Wanli Xinming

Chapter 387
"Ghost girl!"

The girl who was called turned her head, and a flattering smile appeared on her dark face.

She stretched out her black dirty hands, took a bunch of bananas from the person who called her, and said in fluent Cantonese, "Thank you Jiang Bo."

The greasy man called Jiang Bo avoided her dirty hands.

The flattering smile on the face of the girl who was taken advantage of did not change. She only held the banana in her lower abdomen, bowed her head and slightly bent her knees to the man, and gave a standard Wanfu gift.

The man named Jiang Uncle was itchy, and grinned: "Ghost girl, uncle's house has fragrant pancreas. You are so dirty, follow uncle home to wash, uncle will find another good clothes for you. Put on."

When the ghost girl heard this, the smile on her face became even wider.She smiled and said, "Okay Uncle Jiang, wait a minute. Grandpa hasn't washed for many years. I'll go back to him immediately, and I'll go together."

The corners of the man's mouth twitched violently and said, "Forget it! I don't dare to provoke that tuberculosis ghost. You can go by yourself." He asked again, "Are you coming by yourself?"

The ghost girl shook her head and firmly stated that she must go with her grandpa.

Jiang Bo entangled a few more words. Seeing that Ghost Girl didn't agree, he had to take a hard look at the banana he gave out, and walked away cursing.

The ghost girl watched him leave her, the flattering smile disappeared, and there was a dazed look in her eyes.Immediately, she turned around with the banana in her arms, walked barefoot on the dirty flagstone road, walked out of the market town and walked along the dirt road on the north bank of the Passy River for a while, and came to a shack.

This shack, which could only be used for shelter from the rain, was made of a few pieces of wood and plantain leaves, and inside sat a thin old man, who was bending over and coughing hard.

The ghost girl put the banana next to the old man and said, "Grandpa, there are bananas to eat tonight." The old man raised his head, wiping the blood coughing up from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve, and nodded to show he knew.

The ghost girl picked up a wooden stick beside the shack, and bored the plantain leaves on the shack, waiting for her grandfather to finish coughing.

The old man coughed for a long time, and finally suppressed his wheezing.He broke off a banana, peeled it, and ate it, then took a crock from the shack and drank some water.Asked, "Who gave this to you?"

The ghost girl said, "Old Duck Jiang. He asked me to take a bath at his house, and he also gave me new clothes to wear."

Hearing this, the old man hurriedly looked down at her, then frowned and asked, "The Quanzhou guy didn't take advantage of you, right?"

The ghost girl didn't seem to hear it, but the stick hit the banana leaf with more strength.She asked back, "Grandpa, what is a fragrant pancreas?"

The old man stared, shook his head and said, "Grandpa doesn't know." After that, he coughed violently again.When he was able to speak, he sighed and said, "Grandpa won't live for a few days, and you're the only one left, what should I do?"

After he finished speaking, he stood up with great effort, straightened his bent back, pointed at the fortress covering an area of ​​[-] acres on the other side of the river and said, "If only you could get in, you bastard, except for your black eyes, In fact, they are considered 'white people', and if they get in, they won't starve to death wherever they are."

When the ghost girl heard her grandfather call herself a bastard, the corners of her mouth were flat and her eyes were a little red.She threw the wooden stick in her hand forcefully, and asked slightly sarcastically, "Last year you said that I would break my leg if I dared to enter the city. Why did you let me in today?"

Her grandfather sighed again: "Last year, I was in good health, and I can earn you a bite to eat. Now that I'm dying, you can't do anything but beg for food. You might as well go to the city by yourself, even if you go to a rich family as a slave. The maid can also earn a living."

When the ghost girl heard this, she sat on the ground with her head buried in her knees, and said in a hoarse voice, "I'm gone, who will bury you." His grandfather also sat down beside her, sighing and saying, "The town The people here won't let my body be exposed, after all, the weather is so hot that there will be an epidemic - you might as well try going into the city."

The ghost girl heard this, but as if she didn't hear it, she grabbed a weed by her feet and tore the leaves of the grass.His grandfather touched her yellow hair, her bloodless lips trembled suddenly, and tears rolled from her cloudy eyes: "Ghost girl, your mother was bullied by the white devil, and you died within a few days of giving birth. In order to support you all these years, your grandfather stole, kidnapped and cheated, and did a lot of bad things, and now it's bad retribution-"

He stopped, coughing again violently.

After a while, he said in a hoarse voice: "It stands to reason that your surname should be Bai Guizi, but no one knows what the surname is. Our family's surname is Wang, you should follow the surname Wang in the future. Grandpa will give you one. My name is Jingyi, okay?"

Gui Mei still buried her head in her knees and did not speak, she just shrugged her shoulders and sobbed softly.In her 11 years of life, only her grandfather was alone, but she knew that the old man's time was numbered.

The girl used to have a lot of longing for the future, but now those things are shattered like dewdrops.

She heard her grandfather coughing violently again, and when she turned to look, she found him lying on the ground, shaking and vomiting blood.The ghost girl was overwhelmed and cried again.

After this cough was over, the blood on the old man's face faded again.He said loudly: "Tomorrow, tomorrow I will accompany you to Jiang Laoyazi's house and ask him to buy you a new set of clothes, and try to see if you can sneak into the city." After speaking, his pale face suddenly distorted, revealing a trace of it. Cruel vicious.

"Remember from now on, your name is Wang Jingyi! Not a ghost girl!"

The star-shaped fortress that Wang Jingyi wants to infiltrate is on the south bank of the Passi River, next to the port of Manila.It is surrounded by a tall city wall, which is eight feet thick and two feet high, all made of strips of stone; roads, churches, schools and the Governor's Palace have been built in the city.

This city is called Manila King City. It was planned and constructed by Legazpi, the first generation of Spanish colonists in Greater Luzon, in the first year of Wanli. Although the interior has not yet been completed, it has all the functions of a military fortress.

The "white people" the old man referred to were the Spanish colonists and their descendants who were allowed to live in the fortress.The law of Manila King City stipulates that male colonists can enter into marriage contracts with indigenous women, but female colonists cannot combine with male natives; mixed-race children living in Manila City must be born in wedlock, and mixed-race illegitimate children cannot live in King City.

The law also stipulates that Spanish hybrids can have up to a quarter of Chinese blood—that is, Spaniards can marry at most native-Chinese hybrids.Marrying a Han woman directly, her children cannot become "white people", and they cannot live in the royal city protected by the stone city wall.

This racially discriminatory statute in later generations is an unsurprisingly moral concept of the colonial era.Its essence is apprehension or fear of advanced cultures in conquered regions.There is a similar rule in the original time and space that we are familiar with "Manchu and Chinese do not intermarry".

On the dusk of June 15th in the [-]th year of Wanli, the setting sun shone on the sea of ​​Manila Bay, and the fiery red sparkled.Wearing a new dress and new shoes, a beautiful girl with wheat-colored hair and black eyes walked vigorously to the south gate of the Royal City of Manila.

At the same time, the port of Manila came into the sight of the watchmen of the ship-blocking fleet. The horn to discover the enemy's situation sounded in the Royal City of Manila, the bells of the cathedral rang anxiously, and chickens jumped everywhere in Manila.

The city guards had no time to check the documents of the "white people" who were eager to enter the city. Wang Jingyi followed a four-wheeled carriage and ran into the city without any risk.

(End of this chapter)