Wu Ximei understood from a very young age that the gods of this world hated her.
When she was six years old, she knelt in the village’s earthen shrine all night, mimicking her grandmother’s posture. But the next day, her mother still left.
Her mother’s wedding was simple—no bridal sedan, no clamor of gongs and drums. Her only dowry was a brand-new floral dress.
Her mother’s bridal gifts were just as meager. After her father’s death, this impoverished home had nothing decent left to offer. The only thing her mother took with her was her three-year-old brother.
Wu Ximei wanted to go too, even if only as an object. But that family had no use for a worthless girl.
By dusk, her mother had taken her brother’s hand and followed the limping man away.
She cried and chased them for two miles, scrambling back up each time the strange man shoved her away.
Her mother wept too, crouching to hold her tightly, unwilling to let go for the longest time. Her snot-nosed brother, oblivious, cried simply because their mother did. The man, irritated by their wailing, cursed crudely and kicked her mother.
Her mother stifled her sobs, tears falling silently as she hurriedly wiped Wu Ximei’s face.
"Be good, go back," her mother said, voice thick. "The road will be hard to walk if it gets any later."
The man dragged her mother away in anger. Her mother shielded her brother as the three of them stumbled forward, tangled together. Wu Ximei followed alone, barefoot on the mountain path, calling out for her mother again and again.
Her mother, her hair gripped in the man’s fist, couldn’t turn back.
In the end, she collapsed, too exhausted to rise again.
She lay face-down in the dirt, howling silently as the sun in the west vanished bit by bit, taking her mother’s small shadow with it. Wu Ximei stretched out her arms, fingers splayed wide, but she couldn’t grasp the sun—nor could she keep her mother.
By the time starlight settled on the branches, she had returned to the home that had lost all her closest kin.
Now, only her blind grandmother remained in the dilapidated old house. In what little remained of her childhood, this broken family was all she had left.
"Don’t blame her," her grandmother said, her toothless mouth puckering. "She had to survive. Women have no choice."
Then who should she blame?
As if hearing her silent resentment, her grandmother’s clouded eyes turned toward her. "Blame your bad luck, if you must."
Her grandmother had borne nine children, but only five survived. Two daughters had married into distant villages, and the man who took her mother forbade any further contact with this family. So the only ones left to rely on were the second and youngest sons.
The youngest had gone to the county town to work years ago and slowly lost touch. The second son’s family was just as poor—his father-in-law had been paralyzed for three years, and beneath him was a brood of dirty-faced, hungry children. The most he could provide his mother was three meager meals a day.
Wu Ximei was a burden. Even if the adults never said it outright, she could feel it.
She learned early to read moods. If her second aunt wore a sour expression at mealtime, she would obediently set down her bowl, swiftly grab the bamboo basket behind the door, and slip away to the back mountain to cut pigweed without a word.
Her grandmother dared not speak up—she, too, lived at the mercy of her son’s temper.
Late at night, when all was quiet, the two of them huddled together in the thatched hut, listening to the growling of each other’s empty stomachs.The old woman gently patted her, fanning away the buzzing mosquitoes, soothing her with tales of a celestial palace above the clouds where benevolent gods resided, watching over the suffering. If she prayed devoutly, one day the gods would surely deliver her from misery.
But the gods despised her. No divine mercy ever graced her fate. Just like the night she spent murmuring prayers with the old woman, only to wake the next morning with her stomach still empty.
She often wished to grow up quickly, yet just as often thought there was little good in growing up—merely retreading the same worn path from mother to grandmother.
Whether she willed it or not, the days passed, and she grew up hungry.
Wu Ximei blossomed into a beauty like her mother. The scorching sun in the fields could do nothing to her naturally fair skin, and her delicate, heart-shaped face always bore a soft pink flush, as if a dewy goose egg had rolled in a box of powder, leaving her smooth and tender.
Life under another’s roof taught her caution—her words were soft, her movements unhurried, making her seem even more petite and sweet-natured.
The young men in the village grew restless. Even the boys from her second uncle’s family began lingering around her, intentionally or not. Her second aunt noticed everything, often kicking her son in the backside before shooting Wu Ximei a venomous glare, loudly berating her as a "pretty little troublemaker."
But as midsummer approached, the aunt’s attitude suddenly changed.
That evening, dinner ended early. By the time Wu Ximei cleared the scraps from the table, the moon had yet to rise above the coconut trees.
Her aunt sat on a bamboo stool, fanning herself, her gaze drifting up and down Wu Ximei’s slender frame as she murmured, "Look at you, Ximei, all grown up now."
She shot a meaningful glance at her husband, but the second uncle pretended not to notice, turning away to pick at his teeth with exaggerated disinterest.
"Hey."
Undeterred, the aunt nudged him with her elbow, jabbing at his ribs.
