That year, Ning Que met eight-year-old Ning Yu for the first time at the slave market. Ancient people liked to raise slaves and keep slaves, from high-ranking officials and dignitaries, down to upper-class peasants with small assets, captive slaves have become commonplace, especially those eunuch families, the number of slaves has become one of the rulers of their wealth and power.

As one of the several major families in the entire Chongye Dynasty, the Ning family needs to replenish as many as 10,000 fingers of slaves every year. Ning Quegui is the son of the world, and he didn't need to go out personally for this trivial matter of buying slaves, but because he had to pick some slaves to help him run his "ancient secret room", and this job determined that the status of these slaves was fundamentally different from ordinary slaves.

can be favored by Ning Que, that is the "noble" among slaves, and must have certain characteristics. There have been several batches of slaves selected by his housekeeper who have been eliminated by him, and the housekeeper himself has no wisdom roots, so naturally he will not have the "discernment" to find the person Ning Que wants, so he has no choice but to go out by himself.

The slave market that day was as always full of slaves who had been collected from all over the world by the sellers, all of them in ragged clothes, with yellow faces and thin muscles, trapped in wooden cages, and their eyes no longer had the luster that they should have as human beings. They stared blankly at the well-dressed so-called "buyers" who came and went, and they didn't care where they went next, anyway, they just jumped from one cage to another, and no matter what, they still couldn't escape the fate of being abused and trampled on at will.

Regardless, most of the slaves were still intact, at least with no exposed scars or bruises. Because the appearance is still very important, the seller still wants to rely on them to make a fortune.

The only thing that was different from all the slaves present was a small figure in a dark corner that was quietly huddled in a cage. When Ning Que approached, the little figure seemed to feel a black shadow enveloping him, and his body instinctively shook a few times. Through the faint light, Ning Que saw the large and small scars on her body, the scars were thin and long, and they were clearly visible at this time, some of the flesh turned out, and some had already scabbed, and they should have been whipped many times.

Her hair was long and messy, cluttered to her head and drooping face, some of which were stuck to wounds that had not yet healed. Finding that the black shadow had not left, she raised her head timidly, and a pair of pure black and white slender eyes met Ning Que's scrutinizing gaze.

The strange thing is that her body is obviously a little shaky, but she doesn't see much panic in her eyes. Such a physical reaction is self-contradictory, could it be that she is doing everything she can to control her own eyes?

Sensing that Ning Que seemed to be interested in this slave, the seller with a fat brain and a big belly immediately followed with a hippie smile, and said to Ning Que in a very dog-legged flattering tone while hunching his waist: "My lord, there are a lot of goods today, and the clothes of the adults are not rich or expensive, and the small ones can introduce you to some good goods to you to set off your noble status!" As he spoke, he pointed to the cage that was swinging in the other direction.

Ning Que didn't look at him, but silently looked at the little slave in the cage in front of him, as long as he watched, the little slave looked at him for a long time, and after a while, he pointed to the little slave and asked the seller: "What do you think of this?" ”

Ning Que's tone was a little careless, like a joke, and the seller wanted to continue to persuade him to see other slaves, so he said: "This is really not good, thin and small, and the development is a little abnormal, I'm afraid it will stain the eyes of adults, and there are many high-quality and low-cost ones over there."

"That's what I'm going to see!" Before the seller could finish speaking, Ning Que interrupted him in a resolute tone.

The seller was a little embarrassed when he choked back before he finished speaking, but the buyer was God, and he still understood this truth. It's just that I never thought that this girl was tortured to the point that she could still be taken care of, and this kind of goods wanted to take the opportunity to blackmail the "rich man" in front of her. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but be angry in his heart, and shouted viciously at the little slave, "Open your teeth and let the adults take a good look!! ”

A good sentence is said as if it is going to kill, gritting teeth. If the little slave just now was pretending to be calm, she couldn't be calm anymore when she was betrayed so fiercely. I saw her trembling teeth, and slowly opened her mouth, revealing teeth that were not so white, but not as yellow as they were.

