Immortal Lady Likes Her So Much

Chapter 4

Sha Niu did not blame her mother for failing to recognize the Immortal Lady. Instead, she sat in the cellar, mentally tallying how many good things she had that she could give to her.

Soon, the cellar door opened.

Her mother appeared above, her face clouded and grim.

It seemed Mother was unhappy again today.

“Come up. It’s time to eat.”

Sha Niu scrambled up quickly and followed obediently at her mother’s side, taking the bowl handed to her.

She desperately wanted to ask how the Immortal Lady was doing, but since her mother was in a bad mood, she simply focused on eating.

Sha Niu’s mother didn’t notice what was on her daughter’s mind because the arrival of this new Trafficked Bride had dragged her own memories back to the past.

For every foreign woman brought here, the first few days were the most agonizing. It was because they refused to believe it; they refused to believe that their entire lives were going to end like this.

Everything from the past vanished so suddenly. Parents, siblings, relatives, friends, and all the things that once made them feel safe and happy instantly became a distant, unreachable history.

Back then, she had been only eighteen. She was supposed to follow a distant relative to work in a textile factory in the city. She never imagined that after being passed around through several hands, she would be sent to this place.

At first, she hoped she could explain things clearly to the man. She wanted to tell him she wasn’t here to get married, that there had been a misunderstanding. She hoped he would send her back, promising that once she returned, she would definitely pay him back and even give him a reward.

Such thoughts would be completely shattered within the next five days.

Then, she began to think about escaping.

Every Outsider Wife had an experience where they successfully made it over a mountain or two. Just as they were rejoicing at not being discovered, lying in the forest to catch their breath, they would find out that the dogs belonging to the families on the other side of the mountain bit incredibly hard. They would learn that the ropes those people used to bind them would chafe the back of their necks until they were a bloody mess.

And then… what happened then?

Sha Niu’s mother stared at her rice bowl, the weight of the past pulling at her chest until it ached.

And then she became pregnant…

Every day was so difficult to endure, every day passed so slowly. She didn’t even know how she had made it through, yet when she looked back, twenty years had already passed.

Even though more than twenty years had gone by, everything felt like it happened yesterday, yet everything also seemed to have passed in a flash.

She touched her own face. Had it really been over twenty years? Her face was covered in cracks from sun exposure, with wrinkles and sunspots marring her entire features.

She looked older now than her own mother had been. She had more white hair than her mother. Could she ever go back? Would her family even recognize her?

Sha Niu’s mother often felt that she would be better off dead. Why did she survive? Knowing clearly that every day was painful, why did she keep living? What was the point of living like this?

Sha Niu didn’t understand what her mother was thinking, but she could sense her mother was unhappy. For her, thinking about the Immortal Lady always brought joy, so she started talking about the Immortal Lady again, hoping her mother could feel that same happiness.

“Mom, tell me the story again about when I was little and almost died, and the Immortal Lady saved me. I’ve forgotten all about it.”

The silly girl had described the whole process, yet she still insisted she had forgotten.

This was the silly girl’s favorite story to hear.

Sha Niu’s mother glanced at her smiling, foolish daughter. Her heart felt heavy and stifled. She truly couldn’t find the energy to humor the girl, so she simply said, “I’ve forgotten too.”

Sha Niu giggled. At eighteen, she still possessed the innocence of a child. “Mom, I was lying to you just now! I still remember! I would never forget something like that!”

She boastfully began to recount the story she had heard since childhood.

“There was so much snow that day! Mom was helping out at someone else’s house, and I was home with Grandpa and Grandma. In the evening, Mom felt uneasy in her heart and missed me for no reason, so she came back with a torch.”

Sha Niu went to the side of the bed and pointed at the small cot. “When Mom came back, I was sleeping right here. No matter how she called, she couldn’t wake me up.”

The silly girl often spoke in a jumbled, incoherent way, but whenever she spoke with her mother, she seemed like a normal person.

The mother’s attention was dragged back to the past by her daughter’s vivid narration.

