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

"Anyway, she's just a little girl. The second son can't support her. It's better to give her to a good family so we can at least save some money."

These words drifted out from under the door of the main room.

Niannian was holding a bowl of dishwater, about to splash it outside into the yard.

My steps faltered.

There was another voice in the main room—an unfamiliar, woman's voice, thin and high-pitched, with a fawning tone:

"What my sister-in-law says is true. I know that family very well. They're the Li family from Wangjiagou. The couple farmed eight mu of land, but they didn't have a child. If you take them back and raise them as your own daughter, they'll never have to worry about food or clothing."

Wang Guifang's voice followed: "How much?"

"Twenty yuan."

"Only twenty?"

"Sister-in-law, this is the going rate. It can be a little more for a boy. For a girl—twenty yuan is quite a lot."

Niannian stood in the courtyard.

The water from washing the pot overflowed from the rim of the bowl and dripped onto the back of her hand, making her flinch from the cold.

She did not spill the water.

Holding the bowl, he retreated step by step back into the dilapidated house.

Close the door.

Leaning against the door.

My heart was pounding in my chest—but my face was white, cold, and still.

This isn't the first time.

Last time, her grandmother sold her to the Wang family for a ghost marriage.

This time, it was Grandma who was going to sell her to a neighboring village to be a "daughter".

Four and a half years old.

He was sold twice.

-

To be honest, Wang Guifang had this idea for a long time.

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, Wang Erzhu from Wangjia Village drove a mule cart to Chengjiawan. He stood limping at the village entrance, shouting that he wanted to pick someone up.

That day, Cheng Tiezhu happened to be repairing the sluice gate of the irrigation canal at the entrance of the village.

Hearing the noise, he picked up a shovel and went over.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Wang Erzhu, a cigarette dangling from his lips, grinned broadly, "They've come to pick up our family."

Who in your family lives in Chengjiawan?

"A girl. The Gu family has already agreed—"

Cheng Tiezhu's face immediately darkened.

Zhao Fengying had someone pass on a message—Niannian was "sold" from her maternal grandmother's house.

The word "sell" is enough for Cheng Tiezhu.

"No. Let's go."

"you--"

Cheng Tiezhu slammed the shovel into the ground with a loud "thud".

"I'll say it again. The person you're looking for isn't in Chengjiawan. Come again—report to the commune."

Wang Erzhu looked at Cheng Tiezhu's face, then at the shovel.

The mule cart turned around and left.

Niannian only heard about this later from Aunt Wang.

But Wang Guifang knew.

As Wang Erzhu was leaving, he passed by the entrance of the Gu family compound and glanced inside.

Wang Guifang stood at the door of the main room and met his gaze.

Neither of them said anything.

But that look in his eyes meant, "This path is blocked."

Is it blocked?

Then let's try a different approach.

The matchmaker—that's the path Wang Guifang took.

-

Niannian squatted in front of the stove, her mind racing.

My father was attending a training course at the Baiyang Commune.

Thirty miles of mountain road.

The longest road she ever walked was from the dilapidated house to the village's brigade headquarters at the east end of the village.

It's less than half a mile away.

Thirty li.

She didn't know how far thirty li was.

But she knew that her father walked eleven miles to the brick kiln and back, which would take more than an hour.

Thirty li—about three eleven-li intervals.

Three "a little over an hour" means three or four hours.

Those are the footsteps of adults.

Her legs—they need to be doubled.

Six or seven hours.

Leave when it's dark, arrive when it's light.

Niannian poured out the water from washing the pot and took out the aluminum lunchbox from under the stove—it was left by her father, used to bring his meals when he was carrying bricks, and there was a dent on the lid.

She found an iron nail—pulled from the door frame, rusty, but sharp.

Squat down on the ground and turn the lunchbox over.

On the bottom of the lunchbox, I carefully engraved each stroke.

"The first month——"

She can write the character "正" (zhèng). She can write the character "月" (yuè). Her father taught her.

"twenty--"

She recognized the numbers.

"plum--"

The matchmaker's surname was Li.

She doesn't know how to write the character "李".

She paused for a moment.

Then he carved a crooked symbol—a tree.

Li—Plum tree.

As long as you can understand it yourself, that's fine.

Finally, she carved three words next to it: "Sell. Niannian."

