The scorching sun was in the sky, and the surface thermometer was lying across the ground, and the red mercury column was already close to the scale of fifty degrees Celsius.

The twelve or thirteen-year-old girl, skinny and yellow-haired, struggled to lift her chin and licked her chapped lips with her eyes in the direction of the Dasha River not far away.

I hadn't drunk water for four or five hours, my throat was so dry that I was smoking, my breath was tinged with blood, and my hair looked like it could burn.

Half a meter at her feet was a shady tree, but she didn't dare to move.

In this oasis, it is rare to have a tree with a slim crown, the radial canopy covers more than ten square meters of open space, but the piece where she is missing half a square meter of shade is just enough to bask in the bright sun overhead.

The girl looked up at the sun, then at the two figures under the tree, lowered her head and swallowed with difficulty.

The next second, her body began to sway, as if she was about to lose her position.

A few meters away, a chubby middle-aged man sat on a chair and looked through a stack of papers, while a wizened teenager was at his feet.

The young man half-sat on the ground, looking at the weak girl in front of him with a slight weakness, his hands clenched tightly into fists, and his teeth bit his lower lip into a bloody mark, but he never said a word.

"Don't you really beg for mercy? Is that a punishment for you, or a punishment for her?"

After a long time, the middle-aged man put down the things in his hand and stared at the young man with a sideways face, full of ridicule.

The man's mouth was pure Chinese without any accent, and he was the only person who had been able to communicate with the teenager normally for two years.

The boy lowered his face and did not speak, but there was disdain in his eyes.

The middle-aged man was not surprised by his attitude, dusted the wrinkles on his trousers, and said, "It's still wrong, this is the so-called genius?

The boy stood up suddenly, and after a sound of metal scraping, two thin chains fell to his ankles.

He couldn't bear it anymore and shouted at the man, "You madman, you went to great lengths to catch me and torture me, just to solve a few math problems for you?"

The man raised his eyebrows and looked at him very seriously: "It's a pity that you refuse to accept my guidance, otherwise you wouldn't have wasted so much time." ”

"What you gave me was the Poincaré conjecture! The Millennium Prize problem, a difficult problem that many mathematicians can't solve with all their efforts, and you give me a few pieces of paper and a pen to get the answer? Can a million-dollar bounty be such a child's play?"

The boy argued with emotion, and when he finished speaking, he coughed loudly, his voice becoming hoarse.

The man chuckled, "Do you still think that my goal is a mere million?"

The young man was stunned, and then said angrily, "Then what are you going to do?"

The man glanced lightly at his clenched fists and the shackles at his feet, and said calmly, "If you call me Master, I will tell you." Also, do you know that your father's death is full of mysteries? Brothers, sisters-in-law, classmates and friends, all of them are accomplices. You call me Master, and I can help you get revenge. ”

"Don't think about it!" the young man turned his face, "You killed my mother, killed so many people, I will never give in to you and become your accomplice!"

The man didn't look angry at all, he slowly stood up, looked at the young man in front of him who was as tall as himself, and said slowly: "Is it? But why do I feel that I am closer to my goal?"

After speaking, he raised his hand lightly and pointed to the girl not far away.

I don't know if she was frightened by his movements, or if she was already unsteady, and the girl fell to the ground at that moment, her eyes closed and her breath weak.

"Little grass!" the boy screamed, trying to pounce on him, but the man stepped on the chains that were tied to his feet.

He stopped less than a meter away from the girl and could not take a step forward.

"Give her water!" he couldn't hold back the attitude he had been trying to fight just now, and turned back with a pleading look, "If this continues, she will die of heatstroke." ”

"Nervous?" the man didn't even look at the girl on the ground, only smiled at him, "So, I still found someone other than your mother that I can use to blackmail you." Am I almost successful?"

The boy was dumbfounded, and after a few seconds he sat down dejectedly, his knees together and his head in his hands.

"Ahh

I don't know how long it was, but he let out a hysterical, hoarse cry.

That night, he and Xiaocao escaped by the darkness of the night, and after they were captured again, things became completely different.

In the past, he had no one he cared about, so he had no weakness, he felt that he was a bad life, no one could threaten him, and what supported him to live was only the word revenge.

So he kept standing up and didn't bend over, because it was just a big deal to be beaten to death and tortured to death by those people, which was a relief for him, and it was the only choice he couldn't make.

But the moment Xiaocao fell from the camel and shouted the word "run" to him, his hard armor was notched again.

Xiaocao would rather be captured and tortured to death than let him escape successfully, so in his empty heart, he lived alone again.

From that moment on, he understood that he could no longer push her out.

For the sake of Xiaocao, his attitude has softened a lot, and the man asked him to solve math problems, which he never looked at before, but now, he tried his best to solve the problems and try not to make mistakes.

Because if the solution is wrong, Xiaocao will be thrown back to the wolf's den by the man for one night, and the next morning he will be sent back with bruises.

The man said that Xiao Herb didn't have to be like this, everything came from his resistance and escape, so she and his fate were tightly tied together.

The man understood what he was thinking, and spread his hands in a relaxed tone: "Actually, if I were you, I would be glad that it was this girl who was being tortured, not my mother." ”

"Speaking of which, your mother is so painful and chooses to die, probably not because she is afraid that you will be blackmailed, but because she knows what the consequences of not dying are. People are selfish, and you can choose to be selfish as before, after all, this girl has nothing to do with you. ”

The boy was silent, and the man suddenly took out a whistle and blew it, and the sharp voice made the boy tremble slightly.

Not again.

Half a minute later, out of nowhere, a big man covered in a gray robe with only a pair of eyes left came out, and walked over menacingly.

He stopped when he walked up to the girl, kicked her back with the tip of his foot, and when he saw that she didn't respond, he took out a water bladder and splashed it on her face.

A few seconds later, the girl on the ground was alive again, gasping for pain, sensing the water on her face, sticking out her tongue and licking greedily, as if she was tasting the sweetest rain in the world.