Chapter 2

By rights, I shouldn’t trust anyone now.

The young woman with braids seemed to notice my wariness. Laughing, she took a student card from her pocket.

“Look. You don’t need to be afraid. I just don’t want you two getting lost again. Think how worried your families would be.”

Xia was busy. Once she’d taken us where we needed to go, she hurried away.

Before leaving, she ruffled my tangled hair and pressed a few cakes into my hands.

“Have a safe journey, little one.”

I pressed my lips together, my feelings tangled.

There were so many bad people in the world. But there were good people too, quietly trying to save this battered world.

And so we reached the police station safely.

Because I could give my home address clearly, my details were soon registered.

Xiaobao was different.

He hardly seemed to have learned to speak. Apart from calling me “Sister,” he hadn’t said a word all the way.

When he grew anxious, he lowered his head and bit his fingers. It gave us no clues.

Officer Xu, who was taking our statements, sighed.

“The older one is easy enough. What do we do with this little fellow?”

The boy looked at me blankly. His large, dark eyes were wet as grapes, full of confusion.

“Sister?”

Reason told me to keep quiet. Going home was what mattered. Anything else would only delay me.

Yet I glared at him and said to Officer Xu, “Could you please take us both home together? If you find his family later, they can come to my house to collect him.”

Oh, well. I’d brought him this far. A little longer wouldn’t hurt.

To keep more children from falling into their hands, I told Officer Xu what I knew about the trafficker.

He looked astonished at how clearly I could recount it all.

“You remember that much?”

“Because I almost never got to see my mom and dad again.”

I clenched my fists and lowered my eyes, trying to hide the hatred in them.

We traveled all the way back to my home in Wutong County.

Before the front door, with its red good-fortune character pasted on it, I suddenly felt afraid to be so close to home.

Counting my previous life, it must have been more than ten years since I’d seen my parents.

I gathered my courage and turned the handle.

Locked.

A thin layer of dust coated it.

A neighbor heard us and peered out.

“Who is it? They went back to their village to visit family. They haven’t returned.”

Of course.

They must still be where I’d disappeared, searching for me over and over.

My sister had told me that Mom stood by the roadside holding my photograph, rushing up to every passerby.

Even after she lost her mind, she kept wandering around, grabbing people and asking, “Have you seen my youngest daughter? A little round face, big eyes, about this tall. I miss her so much…”

Dad abandoned the business that had only just begun to prosper. His graying hair fell out in handfuls.

He even slept outside the railway station, afraid I might come back one day and he would miss me.

In the third year after I disappeared, Mom died of grief.

That November, Dad lay in his hospital bed, his face turned away from my sister. He refused to look at her.

Right up to his last breath, he kept repeating, “You must find your sister… Bring her home…”

Losing the two most important people in her life within a single year, my sister cried until she could no longer speak.

My uncle took the chance to seize our house and drive her out into the snow.

Only then did he finally show his true face.

It was already dark, but I couldn’t wait until morning. Without stopping to rest, I headed straight back to our village.

Years later, I would still be grateful that I returned in time.

The village road was muddy.

At three or four in the morning, most houses were dark. Only one still had a light on.

The moment I got out of the car, standing beyond the blue-gray brick wall, I heard the voice I hated to my bones.

“Brother, I’ve found someone who can get your daughter back. Ten thousand yuan to grease the wheels. Pay them, and they’ll find her!”

Dad gave a bitter laugh.

“A-Deng, I’m not lying. If I had ten thousand, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

At a time when only a handful of families in the entire county had ten thousand yuan to their name, where was he supposed to find it?

“Sell the factory if you haven’t got enough. Borrow a bit from the neighbors. That’ll cover it.”

My uncle pretended to be worried.

“I hear some traffickers break children’s arms and legs and send them out to beg.”

“You don’t want that happening to your little girl, do you? The longer you wait, the greater the danger.”

Sell the child, then swindle the parents.

What a clever scheme.

Furious, I hammered on the door and shouted, “Dad! Mom! Don’t believe him!”

Everyone turned toward me.

Their gazes felt so heavy I could barely move.

I stared at the family right before me, trying to fill the gaps in my memory.

They were here.

They were really here.

My parents were still in color. Not cold black-and-white photographs hanging lifelessly on a wall.

The next instant, Mom’s warm arms were around me.

She held me tight, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe.

Soon, her tears had soaked the hair on top of my head.

“Zhuzhu. My baby girl. Where have you been…”

Her eyes were swollen. She must have cried herself dry these past few days.

Dad’s hair wasn’t completely white yet. But silver strands had appeared, painfully bright in the dim light.

“Why did you run off? Do you know how worried we’ve been?”

He came over, a little angry, and raised his hand.

Thinking he meant to hit me, I squeezed my eyes shut in fear.

But his hand only settled gently on my head, as though making sure I was real.

My usually stern father’s voice broke and trembled.

“You’re home. That’s all that matters. You’re home.”

Only ten-odd days had passed, yet their backs already seemed so much more bent.

