A Little Jade in Goddess Gorge

Chapter 27: The White Orchid

"Aiya. I told you already. Yu-girl just send me her work yesterday. How would I know when she will be back? Do you think this kind of work is like cabbage, you pulled one and another one come tomorrow?" 

Sister Fang answered with annoyance. Even though she doesn't know a lot of details, but she heard enough from QiQiao. 

Her shining star, Xiao Yu, used to stay in their village and seems to have some dispute with these two handsome young men. Sister Fang has been in the business for years and she is not vegetarian. If these young men thought they could intimidate her and bully her workers, she is more than happy to give them some lessons about life.

"Miss Fang, we don't want trouble, we just need to talk to her for a while." Li Yan tries to smile as charming as possible, but sister Fang could see the smile doesn't go all the way to his eyes.

"There is nothing I could do to help you. There are so many women who come here selling embroidery. They come and I give them a good price, how would I know when they come or if they will come?" If it's not going to affect her business, sister Fang would rather shoo these troublesome men with a broom.

Li Shu was about to roll his sleeve and cause trouble, but Li Yan quickly pulls his brother outside, "Let's go third-brother, she is not here then she is not here. We will try again the next day." 

Li Yan could see his charm doesn't affect the lady at all. If anything, she looks like she is about to throw them out.

"What now, second-brother?"

"What else can we do? We are already here, so we might as well buy some flour and other supplies."  

When they arrive in the market, they saw a woman in white mourning clothing kneeling on the side of the road. There is a sign in front of her, but Li Yan and Li Shu never gone to school and barely recognize a few words. 

Li Shu asks a bystander next to him. "What is going on over there? Do you know what that sign says?" 

"That pretty woman is selling herself to bury her mother."

The brothers feel sympathetic. When their parents passed away they barely have two coins to rub together, without the help of their aunts and the villagers they won't be able to bury them either.

Li Yan looks at the woman with appreciation. Even though her lips are chapped and skin is pale, but her beauty still showing through. She has cold expression and eyebrows are like curving like a willow. Her back is straight with dignity even though she is kneeling on the ground. Her proud expression does not look like a person who is selling herself as a slave. 

Li Yan asked the person again, "How long has she been kneeling there?" 

A woman that beautiful surely doesn't have to kneel on the street? There should be a lot of rich people lining up to get her before she even lay down the mat.

"Aiya, you guys must be not from this town?" The man told them that overnight there was a case in a county minister's house.

No one really knows the detail but the kneeling woman's mother was a nurse in the house and seems like she did something really bad and was beaten to death. After her death, they just throw her corpse and her daughter out. 

No one dares to help the woman to bury her in fear of offending the minister. Even her own family has closed their door and sever their relation, who would dare to buy her?

"Maybe after a few days there would be a foreign trader passing by. They wouldn't mind the woman." The man added before he walked away.

Li Yan smiles and approaches the woman. "Girl, tell me. What can you do?"