Chapter 1

After my sister was made into “tender tofu,” Mother began advertising her to the village.

She led her from house to house on a dog chain, offering her to men for money.

They came to our cellar at all hours.

Day and night.

1

Once again, familiar sounds in the house woke me at midnight.

I sat up and opened my door.

Two fat, potbellied men had just come in.

Mother hurried forward warmly and accepted several banknotes.

“Same place as always. Go on down.”

One of the men looked eager.

“Your tender tofu is the best. Two days away, and I can't stop thinking about it.”

Mother counted the money without looking up.

“Of course. Nothing like it in any of the villages around here.”

They stopped chatting and hurried toward the cellar.

I leaned out to watch them go, missing the movement beside me.

“Haven't I told you not to wander around at night?”

Mother's cold voice made me jump.

I turned. She was staring at me without expression.

“I... I only got up to use the toilet.”

She looked me up and down.

“Then hurry. And stay away from the cellar.”

I nodded obediently and headed for the outhouse.

Passing the cellar, I heard the two men urging each other on, their coarse laughter following me.

I didn't dare linger.

Even outside the courtyard, I couldn't help sighing.

The “usual place” was our cellar.

And “tender tofu” wasn't food.

It was my younger sister.

She'd been the prettiest girl in the village from the day she was born.

Her eyes were black as ink. Everyone said she'd grow into a beauty.

One day, men with generous betrothal gifts would wear our threshold away.

Mother thought that was too long to wait.

After Father died, she supported us by making tofu pudding.

She'd stare at the soybean pulp and swear.

“If it weren't for you two useless girls, why would I have to wear myself out making this every day?”

The angrier she became, the more often she'd beat us with a broom.

Once, our neighbor Mrs. Wang saw her and tried to intervene.

“Your girls are more delicate than tofu. Hurt them, and won't all that raising have been wasted?”

Something lit in Mother's eyes.

“Delicate as tofu,” she muttered.

She dropped the broom and went inside.

The next day, she took my little sister down to the workshop cellar.

Curious, I crept after them.

Soy milk boiled in the containers.

The large vat normally used for soaking beans was empty.

Smiling for the first time in ages, Mother gave my sister some red pills.

Too frightened of her to resist, my sister swallowed them.

I hid behind the door, hardly able to breathe.

What followed was a brutal ordeal involving the vat and scalding soy milk. My sister's cries faded under Mother's hand.

“Why waste years waiting?”

“Help your mother. Help this family.”

At last, the room fell silent.

I rushed in.

“Mother... she'll die. Please spare her. I'll go out and work. I'll earn money.”

She slapped me.

I staggered backward and fell against the vat.

My head struck its edge. Blood kept flowing.

As my vision blurred, I heard her contemptuous snort.

“How much could you earn?”

“Compared with what your sister can bring me?”

2

I don't know how long I was unconscious.

When I woke, Mother had her back to me.

She sat beside the vat, humming, working with a long hook as though she were skimming bean skins.

For a moment, I thought it had all been a nightmare.

Then I got closer.

She wasn't lifting out bean skins.

My sister had been terribly mutilated.

Her small body lay in bloodied soy milk, no longer breathing.

Mother worked quickly, muttering that this was easier than sorting beans.

From now on, she wouldn't have to do that every day.

I began to cry.

“What's the crying for?” she snapped. “She'll wake up in a few days.”

I grabbed her hand.

“Really, Mother?”

She shook me off impatiently.

“If she doesn't wake up, how's she going to earn me money?”

I nodded in a daze.

I hadn't understood that when my sister woke again, everything would have changed.

Afterward, Mother locked her in the cellar.

Only Mother could take her meals down.

I wasn't allowed anywhere near it.

Half a month later, a powerful soybean smell began rising from below.

Mother clapped her hands.

“It worked! It worked!”

Following the smell, I crept to the door.

Through the crack, I saw my sister sitting there, alive.

She seemed a little bigger.

Her skin was whole again, unmarked and pale.

An iron chain circled her neck.

The sight of it hurt.

I drew a startled breath.

She seemed to hear and looked toward the door.

The eyes that met mine felt utterly unfamiliar.

Her ink-black pupils slowly turned gold-white.

She swept a blank glance over me.

I stumbled back in fright.

After that, Mother began advertising her “tender tofu.”

She took my sister from house to house on the chain, displaying her to paying men.

When my sister moved too slowly, Mother struck her with a willow switch.

The men reached for her.

Mother stopped them, holding up three fingers.

They handed over money.

They kept coming to our house.

Every one left praising what Mother was selling in the cellar.

None seemed to realize the captive below our home might no longer be my beautiful younger sister.

Something else had returned.

Something that fed on souls.

3

On my way back from the toilet, I could still hear laughter from the cellar.

The soybean smell had grown stronger.

It made the whole house feel hazy and drowsy.

I crept to the door.

The men were caught in a delusion, embracing each other, laughing as though they saw something entirely different.

My sister wasn't beside them.

As I searched for her, a deathly pale face appeared in front of me.

Those strange gold-white pupils.

Then, suddenly, they became black again.

She looked at me with wounded eyes.

I clung to the door in fright.

A mournful voice sounded beside my ear.

“Sister, were you looking for me?”

That familiar face...

“Little sister,” I whispered.

She smiled and dragged the chain back toward the men.

Thin wisps of yellow smoke drifted from her mouth and seeped into them.

They collapsed like dead pigs.

She drew the smoke in and breathed it out again, as though savoring a wonderful meal.

Before long, color returned to her pale cheeks.

It wasn't the first time I'd seen her feed on men's vital essence.

Each time her face grew healthier, I felt a little relief.

Whatever else had changed, that body was still my sister's.

Mother and the men never noticed.

The following morning, the two visitors left yawning, unaware of what had happened.

They told Mother they'd be back after a rest.

She cheerfully agreed.

As she opened the gate to see them out, a basin of dirty water struck her.

Widow Kang, our neighbor, shouted, “Filthy business first thing in the morning! Bad luck!”

Mother stood in the doorway and shot back, “Better than raising a gambling addict who ruins the family!”

That should have struck a nerve.

Kang had lost her husband young and raised her son alone.

He'd become a gambler, forever coming home for money, emptying the household of everything.

Today, though, she didn't lose her temper.

Instead, she raised her wrist in the sunlight, displaying a gold bracelet.

“I told my boy not to waste his money on things like this. He wouldn't listen.”

“Having a son is a blessing. Better than having to sell your daughter.”

Mother stared at the bracelet, her eyes burning with anger.

Grinding her teeth, she paced outside the cellar for a long time.

Her index finger kept scraping her thumb knuckle.

She always did that when she was thinking.

That evening, when the men came, she made an announcement.

In three days, she would hold a tofu banquet.

Along with access to my sister, she'd sell a secret recipe of tofu pudding.

Eat it, she promised, and men of any age would feel young and vigorous again.

The village men could hardly wait to buy a bowl.

They didn't know the nightmare was only beginning.

Preparing for the banquet, Mother shut herself in the cellar every day.

She repeatedly used my sister's unnaturally regenerating body to make the pudding, boiling what she took from her into the soy milk.

Bowl after bowl of fragrant, snow-white tofu pudding appeared.

I stared at them, wondering whether the effect would be real.

Mother carried them away, delighted.

Then my sister slowly opened her eyes.

“Little sister,” I said, “the banquet is tomorrow.”