The General Under the Skirt - Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Shen Roujia looked at the door. The moss-covered door was closed tightly. She didn’t know what Qingrong was going through. All she could do was stay there and pray for her safe return.

After an unknown amount of time, maybe half an hour, maybe an hour, there was a commotion outside. Two men opened the door and pushed a disheveled, practically naked woman inside before slamming it shut.

The woman collapsed onto the damp floor, her slender white legs exposed. Her clothes were stained with some unknown sticky white substance. Her long hair was spread all over the floor. She didn’t move.

Shen Roujia’s heart lurched, a sense of foreboding washing over her. She rushed over and brushed the dark hair away from the woman’s face, revealing delicate features. It was Qingrong.

Shen Roujia’s heart clenched. Tears welled up in her eyes as she pulled Qingrong’s arm and helped her to her feet.

“Qingrong, are you… are you alright? I’ll help you up, don’t be afraid…”

Qingrong slowly opened her eyes, saw Shen Roujia’s worried face, and smiled weakly, allowing herself to be helped up. Qingrong’s leg seemed to be injured. Shen Roujia could feel her struggling with every step.

She helped Qingrong to the place where she had been sitting earlier. Even sitting seemed to aggravate Qingrong’s injuries, her expression pained, her lips tightly pressed together. Shen Roujia’s words tumbled out, tears filling her eyes.

“You… there’s no medicine here, I don’t know what to do…”

Qingrong shook her head, cutting her off. 

“I’m fine.”

She looked at her and saw that Qingrong’s lips were chapped and bleeding. There were more marks on her neck and her clothes were disheveled. She straightened Qingrong’s clothes, then took off her own outer garment and draped it over her.

Qingrong noticed the two girls sitting next to Shen Roujia, frowned, and asked hoarsely, “Do you know them?”

Shen Roujia shook her head.

“No, I don’t. I asked them about you when I got here and didn’t see you.”

“What did they tell you?”

Shen Roujia said, “…They said those men beat you.”

Qingrong looked at the two girls. They pursed their lips and remained silent.

Shen Roujia asked again, “What is it?”

Qingrong shook her head.

“Nothing.”

Shen Roujia wanted to ask Qingrong if she was still in pain, where she was hurt, but then she thought, what good would it do? They were trapped here, unable to do anything.

She sat down next to Qingrong and sighed, and they both fell silent.

They were being kept here like fowl, without warm clothes or decent food, without treatment for their injuries, without dignity, like livestock.

Instead of waiting for others to save them, it would be better to say that they were waiting to die day after day.

After a long silence, she suddenly asked, “Qingrong, do you think we’re going to die here?”

Qingrong leaned against the wall, her chest rising and falling slightly. She turned her head to the window. Even though it was tightly closed, she seemed to be able to see the light coming in from outside. She said, “No.”

***

Shen Roujia had a nagging feeling that Qingrong’s being taken away was more than just a beating, but Qingrong didn’t mention it, so she didn’t ask.

Qingrong explained that the reason they were all being held in this large room was because the original place of confinement had been for the storage of a batch of goods that had to be kept completely dry. This place was too damp, so they were moved here, and the goods were stored in their previous small compartments.

Qingrong was taken out almost every other day. Every time she returned, she was in a terrible state. Whenever Shen Roujia asked, Qingrong would brush it off with a few words, unwilling to elaborate. But for some reason, Qingrong’s food was better than theirs. Not much better, but at least the buns she ate were clean. Qingrong almost always shared half of her food with Shen Roujia.

Shen Roujia asked, “Why do they give you separate food?”

Qingrong swallowed a mouthful of porridge and said casually, “…Because one of them likes me.”

Shen Roujia’s eyes widened and she sat up straight and asked, “Really?”

Qingrong nodded and replied, “Why would I lie to you?”

“Then he…”

“Don’t even think about it. It’s impossible. It’s not his decision, and he doesn’t like me that much. At most, he lets me avoid fighting for food.”

Shen Roujia was disappointed and slumped down again. Those men were vicious thugs, she couldn’t expect them to have any compassion.

She understood.

In this place, time seemed to slow to a crawl, every moment an agonizing wait.

After two or three days, the men suddenly opened the door, a group of them bursting in aggressively and selecting a few women.

Shen Roujia didn’t know what the chosen women were being taken to do, but judging by their expressions, they didn’t seem particularly resistant. She guessed that whatever they were taken to do, it couldn’t be worse than death.

Staying in this place and living a life worse than pigs and dogs was really no different from dying.

The woman sitting next to Shen Roujia was the one she had seen earlier with the child. This woman was also among those chosen.

Those people pulled the woman up from the ground. The woman was very obedient and didn’t struggle much. She got up and went with them. But she didn’t take her child with her. The child was left on the ground in front of where the woman had been sitting.

The child was very small, seemingly no longer than Shen Roujia’s arm. It was thin, its cries weak, but it had big round eyes.

She had always found the woman strange.

She seemed to neglect the child. Yet Shen Roujia had woken up in the middle of the night and seen the woman breastfeeding the child, holding it gently, her eyes full of tenderness. But sometimes Shen Roujia would see the child lying on the floor, too weak to cry. It would stretch out its tiny arms to be held, while the woman would just watch, indifferent.

