Chapter 25 Divine Retribution: I want to go down the mountain, I want to go home!
When Chu Yanxi returned to the Wang family courtyard with a half-full basket of wild vegetables, the sun was already setting.
Wang Erzhu was squatting at the courtyard gate sharpening his wood-chopping knife when he heard footsteps. He looked up, his gaze sweeping over Chu Yanxi. Seeing her rosy complexion, steady steps, and the smooth, strong lines of her arms carrying the basket—no longer the frail figure she had been when she first arrived—Wang Erzhu's Adam's apple bobbed, and a glint of desire and possessiveness flashed in his eyes.
He threw down the whetstone, stood up, rubbed his hands together, and came closer with a greasy smile on his face: "Wife, went to dig for wild vegetables? Are you tired?" As he spoke, his hand reached for Chu Yanxi's arm.
Chu Yanxi stepped aside, her movements as natural as if she were casually turning around to tidy up the basket of wild vegetables. She raised her eyes, her gaze calm and even carrying a hint of weariness: "Second Brother, I'm a little tired and want to rest for a while."
Wang Erzhu's hand missed its mark, and he felt a little embarrassed, but looking at Chu Yanxi's tired yet undeniably beautiful face, his anger subsided, and he said with a fawning smile, "Tired? What? You look much better now, tonight... tonight we..."
Chu Yanxi interrupted him promptly, her voice low but carrying a sense of calm: "When I married into this family, I was in a daze, and there wasn't even a proper ceremony. The villagers all laughed behind my back, saying I was bought and not properly married." She lowered her eyelashes, her tone carrying just the right amount of grievance, "I know my family is poor, and you paid money for me... but in my heart, there's always been a knot in my heart."
Wang Erzhu was taken aback, not understanding why she suddenly brought this up.
Chu Yanxi looked up at him, her eyes clear: "Tonight, can we do something simple? Just to make up for it. Have Mom cook a couple of dishes, we can have a drink, and we can put on that red quilt. That will be proper etiquette, and it will put my mind at ease, okay?"
She paused, then said in an even softer voice, "I've made up my mind. I'll follow you wherever you go, and I'll definitely live a good life with you from now on."
Just live a good life?
These words, as gentle as a feather, tickled Wang Erzhu's heart, leaving him momentarily disoriented. He looked down at Chu Yanxi, his initial doubts replaced by greater excitement. A wedding ceremony? A drink? What's so difficult about that! It could even be done smoothly... The more he thought about it, the happier he became, and he grinned, "Okay! Okay! Whatever you say, wife, I'll tell Mom right now."
At first, Granny Wang was reluctant, complaining that it was a waste of oil and salt. But Wang Erzhu coaxed her with a few words like "make her follow us wholeheartedly" and "so she can give you a grandson in the future," and she reluctantly agreed, grumbling as she went to the kitchen to prepare the food.
Dinner was indeed more lavish than usual, with scrambled eggs, sliced cured meat, and a pot of loose white wine that Wang Erzhu had somehow gotten his hands on. Granny Wang ate a few mouthfuls of food, drank the hot tea Chu Yanxi offered, then put down her chopsticks and went back to her room, glaring at Chu Yanxi before leaving: "Don't cause trouble!"
Chu Yanxi ate her meal quietly, while Wang Erzhu excitedly drank one glass of wine after another, becoming more talkative and boasting about how capable he was and how he would give her a good life in the future.
After a hearty meal and drinks, Wang Erzhu's face was flushed and his eyes were glazed over. Chu Yanxi stood up, poured him one last glass of wine, then picked up the teapot on the table, poured him a cup of hot tea, and handed it to him in a gentle voice: "Second Brother, have some water to calm your nerves."
Wang Erzhu, unsuspecting, took the water glass and gulped it down. The water had a slightly astringent taste, but he assumed it was from leftover tea leaves and didn't think much of it.
Chu Yanxi watched him drink it, her eyes calm and unwavering. The tea contained the datura pollen she had carefully ground that afternoon at the spot where she carried people on her back on the mountainside, along with a very small amount of rhododendron juice—enough to make a strong man sleep until late the next morning, waking up dizzy and with blurred memory.
After a short while, Wang Erzhu felt his eyelids getting heavy and the world spinning. He mumbled, "Wife... get on the bed..." and then collapsed onto the table, snoring loudly.
Chu Yanxi went over and checked his breathing, confirming that he was just unconscious. She laboriously dragged the heavy Wang Erzhu to the kang (a heated brick bed) in the inner room, and haphazardly covered him with the half-new, half-old red quilt.
