Chapter 2

Chapter 2

That’s right. I don’t want either of those two men anymore.

It wasn’t until I went to the northwest that I learned just how vast the world truly was.

Men could risk their lives and spill their blood, build unparalleled merits, and keep climbing higher and higher.

And once they reached a certain height…

No one cared what they had been before.

A thief, a hooligan-none of it mattered.

As long as a man succeeded in standing above the rest, everyone would look up to him.

In the past, I didn’t know what kind of person I wanted to become.

I only knew what kind of person I did not want to be.

When I was little, I watched my father beat my mother again and again.

A man never needed a reason to hit a woman.

My mother would hold me in her arms, crying, despairing, enduring day after day.

Women, once married, were tied to one tiny patch of land for the rest of their lives.

When I was young and ignorant, I said, “Mother! Let’s run away! I heard the storytellers say the world is huge! We can go to the capital. Even if we have to beg, we’ll still fill our stomachs.”

My mother’s eyes were empty as she murmured, “Daniu, Mother’s name is carved into your father’s household register. That register is like a gravestone. It has already written out Mother’s life and death.”

After a woman married, she no longer had a name of her own.

Before my mother married, her maiden name was Wang Xiulian.

After marriage, the neighbors called her Tieshan’s wife or Old Li’s wife.

When she went to the yamen to handle official matters, people called her Li Wangshi.

Later still, they called her Daniu’s mother.

It was only after I grew older that I gradually came to understand.

For a woman to leave the city, she actually needed a letter from her husband stamped with the yamen’s seal.

Then, when I was eight, my mother could no longer endure my father’s brutal beatings.

She held me in her arms and wanted to throw herself into the river.

Standing on the riverbank, we watched a few ducks quacking as they swam under the bridge.

The mother duck protected her ducklings and kept paddling forward.

On the bank, tender yellow winter jasmine shivered open in the wind.

A willow tree had put out a thin green shoot that swayed and brushed across my nose.

My nose itched, and I let out a great big sneeze.

My mother had been staring at the withered reeds by the wall.

When she heard me sneeze, she suddenly burst into tears.

As if waking from a dream, she murmured, “No! No, I can’t! My life is over, but my Daniu still has to live!”

All my mother had known in her life was washing clothes and cooking meals, but that day, it was as if she suddenly became clearheaded.

I don’t know how she managed it.

She stole the money from our home and found people on the black market to give me a new household register and travel permit.

On the register, my sex was male.

And my name was no longer Li Daniu.

It was Wang Tianjiao!

With my mother’s surname!

A name that rang out loud and clear when spoken.

That afternoon, spring was just coming into full bloom.

The streets and alleys were filled with the fragrance of all kinds of flowers, washing away the gloom winter had left behind.

My mother put me onto a carriage at the escort agency.

She hugged me, reluctant to let go, and said, “Tianjiao! Go! Go far away!”

My mother lied to me and said I was to follow the escort carriage to Qingzhou to visit my aunt.

But I kept feeling that something was wrong.

When I turned back to look…

A towering blaze had erupted from my home!

I rushed in without a second thought.

My father lay collapsed to one side, covered in blood.

My mother’s hand was tightly gripping a rusty axe.

When she saw me, tears fell from her eyes. With the last of her strength, she roared, “Wang Tianjiao! Run! In this life, live as a man and make something of yourself!”

If I didn’t leave then, the authorities would arrive.

I wiped away my tears and gazed at her one last time.

Then I turned and ran toward that spring.

The fire behind me lit up my life.

It was my mother setting herself ablaze to kindle a flame of hope for me.

Unfortunately, I failed to make something of myself.

After many twists and turns, I made it to Qingzhou, only to learn that my aunt’s family had moved away long ago.

I wandered the streets. I was a beggar, a thief, a street thug.

I grew up drifting from place to place, and just then, a great drought struck Qingzhou.

I went with the tide, following the others as refugees all the way to Dingzhou.

The year I was thirteen, I was fighting viciously on the street when someone plotted against me, and I passed out at the Wei family’s gate.

Madam Wei picked me up, bought medicine to treat me, and let me stay.

She made her words perfectly clear.

“I’m not raising you for free.”

“Every coin spent on your food, clothes, and daily needs-you’ll pay it all back.”

Madam Wei had a sharp tongue.

She had been widowed for many years and had a very handsome son.

Madam Wei sent me to learn martial arts and study.

When I grew older, she put on a fierce face and said, “Wang Tianjiao, I know you want to live as a man. I won’t stop you. Behind closed doors, we’ll live our own lives, and to outsiders, we’ll say you’re my adopted son. But you must marry my son and enter the bridal chamber. From now on, the Wei family’s wealth will be inherited by you, and you will uphold the Wei household.”

I thought to myself, What kind of mess is this?

At first, I didn’t want to agree.

But then I turned my head and saw Wei Zhao standing under the peach blossom tree, looking at me.

His beautiful face was tense with nerves, and even the tear mole at the corner of his eye looked especially charming.

I thought of how, the night before, I had accidentally seen him washing up in his room, exposing a flawless white back.

That very night, I had all sorts of improper dreams.

Ah, I’m a lustful creature.

I must have inherited that from my good-for-nothing dead father who ate, drank, whored, and gambled.

I gritted my teeth and said, “Fine!”

In short, my relationship with Wei Zhao…

Half of it was gratitude, half of it affection.

After I served in the army for him for five years, that debt of gratitude was repaid.

Now that Wei Zhao has failed to withstand Xie Yunlan’s honey trap, I have no reason to feel guilty anymore!

Let’s just part ways and be done with it!