“Now, I would not sell a child!” he said loudly. “I was sold,” she answered very slowly. “I was sold to a great house so that my parents could return to their home.” “And would you sell the child, therefore?” “If it were only I, she would be killed before she was sold … the slave of slaves was I! But a dead girl brings nothing. I would sell this girl for you—to take you back to the land.” “Never would I,” said Wang Lung stoutly, “not though I spent my life in this wilderness.”
