The Liu family’s courtyard was surrounded three layers deep by curious onlookers.
“Such a sin…” In the crowd, Aunt Wang turned her face away, unable to bear the sight.
Liu Yu’er stood in the center of the courtyard, her wrists loosely bound with a hemp rope.
She wore a faded, peach-red old cotton-padded jacket—something her stepmother, Zhao Shi, had dug out from the very bottom of the chest, saying, “Since you’re going to that kind of place, you have to wear some color.”
The jacket was too small, tightly wrapping her slender figure. A section of snow-white neck was exposed at the collar, glaringly pale in the bleak winter sunlight.
She didn’t quite understand what was happening. She only knew that this morning, her stepmother hadn’t let her eat breakfast. Instead, she had used a rough soap bean to scrub her from head to toe three times, until her skin was rubbed raw and red. Then, she had changed her into this tight-fitting outfit and pinned a tacky, bright silk flower to her temple.
“Elder Sister—!”
A piercing cry pierced the cold morning air.
Ten-year-old Younger Brother Liu rushed out of the room, threw himself at Liu Yu’er’s legs, and hugged them tightly. His face was smeared with tears and mucus, and his forehead was bruised—the result of kowtowing and begging their father inside the house just moments ago.
“Don’t sell my sister! Dad! Don’t sell my sister!” The little boy looked up, crying and howling at the man standing at the main room’s doorway. “I’ll go gather firewood! I’ll gather more firewood to sell for money! I’ll go to town and do heavy labor! I’m begging you, Dad!”
At the doorway of the main room, Liu’s father squatted on the ground, making not a sound. His tobacco pipe went out, he relit it; it went out again, he relit it. A small pile of ash had already accumulated at his feet.
“Heavy labor? With your scrawny frame?” Zhao Shi walked out with her hands on her hips, her cheap lipstick-painted mouth curling downward. “A year’s worth of firewood isn’t enough to pay off the interest! The usury your older brother borrowed to get a wife—if we don’t pay it back this month, those people are going to come break our arms and legs!”
She reached out to yank the little boy away. “Let go! You money-losing parasite, you’re just like your sister, a debt-collector!”
The little boy held on for dear life, his thin, small body shaking with effort. He turned back to his father, his knees hitting the rough ground with loud thuds: “Dad! When Mom left, she told you to take care of Sister! You promised Mom!”
Liu Father’s shoulders trembled violently, and he buried his head even lower.
“Promise? A promise isn’t worth a damn!” Zhao Shi’s voice was sharp, causing a stir among the onlookers outside the courtyard. “The family can barely scrape together enough for food, and we’re feeding an idiot for free? Madam Wang from Chunfeng Tower said it herself—Yu’er’s looks are at least good enough to prep as a top-attendant. They’re offering this much—”
She held up five fingers, waving them at the crowd. “Five taels of silver! Cash! Enough for our family to eat for two years!”
The crowd broke into an uproar.
“Five taels… My goodness, they really are willing to pay…”
“But even if Yu’er is a bit slow in the head, she’s still a proper family’s daughter. To sell her to a place like that…”
“Old Liu is truly ruthless. After all, she’s his own flesh and blood…”
“It was the stepmother instigating it, wasn’t it? If her real mother were here, it never would’ve come to this…”
The murmurs buzzed into the courtyard. Zhao Shi’s face darkened. She rushed to the courtyard gate in a few strides, pointing at several of the loudest women and scolding, “It’s easy to talk when you’re standing on the sidelines! If your family has money, you raise an idiot! If you have the guts to cough up five taels of silver, I’ll let her go right now! Cough it up, then!”
Those women were choked into taking a step back, not daring to utter another sound.
In the courtyard, the little boy was still kowtowing. His forehead slammed against the frozen ground, already seeping blood that mixed with the dirt and smeared across his face.
“Dad… I’m begging you, Dad… Don’t sell Sister… Don’t…”
Thud after thud, dull and heavy, like a hammer striking human hearts.
Liu Yu’er lowered her head to look at her younger brother. Her reactions were slow; many things took her a long time to understand even a little bit. But her brother was crying, her brother was kowtowing, and her brother was in pain… That much she knew.
Slowly, slowly, she squatted down. Her bound wrists lifted awkwardly as she tried to touch her brother’s bleeding head.
“Don’t cry…” she said, her voice thin and carrying the unique muddle-headedness of a simpleton. “Little brother, don’t cry…”
The little brother grabbed her hand, crying so hard he could barely breathe. “Sister… Sister, you can’t go… You’ll die in a place like that… You’ll die…”
Liu Yu’er tilted her head. She didn’t quite understand where “that kind of place” was, nor did she understand what “die” meant. She only saw her brother crying, and her own eye sockets grew red bit by bit.
