"Ghost girl!"
The girl who was called turned her head, and a flattering smile immediately appeared on her dark face.
She stretched out her dirty black hands, took a large bunch of bananas from the person who called her, and said in fluent Cantonese: "Thank you, Uncle Jiang."
The greasy man named Jiang Bo avoided her dirty hands.
The flattering smile on the girl's face who had been taken advantage of did not change. She just held the banana on her lower abdomen, lowered her head and slightly bent her knees towards the man, and performed a standard Wanfu salute.
The man named Uncle Jiang felt itchy and grinned and said: "Ghost sister, my uncle has some fragrant soap at home. Your body is so dirty. Follow your uncle home and wash it, and he will find some good clothes for you." wear."
After hearing this, the ghost girl smiled even brighter. She smiled and said, "Okay, Uncle Jiang, wait a minute. Grandpa hasn't washed himself in many years. I'll go back to him right away. We two will go together."
The corner of the man's mouth, who was called Uncle Jiang, twitched violently and said, "Forget it! I don't dare to mess with that tuberculosis guy, so you can go alone." Unwilling to give up, he asked again: "Can you do it yourself?"
The ghost girl shook her head and firmly stated that she must go with her grandfather.
Uncle Jiang struggled for a few more words, but seeing that the ghost girl disagreed, he had no choice but to take a hard look at the banana he sent out, curse and walk away.
The ghost girl watched him leave her, her flattering smile disappeared, and there was a look of confusion in her eyes. Then she turned around with the banana in her arms, walked barefoot on the dirty stone road, walked out of the market town and along the dirt road on the north bank of the Passi River for a while, and came to a shack.
This shack, which can only be used for shelter from the rain, is made of a few logs and banana leaves. There is a skinny old man sitting inside, bending over and coughing hard.
The ghost girl placed the banana next to the old man and said, "Grandpa, there are bananas to eat tonight." The old man raised his head with a huff, wiped the blood coughed up from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve, and nodded to show that he understood.
The ghost girl picked up a wooden stick next to the shack and struck the banana leaves on the shack boredly, waiting for her grandfather to finish coughing.
The old man coughed for a long time, and finally suppressed his wheezing. He broke off a banana, peeled it and ate it, then picked up an earthen jar from the ground of the shack and drank some water. Asked: "Who gave this to you?"
The ghost girl said: "Old Duck Jiang. He asked me to take a bath at his house and gave me new clothes to wear."
After hearing this, the old man quickly looked down at her, then frowned and asked, "Then the Quanzhou guy didn't take advantage of you, right?"
The ghost girl didn't seem to hear, but she hit the banana leaf harder with the wooden stick. She asked back: "Grandpa, what is Xiangjizi?"
The old man stared, shook his head and said, "Grandpa, I don't know." After that, he coughed violently again. When he could speak, he sighed and said, "Grandpa can't live for a few more days, and you are the only one left. What should I do?"
After speaking, he stood up with difficulty, straightened his bent back upwards, pointed at the thousand-acre fortress on the other side of the river and said: "It would be great if you could sneak in. Except for your dark eyes, you bastard, In fact, they are considered 'white people'. If they get in, they will not starve to death no matter where they are."
When the ghost girl heard her grandfather call her a bastard, the corners of her mouth became flat and her eye circles were a little red. She threw the wooden stick in her hand vigorously and asked with a hint of ridicule: "Last year you said you would break my legs if I dared to enter the city. Why did you let me sneak in again today?"
Her grandfather sighed again: "Last year I was in good health and could earn you a bite to eat. Now that I'm going to die, you can't do anything except beg for food. You might as well go to the city by yourself, even if you work as a slave in a rich family." You servant can also earn a living."
After hearing this, the ghost girl sat on the ground, buried her head in her knees, and said in a hoarse voice: "Who will bury you when I leave?" His grandfather also sat down beside her slumped, and with a long breath he said: "The town People will not let my body be exposed outside. After all, the weather is so hot and there will be epidemics - you should try to go to the city."
After hearing this, the ghost girl seemed not to have heard anything. She picked up a weed at her feet and tore off the leaves. His grandfather touched her yellow hair, and her bloodless lips suddenly trembled, and tears rolled out of her cloudy eyes: "Ghost sister, your mother was bullied by the white devils and died a few days after giving birth to you. In order to support you these years, your grandpa has stolen, kidnapped, and done a lot of bad things, and now you have bad retribution——"
He paused and coughed violently again.
After a while, he said in a hoarse voice: "It stands to reason that your surname should be the surname of the white devil, but no one knows what the surname of that devil is. Our family's surname is Wang. You can follow Wang's surname from now on. Grandpa will give you one." The name is Jingyi, okay?"
The ghost girl still buried her head in her knees and said nothing, only shrugged her shoulders and sobbed softly. In her eleven years of life, she was alone with her grandfather, but she knew that the old man's days were numbered.
The girl once had many longings for the future, but those things are now broken like dewdrops.
She heard her grandfather cough violently again. When she turned around to look, she found him lying on the ground, shaking and vomiting blood. The ghost girl was at a loss and started crying again.
When the coughing ended, the color on the old man's face faded some more. He said loudly: "Tomorrow, tomorrow I will accompany you to Jiang Lao Yaya's house and let him buy you a new set of clothes. Try to see if you can sneak into the city." After saying that, the expression on his pale face suddenly twisted, revealing a trace of Cruel and vicious.
"Remember from now on, your name is Wang Jingyi! Not Ghost Girl!"
The star-shaped fortress that Wang Jingyi wanted to sneak into was on the south bank of the Passi River, close to the Manila Port. It is surrounded by tall city walls, which are eight feet thick and two feet high, and are entirely built with strips of stone. Roads, churches, schools and the Governor's Palace have been built in the city.
This city is called the Royal City of Manila. It was planned and constructed by Legazpi, the first generation of Spanish colonists in Greater Luzon, in the first year of Wanli. Although the interior has not yet been completed, it already has all the functions of a military fortress.
The "white people" the old man refers to refer to the Spanish colonists and their descendants who were allowed to live in the fort. The laws of the Royal City of Manila stipulate that male colonists can enter into marriage contracts with indigenous women, but female colonists cannot combine with male natives; mixed-race children living in Manila must be legitimate children, and mixed-race illegitimate children cannot live in the Royal City.
The law also stipulates that Spanish mestizos can have up to a quarter of Han ancestry - that is to say, Spaniards can marry up to a mixture of indigenous and Han people. If you marry a Han woman directly, your children cannot become "white" and cannot live in the royal city protected by stone walls.
This kind of laws and regulations that appear to be full of racial discrimination in later generations are actually unsurprising moral concepts in the colonial era. Its essence is the fear or fear of the advanced culture in the conquered areas. Similar rules, in the original time and space, there is the familiar "Man-Han no intermarriage".
At dusk on June 13, the fifteenth year of Wanli, the setting sun shone on the sea of Manila Bay, with fiery red waves sparkling. A beautiful girl wearing a new dress and new shoes, with wheat-colored hair and black eyes, walked vigorously to the south gate of the Intramuros of Manila.
At the same time, the Port of Manila entered the sight of the watchmen of the blockade fleet. The trumpet sound of discovering the enemy's situation rang out in the Royal City of Manila, the bells of the cathedral rang anxiously, and chickens and dogs were everywhere in Manila.
The city guards had no time to check the documents of the "white people" who were rushing to enter the city. Wang Jingyi followed a four-wheeled carriage and ran into the city without any danger.
(End of chapter)
