When she was eight, her gambling-addicted uncle sold her to the Qin family in the mountains for five hundred yuan, to be a child bride for their thirty-year-old son, who was said to be violent and stupid. In the Qin household, she was treated worse than livestock. Qin mother’s needle pricks, her foolish husband’s beatings, and the village children’s insults were all she knew.
At eighteen, she finally saved enough money to sneak into town and call the police for help. But the Qin family caught her like a chicken and dragged her back, hanging her from a beam and beating her for three days and nights. Just as she was at death’s door, a man appeared from nowhere. His name was Helian Chengye, a business emperor with immense power in the capital. He had been ambushed in the mountains and, after falling off a cliff, ended up hanging from an old locust tree on the edge of this isolated village.
With the last of her strength, Jiao Jiao hid the blood-soaked man. She used herbs to save his life and her own body to shield him from the winter night’s cold. When Helian Chengye woke, all he remembered was the clear, moonlike look in her eyes and her timid words: “Y-you shouldn’t move. They... they’ll beat you to death.”
Three days later, Helian Chengye’s subordinates found him. Before leaving, he asked her, “Would you like to come with me?”
Jiao Jiao looked at the Qin family chasing after her and nodded frantically. But the moment Helian Chengye turned to give his men instructions, Qin mother knocked Jiao Jiao unconscious with a stick, then lied to him. “She’s my daughter-in-law. She’s not right in the head and offended an important guest. I’ll take her home and discipline her!”
Helian Chengye’s expression grew complicated, but his serious injuries left him unable to tell what was going on. He could only leave her with, “If fate brings you there, come find me in the capital,” before his subordinates carried him away.
