They Say I Can Curse People (7)

Chapter 38

The distance Yun Song and the other two walked today was greater than a full day’s training exercise, but fortunately, all three were in excellent physical condition, so it wasn’t much of a problem.

Tang Chao in particular, after driving the others away, had sat down with the young girl Huanhuan and chatted back and forth.

Once Yun Song decided to take the two children back to town, Tang Chao hoisted the already sleeping Huanhuan onto her back and began the steady trek down the mountain.

Chang Fang had originally been somewhat nervous, but when she saw the police officer carrying her younger sister, her anxiety eased significantly.

She thought for a moment that perhaps the police could help her get her Hukou.

Chang Fang was deeply obsessed with the Hukou. Part of it stemmed from her school days when she was a Black Household; her teacher had mentioned it several times, telling her to have her Third Aunt register her.

Naturally, Third Aunt would never register Chang Fang’s Hukou under her own household. She had three children of her own. Her first was a girl, so she hadn’t paid a fine for the second child, but she had been fined for the third. If she registered Chang Fang now, she would have to pay another large sum of money. She was obviously unwilling.

Whenever the subject came up, Chang Fang’s Third Aunt would curse their family.

“You’re the first child, so it wouldn’t have cost a cent to register your Hukou, yet your old man didn’t do it. Do you know why? Because if you’re registered, you take up a quota. If he wanted two sons later, he’d have to pay fines. They’re just waiting for you to grow up and earn money so you can pay the fines to register yourself…”

“I truly hate that family of curs. When I lived at home, they didn’t treat me like a person, and even after I married out, they threw a brat at me to help raise! Am I a slave to your Zhang family?”

During those school days, she was caught every day between her parents and her Third Aunt. Later, after she stopped going to school and stayed at her Eldest Aunt’s house, she heard her Eldest Aunt say something else.

There was a girl in the village without a Hukou who went out to find work. Because she didn’t have one, she had to borrow someone else’s ID card.

At the time, Eldest Aunt praised the girl for being sensible, saying she sent all the money she earned back home.

Chang Fang had remained silent. She didn’t want that. Using someone else’s ID and then giving all her earnings to her family… it felt like being a slave to another family for a lifetime. She would rather die.

That was how she used to think – that she might as well just die.

In the past, she felt as if she were trapped in a tiny jar, unable to breathe. The voice telling her to die didn’t come from her mother, her grandmother, or the adults in her Eldest or Second Aunt’s families.

They actually all wanted her to live.

They wanted her to live a life of agony inside that tiny jar.

The voice telling her to die was her own thought. Every day and every minute, all she felt was suffocation, a lifetime of visible misery.

She hadn’t wanted to live.

But now, the jar was gone. Her body trembled slightly as she breathed the fresh air, and she felt strength flooding into her hands and feet.

She had walked all day, yet she didn’t feel tired at the prospect of following the police to town. She wanted to go to town and see what the lives of police officers were like. She had to find a way to get the police comrades to help her with her Hukou.

Her sister, Huanhuan, was currently sleeping on the back of the tallest police officer, completely unaware of these matters. Chang Fang also wanted to get a Hukou for her sister.

Next year her sister would be seven, old enough to start school.

Yun Song kept a close watch on Chang Fang’s emotions. Seeing that she was alright, she felt a sense of relief.

On their way back, they still had to pass through Sanli Village. They had passed it twice before, but at those times, the police were focused on the missing children and hadn’t had time to enter. Now that they had found them, there was time.

Yun Song said to the others, “I’m going to see an acquaintance. Wait for me at the village entrance.”

Rather than an acquaintance, it was more the relationship between a police officer and the family of a captured criminal.

Mei Qiang… who was Mei Yue’s Second Grandpa, was currently held in the detention center awaiting trial.

Yun Song remembered that Mei Qiang’s family had collected a lot of Slug Moth Cocoons to sell for money but had failed to sell them. She only found out later that they were actually Cicada Slough¹, which indeed could be sold, but the pharmacies in Tonglin Town couldn’t process that much.

Yun Song had previously spoken to the Village Party Secretary about this, asking him to collect all the Cicada Slough in the village. She would come to pick them up and take them to the city to sell when they returned.

When Yun Song arrived, she expected to be cursed at. After all, she had experience with this in the city. Back then, she had caught two men with knives fighting at a night market. After the standard arrest procedure, she had to notify the family.

When she and a colleague took the arrest warrant to notify the family, the relatives didn’t believe them at first. Once they realized it was true, they started chasing them away and hurling insults.

She was mentally prepared for that this time, which was why she hadn’t let the others come along.

She encountered Mei Qiang’s family on the road. They greeted her with awkward expressions but no signs of hatred.

Yun Song thought for a moment and understood.

In such a poverty-stricken place, people didn’t have the luxury of wasting energy on emotions. For the vast majority, survival came first.

She obtained the Cicada Slough from the Village Party Secretary. They were packed in a large fertilizer bag, with each family’s portion separated inside. Although the bag was huge, it wasn’t heavy.

Yun Song carried the bag back to the village entrance.

“What’s this?” Tong Jin asked curiously.

