Chapter 2

3

A sharp click sounded in the hospital corridor.

The policewoman beside me snapped her head around.

“No photographs!”

“This is a hospital! Who let you in?”

She lunged for the reporter’s camera.

But he dodged her like a jackal that had scented blood. Before long, both he and his camera had escaped the hospital.

A little later, the policewoman received a call. She kept her voice low, but I could still hear.

“What? Someone’s gone to pound on Chen Shu’s and Chen Hui’s doors?”

Chen Shu was my elder aunt. Chen Hui was my youngest.

After my parents drank poison, neither of them came. They avoided us like the plague.

The first time the police called my youngest aunt, she shouted in disgust.

“What has it got to do with me?”

“You police should investigate properly. Did I put poison in their drinks? They kept a bottle of Paraquat on the dining table all year round. It was terrifying! We didn’t even dare eat there!”

“What? A guardian? Don’t be ridiculous!”

Her voice was shrill and decisive.

“Chen Ke is eighteen. Twenty years ago, girls her age were having babies. Why would she need a guardian?”

She hung up.

Almost exactly what she had said not long before.

That day, after the exam, I had finished a few tutoring sessions arranged by my homeroom teacher.

Cicadas shrilled in the summer dusk.

I had five hundred yuan in wages and a box of fresh durian a parent had given me, pleased with their child’s progress.

Its smell was strong and unfamiliar. I had never tasted it. Neither had my parents. It was too expensive for us.

I wanted to take it home for them to try.

At that thought, I hurried.

But my youngest aunt was waiting below our old apartment building.

“Xiao Ke.”

She smiled ingratiatingly, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes unfolding like dried flowers.

“That student I mentioned? I’ve spoken to his parents. Two hundred yuan an hour. What do you think?”

Two hundred?

I was tempted. I couldn’t deny it.

“You finish tutoring at eight. Add another two hours in the evening, and you’ll be done by ten. Right at my home. I’ll pick you up every day. Perfectly safe.”

Half her face was in shadow. I couldn’t tell whether the corners of her mouth turned up or down.

“Two hundred an hour. Four hundred for two hours. That’s twelve thousand a month!”

She glanced down at the box I held so tightly, contempt in her eyes.

“Then you won’t bother with cheap frozen stuff like this. You can buy your parents fresh durian.”

I don’t know whether it was the twelve thousand yuan or her scorn for the small gift I treasured.

That night, caught between hope and fear, I followed her home.

When her bedroom door opened, a blond boy raised his eyebrows at me and smiled, showing a row of white teeth.

The door slammed shut behind me.

There was nowhere to run.

That summer night twisted out of shape. Even the light seemed to bite like a beast, to cling to me like a bloodsucking leech.

When I came to, my aunt pushed five hundred yuan into my trouser pocket.

“An extra hundred. Don’t tell anyone.”

At the sight of my white face, she gave a dismissive smile.

“You’re eighteen. It was bound to happen sooner or later. You should be grateful he took an interest. Girls your age were already having babies when I was young.”

***

The policewoman came back.

She held a test report, her brows drawn so tightly that a deep crease had formed between them.

“Chen Ke. Your father had pancreatic cancer. It was already terminal when it was found.”

Her voice was low and heavy.

“Did you know?”

4

Public opinion in the city changed direction with dizzying speed.

One moment, the headline was:

*Shocking! Two Aunts Drive Top Student’s Parents to Poison Themselves for Personal Gain!*

The next:

*Selfless Parents Choose Death Rather Than Burden Their Daughter’s Education!*

The news used the same old photograph of my parents. I didn’t know when it had been taken.

Dad was beaming. Mom sat beside him, her full face shy and gentle.

Comments flooded in.

[Oh my God. Her father knew he had cancer and didn’t want his daughter to suffer, so he and his disabled wife drank Paraquat!]

[There’s still love in this world. I’m crying!]

[I’m going home to hug my mother tonight!]

[Am I the only one feeling sorry for Chen Ke? Eighteen, and both parents gone…]

Soon, Shuoke Group, the company that had promised the prize flat, contacted my school.

In addition to the flat, they would pay all four years of my university tuition.

But I had to appear in person to accept the check from their chairman.

My homeroom teacher sounded hesitant.

“Chen Ke, they really do seem sincere. What do you think?”

I was silent for a long time before I found my voice.

“I’ll go.”

The news of my parents’ suicide was everywhere. Under intense pressure, the police issued their findings just two days later.

The essential point was this: my parents had died by suicide.

As I read the statement, the weight that had pressed on my chest finally lifted.

That night, I sat on the hard wooden bed where Mom used to lie.

The shadow of the old tree outside fell into the sitting room. It looked like Dad’s hunched back, sitting silently, never getting up.

Memory pulled me back to that dark, filthy night when I fled my youngest aunt’s home as though something evil were chasing me.

Mom had been waiting, already irritated.

After turning fifty, she had become short-tempered and harsh. Since my exam results, her temper had been worse than ever.

“Where were you? Why are you so late?”

“Out with Lin Binbin again?”

Her chest heaved. A foul smell rose from her lower body.

I went over in silence, supported her shoulder, and helped her turn.

After so long in bed, her skin was covered with boils and festering sores. The damp, rotten smell seemed to remind me that a girl born into this family could never win against the rich.

“Are you deaf? I asked you a question!”

A sharp banging came through the wall. Auntie Zhang next door was complaining.

Mom snorted and raised her voice.

“That damned Lin boy! I knew he was no good! Didn’t he drag you off to an internet café in tenth grade?”

I bent to clean her lower body, then helped her lie on her side, facing me.

“That Zhang woman has a poisonous tongue! She knows her son won’t get into a decent university, so she doesn’t want you studying either!”

“Chen Ke, listen to me—”

She stopped.

Her dry hand shot out like a vine and seized me.

“Chen Ke…”

“What’s that on your neck?”

When Dad came home that night, Mom’s eyes were red. She was slapping me again and again with all her strength.

We were poor, so the lights were always dim, their glow a weak yellow.

We were poor, so Dad left early and came home late.

No one had noticed that his skin and eyes had turned sickly yellow.

He rushed over, caught Mom’s wrist, and demanded to know why she was hitting me.

He pulled part of her body upright. The rest struck the floor. She gasped for breath.

“Ask… ask her!”

“Chen Ke! How could you?”

She was sobbing now.

“What have you done? God, what have you done?”

They questioned me relentlessly, demanding to know who it had been.

At last, Mom’s nails dug into my flesh.

I didn’t dare tell them.

I truly didn’t.

But her tears were burning hot. They fell into my palm and mingled with the salt on my cheeks.

***

The yellowed landline on the wall rang.

I rose and walked past the two urns standing side by side on our dining table, beside the empty Paraquat bottle.

My youngest aunt’s voice came down the line, trembling with fear beneath an effort at calm.

“Chen Ke. Tell me where Jiang Li is!”

“His mother’s going mad looking for him!”

“Tell me! Where is he?”