Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Aunt Liu lit the fire with trembling hands and washed the rice with extreme care before putting it on to boil.

She didn’t dare look back at me, her shoulders hunched as she constantly avoided my gaze.

I watched her intently, memorizing every step.

How much rice, how much water, how high the flame, and how long to cook.

She also told me that I couldn’t just add any grass to the rice, as some wild weeds were poisonous.

One couldn’t just eat rats, either; if one truly had to eat them, skinning them wasn’t enough.

They had to be gutted, the internal organs removed, and then washed thoroughly. It was best to roast them over a fire rather than boiling them with the congee.

I truly benefited a lot from her guidance.

Once the rice was ready, Aunt Liu knelt and held out the bowl to me with both hands.

“Qi Niang, please, eat. Once you’ve had your fill, go on your way. Stop scaring people.”

I didn’t eat. I said, “This is for Liu’er and Zhuan’er. I can’t eat it anyway.”

Her face paled further as she stammered, “Right, right, you don’t need to eat. I’ll take it to Liu’er and Zhuan’er right now.”

She carried it over and didn’t return for a long time.

By nightfall, just as her sons and grandsons were about to return home, she finally came back, wailing as she clutched the courtyard gate and yelled at me.

“Qi Niang, please leave! My family has never done you wrong!”

I said aggrievedly, “Teach me how to wash the pots and bowls. I’ll leave once I’ve learned.”

She dragged her feet back into the house and, with a face like she was at a funeral, taught me how to wash the dishes.

She washed them over and over again, until the bowls were nearly cracked from the scrubbing.

As she washed, she said, “Qi Niang, is it because you can’t stop worrying about the children?

“Aunt Liu actually understands you-parent to parent. If I died and was still thinking of my children, I wouldn’t be able to close my eyes either.”

For some reason, she started wiping away tears again.

Once I had learned, I walked out of the courtyard. Aunt Liu chased after me, shivering violently.

“Qi Niang, why don’t you ever smile? Are you dissatisfied? Are you going to come back in the middle of the night?”

Smile?

What kind of movement was that?

I mimicked the Qi Niang in my memory, struggling to pull the corners of my mouth wide.

Aunt Liu fainted again.

Chapter 6

Since I couldn’t just eat rats, I would have to eat fish.

During the day, I caught fish in the river up in the mountains.

In the reflection was a terrifying face.

Two eyes were sunken and weeping bloody tears; the face was bloated and pale, riddled with bloody, rotting holes.

More than half the scalp had been torn away, and maggots were squirming underneath.

No wonder Aunt Liu was afraid.

But Liu’er and Zhuan’er weren’t afraid. Every night, they had to press close to me to sleep, and they slept soundly and sweetly.

I slowly closed my eyes and opened them again.

The surface of the water now reflected a clean, gentle, round face that belonged to Qi Niang.

I tried to smile again.

It was very stiff.

I practiced many times until I was satisfied.

I had just reached the mountain path carrying the fish when, from a distance, I heard Liu’er’s crying and screaming.

“I won’t go with you! You’re a bad man! You’re the one who hurt Mother!”

“Mother, Mother, don’t come back! Father is here, he’s going to hit you again!”

A man was manhandling Liu’er, dragging her out of the house by force. He was cursing her as the daughter of a whore and saying he was going to sell her to a brothel.

Zhuan’er stumbled forward to grab his sister’s sleeve, only to be kicked away by the man.

“You son of a bitch, you ungrateful brat!”

Zhuan’er fell to the ground, foaming at the mouth, his small face deathly pale.

Seeing her brother motionless, Liu’er let out a shrill cry and bit down hard on the man’s hand.

The man screamed in pain and delivered a heavy slap to Liu’er’s face.

“You useless, money-losing thing! I raised you this big, only for you to be an ungrateful wolf.

“I’ve been driven to a dead end by debt collectors. It’s time for you to repay me.”

Liu’er was dazed by the slap, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth as she failed to react for a long moment.

He picked Liu’er up again and held her in his arms.

“Good Liu’er, just stay in the brothel for a while. Once Father wins some money, I’ll come and redeem you immediately.

“When that time comes, I’ll buy a big house for you and Zhuan’er, and buy maidservants to wait on you both.

“Do me a favor. Don’t be like your mother, that whore with her fake dignity. Give your father a way to live.”

He was about to take Liu’er away when he turned and saw me standing at the courtyard gate.

“Ah!”

He let out a heart-wrenching scream, dropped Liu’er, and scrambled backward on his hands and knees.

“You… Qi Niang? How are you not dead?”

Qi Niang was, of course, already dead.

I knew Liu’er and Zhuan’er weren’t afraid, so I revealed the way Qi Niang was supposed to look now.

Tattered and torn, without a shred of human likeness.

The man screamed incessantly in terror, swinging whatever was at hand to strike at me.

“You brought this on yourself!

“All you had to do was sleep with a man for a few nights and the debt would have been paid in full!

“You refused, and you wouldn’t let Liu’er go either. Weren’t you intentionally trying to drive me to my death?

“Qi Niang, don’t blame me. I really didn’t mean to beat you to death. Who knew you couldn’t take a beating-“