Solandelle in front, little girl in the back, the two walked and chatted, although their dress and background are two extremes, but the bouncing appearance is not the same, all reflect the unique childlike innocence of this age, which may be one of the few similarities between them.

The southern part of Twilight City is a land of abundance, the exact opposite of the barren northern city, and from a distance, there is a very dense green planting, lush trees in a row, standing quietly under the blue sky, and the branches are luxuriantly open to welcome the sun.

The sunlight shines in like wisps of golden sand, shining through the overlapping branches and leaves, dappled and sprinkled on the grass, everything revives in the fog and rainy season, and all kinds of vegetation are hung with crystal dewdrops, exuding the smell of grass, flowers, and moist earth, full of vitality.

The rows of houses are interspersed with trees and meadows, and unlike the crowded houses, each building here is a duplex villa, at least three storeys, with its own balcony and garden, and from time to time you can see well-dressed nobles coming and going, accompanied by groups of servants and guards.

In the courtyard in front of a villa, a middle-aged nobleman took out a plate of freshly roasted beef, placed it in front of the sleeping deer hound, and teased it with a hissing voice: "Baby, freshly roasted beef, come and take a bite!" ”

The shiny fur deer hound opened his eyes, lazily leaned over to the plate and sniffed it, then showed an expression of "you are kidding me" and returned to the kennel to continue sleeping.

Soon, the hostess's complaint came from inside the door: "How many times have I told you, our Barbara only eats the meat on the back of the cow, what's the use of feeding it with the beef shank?!" The beef leg is so old, Barbara doesn't like to eat it! ”

The middle-aged nobleman touched the back of his head and said with a smile: "It's not that I can't tell the difference, and I don't like to eat beef, how do you know what part this is." ”

"Hurry up, stupid like something." The hostess came out to take the plate, poured the barbecue directly into the gold-inlaid trash can outside the door, and then returned to the house, and a faint voice came: "Archie, you immediately take someone to the meat market to buy beef tenderloin, don't buy the wrong one, otherwise I will cut your hand!" ”

"Yes, master." A servant with only one hand left ran out of the door, and left the courtyard, accompanied by the guards, and hurried to the meat market, where the wind lifted his sleeve to reveal the mark of a slave burned with a soldering iron on his wrist.

Solandale didn't care about the little episode over there, this was a very common scene in the palace, nothing to see, just that the palace didn't have such stupid servants.

Solandale was looking for a restaurant at this time, and as she searched, she suddenly noticed that the little girl was not following.

"Hey, where did you go? Solandale looked around, and suddenly saw the little girl hiding in the shadow of the corner, cowering like a little cat ready to steal.

When the servants and guards had departed, the little girl took advantage of the absence of anyone to sneak up to the nobleman's garbage can, and began to rummage through the garbage very skillfully, and she picked up all the things that could not be eaten, and soon turned over the beef shank, which had just been thrown out and which the dogs did not eat.

She took the meat out and put it in a cloth bag, and she didn't care if her hands were full of oil, she just carried it into her arms, and then continued to rummage through the garbage inside, trying to see if there was any other food that had been discarded.

Solandale hurriedly ran over to dissuade: "This is too dirty! You don't flip it! I invite you to the restaurant to eat, eat all-you-can-eat, you won't go hungry! ”

"You don't understand, it's useless for you to ask me to eat once, we people have eaten the last meal and the next meal, I have to think about my future life, and if I find something to eat, I must save it first, so that I don't starve." The little girl is like a foraging hamster at this time, constantly turning out the edible things in the garbage can and hiding them, the only difference is that the hamster hides the food in the bag, and she hides the food in the pocket.

"You really can't afford to eat, you can go and get relief food, there is a quota in the grain depot in every city, which is specially issued to civilians who are living in difficulty..."Solandale said this, suddenly looked at him, as if he had found something, and subconsciously went to open the sleeve of the little girl.

This action made the little girl tremble like an electric shock, and she hurriedly pulled up her sleeves, her face quickly sank, and she stared at Solandel with a wary and hostile gaze.

Although the little girl reacted quickly, Solandale could see clearly that she had a very hideous scar on her wrist, which was a knife wound, and a whole piece of flesh had been cut off.

