The Real Heiress Has an Appraisal System

After Gu Shengsheng jumped down, the sight that met her eyes sent a chill down her spine.

The cellar before her wasn’t filled with cold dishes or pickled vegetables.

Instead, buckets of water were placed all around.

Gu Shengsheng stood there, looking at the disheveled girl whose wrists and ankles were shackled.

The young girl just stared at her, her eyes completely vacant.

Gu Shengsheng could sense her catatonic state, her utter lack of awareness of her surroundings.

She made no attempt to cover herself, nor did she seem to know what to do next. She was simply locked in chains, her flesh covered in festering sores and injuries.

There were even bruises on her neck from being choked.

’Why... Why should she have to suffer this abuse from these people!’ Gu Shengsheng couldn’t understand it. She knew she would never be able to understand it.

As a woman, as a girl who stood on the same side, the sight made Gu Shengsheng’s blood run cold.

She took off her own jacket and used it to cover the girl.

Then, she said softly, "Don’t be afraid. I’m going to get these chains off you."

The girl remained unresponsive, just staring at Gu Shengsheng. She didn’t resist, nor did she seem to comprehend whether this was a good or bad thing.

Gu Shengsheng pulled a piece of copper wire she kept on hand from her pocket.

She normally used it for picking all sorts of locks, and now it was proving useful once again.

The shackles were rusty, a sign that they had been used to restrain her for a long time.

A discarded enamel basin lay nearby, apparently used as her food bowl.

The sight pained Gu Shengsheng.

’How could a perfectly normal girl not go insane after being bought and brought to a place like this, forced to live a life no human should endure?’

After undoing the locks, Gu Shengsheng carefully covered the girl, her eyes falling on the tattered rags she wore.

"It’s okay," she said. "I’m going to take you home."

At the mention of those two words, "go home," the girl finally showed a flicker of a reaction. But it was only a flicker; she looked at Gu Shengsheng with eyes full of confusion.

Then, she muttered to herself, "Home... home..."

Too much time had passed. Her mind was a complete fog. She mulled over the word for a long time but couldn’t grasp its meaning.

Gu Shengsheng carried the girl and climbed the ladder out of the cellar. Fortunately, Chen Yufan was waiting to help, so they got her out quickly.

When Chen Yufan took the girl into his arms, he found her body was ice-cold.

’Is... is she my sister?’

He hoped she was, yet he also hoped she wasn’t.

No one could be more conflicted. If this was his sister, he had finally found her. But for her to be tormented to this extent... ’These... these inhuman monsters!’

’But if she isn’t... what if my real sister is having a better life somewhere...’

He held her protectively in his arms.

Just then, the villagers who had been clamoring to attack them were being rounded up and arrested by a large number of special police officers.

’No wonder Zhang Lianqing said he had a backup plan. They rounded everyone up so easily.’

The man of the house saw the young girl Gu Shengsheng was carrying and continued to argue, "The person you’re holding is my biological daughter! She wasn’t trafficked!"

"Young lady, you should know better. This is my daughter. She’s insane, so our family kept her in the cellar. We were just afraid she’d scare other people!"

"Don’t you go framing us! We’re just honest, hardworking farmers, you hear me? Farmers!"

"Farmers?" Gu Shengsheng retorted coldly.

She walked over and grabbed him by the throat. "Do you deserve to call yourselves that?"

"Don’t you dare insult actual, honest farmers by saying that!"

"Trying to play innocent? You know damn well what you are!"

Gu Shengsheng didn’t focus on him as the weak link. Instead, she turned toward his two cowardly sons.

She rushed over and grabbed the idiot who hadn’t even managed to fix his belt yet.

She snatched the sidearm from Zhang Lianqing’s belt, pointed it at the man’s head, and said, her voice simple and brutal, "Talk, or I’ll blow your brains out."

"I’m not a cop. I’m a nobody. If I kill you, the worst that can happen is I go to jail. I’m willing to trade my life for yours!"

"..."

Her crazed demeanor terrified him. He looked at his brother, who was cowering in a corner with his hands over his head. "I-I heard getting your brains blown out is a horrible way to die."

"I don’t wanna die, I don’t wanna die, please don’t kill me..."

The portly man, whose pants were still unfastened and who had just been kicked by Gu Shengsheng, now stood with a gun to his head.

He looked like he was about to faint from terror.

Gu Shengsheng heard a trickling sound. She glanced down and, sure enough, the man had wet himself.

"So?" Gu Shengsheng prompted.

Zhang Lianqing watched her. ’Her methods are simple and brutal,’ he thought, ’but they’re certainly effective.’

’It’s not a pretty method, but it’s the most effective one for getting a quick confession. It’s the best way.’

The portly man dropped to his knees. "I was wrong! I was really wrong! Our family bought her. Dad said he was raising her to be a wife for one of us brothers."

"But I had a feeling she wasn’t going to be for me, and that’s not fair! I had to get my share! I saw my older brother go to her last time, I watched secretly, so why couldn’t I go too?!"

"This was my very first time going down to the cellar for her, and then you all showed up."

"I saw Dad go down there, too!"

At this, the woman of the house stared at the three men in her family in shock. "You bastards!" she shrieked. "You goddamned bastards!"

"Not a single one of you men is any good!"

"She was just bought, wasn’t she? Mom! Why are you talking like that?" one of them retorted.

Gu Shengsheng had no time for their family drama. She exchanged a look with Zhang Lianqing, then asked the man, "Who did you buy her from? Is it just your family, or is the whole village involved?"

Before the man who had wet himself could answer, someone else spoke up.

A man who identified himself as the village chief interjected, "The boy is spouting nonsense. Don’t you drag us into this. The fact that their family would do something like this is a disgrace to our Dahe Village!"

"The rest of us only came to help because we thought some outsiders were making trouble! We had no idea it was about something this serious."

"We know we were wrong now. We didn’t realize we were dealing with such important people!"

The same people who had been so aggressive just moments ago were now all on their knees, begging for forgiveness.

Zhang Lianqing sneered. "Just a minute ago, you all wanted to lynch the few of us cops. If we hadn’t brought reinforcements, you villagers would have eaten us alive."

The portly man piped up again, "Uncle Chief, you’re being two-faced! So our little wife got found out, but doesn’t your family have one, too?"

"Your grandma, your wife, and your grandson’s wife—weren’t they all bought?!"

Then, as if trying to earn brownie points, he pointed at the chief and said to Gu Shengsheng, "It’s him! Our village chief is the one who contacts the person on the outside. That’s how every family here can get a little wife. They’re just a bit expensive, and my mom says they’re a waste of money."

"So I didn’t do anything wrong. I was just putting a resource to its intended use."

Hearing this, Gu Shengsheng’s anger boiled over. She slapped him so hard his flabby body crumpled to the ground.

She met Zhang Lianqing’s warning gaze, silently pulled her hand back, and told a bald-faced lie. "My hand was itchy. It was an accident."

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