Shen Roujia had even seen hatred in the woman’s eyes.

What could make a woman hate a newborn?

Shen Roujia didn’t understand.

Apart from the woman, no one paid any attention to the child.

Shen Roujia would occasionally crumble a small piece of her bun to feed the child. But almost every time, the woman would scream at her, almost desperately, to stay away.

Shen Roujia didn’t get much food, only what Qingrong gave her.

A bun every day, or every day and a half.

She was always weak, trapped in this cramped and crowded space, unable to bathe, unable to see the sun. But at least she had Qingrong.

The man pulled on the woman’s arm. The woman looked down indifferently, her gaze fixed on the frail, emaciated child on the ground.

She didn’t plan to take the child with her.

She left with the man.

Shen Roujia didn’t know if the child could survive in this condition. But she knew that if the woman left, the child would surely die. She and Qingrong huddled together, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. No one dared to speak. 

Unexpectedly, the woman stopped after taking only two steps. Shen Roujia could guess why she hesitated. Sure enough, the woman broke free from the man’s grasp and ran back without hesitation. She picked up the child on the ground, held him tightly in her arms, wept and begged the group and said, “Let me take him with me, please. Let me take him…”

The man frowned, grabbed the woman’s arm again and said, “Fuck! Get up.”

“He’s going to die, he’s going to die, you…”

The woman’s screams drew the attention of the other men. A man with a scar on his face walked over, looked down at the woman holding the child, and said simply, “Throw the child away.”

Shen Roujia recognized him. It was the man who had hit her earlier, Liu Gang. Hearing this, the woman held the child even tighter, kneeled down on the ground, shook her head and begged, “No… you…”

The man holding the woman’s arm reached out to grab the child. The woman desperately protected the child, refusing to let go even as the man’s grip threatened to break her hand.

The scene was too heartbreaking. Shen Roujia clenched her fists and felt a strong, indescribable sense of oppression.

The woman was almost hysterical. 

“Are you all animals?! He’s your child! Even tigers don’t eat their cubs, you… you’ll go to hell for this!”

Liu Gang, who was standing next to her, actually laughed when he heard these words.

“Our child? Tell me, whose is it? You’re nothing but a whore, so many of our brothers have slept with you, how should we know whose it is?”

Someone immediately chimed in, “Maybe it’s yours, Third Brother. Doesn’t that boy look like you?”

“Fuck off! You little shit looking for a beating! He looks like your mother!”

With that, Liu Gang walked closer to the woman, grinning.

“Why don’t you ask him? Ask that boy if he remembers who shot him in there?”

Shen Roujia’s eyes widened in shock. She had always known that these men were vicious and could not be judged by normal standards. But this was the first time she had truly witnessed their shamelessness.

“Ah! You… you beasts, you… you’ll die a horrible death!”

“Why don’t you all die! You…”

Liu Wei waved his hand dismissively and said, “Don’t waste any more time on her, they’ll be waiting. Just get rid of the child.”

The man struggling with the woman did not hesitate any longer. With a jerk, he grabbed the child by the neck and snatched it away. The child was pinched by the neck and couldn’t make a sound. His limbs waved weakly.

Shen Roujia understood how unrealistic words like compassion, kindness and nobility were in this place. Most of them were struggling to survive themselves; how could they have the energy to care for others? To intervene at that moment would be sheer stupidity. In this situation of absolute powerlessness, she would not only fail to save the child, she would also put herself in danger. But what drove her wasn’t some noble sentiment, but the most primal, innate human instinct.

Compassion.

Whether it would be effective or not, she couldn’t bear to see an innocent life perish before her eyes. Ignoring Qingrong’s attempts to stop her, she got to her feet and ran towards the woman. She grabbed the child and bit down hard on the man’s arm that was gripping the child’s neck.

Caught off guard by Shen Roujia’s sudden attack, the man released his grip and the child fell into Shen Roujia’s arms.

He was so light, like holding a small blanket.

“Fuck!”

The man reacted, clutching his arm and cursing. Then he kicked Shen Roujia in the back with all his might. The force of the kick knocked Shen Roujia to the ground. She shielded the child with her body, the impact shattering her insides. A metallic taste filled her mouth and she lay there for a long time, unable to move.

The child was too weak to cry, its mouth open. Shen Roujia could see its soft, tiny tongue, toothless, like a little kitten. The child’s little arms moved, but with so little strength that Shen Roujia could barely feel them.

Her back felt broken, but as she held the child and looked into its bright eyes, she didn’t regret her decision.

“Where did that bitch come from?! Get up!”

Shen Roujia held the child carefully, using one arm to push herself up. Her back was bent and she said, “…It’s just a child, let him go.”

The woman saw the child in Shen Roujia’s arms. She seemed a little less desperate, but still watched the men warily.

Liu Wei frowned and said, “Stop wasting time with them, can’t a few men handle two women?”

The woman panicked and said, “No… no, if… if you kill him, I will die here, and you won’t get a penny!”