A wound on her hand was nothing, but as a royal princess, Solandelle knew better than anyone that it was three inches down the palm and the designated place for noble lords to brand their slaves.

To sign a deed of sale and to stamp this position means to be reduced to a slave class, not protected by the Code of Doguland, deprived of all civil rights, not even the basic right to life, legally "animal" rather than "man".

Slaves were kept or slaughtered at will, and if an outsider killed a slave, they were required to pay compensation in accordance with the crime of "damaging other people's property".

A piece of flesh was cut off at this point on the little girl's wrist, and Solandale quickly had an association and asked tentatively, "You... Is it a slave? ”

The little girl knew that she couldn't hide, so she simply showed an expression that a dead pig was not afraid of boiling water: "Yes, yes, yes, you found out, okay?" I'm a slave, not a commoner, so I can't get alms. ”

The little girl continued to rummage through the trash can, muttering, "I escaped from a noble house, took a knife and cut off the piece of flesh that was branded, and ended up in exile in Twilight." So, I'm scared of you. ”

"Afraid of me? Solandale was at a loss.

The little girl said silently while rummaging through the garbage: "Yes, I'm afraid of you." Because although I have no brand, if you see the scar on my wrist, you, a royal princess, will soon be able to guess that I am a slave and can beat me to death at any time. ”

"I don't know who you really are, I don't know if you're really as sunny as you seem, or if you secretly want to deceive and play with me, and after gaining my trust with a smile, you suddenly stabbed me in the back... So I don't dare to go ahead of you, and I don't dare to tell you the truth. ”

Solandelle didn't expect to be treated like this at all, and she asked blankly, "That... Your mother..."

Little girl: "It's all a lie, I haven't seen my biological mother at all, and I don't know who my biological father is." The first thing I have known since I was sensible was my deed of sale. It is said that my parents sold me as a baby to a noble mansion as a child slave in exchange for a few bags of copper moon. ”

"The 'mother' I mean is the woman I took in after I came to Twilight, and she was also a slave who escaped from other places, and she worked everywhere to work in the dark, and fed me with one bite of food."

"The only thing I didn't lie to you was her death, she did die of a cold - last winter, I remember very clearly, that day was the 30th of the snow, the last day of the old year, when the farmer crossed the river, the jewelry fell into the river, and paid someone to catch it."

"In order to let me eat a meal of meat for the New Year, my mother touched the cold river water for more than an hour, and finally the jewelry was fished up, and the hard-earned fee of 30 copper moons was obtained, and the person also suffered from a severe cold, and finally failed to survive, and died in the hospital bed on the first day of the new year."

Solandale's eyes became more and more dazed, and she felt a trance.

The 30th of the snow is her birthday...

Think back, what was she doing on her birthday last year?

She remembered that she and Lorna had chosen a dress for the afternoon, and at one time they disliked the fabric that was not good, and at the same time they disliked the color that was not good, and finally chose a purple silk dress dress.

It is not ordinary silk, the silk used in its weaving is the first silk spit out by the best spring silkworm in this life, and only the first "virgin silk" of the most tender and essence is selected, and it is not necessary from the second one.

Harsh to unimaginable conditions, naturally it has long been its extremely high price, this kind of superb spring silkworm virgin silk, one to a silver moon, and the silk required to weave a dress dress, not to mention tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands.

Why did you make such a dress? In fact, there is no other reason, that is, she once passed by the court tailor's room, accidentally saw the concept design of the book, and casually said, "It's so beautiful", and her father spent a lot of money to order the tailor to make it.

But in fact, she wore this dress only once at the birthday dinner, and when the dinner was over, she was put away by the servants, and she still lies in the closet.

And the birthday gifts I got that night, not to mention the priceless treasures such as unicorns, nightless swords, and dragon crystals, just ordinary jewelry, can no longer be calculated with "pieces", but to be weighed with scales, not to mention more than 100 catties, each piece costs dozens of hundreds of silver moons, and some of the top ones even have to be settled with gold moons.

There are also dishes at the dinner, lobster abalone wings, jade plate delicacies... All the seafood was brought from the Broken Moon Sea, and the whole team worked in three shifts, and the new fast horses were immediately replaced by new fast horses when they passed by the station, day and night, just to make sure that when the box was opened, the fresh seafood was still spitting bubbles.