The story about selling characters came from my mother's letters; she had already learned how to recognize them. My father taught me to read.

It's finished.

I tucked the lunchbox into the inside pocket of my cotton-padded coat—together with my mother's belongings.

The reason she engraved it on the lunchbox instead of paper—

It's because the paper will be torn.

The scratches on the aluminum lunchbox can't be wiped off.

A four-and-a-half-year-old child.

They have learned how to preserve evidence.

-

She didn't eat dinner in the evening.

I put the half sweet potato I saved in my pocket—to eat on the way.

I crawled into bed as soon as it got dark.

Pretending to be asleep.

When the moon rises above the rooftop—around 9 or 10 pm, roughly the hour of Hai (9-11 pm)—it will be a good time.

Lift the blanket.

Put on a cotton-padded jacket and trousers.

Tie the cotton shoes tight.

The inner pocket of his cotton-padded jacket was stuffed with his belongings and an aluminum lunchbox.

The five yuan that my father had left me was in the pocket of my cotton-padded trousers—I hadn't touched a single penny.

She opened the door.

The courtyard was brightly lit.

The moonlight blanketed the ground in white.

The chickens in the coop cackled once.

Niannian squatted down, took a few kernels of corn from her pocket, and gently scattered them into the chicken coop.

The chicken lowered its head to peck at the food and stopped clucking.

Crouching low, he walked along the wall towards the courtyard gate.

Passing through the main room, one could hear Wang Guifang snoring coming from inside.

Passing through the east wing—there was a little light behind the window curtain.

Niannian paused for a moment.

The light flickered.

I didn't dare look any longer.

I quickened my pace and slipped out of the courtyard gate.

-

At night, Chengjiawan is as quiet as a black coffin.

The moonlight shone on the muddy road, making the surface appear a ghastly white.

The distant mountain ridges resembled a row of black behemoths, lying motionless on the horizon.

Niannian stood at the village entrance.

I took a deep breath.

cold.

It was so cold that it felt like my lungs were filled with ice.

She looked up at the direction of the mountain road—the dirt road leading to Baiyang Commune, which during the day looked like a crooked, muddy path.

At night, it was cut into segments by the moon's shadow and the shadows of the trees.

Some areas are bright.

In some places, it's so dark you can't see anything.

Niannian took her first steps.

The small cloth shoes stomped on the frozen mud road—"crunch, crunch, crunch."

I dare not run.

Afraid of falling.

The mountain path was littered with stones, tree roots, and frost-cracked pits.

You have to be careful even when walking during the day, and if you run at night, you might fall and knock out your teeth.

She walked quickly.

As quickly as possible.

His legs moved quickly, and his arms swung wildly—just like his father's walk.

She can't learn to take big steps, but she can move quickly.

After walking for about fifteen minutes, the lights at the village entrance disappeared completely.

Ahead was a grove of locust trees.

black.

The moonlight was shattered by the branches and scattered on the ground like pieces of broken bones.

"Waaah—"

The wind blew up from the mountain gully.

The branches swayed, making a "creaking" sound.

It sounded like someone was gritting their teeth.

Niannian's fingers clenched tightly around the front of her cotton-padded jacket.

She remembered the dark room at her grandmother's house.

I thought of the horse-drawn carriage.

I remembered the feeling of being tied up and stuffed into a sack.

afraid.

I was so scared that my back went cold and my hair stood on end.

But they didn't stop.

Head down, staring at the road beneath my feet—one step, two steps, three steps—I counted my steps as I walked.

Count to one hundred, then take a breath.

Count to two hundred steps, then swallow hard.

Go forward.

We can only move forward.

Behind him was Wang Guifang. She was the matchmaker. She was the one who said "twenty yuan."

Dad is in front of me.

-

She didn't know how long she had been walking.

The soles of my cotton shoes are worn thin.

The sole of my right shoe wore through first—a pebble pierced my sole with a sharp "thud".

Niannian hissed, squatted down, and pried the pebble out.

The soles of my feet felt warm—it was blood.

She took off her right cotton shoe, bit off a strip of cloth from the sleeve of her cotton-padded jacket, and wrapped it around her foot.

Put your shoes on and keep walking.

The moon moved from the east to its zenith.

It then moved from overhead to the west.

My legs no longer felt like my own—they were sore and numb, like two sticks planted on the ground. My knees trembled with every step.

She fell four times.

