I never expected that Si Jiangchen would actually take me to that orphanage where children were sold.
By now, the moonlight had faded, and the surroundings were enveloped in a gloomy darkness.
Si Jiangchen finally let go of my hand. With a single leap, he jumped onto the two - meter - high wall.
"Come up!"
He casually draped his long legs over the side of the wall and reached out his hand to me.
"Little thief!"
I couldn't help but bite my lips. This guy didn't seem like the type to climb over walls in the middle of the night at all!
In my impression, he was cold and fierce, riding on a tall horse, scaring the hell out of the cowering commoners...
"Little thief woman!"
Si Jiangchen grabbed the hand I reached out and gently pulled me up onto the wall. We sat side by side on the wallhead.
The orphanage was a square - shaped compound. The three rows of bungalows were all built of blue bricks with dark - gray tiles on top. The courtyard was paved with blue stone slabs. Due to years of use, they were polished smooth, reflecting the faint light of the sky like mirrors.
When I looked down carefully, I was so terrified that I almost let out a scream. I saw three young children happily playing a game on the stone steps near the gate.
In the dim light, I could tell that they were playing a game called hopscotch. The ground was marked with grids in white chalk. Each child held a sandbag and threw it at the numbers in the grids. They were having a great time!
But eerily enough, although they were clapping their hands and shouting, I couldn't hear a single sound. They were like images projected from another world, sending shivers down my spine...
I leaned against Si Jiangchen, my body trembling slightly.
It wasn't out of fear but rather sorrow for those children who never got to grow up... because these children had no shadows, and the sandbags they were playing with were actually hearts that had stopped beating!
These three children were probably the orphans who, as the man in the orphanage had said, had died a tragic death in this courtyard.
Today was the third day since their deaths, and their souls had returned to the place they had been most attached to in life for one last look...
Suddenly, one of the children looked up and saw me. With a surprised look on his face, he pointed in our direction. Then, all three of them grabbed their hearts and staggered over to the wall. They waved their hands at us desperately, but I couldn't tell what they were saying.
"… What are they doing?"
These little ghosts didn't have the malevolence of those who died a violent death. Instead, they looked at us appealingly.
"Do you want to hear what they're saying?"
Si Jiangchen noticed my curiosity and whispered in my ear.
"Yeah!"
I nodded. I wondered why these children were still lingering here even after seeing the place they had loved in life.
Si Jiangchen's long fingers drew a strange talisman in the air and slapped it onto my forehead with a "pop". My body swayed, and I almost fell off the wall. Si Jiangchen quickly put his arm around my waist.
In an instant, I heard a small shout in my ear, "Be careful, auntie..."
"Yeah! Don't fall!"
"The stone ground is so hard. You'll break your head..."
Those soft, childish voices filled my ears.
"Auntie, why did you jump in over the wall? Are you here to pick us up?"
One of the little girls, with two small buns on her head, looked up at us.
"Pick you up?"
I was a bit surprised.
"Yeah, yeah!"
The little girl nodded like a chick pecking at rice. "Uncle Wu said that if we're good, don't make a fuss, and don't cry, new mommies and daddies will come to take us to our new homes."
"That's right!"
Another little boy proudly puffed out his chest. "The three of us have been very good. We didn't cry even when Uncle Wu and the others beat and scolded us. That's how we got this chance!"
"Exactly... The last time a new mommy came to choose, I was rejected because I cried. I wasn't chosen."
The little girl pouted regretfully. "My sister was very good. She was chosen!"
Then she cheered up again. Her big eyes curved into crescent moons. "But she's happy with her new mommy. I heard she gets delicious cakes every day and always wears warm clothes... That's so nice! I wonder if our new mommies and daddies will like us..."
A look of anticipation appeared on the little girl's face. "Auntie, are you really not here to take us away?"
I already understood why these children were still lingering here. Until the moment of their death, they were still fantasizing about being adopted by kind - hearted people and worrying about how to please their future relatives...
But those family members they were looking forward to were actually man - eating devils. They only wanted their flesh and blood! It was just like buying and selling pigs, dogs, cows, and sheep in the market...
Except that what they were buying were children!
"No... They're not new mommies and daddies..."
The child standing at the back finally spoke. "That's Sister Xiaohe. She's not here to adopt you!"
The child had been standing in the shadow under the wall. It was only now that I could see his face clearly. "Stone? Are you Little Stone?"
He looked up, his pale little face contorted in a soundless cry.
"Why are you here?"
I struggled hard and jumped down from the wall.
"Little Stone, where's your mom?!"
This was the very child whose soul Bai Granny and I had retrieved from the City God Temple!
But why was he in this orphanage for orphans? Where was his mother?
"Waaaa..."
When Little Stone saw me asking him, he finally burst into tears. "Mom said she couldn't afford to raise me anymore. She asked me to stay here for a while and then come back to pick me up..."
"Why were you also chosen with them?"
Since Little Stone's mother had promised to come back for him, how did he end up as one of these little wronged souls?
"Uncle Wu said my mom would come to pick me up at night! He told me to go with them obediently!"
Little Stone pointed at the two children beside him.
"… But... But no one came to pick us up..."
The other two children also covered their little faces and cried. When they looked up again, there were two trails of tear - like blood on their pale little faces. Crimson blood gradually seeped through their thin clothes.
"Cry! If you keep crying, no one will like you!"
Amid the children's plaintive cries, a man's gloomy voice suddenly came in. "If you keep crying, you'll go back and get beaten! No one will ever adopt you. When you grow up, the boys will be sold as coolies, and the girls will be sold to brothels!"
I remembered that malicious and greedy voice!
Wasn't it the very man who had gone to the villa to try to blackmail Lin Shuya but had been torn to pieces by her?