The meat of rare birds and beasts comes from the "Ember Forest", the capital of the "Flying Kite Province", because the long-distance transportation will make the prey fearful and the meat will become sour, so the prey is all hunted by the elite royal hunters themselves, ensuring that the prey is killed without knowing it, slaughtered on the spot, and then transported by the winged beast cavalry of the Cold Valley to the royal city from the air.

Solandale was most impressed by a bottle of deer antler blood, taken from a 29-year-old king deer horn, it was still warm when the hand touched the bottle, this kind of deer antler blood is extremely nourishing, there is no price, how many nobles ask for a sip and can't, but she only drank a sip and spit it out, for no other reason, just because it was too fishy.

Oh yes, and the night of the birthday party, she actually got sick.

Because the dress was very thin, she caught a cold after the dinner and began to have a fever when she returned to her room.

That night, the whole mansion was like a great enemy, and her father summoned the royal doctor overnight to prepare medicine for her, and Andre and Burton's two brothers stayed in front of the bed day and night, one was responsible for carrying a basin and fetching water, and the other was responsible for wringing a towel to wipe the sweat, and the servants were robbed.

The servants had no work to do, and they did not dare to be idle, so they knelt down in front of the fresco of the Sun King and prayed for her until dawn.

The next day, early in the morning of the new year, she was cured of a minor illness, and she jumped up and down with Chinonlona and went to the city to play.

Solandale has read a lot of books, and she is not so naïve that she is completely ungrounded, she knows very well that there is a difference between poor and rich in this world, and she also knows that she belongs to the rich, and she is a very powerful rich person.

But what she thinks of as "poverty" is like this - the whole family lives in a small house, which seems a little crowded, makes a big pot of meals, eats the family separately, occasionally drinks a little wine in her spare time, grills a piece of meat when she is hungry, and carries it herself when she is sick, and sees a doctor if she can't bear it.

It wasn't until she met the little girl this time that Solandale realized that the "poor" she had in her previous concept was not called a poor person, but a living being of ordinary people.

Civilians do not all have houses and can eat, and a large number of them have no fixed place to live, and can only go to the granary to receive relief food, so that they can barely live on a full stomach.

And people like little girls, who can't even guarantee the most basic livelihood, are the real "poor".

On the same 30th day of snow, when she wore precious silk, she could only cover her body with a ragged linen cloth and shiver in the cold wind.

She hated the bloody smell of deer antler velvet and thought that the seafood tasted weird, but she had to bite the rancid bread, and even rummaged through the barbecue meat that others had thrown away in the trash can.

On the same Dettol 1st, she was cared for by her parents and spoiled by her two brothers, but she didn't even know who her biological parents were, and she stayed alone in front of the hospital bed.

Even the "mother" who depended on each other finally died of illness in bed because she had no money to see a doctor, while at the same time, she was sleeping in a warm bed to recuperate, dreaming sweet dreams.

The same kingdom, the same age, but the fate is very different.

For the first time, Solandelle realized that the gap between people and people could be so great, and she couldn't imagine how desperate it would be if she didn't have her parents one day.

Solandale pursed her lips vigorously, and her voice trembled faintly: "You are alone, will you be lonely?" ...”

At this time, the little girl peeked at the aristocratic courtyard to prevent someone from coming out suddenly, and at the same time sped up the movements of her hands, and said casually: "Yes, for sure, but get used to it, this is the same as being beaten." When I used to be a slave in a noble mansion, the mistress used tongs to pull out all my fingernails because I broke a plate. ”

"At first I couldn't sleep all night in pain, and my fingers were swollen to the size of my toes, but after a long time, it became a part of my daily routine and started to go numb. It's the same with loneliness, you don't feel it after being lonely for a long time. ”

"I occasionally dream that I am with my parents, but because I haven't seen them, the faces in the dreams are blurry - eh, no, sometimes the mother I dream of, the face will become the 'mother' later, and I will stick to her in her arms, coquettish."

"My mother used to tell me that death is not scary, and that as long as there are still people who remember you after death, you can live in the hearts of others. The true goodbye is not death, but forgetting. ”

"So, I must live, if I die, not only will no one remember me, but no one will remember my mother, then we will be completely forgotten, there will be no trace in this world again, and we will really 'die'."