Then, she turned and left the house, silently making her way to Granny Wang's window. Through the hole in the window paper, she saw that Granny Wang was also fast asleep—she had also drunk the hot tea that Chu Yanxi had offered.
The moonlight, as clear as water, bathed the quiet courtyard.
Chu Yanxi returned to her room and pulled out the razor-sharp pair of scissors from under the kang mat. The cold metallic touch made her fingertips tremble slightly, but her eyes remained unusually calm.
She went to Granny Wang's bedside first. In the moonlight, Granny Wang's gray hair was scattered on the pillow. Chu Yanxi reached out, grabbed it, and the scissors sniped mercilessly, cutting along the scalp.
Strands of hair fell down, revealing mottled scalp. Granny Wang frowned uncomfortably in her sleep, mumbled something, and then drifted back to sleep.
Chu Yanxi raised his hand and slapped him!
—They treated her like livestock, dragging her, who had just miscarried, for miles along mountain paths, pulling and shoving her while cursing and swearing, demanding the price of a cow. Such a vicious woman deserves to be beaten.
Chu Yanxi's gaze was icy, and she raised her hand to slap him again!
—As a woman herself, she showed no mercy, constantly beating and verbally abusing her, determined to mold her into a "good" daughter-in-law who would work tirelessly, be a slave, and bear children. Such an evil mother-in-law deserves to be beaten.
Chu Yanxi did not stop, and slapped him several more times.
After Wang Dazhu's death, to prevent her from revealing the truth about his death, Granny Wang not only slapped her but also had Wang Erzhu teach her a lesson, trying to use violence to make her obedient. At the time, Chu Yanxi was powerless to resist, but now the time for revenge had finally come.
After a few slaps, Granny Wang felt the pain. She was in a nightmare, her brows furrowed, her head shaking, but she couldn't open her eyes and continued to drift in and out of consciousness.
Next up is Wang Erzhu.
He slept like a log. Chu Yanxi followed suit, cutting his greasy hair unevenly, as if it had been chewed by a dog. After doing this, she paused, moved the tip of her scissors to Wang Erzhu's crotch, her eyes flashing, and quickly made a few cuts.
The wound wasn't deep, but it bled enough to leave a lasting mark and instill fear.
A man who, unable to afford a wife, tries to buy one to continue his family line, is truly despicable.
—Although the law does not yet have a clear punishment for “buying people”, without people like Wang Dazhu and Wang Erzhu, there would be no one in the world trafficking women.
If it weren't for legal constraints, Chu Yanxi would have liked to be even more ruthless.
She swept the cut hair onto the ground, and by the moonlight, using the strands of hair mixed with blood, she spelled out several large, crooked characters on the mud floor of the main room:
Buying and selling people.
Next to it was a huge "X" written in blood.
After doing all this, Chu Yanxi wiped the scissors clean and hid them, then returned to her sleeping corner as if nothing had happened and lay down fully clothed.
The next morning, two piercing screams, almost distorted in pitch, erupted from the Wang family's mud-brick house, nearly lifting the roof off.
Old Lady Wang touched her almost bald, pockmarked head, looked at her inhuman, ghostly reflection in the mirror, and then saw the horrifying writing on the ground. Terrified, she collapsed to the ground, slapping her thigh and wailing incoherently, "Ghosts! Ghosts! It's haunted!"
Wang Erzhu was also awakened by the chill on his head and the stinging pain in his groin. He touched his head, and when he saw the words on the ground and the wounds on his body, his face turned ashen, his genitals were soaked with sweat, his teeth chattered, and he couldn't say a word, only boundless fear remained.
Chu Yanxi pretended to wake up, secretly amused by Wang Erzhu's miserable appearance, but feigned fear and timidly asked, "What happened?"
She immediately got up, lifted the curtain and went into the main room, then screamed, "Oh my god—help! Something's happened! Our house is haunted!"
Chu Yanxi's voice was loud and clear, instantly breaking the tranquility of the small mountain village in the early morning and attracting the attention of the neighbors.
"Did you hear that? Something seems to have happened to Erzhu's family."
"I think I heard something about a ghost."
"Even that usually quiet new bride is screaming so pitifully, something must have happened! Go check on her quickly!"
In the mountain village, there's little privacy, and soon a crowd had gathered in front of Wang Erzhu's mud-brick house. Someone pounded on the door: "Erzhu, Erzhu, open the door!"
