Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My mother was a madwoman who had drifted down the river.

My father fished her out of the water. While searching her for silver, he discovered she was still breathing.

My mother was beautiful, but her mind wasn’t right. She couldn’t remember anything, and she was always trying to run away.

My father wanted to keep her so she could look after his three motherless children. At the very least, he thought, she could do a bit of washing and scrubbing.

But my mother could hardly even take care of herself.

It wasn’t until her second year with us, after she gave birth to me, that she began to come back to her senses.

Through the midwife’s mouth, outsiders finally learned what sort of mad mother I had.

The more people talked, the more exaggerated it became. They said my mother was like a fairy descended from the heavens.

Prettier than the paintings on lanterns.

The rumors even reached Clerk Li of the River Patrol Office.

He came to our door under the pretext of collecting the fish tax.

My father had not yet returned from fishing.

After he called five or six times, my mother went out to meet him with a rope still tied around her ankle and a veil over her face. Then, before the wide-eyed crowd, she tore off the veil she had always kept on.

Oh my. What fairy? Her face was covered in bloody gashes, and that chilling smile of hers nearly scared the life out of everyone.

Clerk Li fled in terror.

That night, as usual, my father brought back a crucian carp to make nourishing soup.

After hearing what my eldest brother told him, he kept praising my mother, saying she was a good, virtuous woman who knew how to keep herself proper.

Then he stared at her face and frowned.

Although my mother’s face was ruined, her mind had suddenly cleared.

All at once, she knew how to take care of me, and how to take care of the children.

From that day on, she stopped trying to run. She became a mother through and through, busy from morning to night, inside and outside the house.

She paid no mind to her own unhealed face. All she thought about was how to help me eat a little better.

How to help me eat a little more.

She begged my father to leave one fish at home from then on.

But after that day, my father no longer tied her up, and he never brought back any of his catch again.

In fact, whenever my father saw my mother’s face, he would grow irritated. “You only needed to scare him a little that day. Why did you have to cut yourself so many times? It’s miserable to look at.”

After the drought began, he cursed her over it even more.

“If you hadn’t slashed up your face, you could’ve gone to Clerk Li like the Li family’s wife did. They had half their fish tax waived! Half! You useless thing, all you know how to do is eat!”

The river shrank day by day.

The fish we caught dwindled day by day too.

My three brothers were grown now, and had to go out with my father to fight and seize fishing grounds. All the food had to go to them. I was never full.

Even when I walked, I felt like I was floating.

The characters my mother taught me in the morning would still be in my head at dawn, but by noon I would be so hungry I forgot them.

Aunt Li’s family had a little more to spare. At that time, they still had thin porridge to drink. If I stared long enough, Little Sixth Brother would secretly come out and give me a spoonful.

“Just one spoon, all right? Eat it and hurry home. My mother will scold me if she finds out.”

Later, even their family had no thin porridge left to eat.

The river dried all the way down to its bed.

At first there was only silt, and everyone floundered into it, scrambling to pick up fish and eels and snakes struggling in the mud.

My mother just stood by the riverbank, her face full of sorrow, one hand covering her mouth.

I asked her what was wrong.

My mother said, “It’s the season for eating meat again.”

I don’t like meat.