Chapter 5

# Chapter 5

By day, the bandits raided other mountains.

At night, they returned to the Chaste Women’s Hall to indulge themselves.

Living on their leftovers, Chunhuazi and I visibly grew plumper and paler.

The village was another story.

When the men fled, they had taken every scrap of food. The women’s faces turned sallow, and hunger left them too weak to walk.

While the bandits were away, Mother steamed a great pot of buns and delivered them from house to house.

The moment she entered a doorway, curses met her.

“Pah! Anything touched by a whore is poison. Eat it and your guts will rot!”

“I’d rather starve!”

I was furious and wanted to curse them back. Mother shook her head and led me outside.

“Even beasts know they must eat,” she said. “A woman bullied into refusing food is more pitiful than any beast.”

She left the buns beneath the threshold of the hall.

The next morning, the basket was empty.

No one held a grudge against fine rice and white flour.

Only Auntie Niu and a scattered few continued to resist.

Auntie Niu adamantly refused Mother’s buns. Day and night she dug through the wild-vegetable patches, chewing until the gaps between her teeth were packed with green fibers. She chewed every mouthful again and again, trying to trick her belly.

Unfortunately, she was no real ox. In the end, her whole body swelled and she became bedridden.

When Mother heard, she made a bowl of noodle soup and sent me to deliver it.

Deeply unwilling, I stood beside Auntie Niu’s bed and thrust the bowl at her. “Eat. And when you’re finished, keep your mouth clean. You’re not allowed to curse my mother.”

The smell made her tremble. She clenched her fists until her teeth ground together.

Finally, she closed her eyes and struck with all her strength, knocking the soup to the floor. The bowl shattered with it.

At the crack, she began to laugh like a woman in convulsions. “Drink that soup and in your next life you’ll be a pig, then a dog, then a woman for a thousand generations!”

“A whore ridden by ten thousand men, and you think you can drag me down with you? Dream on!”

My eyes burned with anger. “What’s wrong with being a whore? Whores have food!”

“You couldn’t become one even if you tried. Not even the bandits want you!”

I ran as soon as the words were out.

Behind me, Auntie Niu screeched herself hoarse. “Little slut! Just wait! When your father comes home, every whore among you will be drowned in a pig cage!”

The moment I returned to the hall, I asked Mother, “Is Father coming back?”

Distracted, she nodded. “When the bandits leave, the men will return.”

I remembered Auntie Niu’s threat and felt afraid.

Sure enough, the bandits did not allow us the pleasure of being whores forever.

One month later, they left.

The men came home.

Auntie Niu had not starved after all. Having survived her ordeal, she marched out with her head high, like a victorious rooster.

The next instant, her husband slapped her to the ground.

“The bandits are gone.”

“Why aren’t you dead?”

Weak with hunger and struck so hard, Auntie Niu fainted in the middle of the road.

No one tended to her.

The men stepped across her body, shouting threats at the other women.

“Once we deal with the whores in the hall, we’ll settle accounts with the rest of you little sluts!”

The village chief and Father led the way, surrounding the Chaste Women’s Hall in a show of unstoppable might.

“Old Wu,” the chief asked, “you’re not going soft, are you?”

Father snorted. His face twisted savagely as he kicked down the doors.

“You shameless whores! You’ve dishonored the family. How do you want to die?”