Searching for Treasures in the Clouds

After escaping from the shady factory, Yu Ru has been wandering outside.

Although she saw a village the first thing she saw after she came out of the mountain behind the black-hearted factory, the dialect spoken by the people in that village was the same as that of the management of the black-hearted factory. She couldn't understand and couldn't tell whether those people were talking about family matters or talking about who to kill today. She was afraid that the people in the village were accomplices of the management and that she would be kidnapped again if she asked them for help, so she begged all the way and walked on her own.

She didn't know many words, she only knew that her home was called Hecheng, and she only knew the two characters "Hecheng", so she would go wherever she saw the word "He". She had no direction, and she couldn't recognize the direction. She had only one thought in her mind, which was: go to a place with many people, children, and cars.

Along the way, she started walking at dawn and went to sleep at night. She slept in various holes and pits. If she came across a village, she would sneak into people's chicken coops, duck pens, and dog kennels to sleep, and steal the food and water of the poultry. Whenever she came across a trash can, she would carefully search through it, find out everything that could be used, and take it with her.

Strangely enough, maybe because she was a child and didn't seem aggressive or for some other reason, the poultry, especially the chickens, ducks and geese, would get scared and avoid her, but they wouldn't yell or "cluck, cluck, cluck" and would just quietly give way to her. The dogs didn't bark at her either, they just stared at her closely.

Thanks to their cooperation, Yu Ru had a place to hide at certain critical moments.

Wild grass and leaves are one of her food sources. Food, water and rotten clothes in the trash can are also what she needs. Those things may be dirty, sour and smelly, but in order to survive, she will eat them all.

Sometimes, when she really couldn't find food, she would beg for food. Those people would ask her where she came from and what she had experienced, and would invite her to sit in their homes, but she ignored them all. First, strangers frightened her and made her speechless. She couldn't communicate. Second, she was afraid that the person was a human trafficker.

After the first experience of being cheated, she no longer wanted to trust anyone but herself. When she was wandering outside, the only reason she interacted with people was to beg for food. As soon as she got the food, she would run away and would never stay in the home of the person who gave her the food.

She didn't know how long she had been in such a desperate situation. After a long journey through mountains and rivers, her shoes had been worn out and she had been walking almost barefoot, leaving her feet covered with wounds.

When the pain was too much to walk, she would watch for trucks carrying goods on the road, and when the trucks stopped, she would sneak in and hide herself under the goods. She didn't care where the trucks were going, she just wanted to stay away from the black-hearted factories, the farther the better.

Yu Ru walked and walked for a long way, and finally stopped on a street in a small county town. This was the place she had always dreamed of, with many people and children, and buses that she had only seen on TV shuttling on the road.

It took her half a year to get here.

She was covered in stains, her clothes were tattered, and her exposed skin was covered with scabs, festering, or bleeding wounds. She looked like a discarded piece of trash standing on the street. Passersby looked at her sideways, sizing her up, and giving her strange looks.

The TV said that there were many opportunities in big cities, and she thought she could stop, but she didn't know how to find opportunities and seize them. At this point, she really couldn't walk anymore, and she was powerless to think. She stood there, shaky, and finally collapsed in front of people's eyes.

In the chaos, she vaguely heard someone walking towards her. Her body instinctively shrank and she wanted to crawl away, but she soon lost consciousness.

……

Yu Ru woke up again and found herself lying on a clean, soft bed.

She opened her eyes slightly and looked up, and saw that she was in a clean and tidy place, with simple decorations around her, just like an ordinary person's residence. However, there were a lot of beds in this residence, three in total, and there was a smell of disinfectant mixed with medicine.

Glancing down again, she was wrapped in gauze all over her body, with several layers of thick gauze covering her wounds and bloodstains. She was now swollen like a little doll with half of the cotton removed.

Next to her, there was a patient lying on a bed. She was a middle-aged woman. She was in good mental state and her whole body was intact except for her legs which were hung. She was awake. A young woman was sitting by the bed, feeding her and chatting with her in a low voice.

Yu Ru recognized this arrangement and bandaging. This was the environment of a hospital and what doctors would do. She had seen it on TV. Realizing that she had been rescued, Yu Ru's breathing became stable and she looked at the ceiling calmly.

At this moment, the door handle of the ward door suddenly turned and made a sound. Yu Ru heard the slight movement and her heart suddenly shook. She subconsciously closed her eyes and pretended to be "dead".

The door of the ward was opened, and a crowd of people came in. They were Yu Ru's family.

Gu Yulan (Yu Ru's mother) sat down in front of Yu Ru with a plastic bag of dishes and chopsticks, and leaned over to look at her face. Seeing that her eyes were tightly closed, she turned back to look at Yu Yousheng (Yu Ru's father) and whispered: "She's not awake yet, how could this happen?"

Yu Yousheng walked over and also looked at Yu Ru's face. He frowned and replied: "The doctor said he should be able to wake up today. Let's wait a little longer."

Xu Shenwei's eyes widened when he heard this, "He's not awake yet? What should I do..."

"Life is hard, hard..."

She repeated her sigh several times, then put her hands together and bowed to the air, "Queen Mother, Goddess of Avalokitesvara, please have mercy on my granddaughter and bless her to wake up..."

"Ah..." Gu Yulan sighed heavily, lowered her head, and looked at Yu Ru silently, looking exhausted. "Yu Ru, Yu Ru, why did you go out like that? You won't be caught if you don't go out. I told you so many times not to talk to strangers, but you just won't listen."

"Now that half of my life is gone, how am I going to live in the future?"

"I have so much money now, I don't know what to do. If I sell the house, where will my family live? I can't borrow from relatives."

"If I had brought you two siblings with me, this might not have happened."

"I still owe the hospital 200,000 yuan, and now I need money for the follow-up treatment. I really don't know how much it will cost in total..."

"Who's watching over you in the hospital?"

"It's so serious, I don't know when it will get better. I can't even study anymore."

……

Yu Ru's family members were either standing or sitting, all staying by Yu Ru's bedside, talking in low voices, discussing the medical expenses for her treatment and who would stay in the hospital to take care of her.

Yu Ru didn't make it to Hecheng in the end, but she accidentally returned to the province and collapsed in a small town in a foreign land. After she fell, many kind-hearted people came forward to check on her, called the police, and called the emergency number.

Medical staff rushed to the scene and took Yu Ru back to the hospital. After examination, they found that her injuries were too severe for the local hospital to treat her, so she was rushed to the provincial capital, Huacheng, and transferred to a large hospital. There are some of the best medical resources in the country, which may be able to save her.

Currently, Yu Ru has just been transferred from the intensive care unit to the general ward and is still in the observation stage. She cannot return to the local hospital for the time being to prevent any emergencies and miss the best time for rescue. Because she is in a different place, someone must stay here temporarily to take care of Yu Ru. During Yu Ru's hospitalization, she cannot leave and can only stay in the hospital.

There are six people in their family, and only Gu Yulan and Yu Yousheng earn money. The couple cannot take care of Yu Ru, otherwise the family will lose its source of income, and even the most basic food and clothing will become a problem.

Yu Cunpu (Yu Ru's grandfather) is lazy and has no good heart. He only wants to sleep every day. Even now his granddaughter is dying, he is not anxious and unreliable. Xu Shenwei thinks about the vegetables she planted in the field every day. She thinks she is already very tired. If she keeps running back and forth between the hospital and home, she will be exhausted to death. She doesn't want to take care of her. Yu Ru's brother Yu Lai is left. He has some time every day, but not much. He has to go to school, and he is now in the fifth grade and will soon be in the sixth grade. He has a lot of homework.