Destiny

After being beaten by Jia Yiren, part of my soul ran away from my body for two days.

During this period of time when I lost consciousness and left the world, I returned to the speeding train. The train seemed to be empty, so it exuded a strong and pungent smell of iron sheets. I was dizzy and nauseous, and walked through one carriage after another, but I couldn't reach the end. The outside world was reflected on the closed windows, becoming a blurry shadow passing by.

Tired of walking, I found a seat and sat down.

I was the only one in the empty carriage. Accompanying me, in addition to the ubiquitous smell of iron sheets, there was also an unpleasant clanging sound. I sat in the seat, thinking sadly, could I have been swallowed by a huge iron worm? The iron smell that filled my nose was the stomach acid in the worm's stomach, and the unpleasant clanging sound was its vigorous heartbeat.

Before I could figure it out, time on the train suddenly twisted, and day turned into night.

The sudden darkness frightened me. I squatted down hurriedly and hid under the table, my body pressed tightly against the wall, trembling with fear in the darkness. The clanging sound gradually disappeared, and was replaced by a conversation between two middle-aged men and a middle-aged woman with accents.

"It's getting harder and harder to do business."

"There's nothing we can do. The control has been strict recently."

"Several people who sell medicine have been arrested, and it's not easy to get medicine."

"I heard that a batch of obedient medicine was too strong and caused a death."

"There's nothing we can do. If we don't give them medicine, those women will do whatever they want. After giving them medicine, even if their brains become stupid, as long as they can give birth, someone will pay for it."

"As long as a woman can give birth, she won't have to worry about not being able to sell. It's even better if she's stupid! Next time I kidnap someone, I'll tell people that I've given birth to a son and tested the product. That way, I can get more money!"

"He sold for the money of several people."

"I don't know if he's smart or stupid, he didn't react to the medicine."

"Who cares! Isn't it enough to make money?"

The "he" they said was selling for the price of several people was me. As far as I can remember, I have been in the hands of these human traffickers and sold back and forth. Because I am a boy, many people want to buy me. At that time, boys were becoming increasingly scarce, and the price also rose with the tide. These human traffickers thought of a way to continue to cheat money.

They pretended to be my relatives, arranged a scenario for me where both parents died and no one took care of me, and then contacted the buyer, negotiated the price and sent me there, and wrote down the address of the family. A month later, they visited the family again. The men were responsible for taking out various fake hospital certificates, and the women were responsible for sitting on the ground and crying. They told the buyer in tears that I was unfortunately seriously ill, and now the hospital has notified them and got the test list. They have superb acting skills, and they specialize in cheating those who have lived in small places all their lives, have never been out to see the world, and do not understand the tricks of cheating.

If they meet a soft-hearted and easy-to-cheat buyer, these human traffickers will often get an extra sum of money for my medical treatment. Then, they said a lot of nice things with tears in their eyes, and promised the buyer that they would send me back immediately after the treatment. Finally, they pretended to leave a piece of fake jade that they claimed to be handed down from their ancestors as a guarantee. If the buyer was determined and tough, they would take out some large and small packages of gifts that were not seen in the local area and were actually worthless, apologize sincerely, and then return the money and take the person away. However, what they returned were all realistic fake money.

At first, I didn't know that these human traffickers were cheating people, and I thought I was really seriously ill and was about to die. Therefore, I was a little grateful to them in my heart, thinking that although they sold me like a commodity that could be recycled, they at least cared about me. However, after experiencing this kind of thing three or four times, I realized that they were cheating people.

How could a person who had no fear in his heart and treated human life as a business have any sympathy for the commodity? What the traffickers really cared about was nothing more than that stack of money.

However, I did not tell them that I had learned the truth. Instead, I played along and took the initiative to act.

Every time they took out a fake certificate, I cried sadly, as if I would die immediately. When they took me back, I would foolishly ask them when they would take me to the hospital for treatment. The traffickers probably did not expect that there would be someone like me who believed everything others said, never doubted, and even actively cooperated, so they gradually relaxed their vigilance against me. In their repeated deceptions, my disguise and acting skills became better and better, and I became more and more cautious and began to look for opportunities to escape.

