Liu Jinxia took out a cigarette, lit it, inhaled deeply, then burst into a violent coughing fit, tears and snot running down her face—choked by her own smoke.
Before Cui Guiying could press for an answer, something else caught her attention: her unconscious grandson slowly opened his eyes.
“Little Yuanhou, Little Yuanhou, you’re awake!”
Li Zhuiyuan looked at Cui Guiying, dazed. He glanced around the room, then croaked out a hoarse, “Nai.”
“Oh, you finally woke up. The Bodhisattva bless you, the Bodhisattva bless you.”
Beside them, Li Juxiang picked herself off the floor, grabbed a clean bowl, and poured herself some water, sipping it slowly.
Li Zhuiyuan reached out, clutching Cui Guiying’s arm, shifting his body slightly, trying to burrow into his grandmother’s embrace.
Cui Guiying immediately gathered him up in her arms and cooed, “My little one, my Little Yuanhou, my sweet little one…”
Liu Jinxia said, “You stay with him. Let him sleep a bit more. He’ll be fine when he wakes up again.”
Li Juxiang walked over and helped her mother out the door.Cui Guiying called after them, “When Weihan gets back, I’ll talk to him…”
Liu Jinxia waved a hand. “Wait until the boy’s completely recovered. We’ll head home for now—no need to see us off.”
And Cui Guiying truly couldn’t. All she could do was keep cradling her grandson.
In her arms, Li Zhuiyuan began to drift back to sleep again, this time peacefully—not like before, when his furrowed brows and clenched lips made one’s heart ache.
…
On the way back in the tricycle, Liu Jinxia crouched slightly, pulled aside her daughter’s collar, and looked at the ring of bruises.
“Does it hurt?”
“Mom, sit down properly. Don’t fall off.”
Liu Jinxia sat back, and after a long pause, slapped her thigh and cursed:
“Xianghou, do you think we were just born to suffer in this life?”
…
Li Weihan still hadn’t come home. Cui Guiying sent Huzi and Shitou to check at Li Sanjiang’s place. They came back saying one of the servants had said Sanjiang had gone out to fold paper effigies, and Weihan had gone after him.
Cui Guiying understood immediately—Li Sanjiang had gone to perform paper-folding rites. According to custom, the host family would serve a meal, and knowing how much Sanjiang liked to drink, who knew how long they’d be stuck waiting? Her husband must’ve gone to hurry him up.
Dinner was cooked with the help of the older children. Even after the meal, Li Weihan still hadn’t returned. Cui Guiying sent the kids to the back room to sleep.
She stayed with Li Zhuiyuan in the kitchen, setting up a wooden plank bed. He slept soundly.
Cui Guiying fanned him gently with a palm fan while wiping tears from her cheeks. The boy had truly suffered this time.
Her thoughts drifted to her daughter, recently divorced. She had no idea how the girl was doing now.
Unlike other families that favored sons over daughters, Cui Guiying and her husband had always doted on their girl.
She wanted to study, and she was good at it. They’d always supported her, ignoring the gossip—people saying it was pointless to educate a girl when she could just marry early. They never wavered.
That same affection had naturally carried over to her grandson.
Li Zhuiyuan had a dream—he was in class at the special youth program. The old professor at the podium closed his book and said, “Alright, class dismissed.”
He walked out with his deskmate, weaving through a crowd of tall adults.
They headed into the restroom, climbed onto the urinal step.
His deskmate had already unzipped and started peeing, urging him:
“Zhuiyuan, come on! What’re you waiting for?”
Li Zhuiyuan nodded and just as he reached for his zipper, he jolted awake.
That’s when the dream ended. He opened his eyes, saw his grandmother asleep beside him, still holding the fan in her hand, bathed in moonlight.
Close call—he’d nearly wet the bed.
His memory of the day was already fuzzy. He slipped out of bed quietly, needing to pee.
The toilet was a small shack far from the main house, with a pit dug in the ground, a large vat buried inside, and a hollow wooden seat on top. The first time he saw it, he thought it looked just like a throne from a movie.
Locals called going to the bathroom “using the porcelain vat.”
At first, Li Zhuiyuan even went there to pee. But thanks to tips from his older cousins, he’d learned that as long as you were beyond the house or courtyard, you could mark territory wherever you pleased.
The front gate led outside the courtyard, which was a bit far. So he chose the back door and headed for the river—it was closer.
Just as he was about to relieve himself, he heard a “thud… thud… thud…”
Looking down, he realized the sound was coming from the family boat moored at the shore. It was rocking.
A flood of images rushed into his mind. Hadn’t he gone fishing earlier with Grandpa and the boys?
Did they catch anything? What did they have for dinner? Why couldn’t he remember?
“Thud… thud… thud…”
The boat kept rocking, even though the water was still. There was no wind.
Then he remembered—the black hair, the fall into the river, the thing beneath the water… And with the memory came fear.
His legs gave out. He stumbled and fell on his backside, instinctively clutching his shoulder—as if a cold hand was still gripping it.
That fall changed his line of sight, revealing what had been hidden under the boat.
“Thud… thud… thud…”
A woman’s head was surfacing, striking the bottom of the boat, then sinking again, only to rise once more and repeat—over and over, tirelessly.
Suddenly, the banging stopped. The boat stilled.
The head rose again, but this time didn’t strike. Instead, it slowly turned. Wet, black hair slid away to reveal part of a vivid woman’s face.
Her skin was ghostly pale, as if it might dissolve in the moonlight.
It seemed she had found the person she was looking for. Her lips curved into a slow smile.
Her lipstick was still a glaring red, jarring in the stillness of the night.
Li Zhuiyuan rubbed his eyes hard. When he looked again, she was already halfway out of the water, arms hanging limply by her sides.
He scrambled to his feet, crawling and running toward the house. He tripped on the threshold but managed to grab the doorframe and steady himself.
Glancing back, he saw that the woman—Little Oriole, who had earlier only half-emerged from the water—was now standing at the bottom step of the stone staircase.
“Nai! Nai!”
He ran to the wooden plank bed, shaking Cui Guiying. But she just clutched her fan and slept on.
“Nai, wake up! Nai, wake up!”
He kept shouting, but she showed no sign of waking.
“Drip… drip… drip…”
The sound of water behind him.
Li Zhuiyuan turned around and saw a pair of red high heels. Then pale, bloated ankles. A black qipao clung to her soaked body. Droplets trickled from her hair and sleeves.
She—
She was standing right on the threshold.
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