The whistling north wind poured through the holes in the wall and unceremoniously poured into the dilapidated mud house, blowing the tattered yellowed tent into a hunting sound, and a middle-aged man with a yellow face shrunk in a tattered quilt that exposed black cotton wool, half-leaning on the head of the bed, and said weakly to a fat woman standing in front of the bed: "Thirty copper plates plus ...... Add ten catties of white rice, Lan girl, you can take it away at any time. ”

The fat woman with her eyes sewn into a thin line sneered and said, "Your Lan girl is only eight years old, and she can only do some odd work, it's not worth the price, it's halved!"

The middle-aged man's throat moved, swallowed his saliva, looked at the leaky house on the four walls of the house, gritted his teeth, and said: "No! Although my girl is young, she looks good, and if she raises her for three or five years, she is a Peugeot little beauty, if you don't buy me, I will find another family!"

The fat woman giggled, took a step forward, poked her turnip-like fingers on the thin man's forehead, and pushed the middle-aged man onto the bed: "You sick man, you are still the father of other girls, you sell Lan Yatou to other families, you just push her into the fire pit, can you bear it?" Listen, my sister Hua'er in Yuanzhou has a good conscience, and she will never buy the little girl in her hand to the turbid places in the brothel Qinglou to be sinned by men, and will only send them to a big family as a handyman, so that although they are tired, they still have dignity, and they will not live that kind of humble life of laughing...... I'll tell you the truth, I received an order from Jiudao Villa this time, Lan girl, I plan to send it to Jiudao Villa, sick man, Jiudao Villa, have you heard of it?"

The middle-aged man sat up straight suddenly, he stared at a pair of yellowed eyes, waved his hand again and again, and said, "Nine Dao...... Jiudao Villa, I heard that it is a demon cave that eats people and does not spit out bones, and every day there are killed slaves thrown into mass graves to feed wild dogs...... I'd rather Lan Yatou go to Qinglou to get a way to live than go to Jiudao Villa and wait for death!"

Sister Hua'er snorted and said leisurely: "That's good, don't buy it, I already brought the rice and silver, since you don't want it, I'll send it to another family, to be honest, your girl is too small, and you don't have to send it to others." ”

She twisted her bucket-like waist and was about to step out of the house.

A woman in sackcloth who was huddled in the corner of the room suddenly began to cry: "You are reluctant to sell that girl, so hurry up and go to find rice and come back to the pot to cook porridge! Why are you still lying on the bed? Your son has been hungry for two days, and if you delay it for two hours, you will starve to death in front of you! You useless man, with the title of showman, is a lazy embryo who can't do anything, a man in his thirties, who has nothing to do, and in the end he will starve his wife and children to death! I was really blind at the beginning, and I followed you bastard...... Woo, you can't bear to watch your son and me die in front of you?"

While crying, she squeezed the thigh of the sleeping child in her arms, and the child suddenly burst into tears.

Sister Hua'er sighed twice, and said to the woman in sackcloth with a sympathetic face: "Hey, this little lady, you really can't pick a man, you see, your talented husband and wife let you curl up in the corner of the house on a cold day to blow the cold wind, and he himself is lying comfortably on the bed covered with a thick quilt...... Why don't you run quickly?"

The Mai woman became more and more sad when she heard this, stepped forward and took Sister Hua'er's hand, and cried and cried: "That's it, I regret not being at the beginning, when my father died and had no money to be buried, I begged along the street, this guy passed by and saw that I was young and easy to deceive, and bought a thin coffin for fifty dollars to bury my father, and brought me back, I am a single foreign woman, can I go there?" I followed him in a daze, I originally thought that I had to rely on him, but I didn't know that this day was even more bitter than Coptis chinensis, I knew that this was the case, I should have bought myself to the Qinglou back then, so I could have food and clothing. ”

The middle-aged man silently looked at the two women in front of him, one fat and one thin, and suddenly sighed, and said to Sister Hua'er: "In addition to Qinglou and Jiudao Villa, are there any good buyers?"

Sister Hua'er glanced at his skinny wife, and said with a smile: "No, if you are reluctant to sell your daughter, you might as well sell your mother, anyway, you are just a halfway couple, and your love is not deep, right?"

The Mai woman's eyes lit up, she walked to the bed with the child in her arms, threw the child into the arms of the middle-aged man, and said loudly with her hands on her waist: "Four years ago, you begged the old lady to live with you, and at that time you said that you had a mouthful, I had a mouthful, and I would definitely support me for a lifetime. Your father and daughter have a deep relationship, seeing that my son and I are about to starve to death, and I am reluctant to throw away the broomstick, yes, it is better to buy me, I will go to Jiudao Villa to be a cow and a horse, and I will always starve and freeze with you. ”

Sister Hua'er circled around the Mai woman twice, pinched her thin arm, clapped her hands and smiled: "If it were you, it would be definitely worth thirty copper plates and ten catties of white rice, tuberculosis ghost, tell me quickly, which one are you going to sell?"

The middle-aged man hugged and cried, the skinny child, the green tendons on his forehead twitched and twitched.

"Buy....... Lan girl, the price remains the same. ”

"Fifteen copper plates and seven catties of white rice, Lan Yatou is still young, and people have to support her for a few years before she can do a big job, isn't it?"

"Add a little more. ”

"Tsk, it's really a good talent who can calculate, look at your dying of hunger, plus three bundles of firewood, as long as you draw a charge, you will have hot porridge to drink immediately, is it a deal?"

A thin deed of sale was handed to the man.

The Mai woman immediately took it, her face full of ecstasy, as if this yellowed sheet of paper was a bowl of fragrant braised pork.

"Hurry, be in charge, or in two hours my son will starve to death." ”

The man looked sad, put down the child who was waiting to be fed, put his finger into his mouth, bit hard, and pressed the blood-stained fingertip to the lower right corner of the paper.

With trembling hands, he handed the deed of sale to Sister Hua'er, the corners of his mouth turned out of the house, and said in a low voice: "Miss Lan is picking up firewood in the forest outside, you take this deed of sale and go and take her away." ”

Sister Hua'er smiled and gave a thumbs up: "It's so refreshing, I'll go." ”

She took the deed of sale, carefully folded it and put it in her arms, and was about to step out of the wooden door, when the woman in sackcloth shouted: "Slow, pay the money with one hand and deliver the goods with the other, you have taken the deed of sale, what about the copper plate, the rice, and the firewood?"

The fat woman pointed to the corner of the house and said, "Xiucai lady, the rice and firewood have already been placed here, come and accept." ”

She groped in her arms for a while, took out a string of copper plates, and counted them one by one in front of Xiucai and his wife: "One, two, three...... XIV, XV. Okay, Xiucai lady, the money is collected, follow me to arrest people. ”