Yun Song opened it to satisfy their curiosity.

“Cicada Slough?”

Chang Fang saw them too and said, “Gonggazi Shells²!”

Only then did Yun Song learn that the people of Laoma Village called the cicada larvae “Gonggazi.” “Gazi” was likely because they found the cicadas noisy, and “Gong” probably referred to how the cicadas arched their way out of the soil.

“I used to collect a lot of those too,” Chang Fang said.

Yun Song asked, “Did you make any money?”

“No. The people in town were liars.”

Yun Song said, “These can be sold for money, but the town pharmacy might be overstocked. When we go back to the city next time, we’ll sell them to the city pharmacies.”

Chang Fang’s eyes instantly lit up. “Really? Can mine be sold for money too? I have so many!”

After she finished speaking, she remembered something, and her mood sank again. “They’re at Second Aunt’s house.”

When the town first heard that these shells could be sold for money, almost everyone started looking for them, and Chang Fang was naturally among them.

She had a large bag of them too.

“It’s fine, we’ll go get them later,” Yun Song said.

Chang Fang nodded, but all along the way, she ran ahead quickly, glancing left and right at both sides of the road.

“What are you looking for?”

“I’m looking for Cicada Sloughs!” She had just heard Sister Tong say that was what they were called.

“There shouldn’t be any left this season,” Yun Song noted.

Chang Fang nodded but continued to peer around everywhere.

When they walked down to the bamboo forest, Yun Song saw Chang Fang dart forward.

“Chang Fang?”

“There are Cicada Sloughs here too!” Chang Fang said. “I saw some here today!”

Yun Song told Tang Chao and Tong Jin to go ahead and rest at Maotou Mountain up front while she followed to check on the Cicada Sloughs in the bamboo forest.

“Found it!” Chang Fang had sharp eyes and quickly spotted a cluster of small flowers among a pile of bamboo leaves.

Yun Song walked over but didn’t see any Cicada Sloughs. Chang Fang was kneeling on the ground, using a stick to pry at the soil.

Yun Song looked closely and saw a cluster of very small flowers. The stems looked a bit like coral fungi. Chang Fang soon dug the cluster of small flowers out of the earth.

“Officer, can these Cicada Sloughs be sold for money if I wash them clean?”

Yun Song looked and saw that beneath this cluster of small flowers was a cicada larva.

Yun Song was very knowledgeable about traditional Chinese medicine. She hadn’t recognized it when she only saw the small flowers, but now that she saw the larva underneath, she realized what it was.

“This isn’t a Cicada Slough. This is a Golden Cicada Flower³.”

“Huh? Is it a flower?” Chang Fang asked. “Does that mean it can’t be sold? All the Cicada Sloughs at my house look like this.” Cicada Sloughs were usually found in specific spots. Back then, when she was living under someone else’s roof, she didn’t dare compete with the adults. But she was clever and quickly discovered that these cicadas all crawled out from underground, so she often turned over the soil and soon found this kind of “slough.”

“This is even more expensive. To be precise, it’s not a flower. It’s a fungus-insect complex formed after a cicada larva is infected by a fungus and dies.”

Walking through the bamboo forest, Yun Song looked at the Golden Cicada Flower and thought about the process of its formation.

She knew that beneath their feet, a cicada pupa sleeping peacefully in the darkness had burrowed deep into the earth. Its genetic code drove it into the soil to escape the cold, waiting to break out of its shell the following year to enjoy the sunshine, the wind, and the leaves.

But soon, it would lose control of its body in the soil. As if possessed by something, its body would begin to dig through the earth, heading upward, entirely unaware of what was happening to it.

Soon, the cicada pupa would reach a position only five centimeters from the surface. It would stop, its body would twitch a few times, and it would quickly die.

Not far from it, at the same depth, another cicada pupa had already completely perished. The organism humans called Cordyceps fungus had sucked away all the pupa’s life and grown into a new living thing.

Even though this new organism looked exactly like a cicada larva, it was no longer that cicada that yearned to crawl out of the dirt and enjoy the wind and sun in the trees.

As Chang Fang listened to the officer describe this process, an indescribable sadness welled up in her heart.

She couldn’t explain why herself; she just felt miserable.

But this misery didn’t last long, because the officers were taking them into Tonglin Town Middle School!

The officers were staying in the middle school dormitories. To Chang Fang, this somewhat harsh environment was a place she hadn’t even dared to dream of.

“My sister and I are staying here too?”

“Yes. For the time being, you two will stay here with us.”

Chang Fang looked at the dormitory. The floors above were filled with middle school students, and the teaching building was not far outside. When she passed by just now, it was filled with the sound of students reading aloud.

Chang Fang’s heart beat incredibly fast. Suddenly, the fact that her mother wouldn’t recognize her and wouldn’t give her a Hukou didn’t seem so sad anymore. A thought surfaced in her mind: maybe… it was actually a good thing that her mother refused to acknowledge her!

The officer beside her was still comforting her. “Don’t be afraid, the school has already agreed.”

Chang Fang wiped her tears, weeping with joy.

Translator’s Notes