Days ago, the last time Huang Quan was driven out of this place, he had announced that he would bring men and take her by force. He had said the same thing several times over, and it had worried Ran Chenxin more each time. She had been thinking ever since about whether to leave here and find somewhere quieter and safer. It was only that Chenxue’s condition was so very bad. And she had gradually come to know the people here — poor people, but honest and kind, without a malicious thought among them, and warm enough to come and help her unasked. She could not be sure the people around her would be as friendly somewhere else, or what dangers she might run into there.

She had come here because it was quiet, without the filth and squalor a big city is packed with at every hour, and she had settled… But beauty is not a fault, and it is the root of any number of disasters. Hard as she tried to hide herself away, she could not hide the light on her that stayed beautiful wherever she was… or the things that light brings with it.

The talk outside the door told Ran Chenxin at once what had come. She shut the door tight and held Chenxue gently, so she would not be afraid.

The other side had a gun, and those aunties could not protect them any longer. What was left to rely on was the mercy of the men outside, and the shut wooden door with the iron security door behind it. All they could do now was pray the doors would hold.

“Xue’er, don’t be afraid. They can’t get in. Once they’ve gone, I’ll go and buy a lot of the things we both like to eat.” Ran Chenxin held her sister — fragile as glass — lightly in her arms and said it softly.

“Mm. With my sister here, I’m not afraid.” Chenxue answered faintly. Her body leaned against her sister without any strength in it, her head pillowed on that soft chest, and she listened to a heartbeat that was going faster and faster. She thought of all the days her sister had walked through with her, one after another for so long, and she shut her eyes and worked to keep her own tears in… Neither of them had ever done anything wrong. Her sister was so good. So why did heaven have to be this unfair, and put them through suffering that never once stopped, while wicked people did as they pleased and went free? Doesn’t the saying go that good is repaid with good, and evil with evil…

“Little sister Chenxin, your Brother Huang is back.”

That voice they hated came from outside the door again, and footsteps came closer — several men’s — and stopped in front of their little house.

“Go away. Never come near me again.” Ran Chenxin’s brows drew hard together, and she shouted it at the door in the sternest voice she could manage.

“Ho! Little sister Chenxin is still as fierce as ever… Tsk, tsk. Your Brother Huang likes that little temper of yours more and more.” This time it was in the bag, and with no pressure on him at all, Huang Quan was laughing in a way that beggars description, in a voice so syrupy it turned the stomach. “Little sister Chenxin, come away with your Brother Huang after all. Look at the place you’re living in — is this a place for a human being? Just come with me and you’ll have a Western house and a Western car and anything you want to eat, and I can put up the money to treat that sister of yours who can’t get out of bed…”

“Get out!” Even the sweetest-tempered person has a limit to what she can bear. After harassment time after time, after threats and inducements and coercion time after time, even Ran Chenxin, soft as she was by nature, had felt the urge to cut him a thousand times. She shouted him down the way she always had, hoping against hope that he would go away this instant, and the farther the better, and never appear again.

“What are you wasting all this talk on a woman for? We’re here to help you take her.”

Bang!!

A crash, and the hearts of both Chenxin and Chenxue shook with it. Outside, one kick put a large hole through the wooden door, which had been half ruined to begin with. Light came through the gap and in past the security door, and the little house grew a shade brighter.

“Pah. That door is a heap of rotten bean curd. And here I went and put that much strength into it.” The man who had kicked the hole through said it with contempt and kicked again, opening a second gap.

That wooden door had been in use for years beyond counting and had long since rotted most of the way through. It did not take much strength for several men to reduce it to a heap of rotten splinters, and the pleasure of breaking it sent wild laughter up out of them. Behind the wooden door was the security door. Their eyes went through it and landed on the faces of the two girls in that cramped little room… and the laughter stopped, and every mouth came open, and they stared.

In that moment every one of them was thinking exactly the same thing… There are girls in this world as beautiful as that.

Everyone has seen a beautiful woman. In a society this drowned in wants, however beautiful a woman is, some film of her surroundings has settled on her. But this girl in front of them was beautiful without a speck of dust, and those frightened eyes of hers most of all — like the most flawless crystal in the world, so that one look drew a man in and held him there.

When Huang Quan called them out to take a girl they had come at once. It was hardly the first time any of them had done it. But not one of them had expected that in a run-down place like this they would find a woman who all but struck them as something out of heaven.

“Well, Brother Seven? Was I lying to you?” The only one anywhere near calm was Huang Quan, who had seen Ran Chenxin many times. Seeing them wear the same expression he had worn the first time he saw her, he said it half in triumph and half in worry. The worry was that… he knew exactly what sort of goods these men were. Otherwise he would not have let himself be chased off and beaten bloody several times over before he brought them in to do it the hard way. It was only when his patience had been ground away entirely that he called them to come and take her… Because once they saw Ran Chenxin, there was every chance they would decide to keep her for themselves. Her pull was very nearly impossible to resist.

“Damn. She’s beautiful.” The man in the sunglasses wiped the corner of his mouth, his eyes fixed straight on Ran Chenxin.

“Heh. Young Master Huang, and here I was wondering what kind of beauty a dump like this could turn out. Who’d have thought… No wonder you wouldn’t let it go, you little dog.” The man in the flowered shirt’s eyes had gone rigid too.

