10 Cannibalism

Yang Xiao had a dream.

In her dream, she felt incredibly light, floating above the city, overlooking a forest of steel. Was that the Oriental Pearl Tower? Yang Xiao wanted to fly further, to get a clearer view of it, but her body seemed to hit a thick barrier, preventing her from getting any closer. Then, as if strapped with a thousand-pound weight of gravel, she began to plummet rapidly.

Boom, boom, boom, one after another, she seemed to hear her own heartbeat in her dream.

I struggled to wake up and found that it was Zhou Qi knocking on the door.

She rubbed her face, smoothed out her wrinkled clothes, and opened the door tired after waking up from a nightmare.

"How did you sleep? Let's go to the hospital to see Li Maoqiu, and then go back with Dad." Zhou Qi was wearing a white T-shirt and black pants again, with one or two strands of hair sticking up.

"Oh, okay. I'll wash my face and brush my teeth right away." Yang Xiao opened the door completely and turned to walk towards the sink.

Zhou Qi saw Yang Xiao's gesture, as if inviting him to wait inside. He took a step forward and said to Yang Xiao, who was washing her face, "I'll wait for you at Dad's place," before gently closing the door. The sound of the water was so loud that Yang Xiao couldn't quite hear what he said. When the water was turned off, she only heard the sound of the door closing.

Yang Xiao quickly brushed her teeth, repeatedly checked to make sure nothing in her bag was left in the room, then put on her bag and knocked on Zhou Daye's door next door.

The hotel is just opposite the hospital, across the street.

After Zhou Qi and Zhou Daye bought some fruits and milk downstairs, they walked towards the hospital with Yang Xiao.

It was late at night when they arrived at the hotel. Zhou Qi woke them up just as check-out time was approaching. By the time the three of them arrived at the ward, it was midday, the sun-facing room bathed in sunlight. Maoqiu lay in the innermost bed. His father, resting all night, was still asleep on the recliner. His mother sat at the side of the bed, feeding him small sips of water. Seeing them arrive, she quickly put down her cup and stood up, muttering some frivolous words.

Yang Xiao felt that Maoqiu’s mother was really good to Maoqiu.

As I was thinking, a group of uninvited guests arrived. They were Xu Xiajiao's mother and her brother Xu Xiacheng.

Seeing the Xu family, Mao Qiu's mother raised her eyebrows and reached out to push Mao Qiu's father to wake him up. Mao Qiu's father climbed up from the recliner and looked at the whole family without any surprise on his face. Mao Qiu, lying on the bed, saw Xu Xiacheng and began to tremble, as if he could not make a sound.

Xu's mother spoke first. She went over and pulled Mao Qiu's hand, saying, "My child, you've suffered so much. It's my Xiaocheng who's being naive. I apologize to you on his behalf. He told me that he's acting like this because he loves you too much. Please don't be angry with him."

Mao Qiu's eyes became more horrified after hearing this. He pulled away the hand that Xu's mother was holding, "He...he never said he liked me."

Maoqiu's mother quickly pushed Xu's mother away and half-hugged Maoqiu, protecting her in her arms like a chick: "How dare you say such things? Xu Xiacheng, this is rape."

When Xu's mother heard this, she became unhappy and pulled Xu Xiacheng over and said, "My son made a small mistake. Why are you making such a big deal out of it? I've already apologized to you, and you're just being unreasonable, right?" When Yang Xiao heard this, she was furious. This was not an apology or a small mistake at all. How could they confuse right and wrong like this? She clenched her fists and was about to step forward to argue, but was stopped by Zhou Qi's look.

Zhou Qi stood in front of the Li mother and daughter, separating them from the Xu mother and daughter who were about to get close to them. "The police will make a judgment on this matter. You don't need to argue here and disturb the patients' rest." After saying that, Zhou Qi, who was a head taller than Xu Xiacheng, stared at the Xu mother and daughter with a cold face, trying to drive them out of the ward.

Unexpectedly, the word "police" seemed to have touched Xu's mother's sore spot. She suddenly screamed in a shrill voice, "Police? The police didn't find anything. I just apologized to you and gave you a good face. He's a college student, and he's interested in a junior high school student. He thinks highly of your family. While you're still pregnant, get married to my son during the summer vacation. My son can go to college when school starts."

Yang Xiao was so angry that she trembled all over. "Why? Rapist!"

