The Fortunate Lady and Her Mountain Man

Chapter 41: Chapter 41: No Such Person

Ji Huan walked down the street, lost in thought. She kept bumping into people or being bumped into, her scoldings and apologies both mechanical.

In a daze, she walked out of the city gates and waited for a mule cart at the crossroads.

A few people were sitting scattered in twos and threes under the shade of a tree, also waiting for a ride. There was no telling which villages they were headed to.

Ji Huan found a clean spot to sit and listened to two men nearby who were chatting.

"A kid that small... how could they make him do this kind of work?"

"If he doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat. He’ll go hungry... That’s just how it is for a kid with no parents..."

Ji Huan turned her head to look at the person they were pointing at and discussing.

A canal ran past Yeyang County, and where there was a canal, there was naturally a wharf. Many able-bodied men supported their families by finding odd jobs there.

Amidst the crowd of adults, the skinny boy was particularly conspicuous. Ji Huan spotted him almost immediately.

Just like the men, he was hauling sacks.

There was no telling what was in the burlap sacks, but one glance was enough to know they were heavy.

The other men hoisted them onto one shoulder with a slight effort, even calling for a foreman to stack another on top. Though their backs bent under the weight, they didn’t seem to be struggling too much.

In contrast, the boy faced a sack almost as tall as he was. He turned his back to it, gritted his teeth, and pressed a corner against his shoulder. He gripped the corner with both hands and heaved, his face flushed crimson and the veins on his neck bulging. But it had little effect. He could barely take a single, difficult step, his legs trembling, while the bottom half of the sack dragged on the ground.

Every man who passed him let out a malicious laugh, treating it as the only diversion in their tedious lives.

"Can you even do it? If not, then get lost. It’ll be bad luck if you work yourself to death here."

"Hey, I’m talking to you! Scram if you can’t handle it! You’re in my way!"

Someone bumped into the boy, and he lost his balance, tumbling to the ground.

The laughter grew louder.

Fortunately, the sack hadn’t landed on him. He scrambled up without a word and went back to grabbing a corner and dragging it.

One of the men couldn’t bear to watch and offered to help lift the other corner, but the boy shook his head and refused.

This kind of work was paid by the piece. He couldn’t delay someone else from earning their money.

Ji Huan watched as he inched forward. The others had already made four or five trips, while he was still only halfway through his first.

Ji Huan couldn’t watch any longer. She asked, "Since he has no parents, why doesn’t he go to the Orphanage? At least he wouldn’t have to worry about food and clothing, and he wouldn’t have to work for a living at such a young age."

The two men who had been talking looked at her strangely, as if her question was utterly ridiculous.

"He *is* from the Orphanage!"

Ji Huan froze and blurted out, "Impossible!"

"How do you know it’s impossible?"

"The Orphanage is a measure by the court to show pity for the young and care for the orphaned. They wouldn’t send a child this young out to be a laborer. Inside, they get to study, they have food to eat, clothes to wear... They aren’t supposed to be abused... They can’t—it shouldn’t be like this..." Ji Huan’s usually calm mind was in turmoil, and her words came out in a jumble.

"You’re talking about the old days!"

It was clear these two men traveled to the county seat often and knew a lot of inside information.

"The old Orphanage, that was something else. The court allocated funds every year, and many wealthy families in the county were charitable, donating plenty of money, grain, and clothing. The children were well cared for inside. Just like you said, they could study from a young age, see a doctor when they were sick, and when they grew up, the government even provided funds to help them marry..."

Back then, the benevolence of the late Emperor reached everywhere, and even the common folk in this remote corner of the world were looked after.

"But then the Emperor changed, didn’t he!" the other man chimed in. "They say the court will continue to provide relief, but with wars year after year, where’s the money to raise these orphans? Look, the slightly older ones are all kicked out to earn their own keep. The younger ones aren’t much better off. I heard many workshops outsource their labor to the Orphanage... If they get sick or injured, there’s nothing to be done. Whether they live or die is all up to fate."

