It was the third month of the year. Along the barren field ridges, now sprouting green, a girl in a gray padded jacket ran wildly, her footsteps disordered.
Though she stumbled several times along the way, nothing could stop her frantic advance.
“Shiyi, Shiyi, something terrible has happened!”
Chen Shiyi, who was chopping firewood halfway up the back hill, immediately stopped her nimble work and looked toward the sound.
“Chunni, what happened?”
Chunni stopped in front of Chen Shiyi and gasped out, “My mother sent me to tell you to run. Your mother… she’s going to sell you.”
Chen Shiyi froze for a moment, then bent down and continued chopping firewood as though nothing had happened.
Chunni grew anxious.
“Your mother is going to sell you, and you’re still chopping firewood for her?”
Chen Shiyi mechanically repeated the motion of her hands.
“Wasn’t this bound to happen sooner or later?”
“You…”
“If I don’t finish chopping the wood, I’ll just get another beating when I go back.”
Ever since her father had suddenly fallen ill and died half a month ago, Chen Shiyi had known that this day would come sooner or later.
Her birth mother had died young. Her father had remarried, giving her a stepmother.
Her stepmother had borne her father two sons and a daughter and had supposedly worked hard for the family. Thus, in this six-member household, she was the only laborer besides her father.
Her stepmother had a pleasing tongue and told everyone that Shiyi was obedient and sensible. But behind closed doors, the wounds on Shiyi’s body had never disappeared.
Run?
Where could she run to?
She was an orphan with no money in her pockets and no clothes on her back. For all she knew, she might freeze to death in some corner on a cold winter’s day, only to be torn apart by wild dogs.
Here, at least, she had a roof over her head and broken walls to keep out the wind.
All she wanted was to stay alive.
On the way back, Chunni chattered beside her ear without pause.
“If you’re sold, you won’t be a person anymore. You’ll be a possession, something they can beat or kill as they please.”
A disdainful smile touched the corner of Chen Shiyi’s mouth.
“I’m not really a person now, either. At most, I’m livestock. No—that’s wrong. Livestock is worth more than I am. Chunni, I don’t care what happens to me. As long as I have food to eat, that’s enough.”
When they returned to the dilapidated courtyard, Chen Shiyi set down the firewood. A boy slightly taller than her was holding a porcelain bowl and gulping down thin gruel, stuffing it into his mouth in great mouthfuls.
“Why is there so little firewood today? Were you slacking off again?”
Chen Shiyi remained silent. No matter how much firewood she chopped, they would always complain that it was too little. Once people’s hearts had turned rotten, the amount of firewood had nothing to do with it.
“I’m talking to you. Are you deaf?”
Chen Shiyi drew a deep breath, then turned to the boy.
“Your mother is going to sell me. From now on, you can chop the firewood yourself.”
“What?”
Chen Shiyi fetched some water, washed her face, and carefully cleaned her hands as well. Then she walked out through the courtyard gate.
The boy hurriedly asked, “Where are you going?”
Chen Shiyi’s eyes were utterly calm.
“To see where your mother is selling me. Want to come along?”
Xiangyang Village had not been this lively in a long time.
Almost everyone in the village had gathered beneath the great banyan tree at the village entrance. They widened their eyes and pricked up their ears as they listened to Lu Erniang and Broker Cai haggle over the price.
“My daughter is a hard worker, the best in the surrounding villages. She’s obedient and sensible, and she’s pretty, too. Buy her, and you’ll definitely make a tidy profit.”
Broker Cai sat on the bed of an ox cart, picking at her yellowing teeth. Her smile did not reach her eyes.
“Every woman selling her daughter says the same thing. Once you get a good look, hardly any of them are worth much. Let’s wait and see.”
Chen Shiyi arrived late, pushing through layer after layer of villagers who had come to watch the spectacle. She walked to Lu Erniang’s side.
When Broker Cai saw her, she froze. Pointing at Chen Shiyi, she asked Lu Erniang in disbelief, “This is the daughter you’re trying to sell?”
