The little crybaby in the group, the young master is a softie

Chapter 473: Virgin Breast

They all said that boy's milk should be drunk while it's hot. The old scholar pinched Tang Jiu's wrist with his skinny fingers, which felt like chicken claws.

"It's better if it hurts," the man sniffed the milk in the copper basin and snored in his throat, "The pain is because the essence and blood are moving away."

Tang Jiu stared at the sparse white hair on the other person's head, and suddenly remembered the beard of the teacher in the school, which was also white, but ten thousand times cleaner than the man in front of him.

When winter came, the brick walls of You'an Hall were filled with chill. Tang Jiu's cotton trousers had holes in them, his knees were frozen purple, and when he urinated, he could see blood mixed with ice.

Zhang Dafu asked his servants to throw over a moldy quilt that was crawling with lice, but it could not withstand the northwest wind outside the window.

Zhang Si's cough became lighter and lighter, and one night he suddenly began to hum a ballad. He had heard that tune before; it was the joyous music played at weddings in the village.

At dawn, Tang Jiu saw milk scabs on Zhang Si's chest, like two frozen black cakes. His eyes were still open, with ice beads hanging from the corners of his eyes.

The wooden sign beside the abandoned well in the backyard had new names added: Zhang Si died from milking, and Sun Qi died from blood loss...

For three years, Tang Jiu was forced to swallow wine soaked in live ants and drink powder made from freshly skinned pangolins. The most horrifying thing was the placenta soup, which was so fishy that it made people vomit, but he had to drink it mouthful by mouthful because Zhang Dafu said, "Only after you replenish your body can you produce more milk."

The lump on Tang Jiu's chest grew bigger and bigger, as if two pieces of red-hot iron were stuffed in it, causing pain every time he breathed.

One day, he couldn't bear it any longer, so he knelt down at Zhang Dafu's feet and kowtowed to ask for a day off. His forehead bled, but he got kicked in the stomach by the tip of Zhang Dafu's shoe.

“When the cow rests, the milk is gone!”

On a full-moon night, Tang Jiu was dragged into the old scholar's room. On the way, he passed by the patio and saw the moon was big and round, just like the millstone at the entrance of the village.

The millstone can grind wheat grains into powder, but he is being ground into dregs. Tang Jiu suddenly hopes that he can become like Zhang Si, with ice on his chest and eyes open to look at the moon, and never have to be squeezed for blood and milk again.

"Once you have saved enough money to redeem yourself, you can go home."

Tang Jiu lied to himself, but the names on the wooden sign kept increasing, and the redemption money was like the moon in the well, visible but untouchable.

Whenever he felt like fainting from the pain, Tang Jiu would count the wood grain on the beams. When he counted to the 108th grain, he heard Zhang Dafu laughing outside the door: "This kid's milk is getting thicker and thicker. It's time to raise the price..."

"Dad~" a crisp child's voice sounded.

Zhang Dafu turned his head quickly, his greasy face full of a loving smile, "Why did you wake up, Zhili? Come on, let daddy hug you."

Zhang Dafu was a blind man, but he liked to pretend to be a cultured man. When he was nearly 40, he married a well-educated girl. He had a son in his old age, and he loved him to the core.

The next day, five-year-old Zhang Zhili squatted at the door of the woodshed, watching the ants moving, shaking the gold tassels on his silk jacket.

He held a pearl-studded rattle in his arms, and every time he shook it, tiny golden lights fell on Tang Jiu's curled up feet.

Tang Jiu was scraping the festering scab on his chest with a broken piece of bowl. When he heard the noise, he quickly covered the wound with a rag, dark red blood still seeping out from between his fingers.

"What are you playing?" Zhang Zhili's nose was red from the cold. "I have a gilded revolving lantern in my room. It's much more fun than this!"

Tang Jiu kept his eyelids drooping and said nothing. He could smell the frankincense on the other person's body, which was made from fresh goat's milk mixed with rose petals. It tasted the same as the milk-inducing medicine he was forced to drink, but it was sweet and fishy.

"Here you go!" Zhang Zhili suddenly stuffed a piece of sesame candy into his arms. "The chef just made it. It's so sweet!"

The candy rolled onto the abscess on Tang Jiu's thigh. He trembled in pain, but heard Zhang Zhili chuckle: "Why are your clothes so tattered? Just like my lame old yellow dog!"

Tang Jiu held the candy in his palm and stared at the longevity lock hanging on the other person's waist. It was made by a craftsman invited from Yangzhou by Zhang Dafu for one hundred taels of silver. The four words "Long Life" on the lock were more valuable than the lives of all the children in You'an House.

After a long while, Tang Jiu finally spoke in a hoarse voice, "I am not a beast... I am a human being."

Zhang Zhili tilted his head to look at him, spinning the rattle in his hands quickly: "Why should people sleep in the woodshed? I have a soft bed in my room, and a nanny who can tell stories!"

"Because your father wants me to produce milk." Tang Jiu suddenly lifted the rag like a prank, revealing the purple-black lump on his chest. "Look, it's just like milking a cow."

"what--!"

Zhang Zhili was so frightened that he leaned back, and the rattle fell to the ground and rolled away. "You are lying! Only cows can produce milk, and you don't have horns!"

"You'll understand when you grow up." Tang Jiu loosened his hand. The candy had been melted by his body temperature and stuck to his palm like mud. "What your father sells is not milk, but our bones and blood."

Zhang Zhili picked up the rattle and wiped off the dust with his sleeve: "What is bone blood? Can it be eaten?"

"You only know how to eat, like a fool." Tang Jiu sighed, "Don't ask me these stupid questions in the future."

He lay on the straw stack and gasped for breath, feeling his chest swollen and uncomfortable, and after enduring for a long time, he finally vomited a few mouthfuls of blood. The blood had a strong smell of mutton.

Tang Jiu lay weakly on the ground, looking up at the gray sky, looking forward to the arrival of death.

"Hey, are you going to die?"

Tang Jiu shook his head. No, he was very sober now.

"Then why are you vomiting blood?"

"…Because you're an idiot."

"Oh," Zhang Zhili seemed to understand, "So you're not going to die. I thought you were going to die. If you were going to die, you wouldn't be able to play with me."

Tang Jiu closed his eyes tiredly.

"Hey, hey, don't sleep in, I'll give you some candy," Zhang Zhili stuffed the candy into Tang Jiu's mouth and put his chubby face close to his ear.

"Are you hungry or thirsty? I have some delicious food in my room. Can I bring it to you?"

Tang Jiu didn't say anything, he really didn't want to pay attention to this fool. But Zhang Zhili really liked to play with Tang Jiu, and they gradually became familiar with each other.

In winter, Tang Jiu developed frostbite on his body, which formed scabs and looked like black and purple centipedes crawling all over his body. He pointed at the scabs and said to Zhang Zhili: "Look, I have flowers."

Zhang Zhili squatted beside him and poked the scab with a branch. The sunlight shone through the cracks in the woodshed, weaving golden threads on his hair: "Flowers need water to bloom."

He shook the small kettle, which contained the milk-inducing medicine that the old woman had just prepared, "I'll pour this on you!"

Tang Jiu pushed the pot of boiling medicine away, and the black liquid splashed onto the wall, making a sizzling sound. Zhang Zhili was so scared that he fell to the ground and saw that a piece of the scab on Tang Jiu's chest had been rubbed off, revealing the tender red flesh underneath.

"How stupid are you!" Tang Jiu growled with gritted teeth, wishing he could break his neck, "Who told you to touch that thing?"

Zhang Zhili was terrified and looked at him blankly, "I... I just wanted to water you."