Chapter 1
I once had a brother two years younger than me.
Back in the 1990s, family-planning enforcement was especially strict in the countryside.
Soon after Mother gave birth to him, the head of the village women’s committee “invited” her to be sterilized.
But disaster strikes without warning. When my brother was seven months old, a high fever took his life.
Every time Grandmother mentioned it, she hurled abuse at Mother.
She blamed her for failing to watch the baby and ending the Tian family line.
Mother only bowed her head and cried. She never argued in front of anyone.
Only sometimes, late at night, would she whisper, “Your brother should have been fine. Your grandma said a fever would break if we bundled him up until he sweated.”
“It was the height of summer, but she insisted on covering him with a ten-jin cotton quilt.”
“You were too little to remember. Xiaoyao was such a good baby. He could sleep through the night at three months.”
In our village, a boy received his formal name from an educated clansman on his first birthday.
My brother died too young, so he never even had a proper name.
Grandmother had a vicious temper and cursed people all day long.
She called Mother a jinx and my younger aunt a hen that could not lay eggs.
Then, when I was ten, that aunt—who already had three daughters—finally bore a son after spending the pregnancy hiding from the authorities.
As the family’s only male heir, my cousin was pampered beyond measure.
Grandmother took two laying hens from our house to nourish my aunt after childbirth.
The aunt who had once shared Mother’s misery was suddenly on top.
Holding Mother’s hand, she complained, “Boys are so hard to raise. He cries all night. I haven’t slept through the night once.”
“Was Xiaoyao like that too?”
Grandmother came in carrying chicken soup and sneered. “She raised Xiaoyao into his grave. Aren’t you afraid of bad luck, asking her?”
Mother already looked unwell. At those words, her face went deathly white.
I could not bear it. “Grandma, if you hadn’t covered my brother with that thick quilt, maybe he’d still be alive.”
“Why do you put all the blame on Mother?”
Grandmother flew into a rage. She set down the soup and slapped me across the face.
“You little bastard! Who taught you to talk to me like that?”
She was a strong farmworker, with powerful hands.
The slap left my head ringing and my cheek swelled at once.
Mother yanked me behind her. Grandmother snatched a broom from behind the door and rained blows on us while cursing without pause.
My cousin wailed in fright.
My aunt lost her temper. “I only just got him to sleep! What are you doing? If you want to fight, take it outside!”
Father came home in the middle of the chaos.
His face was flushed and he reeked of alcohol.
I clung to Mother and hid behind him.
Grandmother complained through tears and snot, “Now that you have a wife and child, you don’t care about your own mother. I raised you children from the cradle. Do you know how hard that was?”
Father hauled me up and kicked the back of my knee.
Caught off guard, I crashed to the ground on my knees.
“Looking for a beating?” he roared. “You even dare talk back to your grandma!”
He took the broom from her and raised it over my back.
Grandmother smiled in triumph.
She always did this—played the victim and invoked old sacrifices.
Father’s blind filial obedience meant Mother was forever wronged.
Mother rushed over to shield me. “She’s still little. She doesn’t understand…”
I glared at Father as tears streamed down my face. “Was my brother’s death Mother’s fault alone?”
“I’m your daughter, and Mother is your wife. Can’t you stand on our side just once?”
The broom trembled in Father’s raised hand.
Seeing that, Grandmother dropped onto the floor and began to howl. “What a miserable life I have…”
In the end, Father’s broom still fell on Mother and me.
Back home, Mother rubbed safflower oil onto my bruises.
Father stood in the doorway scolding her. “She is still my mother. Look what you’ve taught Tian Tian—she has no respect for her elders.”
I opened my mouth to retort.
Mother tugged my clothes and gently shook her head.
Her eyes were red. “It’s no use. Don’t say anything.”
How many disappointments must a woman endure before she no longer wants to offer even a single word in her defense?
After my cousin’s birth, Grandmother’s favoritism became shameless.
She carted away basket after basket of firewood Mother had cut in the first lunar month and gave it to my aunt.
She pulled up a large patch of Mother’s unripe peanuts so my aunt could make soup to stimulate her milk.
She stole eggs from our coop to nourish her precious grandson.
When my aunt from the city came home, she brought many meat buns.
Their aroma filled the house as they steamed.
Grandmother gave a pile to my younger aunt. When she saw me passing her courtyard, she slammed the window shut.
She was afraid I might beg for one.
I was hungry, and hurt too.
When Mother heard, she walked five kilometers to town and did not return until dark.
She took two buns from inside her coat.
“The meat buns were sold out, so I could only get sweet ones. They’re still warm. Eat.”
We were truly poor then, but Mother always loved me with everything she had.
Whenever Mother complained about Grandmother’s excesses, Father said, “They’re all little things. Stop keeping score.”
But countless little things, piled together, can wound a person beyond repair.
After the early rice was planted, Grandmother pushed even further.
She proposed trading my aunt and uncle’s two mu of poor fields for our two mu of fertile land.
“Your brother has more mouths to feed, and now he has the Tian family’s only grandson. As the older brother, you should yield.”