My name is Pei Xiaoxiu, nicknamed Pei Nannan. My life probably really fits the saying that I suffered a lifetime of hardship in my childhood, and then everything went smoothly.
Ever since I was old enough to understand, I was always being beaten. I was either working or being beaten, or on my way to work or on my way to be beaten.
When other children were working, I was working. When other children were playing, I was working. When other children were acting coquettishly and crying, I was still working.
When the adults came back from work, I was severely beaten.
No matter how much work I did, or whether my work was done well or not, she would always find a reason to beat me, as if my existence was the greatest sin.
I was young at that time and didn’t understand. Although other families also favored boys over girls, they were not like hers. If I was beaten up, who would come to work, right?
She didn't care. Even if I was sick and lying in bed unconscious, she would pull me out of bed and do the work.
This "she" is my mother, a woman who wishes she had never given birth to me.
The person I admired most when I was a child was my father. He was the captain of the team. Everyone in the team believed in him very much and said that he was the most fair and powerful captain.
But I am also very afraid of him, because he always has a stern face even at home, and he often either scolds or beats my brother, but my brother is thick-skinned and can still smile after being punished.
I can't be like him. Every time he gets beaten up, I think to myself, if it were me, I would be so sad.
Although my mother often asked me to work at that time, she rarely let me go without eating. Perhaps it was because I would not have the energy to work if I did not have enough food.
Only when she had a quarrel with my father would she starve me on purpose to vent her anger. I was very sad. At the beginning, I thought she was not my biological mother.
Maybe I was picked up or they adopted me from somewhere else. It is also possible that, sometimes I wonder, did my father make a mistake and have me by another woman?
But I rejected this idea as soon as it came to my mind. How could my father, such a good man, make such a mistake? There must be other reasons.
Later, I took the opportunity to go out to work and asked some aunts and uncles in the village. They all said that of course I came out of my mother's belly, because they had all seen my mother when she was pregnant.
She also laughed at me and said that there is no child who doesn't work, and that if they made a mistake they would be beaten. The children in her family were beaten from childhood to adulthood.
After they laughed at me a few times, I stopped talking about it. Of course I knew that those kids were beaten, and I also knew that their beatings were different from mine.
At least I have never seen any obvious scars on the children I have interacted with on a daily basis. As for me, I was not allowed to wear short sleeves even in the hot summer, and even if I wore long sleeves, I was not allowed to roll up my sleeves.
Because I have scars all over my body from her.
Although I don’t know how other families get along with each other, I feel that it is definitely not like ours.
My grandfather passed away a few years ago. Although my great-grandfather said that boys and girls are the same, he was particularly biased towards boys.
Whenever something happens to my brother, he immediately takes it very seriously, but he always ignores me.
Or it's not just me. As the clan leader, he also cares about other children in the clan, but he usually cares about boys. For him, as long as girls don't die, it's fine.
I thought he just favored boys over girls, so I never looked for him. I was afraid of the male elders in the family.
Until one day, for some reason my mom and dad had a huge argument, and my dad slammed the door and walked out. He must have gone to live in the production team again.
This is what happened every time we had a fight. My dad would go to live in the production team and not come back all night.
The quarrel happened in the afternoon that day, so my mother didn't give me any food at night. I was familiar with this situation, so I drank more water, thinking that I would be fine in the morning if I could just get through the night.
She wouldn't deny me food in front of his grandfather.
But I don’t know what happened the next day. I overslept. My mother scolded me for being lazy and didn’t let me make breakfast that day. She sent me out to collect grass for the pigs.
I hadn't eaten anything in the evening or morning, so I broke off two thorns and put them in my mouth to chew. The more I chewed, the hungrier I became.
I was feeling groggy that day and had no strength at all. I had only finished half a frame of the medicine when it was almost noon. My stomach had been growling since it just came out in the morning, but I couldn't make any sound anymore.
I was dragging the basket as I walked with difficulty, and accidentally tripped over something in the grass. I lay on the ground, unable to get up, and felt like I was about to faint.
"Ouch! Who is this! Don't you look where you're going? How can you kick someone this big while he's lying here? You'd better not run away!"
The woman who tripped me had a sharp voice and was filled with anger.
I kicked someone and I wanted to say sorry, but I really didn't have the strength to raise my head. Forget it, I just fainted and let her do whatever she wanted to me.
When I regained consciousness again, I was woken up by someone poking my face. When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a very unfamiliar environment.
"My pigweed!"
Suddenly I remembered that the basket was not even half full of pig grass, and I was deflated. Forget it, I haven’t even filled it up yet. Even if I hand it in, I won’t get any work points. And I don’t know where the basket is. If it’s lost, my family will have to pay compensation to the team.
I will definitely be beaten again then.
Just fight, it doesn’t matter.
I lay back on the bed and glanced at the person who had just woken me up. It was a boy. He looked familiar. I should have seen him before, but I couldn't remember whose child he was.
"Are you awake? My mom said you fainted from hunger. You are at my house now. She said you can only drink porridge and can't eat anything else. Do you want to eat something now?"
He talked a lot and said a lot to me in a short while.
After saying that, without waiting for my response, he went out and got a bowl of porridge.
"Hey, my grandma has picked up all the rice grains today. You should drink some soup first. I'll get you some sweet potatoes later. My mom said that it doesn't matter if you cook the sweet potatoes until they are soft."
He brought the bowl of soup close to my mouth. I couldn't help swallowing and asked him, "Which aunt's family are you from?"
My dad is the oldest among his brothers. Not many of them can be called "Mom". I have some impression of this boy, but he is definitely not from the families of those uncles who are older than my dad.
"Hey, why are you asking so many questions? Eat first, then we'll talk."
He put the bowl towards my mouth, and I could only drink the whole bowl of soup with his hand.
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