The first time she heard the name Gu Sheng was seventeen years ago, during the darkest period of her life.
Wen Ye was born in a remote rural mountain village. Her father was notorious in the village for being utterly lazy, yet he was handsome and had a silver tongue. He actually managed to trick a woman into marrying him, who became Wen Ye’s mother.
Two years after giving birth to Wen Ye, Wen Ye’s mother fell ill. The family had zero money for medical treatment, and that brute of a father refused to do a single thing about it. Just like that, he dragged a minor ailment out until it became severe. After suffering for more than half a year, Wen Ye’s mother passed away.
For a long time, Wen Ye did not even know her name was Wen Ye because her father never called her by it. He simply barked “Hey” at her, or perhaps he had used her name, but Wen Ye had been too young at the time to retain any memories of it.
Her most vivid memory of her father was when she was five years old. She saw him holding a thick stack of red paper bills, smiling broadly. Later on, she learned that a single bill like that was worth 100 yuan. In any case, once her father got the money, he handed her over to a woman called Aunt Rong and left. She never saw him again after that.
Aunt Rong took her on a bus ride for a day and a night, arriving in a completely unfamiliar city called Spring City. Aunt Rong treated her quite well, much better than her father did. She gave her clothes to wear, food to eat, and named her Xiao Wu because she was the fifth child Aunt Rong had taken back.
Aunt Rong also had a man with her called Uncle Kai, who was responsible for teaching everyone special skills.
The skill was learning how to pick all kinds of bags: zippered ones, buckled ones, and Velcro-fastened ones.
In short, it was about taking the things inside without the owner ever realizing it.
Aunt Rong called this magic.
However, when Wen Ye first started learning magic, Aunt Rong did not let her use it yet. She only made her wear tattered clothes and sit on the pedestrian overpass.
Every now and then, someone would toss a couple of coins or paper bills into the broken bowl in front of Wen Ye. It was her first time experiencing such a good thing; she used to wear rags back home too, but no one had ever given her money.
Yet that money did not belong to her either. Every night when she returned, she had to hand it over to Aunt Rong, who would then give her a large, fluffy white steamed bun. She would eat it with water, and it tasted sweet.
If not for that beating, Wen Ye truly would have thought she was about to live a good life.
The weather that day was scorching hot, so searing that Wen Ye felt like the backside of her body sitting on the overpass was about to bake. The people hurrying back and forth were desperate to escape the heat, and not a single person was willing to pause their steps to look at her.
So when the day ended, Wen Ye could only pick up her empty bowl, climb down from the overpass, and follow Uncle Kai back to their living quarters.
That night, she handed the empty bowl to Aunt Rong, then stared longingly with wide, eager eyes at the big white steamed bun on the table.
There was no big white steamed bun for her. Instead, Aunt Rong’s heavy, fleshy hand came down, and without a second word, slapped her hard, knocking her sprawling onto the floor. Wen Ye felt as though her sun-baked, dizzy head had grown even foggier.
That very evening, Aunt Rong gave her some medicine to dispel the summer heat, handed her half a steamed bun, and said mildly, “It is too hot out. Starting tomorrow, you will not go to the overpass anymore. You are going to pick pockets. If picking pockets brings in no harvest this time, you really will not get any food, okay?”
Though the tone was gentle, it made cold sweat break out all over Wen Ye. She was terrified—terrified of failing to pick anything, terrified of being beaten, and terrified of having no food to eat.
Wen Ye possessed a natural talent, and her hands were very nimble. On her very first day, she picked two purses and brought them back. Aunt Rong beamed happily, gave her a steamed bun, and, in an unprecedented move, a boiled egg as well.
Gu Sheng arrived one summer, two years after Wen Ye had joined Aunt Rong.
That day, Wen Ye saw Aunt Rong lead in a fair, tender little girl. Actually, judging by her face, she probably looked a bit older than Wen Ye, but her height was about the same.
The little girl’s eyes were swollen, looking as though she had been crying for a long time, and she wore a pretty, exquisitely crafted little dress.
Over the past two years, Wen Ye had brushed past countless people, which was why she knew what kind of person carried good loot. Whenever someone brought along a little girl like this, Wen Ye knew that family had money.
