Chapter 204: Chapter 203: Why Her? Chapter 204: Chapter 203: Why Her? Snakehead’s foot was twisted, and because it was summer, he was wearing knee-length shorts. His foot got caught and was slashed by broken branches, leaving several bloodstains.

The trap was not deep; when Snakehead fell into it, it only came up to his knees, but it contained various filth, including rotted melon flesh, other household trash, and the smell of urine.

Snakehead’s anger surged, but now was not the time to lose his temper. Ignoring the wounds on his foot, he steadied the flashlight and, holding a dagger, tried to find out who exactly was opposing him.

The villager standing not far behind Snakehead felt something brush past him just now; he got goosebumps all over, especially when he heard Snakehead mutter, “We’ve bumped into something evil,” sending a chill down his spine.

“I really didn’t see anything just now! I just felt… a bit cold…” the villager shivered. He actually believed in ghosts, and he had also helped Snakehead do some shady deeds. Now, thinking back, he felt guilty like he had attracted some “dirty thing.”

The noise of Snakehead stepping into the trap was quite loud, the household owned a dog that started barking. Zheng Tan decided to add fuel to the fire. After pushing Snakehead, he quickly ran into the vegetable garden, slipping through the gaps in the fence without having to jump. He found a rock and hurled it at the window of the household before Snakehead noticed.

Crash!

The sound of shattering glass echoed.

The dog inside barked even more loudly, and the lights in the house came on. The back door squeaked open, and a sturdy big mongrel burst out, easily leaping over the fence, and bit down on Snakehead’s arm, the same one holding the dagger. The dagger fell to the ground.

“Ah—”
A scream disrupted the quiet of the night.

Zheng Tan hid beside the wooden shed, curling his tail, feeling the pain himself. Damn!

The dog might have had experience catching thieves; it had charged over so quickly, flipping over the fence and biting in a smooth sequence without hesitation. Zheng Tan wasn’t sure if it biting the arm holding the dagger was a coincidence or intentional, but he felt the dog did a great job.

The householder charged out brandishing a sickle, thinking a thief had come. However, recognizing the villager associated with Snakehead and hearing his long explanation, he understood it had been a misunderstanding. Still, the bite had occurred, and as for the trap, it was something the village kids had dug—many people knew about it—so it wasn’t his problem. With his fierce personality, especially after seeing the dagger that Snakehead had dropped, his expression turned even grimmer. How could he possibly take responsibility? In the end, he could only blame Snakehead for his own bad luck.

Zheng Tan slipped away while they were arguing. The dog continued to bark furiously at Snakehead, paying no attention to anything else, and with the cover of night, no one noticed Zheng Tan making an easy escape.

The next day, Mr. Gu planned to take the two kids to visit a friend to see some turtles. The old man intended to buy a few turtle larvae for the children to play with, and they could also bring them back to Chuhua City to raise, as such small turtle larvae didn’t take up much space. Someone came to see Mr. Gu just before they were supposed to leave in the morning, so they postponed the trip to the afternoon.

With nothing to do in the morning, Little Youzi was painting, and Zheng Tan looked over to see it was the girl with the broken pail and sickle.

“I heard she gets beaten often, she’s so skinny, could she get sick?” Little Youzi said while painting and talking to Zheng Tan, who was lying on the table.

After finishing the painting, Little Youzi thought of something and asked Zheng Tan, “Do you know where she is?”

Zheng Tan thought for a moment and nodded. Although he didn’t know where the girl was at the moment, knowing where she would go was enough. Zheng Tan rarely feigned ignorance when alone with Little Youzi, who wouldn’t talk carelessly outside, so sometimes he expressed himself quite directly.

Little Youzi got off the chair, rummaged through her school bag, and pulled out a bag of candy. It was unopened, and each pack contained about twenty pieces.

“Give this to her; I have lots more,” Little Youzi said expectantly to Zheng Tan.

Zheng Tan nodded again. He quite agreed with Little Youzi’s idea; the girl’s life was truly pitiful, and a bag of candy meant little to Little Youzi.

After wiping the edge of the candy bag with clean water, Little Youzi handed it to Zheng Tan; she knew the black cat in front of her sometimes had a bit of a cleanliness fetish and didn’t like to carry messy things.

Zheng Tan ran out the door with the bag of candy, not heading towards Wild Pond where the girl usually wasn’t during the morning hours. Instead, he went directly to the “secret base” the girl had taken him to last time.

Not seeing the girl there, Zheng Tan placed the bag of candy where she hid things and soon left without lingering.

Shortly after Zheng Tan left, the dark sun-tanned girl arrived. She glanced at her hiding spot and knew it had been tampered with, thinking someone had stolen something, she quickly ran over and pulled the grass covering it aside.

What caught her eye was a bag of candy, a very familiar packaging.

She had just finished the last of her candy the night before, feeling regretful as she went to sleep, even dreaming of getting another bag. She hadn’t expected her dream to turn into reality.

She carefully tore open the bag, popped a piece of candy into her mouth, and then carefully re-hid the remaining candy. After searching the area thoroughly, she finally found faint cat paw prints. If a few more days passed and the wind blew away the dust, these prints would disappear.

Feeling pleased, the girl decided to check if there was any leftover food at home; by now, her family should have finished their meal. Then, in the afternoon, she planned to continue catching shrimp at Wild Pond.

As soon as she stepped through her front door, the girl noticed there were guests at home, and these three guests, she had seen them in the forest. That black cat was wary of these people; they definitely were not good people.

