(A place to park your clever brains, dears—check in and lose ten jin!)
“Mother! Give it to her! Give her the admission letter! I don’t want to go to university anymore!”
Li Lan’s anguished wail made Wu Guihua’s eardrums ring.
Blood ran from Wu Guihua’s temple, blurring her vision. She clutched the yellowed admission letter in a death grip: Bin City Normal University, Li Lan, February 18, 1978.
She had been reborn!
Her memories came flooding back.
In her previous life, Wu Guihua had been tricked by her mother-in-law and husband, Li Hongyuan, into giving the letter to her sister-in-law’s daughter, Li Jiaojiao. Her own daughter, Li Lan, had left home and eventually frozen to death under a bridge.
Meanwhile, her wonderful husband, Li Hongyuan, was cuddling his widowed sister-in-law in a Western-style house in the military district, enjoying a sweet life together and preparing a new dress for his niece to wear to university!
“Worthless girl! Even if you got into university, it’d be no use!”
Old Madam Li jabbed her sharp fingernails into Li Lan’s forehead. “Our Jiaojiao is the Wenqu Star come down to earth! You were born to be a stepping-stone for her!”
“You old hag, get your filthy claws off her!” Wu Guihua’s eyes bloodshot, she seized an enamel mug and hurled it at the framed photo on the wall.
The only photograph of Li Hongyuan in the house split in two.
As shards of glass flew, Wu Guihua grabbed her mother-in-law by her graying hair and slammed her chest hard against the corner of the table.
“Touch my daughter again and see who dies first!”
The table lurched sideways, and Old Madam Li yelped in pain.
“It hurts! You filthy—have you lost your mind? How dare you hit your mother-in-law! I’ll make Hongyuan come back and divorce you!”
“Divorce me—go ahead! If he won’t divorce me, I’ll divorce him!” Wu Guihua gritted her teeth and slammed her mother-in-law against the table harder and harder.
Old Madam Li rolled her eyes from the pain and frantically called for her little grandson.
“Help me hit her back! Do you want to eat sponge cake ever again? Hit her! Beat her to death!”
Li Xiaojun, skinny as a monkey, charged forward, grabbed Wu Guihua’s arm, and bit down.
Wu Guihua kicked her son away. “You ungrateful little wolf! I should never have given birth to you!”
She pulled a stack of receipts from selling her blood out of her clothes and scattered them across the room.
“Li Hongyuan spends his days with his sister-in-law, nephew, and niece, living it up, while making me sell my blood to support his mother and his own children. He’s worse than an animal! Starting today, I’m done!”
“Mother…” Li Lan clutched her mother’s rough, bark-like hand, tears streaming down her face in astonishment.
“Come on!” Wu Guihua gripped her daughter’s thin arm in return. “Mother will take you to buy fabric for new clothes and bedding! You’re going to university, no matter what!”
She rushed into Old Madam Li’s east room and swiftly split the locks on two camphorwood trunks with an axe.
As it happened, the trunks had been part of Wu Guihua’s dowry. Old Madam Li had seized them for her own use right after the wedding, so Wu Guihua knew exactly where the hidden compartments were.
Before long, Old Madam Li’s private stash of more than a hundred yuan, a handful of grain and cloth ration coupons and the like, plus the house deed and household register were all in Wu Guihua’s hands.
Old Madam Li stumbled in, heartbroken as if her son had just died.
“Put them down! Put them down! You little bitch, those are mine!”
Wu Guihua shoved her three feet away, then took her daughter to a town a few li away and went on a shopping spree.
An hour later, the two returned home with their arms full of bags. People had packed the yard and the space outside it, and it was livelier than market day.
Uncle Zhong, the village party secretary, and Village Chief Wu Dayong were standing there while Old Madam Li clung to their arms, wailing loud enough to shake the heavens.
As soon as she saw Wu Guihua return, Uncle Zhong hurried to ask, “Guihua, what on earth happened? Your mother-in-law says you hit her. Could there have been some misunderstanding?”
Wu Guihua dropped her things with a thud.
“If you’re accusing someone, show your proof! Let her show everyone where I hit her!”
