Chapter 1

Chapter 1

When I was little, I was always hungry.

Even now, after entering the workforce, I still remember the sour bitterness that seeped from unripe fruit, the pain of hard, brittle steamed buns scraping down my throat, and the terror and unease of kneeling at the Bodhisattva’s feet, kowtowing after stealing offerings to eat…

Every memory is as clear as if it happened yesterday.

But whenever I bring up the past, my parents always look surprised and say they never deprived me of food or drink.

They are highly educated intellectuals. Though they were somewhat distant with me, they were never exactly terrible.

Even so, I have never been able to forget those memories.

Because of that, our relationship has always been lukewarm.

After graduation, I was hired by a local government office.

It was a subordinate unit of the City Investigation Bureau, dedicated to cataloging objects left behind after various cases. Most of their origins were vague at best.

Among these remnants were wooden combs from the Qing dynasty, rust-covered daggers, and oddly shaped bottles and jars. Some were said to have been kept there for over a century.

On my first day on duty, I was drawn to a statue covered in red gauze.

Seeing me holding the statue and reluctant to put it down, a colleague named Dawei quickly stopped me. “If I were you, I’d put that down right now.”

“Why?”

“…It’s seriously evil.”

He muttered that and went back to playing his game.

I have always been a staunch atheist, but there was something special about that statue that bothered me.

So before putting it back, I lifted the red gauze and took another look.

…

I was certain.

It really was just an ordinary idol.

The next day.

I was making offerings to the Bodhisattva when the doorbell suddenly rang.

I went to answer the door, only to find that I had received a huge amount of money.

I mean truly “received.”

There was no delivery notice, no transfer alert. The money had simply been packed into a large red suitcase and carelessly dumped at my front door.

Bundles upon bundles of red banknotes were stacked neatly inside.

The origin of the money was completely unknown.

It even made me wonder if this was some new-year scheme cooked up by a fraud ring.

Confused, I couldn’t help calling my parents.

Before I could even explain what had happened, I heard my father say coldly from the other end, “If you’re in trouble, go to the police. Why are you calling us?”

“…”

Before I could react, the words had already left my mouth on instinct.

“…I’m sorry.”

My mother snatched the phone from him. “Don’t call us again!

“You’ll bring bad luck into this family!”

When I was very young, because I could hear voices in the void, a doctor diagnosed me with congenital schizophrenia.

My parents were both highly educated intellectuals. They firmly believed education could reform anything, so they once tried to prune me the way one prunes stray branches, hoping I would grow into something normal.

But as I grew older, they came to realize with increasing despair that

I was a bad seed.

I would never grow into what they wanted.

And the things my parents said to me changed from repeated lectures into hopeless scolding.

“Look at yourself. Why are other people’s daughters all so bright and cheerful?

“Why are you always so strange, so gloomy?

“Sometimes, I really wonder if you’re even our child!”

Ever since my younger sister was born, they rarely contacted me.

After all, compared to a freak like me who was always muttering to herself, my sister-who knew how to act spoiled, who cried and made a fuss-was the daughter they had always dreamed of.

Realizing that I had troubled them yet again,

all I could do was keep saying sorry.

I didn’t even notice when the call had been disconnected on the other end.