Chapter 1

My mother had been taken away. This was big news in our village.

The women in our village hardly ever had contact with outsiders, let alone dozens of them arriving in more than ten cars.

Every one of them had a long metal stick with a lump of iron on the end. They said they’d come to our village to play some kind of ball game.

Then they found my mother, bundled her into a car, and left.

The people in our village were a vicious bunch, but nobody dared stop them.

“One swing of that iron lump and you’d have a bloody hole in your head. Who’d dare?”

“How could Zhuzi’s mother just leave with them? What’s her husband supposed to do? What about the children?”

“What a heartless mother, walking off and abandoning her children like that.”

And so on.

Zhuzi was my little brother. He was sixteen, practically a grown man.

At first he’d stood in front of the car and refused to let it leave, demanding fifty thousand yuan.

But the driver ignored him and drove straight at him, so he got out of the way himself.

He kept shouting, though. “This is trafficking women! You’re kidnapping someone! I’ll call the police and have you arrested!”

It was all talk. He didn’t dare call the police.

He’d be walking straight into a trap.

If things went wrong, plenty of families in our village would be in trouble.

He wouldn’t be able to show his face around the village afterward.

My mother was gone. The car she rode in was tall and huge, like a black tank.

It kicked up so much dust I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

Only when it was far away did my father come out, stamping his feet and cursing.

“Ungrateful bitch! I’ve fed her and kept her all these years, even gave her two children. What more does she want?”

I’d never been to school. I didn’t understand things.

But even I knew he hadn’t come out before because he was afraid those people would beat him up.

My father was a terrible coward. He didn’t dare hit anyone.

Except me and my mother.

Grandma came out crying too.

“We spent eight thousand yuan on her! Eight thousand, twenty years ago! And she just walks off!”

“Did you give it to Mom?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Does it matter who got it? We spent it because of her, didn’t we? She doesn’t know what’s good for her! Doesn’t appreciate a thing!”

With my mother gone, the whole household stopped functioning.

“Nobody to earn money, nobody to cook. How’s Zhuzi supposed to get a wife? Heartless whore!”

My father spat up a gob of phlegm and went on cursing.

He didn’t work.

He said he was the man, so all he had to do was handle the important family business. Trifling things like farming, earning wages, laundry, and cooking certainly weren’t worth troubling him over.

That was why he wouldn’t let me go to school. I just worked alongside my mother.

As she worked, my mother taught me sums and how to read, and even a little simple English.

That was why I admired her so much.

She knew so, so many things. More than the teachers at the village primary school.

Just then, though, there really was an important piece of family business.

Zhuzi hadn’t even finished middle school before he gave up. Grandma said we might as well find him a wife early.

But getting a wife cost money.

Zhuzi shouted angrily, “It’s all my sister’s fault for not blocking the car with me. We could’ve got fifty thousand out of them, at least!”

I said she was our mother. How could we sell her?

Zhuzi said if you could buy a wife, why couldn’t you sell a mother?

I asked what would have happened if the car had killed me.

He said that would have been even better. We could’ve asked for more.

Good. Very good.

He couldn’t stay here. I’d been right about that.

Arguing about it now wouldn’t do any good. My father went out to make a phone call, and a man soon arrived.

He brought a strip of pork and two bottles of liquor, with a cloth bag slung at his waist.

The bag was bulging.

My father said, “Eighteen.”

The man exchanged a look with him, then began looking me up and down.

“Shouldn’t be hard to sell,” he said.

At that, Grandma, my father, and my brother all smiled. They looked relieved.

My father tossed me the pork and told me to cook something nice.

I said I didn’t know how. Grandma immediately raised her walking stick and hit me.

“Can’t do this, can’t do that! What family would ever want you for a daughter-in-law?”

But I’d never eaten meat in my life. I had no idea how to cook it.

Whenever we’d had meat before, Grandma cooked it, and my father and brother ate it in secret.

Sometimes Grandma got a mouthful of meat broth to mix with her rice. My mother and I never got so much as a drop of grease.

She could beat me to death and I still wouldn’t know how to cook it.

That was when the man spoke, all smiles.

“Don’t be scared, little sister. Pork tastes good however you cook it.”

His words seemed to carry weight. Grandma stopped hitting me at once.

They discussed how to find Zhuzi a wife in the main room while I cooked in the kitchen.

I cut up the pork and cooked it with oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar. Since I really didn’t know what should go in and what shouldn’t, I just put in a little of everything.

Once it was cooked, it really was delicious. It smelled wonderful.

I’d never tasted anything so good. With nobody watching, I couldn’t help eating piece after piece.

Only after I’d eaten almost half did it hit me: if they found out I’d stolen any, they’d beat me to death.

I didn’t want to be beaten to death. I didn’t want to be sold either.

I knew the man in the main room was going to take me away and sell me.

It was too late now. I couldn’t spit the meat back up.

Then I had an idea.

If Zhuzi died, he wouldn’t need a wife.

If my father died, nobody would beat me anymore.

Grandma couldn’t beat me in a fight. I was sure of that.

So I ate two more pieces, then added some meat-scented rat poison to the pot.

The meat smelled even better.