Chapter 2

When I put the meat on the table, I said I wanted some too.

Looking at the meager helping, my father slapped me in a fury.

“A girl, and so greedy! Have you got no shame?”

The blow knocked me over. It took me a long time to recover.

To show what a dutiful son he was, my father put two pieces in Grandma’s bowl.

She couldn’t bear to eat them. She gave them both to her precious grandson and took two spoonfuls of broth for herself.

Feeling wronged, I ran out to the gate and cried.

“They’re eating meat and won’t let me have any. They hit me too.”

The village women tried to console me. “Let it go. What’s one mouthful of meat? A couple of smacks won’t hurt. Be a good girl next time.”

Inside, I was laughing.

There wouldn’t be a next time. Heh-heh.

I stayed out until dark. Sure enough, when I got home, they were all slumped around the dinner table.

Someone passing the gate saw them and asked what had happened.

“Drank too much. They’re drunk,” I lied without batting an eye.

Then I shut the door.

I really missed my mother. She was the only person in that house who treated me like a human being.

But now she’d gone, and all at once I was an orphan.

I knew she hadn’t been happy here all these years.

She could have taken me with her. Maybe she hadn’t because, in the world that had once belonged to her, she didn’t want to be reminded of this stretch of hell.

I understood. I didn’t blame her.

My mother had already taught me so much. I believed I could make a good life for myself, even if I had to rely on myself from now on.

I waited until late that night, sitting in the main room, watching and waiting.

I waited until the chickens were asleep, the dogs were asleep, until everything in the village, human or otherwise, was asleep.

I waited until not one of the four at the table had woken up. Until white foam dribbled from their mouths.

Only then did I take the cloth bag from beside the man and open it.

Whoa! Several thick stacks of red banknotes!

I counted. One, two, three, four, five.

My father had sold me for fifty thousand yuan. Whoever bought me would pay more than that.

This was the money from selling me.

Who knew I was worth so much? And they wouldn’t even give me one piece of meat.

But I’d already filled my belly with meat, and now I had plenty of strength.

I killed my brother. Then I killed my father.

Next I tied the trafficker up tight and stuffed a dirty sock in his mouth.

I made it look as though there’d been a vicious fight in the house.

Then I took the money, packed water and dry food, hoisted the trafficker onto my back, and left.

That way, if anyone found out, they’d think the men had failed to agree on a price, had a few drinks, and started fighting.

The trafficker had beaten my father and Zhuzi to death, then decided he might as well go all the way and abducted me.

So at that moment I wasn’t a woman striding along briskly with a strapping man weighing over fifty kilos on my back.

I was a helpless, lonely, pitiful young woman at someone else’s mercy.

Boo-hoo-hoo.

I’d been walking for half the night. Dawn was coming.

As this helpless young woman passed a hollow in the mountains, she untied the trafficker and let him “accidentally” tumble down into it.

My mother had told me there was some kind of defense in the law. What was it called?

I didn’t really understand. Basically, if someone hit me, I could hit back. Something like that.

Well, I’d hit back now.

But I was scared. Really, really scared.

I’d never killed so many people at once. None of them were good people, and they all wanted to hurt me.

But I was still scared.

Would they arrest me? Put me in prison? Shoot me?

Then I thought: who knew how many people that trafficker had abducted and sold? He hadn’t been imprisoned or shot.

And there were more men in the village who beat their wives or drove people to their deaths than I could count.

When people talked about it, it was always, “She just went and hanged herself,” “She just went and jumped in the river,” “She just went mad.”

Then these men could have “just gone and started fighting.” That seemed perfectly fine.

With the whole family dead, nobody would want to spend money on autopsies.

Even if someone did find out they’d eaten rat poison, they could have “just gone and eaten rat poison.” No problem there.

So I was at peace.

I was sure I was a good person. Civilized and reasonable.

My mother had taught me. It had to be right.