Killing Monks

Xiao Ni is Xiao Ni.

She had no formal name, no courtesy name, no pseudonym; she had no proper, written name that could prove she ever existed in this world.

"Xiao Ni" is a name anyone can use; anyone can call you that. If someone calls you that, you have to respond. If you don't, you're being disrespectful.

She felt that she was a woman who should not have been born.

It wasn't something someone else told her; it was something she sensed herself.

Just like when you feel cold, feel hot, feel hungry and your stomach growls, or feel sleepy and your eyelids droop. You don't need anyone to tell you; you know it yourself.

When she was a child, her parents beat her.

It wasn't because she was naughty, or because she did something wrong; it was because she was a daughter.

Daughters are just a money-losing burden. What's the point of keeping a money-losing burden if you don't discipline it?

Keeping them is a waste of food, and keeping them to marry off and collect dowry is not much. After raising them for more than ten years, they only receive a few taels of silver. No matter how you look at it, it's a loss.

If you lose, you have to fight back. If you win back a little, you'll feel better.

Her father beat her, and her mother beat her too. Her father used slaps, and her mother used a broom. The slaps hurt, and the broom hurt too; the pain was different, but the pain was the same.

She dared not cry. If she cried, the beating would be even more brutal. She could only bite her lip, swallowing the sound back, swallowing it into her stomach, into her heart, into that very deep, unreachable place.

That place later filled with many things, until it couldn't hold any more and began to overflow. What overflowed was tears.

When she grew a little older, her parents passed away.

He died in the war in the Tang Dynasty. He wasn't killed by anyone; he starved to death. During the war, there was no food. Tree bark was stripped bare, grass roots were dug up, and people even ate the soil.

She ate dirt and couldn't poop; her stomach was swollen like a drum, and when tapped, it made a thumping sound.

Her father died first, and her mother died later. When her mother died, she held her hand and said, "You have a hard life."

Then there is no more.

Her mother's hand grew cold and loosened, slipping out of her grasp like a fish swimming away, never to be caught again.

She didn't cry.

It's not that I don't want to cry, it's that I can't cry anymore. My heart is too full, so full that tears can't flow in or out.

She buried her parents without coffins, tombstones, or even a straw mat.

She dug a hole with her hands, put her parents in, covered them with soil, patted it down, stood up, and left.

Where to go? I don't know. Where can I go? Anywhere is fine. It's all the same.

Later she ended up in a brothel.

They didn't go there on their own; they were sold. The traffickers tied their hands, gagged them, stuffed them into a sack, carried them on their shoulders, and made them walk a long way.

She was tossed around in the sack, feeling dizzy and disoriented, and vomited all over herself. After she finished vomiting, she was hungry, but there was no one to give her anything to eat.

When they arrived at their destination, the sack was untied, and she rolled out of it like a sack of grain being dumped out.

The madam pinched her face, looked her over from side to side, pried open her mouth to examine her teeth, and then patted her all over, like she was touching an animal. When she was done, she nodded and paid the trafficker.

The human traffickers left, but she stayed.

The madam gave her a name, "Xiao Ni". Just like before, she was still Xiao Ni.

She asked the madam if she could change her name. The madam slapped her and said, "You..." "Who dares to pick a name?"

She didn't ask any more questions.

From then on, she was called Xiao Ni. The customers called her Xiao Ni, the madam called her Xiao Ni, and the odd jobs, cooks, and doormen all called her Xiao Ni.

No one calls her by her real name. She doesn't have a real name.

What is her real name? She doesn't even know it herself.

Life in a brothel was even harder than at home.

At home, you are at least alone.

Here, you're not a person. You're merchandise. Displayed on the shelf, waiting for someone to pick you up.

Once you've chosen a brand and paid for it, you have to stay with it.

Smile for them, drink for them, sleep with them.

Laughing doesn't guarantee a reward; not laughing guarantees a slap. Drinking doesn't guarantee a rest; not drinking guarantees a beating.

Sleeping doesn't guarantee rest; not sleeping means being locked in the woodshed, starving for a day and freezing for a night, only to be released the next day to continue laughing, drinking, and sleeping.

Everyone says she's cheap. .

The madam said, "The customers said, and the girls next door said the same thing when they were arguing. Cheap." ,cheap ,cheap After hearing it so many times, she herself began to believe it was true.

She's a slut. A woman who is considered base is one who shouldn't have been born. She shouldn't have come, but she did; now that she's here, she has to endure it. Enduring it is living.

To live is to endure. She didn't know the difference between the two.

There is a well in the courtyard of the brothel.

The well was very deep. I lay on the edge of the well and looked down, but I couldn't see the water. I could only see my own face, swaying in the darkness like a ghost.

Every day when she went to fetch water, she would lean over the edge of the well and watch for a while.

After looking at it for a while, she felt as if the person in the well was calling her. Not with their mouth, but with their eyes. Those eyes were exactly like hers, but what they contained was different.

Her own eyes were filled with bitterness, while the eyes of the person in the well were filled with emptiness. Bitterness was full, and emptiness was also full.

When bitterness fills the void, it overflows; when emptiness fills the void, it sinks. When it sinks to the bottom, there is nothing left.

If there's nothing at all, is that alright?

She didn't know. But she wanted to try. Maybe it would work. Maybe it wouldn't. It didn't matter if it didn't work. If it didn't work, she wouldn't have to try anymore.

This thought grew stronger and stronger in her mind.

So much so that every time she passed that well, she would stop and stand there for a while until someone called her before she would leave.

It's not that I don't want to jump, it's that I haven't mustered enough courage yet.

Courage is something that is different from other things.

Other things accumulate over time, but courage diminishes. The more you think about it, the less you dare; the less you dare, the more you think about it. After thinking about it a hundred times, you feel like you've already jumped; once you feel like you've already jumped, you don't want to jump anymore.

You don't want to jump anymore, but you're still alive. And if you're alive, you have to keep going.

One day, someone said, "The old man has returned."

old man.

Xiao Ni had heard of the old man. Before she was sold into a brothel, before the war caused her parents to starve to death, and in those earlier days that she could no longer remember clearly, she had heard of the old man.

The storyteller said it, the refugees said it, and the old people resting under the big tree at the village entrance said it too.

They said the old man was part of a group. Not just one person, but a group.

A group of busybodies. If you've been bullied, go to the old man, and he'll help you. He'll help you get justice, help you vent your anger, and help you trample those who bullied you underfoot, making them taste what it's like to be bullied.

She said she didn't believe it.

But she still went to look for them. She sneaked out a few times when the madam wasn't looking and when the doorman was dozing off.

Once, twice, three times. Each time he came back empty-handed.