Chapter 7
I didn’t expect Jace to come back just to take my cell phone and cut off all my contact with the outside world. “For the next month, forget about playing with your phone to kill time. Focus on learning from the kind, intelligent cows. And don’t even think about using your phone to escape or bribe anyone.”
Jace left without mercy and didn’t look back. Little did he know that by taking the phone and severing my connection to the outside, he was personally pushing my daughter and me into hell.
“What happened after you were sent to the cattle ranch?” The psychologist’s gentle question pulled me straight back into those nightmare memories.
The hunchbacked owner of the cattle ranch shed his facade of simple honesty, revealing his true colors completely. “I’m a hunchback. I’ve never had a woman in my life. Your husband sent you here and told me to ‘teach you a lesson.‘ Did he get sick of you because you gave him a useless daughter and wants to hand you over to me as my wife?”
Looking at his hunched back, shaped like an iron pot and those disgusting, yellow, rotten teeth, I nearly threw up. “If marrying you is the only choice, I’d rather die. If I’m dead, let’s see how you’ll explain that to him.“}
The cattle ranch owner sneered and picked up my daughter from the stroller, pinching her until she wailed. He even bit her fair shoulder, leaving a purplish bruise. Using my daughter as a threat, he easily held my life in his hands.
I could only unconditionally obey all of the cattle ranch owner’s demands, washing his clothes, cooking his meals, serving him as he dressed and washed his feet and even forcing myself to call him “husband” through gritted teeth. At this point in the memory, tears streamed down my face as I muttered, “Little Pumpkin, just hold on a little longer. It’s almost been a month and Daddy will come to pick you up soon.“}
On the day the month was up, I waited in the pasture, eyes glued to the road, hoping to see Jace show up and rescue us. But instead of him, I got the ranch owner, looking smug and full of himself. “I already tossed your daughter out to the edge of the ranch to fend for herself. If she’s lucky, maybe a passing backpacker will pick her up. If not, well… maybe the wolves will.”
My mind went blank like a bomb went off in my head. The world felt like it had collapsed. I fell to my knees at his feet, humbling myself in the most degrading way and kissing his filthy feet just like I used to. “Please. Just tell me where she is. She’s my life. Without her, I’ll die.”
Unfortunately, no matter how I tried to please him, he was determined and unmoved. “Just give up that hope. I won’t tell you where she is. Once your daughter is gone, your husband definitely won’t want to stay with you anymore. From now on, you’ll stay here with me for the rest of your life. If you want children, I can give you ten or eight of them!“}]
I didn’t dare to beg the cattle ranch owner for mercy again. I broke down and rushed to the pasture, searching and calling out along the endless perimeter, inch by inch. I searched from dawn till dusk. Thinking of my daughter, who hadn’t eaten all day and had been abandoned in the wilderness with no one to care for her, the despair in my heart gradually swallowed me whole.
Just when my hope was about to break completely, I heard her. A soft, weak baby cry. My little daughter was more resilient than I had imagined. She had held on until I came to find her. However, just as I followed the sound, I saw a pair of green, glowing eyes in the grass. My heart felt like it was being gripped by a pair of invisible hands. Before I could even see my child clearly, a wolf had already snatched her up.
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