Aunt Rong announced, “This is the new arrival. Her name is Xiao Shi.”
The boys down below jeered, “Xiao Shi!”
Aunt Rong gave Xiao Shi a push forward and walked out.
Wen Ye knew that this ritual was designed to let the older kids bully the newcomer.
Xiao Shi stood frozen in place, her eyes fixed entirely on her own feet.
“Hey, how old are you?”
Wen Ye watched as Xiao Qi stepped forward. Xiao Qi was a boy in his early teens, but Wen Ye felt that most of the time he did not look like a child at all. He loved discussing women’s figures by the roadside with Xiao Ba and arguing over who was still a virgin.
Wen Ye did not understand many of those words, but she deeply loathed Xiao Qi’s gaze, which was why they were on terrible terms. Xiao Qi had tried to provoke her before as well, but after trading a few fights, he learned that Wen Ye was not someone easy to bully and no longer dared to act despicable in front of her.
Clearly, Xiao Qi had now set his sights on this new arrival.
“Hey, I am talking to you.” Xiao Qi walked right up, stood directly in front of Gu Sheng, pressed his face close to her ear, and hollered loudly.
Gu Sheng took a step to the left and ignored him.
Xiao Qi let out a laughing sound and turned to Xiao Ba. “Hey, she is a mute.”
Then he turned back, walking right up to Gu Sheng again. “I reckon you are probably still a virgin. You are so tiny, do you want an older brother to show you a fun time?”
Gu Sheng’s brow furrowed in disgust as she stared at the face right in front of her.
With a sly grin, Xiao Qi raised his hand, intending to pinch her fair, tender cheek.
Before he could touch her, his hand was violently batted away, followed by a sharp slap across his face that left it burning hot.
Xiao Qi jerked his skewed face back, staring in sheer disbelief at the quiet, gentle girl standing before him. He never expected the newcomer to dare slap him across the face, and he froze on the spot, unable to process what had just happened.
Wen Ye was stunned as well. Every person who arrived here might not necessarily suck up to the seniors, but at the very least they would remain silent and meekly resign themselves to their fate. This was the first time she had ever encountered someone who would actually fight back.
Yet, in the very next second, she anticipated how this newcomer would be treated.
“I fucking kill you!” Xiao Qi roared in fury, raising his fist to swing at her. He was going to beat this stinking bitch to death, and then strip off her clothes and force her to kneel before him.
Just as his fist went up, before he could swing it, Xiao Qi felt a powerful force wrap around his neck from behind, choking him.
Wen Ye had no idea why she had suddenly lunged forward.
Perhaps it was because her own life was an utter mess, and seeing someone so pristine, as if she had walked right down from the moon, about to be dragged into this filth as well, she simply could not bear to watch it. At the very least, she did not want to see her ruined right before her eyes.
Xiao Qi thrashed with his fists and feet. He was taller than Wen Ye and managed to wrench himself free from her grip in a couple of moves.
Putting some distance between them, Xiao Qi glared furiously at Wen Ye. “What the fuck are you trying to do, you bitch? Did I cross you?”
Wen Ye did not speak. She merely stood guard in front of Xiao Shi, lowering her center of gravity and spreading her arms wide.
With a face red with rage, Xiao Qi lunged forward, throwing a heavy punch straight at Wen Ye’s nose.
Wen Ye ducked slightly, letting the punch graze past her scalp. She did not like wasting moves in a fight; she knew precisely where these guys were softest.
Grabbing Xiao Qi’s shoulders with both hands, Wen Ye brought her knee up, striking his groin with a swift and heavy blow.
Xiao Qi let out a miserable howl, clutching his groin in agony as he curled up on the ground.
Wen Ye had no intention of stopping. She knew all too well that in a fight, you had to strike fiercely, fighting like your life depended on it, to truly make the opponent fear you. Taking advantage of the moment before Xiao Qi could manage to crawl back up, she tightened her toes and kicked his abdomen with every ounce of strength she had.
“Ah, just you wait till I get up. Hiss, ah, holy crap, you bitch!” Xiao Qi clutched his stomach with both hands, hugging his torso tightly as he cursed and yelled in wretched defeat.