I fell down a bend on the downhill slope for the first time—my palms were scraped and my mouth was full of mud.

The second time, I fell into a ditch—I almost rolled in, but I grabbed the grass roots on the edge of the ditch and pulled myself up.

She fell for the third time on a gravel road—her knee hit a corner of a stone, and she lay on the ground for a while to recover from the pain.

The fourth fall—she couldn't remember how she fell.

All I remember is waking up with my face pressed against the cold ground.

There was blood at the corner of his mouth.

He struggled against the muddy ground, slowly climbing up.

The front of the cotton-padded jacket was covered in mud.

The knees of the cotton-padded trousers were worn through, revealing the grayish cotton underneath.

She swayed slightly.

It's stable now.

He took the half sweet potato out of his pocket and took two bites.

The sweet potato was frozen solid, and it made my teeth ache when I bit into it.

But once I had something in my stomach, my legs stopped shaking so much.

keep going.

-

As dawn broke, Niannian saw a row of tiled houses.

There is a flat area in front of the tiled house.

Two tractors were parked on the flat ground.

Next to the tractor stood a wooden pole, with a wooden sign hanging from it.

"Baiyang Commune Agricultural Machinery Repair Training Class".

Niannian's legs went weak, and she almost knelt on the ground.

Arrived.

She held onto the wall and slowly made her way to the dormitory entrance.

The door was closed. There was snoring coming from inside.

He raised his hand—a hand with mud and blood under its fingernails—and knocked twice on the door.

"Tap...tap..."

So soft it was almost inaudible.

I've run out of energy.

"Tap..." Another tap.

The door opened.

A sleepy-eyed man poked half his head out—it wasn't Gu Yanqiu. It was his roommate from the next bunk.

"Who—so early in the morning—"

He looked down.

A little girl.

His face was purple from the cold. There was blood on his lips.

The cotton-padded jacket and trousers were covered in mud.

One of his shoes was torn, and his foot was wrapped in a bloodstained strip of cloth.

"Find, find my dad..." Niannian's voice was so hoarse that she could barely speak.

"Gu...Gu Yanqiu..."

My roommate paused for two seconds, then turned and called inside, "Old Gu! Old Gu! Your daughter's here!"

Inside, a figure suddenly sat up on the bunk.

When Gu Yanqiu rushed to the door—

Niannian threw herself into his arms.

Her small body was as soft as a leaf that had been through a night of wind, hanging on his chest, trembling all over.

She didn't cry out loud.

But his ten fingers were tightly gripping Gu Yanqiu's cotton-padded jacket collar—his pale knuckles looked like ten small stones.

"Nian Nian—!"

Gu Yanqiu's voice changed tone.

He squatted down and looked at his daughter's face.

The purplish-red color of frostbite spread from the tip of the nose to both cheeks.

There was a dried bloodstain at the corner of his mouth.

There was a purplish bruise on his forehead—from a fall.

"What happened? How did you get here? Who brought you here?!"

Niannian opened her mouth.

I can't make a sound.

My throat was hoarse from being exposed to the night wind all night, like a cracked bamboo tube.

She tremblingly pulled the aluminum lunchbox from the inside pocket of her cotton-padded coat.

Turn it over.

The words engraved on the bottom—crooked, rusty marks—

"January 20th... for sale. (A little something)"

Gu Yanqiu stared at the line of text.

His face gradually turned pale.

Then—it turned red.

Then—it turned a dark blue-green.

He stood up.

Both hands were clenched into fists.

The knuckles made a "crack" sound.

-

That morning, Gu Yanqiu found Lao Zhao, the person in charge of the training course.

"Director Zhao, I need to take two days off. Something happened at home."

Old Zhao glanced at Niannian's appearance—then looked at the bottom of the aluminum lunchbox—

He's a grassroots cadre who's been around for twenty years. He's seen it all.

"Go." He only said two words.

Gu Yanqiu carried Niannian on his back.

Thirty miles of mountain road.

When they arrived, the four-and-a-half-year-old child had run all night on his own two legs.

On her way back, her father's back became her path.

Niannian leaned on her father's shoulder and closed her eyes drowsily.

Before she closed her eyes—she heard her father whisper something.

The sound wasn't loud.

But each word seemed to be squeezed out from between teeth—it tasted blood.

"Mom—this time, let's get this straight."