The girl who was called turned her head, and a flattering smile immediately appeared on her dark face.
She stretched out her dirty black hands, took a large bunch of bananas from the person who called her, and said in fluent Cantonese: "Thank you, Uncle Jiang."
The greasy man named Jiang Bo avoided her dirty hands.
The flattering smile on the girl's face who had been taken advantage of did not change. She just held the banana on her lower abdomen, lowered her head and slightly bent her knees towards the man, and performed a standard Wanfu salute.
The man named Uncle Jiang felt itchy and grinned and said: "Ghost sister, my uncle has some fragrant soap at home. Your body is so dirty. Follow your uncle home and wash it off, and he will find some good clothes for you."
wear."
After hearing this, the ghost girl's smile became even brighter. She smiled and said, "Okay, Uncle Jiang, wait a minute. Grandpa hasn't washed himself for many years. I'll go back to find him right away. We two will go together."
The corner of the man's mouth who was called Uncle Jiang twitched violently and said: "Forget it! I don't dare to mess with that tuberculosis guy, so you can go alone." Unwilling to give up, he asked again: "Can you do it yourself?"
The ghost girl shook her head and firmly stated that she must go with her grandfather.
Uncle Jiang struggled for a few more words, but seeing that the ghost girl disagreed, he had no choice but to take a hard look at the banana he sent out, curse and walk away.
The ghost girl watched him leave her, her flattering smile disappeared, and there was a look of confusion in her eyes. Then she turned around holding the banana, walked barefoot on the dirty stone road, walked out of the market town and followed the dirt road on the north bank of the Passi River.
After walking for a while, we came to a shack.
This shack, which could only be used for shelter from the rain, was made of a few logs and banana leaves. There was a skinny old man sitting inside, bending over and coughing hard.
The ghost girl placed the banana next to the old man and said, "Grandpa, there are bananas to eat tonight." The old man raised his head with a huff, wiped the blood coughed up from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve, and nodded to show that he understood.
The ghost girl picked up a wooden stick next to the shack and beat the banana leaves on the shack boredly, 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 picked up an earthen jar from the ground of the shack and drank some water. He asked, "Who gave this to you?"
The ghost girl said: "Old Duck Jiang. He asked me to go to his house to take a bath, and he also gave me new clothes to wear."
After hearing this, the old man quickly looked down at her, then frowned and asked, "Then the Quanzhou guy didn't take advantage of you, did he?"
The ghost girl didn't seem to hear, but she hit the banana leaf harder with the wooden stick. She asked, "Grandpa, what is fragrant rice?"
The old man stared, shook his head and said, "Grandpa, I don't know." After saying that, he coughed violently again. When he could speak, he sighed, "Grandpa can't live for a few days, and you are the only one left. What should I do?"
After speaking, he stood up with great effort, straightened his bent back upwards, pointed to the thousand-acre fortress on the other side of the river and said: "It would be great if you could sneak in. Except for your dark eyes, you bastard,
In fact, they are considered 'white people'. If they get in, they will not starve to death no matter where they are."
When the ghost girl heard her grandfather calling her a bastard, the corners of her mouth were flattened and the circles under her eyes were a little red. She threw the wooden stick in her hand hard and asked sarcastically: "Last year, you said you would interrupt me if I dared to enter the city.
Legs, why did you let me sneak in again today?"
Her grandfather sighed again and said: "Last year I was in good health and could earn you a bite to eat. Now that I'm going to die, you can't do anything except beg for food. You might as well go to the city by yourself, even if you work as a slave in a rich family."
You servant can also earn a living."
After hearing this, the ghost girl sat on the ground, buried her head in her knees, and said hoarsely: "Who will bury you when I leave?" His grandfather also slumped down next to her, and took a deep breath and said: "The town
People will not let my body be exposed outside. After all, the weather is so hot and there will be epidemics - you might as well try to go to the city."
After hearing this, the ghost girl seemed not to have heard anything. She picked up a weed at her feet and tore off the leaves. His grandfather touched her yellow hair, and her bloodless lips suddenly trembled and became muddy.
Tears rolled out of her eyes: "Ghost sister, your mother was bullied by the white devils and died a few days after giving birth to you. In order to support you these years, your grandfather stole and kidnapped and did a lot of bad things. Now it's even worse."
retribution--"
He stopped and coughed violently again.
After a while, he said in a hoarse voice: "Logically speaking, your surname should be the surname of the white devil, but no one knows what the surname of that devil is. Our family name is Wang. You can follow the surname Wang from now on. Grandpa will give you a name."
My name is Jingyi, okay?"
The ghost girl still buried her head in her knees and said nothing. She only shrugged her shoulders and sobbed softly. In her eleven years of life, she was the only one with her grandfather, but she knew that the old man's days were numbered.
The girl once had many longings for the future, but those things are now broken like dewdrops.
She heard her grandpa coughing violently again. When she turned around, she found him lying on the ground, shaking and vomiting blood. The ghost girl was at a loss and started crying again.
When the coughing ended, the color on the old man's face faded a little. He said loudly: "Tomorrow, tomorrow I will accompany you to Jiang Laoya's house and ask him to buy you a new set of clothes. Let's try to see if you can sneak into the city.
"After saying that, the expression on his pale face suddenly distorted, revealing a trace of cruelty and ferocity.
"Remember from now on, your name is Wang Jingyi! Not Ghost Girl!"
The star-shaped fortress that Wang Jingyi wanted to sneak into was on the south bank of the Passi River, close to the Port of Manila. It was surrounded by tall city walls, which were eight feet thick and two feet high, and were entirely made of strips of stone. Roads, churches, and
Schools and Governor's Palace, etc.
This city is called the Royal City of Manila. It was planned and constructed by Legazpi, the first Spanish colonizer of Greater Luzon, in the first year of Wanli. Although the interior has not yet been completed, it already has all the functions of a military fortress.
The "white people" mentioned by the old man refer to the Spanish colonists and their descendants who were allowed to live in the fortress. The law of the Royal City of Manila stipulates that male colonists can enter into marriage contracts with indigenous women, but female colonists cannot combine with male indigenous women.
; Mixed-race children living in Manila City must be legitimate children, and mixed-race illegitimate children cannot live in the Royal City.
The law also stipulates that Spanish mixed-race children can have up to a quarter of Han ancestry - that is to say, Spaniards can marry at most a mixed-race child of indigenous people and Han Chinese. If they marry a Han woman directly, their children cannot become "white."
, and therefore cannot live in the royal city protected by stone walls.
This kind of laws and regulations that appear to be full of racial discrimination in later generations are actually unsurprising moral concepts in the colonial era. Its essence is the fear or fear of the advanced culture of the conquered areas. Similar rules, in the original time and space, we are familiar with ""
Manchus and Han people do not intermarry."
At dusk on June 13, the fifteenth year of Wanli, the setting sun shone on the sea of Manila Bay, with fiery red waves sparkling. A beautiful girl wearing a new dress and new shoes, with wheat-colored hair and black eyes, walked vigorously and arrived.
The South Gate of Intramuros, Manila.
At the same time, the Port of Manila entered the sight of the watchmen of the blockading fleet, the trumpet sound of discovering the enemy's situation rang out in the Royal City of Manila, the bells of the cathedral rang anxiously, and there was a lot of excitement in Manila.
The city guards had no time to check the documents of the "white people" who were rushing to enter the city. Wang Jingyi followed a four-wheeled carriage and ran into the city without any danger.