"Watch what you’re saying!" The first man glared at him. Matters concerning the Emperor weren’t something common folk like them could discuss casually.

"Bah! Heaven is high and the emperor is far away... Alright, alright, I’ll stop. Let’s get back to the Orphanage. I don’t know about other places, but with the Northern Pass in such turmoil, who can spare a thought for a little Orphanage? When the higher-ups aren’t supervising, it’s easy for those with dirty hands to do whatever they want. Look, they report false numbers of wet nurses, fake the number of infants they take in, and cook the books... All the donations go right into the managers’ pockets!"

"And that’s the good part, as long as the children are fed and clothed... The real problem is, when the supervision up top gets lax, the people at the bottom start to run wild! The wet nurses the Orphanage has recruited in recent years are getting worse and worse. They make the older children take care of the infants while they collect their wages and live comfortably. Not only that, but they take the food and clothing meant for the orphans and use it to raise their own children. Many infants have died from neglect, and some have even starved to death..."

The man knocked his pipe against the sole of his shoe and sighed. "My son’s house is just one wall away from the Orphanage. Just the other day, two nights ago, they threw another one out in the middle of the night. The wet nurses all have their own children. They barely have enough milk for their own, so why would they give any to the abandoned babies? So what do they do? They feed them rice water. How can a baby a few months old survive on spoiled rice water... You haven’t seen them, the children inside... they don’t even look human. The one they threw out two nights ago, I heard it cried all night before it stopped breathing just before dawn."

His companion, who clearly hadn’t heard this story, asked, "So the authorities just let them...?"

"When the officials come to inspect, they dress the children up all nice and clean. The ones who are in too bad a shape to be seen get locked in the woodshed. Whoever cries gets starved for a few days... And it’s hard to say if some officials aren’t in on it themselves!"

Ji Huan could no longer hear what else they were saying. She realized her hands were shaking, and her mind was a roaring blank.

The mule cart arrived. A crowd of people pushed their way on. She just stood there, unmoving, and was swept aboard in a daze.

As the cart started moving, she looked toward the wharf again. The little boy was now hauling his second sack.

He was so thin. His shoulder blades stuck out sharply, a shocking sight. Both his shoulders were rubbed raw by the coarse burlap, exposing crimson flesh. Faintly, you could see the marks of a whip across his back.

He looked to be only seven or eight years old...

’In her daze, the small, dark face before her suddenly transformed into Dabao’s... If Dabao doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat. Dabao is forced to haul sacks at the wharf. Dabao is covered in welts from being whipped...’

Ji Huan shuddered violently.

The mule cart rumbled along unsteadily. She suddenly stood up and, to everyone’s astonishment, jumped off. She twisted her ankle but paid it no mind, breaking into a run toward the city gates.

"Dabao! Dabao!"

Pushing open the doors to the Orphanage again, Ji Huan ran inside, repeatedly shouting Dabao’s name.

But she had forgotten—Dabao wouldn’t answer her.

’Even if Dabao were willing to speak, he probably wouldn’t respond to me now. He must be so angry. So, so angry.’

The manager from before seemed to be out. A woman in her thirties who looked like a wet nurse asked who she was looking for.

Ji Huan, gasping for breath, tried to explain with a mixture of words and gestures.

Before she could even finish, the woman’s face fell. "You’re in the wrong place. He’s not here!"

"You’re lying!" Ji Huan raised her voice, glaring at her.

’I just brought him here a short while ago, and now she’s telling me there’s no record of him?’

Just as Ji Huan was about to argue, she caught a glimpse of something dark red in a puddle under the corridor.

She walked over for a closer look. It was a stick of candied haws, crushed flat.

It was the same one Dabao had been holding, and the footprint on it was clearly an adult’s.

’Dabao...’ Ji Huan’s heart felt as if it had plunged into a pit of ice.

’What happened to Dabao? What did they do to him?’

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