Hu Honghua shivered, her face turning pale from the scolding. She shrank her neck and didn’t dare say a word.
Li Tianci had never liked her, because she was uneducated, clumsy at work, and couldn’t do anything right. She didn’t dare talk back either, because Li Tianci was one of the first college students, and he looked down on her. Scolding her was only natural.
“Mom!” Li Tianci saw that Shi Meilan still wasn’t moving, so he raised his voice, “Xinran is right—your tuberculosis is contagious. You should go outside. You have to think about this family!”
“What the hell are you talking about, you old hag!” Shi Meilan had been so furious just now that she couldn’t speak. Now, as her breath returned, she finally roared, “This house is the family fortune I worked for! I saved up for it! I’m not even dead yet, and you dare give my house to someone else!”
Shi Meilan only felt her heart turn cold, followed by an endless surge of hatred. She shook off Hu Honghua and walked straight into the main hall. “Afraid of catching it, are you? Afraid of catching it? I’ll infect every last one of you! No one will get out alive!”
She had worked herself to the bone for this family, poured her heart and soul into it. Was everyone here just a pack of ingrates? Did they not have a shred of conscience?
The crowd in the main hall was terrified by Shi Meilan’s appearance. They weren’t afraid of Shi Meilan, but they were terrified of tuberculosis!
As Shi Meilan entered, everyone retreated.
“Mom! Have you made enough trouble yet?”
“Do you really want your son to get sick too?”
“Other families’ elders don’t drag their children down, why do you insist on ruining your own kids?”
Shi Meilan stepped forward and said, “I’m dying, but my maiden family isn’t dead yet! If you want to bring another woman into the house, have you asked my parents?”
Hearing Shi Meilan mention her maiden family, Li Jianye instantly gained confidence.
“Let me be honest with you—your family said they wouldn’t get involved. Your brother came to me for twenty yuan, said it was to reclaim your dowry from when you got married. Now that he’s got it, we’re even! Your family agreed to it, so what are you making a fuss about?”
Li Jianye even pulled out a slip of paper with her brother’s fingerprint, tossed it to Shi Meilan, and said, “Our Li family has done everything we could for you! If you keep this up, I’ll send you back to your parents’ place. Your brother’s already married, and if you go back, they won’t even prepare a grave for you!”
“That’s right, Mom, we gave uncle a lot of money. Now I won’t even have money to marry a wife!” Li Tianfu said indignantly, “We don’t owe you anything. It’s your own body that’s weak, you got sick yourself, so how can you take it out on us?”
The three men of the Li family all wore expressions of impatience. They wondered, how could Shi Meilan be so unreasonable? She was the one dying, yet she insisted on making trouble for them one last time!
Shi Meilan’s eyes turned red with rage at their words. She staggered forward, trembling as she picked up the slip of paper.
Sure enough, it was her brother’s fingerprint. He couldn’t write, only knew how to leave a fingerprint. There was a scar on his thumb, very distinctive—Shi Meilan had always remembered it.
She thought, while she was still alive, Li Jianye wanted to marry a widow, and her brother wouldn’t just stand by. So he did get involved, but instead of standing up for her, he used it as an excuse to squeeze some money out.
When she was alive and useful, these people swarmed around her sweetly, counting on her to cook, to do all the chores. Once she died, they couldn’t wait to devour her last bit of flesh, then go looking for the next replacement.
It was as if she wasn’t even a person, just a tool for this family—once broken, she could be thrown away.
Seeing Shi Meilan approaching step by step, Widow Wang and Lin Xinran’s faces filled with fear—they were terrified of catching the disease!
“Forget it, if she won’t leave, we will. Let’s go.” Widow Wang grabbed her daughter and rushed toward the door.
“No, you can’t leave!” Li Tianfu hurriedly tried to stop them. “You stay here! Dad, you go send Mom away! You’re the one in such a rush to marry again!”
If you asked him, this should have waited until Mom died, but Dad insisted on hurrying things. Now look! What a mess!
Li Jianye didn’t dare go over; he was afraid of being infected, and even more afraid of seeing Shi Meilan’s eyes. He shrank back like a turtle, yelling from behind, “Eldest son, say something!”
Li Tianci hesitated for two seconds, then glared fiercely at Hu Honghua. “Hu Honghua, why aren’t you taking your mother-in-law away!”
It was all Hu Honghua’s fault—if she hadn’t insisted on bringing food today, none of this would have happened!
“Mother-in-law, what should I do?” Hu Honghua, timid by nature, was about to cry after Li Tianci glared at her.
Li Jianye was forced to chime in, “Enough, what do you want? Just go outside! What if you really infect your son?”