The reason why the buyer is asked to look at the slave's teeth is that on the one hand, the teeth can roughly tell the age of the slave, on the other hand, the quality of the teeth will also reflect the health of the slave.

Ning Que symbolically looked at the little slave's teeth, and then nodded with an "um".

The seller seemed to be more satisfied when he saw Ning Que, and his anger also subsided a lot. Forget it, it's good that this girl can be sold, maybe she won't meet such a blind buyer in the future, and she won't be in her way in the future. Thinking of this, he squinted at the eye of the needle with a large slit and said with a grin at Ning Que, "How is it?" If the adults think it's okay, the small ones will be happy to give the adults a happy price! ”

Ning Que finally turned his head and glanced at him, and after thinking for a while, he slowly said, "You don't need to be in such a hurry. I like to inspect things before I buy them, and I think you need to explain the scars on her body to me first, because no other slave has them! You tell me? ”

The seller, who was still happily wishful thinking, was stunned for a moment after hearing Ning Que's words, and the anger that had only been slightly reduced just now surged up again, it was okay not to mention it, but he was so angry that he gritted his teeth when he mentioned it, only to see him turn his head and glared coldly at the little slave before he said to Ning Que: "This little asked for herself, I worked hard to buy her back, and then I worked hard to raise her white and tender, and I wanted to sell it to those local tyrants and squires or big families who like to raise beautiful women, so that she can have a good home, and I am good for her." , Who knows that this little doesn't appreciate it at all, not only does she not obey my arrangement, but also wants to escape, after being caught, I have to give her a small punishment as a lesson, and only blame herself! ”

After saying that, he glared at the little slave viciously, and the little slave listened to his so-called description, and although there was panic in his eyes, he insisted on looking at him with stubborn eyes, but the cold was like a handful of salt sprinkled on her wounds. She is only eight years old, but she clearly understands it very well in her heart, saying so well that she is a maid for a large family, but in fact it is just their plaything, and a slave is not qualified to be a "maid" at all, to put it mildly, it is what modern people call "****", one of her good sisters was played to death in this way, and everyone knows it in their slave circle.

Ning Que listened to the traitor's words, the expression on his face was faint, he glanced at the little slave, and then his eyes fell on the wooden cage where she was held. The wooden bars of this cage were as thick as an arm, and they were locked, how did she escape?

He had heard from his housekeeper that almost everything these slaves did before they were bought, including eating, drinking, and lazing, was done in the cage, and even the stool was done with the consent of the guards, and they were temporarily taken out of the cage after they were tied with hoods and ropes, and there was basically no chance of escape, let alone in the cage, can you believe that a child who looks like he is seven or eight years old can break through the wooden cage with thick arms and escape? No way!!

But the truth of the matter is so unexpected. Ning Que also learned the truth of the matter after some careful questioning, and he was going to make a decision about this little slave.

It turned out that the little slave had been trying to escape after learning that his sister had died so tragically. But if you want to escape, you must open the lock of the cage, although it is a wooden lock, but it is enough to toss, and it is a fantasy without a key.

It wasn't until one day that she heard a conversation between her master and another seller that she had a plan in her mind. Both of them drank a lot of wine that day, and began to build up a sweet dream drunk, only to hear the other seller say to her master: "Damn, after selling these slaves later, the master will have money, and he will no longer have to live in this broken wooden house, the wooden house that was built two years ago is now cracked, grandma's, this broken wood is like rheumatism, and when it rains, he will suffer, and the master lives in 10,000 uneasy, but fortunately, when he has money, he can buy a batch of fine timber to rebuild the house, I heard that the timber used by the nobles to build their houses will not have this broken problem, or they will not build a stone house in the west, but it is also the hot and humid rainy weather in Dongli that has this broken problem, and it is still good to go to the wooden house in Beiyi," the man gushed endlessly, and her master had already slept like a dead pig.

From these words, the little slave knew that wood will gradually deform and crack when exposed to water, which is actually what we call wood in modern times will expand if it has too much water, and it will crack when it reaches a certain limit. This change is exacerbated by thermal expansion and contraction at high temperatures. When she learned this, she tried to make the cage where she was kept touch with more water, so she kept some of the water that the guards brought to her every day and poured it on the cage, and urinated, especially the wooden lock.