Old Madam Li held her swollen, aching chest. Her mouth opened and closed for a long time, and she was so furious she nearly fainted!
Even if she was old, she couldn’t exactly bare her chest in public!
Wu Guihua burst out laughing, utterly delighted.
In her previous life, the old hag had bullied her just like this, leaving her unable even to complain. In the end, her injuries had caused mastitis, which had developed into breast cancer. The old hag had even said she’d gotten a filthy disease from longing for a man!
Now the tables had turned!
It felt so good—so damn good!
Old Madam Zhao, the neighbor, seemed to catch on. She whispered, “Doesn’t Hongyuan’s mother look a little… big in the chest?”
“She’s been widowed for years. She must’ve longed for a man so much she caught herself a filthy disease!”
Wu Guihua threw Old Madam Li’s own words right back at her. The old woman choked on her rage and fainted completely.
The men and women, young and old, standing around wore strange smiles as their eyes darted back and forth, settling on Old Madam Li.
Uncle Zhong frowned and took a couple of puffs on his pipe. He was just about to speak when Wu Guihua picked up the receipts from selling her blood off the ground and slapped them onto the table.
“Don’t tell me Li Hongyuan has it hard in the army. I’ve had it harder than he has! Ever since he took his sister-in-law, nephew, and niece with him to live with the troops, he hasn’t sent home a single cent! All these years, I’ve had to sell my blood just to keep his mother and his own children from starving to death!”
“What?” Uncle Zhong and the villagers were stunned. Thinking it over, they realized the postman from town really had never delivered a money order to the Li household!
“Could Hongyuan be having some kind of difficulty?”
Li Hongyuan’s heroic reputation was so strong that the villagers instinctively made excuses for him.
Wu Guihua had no desire to go on explaining. She turned straight to Uncle Zhong.
“Uncle, write me a letter of introduction. I’ll go ask Li Hongyuan myself. He’s been gone for more than ten years. Did he die out there, or has his widowed sister-in-law been warming his bed so well that he’s forgotten his own surname?”
Boom!
The villagers could no longer hold back their chatter. This was explosive news.
“Li Hongyuan and Wang Yun got together? No wonder he took Wang Yun and those two little brats with him when he went to live with the troops!”
“What a beast! He left his children and mother behind for Guihua to raise, while he got together with his sister-in-law out there!”
“Isn’t this house part of Guihua’s dowry? Old Madam Li eats her daughter-in-law’s food, lives in her house, and still makes trouble every day? What gives her the right? That whole family has been bleeding Sister Guihua dry, as if she had no family to stand up for her!”
Uncle Zhong and Wu Dayong quickly discussed it. They both felt they couldn’t leave the matter unresolved, so they wrote Wu Guihua a letter of introduction right there.
“Guihua, you can go and see for yourself. But if it turns out to be a misunderstanding, don’t do anything that could hurt Hongyuan’s prospects…”
“I understand, Uncle!”
Wu Guihua took the letter of introduction. She couldn’t care less about his prospects.
If Li Hongyuan had the nerve to do such shameful things, he could hardly complain when this “ghost” came knocking on his door!
Before long, the villagers went home with their heads full of gossip.
Old Madam Li was still lying on the ground, “coming to her senses.” Wu Guihua ignored her and called Li Lan to help move the two camphorwood trunks into her own west room.
“You can’t move them! They’re mine!”
Li Xiaojun threw himself at them, howling as he tried to stop her. His grandmother often opened those trunks to give him special treats. He’d long since come to think of them as his own!
Wu Guihua wasn’t expecting it. Her son shoved her, and she cut her hand on a nail.
She kicked the ungrateful boy away, then tucked the jade pendant that had slipped out of her collar back inside.
Li Xiaojun kept rolling on the ground, wailing. Wu Guihua picked him up with one hand and Old Madam Li with the other, then tossed them both into the east room.
Seeing the grandmother who had lorded it over them for so many years finally put in her place, Li Lan was delighted. She put away the cotton and fabric they’d bought in town, then went to make dinner.
“Stew that piece of meat in the salt crock, and cook all the millet into porridge!” Wu Guihua called, hurrying into the west room.
The jade pendant?!
Something didn’t seem right!