They deceived people more and more frequently, and the journeys were getting farther and farther. The last time, they took me on the train to go to a farther place. As always, I quietly and obediently snuggled up to them. From the perspective of others, I was really close to them like a child of one of them.

"I need to poop." My stomach suddenly hurt when the train passed Mingyu Town.

"Hold it." The middle-aged woman looked at me sharply. At that time, the train was parked at the platform of Mingyu Town, and passengers with luggage were getting on and off. She was much more cautious than the two men and did not allow me to walk around casually.

"I can't hold it anymore! I need to pee, it's coming out soon!" I begged her bitterly.

My straightforward words attracted the attention of other people in the carriage. They all looked over here, laughing and talking, probably thinking that it was a very funny thing for a child to naively hang feces and urine on his mouth. The middle-aged woman noticed the gazes of others and became nervous in my constant noise.

Another group of passengers poured into the carriage, and it was very crowded. When the broadcast announced that the door was closed and the car continued to move forward, the middle-aged woman nodded to me. She didn't follow me closely because the two men were tired and fell asleep, and she had to watch the large and small bags of luggage, which contained shameful things.

With permission, I hurriedly covered my stomach, squeezed through the crowd, and ran to the connection of the carriage.

When I walked to the connection of the carriage, as fate would have it, the door that had been closed suddenly opened slowly again. On the platform outside the door, the bright sunshine was shining all over the ground, calling me brightly. A premonition suddenly arose in my heart: as long as I stepped out of this door, I would be able to get rid of those traffickers forever and gain freedom.

I stared at the bright sunlight on the ground, hesitant, panting nervously, and my legs trembling uncontrollably. When the door slowly closed in front of me again, I suddenly let out a loud fart. The loud fart woke me up and also strengthened my determination to escape. So, I took a deep breath and ran out through the crack of the door that was about to close. I ran forward desperately, not daring to look back at all, for fear that those people would also get off the train and chase me from behind. I was so nervous that I didn't notice that after I ran for a while, the sound of the wind in my ears was mixed with the clanging sound of the train moving forward.

When I ran until I couldn't stop vomiting and my legs were weak, I mustered up the courage to look behind me.

Behind me, there was no one. The train that had long gone away gradually became a small dot. Above the winding track was the deep blue sky. I was finally free! After so long of deliberately flattering and pretending to be stupid to gain trust, I was able to get this little relaxation.

I looked up at the blue sky and cried with joy because of my hard-won rebirth.

However, I didn't understand why I, who had escaped the fate of being abducted, was now back on the train and back in the hands of those traffickers.

"Run, keep running." A man's voice approached.

"I'm going to beat you to death!" It was that woman.

"This time, I'm going to break your hands and feet and let you beg for food!" Another man's angry voice sounded.

I pressed tightly against the wall, curled up into a ball, unable to see clearly around me, only knowing that these voices were gradually approaching me in the dark. My heart was beating in my throat, and suddenly there were so many frogs jumping in my stomach that they were about to burst.

Please save me, anyone, please save me.

I closed my eyes and prayed desperately.

The next second, not only time, but also space was distorted. It was daybreak, the train was gone, nothing was left. I looked around, but saw nothing except a blank.

"Dare to play tricks on us, we'll beat you to death!"

"I'll break your hands and feet and let you beg for food!"

Those voices were still there, and even chaotic footsteps appeared.

I looked around, but still didn't see anyone, but the footsteps became clearer and clearer. I was so scared that I ran again. I ran very fast, but my footsteps were barely audible. In order to prevent myself from panting, I bit my lower lip tightly, and even breathed carefully, which made me very uncomfortable. The space was sometimes daytime and sometimes night, as if the sun was not shining.

"I found you!"

"Are you still running?"

"I found you!"

As I ran with my head down, their voices suddenly came from above my head. I was scared and pale, collapsed to the ground, and immediately burst into tears.

"Xinliu." A strange voice called me.

"I'm here!" I closed my eyes and quickly responded with a shrill voice.

"Xinliu."

"I'm here, save me! Look at me, I'm here!"

Then, the voice of the trafficker disappeared, and the space collapsed. I fell from the air, dizzy and unable to resist.

"It's okay, it's back."

When I opened my eyes again, a wrinkled and serious face came into my sight, and I screamed "Ah", thinking that I had fallen into another terrifying space. The big face smacked his lips, looked at me left and right, and then nodded and distanced himself from me.

"It's completely fine now."

The field of vision became wider. I saw Jia Yiren standing behind the big face, his face full of embarrassment. Then, the burning pain spread from my buttocks in all directions, flowing along the blood vessels to my whole body. Jia Youfu sat on the threshold smoking a long-stemmed dry pipe, and his eyes looking at me were still worried. I looked around blankly and found myself standing in the open hall. It was noon outside, and the sun was scorching hot. The big privet tree in the yard was about to turn into a pool of green oil, and the small white flowers on the tree were scattered on the mud.

Jia Yiren sent Big Face away, stood in the yard and looked at me for a few times, stammering, and finally went to the kitchen without saying anything.

After Big Face left, the crazy woman came out of the room.

"Xinliu." Her call was so kind.

I looked up at her, thinking of the nightmare I had just experienced, and I threw myself into her arms in fear, clinging to her warm body, crying as if I had been reborn. The crazy woman patted my back gently and comforted me softly.

In order to avoid embarrassment, the crazy woman considerately let me sleep in her room for a long time afterwards. I slept in the same bed with her until I picked up waste in the village, sold it and returned the money to Jia Yiren.

She told me that at noon that day, after Jia Yiren vented his anger and pulled me away from the tree, I was completely dumbfounded, dumbfounded, and did not respond to anyone's words. Among the crowd of onlookers, someone told Jia Yiren that I was too frightened and lost my soul. Jia Yiren didn't take it seriously at first, thinking that I was pretending to be stupid and angry with him, so he pushed me several times. He also threatened that if I pretended to be stupid and deceived him again, he would slap me again. However, after I didn't respond after pushing for a long time, he believed it.

Jia Yiren found Jia the fortune teller, the one with the wrinkled big face.

Jia the witch touched my face, looked left and right, and asked Jia Yiren to fill a bowl with millet and find a piece of red cloth to wrap it tightly. She turned the bowl full of millet upside down and held it in her palm. She slowly turned it clockwise over my head and kept calling my name. After turning it clockwise three times, she held the bowl and turned it counterclockwise three times. After turning it, she stood the bowl upright, lifted the red cloth and looked at it. She pointed at Jia Yiren and raised two fingers.

"Two strands of soul are lost."

Jia Yiren panicked. He failed to extract the 50-cent coin from me, but instead took away two strands of my soul.

Jia the witch told him to wait until I fell asleep at night, and then do what she had just done, turning the bowl over my body, calling my name softly, and constantly filling the bowl with the missing millet. Maybe it was too dark at night, and my soul couldn't see the road; or maybe Jia Xinliu was not my real name, and my soul didn't know that Jia Yiren was calling them. So, Jia Yiren called for two nights, but he couldn't call my soul back.

He found Jia Shenpo again. Jia Shenpo took a bowl and operated it, and then I woke up.

I curled up in the arms of the crazy woman, wrapped in her body temperature, and felt very safe, and gradually forgot the terrible experience when I lost my soul.

Although my soul returned to my body, I always felt that I seemed to have lost something afterwards. During those two days, a part of me was secretly hidden, and it drifted to a faraway place where the shouting could not reach. It was not until more than 20 years later that I accidentally found it in an abandoned movie theater in a border town, and also found the five years of memory about Jiajia Village that I lost during my wandering.

I escaped from the hands of human traffickers by fate, and met Jia Yiren by fate while wandering. I followed him to Jiajia Village, and witnessed all these people and events by fate. But in the end, I will leave by fate, and remember by fate.

I will not stay in Jiajia Village for long. Since I felt that I had lost something, I always had this premonition.