Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Of everyone in the village, I envied Liu Xiaohua most.

Her mother was gentle and would sit in the doorway braiding her hair. Her father earned good money and bought her sweet candy.

Whenever she went out, I hovered nearby, hoping she might play with me.

If we became good friends, she would take me home more often. Uncle Liu would surely keep me for dinner, and I would get to see what having parents looked like.

Unfortunately, Liu Xiaohua did not like me.

She pointed at my trousers in disgust. “There’s even a hole over your bottom! Shame, shame! I’m not playing with someone as filthy as you.”

I was not filthy. My clothes were washed clean. But I could not help the holes. I had only a little money, and it had to buy millet. Cloth was too expensive. I needed to save longer.

Still, my parents did not have to be as wonderful as Uncle Liu and Aunt Tian. Any parents would do.

So I tried the other children.

Dahu sucked on one grimy finger. “It’s not that I don’t want to take you home. My mother said we’re poor. If I bring anyone back for dinner, she’ll take away my cloud cake. I only get it three times a year. I can’t afford to lose any.”

Erya shook her head too. “All the food in my house goes into my brother’s mouth. I don’t even get enough.”

So that was it. Liu Xiaohua could invite people home because her father made money.

Heaven was still good to me.

Liu Xiaohua’s family had no shortage of children, but the widow at the head of the village did.

The summer had been scorching. Her son jumped into the river to cool off, and by the time they fished him out, he was cold for good.

Widow Yu fainted from crying several times. Even her complexion turned gray.

The loose-tongued women whispered among themselves.

“Of course she’s crying herself to death. Her man has barely been gone two years, and now her son is gone too. Without a son, she can’t keep the house or the land. That’s why women should bear more children. If she’d had two, at least one would still be alive.”

I understood. She needed a child.

I needed a mother.

Was that not perfect?

Covering the hole in my trousers with one hand, I copied Liu Xiaohua’s two little braids and stood before Widow Yu.

“Auntie, since your son is gone, can I be your daughter?”

The pale woman looked up at me, her face twisting with fury.

“My son is gone? Even if he is, I don’t need a fatherless, motherless wretch mocking me! My Sheng’er would have supported me one day. What use is a worthless girl like you?”

I did not know why she was angry. People in the village often cursed me for having no parents and no one to teach me manners. I was used to it.

After they finished scolding, though, someone from one house or another would still feed me a bite when I was starving. Widow Yu had fed me before too. Her food was delicious.

The village chief took my hand and led me outside, sighing as he looked down at me.

“You, child. That reckless temper and that mouth without a gate—I wonder who you take after.”

I wondered too.

The villagers said an old man had brought me here. He had already been very old then. He raised me until I was three, when sickness took him.

He had bought the little house where I lived, so the village could not drive me away. I was a girl, and no household wanted to adopt me. That was how I grew up eating from a hundred families’ pots.

I remembered the old man a little. His grave was on the back hill. Every festival, I stole a bit of incense and a candle, then went to kowtow before him.

If only he were still alive.

Then at least I would have had a grandfather.