Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I returned once again to the day I had first crossed back.

Killing the patron was impossible.

Killing the madam-I didn’t have the strength.

On the road where they dragged me to the mass grave, I had been given a thorough lesson in just how chaotic the forgotten corners of a city could be.

Prostitutes coming and going. Thugs watching like hungry wolves. Peddlers weaving through the lanes. Idlers with nothing better to do…

Countless pairs of eyes were fixed on every single thing that happened here.

Whether it was the original owner’s memories or my experience from dying four times over, they all told me the same thing.

Running meant death.

The man was still complaining to the madam about how wooden and inexperienced I was.

Next, another man would take his place. Then another, and another after that.

And the only weapon I had on me was a thin hairpin, sharpened to a point.

Or perhaps, it wasn’t truly a hairpin at all.

It was a bamboo chopstick, rubbed so smooth it almost shone.

I didn’t know what kind of torment its previous owner had endured to hide it away.

Nor did I know what state of mind the original owner of this body had been in when she sharpened it into what it was now.

But of one thing I was certain.

I would not waste it.

My hand climbed up the man’s trouser leg.

What sort of man was he?

His cuffs were stained with muddy water and a rotten, fishy stench. Thick calluses roughened his palms and fingers. His hair was a greasy, tangled mess, coated in filth no ordinary person would ever touch.

A butcher?

Or a meat seller?

I knew too little.

Apart from this body of flesh and skin, I had nothing to offer that might make anyone lend me a hand.

The man’s complaints stopped abruptly.

He studied me as though he were looking at a monkey newly bought by a street performer.

My mind went completely blank.

What was I supposed to say?

Should I try to please him?

What could he possibly bring me?

Would he leave me silver? Would he give me enough protection?

No. He would do neither.

A daily visit was not protection. It was a rope around my neck, tightening little by little. One day, it would take my life as surely as a dull knife sawing through flesh.

This newly arrived body was nowhere near as sturdy as I had imagined.

And in that instant of hesitation and bewilderment, the door curtain was lifted. The madam’s short, stout figure appeared once more.

A new round of torment began again.

At last, I fully understood what the lowest, filthiest kind of pleasure alley meant in the original owner’s memories.

No one could remain human here.

I was not myself.

I was nothing more than a money tree the madam had paid a great price to buy.

As long as they had money, anyone could step into this earthen room and use every method they could imagine-and every method I could not-to vent the resentment and rage they had bottled up inside.

If I resisted, I would be beaten to death. If I submitted, I would gain nothing at all.

Once their initial excitement faded, all that awaited me was even crueler torment.

And so, to no one’s surprise, I died again.

I did not even make it to nightfall. In the midst of that endless, repeated violation, I died beneath the so-called patron.