Huang Quan nudged the sunglasses man’s arm and said, very carefully, “Brother Seven, we agreed beforehand — she’s mine…”

“Mm!” The man in the sunglasses passed a hand over his face and laughed. “Heh… listen to you. Am I the kind of man who forgets his friends over a woman? You don’t touch a friend’s wife. That woman is beautiful past anything, but I won’t lay a hand on her… The little one, though… tsk, tsk. Sickly as she looks, I’ll be taking her.”

Huang Quan laughed quickly. “Brother Seven only has to take her, then.”

Clang!

The last barrier, that security door — plainly newly installed — took a hard kick and rang with the shudder of metal. The man in the sunglasses smiled a foul smile. “Two little beauties, be good and open the door. If you leave it until I lose patience and take the door apart myself, I won’t be nearly so gentle about it.”

Clang!

Another heavy kick landed, and the cheap security door, which was not of very good quality, buckled slightly. Ran Chenxin gathered Chenxue against her chest and covered half of her body with the quilt. She knew that in front of men who did not know what a conscience was, there was no longer any use in saying anything. All she could do was pray they would go away soon… pray it would come to a fright and nothing worse.

Clang!

Clang!

The shuddering of the security door was the shuddering of their two hearts. They had always had nobody at all to lean on… and now, as ever, nobody was going to appear to help them. Beyond praying, beyond being afraid, what can they do — one soft-natured woman, and one girl with a terminal illness for whom even walking is a thing beyond reach? How is either of them supposed to fight?

They could not imagine what would follow if these men broke the door down and came in… They did not even dare think about it, and they could not stop being afraid. Helpless. Nothing but helpless.

“Open the door!” The sunglasses man had lost his patience, and his voice went cold and hard. He kicked hard enough to set the security door shuddering, then put his hand in his pocket, brought out the pistol, and set it against the hinge.

The moment the pistol appeared Ran Chenxin’s face went white with terror, and she pulled Chenxue in against her with all her strength.

Huang Quan grabbed the sunglasses man’s hand at once. “Brother Seven, hold on… It’s no good frightening her. We came out of nowhere like this, of course she’s frightened, so how would she dare open the door… Let me talk her round first. If she’ll be good and give in and open it, isn’t that a great deal easier and sweeter than taking her by force?”

The sunglasses man narrowed his eyes. “Mm, there’s something in that. It’d be a shame to scare a little beauty like that out of her wits… All right. Give them ten minutes. If they still won’t open it, then I’m going in the hard way… Heh, tell her who I am and I don’t believe she won’t open it.”

“Of course. With Brother Seven’s abilities, what woman doesn’t come to the door on her own?” Huang Quan said with an ingratiating laugh. The sunglasses man had backing that ran deep and hard, and in front of him Huang Quan had to make himself smaller by a good three parts.

Huang Quan alone was left standing in front of the door, and the other four went back to the car. With the windows up, the sunglasses man glanced at him and said, flatly, “So how do we do this?”

“You need to ask? A beauty like that — you can’t hand her to that useless little dog. Brother Seven, this is a big haul.” The man in the flowered shirt bared his teeth in a grin.

“Hmph. That kid wouldn’t dare make a sound.”

Huang Quan stood there threatening her one minute and tempting her the next, pleading with Ran Chenxin at great length to open the door, with no idea at all what the four in the car were discussing. Ran Chenxin knew what would come of opening that door. Whatever Huang Quan said, she held Chenxue and did not move.

Ran Chenxin looked up at the ceiling, at the lines of cracks running across it, and a layer of dead ash settled over a heart that had more marks on it than the ceiling did… Why is it that my own fate always leaves me in this much despair? If she and her sister could only live out their lives in peace, then even if every trace of light went out of her face, even if she was poor to the end of her days, she would have been glad of it.

She thought of Xietian. She thought of the man who had helped her, protected her, sheltered her, given her encouragement and direction and hope… He was the only one she thought of, and she longed for him to come down out of the sky, the way he had that day, and drive every one of them away. The longing grew and grew until it had filled her whole mind, and a small sound of calling escaped her lips… Only, she knew just as well that this was a lovely thing that could never happen.

“Ten minutes are up.” The four came out of the car and walked over, and the sunglasses man said it without any expression. The two behind him came forward with sinister smiles and looked greedily at Ran Chenxin first. Then one of them took up an electric drill and the other an electric saw. Tools for breaking a door down — of course men like these had them ready beforehand.

Shhhhrrr—

The despairing sound of machinery turning cut through the air, cut into metal that was not hard at all, and threw sparks in every direction… and cut into Ran Chenxin’s heart along with it… The sparks flew and fell, and every one of them was a spark of despair.

It did not take long. When that security door went down in front of those grinning, ugly faces, the last thread of hope in Ran Chenxin was cut through without mercy. She held Chenxue, held her tight… In front of men like these, they had not the smallest scrap of strength to resist with.

“Heh. Two little beauties. How about your big brothers take you into the city for a while?” The sunglasses man stepped into that little room, which had hardly anywhere left to put a foot, and began to laugh, low and filthy.

BANG!!

The words had barely left him when an ear-splitting crash came from outside, along with the sound of machinery spinning at speed. The five men froze, then all looked out together, and saw, appalled… a helicopter, come down out of the sky onto their car. In the instant it touched, every window in the car shattered outright and the body of it was crushed flat out of shape.

(End of Chapter 270)