It was not enough for she to know that her master had a habit of utter anger that every time his servants made him angry or made a mistake, he would beat them up and pour water on them to make their misery worse. When it rains, they are directly covered in scars and drenched in the rain all night, which is simply perverted to the extreme. In order to give the cage more access to water, the little slave often deliberately provoked her master, making her punish her and then splashing water or rain. She knew that although her master loved to beat people, he would keep a few hands every time and would not fight to death, and every time he got angry, he would help them rub the medicine, because he was still counting on them to make money for him, but flesh injuries were inevitable.

In this way, after years of beating, the cage was soaked in water, and it was repeatedly circulated, and the summer in Dongli was already relatively humid and hot, and it was close to the seaside, and the wooden cage slowly began to crack, especially the wooden lock, but if you don't pay attention, you won't find it.

The little slave was convinced that if she persisted, she would achieve the results she wanted. She also figured out that with her master's such a stupid temperament, she would never change her cage.

The night before learning that she was going to be sold to the house of a local tyrant and bully in the village as a so-called maidservant, the little slave felt that it was time to escape from the cage, even if it was still a long time before her scheduled day, but she had to go, and if she was too late, she would be in the mouth of the tiger, and the secret of the cage could be discovered. The wooden bars on the sides were cracked, but they were too thick for her to break. She had no choice but to shift her target to the wooden lock, which was already a little deformed due to the cracking and expansion of the wood.

The little slave gently twitched with a small wooden skewer that he had prepared before, and the wooden lock was a little bit of a sign of being opened, and the little slave was very happy, and continued to tease the lock, and after a long time of tossing and turning, he finally opened the wooden lock, but fortunately did not alarm the sleeping people, and the little slave left the wooden house while everyone was asleep.

Unfortunately, the little slave was soon discovered by her master and escaped, plus she was abused and beaten for many years, and her body was not as good as ordinary people at all, and she was arrested before she went far, and the master was angry and beat again, but it was precisely because of this beating that the little slave had changed beyond recognition, and the village bully who had taken a fancy to her beauty had to "return", and her master's hatred for her was even deeper.

Ning Que was only about fifteen years old at the time, and he couldn't imagine a child silently enduring a long period of beating in order to escape, and this kind of forbearance even some adults did not have. Maybe her method is not the smartest, but for an eight-year-old child, this is already a limit, whether in terms of intelligence or character, this child must be a talent in the future.

So Ning Que bought her without hesitation, and did not treat her as a slave, but taught her to read and write, and let her enter the "Ancient Secret Room" to help him. His father is also a person who advocates "heroes don't ask about their origins", and Ning Wei's intelligence really made him like it very much, so he asked the emperor to give her the title of county lord.

But even if everything is good, Ning Que is still worried, because since then, Ning Yu no longer wants to dress up as a woman, and no matter how arrogant she looks on the outside, she is just vulnerable in her heart. She no longer shows her weak side to the world, only lets you see the side she wants you to see. Until the appearance of Gongsun Li Zai

Ning Que retracted his thoughts that had been flying far, far away, and looked at Ning Yu in front of him thoughtfully, smart people can see everything more clearly than others, so they are often more likely to be injured. Ning Yu should be this kind of person, and once such a person falls in love, it is more like smoking the poison of the poppy, at the beginning he didn't know it, and slowly became addicted to it, and finally found that he had already poisoned the five organs, and the most terrible thing is that even if he is in extreme pain, the poisoned person's eyes are full of poppies that bloom all over the mountains and fields, and beyond the poisonous flowers, it is the other side of life......

After the two were in a stalemate for a while, Ning Que suddenly said in a somewhat heavy tone: "The imperial court has reissued the arrest document and issued a search warrant, a large number of officers and soldiers are now leading people to search for her outside, if you really don't want to keep her, you can take her out now!"