Right at that moment, Xiao Ba stepped in. He grabbed Wen Ye to pin her down, shouting, “Alright, alright, stop hitting him!”
As Wen Ye’s onslaught paused, Xiao Qi scrambled up in a flash. While Xiao Ba kept holding onto Wen Ye and refused to let go, Xiao Qi lunged forward and delivered a punch straight to Wen Ye’s face.
Taking the blow, Wen Ye tried to break free, but Xiao Ba held her fast without releasing her. Knowing this little bastard was playing favorites and rigging the fight, she did not bother wasting her breath cursing. Instead, she whipped her head back and slammed it directly into Xiao Ba’s nose, the instinctive surge of pain forcing him to let go immediately.
Seeing her break free, Xiao Qi panicked for a split second. Catching it instantly, Wen Ye realized he was already terrified and pressed her advantage, rushing forward to resume the brawl. Blows were traded back and forth, and Wen Ye took quite a few hits herself, but having endured beatings for years, this level of pain was second nature to her.
Xiao Qi was not afraid of taking a beating, but he was afraid of dying. In Xiao Wu’s eyes, he saw a madness willing to drag him down to mutual destruction; at that moment, Xiao Wu resembled a wild dog. Once a wild dog locked its jaws onto something, it would never let go until its prey was dead.
Panic crept into Xiao Qi’s heart, and once fear took over, his strength dissolved entirely. He screamed at the top of his lungs, “I am not fighting anymore, I am not fighting! Sister Wu, I will not fight anymore, I was wrong, stop hitting me!”
Wen Ye did not stop, but the commotion finally alerted Aunt Rong, who shoved the door open. “What are you all doing? Trying to start a rebellion?”
Xiao Qi crawled toward Aunt Rong as if he had just survived a catastrophe. “Aunt Rong, this Xiao Wu is acting like a rabid dog, she is trying to beat me to death.”
Aunt Rong glanced at Xiao Qi.
Wen Ye knew what Aunt Rong was checking for. She was checking whether Xiao Qi’s limbs were broken; if they were broken, he would not be able to pick pockets anymore. Wen Ye knew the rules of the trade: she had intentionally targeted his abdomen, thighs, and chest, and kept her force strictly controlled. In their gang, fighting among themselves was a minor issue, but if it disrupted Aunt Rong’s money-making, that was a major problem.
After scanning him over, Aunt Rong pulled back her gaze, her expression giving away neither anger nor pleasure. She looked at Wen Ye. “Xiao Wu, you did this?”
“Yeah. He hit me first,” Wen Ye replied.
“A fucking lie! You were the one who choked me first!” Xiao Qi’s face was flushed a dark, angry red.
Wen Ye neither looked at him nor replied. There were no security cameras in this dark little room, and eyewitnesses? Who would willingly step forward to meddle and get dragged into a mess, only for the two fighters to endlessly bicker until it all got swept under the rug?
Aunt Rong commanded, “Alright, all of you keep your mouths shut. We have got big work to do tomorrow. I am not beating you today, but neither of you gets dinner. If anyone starts a fight with me again, I will break your legs and throw you out onto the overpass to work.”
Wen Ye knew Aunt Rong was just making empty threats; she would not dare break her legs. It was not because Aunt Rong liked her, but because Wen Ye was the fastest, most precise, and most ruthless pickpocket among them all. Aunt Rong was counting on her to bring in money. How much could begging on an overpass possibly make compared to picking pockets?
Aunt Rong looked over at Xiao Shi, then turned back to Wen Ye. “Xiao Wu, teach her how to pick pockets.”
“Okay,” Wen Ye did not dare refuse.
That night, eight children slept on the room’s floor. Even though they had reached Xiao Shi’s spot in the count, two of them were already gone.
When someone was gone, it did not mean they had died, at least not right in front of Wen Ye. Wen Ye knew where one of them had gone because she had eavesdropped on a conversation between Aunt Rong and Uncle Kai outside the door back then.
Aunt Rong said, “Xiao Er is already 15 years old. It is no longer suitable for him to keep being a pickpocket.”
