for her life, it was more like someone had broken his favorite toy.

He let out a sigh and turned back to the sobbing man in the corner.

"Please don't kill me," he pleaded.

"If I wanted to kill you, you would be dead," he said throwing a cup at him. "Bring me your money, enough to buy her twice, plus the money you owe for last night."

His eyes grew large, he didn't have that kind of money. He might be a big fish in his area, but that was only because he was in such a tiny pond.

"I can't give it to you now," he stammered, he saw the look in the slavers eyes, the larger slaver taking a step closer to him in an obvious threat, "But I can get it, I can get it. I just need time. Take what I have today and I will make sure you get the rest later."

The smaller slaver gave a slippery smile. The loss of Yang Jie easily slipping away at the sound promised payment.

"Bring what you have, then I will decide."

One of the home owners servants ran to the back of the house and brought back a box.

"I can't believe she's dead," Gui Ren said quietly. They were listening to the slavers as they bullied the man into giving up his entire life's savings, then promising to get more.

Fen Hua stared at her hands. She knew Yang Jie must have planned this when she stoop up and took her place. There wasn't a moment she believed she actually wanted to be there. She felt a deep pain for her, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she wondered what the future held for her, but there was one thing she did know, Yang Jie had her freedom now.