Dimensional Bookstore

The girl was able to be rescued this time thanks to the help of the tree man's friends. They hid her and concealed her scent. Otherwise, he would have had to put in so much effort to rescue Sophia with such a bastard. Come out.

So he sincerely said to the tree man standing silently aside: "Thank you for your help."

The rough bark twisted and trembled, and an old face emerged from the center of the tree. The tree man's speech was a bit faster, but still very slow compared to humans: "It doesn't matter, you are... Eric's... friend ”

Eric is the name of the tree man from before.

Le Jing smiled and looked at him curiously: "My name is Le Jing, can you tell me your name?"

"Corey." The tree man said, "I heard from Eric that you... came from another world. If... everything is okay, can you come over... and talk to me... about your world?"

"Of course, I also have many things I want to ask you."

Sofia watched in horror as the adult chatted and laughed with the legendary evil tree spirit, and couldn't help but take a step back.

The sound of footsteps immediately attracted Le Jing's attention. He stopped communicating and smiled apologetically at Sophia: "Sorry, I forgot to tell you in advance. Did I scare you?"

"He is not a strange person." The young man's expression was sparse and normal, as if he was not an evil tree spirit, but an ordinary elder. "This is the tree man Corey. He was the one who saved you just now." And to Corey, "She's Sophia."

The tree man's green eyes then looked at Sophia, "Hello, Sophia." The tree man said friendly.

Looking at the strange old man's face appearing on the tree trunk, Sophia swallowed her saliva and glanced at Le Jing carefully. After noticing his encouraging gaze, she finally plucked up the courage, "Hello." She whispered, "Thank you. You saved me."

The tree man stared at her for a moment, and Sofia resisted the urge to step back and bravely faced him. After a while, the tree man laughed hoarsely: "He is a good boy."

"Yes." Le Jing smiled and nodded: "He is a very gentle child."

Sofia stood there listening to their exchange and cautiously looked at Le Jing with furtive glances.

Those who can be with tree spirits must not be ordinary humans. Maybe he is the legendary devil in the forest?

Looking at the young man's peaceful features, she couldn't help but think that the devil was so good-looking.

The story says that the devil saves people in exchange for their souls. But she still has to wait for her mother and cannot give her soul to him. And she has no money, so how should she repay Mr. Devil?

She thought and thought, and after Mr. Devil took her to a luxurious and beautiful house and gave her a basin of bath water for her to take a bath, she finally figured out what to do.

This made her sigh in relief.

She stopped Mr. Devil who was about to leave, and lifted up her skirt without caring, "I really don't know how to repay you." The girl's blue eyes sparkled under the light, and her expression was innocent and ignorant. An angel, "Mom said I'm too young now and men won't like me. But I only have my own body, and I will work hard, sir."

Le Jing was stunned.

Those white legs that Caucasians are accustomed to have are covered with large and small blue bruises, some of which are still very new!

He looked away, took a step back, and said sternly: "Pull down your skirt first!"

This was the first time he spoke to Sophia in such a terrifying tone. Sophia's face suddenly turned pale. She immediately put down her skirt, hugged her body and trembled reflexively: "I'm sorry, I was wrong, I was wrong, I'm sorry, don't hit me, sir..." Those blue eyes were filled with emotion at this time. There was a layer of mist, but the tears did not fall.

She didn't even dare to cry!

This realization made the anger in Le Jing's heart even more intense. He took a deep breath, softened his expression, and said softly: "I don't mean to blame you. To me, Sophia is like my sister. How can I be angry with my sister?"

After a brief period of comfort, Sophia finally calmed down. Le Jing knelt down, gently stroked her soft red hair, and asked carefully, "Sofia, what's the matter with the injury on your leg? Did someone hit you?" Le Jing deliberately used a casual and relaxed tone. He spoke as if it was no big deal.

Sure enough, Sophia replied briskly: "It was my mother who beat me. Because I made my mother angry."

Although they had known each other for a short time, Le Jing knew that Sophia was a well-behaved and sensible girl, and he did not think that Sophia could do anything so extreme that she needed to be beaten so hard.

"What did you do to make mom angry?"

"Because my brother died, but I survived." Sophia lowered her eyes in frustration, "Mom is very sad, why wasn't I the one who died?"