Uncle Kai smacked his lips, taking a couple of puffs of his cigarette before replying, “Then sell him to the Bald Guy. Since he is still a virgin, we can probably get 20 for him.”
Aunt Rong fell silent for a moment. “Should we sell some of our blood first, and then sell him to the Bald Guy? We could make a bit more.”
Uncle Kai answered, “Blood is not easy to sell right now; inspections are strict.”
That night, Wen Ye had experienced a nightmare filled entirely with blood. When she woke up drenched in sweat, she calculated her age and realized she was still 7, still quite far from 15, yet somehow it did not feel far away at all. It was as though an hourglass hung suspended over her head. From that day onward, she worked even harder at picking pockets. She needed to become the best at it so that Aunt Rong would not sell her off too early. This place was terrible, but compared to the unknown terrors awaiting her, Wen Ye feared the unknown even more.
Pulling herself back from her memories, Wen Ye turned her head to look at Xiao Shi lying right beside her. Xiao Shi did not look particularly old either; she was probably the same age as her, 7 years old, or at most 8.
Wen Ye could not fall asleep. She felt a harrowing, painful hunger, one so sharp it made her mouth flood with acidic saliva. She swallowed the sour liquid down, pretending she had just taken a sip of thin gruel.
A massive growl echoed. Wen Ye pressed her hands tightly against her stomach, imagining that if she flattened her belly just a bit more, she would not feel quite as hungry.
Gu Sheng had heard it. She had not fallen asleep; she was terrified and desperately homesick. Two days ago, she still had a father and a mother. Just on her way home from school at dusk, while waiting by the roadside for the nanny to pick her up, a van had passed by. Before she had even a second to react, she had been scooped up around the waist and hauled into the vehicle. She cried and screamed, but those people forced water down her throat and sealed her mouth shut with packing tape. Not long after drinking the water, she had drifted off to sleep, and when she woke up again, she was trapped inside this self-built house. During a moment when she managed to catch a glimpse of her captor’s phone, she realized two days had already passed. Her mom and dad must be frantic, desperately searching for her everywhere.
The thought of it made her want to cry all over again.
Lying flat on her back, Wen Ye felt her stomach feel even emptier, so she turned onto her side facing Xiao Shi’s direction. She could see Xiao Shi’s shoulders trembling.
“Are you crying?” Wen Ye inched a bit closer and asked in a low voice.
Gu Sheng did not want to answer; she only wanted to go home. She continued wiping away her tears.
Wen Ye sighed. “You must have been kidnapped, right? Usually, the ones who get kidnapped cry the hardest. Someone like me, who was sold off, knows nobody wants them anymore, so after crying a couple of times there is nothing left to cry about.”
She paused for a moment, then added, “Though I did not cry even once, because back then I did not even know I was being sold. By the time I found out, I had already been stuck here for nearly a year.”
It was rare to find someone so different from the rest of them here, and Wen Ye desperately wanted to talk to Xiao Shi. She did not talk much ordinarily, but that did not mean she disliked talking. She just did not want to speak to anyone else in this place.
Xiao Shi seemed to understand a lot of things, Wen Ye thought. Talking to her would actually be interesting.
Just as she finished the thought, Wen Ye’s stomach growled loudly again.
Reaching under her pillow, Gu Sheng pulled out more than half of a steamed bun and turned to hand it to Wen Ye. She truly could not get used to eating this bun; it was hard and choked her throat. At the very least, this girl called Xiao Wu was starving because of her, so she could consider it a token of gratitude.
Under the moonlight filtering through the window, Wen Ye clearly saw the bun in Xiao Shi’s hand, and she stared at her in astonishment. “Aren’t you going to eat it?”
Gu Sheng shook her head.
Taking the bun, a sudden thought flashed through Wen Ye’s mind: Is she really a mute? But she was not like Xiao Qi; she would never laugh at her.
Wen Ye took a large bite out of the bun. The moment it entered her mouth, her saliva rushed out eagerly to meet it. As she chewed, tasting a familiar sweetness, the edges of Wen Ye’s eyes and brows softened. “Xiao Shi, thank you.”
With tear tracks still lingering at the corners of her eyes, Gu Sheng frowned slightly and corrected her, “My name is Gu Sheng.”