Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I killed my own father.

I hid his body under the bed.

The next day, when I went to get rid of it, the body was gone.

I turned myself in. A newspaper headline—“Son Kills Father”—sent the case into a frenzy.

But just then, my aunt changed her statement and said she had killed him.

The case was closed. The body beneath the bed was never found.

Then, ten years later, a man claiming to be my father appeared before the police officer who had solved the case.

I grew up relying on my aunt.

My parents divorced when I was very young. My father said he was leaving to do business elsewhere, then vanished without a trace.

My grandmother died when I was three.

My aunt was the only person I had left.

She was just eighteen that year. She never married because she had to raise me.

One child leading another, we somehow made it through life together.

She hated me.

She hated me for ruining her life.

She often beat me, then hugged me and sobbed afterward.

“Xiaoning, you’re the last family I have in this world.”

I worked at an auto repair shop.

The owner was in his forties, potbellied, slovenly, and filthy.

He often helped my aunt and me.

Then my aunt would go into the grimy back room of his shop.

Every time she came out, her eyes were red, and there were fresh bruises on her that never seemed to heal.

A few days before my fourteenth birthday, my father came back.

He reeked worse than the auto shop owner.

He shoved my aunt to the ground and kicked her hard in the stomach.

“Hand them over! I told you to give me the property papers!”

I rushed over to stop him.

But I was no match for him. All I could do was bite down hard on his arm.

He grabbed the wrench I used at the shop and brought it down on my head.

“You little bastard! How dare you bite me? Don’t you know I’m your father?”

Blood blurred my vision.

My aunt, who had been lying motionless like a dead fish, sprang up and threw herself over me.

“Don’t hit the boy! Please, don’t hit him! He doesn’t know anything!”

She smelled so good.

Better than anyone I had ever met.

Blood ran into my eyes, hot and wet, then spilled down my face.

The man claiming to be my father pointed the wrench at her.

“If you want him to live, give me the house papers those old people left behind!”

“I really don’t know where they are! When Mom died, she never told us! If you don’t believe me, go look for them yourself!”

My aunt pressed her hands hard against the wound on my head.

Blood kept seeping between her fingers. She grew more frantic by the second.

“Please… please, just save the boy first… Call an ambulance… Call one now…”

“An ambulance? He’s not worth it. Let him die.”

I couldn’t see the man’s face clearly, but his words made my heart feel as if someone were sawing through it with a dull blade.

Was this really the father I had waited for all those years?

Whenever I felt hurt, I would secretly wipe my tears on the only photograph I had of him.

My aunt always scolded me when she caught me.

“What are you crying for? Men don’t cry over stupid things! And don’t count on him. He abandoned you ages ago!”

But I never believed her.

I always thought my father was far away, working hard to earn money.

Sooner or later, he would come back for me. He would buy me hamburgers and clothes without holes in the toes, and take me to live in a big, clean house where the rain didn’t leak through the roof.

But today…

The father I had imagined was dead to me.

When my face grew paler and paler, my father panicked and started to run.

“Take him to some clinic or something. It’s not a big deal.”

I was so cold.

My aunt called my name over and over.

Then, after a while, even her voice disappeared.

Was I… about to die?

A little over ten minutes later, the auto shop owner arrived.

“Good grief, that bastard really did a number on the kid. Can we still save him?”

“We can, we can. It’s only a surface wound. A few stitches at the hospital and he’ll be fine.”

“The hospital? I don’t have money to take either of them there.”

He muttered as he pulled the boards off my old single bed.

“Dr. Wang’s little clinic in the countryside. I’m already doing more than enough by taking you both there. Whether you live or die is up to fate.”

Dr. Wang…

An old man who was always squinting at my aunt.

Everyone said he was a lecher. Whenever my aunt mentioned him, she spat in disgust.

“Pah! Bloodsucker.”

But this time, she didn’t spit.

She helped the shop owner lift me onto the bed boards and kept saying, “Thank you… thank you…”

Maybe I was lucky.

I survived.

During the day, my aunt stayed by my bed to care for me. At night, she went to sleep in the next room.

At least, that was what she told me.

“Don’t be afraid, Xiaoning. I’m right next door. Call me if anything happens.”

But I never called.

I thought she must be exhausted too.

The day I was discharged, Dr. Wang squinted at my aunt again. He even gave her a pat on the backside.

Her whole body stiffened, and she pulled me away.

The second time my father came looking for her, my aunt wasn’t home.

I was alone in the house, lying in bed.

She had made meat soup for me.

It smelled wonderful.

I didn’t eat any.

