Su Wan’s crying echoed through the cramped melon shed, grating on the ears and making everything feel even more restless.
Lei Deshui frowned and sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, the wooden frame creaking under his weight.
He pulled a crumpled pack of “Dacheng” cigarettes from his trouser pocket, shook one out, and bit it between his lips. Striking a match, he lit it.
After taking a deep drag, the sharp smoke circled in his lungs before he slowly exhaled it.
Through the haze, he looked at the woman curled up trembling in the corner.
“Cry, cry, cry. All you know how to do is cry. Are you mourning someone?”
His tone was harsh, but he didn’t lay a hand on her.
Su Wan was startled into silence. She only dared to sob quietly, her shoulders shaking pitifully.
“Tell me what happened. Why is the Wang family forcing you like this?”
Although Lei Deshui was a thug, he wasn’t stupid.
He knew Wang Dajun—spineless, yes, but not necessarily someone who would push his own wife to death.
Unless there was something dirty behind it.
Su Wan bit her lower lip, hesitating for a long while.
The humiliation she felt was so suffocating she almost bit her lip until it bled.
But right now, besides this man, she had no one she could speak to.
“My mother-in-law… she says I haven’t given birth in three years…”
Su Wan’s voice trembled as she slowly, haltingly explained the Wang family’s “surrogacy plan.”
From Zhang Guihua’s vicious insults, to Wang Dajun’s silent approval, to their plan to send her to the village idiot Wang Ergou.
Every word was like a bloodied knife reopening her wounds.
“Smash!”
Lei Deshui crushed the matchbox in his hand.
“The Wang family are a bunch of animals!”
He cursed, a flash of brutal red light appearing in his eyes.
He had been in the underworld long enough to see plenty of dirty things—but never something this filthy.
Just for lineage, they were going to send a perfectly good woman to a fool’s bed?
Were they even human?
Looking at Su Wan’s tear-streaked face, he suddenly felt a strange heaviness in his chest.
No wonder she had risked everything to run.
Anyone in her place would be jumping into a fire pit.
“Alright, stop crying.”
Lei Deshui flicked his cigarette butt to the ground and stepped on it, his tone softening slightly.
“I understand this now.”
Su Wan looked up at him, hope flickering in her eyes.
“Then… can I not go back? Brother Lei, I’ll work like an ox or a horse, anything—just don’t send me back there…”
“No.”
Lei Deshui cut her off coldly.
Those two words were like a bucket of ice water, instantly extinguishing the light in Su Wan’s eyes.
She collapsed onto the bed in despair, her gaze going blank.
As expected.
Men were all the same.
He was afraid of trouble too. He also saw her as a burden.
“What kind of look is that?”
Lei Deshui felt uneasy under her dead-eyed stare and knocked on the wooden bed irritably.
“Where are you going to run now? Do you even have a travel permit? Do you have money? Your parents are hundreds of miles away—can you walk back there?”
His series of questions left Su Wan speechless.
Yes.
This was the 1980s.
Without a travel permit, you couldn’t go anywhere.
She had no money on her, not even a complete pair of shoes.
If she ran, she would either starve to death or be caught as a drifter. Her fate would only be worse.
“Besides,”
Lei Deshui paused, his tone turning serious.
“If you really run tonight, the Wang family can go to the police tomorrow and say you eloped with a wild man. Then your reputation will be ruined forever—you won’t be able to hold your head up again. Even your parents back home would be pointed at and shamed.”
Su Wan’s body trembled violently.
Reputation.
In this era, reputation was a woman’s life.
If she were labeled as “ruined,” even death wouldn’t clear her name.
“Then… what am I supposed to do?”
Su Wan covered her face and cried in despair.
Going back meant death. Running also meant death.
Was there truly no way out for her?
“Go back.”
Lei Deshui said in a low, firm voice.
“As long as you return, this stays within the family. The Wang bunch are cowards—they won’t dare expose it, for the sake of their own face.”
As Su Wan was about to argue again, Lei Deshui suddenly reached out and grabbed her ankle.
“Aah!”
Su Wan cried out in shock and instinctively tried to pull her foot back.
Her ankle was swollen like a steamed bun, covered in mud and scratches.
“Don’t move!”
Lei Deshui barked.
He bent down and rummaged under the bed, pulling out a broken cardboard box.
Inside was a glass bottle of homemade medicinal wine, soaked with snakes and scorpions—it looked terrifying.
He poured some into his palm, rubbed his hands together to warm it, then suddenly grabbed her injured ankle.
His rough hands, carrying a burning heat, pressed onto her cold, swollen skin.
“Bear with it. I need to work the bruising out.”
As he spoke, his hands didn’t slow down at all.
“It hurts… it hurts…”
Su Wan sobbed, tears streaming down her face, her body trembling—but she didn’t dare pull away.
The sharp medicinal smell spread through the air, replacing the earlier ambiguous tension.
Lei Deshui kept his head down, focused.
Those hands that had killed pigs and fought men were now massaging a woman’s foot.
Although his movements were still rough, Su Wan could feel he was deliberately controlling his strength.
At that moment, something strange rose in her heart.
Sour, bitter… and a warmth she couldn’t quite describe.
After finishing, Lei Deshui used a torn cloth to wipe the mud off her foot.
“Listen carefully.”
He looked up and met her eyes directly.
Those eyes, in the faint morning light, looked especially deep.
“You go back and act like nothing happened. As long as you’re in that yard, I can keep an eye on you.”
“If they dare lay a hand on you…”
He paused, a cruel smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
“I’ll make them see what real hell looks like.”
Su Wan stared at him blankly.
Was this… a promise?
By the time dawn approached, the rain had finally stopped.
A thick mist covered the mountains, white and hazy.
Lei Deshui carried Su Wan on his back along a muddy path.
She lay against his broad back, wearing his ill-fitting shirt, her bare legs exposed beneath it.
His steps were steady and firm.
To avoid villagers who might be up early, he deliberately took the abandoned grass-covered paths.
Thorns scraped against his pants, but he didn’t even frown.
They walked all the way to the back wall of the Wang family’s courtyard.
Only then did Lei Deshui put her down.
He looked around carefully to make sure no one was there, then pulled something from his waist and shoved it into Su Wan’s hand.
The cold touch made her shiver.
It was a pair of scissors.
Usually used for trimming melon vines, sharpened to a terrifying point.
“Take it.”
Lei Deshui lowered his voice, his tone fierce.
“If that idiot tries to enter your room after you go back, stab him with this.”
Su Wan’s hand shook as she held the scissors.
“Stab… what if I hurt him badly?”
“Who cares!”
Lei Deshui reached out and roughly fixed her messy hair, his fingers brushing her pale cheek.
“If you kill him, I’ll take the blame for you.”
Those words carried no embellishment.
But they were heavier than a thousand pounds.
Su Wan suddenly looked up at him.
In the faint morning light, the vicious-looking man’s face somehow carried a trace of unexpected heroism.
“Go.”
Lei Deshui pushed her lightly, then crouched down, interlocking his hands on his knee to let her step up.
Su Wan gritted her teeth and stepped onto his hands, climbing over the wall.
She turned back once.
Lei Deshui stood in the shadow beneath the wall, like a silent guardian statue.
Her heart pounded violently.
She tightened her grip on the scissors—her courage, her lifeline.
Taking a deep breath, she jumped down into that devouring courtyard.
Just as she landed, before she could even steady herself—
She heard the “bang” of the woodshed door behind her being kicked open from inside.