Everything I’d held rigidly in check along the way broke loose.

I swallowed all the hurt and fear and put it into one sentence.

“Your little girl’s home.”

A whole lifetime, and another life after it.

At last, I was home.

A few paces away stood a girl around my age.

Guilt hadn’t yet crushed her young face. There was only worry and fear for me.

I ran to her and took her hand.

“Sis.”

She could hold back no longer and burst into tears.

“I’m sorry, Zhuzhu. I shouldn’t have let go of you and gone ahead.”

“It wasn’t your fault. You had nothing to do with it.”

I had owed her those words for far too long.

Then I saw someone trying to sneak away.

I confronted him at once.

“Nothing to say, Uncle? Then I’ll say it for you.”

He stopped and laughed awkwardly.

“Such wonderful news, Zhuzhu coming home. I was just going to get a brazier to drive away the bad luck…”

My parents were beginning to calm down. Hearing my tone, they immediately sensed something wrong.

I tilted my head, deliberately innocent.

“Then why were you sitting with the trafficker? Why did you tell him to sell me into the mountains?”

His honest-looking face turned pale, then purple. He raised his voice to cover his guilt.

“What nonsense are you talking, girl? Why are you accusing me?”

He tugged Dad’s sleeve.

“Brother, you have to be fair. I’ve been running around helping your family these past few days, and I haven’t complained once.”

For a moment, Dad said nothing.

He stared at the cousin he had always treated so generously, as though unable to believe that the man he loved like a brother could sell his daughter.

“This…”

Mom looked at me, then crouched to ask carefully, “Zhuzhu, could you have mistaken him for someone else?”

“No.”

I spoke each word clearly.

“He said he wanted to sell Sis too. Then you could raise his son for him.”

A child my age could never have invented that.

Dad’s face darkened. He punched my uncle hard, seized his collar, and hauled him up.

“Bi Deng. Haven’t I treated you well? You’ve never gone without food when I had any. When you wanted to go to high school and the family couldn’t afford it, I left school to pay for you.”

“And this is how you repay me?”

My uncle was short and slight. He was no match for Dad.

He spat blood, his eyes venomous.

“Who wanted your charity? Besides, you quit because you couldn’t keep up. What did that have to do with me?”

In fact, Dad’s grades had been far better.

My uncle stopped pretending. Out poured every grievance, including the money he’d wanted to borrow.

He grew more agitated as he spoke.

“You should have stayed rotting in the mud! Why should you get rich? That good fortune should have been mine!”

“And these two brats—how are they better than my Tiezhu? You’ll buy houses for them, but not for him!”

Mom flew at him and slapped him twice, hard. She even swore.

“What the hell does your son have to do with us? Have you got no conscience at all?”

Then an old voice came from inside.

“Enough.”

Grandma, who rarely appeared, came out leading my sleepy cousin Tiezhu.

She shouted at Dad.

“If you’d lent A-Deng the money, he wouldn’t have had to borrow from loan sharks. He made a few little mistakes. Did you have to beat him like that?”

“Are you giving up your only brother for these two girls?”

Little mistakes?

I almost laughed.

I was about to speak when Sis pulled me back.

She shook her head and muttered, “Grandma’s fierce. She hits you if you talk back.”

Dad looked deeply disappointed.

He stopped hitting my uncle and said coldly, “He wanted to sell my daughter. Your own granddaughter!”

What kind of family was this?

These were enemies.

“Girls can’t carry on the family line.”

Grandma curled her lip and shuffled over on her tiny feet to help my uncle up.

“So he sold her. If you two can’t have a son, you can raise Tiezhu.”

Tiezhu clapped.

“Sell the nasty girl! Then everything’s mine!”

Clearly, he’d known too.

I could understand the older generation favoring boys, but this went beyond all reason.

And besides…

Dad was her son. Why did she favor his cousin this much?

Perhaps my uncle thought he had support now. Even with his face swollen like a pig’s head, he snorted.

“If I don’t get ten thousand yuan, you’re no brother of mine.”

Dad had always treasured family. That was why my uncle dared to be so brazen.

Mom seemed afraid Dad would relent too.

“Bi Yang. If you forgive him, you can stay here yourself.”

With that, she picked up Sis and me and walked out.

“Who wants to be your brother?”

Dad stamped his foot in alarm and hurried after her.

“Wait, love. We’re going home together.”

Only outside did they notice Xiaobao sitting obediently on a rock by the door.

“Whose little boy is this? Why is he out so late?”

“I forgot.”

I tapped my forehead.

“Dad, Mom, this is Xiaobao. He may need to stay with us for a while.”

A shy smile spread across his fair little face. His gaze stayed on me, never moving away.

Back at our home in the county town, I gave my parents a brief account of what Xiaobao and I had been through, deliberately leaving out the worst details.

But of course they understood.

How much must two children so young have suffered to escape the traffickers?

Mom’s eyes reddened again.

“My poor baby girl…”

Clumsily, I wiped her tears with a tissue.

“I’m all right, Mom. Can Xiaobao stay here for now?”