Sweat beaded on Liu Yingzi's forehead, her voice strained and high-pitched with anxiety.
"What do any of you know? Who knows what they plotted behind our backs? Maybe Shanshan told them to say these things! She's a little bastard with no manners, all she knows is how to play the victim!"
Liu Yingzi took a sharp breath and crouched down, pulling her own daughter into a tight embrace.
"As long as I'm here, none of you will lay a hand on them!"
Zhang Yunhua couldn't stand this victim act and had to speak up.
"Comrade Xiao Liu, let's be honest here. Have we bullied you? Who are you putting on this 'poor, wronged me' act for? Shanshan hasn't even made a peep, yet you're the one acting like the world's biggest victim?"
Her voice was brassy, and when she spoke, it was like the striking of a gong, making a nearby child jump in fright.
"You're protecting your child, and no one can fault you for that. But you don't have to play the part of the most miserable person on earth! We've always been peaceful neighbors. When has anyone ever laid a hand on another? Who can stand you wailing like this? Shanshan hasn't said a single word, so why are you the one blowing up?"
"Exactly!"
A woman standing nearby chimed in.
"Shanshan is just a little girl who traveled a thousand miles from her hometown to get here. Even if he's not her father, he's still a relative, isn't he? What's wrong with letting her stay for a few days? Kicking her out like this—do you have any humanity at all?"
The woman was carrying a vegetable basket, her hair loosely pulled into a bun, her face smudged with soot from the kitchen stove.
"Look at her! A little girl with a small bundle on her back, wearing tattered cloth shoes. How far must she have walked to find this place? It would be one thing if you weren't welcoming, but you're actually kicking her out? Aren't you afraid of the whole village talking behind your backs? Besides, even though her father is gone, Cao Daqiang is still a Cao. What kind of family turns away a relative at their door?"
Seeing that the blame was about to shift to him, Cao Daqiang immediately jumped in to defend himself.
He sucked in a sharp breath and took a large stride forward to stand before the crowd.
"What do any of you know?! There's more to this than meets the eye!"
"It's easy for you to talk! This child is a jinx! She cursed her own father and mother to death!"
"Do you have any idea what happened in her hometown? There was a great famine! Dozens of people in her village starved to death, and she was the only one in her entire family left alive! You call that lucky? I call her a harbinger of doom! She cursed her father to death, cursed her mother to death, and even her grandparents met with disaster! With a fate like that, who would dare keep her? Who would dare take her in? If we let her stay, this family is doomed!"
As he spoke, he abruptly turned toward Shanshan, his eyes bulging.
"Speak for yourself!"
he roared, flecks of spittle flying from his mouth.
"Did your mother die because of you? Tell me!"
Shanshan's eyes widened as she stared at him, fury blazing in her heart.
She couldn't believe the man standing before her could be so vicious as to pin all the blame on her.
'How can people like this even exist!'
Tears welled in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.
'He was the one who abandoned his family to save his own skin!'
'And now he was blaming her for all the suffering!'
"No! It was hunger! It had nothing to do with me! Mama said I was still little, so I had to keep living!"
She finally broke down, crying out as tears streamed down her cheeks.
"It was hunger! No one was there to take care of us! It wasn't me! It wasn't me! Mama told me to live on! I'm not a jinx, I'm… I'm a good girl who listened!"
Shanshan's cries were heart-wrenching.
She closed her eyes, and an image surfaced in her mind: her former self, a Fire Dragon.
'If only I could become a dragon again, I'd make him taste the searing agony of being devoured by fire!'
But she couldn't become a dragon now. All she could do was glare at him with deadly intensity.
Zhang Yunhua's heart ached for the girl. She quickly pulled Shanshan into her arms, gently patting her back.
"Oh, you poor little thing… It's okay, don't be afraid…"
She murmured soothingly, gently patting the child's back.
The corners of her eyes grew red, and her voice choked with emotion.
"Every child is born of a mother and raised by parents. Who gets to choose their own destiny? You've done nothing wrong, child. The ones at fault are those with no compassion…"
"Hah. She's done nothing wrong?"
Cao Daqiang stood in the doorway, his back to the dim oil lamp. His shadow stretched long and cold behind him.
"If you're not afraid of her ruining your good fortune, then go ahead, keep her and worship her. I'd love to see if you're still so charitable on the day your family's luck runs out completely."
As he spoke, he slapped a hand forcefully against the doorframe.
"Captain Cao!"
Yang Dapeng shot to his feet.
Little Shanshan had only been with them for a few days, and his health had been improving day by day.
'Who could say Shanshan had nothing to do with it?'
But Cao Daqiang deliberately ignored it.
To treat the child like a harbinger of doom instead... it was truly chilling.
He simply couldn't understand why Cao Daqiang was so determined to be cruel to a child.
Yang Dapeng stared at Cao Daqiang.
He knew the man was proud and arrogant. He'd earned merits in the army and had looked down on country folk like them ever since he returned.
But no matter how much he looked down on them, he shouldn't take out his frustrations on a three-year-old child!
"No matter how you look at it, Shanshan is just a little girl. Doesn't it bother your conscience at all to say such things right in front of her?"
Yang Dapeng's voice trembled slightly—not from fear, but from anguish.
The atmosphere in the room suddenly became suffocatingly heavy.
"Conscience? My conscience is for protecting myself, and my real wife and daughter!"
Cao Daqiang snapped his head up, the veins in his neck bulging.
His eyes, fierce as a wolf's, scanned the room.
"This little brat from who-knows-where has nothing to do with me!"
His ferocious expression intimidated everyone present.
The room fell silent, the only sound the rustling of leaves in the wind outside.
A few of the gawking villagers quietly took half a step back.
Even the ever-bold Zhang Yunhua felt her heart clench.
'What's all the yelling about? If you've got a problem, pick on an adult! What kind of man bullies a child?'
She didn't say it aloud, but in her heart, she was already convinced the child was completely innocent.
Zhang Yunhua straightened her spine and looked around at the assembled neighbors.
"If that's how it is, then from this day forward, Shanshan is my and Dapeng's daughter! For richer or for poorer, she'll have no need to rely on the Cao family ever again!"
Hearing this, Yang Dapeng immediately stepped forward.
"That's right! Our neighbors are all here to bear witness. From now on, Shanshan is my daughter, and no one can say otherwise!"
As he spoke, he pulled a crumpled piece of paper from inside his coat.
It was an adoption certificate he had secretly written a few days prior.
It wasn't officially stamped, but he was willing to add his thumbprint and swear an oath before the entire village.
The crowd erupted.
A child being taken in by new parents was a major event in this remote mountain village.
In that moment, the gears of fate quietly began to turn.
The neighbors all knew perfectly well what kind of state Yang Dapeng's health was in.
He and Zhang Yunhua had been married for over a decade, but their home had remained quiet; they'd never had children.
In their younger years, they had secretly visited temples to burn incense and pray for a child.
As they got older, they had given up hope.
Everyone truly understood the couple's desire to adopt.
A person only lives once; you need something to hope for, someone to care about.
But the question was, what was the use of raising a girl?