Chapter 5

I was so idle I could practically have grown flowers.

Apart from occasionally going to Hundred Flowers Ravine to bury the dead baby boys, I had nothing left to do.

One day, as I sat idly watching ants fight, a crowd pushed open my courtyard gate.

“Blessed girl!”

I was a little surprised.

No one had come to see me for almost a year.

They trapped me in the courtyard.

The parents and relatives of the boys successfully born with my help.

They shouted that I had ruined them, ruined their children.

Without me, they wouldn’t have spent more than a decade having nothing but sons.

Now their sons were grown, and there wasn’t a single girl to be found.

They vented their anger at me, paying no attention to my explanations.

Eventually, fists, feet, and clubs rained mercilessly down on my body. It hurt. It hurt so much.

I looked desperately at the familiar villagers of Shangxi, begging for help with my eyes.

At my countless fathers and mothers.

Not one stood up to say a word for me.

I died.

Beaten to death by the villagers who had once worshipped me as a god.

My soul floated in the air. I watched them kick and punch my lifeless body.

“Stop!”

A stooped old figure shakily pushed through the crowd, gathered my body into her arms, and wailed.

“Instead of wasting your time beating her, go to Hundred Flowers Ravine and bow your heads! Atone for your sins!”

Granny had never spoken with such fury. More than half the crowd stood stunned and motionless.

One of the bolder ones spoke back.

“What does beating this girl have to do with Hundred Flowers Ravine? Don’t talk nonsense, old woman. If anyone’s sinned, it’s her!”

Granny held me in her arms as though I were asleep.

“Go home and ask your elders how Hundred Flowers Ravine got its name. How many of your families dare say you’ve never done wrong there?”

“Do you know where this child came from? Do you know what she really is?”

“She was already trying to save you. Your own sins wouldn’t let you off, and you beat her to death!”

“You used her when you needed her and cast her aside when you didn’t. You had perfectly good lives ahead of you, and you ruined them yourselves!”

From Granny’s broken words, I learned that for all those years she had gone to Hundred Flowers Ravine every Qingming, Ghost Festival, and Winter Clothes Festival to make offerings.

She had hoped to ease the resentment there.

But—but.

But that resentment was me!

I was resentment given form!

The more resentment there was, the stronger I became.

The less there was, the weaker I grew.

All these years, I had only felt my power grow stronger. It had never shown any sign of weakening.

I supposed that was because Granny had never looked down on girls.

The resentment lingering in that ravine had nothing to do with her.

So however many offerings she made, they couldn’t ease it in the slightest.

“Perhaps Hundred Flowers Ravine has trapped their souls and kept them from being reborn.”

“Or perhaps those children are so disappointed in you that they never want to return to this place!”