Chu Yanxi quickly opened the door, and a large group of people rushed into the house.
With sharp eyes, they immediately spotted the words on the floor of the main room, and that big "X"! Looking up again, they saw Granny Wang and Wang Erzhu, who were covering their heads, looking disheveled and pale.
"Oh dear, what's wrong with you all?"
"This is a case of alopecia areata!"
"What have you done? You should find a shaman to take a look."
Granny Wang was usually a bit superstitious, and upon hearing what everyone was saying, she immediately said to Chu Yanxi, "You, hurry up and go invite the sorceress."
Chu Yanxi didn't move, just stood at the door, pursing her lips and remaining silent, a hint of hesitation on her face: "I have no money."
Granny Wang gritted her teeth, pulled three yuan from her inner pocket, and shoved it into Chu Yanxi's hand: "Go quickly, go quickly."
Chu Yanxi accepted the money and slowly walked towards the fortune teller's house.
Inside the Wang family's dilapidated house, the lively atmosphere remained unchanged.
Those who could read recognized the characters spelled out on the ground with strands of hair and exclaimed in shock: "Buying and selling people? Oh dear, this is divine retribution! Look! Granny Wang bought two wives and treated Chunni badly, so Heaven is punishing her, that's why..."
"Pah!" Granny Wang spat on the ground. "Who in our village doesn't buy a wife? All these years have passed, which family has suffered divine retribution? It must be because the eldest son died unjustly that he resents us. Blame Chunni, that vicious woman, for killing my son! Blame that sorceress for not properly performing a ritual to help my son pass on!"
The words "divine retribution" struck Wang Erzhu's heart like a heavy hammer.
He didn't have the same strong will as Granny Wang. Thinking about how he'd slept like a log the night before, only to wake up to several bloody gashes on his groin, he panicked. If those gashes had been any closer, his manhood, the vessel for bearing children, would have been ruined. The thought of divine retribution made Wang Erzhu immediately grab his mother's arm: "Get rid of her! Get her away right now! I don't want to die..."
The other families in the village who were buying wives felt a chill run from the soles of their feet to the top of their heads as they looked at the strange words on the ground and then at the bald heads of Granny Wang and Wang Erzhu.
—No way, is there really divine retribution?
The superstitious mountain people don't understand scientific principles, but they believe in ghosts and gods, and in retribution. Human trafficking? Being struck by lightning? Looking at the appearance of Granny Wang and her son, this is clearly divine retribution!
The sorceress was dragged over by Chu Yanxi and pretended to perform a ritual. She rolled her eyes at the sky, then sighed, "Alas, Chunni's matter has angered the Heavenly Court. The Jade Emperor has sent celestial beings to the mortal realm. Those who buy wives, and those who mistreat their wives, are likely to suffer the consequences!"
Chu Yanxi nodded inwardly. As expected of a fortune teller who would do anything for money, she had at least said a few pleasing words.
The news spread like wildfire throughout the entire village in an instant.
Panic began to spread.
For the next few days, Shijian Village seemed to be cursed.
Li Laowai, from the west end of the village, was a notorious drunkard with a violent temper. The night before, he downed half a jin of cheap liquor and then remembered that his new wife had taken an extra bite of pickled vegetables with her at dinner. Fueled by alcohol, he dragged her into the yard, grabbed a bamboo stick used for shooing chickens, and began whipping her. The wife's cries and the sound of the bamboo stick cutting through the air carried far into the night. The neighbors heard it, but they just shrugged and turned over to go back to sleep.
The next day, just as dawn was breaking, Li Laowai was awakened by a burning pain in his chest. He groggily reached out and touched it, finding it damp and sticky. Startled, he sat bolt upright. Looking down, he nearly jumped out of his skin—the front of his filthy undershirt had been ripped open, revealing a crooked, bloody gash on his chest! The flesh was torn open, and blood was seeping out in thin streams, causing him to grimace in pain.
That's not even the scariest part.
Old Li rolled his eyes in horror and discovered a small tuft of a woman's long hair neatly laid out beside his pillow—the very hair of the woman he had brutally beaten the night before! And on the opposite earthen wall, yellowed from smoke, three shocking characters were scrawled crookedly in the charcoal left over from the fire:
Hitting women
Each character was as big as a bowl, with an even thicker and more ferocious red X pressing down on it. The red X seemed to exude a malevolent aura, staring straight at him.
