Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Dad’s face darkened at once. “How could that be possible? Her relatives don’t even know I have another daughter.
“I think you’re doing just fine living on your own. Just keep staying out in the countryside. I won’t short you on rice, flour, or cooking oil.”
How did that song go again…?
“Dad has a home, Mom has a home, and I’m left all alone, like I’m the extra one.”
It was talking about me, wasn’t it?
Everyone in the village knew I had been abandoned.
More and more malice came crashing toward me.
For example, every time Auntie Zhang saw me, she would laugh and say, “Jingjing, your mom and dad don’t want you anymore.
“Why don’t you be my daughter instead? When you grow up, you can marry Zhuangyuan.”
Zhuangyuan was her son. He was eight years older than me, and he wasn’t quite right in the head.
He was big and tall, but he would still pull down his pants in public to pee.
Uncle Zhang, drunk as a skunk, would shout, “Your dad sure is lucky!
“You’re almost ten. Once he pays for you until you graduate middle school, you’ll be able to earn money. Then when you turn twenty and get married, he’ll collect another bride price. He gets to keep all that money for himself!”
The couple was equally disgusting.
Like the saying went, the whole family couldn’t shit out anything different.
The boys in the village would chase after me too, throwing rocks and sticks at me.
They tugged at my clothes and yanked my hair.
They would yell, “Jinx, unwanted thing, Daddy hates you, Mommy threw you away.”
Gradually, even kids my own age stopped playing with me.
Fortunately, Sister Xiangliu stayed with me.
That year, I was already ten.
One day, we were eating wild grapes together when Uncle Dog, the village’s old bachelor, passed by. Smiling, he reached out to touch me. “Jingjing, I haven’t seen you in days, and you’ve gotten even prettier.”
Sister Xiangliu raised her sickle and stared at him coldly.
Only then did he awkwardly pull his hand back.
It was also that day that Sister Xiangliu took a pair of scissors and cut my hair very, very short.
It was choppy and uneven, terribly ugly.
I felt so wronged that tears pattered down my face.
She snapped at me, “You live alone up on the mountain. This is safer.”
“Why?”
“Because there are jackals and wolves in the mountains.” She warned me, “When you sleep, you must lock the doors and windows. Don’t open the door for anyone so easily, understand?”
I didn’t know whether there really were jackals and wolves in the mountains, but the wind was strong there at night.
It rustled the bamboo leaves with a constant rushing sound.
Now and then, a bird would cry out.
It was so late. Why wasn’t it asleep yet?
Was it like me, without a mom or dad?
At night, the village was silent, which only made every sound of nature seem louder.
My ears were clearly filled with so much noise.
And yet I felt especially lonely.
As if, between heaven and earth, I was the only one left.
Just then, the courtyard gate creaked.
A jumble of footsteps came closer and closer.
Before long, they stopped outside the window.
In the thin moonlight, a cloudy eye pressed against a hole in the window glass, peering into the room.
I screamed in terror and wrapped myself tightly in my quilt.
Uncle Dog’s drunken voice drifted in. “Jingjing, it’s your Uncle Dog. Are you scared sleeping all by yourself?
“Open the door. Uncle Dog will keep you company!
“Uncle Dog will hold you while we sleep, and then you won’t be scared!”
My scalp went numb. I clutched the quilt, my whole body trembling.
So the most frightening things in this world weren’t the jackals and wolves in the mountains, but the beasts among men.
He slapped the window until it banged. The rusted steel bars were like rotten branches, as if he could snap them off with just a little more force.
The thin pane of glass shook under the cold moonlight, then shattered with a crack.
Uncle Dog’s hand, covered in coarse hair, reached inside.