A dull, tightening pain throbbed in her temples, wave after wave—not the sharp, slicing kind, but blunt and rusty, scraping slowly at her nerves. Like someone holding an unfiled nail, slowly, deliberately screwing it into her skull.
Su Wanning’s consciousness was shrouded in darkness, being dragged upward by that pain, inch by inch, from the suffocating void. Her eyelids felt glued shut, too heavy to lift. A musty stench clung to her nose—mildew mixed with the damp smell of dirt from a neglected corner, and a faint bitter trace of old medicinal dregs that made her chest tighten and burn.
The room wasn’t quiet. Voices buzzed through a thin door, muffled but incessant, like flies in the heat of summer that wouldn’t leave your ear no matter how you swatted. A breeze slipped through the crack beneath the door, scented faintly with the leaves of the pagoda tree outside, carrying the voices closer.
A woman’s voice was the sharpest, deliberately sweetened with flattery. Even through the door, Wanning could hear how eager she was to please:
“Zhang sister-in-law, you can rest assured! Our Wanning is thin, that’s true, but that face? Put her in the factory with those girls and she’d outshine all of them! Just look at her eyebrows, that figure—she’s definitely good for bearing children. She’ll give your family a big, healthy grandson for sure!”
A man chimed in, voice hoarse and obsequious, almost impatient in his eagerness:
“Exactly! Only because it’s your family—we wouldn’t give Wanning to just anyone. Not everyone’s lucky enough to run into such a blessing!”
Zhang sister-in-law? Good for bearing children? A blessing?
The words dropped like pebbles into her fogged mind, each one rippling outward. She tried to raise a hand to rub her throbbing temples, but her arm felt boneless, her fingertips heavy as lead. Her body felt foreign, limp on the hard plank bed, every muscle weak and trembling.
The woman outside raised her voice again, overflowing with pride she couldn’t hide:
“As for the bride price, we’re not asking much. Just three hundred yuan, like we discussed. And—have the factory give our Zhenhai an official position. Then the matter’s settled, nailed down.”
“Three hundred? And a permanent job?” A sharp female voice cut in, filled with displeasure—clearly unhappy with the demands.
Su Yuling—Wanning’s biological mother—instantly adopted an even more sycophantic tone, voice warm with forced enthusiasm:
“Sister, listen to me! Everyone knows what your son is like. Our Wanning is a clean, decent girl, and pretty on top of that. You wouldn’t be losing out at all!”
Wouldn’t be losing out.
The words cut through Wanning’s haze like a sudden light.
Memories flooded in—unfamiliar yet intimately painful.
Countless nights spent hungry, curled in a kitchen corner gnawing on stale cornbread. The sting of a feather duster lashing her back. Stepfather Wang Zhenhai cursing as he forced endless chores on her…
Su Yuling—her mother—saving every good thing for Zhenhai and the son she had with him, Wang Wei. Always blows and insults for her. Wang Wei treating her like a punching bag, hitting her whenever he pleased.
And the factory director’s son—drooling, simple-minded, grinning blankly at everyone. Last time he’d seen her in an alley, he’d tried to grab her hair.
The last memory of this body was of Wang Zhenhai’s slap, so hard it turned her vision black. Then someone forcing a bowl of foul-smelling medicine down her throat, the bitterness burning her throat raw.
They were going to sell her. To that fool.
Rage shot up her chest, sorrow and fury clenching her heart tight until she could barely breathe. For a moment, the faint rise and fall of her chest simply… stopped.
And in that moment, everything sharpened.
The pain in her temples was still there, her body still weak—but none of it clouded her mind anymore. They were like figures in a ledger, waiting to be dealt with.
The original girl’s terror and grief ebbed, like a wave receding. In its place rose a cold, steady calm.
Body weak—likely the medicine.
A storage room—dim, dusty, moldy.
Three people outside, minutes away from selling her off.
Time was short.
Her eyes weren’t fully open yet, just slits, but enough to scan the room. A chipped cabinet. Crates under the bed. A plank bed digging into her spine.
And there. On the nightstand—a chipped ceramic bowl.
That would do.
The voices outside stopped. Zhang sister-in-law finally relented:
“Fine, fine. But I need to see the girl first. She better not be sick. I’m not marrying a problem into my home just to pay for medicine.”
Su Yuling’s voice was practically trembling with excitement:
“Of course! She’s fine, just shy. I’ll bring her out now so you can see!”
The door creaked.
Light flooded the room, dust swirling like glittering motes in the air.
Three silhouettes filled the doorway.
Su Yuling at the front, greed shining in her eyes like coins piled before her. Wang Zhenhai behind her, eyes roaming her body like a livestock buyer judging a pig or sheep. And Zhang sister-in-law, stiff and haughty in her polyester blouse, expression twisted with disdain—like she was picking through wilted produce at the market.
“Wanning, get up!” Su Yuling snapped, stalking forward and reaching out to grab her arm. “Zhang sister-in-law is here to see you. This is your good fortune—get up and thank her!”
Her hand reached closer. Fingers inches away.
Now.
Wanning moved.
She didn’t sit up. She rolled—quick as a cat. Sliding off the bed, she hooked the chipped bowl with her arm.
Without looking, she hurled it at the concrete floor.
CRASH!
Shards flew. The sharp crack like a firecracker burst in the cramped room. All three froze, staring at the fragments.
Su Yuling’s smile shattered. Rage twisted her face.
“You useless girl, have you lost your mind—”
The words died in her throat.
Wanning was already standing.
In her hand—a shard the size of her palm, edges jagged and lethal. She held it steady, thumb and finger gripping the thick side so the sharp edge faced outward. Her hand didn’t shake.
And in the next breath, she pressed the shard to the left side of her neck.
Right where the artery pulsed.
Just a little pressure, and her blood would spray. No stopping it.
“Sell me, is it?”
Her voice was hoarse, scraped raw by the medicine, but unmistakably clear.
Su Yuling and Wang Zhenhai gaped. They had never seen her like this. The girl who always kept her head down, never resisted, never dared to speak back—even under beatings.
Now she stared them down with a dead calm.
Her gaze slid past them, landing on Zhang sister-in-law. She pressed the shard harder. A thin red line split her skin, blood sliding down to stain her worn collar.
She spoke slowly, one word at a time, each one a nail sealing the room shut:
“Believe it or not— I’ll die right here, and you won’t get a single cent.”