In the second month after the marriage, Wu Adi began to beat her.
Sometimes it was because the food didn’t suit his taste, sometimes because he lost at gambling, sometimes because she was too slow to answer him when he spoke. But more often than not, it was because he had suffered grievances elsewhere and had nowhere else to vent his anger.
For over a year, Wu Ximei’s belly had remained flat, which made Wu Adi’s family dislike her even more.
Wu Ximei suddenly recalled that his first wife had also been childless, but she dared not voice this thought. Experience had taught her that such words would only invite even crueler punishment.
Night after night, she tossed and turned in bed, praying to the heavens to grant her a child—so she could be spared from the heavy household chores and enjoy over nine months free from beatings and curses.
But the heavens paid her no heed. By the time she turned sixteen, she still hadn’t conceived.
As time passed, the villagers seemed to catch on to something. They huddled in small groups, whispering furtively, leaning in to murmur behind Wu Adi’s back whenever he walked by.
"Wu Adi isn’t a real man." No one knew who first spread these words, but they gradually became common knowledge.
"What’s the use of having so much money? In the end, he’ll still die without an heir."
The village scoundrel said this while leaning against a tree, rubbing dirt off his arms, feeling quite pleased with himself.
The adults gossiped in hushed tones, while the children, having absorbed the idle talk day after day, grew even more unrestrained in their words and soon learned to mock Adi as well.
Whenever he passed through the village entrance, a pack of barefoot, dirty children would swarm around him, their snotty mouths chattering as they imitated the adults, asking when his little wife would finally get pregnant.
Wu Adi grew increasingly sullen and volatile, his temper dark and unpredictable.
Sometimes, in the middle of a meal, he would suddenly stop, snatch the bowl from Ximei’s hands, and hurl it violently to the ground.
Other times, he would chain-smoke until the room was thick with haze, making it impossible to keep one’s eyes open.
Still other nights, he wouldn’t sleep at all, lying with his arm under his head, turning his face away, refusing to speak or answer questions. And just as Ximei would begin to drift off, he would suddenly kick her, sending her tumbling from the bed to the floor.
A few times, drunk and red-eyed, he pressed a kitchen knife to her throat, forcing her to swear she would conceive within a month.
Wu Ximei believed that if she just endured long enough, this torment would eventually pass.
But misfortune always strikes the most vulnerable.
One afternoon, while working in the fields, she saw Wu Adi standing on the ridge, jumping and waving urgently at her. Bewildered, Ximei walked over, only for Adi to seize her wrist and drag her hurriedly back home.
As soon as they entered, she saw a half-grown boy sitting on a bamboo stool, staring at the ground, too afraid to look at her.
Wu Ximei recognized him as the youngest son of Adi’s uncle, just turned eighteen.
What was he doing here, visiting unannounced outside of holidays?
Though puzzled, she showed nothing on her face. After washing her hands and cooking, she quickly prepared a full table of dishes.
The cousin, whom she had only met a few times before, shrank into a corner of the table, keeping his head down the entire time, shoveling food into his mouth while drinking heavily with his elder cousin.
This was the first time she had seen him drink—and so fiercely at that.
After the meal, when the small talk had run its course, the cousin still showed no sign of leaving.
The three of them sat in awkward silence, none looking at the others, watching as the shadows cast by the window lattice slowly lengthened on the floor.
Wu Ximei was the first to lose patience. She said she needed to return to the fields, but Wu Adi suddenly stopped her, turning to give the young man a meaningful glance.Danger loomed like a behemoth behind the floral cloth curtain—its face unseen, yet it bulged against the fabric, sending chilling gusts her way.
Wu Ximei's hair stood on end. She turned to flee, only to find Wu Adi had already bolted the door behind her.
"I need a son, need a son," he muttered, twisting her arms behind her back.
"Brother, I can't—"
"Hurry up!"
He dragged her to the ground, pinning her arms beneath his knees.
She thrashed, screamed, kicked wildly—then a shadow loomed as someone seized her legs before the mountain came crushing down.
She stopped struggling. Her voice grew hoarse from screaming. Useless. She knew even shrieking to the heavens would change nothing.
No one ever came to save her during beatings. Her world held no deities, no miracles, not an ounce of mercy—only hatred and endurance. All she'd been taught was to swallow blood with broken teeth.
It ended quickly.
Her cousin stood awkwardly, fumbling with his trousers.
She remained silent, tears dried on her cheeks, strands of hair stuck to them. He reached to wipe them but withdrew his hand, half-ashamed, half-afraid. Nodding at his cousin, he mumbled something before fleeing like a startled hare.
Wu Adi released her arms and lit a cigarette.
"He'll return next week. Your belly better cooperate." He flicked ash. "I don't want this either."
Wu Ximei dressed slowly without speaking.
Outside, the sun dipped westward—unnoticed, evening had fallen.
"Make dinner." He tossed money onto her lap, hesitated, then added five more yuan. "Buy what you like. Build your strength."
She lingered at the grocer's, staring blankly at shelves. Finally, she bought a free-range chicken and spent the rest on liquor.
At dinner, Wu Adi's face betrayed nothing as he drank cup after cup in silence. Ximei served him quietly. When she poured more wine, he suddenly clamped his teeth around her wrist, studying her.