I wanted to wait for her so we could eat together.

But the person who came back was my father.

He kicked the door open and stepped inside.

“Hey, brat. She’s not home?”

He didn’t even know my name.

“Oh, you’ve got money for meat now?”

He picked up the bowl and gulped down all the broth.

Two little bones with scraps of meat were left at the bottom.

He fished them out with his fingers, ate the scraps, and tossed the bones to the floor.

I stared at the bones and swallowed.

“Do you know where your aunt hid your grandparents’ house papers?”

I looked at the bones on the floor and shook my head.

Smack!

He slapped me.

“You little bastard! I’m talking to you!”

The wound on my head hadn’t healed. After that slap, I felt blood start to seep out again.

“I’m your father! That house should belong to me! Damn it, don’t you know whose side you’re on?”

I stared at him and said nothing.

He slapped me again.

“What are you looking at?”

I kept staring.

He turned as if to find something nearby to hit me with, but the room was empty.

In the end, he could only grind one of the bones against the dirt floor.

“I’ll kill both of you sooner or later!”

My aunt came back just then.

She swooped in like a hawk.

Everything in the room went flying at my father.

“Get out! Get out of my house!”

“How dare you come back? Do you know Dad died because you drove him to it? The creditors came right to our door that year! Mom and Dad sold everything valuable to pay off your debts! And now you have the nerve to come here demanding money?”

“Who asked them to pay? I didn’t force them! They did it willingly!”

My aunt went wild, clawing bloody gashes across his face.

He shoved her hard.

She flew backward and hit her head on the glowing charcoal stove. Blood immediately ran down her face.

He only stopped when he saw it.

“Give me the stuff! I need money right now! Next time I’ll kill both of you! That house will be mine in the end anyway!”

He kicked the door open again.

Glass shattered across the floor.

I crawled over to my aunt.

“Auntie… let me take you to Dr. Wang…”

“Xiaoning, I’m fine. We’re not going there. Help me up and find a piece of cloth. I can wrap it myself.”

I always did what she told me.

By the time I finished tying the cloth, blood had soaked through her old padded jacket.

I burst into tears.

“Don’t cry, Xiaoning. Better days are coming.”

She stroked my head.

“They’re about to redevelop this neighborhood. It’s certain. I saw the notice at the community office.”

“Once they start, we’ll get compensation.”

“If you want meat, we’ll eat meat.”

“If you want new clothes, we’ll buy them.”

“If you want a big house, we’ll live in one.”

“If you want to go to school, you can.”

“Our hard days are almost over!”

“Even this ten-square-meter storage room will get six hundred thousand in compensation!”

It was the first time I had seen such a bright smile on my aunt’s face.

And before I knew it…

I was smiling too.

That year, my grandparents sold their house to pay my father’s debts.

The buyer took pity on us and let us stay in the little storage room in front of the house for a while.

Not long afterward, my grandparents died one after another.

The buyer never kicked us out.

Over the years, the house changed hands several times, but none of the paperwork mentioned this makeshift storage room.

So it became home to my aunt and me.

Early the next morning, my aunt went out again.

She had quit my auto shop job for me and ordered me to stay home and recover.

I found a plastic sheet in the trash and planned to nail it over the doorway.

After the glass broke, my aunt had covered it with plastic. The cold wind kept whistling through all night.

I was hammering in a nail when—

Bang!

The door was kicked open again.

My father stood there, eyes bloodshot, holding a gleaming knife.

He pointed it at me.

“Give me the house papers!”

“I heard they’re redeveloping this neighborhood. We’ll get at least five million!”

“With five million, I can pay off all my debts!”

“I won’t have to live like a fugitive anymore!”

“Hahaha! Heaven really is on my side! My luck has finally turned!”

“What about Auntie and me?” I asked.

He looked at me as if I were an idiot.

“You two? What the hell do you have to do with me?”

“Then what the hell do you have to do with me?”

I repeated his words.

He kicked me in the stomach.

I fell onto a little cake covered in sweet, fragrant cream.

Tomorrow was my birthday.

My aunt had waited in line for an hour and a half at the supermarket to buy a discounted cake that was almost past its expiration date.

The pain forced me to my knees.

The sour cream smeared across my face.

He grabbed me by the hair and yanked my head up, then pointed the knife at my eyes.

“You little bastard! I told you not to look at me like that!”

“Keep staring and I’ll gouge your eyes out!”

He was worked up and giddy with excitement.

“Give me the house papers!”

I remembered the bones with scraps of meat.

I remembered him grinding one into the dirt with his foot.