After a brief period of frustration, the girl raised her innocent smile again: "But my mother still loves me most of the time. She is willing to give me food, which is already good. Tom's sisters are all obsessed with Aunt Tina. Drowned in the pond." At the end, she nodded and concluded, "So my mother still loves me very much."

What is poverty?

Poverty is not about being in rags and not having enough to eat, it is about being without love.

A delicate thing like love can only have a chance to survive and grow if it has enough food and clothing.

Le Jing suddenly remembered a documentary called "Human" that he had watched before. The film begins with a monologue from a black death row inmate.

He lived in the slums since he was a child, living with his stepfather and mother. His stepfather often beat him and told him that he beat him because he loved him, "The beating on your body hurts my heart."

So he believed from a young age that love is hurt.

Later, when he grew up, he robbed, murdered, and committed numerous crimes, because his stepfather told him: "I beat you because I love you." He hurt everyone he loved and measured the depth of his love by the intensity of the hurt.

He would only use violence to face this world that was not gentle to him.

However, he was forgiven by the victim's family.

He said: "No matter what, she should hate me, but she didn't." At this point, the black man with a wooden expression shed tears for the first time.

The world kisses me with pain, and I want to repay it with songs. Those who can do this must be great men. And most of the people in the world are just mediocre and ordinary people. How can people who have not been treated gently by the world treat the world gently?

A child is a mirror. How you treat him will determine what kind of person he will become.

That's why Le Jing didn't want to have his own offspring. Because he didn't have the confidence to teach his children well and bring them happiness.

Le Jing took a deep breath to control himself from showing a ferocious face. He leaned down and gently wiped away the tears from Sophia's eyes: "I won't hit you, I promise, never."

※

Sophia finished her bath quickly. Because Le Jing didn't have clothes for little girls, she had to continue wearing her dirty clothes.

The young man sat at the dining table and gently called him forward: "Are you hungry? I baked some bread for you, come and eat."

The golden baked bread was fragrant, and Sophia's eyes lit up, and her stomach almost immediately roared. She blushed and stuck out her tongue, and didn't care about being reserved, and sat down quickly and started to gobble it up.

Le Jing handed her a glass of milk and said softly, "Eat slowly, drink some milk, don't choke."

When Sophia had almost finished eating, Le Jing asked with a smile, "Do you like listening to stories?"

Sophia still had white milk stains on her lips, and nodded with bright eyes.

Le Jing stood up: "Wait for me." He came back soon, this time with a book in his hand.

He raised the book in his hand to Sophia and winked at her mysteriously: "I bet you will like it."

Sophia looked at the green hardcover book in awe and was at a loss: "Sir, I can't read."

Le Jing was not surprised at all. Not to mention poor people like Sophia, even many of the current nobles can't read a single word.

"It doesn't matter, I'll read it to you." Le Jing smiled at her soothingly and successfully eased Sophia's emotions.

"The name of this book is "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils."

It is the only fairy tale in the world that has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Its author, Selma Lagerlöf, became the world's first female writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

This is a fairy tale that Le Jing read countless times when he was a child. The fantasy experience of the protagonist Nils riding a flying goose to travel around the world also made him imagine. It was as if he had grown wings and flew out of the closed city to see a bigger world.

This world is big, so you will definitely meet gentle people and find a place that belongs to you.

And this is what he wanted to tell Sophia.

"Once upon a time there was a boy. He was about fourteen years old, very thin, tall and thin, and had light yellow hair like flax. He didn't have much of a future. He was most happy to sleep and eat, and he loved to be naughty..."

So, this beautiful story began.

The poor girl who was exiled by the villagers as a witch met the overly kind and generous "devil", and then heard an overly beautiful and incredible fantasy story from the "devil".

This sounds like the beginning of a great legend, right?

The author has something to say:

"The Wonderful Adventures of Nils", I read this book countless times when I was a child, and I can still remember some of the plot.

It's really great! I love it!

At that time, I didn't know "The Little Prince", "Pippi Lu", or Yang Hongying (I only found out after I grew up that her naughty boy Ma Xiaotiao was plagiarized from foreign children's literature, sad). It can be said that my first impression of fairy tales began with "The Wonderful Adventures of Nils" and "Five Children and the Phoenix and the Magic Carpet" by British female writer Edith Nesbit. These two books completed my enlightenment of Western fantasy novels. From then on, I was deeply fascinated by magic, and then I fell in love with "Harry Potter".