Chapter 3
Edward Quan ·
I gripped the sleeve of my hospital gown and struggled to stay calm.
“Officer Huang, is it? Can’t you see I’m still hooked up to tubes?
“I was injured—”
Before I could finish, he said coldly:
“Then come to the station after you’re discharged and well enough.”
He turned and left.
Mom held my hand.
“Lin Jie, perhaps we should let it go?”
I shook my head.
“No.
“I want them to pay.”
In the days that followed, I had the tubes removed, got out of bed and learned to walk again.
I didn’t complain of pain once.
After I was discharged, I went straight to the station.
As soon as I entered and explained why I was there, every eye turned toward me.
I knew what they were thinking.
A girl working at a karaoke club, something happening in an alley late at night—how respectable could it be?
I waited a long time.
At last, Huang Dashan appeared and took me into an interrogation room.
He leaned back in his chair, looking me up and down.
“Start.”
I sat across from him, hands clasped on my knees.
Wasn’t he supposed to ask me questions?
Wasn’t someone supposed to speak gently to me?
Wasn’t that how it happened on television?
He tapped the desk.
“Do you want to report a crime or not?”
I forced myself to speak.
“About two weeks ago, I was raped in Pingyang Lane.
“I think there were two of them. It was dark, and they wore masks. I couldn’t see their faces.
“They both wore gloves. They must have planned it.”
His pen tapped the desk.
Again. Again.
“What else?”
I stared.
“What?”
“How long did it last?”
His blunt question, his eyes, his tone—every second ripped my wounds open all over again.
“I don’t know… I was barely conscious. All I remember is pain.”
“What position? How did he penetrate you?
“Did he kiss you? Touch you? Where?”
I wondered whether I’d misheard.
My stomach lurched.
I bent over and retched, acid scorching my throat, tears spilling from my eyes as I choked.
I stammered, unable to force out another word.
He watched me gag and struggle with nothing but indifference.
“You worked at a karaoke club?”
“Yes.”
“Your mother works at a bar.”
I nodded.
His glance was contemptuous.
I knew what he meant.
“To be frank, Lin Jie, without convincing evidence, it’s very difficult for us to catch them.”
It was like being back in that alley, so dark I couldn’t see a single face.
Now I sat beneath dazzling lights.
Yet there seemed to be even less light than that night.
“Afterward, I went to the station over and over. The answer never changed. No usable surveillance footage. No witnesses…”
…
The interrogation room was utterly silent.
Later, Mom arranged for me to suspend my studies.
Qin Feng stayed by my side during that time.
Every visit, he brought a flower. Never the same kind twice.
“Flowers bloom again. People never get their youth back.”
He told me:
“Every flower withers eventually. But it has bloomed.”
Something stirred faintly inside me.
He took me on an old green train for two days and two nights, showing me landscapes I’d never seen.
If a young man sat beside me, a woman would be in that seat within five minutes.
At hotels, he told me:
“Don’t worry. I’m in the room opposite.”
No one was kind without a reason.
I kept thinking he must want something.
Only after we returned did I discover that Mom had arranged it all.
The messages between them were full of her humble pleas.
“Xiao Jie doesn’t want to see anyone. You saved her life. Could I beg you to help me once more?”
“She’s shut herself in her room again. Could you come?”
…
Yes.
How frightened Mom must have been for me then.
Quietly, I turned off her phone.
I decided to leave the past behind. When I proposed changing my name, she happily agreed.
Holding an ID card bearing the name “Lin Xiaowan,” I felt as though I’d been born again.
I learned how to go on living. I cut every tie to the people and events of my past.
Including Qin Feng.
Then Mom fell ill.
Liver cancer.
The doctor said she didn’t have long.
In her final days, she entrusted me to Qin Feng.
In front of her, I didn’t pull away when he held my hand.
After she died, he confronted me.
“Why did you block me?”
My eyes reddened.
“I know everything. You visited me and took me traveling because you couldn’t refuse my mother’s requests.
“I’m better now. She’s gone. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”
He laughed.
“Lin Jie, what do you take me for? I like you. Your mother only gave me the opportunity.”
The last of my defenses fell when he said:
“I know everything you’ve suffered. I’ll protect you.”
I stopped thinking.
He had seen me at my worst.
He knew everything I’d been through.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded.
After Mom’s funeral, he took me thousands of kilometers away to his hometown.
We worked and lived together, soon met both sets of parents and all his friends, including Qin Xiaozhou and Huang Fang.
Before long, we married.
His attitude toward me began changing afterward.
His growing irritability became impossible to hide.
He wouldn’t let me go out in skirts or wear makeup and dress up.
One day, I went shopping for groceries in a new pair of shoes.
When I came home, he pointed at me.
“Now I know why you were the one who got raped… Dressing like that. You always did like showing off.”
The vegetables fell from my hands.
I immediately bought a ticket to leave.
Again and again, he promised he didn’t mean it. He just had a sharp tongue.
For a while, our life was peaceful enough.
No one here knew what had happened to me.
Until one night, everything changed.
Qin Feng and Qin Xiaozhou had both said they weren’t going to drink.
But after returning from a class reunion, they clamored for more.
Qin Xiaozhou wasn’t drunk yet and volunteered to buy the alcohol.
Qin Feng told me to get some snacks.
“Go next door and get some of Uncle Fatty’s homegrown peanuts. Perfect with a drink.”
He pointed at Huang Fang.
“She’s pregnant and can’t speak. You can’t expect her to go, can you?”
Uncle and Auntie Fatty had long since gone to bed.
I hesitated outside their door, not daring to go in.
Qin Xiaozhou returned and helped me out of the awkward situation.
When we got back upstairs, Huang Fang was huddled in a corner.
Her clothes were torn. She was bleeding, clutching her stomach and crying without a sound.
Qin Xiaozhou’s eyes went red.
He grabbed a heavy object and smashed Qin Feng over the head.
I stood frozen, utterly lost.
My mother-in-law rushed over, screaming:
“Murder! I’m calling the police!”
Qin Xiaozhou helped Huang Fang out of the blood, then suddenly turned to me.
“This isn’t the first time Qin Feng’s done it. He just told me he raped you into marrying him. I thought he was joking…”
My mind went blank.
All I remember is panicking and reaching for my mother-in-law as she tried to rush downstairs.
She struggled and lost her footing.
She tumbled down the stairs.
In the chaos, Qin Xiaozhou took Huang Fang to hospital.
The noise woke the neighbors. When Uncle Fatty came over, Qin Feng was still lying in a pool of blood upstairs.
“Get your mother-in-law to hospital, Xiaowan!”
I had no time to care whether Qin Feng was alive or dead.
I carried his unconscious mother on my back and hurried to hospital with the others.
Once she and Huang Fang had been settled, the doctors told us my mother-in-law had suffered a sudden stroke. She was completely paralyzed and would never care for herself again.
Huang Fang had lost her baby through shock and injury. She too would never become pregnant again.
I rushed home.
By the time I arrived, Qin Xiaozhou had opened up the wall.
Behind him lay a tightly tied sack, bulging unmistakably around a human body.
“He’s dead.”
Qin Xiaozhou looked at me.
“You can call the police and have me arrested.”
I shook my head.
“There was someone else. Who? Who raped me with Qin Feng?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know. Probably someone he worked with…
“Do you want to report him, or seal him in there? After all that noise tonight, there’s no way we can dig a grave now…”
I said nothing.
I picked up the tools and poured cement and sand together.
I’d never imagined Qin Feng could have been connected to that man from my past.
No wonder he hadn’t despised me.
He had been the one responsible all along.