The year was 1976.
Spring should have been softening into warmth, yet last night an unexpected blizzard had swept through Linjia Village, a remote settlement deep in Yongxing County, in the country’s arid northwest.
From a distance, winding paths had turned to ribbons of yellow mud where the snow had thawed. Low earthen houses of sun-baked brick stood scattered and uneven beneath dripping eaves. On a weathered wall nearby, peeling paint revealed bold characters brushed in bright red: Unity Is Strength!
Smoke curled lazily from kitchen chimneys. Beyond the village, paulownia trees still bare of leaves carried the occasional call of a bird, lending a profound stillness to the snow-dusted world.
Down a lane, a woman hurried forward. She shoved open a rickety wooden door with a groan and marched straight toward the inner room. Stepping up to the bed, she roughly shook the girl curled beneath a patchwork quilt embroidered with peonies.
“You worthless girl wake up! Something terrible has happened!”
“That wretched boy from the Jiang family has been caught carrying on with that city youth sent down to the village! They’ve tied them both to the great pagoda tree out front!”
Bleary-eyed from sleep, Su Ying opened her eyes. Standing over her was a woman in a tattered navy cotton-padded jacket, hair cropped short to her ears. Her skin, dry and weathered, looked flushed and rough, and her expression was severe.
Su Ying’s head swam. Confusion clouded her mind. “Where… where is this?”
The woman’s clothes looked decades out of date.
Seeing no sign of recognition, the woman frowned, reached out, and jabbed a sharp finger hard against Su Ying’s forehead.
“You hopeless fool! Don’t play dumb at a time like this! The Jiangs are the most powerful family in the village. Even if that boy has disgraced himself with that girl, you will hold your tongue and endure it. Your mother died young, and your father is a spineless good-for-nothing. I may have married him later, but I bore him a son and raised you these past years. I have already accepted three hundred yuan as a bride price and that money is set aside for my daughter Xiuxiu’s dowry. If you turn ungrateful and try to back out… your father might be weak enough to agree, but I certainly will not!”
“You eat my food, wear my clothes, live under my roof so you will do as I say! That boy’s father is the village Party secretary, and his brothers all hold jobs in the city. Once you marry into their family, you will be able to help your brother get ahead as well. Do you understand?”
She fell silent when Su Ying continued staring blankly, and gave her an exasperated shove. Useless girl. Her fiancé is caught in bed with another woman, and she still wears that lifeless look on her face.
Su Ying’s head throbbed. Glancing around, she spotted a bamboo-wrapped thermos atop a rickety wooden table. Then she looked down at the peony-patterned quilt draped over her and realization struck like thunder.
“I am speaking to you! Do you hear me?” the woman pressed on. “Come with me to the great pagoda tree this instant. Stand before everyone and declare you believe Jiang Xiaofei. Swear your engagement still stands and it might yet be saved. A husband is a husband, rich or poor. Far better to marry well than starve alongside a pauper. At least this way you’ll never go hungry and one day your brother will benefit from your good fortune too.”
“And mark my words this scandal has stirred the whole village. That city girl Song Min is no innocent, so keep your wits about you. Whatever happens, do not agree to breaking the engagement in a moment of foolish feeling. We have already accepted three hundred yuan! You won’t find a man willing to pay such a price these days.
And let me make this plain if they try to call off the match… your father and I will not be returning that money. After all, it is not you who has been caught in disgrace. Remember that. That three hundred yuan will secure a wife for your brother.”
Before Su Ying could fully grasp what was happening, the woman hauled her roughly out of bed. Barely shod, Su Ying was dragged straight toward the great pagoda tree at the village center.
They had barely stepped through the doorway when Su Ying still dazed, her thoughts drifting walked straight into a wall of solid muscle. The impact sent fire searing through her face, and especially her nose; stinging tears instantly welled in her eyes.
Pressing a hand to her nose, she looked up and found herself gazing into a face of striking, chiseled handsomeness. Dark, slashing eyebrows, a straight noble nose, lips neither too thin nor full. His skin bore the warm tone of sun and wind. Broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, long-legged he stood well over six feet. In his hands he carried two paper-wrapped parcels, and he wore a crisp navy Zhongshan suit that stood out vividly against the snow-white ground behind him.
The man looked her over in return. Barely five feet tall, hair braided in two clumsy plaits, dressed in a frayed, heavily patched jacket far too short for her frame. Pale as milk, cheeks hollow, looking half-starved and feverish. She looked as though she might shatter and now that she had bumped lightly against him, tears brimmed in her eyes. If I were a man, he thought, I would never wed such a fragile, unblessed little thing.
Su Ying’s cheeks burned hot. She opened her mouth to stammer an apology but before a word could pass her lips, Tian Cuifen dragged her away.
At the village entrance, Jiang Xiaofei and Song Min stood bound to the great pagoda tree, their clothing rumpled and torn. A crowd of villagers had gathered to gawk.
Song Min fared the worse of the two. Temperatures had plummeted after last night’s snow. Her braids hung matted like a bird’s nest, straw tangled in the hair. She wore nothing but a thin white undershirt, and a red handprint blazed upon one cheek. Wind cut through her; she shivered violently, teeth chattering.
Jiang Xiaofei caught sight of Su Ying. Glancing from the quiet, meek girl who never spoke two words aloud to Song Min shamed and shivering before the village because of him his expression hardened. He glared at Su Ying and spat out through clenched teeth:
“Su Ying! You told the villagers, didn’t you? You vile creature because I refused to marry you, you chose to ruin me! Well hear this you shall never be my wife! Not in a thousand years!”
“You think to force me into marriage? Bah! I will never take you! You malicious woman I renounce our betrothal before the entire village! Yes I lay with that city girl! I love her! I intend to marry her! What what can you possibly do to stop me?”
Song Min pressed her lips tight, her eyes burning with pure hatred as she fixed them upon Su Ying. Jiang Xiaofei glowered, chest heaving, while the crowd murmured and pointed.
“That Song Min girl has no shame! I saw her carrying on with other city boys only days ago and now she’s in the arms of the Party secretary’s son! A real little fox spirit, that one!”
“Exactly so!”
Song Min?
Su Ying’s mind roared and suddenly, everything clicked into place.
Good heavens. I’ve woken up inside the pages of a novel.
The great pagoda tree… Su Xiuxiu… Jiang Xiaofei… Song Min… her wicked stepmother Tian Cuifen… it was all exactly as written.
She remembered then she was a travel blogger. Last night she had stayed up past three in the morning, binging the wildly popular novel Spoiled by a Powerful Man in the 1970s. Sleep-deprived, she had nodded off at her desk and opened her eyes inside the story. Inside the body of the novel’s most pitiful supporting character: the gentle, yielding Su Ying, who bore every hardship inflicted by her stepfamily without complaint.
In the story, the author had mapped out a life of utter tragedy for her. Perhaps she had raged too loudly at the characters in the book and now she had been cast into Su Ying’s life to live it herself.
Worst of all she knew what lay ahead. Her father and stepmother would strip her of every last scrap of value, marry her off to Jiang Xiaofei and there, she would endure daily beatings until one day he struck her down dead.
Tian Cuifen’s words echoed in her mind and Su Ying’s thoughts sharpened instantly.
No. This marriage must not happen. If I go through with it… I am signing my own death warrant.