Chapter 8
In the dim light, carrying Yumo felt like carrying a wisp of cloud.
So fragile. So light.
Once we escaped the village, the skinny horse could no longer bear both our weight. I killed it on the spot.
I fed the unconscious Yumo a little horse blood. Gradually, she came around and bent hazily over the horse’s neck to drink, swallowing mouthful after mouthful and gagging at the rank smell.
Once her belly was full, she sat to one side, staring into space.
Watching me butcher the horse with my dagger, she murmured, “Hua Nu, tell me. Why are they all so heartless?”
“Does being a whore once mean I’m a whore forever?”
She did not understand that when men said they liked prostitutes, they did not love them as human beings.
What they liked was the freedom to toy with and control women they had paid for—to make those women willingly submit because they had no choice.
But even had she never been a prostitute, would her fate in these troubled times have been any better?
After a silence, I spoke slowly. “No… It has nothing to do with whether you’re a whore.”
“Then what does it have to do with?”
Looking wretched, she murmured to herself, “Am I never going to meet a man who will cherish me?”
“Perhaps you don’t need anyone’s pity.”
“But in a world like this, how are we women supposed to survive?”
Yumo studied my burly figure for a moment and sighed. “Oh, Hua Nu. If only you were a man!”
“Am I no good as a woman?”
My question stunned her. “No! I didn’t mean you’re no good. I…”
“Enough,” I said quietly.
“Is being a man so difficult? I can be a man too.”
I picked up my dagger, wiped away the horse blood, and raised the gleaming blade. As strand after strand of long hair fell to the ground, Yumo’s eyes widened.
Then, staring at my shaved head, she burst into tears. “Hua Nu! Oh, Hua Nu!”
“Who will marry you now?”
My resolve seemed to have shaken her. Yumo was quiet over the next few days.
We wrapped up the remaining horse meat as provisions for our next journey.
About a hundred li away stood Deerhead Mountain. With refugees pouring in, a bandit stronghold had gradually formed there. In several previous runs, it was where I had first risen to prominence.
Not wanting to miss my chance, I wrapped my head and face in rags and hurried off with Yumo. Passersby saw my broad shoulders and thick waist beside her delicate little figure and assumed we were a husband and wife fleeing disaster.
Even a hundred li of mountain paths took only a few days and nights when we traveled without stopping.
Once I climbed Deerhead Mountain, several bandits noticed that I could fight and recommended me to their chief—the petty emperor.
He was tall and imposing, with sharp, hawkish eyes and brows. The moment he saw me, his mouth turned down. “Look what you’ve brought me. Do you take me for a fool?”
The bandits did not understand. He flung his cloak behind him and pointed at me.
“She’s a woman!”
The outlaws on this mountain were all refugees. Hungry, wolfish eyes turned toward me.
Here, women were a very popular kind of food too.
As in the earlier runs, I stood squarely in the middle of the hall, before a huge bronze cauldron, and swept the room with a cold look.
“And what if I am?”
Then, before their astonished eyes, I hoisted the great cauldron in a single effort—
A pot large enough to cook for dozens, weighing well over a hundred jin!
Not only did the petty emperor’s expression change; the bandits who had been sharpening their knives warily put away their cleavers.
One by one, they moved around behind me, gradually closing in.
What these men did not know—
Was just how long I had been preparing for this day…
The brawl erupted in an instant!
In the rough stronghold hall, I turned on the would-be ambushers before they could strike. A punch straight to the face, a blow to the chest, an utterly unsporting sweep of the leg or kick to the groin—one after another, I left them grimacing in pain, blood streaming from their noses!
The petty emperor watched, dazzled, and clicked his tongue in wonder.
“Good! Good! Good!”
When I drove back another bandit, he waved the others off and circled me, examining me from every angle. “A woman, sure…”
“But look at these men. The ones bigger than you aren’t as quick. The ones quicker than you aren’t as big!”
“Well! Would you look at that!”
The bandits began cursing at his assessment.
Fortunately, the petty emperor settled the matter.
“She stays!”