"I don’t care. You say it," the uncle grumbled, pushing her away before standing up irritably and retreating to the inner room.
Wu Ximei quickly gathered the dishes and turned toward the kitchen, pretending not to notice their silent exchange. But her aunt, all smiles now, twisted around and blocked her path.
"You’ll be sixteen soon. What are your plans?"
She was only fourteen. Knowing her aunt had never taken much interest in her affairs, she didn’t bother correcting the mistake. Instead, she lowered her head and shook it slightly, her dark eyes fixed absently on the dirty dishes in the wooden basin.
"How about we arrange a marriage for you?"
Startled, she looked up, confusion filling her eyes.
Back then, she had no real concept of men.
The word only conjured images of the village’s idle middle-aged loafers—men who spent their afternoons wandering aimlessly, sipping tea and daydreaming while their wives toiled in the fields.
Or perhaps the gangly boys her own age, who would shove each other and giggle foolishly whenever they crossed paths.
No spring breeze had yet stirred her heart.
Her girlhood had been spent in dim, old rooms with a blind grandmother, whose so-called "love stories" were little more than cautionary tales urging women to remain devoted, to dutifully serve their husbands and raise their children.
Listening to them left her stifled, as if these stories were casting a slow spell, turning her into her mother.
She remembered the tears on her mother’s face the day she married.
"No.""How can you not marry? De Cai is about to get married too. If you don’t marry, how can he bring a wife home?"
De Cai was the third son of her second uncle, twenty years old this year. In the 1980s in Nanyang Province, this age was already considered late for marriage, given that most boys in the village became fathers in their early twenties.
"Fu Chang."
After hesitating for a while, she softly uttered this name.
Fu Chang was the youngest son of their neighbors, slender and fair-skinned, with a scholarly air. But only Wu Ximei thought so; the rest of the village considered him simple-minded and unlikely to amount to much.
Whenever he saw Ximei, Fu Chang would always keep his distance, smiling shyly at her, unlike other men who would seize any chance to get close and grope her.
He would help her cut grass, fetch water, and often secretly tuck wildflowers into her bamboo basket—all done quietly, just like him: gentle, considerate, and never threatening.
The only downside was that he was mute, and his family was poor.
Wu Ximei didn’t care about that. If she had to choose a man, she’d pick him.
Though she didn’t fully understand what being a wife meant—probably just sharing a bed, eating at the same table, washing his clothes, and bearing his children—she thought Fu Chang was undoubtedly the best choice. She’d even pray for his health and longevity in the future.
"What’s so good about Fu Chang? He’s neither clever nor spirited," her second aunt crushed her dreams with a single remark. "In my opinion, Wu Adi from Lingxi is a better match. He’s full of vigor, and marrying him would bring you good fortune—so happy you’d sleep soundly even on a drum."
Though called "Adi" (Little Brother), he was already thirty-seven.
"No. He beats his wife."
That was the truth. The whole village could hear his wife’s cries when he hit her.
"Men all have tempers," her aunt scoffed. "Just humor him a little."
"He already has a wife."
"He had one. She’s gone now."
Half a year ago, Wu Adi’s wife suddenly disappeared. His family claimed she ran away, but the village women whispered that she was likely beaten to death and buried somewhere.
"No. If I marry, it’ll be Fu Chang. No one else."
"Now you’re being picky? A fickle woman ends up in tatters."
Her second aunt spat those harsh words and stormed off.
Two months after her grandmother’s death, Wu Ximei got married.
The bride price was 800 yuan. The villagers said she was lucky—only Wu Adi, who worked in the county town, could afford to pay that sum without blinking.
Later, De Cai used that money to build a new house and marry his own wife, but that’s another story.
On the wedding day, Wu Ximei’s face was stiff, her expression numb, as she watched Wu Adi surrounded by a rowdy crowd, handing out cigarettes and candy while whispering vulgar jokes to the village loafers.
Among the wedding procession, she spotted Fu Chang, still in his old clothes, keeping his distance as always—only this time, he was hiding his tears.
A hoarse, wordless cry. So even a mute could make sounds when weeping.
Fu Chang, don’t blame me. Blame my bad luck instead.
She was born to suffer.
Her grandmother had always told her to endure—to bear this life, and the next would be better.
That night, she sailed alone into an unknown fate, the beast-like panting of a man ringing in her ears.She didn't understand what was happening, nor why Wu Adi would treat her this way. Only the physical pain made her vaguely aware that she was being harmed.
She began to suspect that it must have been her own words or actions that invited all this suffering, just as the villagers whispered about her mother behind her back.
She cried, ashamed of herself, gritting her teeth as she told herself she couldn't blame anyone else—she could only blame her own bad luck.
That night, she was only fourteen years old.
Before she could grow up, she had already grown old.
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