This time we set sail, because we were regular customers, the boss of the ship did not come with us. There were three sailors on board, one to watch the rudder and two to manage the sails. and a handyman to light the fire for cooking.
Hearing the cry, the sailor under the mast, named Dazhu, ran over quickly.
Zheng Haizhu saw that the other two sailors and the handyman were just watching from a distance. The person in front of him, Dazhu, who was the talker, had a strange face.
Zheng Haizhu stared at him: "Brother Dazhu, you already know that there is someone hiding in the cabin, right? The cashier?"
Her expression was cold, but her tone did not lose its calmness.
On the vast sea, there were only two men on his side, Wu Bondang and Xiao Xu, and neither of them knew how to sail. Zheng Haizhu did not want to offend these sailors.
Dazhu said "Ah" subconsciously.
After all, the vast majority of sailors who go to sea are just with well-developed limbs and simple minds.
At this moment, Dazhu, who didn't know how to lie and cover up, said angrily to Aya who was shrinking into a ball: "You damn bitch, you can't even hide it for a long time."
Mu Zaohua blurted out: "You are so cruel! She was seasick and vomited so much that she made a sound, so I heard her."
Zheng Haizhu said: "Zaohua, she is pregnant and may be very happy. Bring her a bowl of warmer millet porridge."
Everyone else present, except Xu San who accompanied Zheng Haizhu to Liu's house yesterday, was stunned.
In a brief moment, Dazhu's previous scowl clearly froze, and his bulging cheeks and narrowed eyes even showed a bit of compassion.
"What? You have Liu Baihu's baby, and old Liu's wife wants to beat her to death? Zheng, Zheng Dongjia, do you recognize her?"
Zheng Haizhu said: "As expected, you also recognize her. In that case, when you return from Lushun, you should send her back to Liu's house."
"No!" Aya whined, crawling over and hugging Zheng Haizhu's legs, "Please, please my boss. Beat them, they beat me. I'm hungry."
The sailor also sighed: "Everyone in the village knows that they treat this Li Dynasty woman like an animal. Zheng Dong's family, our hearts are also grown from flesh. She is really pitiful. She said she wants to go back to the north and die. In front of the grave of North Korea’s mother-in-law. Speaking of money, I collected a little, that’s all.”
The sailor took out three small silver coins from his arms and showed them to Zheng Haizhu and others.
Zheng Haizhu recognized it at a glance. She asked Xu San to take the silver ingot and cut it in a store in Dengzhou in order to stuff it with money along the way. Yesterday I stuffed broken pieces into Liu Baihu's hands.
Zheng Haizhu looked kinder and said to the sailor: "I'll take her in to ask a few questions. If you know anything, please tell my shopkeepers."
After saying this, he looked at Wu Bond.
Wu Bond understood that this was a habit Zheng Haizhu had said, such as separate interrogations.
Zheng Haizhu helped Aya up, walked into the cabin where he was resting, closed the wooden door, and said bluntly: "Aya, you are not a Korean."
A look of panic appeared on Aya's weak face.
Zheng Haizhu continued: "There are also smuggling merchant ships from Dengzhou to Tieshan, North Korea. Since you have stolen the money and can give the sailors enough remuneration, why don't you just go to the ship there? You have to spend half of the money. For the sea route, leave half of the cost to travel through the mountains?"
The avoidance in Aya's eyes became even stronger.
In fact, Zheng Haizhu also thought about whether Aya chose to go ashore from Lushun and go overland to the Yalu River because the sailors above were kind-hearted and easier to bribe.
However, not to mention that the land route from Port Arthur to North Korea was slower and more dangerous than the sea route. The key point was that her intuition convinced her that the lonely pregnant woman in front of her but with the ability to control a horse was not that simple.
During interrogation, deceiving the source first may put psychological pressure on the other party.
When Aya fell silent, Mu Zaohua knocked on the door outside.
Zheng Haizhu took the millet porridge and signaled Mu Zaohua to go to the deck first, then took the pale Aya in his arms, put the bowl to her lips, and let her drink slowly.
"Aya, you saved me yesterday. This is a kindness. But I must repay the favor clearly. After you finish the porridge, tell me the truth."
In the hot air, Zheng Haizhu felt that the body in his arms gradually sank and relaxed a little.
The warm and light millet porridge did not make Aya vomit again.
Aya swallowed a few times and felt it was smooth, so she no longer concealed her hunger. She took the large stoneware bowl from Zheng Haizhu's hand. Gudu finished the hot porridge, then stretched out his tongue to lick the bottom of the bowl, and then slowly He leaned forward and placed the empty bowl in front of the hatch.