He was giving her a chance, he knew that she was lying, the so-called thinking about the Ning family was just an excuse, he knew her too well, she wouldn't lie at all, sleek and sophisticated people like to lie, how could someone like her who was so arrogant that he disdained to communicate with others waste his mind making up a lie. She's just hoping for one less competitor to compete with her for what she loves.

Green Hui stood aside a little inexplicably, they seemed to be angry, the fuse or her? I don't know if it's an illusion, she saw a hurt look in Ning Que's eyes.

Sure enough, as she imagined, the officers and soldiers outside who were overwhelming like locusts crossing the border were searching for her in a carpet way, or was the search warrant reissued, was it already the second search?

Now, she must have gone out just in time to get into the net they had sown. What will Ning Yu do?

The air seemed to be condensed for a moment, under everyone's gaze, Ning Yu walked towards Green Hui and wanted to pull Green Hui's hand away, but her hand just stretched out and suddenly stopped in mid-air, and then hung down helplessly and unwillingly, she finally let go of her stubbornness, only to hear her ask in a low voice: "Can you sue me for a reason, why did you cover her?" ”

Is it because she is the person that Gongsun Li likes again, she is obviously just a criminal, why do they all protect her?

Although Ning Que's face did not fluctuate very much, but he really felt the feeling in his throat just now, he did hurriedly place a bet just now, a bet that he himself could not be 100% sure of the mystery, fortunately, the result was not so bad that he dared not imagine. cares about a person, is pleased with her good, and is even more heartbroken for her badness, Ning Yu can do this, he thinks it is enough. Because no one is a saint, there is no one who is truly pure-hearted, and she just thinks about herself a little more......

So, he calmed his heart and replied, "Because ......! ”

"Because I can help you academically!" Ning Que's words were interrupted by Lu Hui as soon as she spoke, and at this time she was looking at Ning Yu with a firm expression.

Yes, she was looking for a bargaining chip for herself to stay, no matter why Ning Que temporarily took her in in the Ning Mansion, but Ning Yu has now begun to question his approach, firstly, in order not to let him be in a dilemma and she can stay here temporarily with peace of mind, and secondly, she does not want to owe others favors for no reason. She is a modern person who has received more than ten years of cultural knowledge education, and it is estimated that it is still possible to show off her power in front of the ancients who have been backward in civilization for so many years. For the first time, I felt so superior.

Everyone present looked at the green club in unison at this time, and all of them looked at each other suspiciously. If she said dancing with knives and guns, they might believe it, but

It's a pity that everyone didn't believe it, so she had to explain: "I heard that you are working on a tool that can accurately determine whether the salt brine is thick or shallow, I think I can give you some advice!" ”

It didn't seem like nonsense, Ning Que turned from suspicion to surprise, and just wanted to speak, but heard Ning Yu say coldly: "I hope you know what you're talking about, if you can't do it then, I won't show mercy!" After speaking, he turned around and left without waiting for everyone to react, leaving only a stubborn but gloomy back.

Thinking that Ning Que would be a little strange, who knew that he pulled out a smile and said to Lu Hui: "Don't pay attention to her, the girl will come to my yard and wait for a while, I can have a drink with the girl after I deal with some things, by the way, I think about what the girl just said, I'm very curious!" ”

Ning Que is a girl, and it sounds so awkward to hear Lu Hui, but people are the sons of the world, so they can't be cheeky and let people call their names, forget it, let's sort out how to round their own words, what she said just now seems to have successfully aroused Ning Que's curiosity. In fact, since that time to see the salt production of the people of Dongli, Luhui has always had the idea of making density meters in ancient times, but I don't know if it's feasible yet. I only heard her smile and politely replied: "Listen to the arrangement of the prince!" ”

Ning Que smiled, walked in front of Green Hui in a few steps, leaned over without warning and whispered to Green Hui, it turned out to tell her the direction and route of the other courtyard, although he was smiling, but what he said was very solemn. After finishing speaking, he handed her a pill, saying that it was a "sobering pill" so that she could drink it later, and before she could react, she hurriedly went in another direction.

Green Hui just froze in place, and I really didn't get used to the way these "big guys" spoke! But I didn't think much about it, I sorted out my mood and went in the direction he pointed. (To be continued.) )