The ward suddenly exploded in an uproar. Other patients and accompanying family members stretched their heads out to watch this "farce". Zhou Qi patted Yang Xiao on the shoulder, as if to comfort her, and said, "We live in a society ruled by law now. Auntie, do you still want to force me to buy something? It's not your turn to apologize and make a judgment on this matter. Please go. This is a hospital." Zhou Daye was also very anxious. His face flushed and he agreed, "Yes, yes, yes."

Xu's mother seemed to be getting more excited and started shouting again, "If you hit the child, he won't be able to enter my house!"

Suddenly, Maoqiu's mother stood up from the bedside, glanced at Maoqiu's indifferent father, took out a shiny fruit knife from the bedside table, and walked quickly towards Xu's mother. When Zhou Qi saw that something was wrong, he immediately pressed the call bell in front of the bed and tried to pull Maoqiu's mother, but Maoqiu's mother seemed to have lost her mind at this time. She waved the fruit knife in the air and then clamped it around her neck. Maoqiu turned over in the bed and ran down crying, calling "Mom, Mom."

Mao Qiu's mother looked at her child coming towards her, tears streaming down her face. "I'm telling you! No one can let Mao Qiu marry this bastard today, including you, Li Haichang. I haven't even graduated from high school yet, and my parents saw me holding your hand at the door. They said I had no self-respect and no self-love, and wanted me to marry you to save my ridiculous chastity! What did I do wrong? I just held his hand. Now what has my daughter done wrong? They want to use her chastity, her self-respect, and self-love to threaten her for the rest of her life! Since I married you, Li Haichang, have your family ever looked at me straight in the eye? Have your parents ever liked my daughter? Everyone tells me that this is the path I chose, that I chose you, Li Haichang. It's been almost twenty years, and this town is going to eat my daughter again? If anyone dares to let my daughter marry a rapist, I will die here."

Yang Xiao had never seen Mao Qiu's mother, no, Aunt He Zhengzhen, speak so loudly. In her impression, she was a kind and gentle person, polite and courteous.

The ward was plunged into chaos and commotion. The nurse arrived with the police and took He Zhengzhen, Xu's mother, and Xu Xiacheng away. Li Maoqiu stood barefoot, bewildered, calling for her mother. Li Haichang helped her back to bed, told her to be obedient, tucked her in, and then turned and cursed softly, "Mad woman."

When Yang Xiao heard this crazy woman's words, she suddenly felt sad.

The incoherent words made her unable to tell whether Li Haichang was scolding He Zhengzhen or Xu's mother, but she instinctively felt that he was scolding his wife. How could this be? How could this be a mad woman? She had tried her best to protect Maoqiu, even when she was dying, to pull her child out of the tiger's mouth, and even threatened to die to give Maoqiu a complete life. How could this be?

Crazy woman.

Yang Xiao didn't know what to say for a moment. She walked over to the bedside, hugged Mao Qiu, and gently patted her back to calm her down. She felt a mixture of emotions. From one end of the street to the other, Yang Xiao knew almost every brick and tile in Lu Town. This had made her lose her home, and then given her a place to call home. Could this really be a cannibalism?

Yang Xiao felt that everything was so confusing, so messy, as if she was tangled in a ball of tangled threads, and the threads were getting tighter and tighter, almost making it difficult for her to breathe.

Sitting on the return train, watching the scenery quickly fade away outside the window, Yang Xiao felt a little dazed. She seemed to see herself more than a decade later, smiling and saying to herself, "This is a great place." Then, with a flick of her head, she seemed to see another version of herself, with a bitter expression, saying to herself, "If I stay here, I'll be eaten."

She was startled awake, and when she opened her eyes she saw Zhou Daye's smiling eyes: "Did you...did you have a nightmare?"

Yang Xiao nodded, thinking it was a good thing it was just a dream, and asked, "Where are we going?"

"Go back... go back to Lu Town, go home."

"What about Mao Qiu?"

"Still...still in the hospital. We...we just got out of the hospital."

So what is a dream and what is reality?

He Zhengzhen's words "eat people" became the source of Yang Xiao's nightmare at that time.

She lay in her bed at home, waking up again and again, and then staring at the ceiling in a daze. An answer gradually emerged in her mind: she had to escape. This time she had to escape not only from the humid rainy season, but also from the group of monsters hiding behind the woman.