She turned around and took off her coat.
The coat was still the same tattered singlet she wore when she tried to turn the horse around yesterday. The Songjiang cotton coat Zheng Haizhu gave her must have been taken away by the Liu family.
Zheng Haizhu was not surprised when he saw her clothes just now, but then, when Aya continued to take off the linen clothes that were also dirty and hard inside, Zheng Haizhu was almost frightened by the tragic sight that suddenly appeared in front of him. stand up.
Aya's chest, no breasts.
Yes, no matter how old, weak or sick an adult woman is, she should have breasts, but Aya doesn't have them.
Instead, there were scars on the two pits on the chest. Many earthworms looked like crooked brown lines or flesh bumps, high and low, intricately intertwined.
The shocking scene announced that this body was no longer in danger of physical decay. At the same time, it also stimulated those who witnessed it with the most realistic cruelty.
Zheng Haizhu turned from shock to anger and asked in a deep voice: "Did the Liu family do it?"
Aya shook his head, covered his shirt, and stared at Zheng Haizhu with his long and narrow eyes without any ferocious look.
After a while, she finally spoke again, and the Chinese she spoke was no longer awkward.
"Zheng Dongjia, my real name is Aya, but I am indeed not from the Li Dynasty. My mother is a Han from Kaiyuan, Liaodong, and my father...my father is a Jurchen from the Yehe tribe. My father's family has been raising and selling horses for generations. When I followed my family to the horse market in Ming Dynasty, I met my mother, and my mother followed him back to the Yehe tribe. Later, the Jianzhou tribe called, and a leader from Niulu wanted to bully my mother. My father and him The leader tried his best to kill both my parents and gave me to one of his subordinates to make a dressing. I was just ten years old at that time. Five years later, the wife of a Jianzhou native saw that I had grown up, so she breasted me. Before, cut it."
"Why! Why do they do such beastly behavior!" Zheng Haizhu raised his voice involuntarily.
"Zheng Dongjia, the mistress of the Jianbu family, often does this to the captive women, whether they are from the Yehe tribe or the Ming people in the west and south. The main reason is that they are afraid that their men will be seduced by us. . Some women died from these two swords. If they die, they will die. Anyway, the Ministry of Construction is powerful, and they can still grab new coats to do their work."
The more Zheng Haizhu listened, the more his throat became clogged.
In the Age of Discovery in 1617 AD, many corners of the earth were still in a barbaric state of primitive tribes.
The slaves of the defeated side were worse than dogs in the homeland of the victorious side.
In fact, it has little to do with whether Jianzhou Nuzhen was a slave or not. The feudal Ming Dynasty in the East, where the commodity economy and culture and art are highly prosperous, and the West is about to usher in the bourgeois revolutionary powers. Where can there be less such behaviors that dehumanize and harm the same kind of people?
The cruelty shown by women in Jianzhou due to their instinct to compete for females is no different from the cruelty shown by men in the Empire due to their instinct to fight for power or make profit. They are both disgusting and bad.
Aya, who had replenished some energy and had a slight color on his face, took a breath and continued: "Later, I followed a Yehe man who also made wrappers and escaped. I fled to the vicinity of Aiyang Castle because I spoke Jurchen. He was discovered by a group of hunters from the Jianzhou Ministry. I lured them away and told me to run away. I saw him in the bushes and he was captured by the Jianzhou people again. I escaped into Aiyang Castle and was captured by a group of Ming people. The elder saved me. He said that I was only half a wise man after all, so I might as well go to Dengzhou to be his brother’s wife. It was close to the sea and every family could have enough to eat. I wanted to survive, so I followed him to Dengzhou, and I found out the result. She was to be his brother's concubine and give birth to a baby. To the people in the village, they only said that I escaped from the Li Dynasty, and I was not allowed to speak much Chinese. Even if I spoke, I would have to stutter."
At this time, Zheng Haizhu had unconsciously forgotten his identity as an interrogator and said softly: "But Liu Baihu and the others still abuse you, so you still want to go back to Liaodong, right?"
Aya shook his head and said sadly: "If it was just a little colder and a little hungry, I wouldn't want to run away. After all, Liu Baihu's brother saved my life, and he died fighting to fight the people who built the Ministry. Speaking of which, I also vented my anger on my parents who died tragically while I was still alive. I originally didn’t want to lose to the corps commander. But a few days ago, Liu Baihu’s eldest daughter told me that if I have a boy in my belly, I will wait until the baby lands. , her parents were ready to sell me."