Old Li let out a howl and tumbled off the kang (a heated brick bed), his clothes soaked. He tried to scream, but his throat felt like it was being choked, and he could only manage gasping, hoarse sounds. He had clearly locked the door last night, so where did this bloody gash come from? Where did this hair come from? And the words on the wall… who wrote them?!
Old Zhang, living at the north end of the village, had an even stranger situation. Last year, he gritted his teeth and bought a wife who was somewhat mentally challenged. Afraid she would run away, he simply chained one end of an iron chain to her ankle, with the other end tied to a beam in the roof. He only unchained her when she was working or eating. Yesterday, he was even bragging to someone that this method was good and saved him a lot of trouble.
That morning, a neighbor who came to deliver something to Zhang Laoshuan's house found the door to the main room ajar and quiet inside. Curious, the neighbor peeked out and was so shocked that he dropped his basket—he saw his mentally challenged wife lying peacefully on the kang (a heated brick bed) in the inner room, fast asleep. The iron chain around her ankle was gone, and the lock was lying on the ground, deformed by a stone.
But Zhang Laoshuan himself has disappeared without a trace.
The villagers searched for most of the day before finally finding him in a wild cave about two miles from the village. Old Zhang was bound tightly with his belt like a pig waiting to be slaughtered, his mouth stuffed with his own smelly socks, curled up in the deepest part of the cold, damp cave. When they found him, he was starving, his eyes glazed over, his whole body trembling, and his lips cracked and blistered.
When they brought him back to the village and checked his clothes for injuries, everyone gasped again. On Zhang Laoshuan's thin, bony back, someone had used a sharp stone or piece of iron to carve a huge, bloody, red X-shaped wound! The edges of the wound were rough, deeply embedded in the flesh, and the blood had congealed and seeped out again, looking both terrifying and humiliating.
Old Zhang was in so much pain he almost fainted. What terrified him even more was that he had absolutely no recollection of how he got to the cave, how he was injured, or who carved the words on his back! He only remembered that after falling asleep last night, he knew nothing more.
If the suffering of Li Laowai and Zhang Laoshuan still carried a hint of "personal grudges," then the events involving the next few families sent a chill down the spines of the entire village.
Those gossipy and malicious old women in the village, Wang Pozi's "good sisters," always got together to either brag about how "capable" their sons were of buying wives, or to discuss how to "train" the disobedient newlyweds. They were the instigators of this sordid atmosphere in the village.
As a result, overnight, all of these old women suffered "retribution".
When Widow Zhao woke up, she felt a chill on her scalp. Touching it, she found a handful of severed hair. She scrambled off the bed and rushed to the only broken mercury mirror in the house. One glance was enough to send a shriek through her. The woman in the mirror, resembling an old hag, had her hair haphazardly cut, missing pieces here and there, looking like a rotten vegetable scrap gnawed by a mad dog! What devastated her most was that the person who cut her hair was extremely "shrewd," specifically targeting the few strands of hair she cherished most, the ones she usually styled most beautifully, leaving only unsightly stubble.
Grandma Sun's house was even more outrageous. One morning, her daughter-in-law got up to make breakfast, and as soon as she lifted the pot lid, she was nearly knocked over by the overwhelming stench. The bottom of the large iron pot was thickly smeared with fresh, wet cow dung! The yellowish-brown filth clung tightly to the bottom, and the smell was utterly nauseating.
This pot was completely ruined. For several days in a row, the smell of cooking at Granny Sun's house lingered, making her the laughing stock of the whole village.
Old Mrs. Qian and Old Mrs. Li weren't much better off. One was found with dead rats stuffed into her stove, and the other had wood ash poured into her pickling jar.
Without exception, all the families kept their doors and windows tightly shut that night. The victims all claimed to have slept "soundly," without even a dream, and were completely unaware of what had happened during the night. There were no signs of forced entry, and nothing was stolen; only the people suffered and their homes were ransacked.
Fear, like ink dropped into clear water, quickly spread, diffused, and permeated Shijian Village.
Alopecia areata!
"The mountain god is angry!"
"It's retribution! Retribution for buying and selling people and beating wives!"
"It must be those women who died unjustly coming back to claim their lives!"
"Those crosses on the wall and on the back... those are the crosses cast by the King of Hell! They've condemned you!"
Various eerie and terrifying rumors circulated among the villagers, growing increasingly bizarre. Families who had previously bought wives and beaten them now lived in constant fear, afraid to sleep soundly at night, even with extra bolts on their doors and windows. Husbands looked at their wives with suspicion, and mothers-in-law dared not beat or scold their purchased wives anymore. Some were even so terrified that they secretly threw the chains used to restrain the wives and the sticks used to beat them into the ravine.
