Helplessness

They were used to seeing the angry tax collector yell at their mother, but they had never seen her so shaken up like before.

Lin Changying rubbed her weary eyes and got up from the floor, noticing Lin Yuhe was already up, drawing on the wall with old ink.

"Where's mum?" Lin Changying asked.

"Hm? She went out! She said she was going to buy clothes!"

Lin Changying was confused. Why would their mother suddenly go out to buy clothes when they were never their priority? Talk about being expensive as well, though maybe she was going to steal again.

She walked out of the bedroom. She glanced at the highest cupboard and noticed an envelope sat on top of it. Lin Changying knew immediately it was the papers that their mother had received yesterday. There had never been any paper materials of any sort in their house before.

Out of curiosity, Lin Changying wanted to know what those papers contained since her mother seemed to be extremely taken aback by them, so she grabbed a ladder and climbed to reach the envelope. She reached out her short arms and picked it by the very corner, pulling it down.

The girl climbed down the ladder and realized the envelope had not been sealed yet, so she took out the papers inside, thinking it wouldn't hurt to be a little curious sometimes.

She was wrong. Her eyes widened and froze in place with goosebumps rising on her skin.

Although she had never learnt how to read properly, she secretly studied by herself sometimes when kids from the village throw away their books.

She read each character carefully before fully processing if she had read the words wrong.

After re-reading a couple more times, she knew she was not hallucinating, but it was what she thought it was.

The papers were slavery documents.

And her name was on it.

Lin Changying's breath gradually grew unstable and all the noises in the background blurred into nothing.

She blinked confusedly to see if she was looking at the name correctly once again and her eyes lowered to her mother's signature.

She stepped back and leant her back against the table, still examining the sheet. Thousands of thoughts sprinted past her mind while her face paled and then heated, constantly changing between these two.

Lin Changying blankly stared at the documents and noticed what was going on.

Her own mother was going to sell her daughter for a thousand gold coins.

Yet that was not the main issue for Lin Changying, but rather, she was confused why her mother would sell her. Why not Yuhe?

"Sister? What are you doing?" Yuhe asked and perked her head over the wall.

The girl flinched and hid the papers behind her back. "Nothing."

"Hm. Very suspicious," Lin Yuhe grinned mischievously.

Lin Changying's throat was dry and remained silent while staring at the smiling girl before an idea popped up in her head.

"Yuhe," she called softly and smiled. "Why don't you go back to your room. I have a game I want to play."

"A game? Alright!" Yuhe exclaimed in joy and ran back.

Lin Changying sighed and glared at the papers. She got a brush from the ground and scribbled her name out, replacing it with "Lin Yuhe".

She folded back the documents and slipped them back into the envelope, leaving it back where she had found it.

Lin Changying walked back to the room where Yuhe was waiting patiently, grinning cheerily like always.

So naïve.

"What are we going to play?" Yuhe said and jumped up and down.

Lin Changying walked to the corner of the room and grabbed a bag that contained makeup.

She knew where her mother had kept these things since she always watched her mother. Analyzing every single detail.

The way she walked, the way she ate, the way she would talk. Sometimes she would even copy those traits of her mother. She knew that her mother loved putting on makeup every time she went out at night, though Lin Changying never knew why.

"We're going to pretend to be one another!" The girl smiled and grabbed out a small powder container.

Her sister watched in awe, rocking back and forth in excitement.

"We're going to play a trick on mum. So you're going to be me and I'm going to be you, alright?" Lin Changying explained.

"Alright!" She nodded happily.

"I'm going to cover your mole and draw one on myself so we look like each other."

"Do you think mum will be able to tell us apart?" Lin Yuhe asked.

Lin Changying did not respond and grabbed a brush.

"No," she muttered and brushed her hair. "I'll make it so she can never tell us apart."

"Hm, then you'll have to act like me too!"

Lin Changying chuckled, "Yeah, that'd be hard!"

...

Just when Lin Changying had finished brushing her sister's hair, they heard footsteps approaching them. With each step dragged and slumped, they knew it was their mother.

Lin Changying instantly lifted her bedsheets and grabbed out two talismans, slapping them onto her sister's back, which the talismans burned away slowly into her body.

Lin Yuhe flinched by the sudden force but could not react any further. She could not move nor could she speak.

It was a silencing and immobilization talisman that someone had given her. Lin Changying didn't know why, but she could not clearly remember the face of the woman that had given her those talismans.

The only characteristic she vividly remembered of that strange woman was that her eyes were devoid of life.

Their mother walked in with a white dress in her hand.

"Mum!" Lin Changying exclaimed.

The mother's unkempt appearance produced the impression that she had just gone through a hurricane.

"Yuhe, can you go to the back for a moment?"

"Hm? Alright!" Lin Changying said and walked out of the room before taking a glance at her twin who sat there still, unmoving.

She bit the inside of her lip when she saw the beautiful dress that her mother had probably stolen, hoping to doll her daughter up before selling her as a slave. Lin Changying turned her head back around and left the room.

"Changying, you'll listen to mother right? Here, I got this dress for you," their mother said. Her tone wasn't sad nor filled with fear, but rather, hopeful.

"We're here for your decision!" The tax collector yelled.

"Oi, oi, oi, are you sure the girl looks cute?" Another man added.

Their mother hurriedly changed her clothes and dragged Lin Yuhe out, grabbing the envelope of the top cabinet.

Although Lin Yuhe couldn't express anything, what lied before her clouded eyes made her heart shatter.

Behind that unfamiliar figure was a large cage. A large cage filled with slaves.

All their tiny heads were lowered, and they stared blankly, completely failing to produce the image of a human being. The man licked his lips upon seeing the young girl.

"Oi, oi, oi, she'll definitely grow up to be beautiful! Too bad she's going to be put on the market."

"Sorry, Changying," their mother mumbled and pushed Lin Yuhe over along with the documents.

The man signalled to the other people behind him and they chained her wrists and ankles, pushing her into the cage with the other slaves where she tumbled and fell in, failing tragically to even let out a cry.

Her body was still unmoving and her facial expression had not changed, not even a single twitch could be performed.

"She sure is calm," the tax collector muttered under his breath.

The man threw the woman a bag full of cash and turned to the tax collector, "You should've told me sooner there was such a beautiful child here! I would've come here sooner!"

"Let's go!"

Lin Yuhe watched the cage move further and further away from the shelter that she had lived in for years.

Her attention focused on her twin sister, who was watching from the back of the house, and her delighted mother.

She watched her mother gleaming with happiness and joy when she held the bag of coins.

She watched her mother, that was smiling so large that both the corner of her lips was raised to its limits.

She watched her mother, that did not spare a single glance at her daughter.

She watched and watched, and watched. After all...

There was nothing she could do.