The Village Chief’s Wife gritted her teeth. "Why did it have to be that girl! Anyone else in the village would have been fine, but she's the only one who can get in!"
They still remembered the day of the Yang Household Massacre ten years ago. In a moment of softhearted mercy, a village woman had rescued Yang Guo and taken her into the strangest part of the Deep Mountains behind their village.
The woman never came out, but Yang Guo had survived in that environment. When she crawled all the way back, she was still clutching an unremarkable stalk of grass.
Just as they were about to dispose of Yang Guo outright, a Traveling Merchant happened to pass through their village.
The Traveling Merchant stopped dead when he saw the grass in Yang Guo's hand. Only when he saw the villagers carrying her away did he hurry after them.
Seeing the Village Chief’s Wife holding Yang Guo, the Traveling Merchant naturally assumed she was the child's mother.
With an ingratiating smile, he asked cautiously, "Would you be willing to part with the pigweed your daughter is holding?"
The Village Chief’s Wife was certainly no fool. Her eyes darted restlessly as she glanced at the grass in Yang Guo's hand, then at the Traveling Merchant, and an idea began to form.
"My girl picked this grass on the Back Mountain. You can go pick some yourself. Why take something from a little child?"
The Traveling Merchant had already investigated the stories surrounding this village's Back Mountain on his first day there.
His expression soured. "Please don't try to fool me. Isn't the Back Mountain your village's forbidden ground? How could you bear to let your daughter go there?"
The Village Chief’s Wife was shrewd enough to know the Traveling Merchant