A Girl Traveling Through Troubled Times

Gui'er and Taohua were thrown onto a cart, and two servants were responsible for taking them to the brick kiln in Dongzhuang outside the city. Wu Ma came out and warned them, "You two must be careful. When you take them there, try to take the side roads and don't let too many people see you."

The two agreed and pushed the cart on the road.

Taohua struggled desperately at first, but the boy was afraid that she would make too much noise and attract the attention of passers-by, so he came up and slapped her twice. Taohua hit her head on the edge of the cart and fainted.

Gui'er was extremely anxious and worried about Taohua's injuries. She tried her best to cut the rope that tied her wrists with a knife.

After a while, Taohua slowly opened her eyes and wanted to struggle again. Guier quickly showed her the knife in her hand. Taohua understood what she meant and became quiet all of a sudden.

The two servants saw that the two of them had quieted down and turned back to check, but they didn't see anything wrong. Perhaps they felt bad, so one of them said to them, "Don't blame us, we are just following orders. My family of six all depends on the Song Mansion for their livelihood, and we can't afford to offend them. If you two die and become ghosts and want to seek revenge, you can go find the eldest wife."

Another servant turned around to look at them and said with a sneer, "These two yellow-haired girls, even if they turned into ghosts and came to find me, I wouldn't be afraid. Look at how cowardly you are."

The two men pulled the cart along the winding alleys, avoiding the main streets.

Guier used a knife to cut for a long time and finally cut the hemp rope on her wrist, but she still pulled the broken hemp rope with her hand, pretending that it was still tied to her hand.

While the two servants were not paying attention, he winked at Taohua. Taohua was very smart and turned around, leaning her back against Guier's back, so that Guier could secretly help her cut the rope.

At this time, Guier found that they were getting further and further away from the city, and the houses around them were becoming more and more simple and dilapidated. Some houses even had vegetable fields in front of their doors. Guier judged that they were far away from the city center.

Gui'er quickly grabbed the rope on Taohua's hand and finally cut it.

As soon as the rope was cut, Taohua tried to struggle and escape, but Guier quickly held her down and shook her head at her.

Gui'er knew that if she ran away now, the two servants were adults and could easily catch her. Once caught, it would be difficult to escape. She had to wait for the right opportunity and succeed once to escape.

The cart continued to move forward and now it had arrived in the suburbs, surrounded by farmland and woods. Gui'er and Taohua closely observed the surrounding terrain, trying to find a place where it would be convenient to escape.

Suddenly the carriage stopped, and two servants spoke up, "Hey, isn't this Master Ma? Why are you out today?"

Gui'er looked up and saw a middle-aged man wearing an octagonal melon-shaped hat and a Changshan silk jacket approaching. Two servants hurried forward and bowed to him.

Guier looked around and happened to see a very steep slope next to her, and at the bottom of the slope was a large cornfield.

Gui'er poked Taohua, and Taohua also saw the slope and the cornfield, nodded, and the two of them quietly loosened the rope.

At this time, two servants were walking back with the fat man, saying, "It's them."

Just then, Gui'er and Taohua climbed out of the cart. They didn't care about anything else and just threw their shoulders back and ran desperately towards the slope.

Two servants were chasing after him.

When they reached the slope, Gui'er could see clearly that it was not a slope at all, but as steep as a cliff, almost at a 90-degree angle. However, the two servants were almost catching up with them at this time. Taohua ran down without hesitation, but one of them lost her balance and rolled down.

Gui'er hesitated for a moment and ran down. Although she tried to be careful, she slipped after running only two steps and rolled down like Taohua.

There were some not-too-tall trees on the slope, and the two men quickly rolled into the bushes. They could only hear the shouting of the people chasing them from behind.

Guier felt like her whole body was scratched, with her face and hands deeply scratched by grass, stones and branches.

After a while, she finally stopped by hitting a tree. She carefully used the tree's cover to look up. The trees were too dense and she could no longer see the situation on the slope clearly. Now she heard someone say, "Go find someone to help us look."

Gui'er looked around for peach blossoms again, calling softly, "Peach blossoms, peach blossoms." No one responded.

She didn't dare to delay, fearing that too many people would come looking for her and she would not be able to escape, so she decided to walk forward while looking for peach blossoms.

Finally, we reached the bottom of the slope. Walking further, we saw a large cornfield. It was as dense as a forest and was 1.7-1.8 meters high. People inside could not be seen from outside at all.

Guier put away the knife given by Zhang Ma, picked up a stone, and found a stick more than one meter long to protect herself, then plunged into the cornfield.

Not long after walking in, she heard a noise ahead. Gui'er was worried that someone was looking for her, so she didn't dare to make a sound and hesitated whether to go around.

"Gui'er." Taohua's voice came from the front.

It turned out to be Taohua. Guier was overjoyed and hurried to greet her. Taohua also came out. The two finally met and were very excited, crying and laughing.

