Chapter 2

“Then why did you go straight to the pigsty where she was chained up?”

The thought of my daughter shivering there in thin clothes nearly made me cry.

I didn't shed a tear.

I made my voice indifferent.

“When I got here, I happened to hear that the woman you kept in the pigsty was pretty.”

“She was from the city. Only ten when they brought her. Pale, soft skin. A pretty little thing.”

Seeing that I no longer seemed ready for trouble, he spoke in his halting Mandarin.

“But too young isn't good either. Their bodies can't take it.

“She was pregnant with my child. To stop it being born, she hit her stomach with a stone and miscarried. Killed off my Chen family's line.

“I was so angry I made her sleep in the pigsty. Not even two days, and she froze to death.”

After a miscarriage, my daughter had been thrown into a pigsty.

She had frozen to death.

Ah!

This animal. I wanted to flay him alive.

I couldn't stop shaking.

“You let her freeze?”

He nodded casually.

“Dead is dead. But I've lost out badly. I paid a hundred thousand for her. Worst of all, she died without leaving me a child.”

I drew several deep breaths and clenched my teeth.

“Is your Chen family line so precious?”

“Of course! I'm the only Chen in the whole village.”

I said nothing more.

I was afraid rage would make me kill him then and there.

Once I had steadied myself, I asked him to take me to the village chief. I wanted to discuss buying timber.

Money quickly closed the distance between us. No longer as guarded, he led me toward the chief's home.

I said nothing about my daughter in the pigsty.

But I knew every inch beneath my feet had been part of a hell she couldn't escape.

My poor girl had endured everything here: humiliation, abuse, beatings, hunger.

Guoguo. I'm sorry.

I came too late.

I hammered my chest and stared at Chen Jin beside me.

I'll avenge you.

I'll make him wish he were dead.

4.

The chief welcomed us warmly when he learned I had come to do business.

I told him I wanted the timber on the mountain.

He grinned so broadly he could hardly close his mouth.

The village was remote. Almost no one came to trade.

At my casual suggestion, he offered his fullest support.

I asked to inspect the trees.

On the way up, Officer Li quietly told me that a complaint against Chen Jin could put him in prison.

I waved it away.

Before coming, I had hurriedly read about human trafficking law. According to what I had learned, Chen Jin would get at most one to three years.

My daughter had endured seven years of torment.

Could a few years behind bars make up for that?

I would not let him live so comfortably.

Officer Li asked why I still wanted to do business with the village after Chen Jin had caused her death.

I didn't tell him my plan. I only asked him to leave first.

Again and again, he warned me not to act rashly. Killing meant paying with my own life.

I told him I wouldn't kill rashly.

I meant to destroy their bodies and minds deliberately, little by little.

At the foot of the mountain, I told the chief:

“I'll take it all.”

I told him to cut down the trees and stack them at the village entrance. Someone would come to transport them.

To prove I could pay, I showed him my savings and put down a deposit.

He immediately called everyone to start cutting.

5.

I stayed in town.

Once a week, I walked two hours to the village.

Over time, I developed a sort of acquaintance with Chen Jin.

He often sighed.

“That stubborn bitch died too soon.”

He meant my daughter.

My fingers dug into the table.

“How many pregnancies did she have?”

“Three or four?”

He counted on his fingers.

“Can't remember. She had some fight in her. Got pregnant twice and hit her stomach with a stone. Killed both.”

I could feel her despair and helplessness.

Even now, she would only be eighteen.

Still a child herself, with another child inside her.

How desperate she must have been.

Guoguo, it must have hurt.

You must have missed me so much.

My Guoguo…

I closed my eyes. I couldn't bear his ugly, repulsive face.

“What about the other two?”

“Dead.”

He touched his mole.

“Both girls. She strangled one. Threw the other into a water jar, I think. Drowned.”

I shook all over. My eyes felt ready to burst.

Guoguo, do you want me to avenge you? Do you want me to kill him now?

My gaze settled on the woodcutting blade nearby.

Just pick it up. One blow to his head, and all this evil would end.

The thought kept repeating.

Pick it up.

Pick it up!

Chen Jin waved a hand before my face.

“Brother, you don't look well.”

My hands slowly moved toward the blade.

Then the chief arrived.

He pulled Chen Jin aside.

“Aunt Huang's got new stock. Interested? This one's simple-minded. Cheap. Only thirty thousand.”

“Can't afford it. The last stubborn bitch cost me a hundred thousand. Cleaned me out.”

Their conversation filled me with even greater hatred.

They discussed buying women as if chatting about everyday errands.

No guilt.

Only that ridiculous concern with preserving their bloodlines.

Did they know that every girl they bought meant a family destroyed behind her?

After Guoguo's abduction, my wife had fallen into depression. In the end, she took her own life by jumping from a building.

Chen Jin turned to me.

“Brother, want to buy a woman to give you children?”

I said nothing.

I was afraid I would scream:

“Fuck you! Die!”

I steadied my breathing again and again, looking at the boxwood trees falling in the distance.

At last, I began to think clearly.

I couldn't kill Chen Jin yet.

I needed him to lead me to the person who sold my daughter.

He mistook my silence for embarrassment.

“Aunt Huang's stock is good. She brought me that stubborn bitch too. Interested?”

Aunt Huang.

The woman who had abducted Guoguo and destroyed my family.

“Yes,” I said through clenched teeth.

The chief waved regretfully.

“Sorry, brother. She doesn't deal with strangers.”

I forced out a cough.

“That's all right. Once she knows me, there'll be time.”

I understood the value of a long line to catch a big fish.

Chen Jin would be my bait.

After the chief left, I hinted that if he persuaded Aunt Huang to find me a woman, I would give him at least ten thousand yuan in commission.

He hesitated and mumbled, neither agreeing nor refusing.

6.

The longer I stayed, the more I learned.

Most villagers had never been to school.

They were desperately poor and lived on tea farming.

Except to carry tea into town for sale, they almost never left.

They were feudal and isolated. The balance between men and women was grotesquely skewed. They wanted only sons. More than half the baby girls were strangled.

The village grew poorer. The number of boys grew larger.

Girls lucky enough to survive were sold to Aunt Huang at around fifteen. Their price paid for wives for the family's sons.

Poverty meant isolation and ignorance. They had no awareness of the law.

Aunt Huang was different.

She came from this village but lived in town. Unless there were girls to buy or sell, she rarely returned.

She knew she was breaking the law.

She was more cautious than anyone.

Back at my hotel, I messaged Officer Li.

“I've found out who trafficked my daughter. She's called Aunt Huang.

“She lives around the village and town. Most of the women here were brought and sold by her. I'm trying to get close to her.”