A silent yet suffocating judgment enveloped the entire Shijian Village. The perpetrators finally began to taste the fear they had sown, and for the first time, the ignorance and barbarity that had long hung over the village were suppressed by a more primal and unknowable force.
Granny Wang still wanted to throw a tantrum and go to the clan chief for justice, but the clan chief's door was tightly shut, and it was said that the old man had also fallen ill from fright. Wang Erzhu was completely deflated, and when he saw Chu Yanxi, he was like a mouse seeing a cat. He didn't dare to sleep in the same room with her at night, and squeezed into the room with Granny Wang, clutching his blanket.
Chu Yanxi observed all of this with indifference.
During the day, she worked as usual, remaining silent and taciturn. At night, she was like a knight in shining armor, using herbs gathered from the mountains, a pair of scissors, and a bundle of rope to punish the villagers involved in the human trafficking in her own way.
If the law cannot punish these perpetrators, then we'll deal with them in our own way!
She wants to let fear take root and make ignorance pay the price for evil.
Just as the whole village was gripped by panic and people were filled with anxiety, there was another commotion at the village entrance.
This time, the scale is even bigger.
Lu Zhe is back.
He didn't come back alone.
Behind him followed a dozen or so people—a provincial television reporter carrying a camera, a somber-looking township government secretary and several officials, and fully armed police officers from the local police station, including Officer Zhou and Xiao Zhang. The group, in a grand procession, once again set foot on the land of Shijian Village.
The villagers were summoned to the threshing ground.
The television cameras swept across terrified faces, and across the villagers whose eyes darted around after they had just experienced “divine retribution.”
Township Party Secretary Yang, holding a loudspeaker, announced sternly: "Fellow villagers! We have received reports of serious problems of trafficking and abuse of women in Shijian Village! This is illegal and criminal! National law will not tolerate it!"
Officer Zhou stepped forward, his sharp gaze sweeping across the room: "Wang Laowu's case has been solved, and Chunni is innocent, but the rights of other trafficked women must be protected! Today, we are here to resolve this issue. All women sold to Shijian Village who wish to leave will be sent home by the government! Those who wish to stay must guarantee that there will be no more abuse, or they will be severely punished!"
Seeing this scene, listening to the legal propaganda over the loudspeaker, and thinking about the strange "divine retribution" of the past few days, the villagers' psychological defenses completely collapsed.
Under the combined pressure of the law and the fear of ghosts and gods, no one dared to resist anymore.
Wang Fuguo and the clan elders looked at each other, and finally, trembling, they stated: "We will cooperate with the government and the investigation..."
One family after another, the women who had been bought as wives were called before them. Under the watchful eyes of the cameras and officials, they trembled as they expressed their wishes. Some cried, wanting to go home; others hesitated, looking at their husbands and children. In the end, most chose to leave this nightmarish place.
“I want to go down the mountain, I want to go home! I want to take my two daughters with me too.” Chunni held her two daughters’ hands tightly and was the first to stand next to the police officer, her eyes resolute.
One woman after another bravely stood beside Chunni and loudly declared their choice.
Chu Yanxi stood at the edge of the crowd, watching the scene before her, her eyes welling up with tears.
Wang Erzhu and Granny Wang huddled in the corner, their faces ashen, not daring to look at her at all. They finally understood that this new bride, whom they had once thought was honest and easy to bully, was not someone to be trifled with.
Lu Zhe walked through the crowd to her, and their eyes met, a thousand words unspoken between them.
Through the calmness in her eyes, Lu Zhe saw a unique, sharp resilience that belonged to her.
He recalled her gesture of making the number "15" that night, and his heart surged with emotion. Lu Zhe knew that this was the day Chu Yanxi and he had agreed to meet again. And this time, he had not let her down.
Lu Zhe's voice was low, carrying a hint of pity that he himself was unaware of: "It's over."
Chu Yanxi nodded slightly, the sunlight shining on her face, giving it a warm hue.
Looking at the women who were about to be reborn, and at the man in front of her who had tried to help her time and time again and ultimately worked with her to change the situation, she realized for the first time how important it was to have a "comrade-in-arms" she could trust and stand shoulder to shoulder with in this strange and cruel world.
“Mm,” she responded softly, a faint but genuine smile curving her lips. “It’s over.”
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Author's Note: I forgot to set the update time and only realized it this afternoon. Here's today's update, and I'll update again tomorrow at 9 AM!
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