Chapter 7

After my mother-in-law died, I felt perfectly justified in taking all Li Dazhuang’s cash and bank cards. I stopped bothering about whether he ate too.

I also tried pulling a few strings with the garment factory boss. If Li Dazhuang came back to work, she was to let me know.

She was a good person. She agreed without accepting my gift.

She called it “girls help girls.”

My mother had taught me that phrase. I knew what it meant.

Sure enough, Li Dazhuang went back so he could survive.

He was getting on now, an uneducated old man in his forties.

Apart from physical labor, there was nothing he could do.

The boss accepted his gift, then put him back to work.

This time, he worked especially hard.

Whenever we ran into each other at the factory, he’d glare at me viciously.

It didn’t matter. The moment his wages came in, I took his pay card.

If he dared transfer the money out, I took his phone.

If he wouldn’t hand it over, I hit him.

After a while, he couldn’t take it anymore. He filed for divorce.

Getting married had been easy. But since when could you get divorced just because you wanted to?

If it were that easy, there wouldn’t have been so many pitiful women in the videos I’d watched.

Some had been killed by their abusive husbands during the divorce cooling-off period. Others had been hunted down in revenge after the court refused their divorces…

Of course, I could never do anything so vicious.

I was only a woman who wanted a decent life, after all.

Li Dazhuang clearly thought otherwise.

He’d already moved out on his own, determined to live apart from me for two years and file again.

Then one day, who knows how much booze he’d swilled, he staggered into my home and told me to get the hell out of his house.

I was about to kick him out.

But just as I raised my foot, I realized something was wrong.

It really was his house!

Kicking him out would be a little unreasonable of me.

Maybe I was getting kinder and more merciful with age.

I invited him to sit in the living room and poured him a glass of water.

He didn’t drink it. He threw it in my face and punched me for good measure.

I wiped my face and held my temper.

“Don’t throw water around. The floor’s slippery.”

“Slippery? Slippery, you fucking—”

Bang!

Li Dazhuang swore and came at me.

But he was drunk and unsteady on his feet. He stepped in the water he’d just spilled and slipped.

His head hit the corner of the marble coffee table.

Oh my God!

The blood poured out. I couldn’t stop it, no matter how I tried.

I was terrified. I thought, I’m done for this time.

My child was only in his teens. He wasn’t even an adult yet.

Of all times, Li Dazhuang’s phone had to ring then. It made me jump.

The screen said, “Baby Kisses.”

Who the hell was that?

I answered and heard, “Darling, have you sorted it out yet? Our son’s kicking me in here!”

Whew.

I let out a long breath.

Oh, it was the other woman. I’d thought it was the police!

I made up my mind on the spot and gave the performance of my life.

“Aah! Stop hitting me! Li Dazhuang, we can talk! Ah! Ow! Ugh! Help—”

Then I ended the call.

A long time passed. The other woman didn’t call back.

Only then did I understand. She’d probably forced Li Dazhuang to come, or he’d had a few drinks and couldn’t take her goading.

Otherwise, he’d never have had the nerve to swagger in and shout at me.

But it had happened now. I had to think about what to do next.