Then, large, heavy tears rolled down without warning from her misty eyes.
She didn’t wail; she just cried quietly. The teardrops slid down her glowing, fair cheeks, dripping onto the peach-red jacket and blooming into dark damp spots. The sunlight shone on her face, refracting tiny sparks of light through her tears, making her look like a melting jade statue—beautiful, fragile, and utterly helpless.
This scene caused several soft-hearted women outside the courtyard to wipe away their own tears.
“Old Liu!” Finally, someone couldn’t help but shout out, “Are you really going to push your own flesh and blood into a fiery pit for five taels of silver? Yu’er’s mother is watching from beneath the earth!”
Liu Father shook all over and suddenly raised his head, his eyes bloodred.
Sensing things going south, Zhao Shi shrieked, “Widow Zhang! Stop playing the good guy here! If you’ve got the guts, you pay back our debt! Five taels of silver! Bring it here!”
She turned and yelled toward the house, “Dafu! Where the hell did you die off to? Come help! Get her out of here!”
Liu Dafu shuffled out in his slip-on shoes, his eyes staring lewdly at Liu Yu’er as he reached out a hand to grope toward her chest.
“Sorry about this, Little Sister… Your brother has no choice either…”
The younger brother, like a maddened little beast, sank his teeth straight into Liu Dafu’s wrist.
“Ah!” Liu Dafu let out a miserable shriek, shook the boy off, and raised his foot to kick him—
“Stop right there!”
An aged shout intervened. Old Grandpa Chen from the eastern end of the village walked over, leaning on a cane and trembling slightly. He was the eldest elder in the village and carried some weight when he spoke.
“You Liu family folks,” Grandpa Chen looked at Liu Father, “if the money isn’t enough, we can think of a way to pool it together. As fellow villagers and neighbors, we can’t just sit by and watch a child go to a place like that. Even though Yu’er is simple-minded, she never causes trouble. All these years…”
“Old Grandpa Chen,” Zhao Shi interrupted him with a forced, joyless smile. “You are kind-hearted, old man. But how are we supposed to scrape this money together? How much is your family putting in? How much is everyone else chipping in? To put it bluntly, Yu’er is just an idiot; keeping her around is a burden for life. We’re just finding a way out for her; Chunfeng Tower at least provides food and drink, doesn’t it?”
“Is that a way out? That’s sending her straight to her death!” Grandpa Chen slammed his cane against the ground in anger.
The scene froze.
Madam Wang from Chunfeng Tower had already sent two coarse-handed matrons to wait at the entrance of the village. Seeming impatient now, they were craning their necks to look over this way. Seeing this, Zhao Shi hardened her heart, stepped forward, grabbed the rope on Yu’er’s arm, and dragged her outward.
“Step aside, all of you! Our family’s business is none of an outsider’s concern!”
Younger brother was pinned firmly to the ground by Liu Dafu, able only to struggle desperately while a trapped-beast-like whimpering came from his throat.
Yu’er stumbled a few steps from the pull, the hemp rope biting deep into her flesh, sending sharp pains through her wrist. She looked back blankly, seeing her brother’s face smeared with blood and tears, seeing her father’s back as he squatted with his head in his hands, and seeing the faces outside the courtyard—some sympathetic, some numb.
More tears rolled down.
She still didn’t quite understand. But somewhere deep inside her body, a cold, dull terror suddenly welled up. It felt like falling into a winter river when she was little, the water slowly rising over her chest until she couldn’t breathe.
Just at the moment when Zhao Shi was about to drag her out through the courtyard gate, a tall figure parted the crowd and stepped inside.
The crowd went quiet for a single moment.
Not for any other reason, but because of what that person was carrying on his shoulder.
It was an adult wild boar, weighing no less than two hundred catties. Its tusks were menacing, and a bloody hole in its neck was still bubbling with blood. The massive carcass of the wild boar pressed down on his shoulder, yet he walked steadily, his boots hitting the frozen earth with muffled, solid sounds.
He was very tall, with broad shoulders and a thick waist. A semi-worn grayish-brown leather vest was stretched taut by his muscles. His face bore sharp angles carved by wind and frost, with an old scar on his brow bone slicing slantwise into his temples. Most intimidating of all were his eyes; when they swept across the courtyard, they were like the water in a deep mountain pool—calm, yet bottomless.
Qin Zhan.
The hunter from the mountains. The villagers secretly called him the “Living Yama.”