"Regret marrying me?"
She froze. The question had never occurred to her—her first realization that women were permitted dissatisfaction.
At her prolonged silence, he slurred, "You're a good woman... good woman." A belch. "I'm not evil either. Blame your bad luck."
That word again—fate.
Soon he lay drunk, snoring thunderously on the bamboo couch while Ximei cleared dishes soundlessly.
In his dreams, Wu Adi began shouting curses and kicking violently.
Ximei paused, observing him curiously as if seeing him anew: short, scrawny, with thinning hair clinging to his scalp, dandruff visible. Wrinkles and sunspots marred his dark face, barely discernible against his swarthy skin. Drooping eyelids, perpetually red and swollen from alcohol, resembled post-weeping puffiness. Now his mouth gaped open mid-snore, lips smacking intermittently.
When she returned, she carried the chicken-slaughtering knife.
No difference, she told herself. Chickens and people—no difference at all.
The blade rose, fell. Blood splattered her face. She didn't blink. Again and again, until the head rolled free.
So slaughtering chickens and men were the same after all. Chickens were beasts. Some people too.She dug into the earthen floor of the bedroom, carving out a deep pit. The hoe struck something after just a few swings. Brushing away the loose soil, she uncovered a thoroughly decomposed skeleton. Without reason, she felt certain it was Wu Adi’s sallow-faced wife.
Wu Ximei was overcome with a bone-deep chill, followed by waves of nausea—she had consummated her marriage atop these very remains.
Someone once said that the dead must be buried whole; incomplete bones cannot cross the Naihe Bridge, condemning them to never be reborn as humans again. With this in mind, she picked up the knife once more and hacked fiercely at Wu Adi’s limbs, scattering the severed pieces before kicking them into the pit with the sole of her shoe.
"Don’t go ruining lives in your next one."
She shoveled the dirt back in, filling the hole and tamping it down underfoot until nothing remained but freshly turned earth, its damp scent lingering in the air.
"Blame your own bad luck."
The words seemed directed at him—or perhaps at herself.
She went to fetch water and ran into a neighbor doing laundry.
"Ximei, drawing water so late?"
"Yeah." She nodded, surprised at her own calm. "It’s hot. Need to bathe."
"Ah—" The neighbor suddenly leaned in, rubbing at her right cheek. "What’s this? Looks like blood—"
"Oh, I slaughtered a chicken for dinner. Must’ve gotten some on me."
She thought of the free-range chicken she’d bought—the grocer could vouch for that. No one would question it.
"Adi’s a lucky man. Such a sweet, capable wife, eating roast chicken every meal."
She smiled vaguely, then carried the water away. The moment she turned, the smile vanished.
After scrubbing the house clean, she quietly turned off the lights and locked the door.
The night was deep, filled with the rise and fall of snores and murmurs. The laborers, exhausted from the day’s toil, were long asleep—no one would cross her path.
Carrying a travel bag and a flashlight, she stumbled over the mountain, leaving her husband’s village behind.
Tall palms and coconut trees blotted out the crescent moon. The woods were deserted, and she walked faster and faster until she was running.
A piercing wail echoed in her ears, like some desperate animal. It took her a long moment to realize it was her own crying.
She ran and wept, searching for an end to her escape.
She thought of Fuchang and hurried back, knocking softly on the bamboo gate of his courtyard.
"Who’s there?"
A strange woman’s voice. Only then did she remember—Fuchang had married, and last year, they’d had a plump baby boy. Peering through the moonlight, she saw the woman’s shadow fumbling toward the gate.
She fled before it opened, unable to bear passing her misfortune to another.
Wu Ximei became an orphan in this world, drifting aimlessly through the village where she’d grown up like a stranger.
Circling back, she returned to her old home.
After Grandma’s death, the land had naturally gone to Second Uncle. The old house had been torn down, replaced by a new thatched hut crouched in the darkness, looking down on her with disdain.
This new house was built from her flesh and blood.
The soft thatch was paid for with slaps across her face. The freshly painted wooden door was bought with the hair torn from her scalp. The four new walls were the kick to her ribs—she still remembered the pain that left her bedridden for three days. The bamboo ladder was curses, the courtyard humiliation. Every table and chair inside was soaked with her silent, midnight tears.Shame and fury scorched Wu Ximei's soul as she struck the spark, hurling it onto the roof along with years of pent-up resentment.
Tendrils of white smoke gave way to growing flames, and in an instant, the fire roared to life, tongues of flame licking the sky, the air crackling with heat. The inferno dyed the night crimson.
Hiding in the shadows, she watched as the people inside awoke in panic, screaming as they fled the burning house. In her heart, there was no hatred—only an eerie calm.
"I'm only taking back what you owe me. Now we're even."
By the time she left the village, the rising sun had begun to crest the mountains.
Tears welled in Wu Ximei's eyes as she gazed at the scarlet-streaked dawn, the land bathed in fiery red. Everywhere she looked, the world burned crimson, as though Wu Adi's blood had spilled all the way here.
If the sky must fall for justice to be done, then let it fall.
With her head held high, she marched forward under the bloodied light, the blazing fire behind her and the dawning sun ahead.
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