Shi Meilan was burning with hatred! She wanted to curse them all, but a blockage in her chest kept her from speaking. The moment she opened her mouth, she couldn’t control herself and coughed up a mouthful of blood. Then her vision went black, and she collapsed.
As she fell, those around her were terrified by the blood. The crowd shouted, their voices so shrill and loud it seemed they’d lift the roof. One after another, they dragged each other out, until only Hu Honghua was left kneeling by her side.
Run? No one’s allowed to run! No one’s allowed to run!
Shi Meilan screamed and raged, but only spat up more blood. Her vision went completely dark, and she couldn’t see anything. The voices of those people grew more distant, fainter and fainter, as if they were far away. She desperately tried to open her eyes, to see clearly, to rip the faces off those people, but she had no strength left.
Her anger burned away her last breath of life. Her soul was roasted dry by rage, thinned, and shattered into pieces.
When she died, the whole house had run away, leaving only her daughter-in-law, who had never been close to her, crying as she saw her off.
She saw, after she died, Li Jianye despised her for being sick, afraid of catching something from the corpse, and maybe also annoyed at the scene she caused that day, which had ruined his chance to marry a new wife. Old grudges and new resentments piled up, so he simply dumped her corpse back to her maiden family, saying the dowry had been returned, so her family should handle the burial. Her family didn’t want to either, and the two sides pulled back and forth.
Her younger uncle’s family next door remembered past grievances and just watched, saying she deserved it. Her mother-in-law gleefully shouted, “Who told her to get that disease! Delayed my son marrying again.”
Her useless daughter-in-law was also driven out, and in the end, sobbing, carried her corpse back to the old Hu family. The Hu family had only one man left. When he saw this, he sighed, took charge, bought a small coffin, and buried her in the mountains—right beside the Land Temple.
She never expected that, in the end, it was the daughter-in-law she’d always looked down on who buried her.
She came to this world, stayed for a while at her father’s house, then at her husband’s house. When she got sick and was no longer useful, she had to make way for her husband’s next wife, and die quickly so as not to be a burden.
She hated it. Why?
Why, why, why?
Why did she have to die like this?
What did death feel like?
It was as if she were floating in a stream, lifted by gentle currents, drifting along, lighter and lighter, her consciousness fading, as if about to forget everything.
All those grudges and resentments were about to be forgotten, forgotten—
No.
Shi Meilan floated in the water, full of resentment. She didn’t want to forget.
She was weighed down by this thread of hatred, unable to leave, just drifting in a daze, circling and circling, unwilling to go.
She hated. If only she were still alive, if only—
Summer, 1985, Huaguo. Early June.
A blazing ball of fire hung in the sky, scorching the sandy earth of Lijia Village until it cracked and burned underfoot. Even the dogs had to hide under the walls, tongues lolling.
In the heat of midsummer, a cool breeze swept through Lijia Village, rustling the old trees’ new leaves, then mischievously slipped through the window of the east room in the old Li family house.
Four rooms front and back, east and west; the front east room was the brightest and largest, used as Li Jianye and Shi Meilan’s bedroom.
The bedroom was neat and tidy. Facing the door was a large wardrobe—Shi Meilan’s dowry. Against the back wall was a big kang bed. In the corner, the bedding was stacked neatly. New Year pictures of smiling children holding fish were pasted on the wall.
It was the height of summer. By the window was a short wooden couch, covered with a bamboo mat for cooling off.
At this moment, a middle-aged woman in her thirties was sleeping on the short couch. Time had filled out her brows and eyes, giving her a spirited look. Though she wore an ordinary white blouse and blue pants, her tall, rounded figure, fair round face, rosy lips, and dark, fine brows made for a striking beauty.
It was Shi Meilan.
Shi Meilan was famous in Lijia Village for her good fortune. She’d married a teacher, had two sons—one with good grades and hopes of getting into college, the other strong and hardworking in the fields. With a family like this, Shi Meilan could laugh herself awake from her dreams.
Yet, the Shi Meilan lying on the wooden couch seemed trapped in a nightmare, tossing and turning, her sleeping face growing more and more twisted.
Her hands clutched her clothes tightly, as if wrestling with someone.
Just then, a breeze drifted in through the window, brushing over Shi Meilan. In the next second, her feet suddenly slipped, and she rolled off the couch, waking with a start.
As she woke, Shi Meilan’s head buzzed.
The resentment in her heart still surged in her chest, the anger from her death still circling in her mind. But what was this before her eyes?
The familiar front east room, the wardrobe she’d looked at for over a decade, a calendar hanging in the corner, the date reading June 2, 1985.
She thought in confusion, could it be that her soul, unable to rest, had come back as a ghost?
She swayed unsteadily to her feet, clumsily moving this body, and staggered out from the back room, through the corridor, and out to the main hall.
Sunlight fell past the eaves, drawing a line between light and shadow.
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