After a while, Gui'er said, "Let's get out of here quickly, otherwise it will be troublesome if they find us."

Taohua nodded and said, "I took a look before I jumped down. There is a small river across the cornfield. There is a village on the other side of the river. We can go there to find help."

Gui'er didn't expect Taohua to observe so carefully.

"But where should we go?" Taohua said worriedly.

Gui'er said, "We can go to my school. Other matters are fine, but if it involves killing someone, I believe the school will not ignore it."

Taohua nodded, sighed, and said, "Fortunately, you usually have connections with the outside world, otherwise, we would have nowhere to go now."

After the two of them agreed, they hurried towards the river. After walking for a long time, they finally arrived at the river.

When they arrived at the river, they were both dumbfounded. They had thought there must be a bridge by the river, but there wasn't.

They were both very scared, afraid that the Song family would bring people after them. Taohua asked, "What should we do?"

Gui'er walked to the river and observed it for a while. She found that it was not so much a river as a wide stream. In some places, rocks on the bottom of the water were faintly visible. She said to Taohua, "Let's find a place with shallower water and see if we can reach it."

So the two of them walked along the river for a long time. When they saw shallow water, they took a stick and tried to wade forward. As they walked, they found that the water was too deep, so they hurried back.

After trying this several times, I finally found a place where the water was just above my waist and waded across the river.

When they got ashore, their skirts and pants were soaked and they looked miserable, but they had to find a way to get back to the school in the city to ask for help. After the lesson of being almost caught by unknown people when they escaped last time, Guier didn't dare to ask for help from others casually.

The two walked into the village hand in hand. It was noon and everyone had gone home for dinner. The village was quiet and no one was seen. Because they were afraid of getting lost, the two walked along the river.

Suddenly Taohua pointed ahead and said, "There's someone."

Guier looked in the direction she pointed and saw a rickshaw carrying a young woman holding a child of three or four years old and carrying a bundle, parked in front of a house.

The young woman got off the rickshaw, gave a few copper coins to the rickshaw driver, opened the door and went into the house.

The rickshaw driver turned around and was about to leave when Gui'er and Taohua quickly shouted, "Rickshaw!"

The rickshaw driver turned around and was a little surprised to see them. Gui'er quickly said, "Master, I'm a student at the Santa Maria Girls' School in the city. I was out playing with my classmates, but we got separated and fell into the river. Could you please take us back to school?"

Fortunately, Gui'er was going to school right after sending Song Xichen this morning, so she had already put on her school uniform.

The rickshaw driver didn't doubt it at all. He just frowned and said, "Your skirts and pants are wet. You've ridden in my rickshaw and made it wet. How can I pick up other passengers?"

Gui'er quickly said, "Do you have some cloth to cushion the situation? I can give you a little more money for the fare."

The rickshaw driver thought about it seriously and said, "The smallest one gets 30 copper coins."

Gui'er was about to agree when Taohua said, "That's too expensive, boss! You're just taking advantage of the situation. It's only 20 copper coins at most."

The rickshaw driver hesitated for a moment and said, "Okay, get on."

The two got on the rickshaw. Gui'er remained vigilant and secretly held the knife in her hand. She had no idea of the direction and didn't know if the rickshaw driver had noticed anything. If she ran into a bad guy, she would be in trouble.

Fortunately, there were no dangers along the way. Slowly, Gui'er and Taohua saw the familiar scenery. They returned to the city. They looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief.

The rickshaw was getting closer and closer to the school. When it passed by Wing On Department Store, Guier suddenly said, "Let's stop here."

Taohua looked at her in confusion. Guier smiled and said, "We can't go back to school dripping wet. Why don't we go to the hotel, get a room, take a shower, and dry our clothes before going out."

So the two got off the rickshaw. Taohua took out a copper coin from the purse hanging around her neck and handed it to the rickshaw driver. The two walked into Wing On Department Store hand in hand.

Gui'er looked back and saw that the rickshaw driver had gone far away. She breathed a sigh of relief. Taohua asked, "Are we really going to get a room? It's very expensive."

Gui'er said helplessly, "I just remembered that last time the eldest wife wanted to sell me to a brothel, I ran to school when I escaped. This time, if they find out we're missing, they will definitely do the same thing and wait for us at the school gate first. So we can't go to school now."

Taohua thought it made sense, and she smiled and said, "Fortunately, I always carry my wallet with me, so we still have some money."

Gui'er patted her chest and said, "Fortunately, I learned your method of saving money last time, so I followed your example and made a purse, so I brought out my wages as well." The two of them burst out laughing, held hands and went to the hotel on the third floor to book a room.

Although the hotel receptionist looked at them curiously, he didn't ask any questions and directly opened a room for them. However, the room rate at Yong'an Department Store Hotel was very expensive, and the accommodation fee for a room was one dollar a day. The two of them gritted their teeth and paid the money in pain.