chapter 2

When I returned, Mother was sitting beneath the eaves, pounding a fist against her aching waist.

My little brother ran over, delighted, and tried to hug me. I hurried to put the firewood in the kitchen and washed my hands before picking him up.

My older brother came home with his hoe, his feet caked in mud.

I took out Granny Huang’s peanuts and counted them. There were six.

“Mother, I have peanuts.” I held them out.

Relief flickered across her face. She took them and divided them into three portions, two for each child.

She sat silently beside us as the daylight faded.

Loneliness washed over me, and I could only hold my little brother tighter.

Granny Huang came bustling into our yard again, her face caught between excitement and righteous outrage.

“Sister! The village head says everyone is meeting at the drum tower tonight to discuss the land Changgui left behind!”

Mother’s face went white.

The drum tower was where our village decided important matters. The last great discussion had been about building a bridge, because without one we had no proper road out of the village.

That bridge had killed Father.

He had been dead barely a month, and already the villagers were coveting his land.

Before long, Eldest Uncle and Third Uncle arrived.

My brother put sweet potatoes into a pot of water. I lit the fire. That was our supper.

All of us held our breath as we listened to the adults talk. Mother began to cry, quietly and with restraint, but we three children still heard her. Even my little brother was unusually still.

Eldest Uncle came straight to the point. “Sister-in-law, give us an honest answer. Changgui is dead, and you’re still young. We won’t blame you if you remarry. But if you stay and raise these children, we’ll die before we let anyone steal Changgui’s land.”

There was blood in his voice. All three of us tensed, afraid a fight would break out.

The village had redistributed its fields the year before. Father had insisted on it because our little brother was a boy and, at three years old, was entitled to his share.

Land was allotted according to the number of males in each household. Now that our family had lost one man, the village wanted to reclaim part of ours.

“Who would I remarry?” I heard Mother say. “That dead fool refused to listen to me and insisted on building the bridge. Now he’s left one widow and three fatherless children for everyone to bully. When I die, I’ll still be buried in the Zhou family graveyard. I’ll ask him myself whether he finally knows he was wrong!”

My brother’s tears struck my arm.

He wrapped his arms around me. “I’ll protect all of you. I promise.”

Mother came into the kitchen. “Eat your sweet potatoes and go to bed. Baoting, you’re going to school by yourself tomorrow.”

Then she tucked a kitchen knife into the back of her waistband.

She looked ready to fight someone to the death.

We were all grim-faced.

Our little brother eventually fell asleep after eating his sweet potato. My older brother and I slipped out and crept to the drum tower to listen.

Mother stood there with her hair loose, wailing and cursing.

“Anyone who touches my family’s land will have to kill me first—or I’ll kill him!”

She drew the knife and pointed it at several village men surrounding her. They retreated a step, wary of the blade.

Eldest Uncle and Third Uncle stood behind her, facing them down.

Everyone urged her to calm herself.

“Calm myself?” she screamed. “How can I be calm? I have three children to raise on my own. We don’t have enough grain as it is. If you take back our fields, all four of us will starve! Changgui died for this village, and now, before his bones are cold, you dare bully his widow and orphans? Aren’t you afraid of divine punishment?”

Someone muttered that no woman should speak so viciously.

“I don’t just speak viciously. I’ll cut a man down!” Mother shouted. “Don’t think being a woman makes me easy prey!”

In the end, the redistribution was postponed.

Half a month passed. My brother began coming home later every day. Before, he had returned after school with enough daylight left to help around the house. Now it was often pitch-dark before he appeared.

One evening, he stepped through the door to find Mother seated in a chair with a bamboo switch in her hand.

“Why are you so late?”

Panic flashed openly across his face.

“The teacher kept me behind.”

Mother stared at him.

An unspoken battle passed between them, but she said nothing more.

That night I whispered to him, “Brother, Granny Huang told Mother and me that you’ve been spending time with those hooligans in town. She said you’ve gone bad. Please don’t stay with them.”

The town hooligans were lazy good-for-nothings whom everyone despised. They gambled, refused to work, and were forever stealing chickens or sneaking off with other people’s things. Even their own families were ashamed of them.

When Granny Huang spoke of them, she sounded contemptuous and excited, but a little frightened too. Once those men targeted a household, there was no peace. They had nothing to lose, and there were enough of them that ordinary families could not win a fight.

My brother rolled over with his back to me and went to sleep.

I could not stop worrying.

After the midday meal the next day, I was about to take my little brother out to cut fodder for Old Yellow Ox when Mother stopped me.

“We’re going to meet your brother after school.”

I lit up. We were going to town!

I cut grass twice as fast as usual. But then I remembered my brother had gone bad. Mother would never idle away an afternoon simply to meet him.

My stomach tightened.