“This is my Xiao Jiu,” said the man sitting on the chair, smoking and wearing a sycophantic smile, pointing to the girl who had just entered. He was the head of the household.

Realizing something was amiss, the little girl turned around and prepared to run, but before she could get out the door, she was firmly pinned down by someone.

Elsewhere, Mr. Gu was showing the kids the turtles, as the breeder mainly raised various turtle species. Seeing that the kids liked them, the breeder planned to give away some Brazilian turtle hatchlings to Little Youzi and the others. Mr. Gu waved his hand and only took two, saying that more would be too much to handle and that the children were just excited by the novelty. The man also offered a glass aquarium. Mr. Gu didn’t like to owe anyone, so after some back-and-forth, he insisted on stuffing twenty yuan into the man’s hand.

“Ah, Uncle Gu, I really can’t take the twenty…” the man began, but was silenced with a stern glance from Mr. Gu. He shook his head, smiling as he went inside and came out with two bags of turtle feed, which he stuffed into the aquarium without waiting for Mr. Gu to say anything, and then clapped his hands and left.

On the way back, the kids were slowing down as they played with the turtles, so Zheng Tan stopped frequently to wait for them.

A toad jumped out from the bushes, and Zheng Tan, having nothing better to do, decided to tease it. The toad kept hopping ahead until it jumped into the bushes by the roadside, where Zheng Tan pinned it down with a paw and didn’t let go despite its croaking, thinking to himself: let’s see how far you can jump now.

After waiting two minutes, Zheng Tan leisurely lifted his paw, and the toad immediately hopped away like it was fleeing for its life, crossing the nearby concrete road and disappearing into the fields on the other side.

Zheng Tan was squatting in the bushes watching the toad disappear when a Santara drove by. Perhaps because a truck had passed that morning carrying stones, there were some pebbles scattered about. The Santara slowed down to avoid the pebbles by the side and continued on its way.

As the Santara maneuvered around the pebbles, Zheng Tan saw the person leaning against the rear passenger window and the driver. The driver was smoking, with all the windows down. Zheng Tan recognized the driver; he had been with Snakehead last time and was probably part of the same gang.

The car’s rear window was tinted and half-open, showing only the top half of a face, but Zheng Tan easily recognized her. The person in the car also spotted Zheng Tan crouching in the bushes.

Why was that girl in the car? And with those people?!

From what the little girl had said before, Zheng Tan thought they had not come to the village to buy children, but now it seemed he was wrong.

Without another thought, Zheng Tan sprinted after them. But how could a cat outrun a car? Especially on a flat road with no other vehicles to obstruct it, and at a rather high speed once it passed the pebbles, seeming eager to leave the area. It quickly left Zheng Tan far behind.

Zheng Tan could only watch helplessly as the car drove further away, shrinking to a speck before disappearing altogether.

In the car, the little girl shifted her gaze from the window back inside. Though she had been beaten by her own father and knew she was being sold yet hadn’t cried, her eyes now reddened and tears fell steadily. After living in the village for ten years, the only one who seemed to care when she left was a cat.

The person responsible for watching her glanced back through the rear window but saw no one following. Seeing the little girl in tears, he assumed it was just a child’s reluctance to leave home. Kids crying when taken away by strangers was normal. They had been worried when she hadn’t cried before, but now they felt reassured.

Zheng Tan lay beside the concrete road, panting, the car long gone from sight. He had intended to note the license plate, only to realize it was covered by a plate. He didn’t understand why, if it was just about buying a child, it had come down to her so quickly when she still had two older sisters?

On his dejected way back, Little Youzi was calling out for Zheng Tan in a clearly anxious tone.

When Zheng Tan returned, Little Youzi was about to scold him but, seeing his state, held back.

In the following days, everyone noticeably found Zheng Tan out of sorts. Usually so lively, he now seemed listless, disinterested in everything, even more so after his venture out, and he was also eating less.

Mr. Gu said that he must be missing a female cat, and even borrowed two fairly robust ones from others. But when these cats saw Zheng Tan, they kept their distance no matter what, even a female in heat wouldn’t get close to him.

Jiao Ma wanted to take him to a veterinarian, but Zheng Tan wouldn’t go. To reassure Jiao Ma and the others, he returned to eating as much as before but still seemed less spirited.

In the few days since Zheng Tan had returned, he had visited the girl’s “secret base” several times, confirming she had not returned.

One night while outside enjoying the cool air, he overheard people discussing it.

“Sold another one so soon?”

“I heard this time it was Xiao Jiu.”

“Xiao Qi and Little Eight are still here, why choose Xiao Jiu?”

“Who knows, maybe they just liked that Xiao Jiu was the youngest.”

“Sigh, that child hadn’t even finished first grade, but I heard she did quite well at school…”

“Xiao Jiu has a fierce temper, nothing like her sisters; how could they sell her?” a young voice piped up.

“Talking nonsense, if you don’t know then shut it!” an elder rebuked.

“Sigh, it’s a sin!”

Zheng Tan went to the next village looking for the girl’s home but heard her father had fallen into Wild Pond while drunk two nights ago and was rescued and sent to a hospital in town, where he would be fine but had to stay for a while. Zheng Tan didn’t hear any other useful information; the people in the village, including the girl’s family, only knew that their Xiao Jiu was sold, but didn’t understand why she was sold to those people.

At the end of August, Jiao Ma prepared to take the children and the cat to leave since school was about to start.(To be continued. If you like this work, please visit Qidian (qidian.com) to vote and support us. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please read at m.qidian.com.)

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep