Sold into a ghost marriage? Four-year-old and his thuggish father go on a killing spree.

"Excuse me, do you have a man named Gu Yanqiu here? He... he should know a woman named Song Wanqing."

This was said at noon on the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month.

The speaker stood under the old elm tree at the entrance of Chengjiawan Village, wearing a blue-gray polyester shirt.

He wore a navy blue cotton overcoat and a pair of worn-out black leather shoes.

In the countryside in 1964, a woman wearing a Dacron shirt looked like a fairy descending to earth—this fabric was not something everyone in the city could afford.

The woman was in her thirties, with a square face.

Her large eyes were red and swollen, as if she had been crying. Her hair was neatly tied back in a bun with a wooden hairpin.

She was carrying a gray cloth bag, neatly wrapped, as if she were carrying something important.

Several women were squatting against the wall at the village entrance, sunbathing and eating sunflower seeds. Hearing this,

They all looked up and stared at her.

"Are you looking for Gu Yanqiu?"

"Who are you to him?"

"Where are you from?"

The questions came at me like a machine gun.

The woman took a deep breath: "My name is Li Huilan. I'm Song Wanqing's coworker. I'm from the provincial capital."

Song Wanqing.

This name caused quite a stir in Chengjiawan just two days ago.

Gu Yanqiu brought home a daughter, saying she was his daughter with a woman named Song Wanqing—

Everyone in the entire Chengjiawan area knows about it.

The women exchanged glances, and one of them, who was quick to speak, immediately stood up.

"You wait here—I'll go get help!"

She didn't even have time to brush off the sunflower seed shells before she dragged her shoes and ran off.

Li Huilan stood at the entrance of the village, looking around at the small mountain village.

Dozens of households are scattered in the mountain gully, with rammed earth houses, crooked courtyard walls, and a winding dirt road stretching from the village entrance. The distant mountains are bald, completely bare, with hardly a decent tree left.

poor.

They were poorer than she had imagined.

She went to the Zhao family's place before coming here.

She met Song Wanqing at a textile factory in the provincial capital. They worked in the same workshop for three years. Song Wanqing was a woman of few words, but she had beautiful handwriting, was conscientious, and never argued with anyone. Later, Song Wanqing became pregnant and was laid off, and the two lost contact.

Not long ago, Li Huilan heard news of Song Wanqing from a fellow villager—she had died of illness.

Then came even more shocking news—Song Wanqing's daughter had been sold by her maternal grandmother to be married off in a ghost marriage.

Li Huilan spat out a mouthful of food onto the table.

She took leave and went to Zhao's place first.

She would never forget Zhao's face.

An elderly woman in her fifties, her eyes darting around, kept saying, "That girl ran away on her own, I wonder where she's disappeared to."

The guilt on his face was so palpable he wanted to write it down in ink.

Li Huilan asked her, "What about the two hundred yuan?"

Zhao's face changed color instantly.

"What two hundred yuan? Who told you that? That's nonsense!"

Liu Cuihua, Song Wanqing's second sister-in-law, huddled behind the door frame, not daring to show her head.

Li Huilan was unable to extract anything useful from Zhao.

But she found out from her neighbor that the child might have gone towards Qinghe County to find her father.

She then inquired her way to Chengjiawan.

We changed vehicles three times along the way and traveled more than 60 miles of mountain roads.

The leather shoes on my feet had a hole worn through.

-

Gu Yanqiu was working in the threshing ground when he was called back. His head and face were covered in dust.

His first reaction upon seeing Li Huilan was to stare blankly.

"you……"

"You're Gu Yanqiu?" Li Huilan looked him up and down, her eyes reddening again. "Wanqing said you were in the countryside—I thought it was a respectable place—"

Her gaze swept over Gu Yanqiu's patched cotton-padded jacket, over his hands covered in blisters and cracks, over his thin face and messy hair.

This is the man Wanqing has been waiting for for five years.

This is the story of a young woman who, burdened by her child and illness, endured five years of hardship alone, only to die waiting for the man who would never come.

Li Huilan gritted her teeth and swallowed the swear word she was about to say.

"Where are the children?"

"Inside the house."

"Take me to see it."

-

Niannian is feeding the chickens in the yard.

Wang Guifang's chickens—six old hens—were squatting by the chicken coop, scattering handfuls of broken corn kernels into the coop with great speed.

She heard footsteps, stood up, and turned around.

I saw Gu Yanqiu first.

Then I saw the woman behind him.

Niannian's eyes narrowed slightly—a habitual, alert reaction. Every stranger was a potential danger to her, until they were proven safe.

But after staring at that face for three seconds, the wariness in her eyes disappeared.

Instead, there was an almost cautious probing.

"...Aunt Li?"

Li Huilan's legs went weak, and she almost couldn't stand up.

She crouched down—her knees landing directly on the cold, muddy ground—and reached out to grab Niannian's shoulders.

"Niannian! It's me! It's Aunt Li!"

I remember her constantly.

I remember it very clearly.

During the time my mother was hospitalized—not in a proper hospital, but at a barefoot doctor's clinic in town—a woman came to visit them.

I carried a bag of apples and two cans of malted milk powder.

The woman hugged her mother and cried for a long time. When she left, she secretly slipped ten yuan under her mother's pillow.

My mother later said, "Aunt Li is a good person. Remember that."

I keep it in mind.

She remembers everyone who has been kind to her mother.

Also remember everyone who hurt them.

Li Huilan held Niannian, crying and trembling all over.

She held Niannian close to her chest with both hands—and then touched the bones in her body.

One by one.

Like a washboard.

A four-and-a-half-year-old child is as light as a bundle of dry firewood.

Li Huilan's crying changed tone—from heartache to anger.

She let go of Niannian and began to examine her injuries.

The gauze on his forehead was removed—the wound hadn't healed yet, covered with a dark red scab.

The surrounding skin is yellowish-purple.

The two little hands—the fingernails were flipped up several times, some of them already starting to grow new ones.

But it's crooked and looks creepy.

Both feet had cracked chilblains, and two of the toes were blackened, signs of severe frostbite.

The more Li Huilan looked at Gu Yanqiu, the uglier her expression became. Finally, she stood up and grabbed him by the collar.

"You're letting your child live in a place like this?"

Gu Yanqiu was grabbed by the collar, her lips trembled twice, but she did not flinch.

"Do you know what she suffered? Do you know she crawled out of a coffin? Do you know she walked over a hundred miles barefoot?"

Li Huilan's voice grew louder and louder, her tears and anger mingling together like a pot of boiling water.

"She came to you—and found what? A dilapidated house! Half a sack of rotten sweet potatoes! How are you going to feed her?!"

At the other end of the courtyard, Wang Guifang and Sun Xiufen heard the commotion and both peeked out to see what was happening.

Several neighbors also gathered around.

Gu Yanqiu stood there silently.

He was held there by the collar, standing like a stake that had been pulled out and planted in the mud—he didn't resist, he didn't explain, and he didn't try to escape.

Niannian walked up and reached out to tug at Li Huilan's sleeve.

"Aunt Li."

Li Huilan looked down at her.

Niannian's eyes were red, but she didn't shed any tears.

"My dad is good to me. He gave me all the steamed buns. He didn't eat a single bite himself."

Li Huilan loosened her grip.

She looked at Niannian, then at Gu Yanqiu.

The father and daughter stood together—one with blisters on her hands, the other covered in wounds—like two people abandoned by the whole world, pieced together.

Li Huilan's anger subsided by half.

But she still glared fiercely at Gu Yanqiu.

"Come inside with me. I have something to tell you."

She lifted the cloth bag in her hand.

"Wanqing...before she left, she asked someone to send me something."

Niannian's body trembled slightly.

"Mom's things?"

Li Huilan squatted down and cupped Niannian's face in her hands.

"Yes. It's something your mother left you."

Niannian's lips trembled slightly.

She didn't say anything.

But her hand—that little hand wrapped in gauze—suddenly gripped Li Huilan's fingers tightly.

He gripped it with all his might.

It was as if she was afraid that if she let go, her mother would disappear from this world completely.