Lu Erniang smiled so broadly that her gums showed.
“That’s right. See? Wasn’t I telling the truth? My daughter is beautiful, just like that thing in the heavens…”
“Stop. Enough.”
Broker Cai’s expression turned extremely ugly.
“Don’t compare her to Chang’e. She doesn’t have what it takes. I could go to the mass grave and pull out any skeleton at random, and it would still be prettier than your daughter. Move aside, move aside. You’re wasting my time…”
Lu Erniang hurried after her.
“Auntie, Auntie, listen to me…”
Lu Erniang whispered a few words into Broker Cai’s ear. Only then did the broker’s expression improve somewhat.
It seemed the deal had been made.
Chen Shiyi’s eyes were black and still as she watched Broker Cai beckon to her from a short distance away.
“Child, come along with this old woman.”
Child?
Only someone loved by both a father and a mother could be called a child.
Someone without a father or mother had another name: orphan.
Behind her, a clear childish voice rang out.
“Whore’s whelp, you’re finally leaving! You’ve been freeloading off my family all day, and you don’t even have any shame…”
Chen Shiyi suddenly stopped. She turned around and walked toward the little boy who had spoken.
Grabbing him by the collar, she swung her fist and punched him squarely in the face.
When Lu Erniang saw this, she flew into a rage. Her precious son had been beaten by that little wretch, and her face twisted with fury.
The people who rushed over to break up the fight pulled Chen Shiyi away. She spat toward Lu Erniang and her family.
“You’re the whore’s whelp! Your whole family are whore’s whelps!”
Lu Erniang was beside herself with anger. She rolled up her sleeves and was about to fight Chen Shiyi herself.
Broker Cai snorted and stopped her.
“I’ve given you the silver. She’s my property now. You dare lay a hand on what belongs to me without considering how much you’re worth?”
Broker Cai glared at Chen Shiyi.
“What are you waiting for? Get on the cart. Do I have to ask you three or four times?”
Several girls around Chen Shiyi’s age were already on the ox cart, all of them fated to the same destiny as her.
The cart jolted violently as it traveled. Chen Shiyi looked back at the village—the shabby mud houses and the ancient banyan tree—until they gradually receded into the distance amid the swaying and bouncing.
The sorrow of the past had already fallen behind. As for the unknown future, would the road ahead prove just as miserable?
On the way, Chen Shiyi cautiously asked Broker Cai, “Are we being sold to a brothel?”
Broker Cai, who had been dozing, slightly opened her drooping eyes and gave Chen Shiyi an indifferent glance.
“Oh. You’re not good enough.”
Then she turned to the burly man sitting beside her and asked, “Tell me, how did I end up nodding along as though I’d been bewitched and agreeing to take this inferior merchandise? I’m not about to be stuck with her, am I? I, Old Madam Cai, have never made a losing deal.”
The man bared his teeth in laughter. The scar across his forehead looked especially vicious.
“What’s there to worry about? If she won’t fetch a good price, stuff her away in the deep mountains. There are plenty of lame widowers and bachelors with peculiar tastes, not to mention brothers too poor to afford wives. You won’t lose out no matter what, ma’am!”
They chatted and laughed like this, deciding another person’s miserable life in only a few casual sentences.
No wonder all the little girls on the cart had eyes as red as rabbits.
Chen Shiyi would not cry.
Back when her father was still alive, she had cried countless times. Her father would merely smack his lips around his dry tobacco, a numb, lifeless look passing through his murky gray eyes, before letting out a heavy sigh.
“Just endure it. What girl doesn’t come through this way?”
Even when her father had been alive, he had never been someone she could rely on. Her tears were nothing but water. Once enough time passed, they would stop flowing. Even if they did fall, the wind would blow, and not even a trace would remain.
On the day her father was buried, Lu Erniang had cursed Chen Shiyi furiously for having no conscience, saying that her father had died and she had not even shed a tear.
What was there to cry about?