It was as if she were back in that night when the snow sealed the mountains. She was a southerner and had never seen such heavy snow. Even though she had been there for five or six years by then, she was still not used to it.

Her daughter had a high fever. she wrapped the child in a tattered quilt and carried her on her back.

First, she went to find the doctor.

In the middle of the night, the doctor came out of his room and glanced at the child.

“Go back. This kid is beyond saving. Just have another one.”

Even though it was night, the world was a vast expanse of white because of the snow. She carried the child back. The snow was deep, and her legs and feet had lost all sensation; she just walked back numbly.

She reached Honggu Mountain. The reason the mountain was called Honggu was because there was a temple at the peak, which enshrined an Immortal Lady. She had once been a resident of Xinghua Village before attaining the Dao and becoming an immortal. Her name as a mortal had been Honggu.

Sha Niu’s mother thought of the Immortal Lady on the mountain peak. She carried the child toward the temple, her mind racing the entire way.

She thought, Honggu is also a woman. Perhaps Honggu would be willing to protect her.

Finally, she reached the summit.

The wind at the peak was incredibly strong, sounding almost like a baby’s cry. She pushed open the temple doors.

In the flickering light of the oil lamps, the Immortal Lady sat quietly and dignified upon the divine altar.

Trafficked Brides were not allowed to come in and worship the immortal; this was her first time inside.

She had made up her mind on the way there. She would kneel down and beg the Immortal Lady to save her child.

But as she looked at the Immortal Lady sitting there, surrounded by the incense oil, red cloth, and candles offered by the villagers…

She suddenly felt that the other woman would not protect her.

She had nothing. She had come empty-handed to beg this Immortal Lady, while the villagers—those people had brought red cloth, incense oil, and candles…

She looked at those offerings. The child in her arms had only a faint breath left.

If this child was gone, she would truly be all alone in Xinghua Village.

She set the child down and kowtowed¹ three times, her head hitting the ground with loud thuds. Then she looked left and right until she spotted a pair of scissors sitting on the table in front of the altar.

She frantically fed her blood to the statue.

“Is this enough? I have no incense oil for you, no red cloth for you. I’ve given you my blood, so please, give me your blessing.”

“You are a god. Why do you only protect the others in the village? Why won’t you protect me?”

“I just wanted to work in a factory. I wanted to earn some money and see the city. What did I do wrong? Why was I sent here?”

“I don’t want to spend my life with a mute. I want to go back to my hometown. I miss my parents, my sister, my brother…”

“They beat me. They tie me up. They lock me away and don’t give me food. Everyone says you are the most merciful, that you can’t stand to see people suffer. Why don’t you help me when you see me suffering?”

“Is it because I didn’t offer you incense oil? I have no money, and they wouldn’t even let me come inside.” The more she spoke, the more agonized she became. She couldn’t help but pull the wound wider, letting the blood flow freely over the statue.

A sense of grim satisfaction rose in her heart.

But when she looked up, even though the statue was stained red with blood, the Immortal Lady remained sitting there, silent and still, as if she could neither see nor hear.

She can’t see… she can’t hear… She had given her very blood, so why was it still not enough?

Why!

All her rage exploded in that instant. Sha Niu’s mother stepped forward, her fury flowing through her hands and into the statue.

She hoisted the statue high, all her anger pouring into the effigy, and then she slammed it down with all her might.

With a sharp crack, the statue shattered across the floor.

This Immortal Lady, whom the village revered and spoke of with such awe, had been smashed to pieces by her, covered in her blood.

Sha Niu suddenly let out a small cry nearby. The mother snapped back to her senses, her anger receding as terror instantly gripped her soul. She scrambled to scoop up Sha Niu and fled.

That night, she began to repent in her heart, begging the Immortal Lady to forgive her, asking the great deity to overlook the transgressions of a lowly person.

When a sliver of light appeared on the horizon, the girl’s fever broke.

She didn’t tell a soul what had actually happened that night. Whenever anyone asked, she claimed she had prayed to the Immortal Lady in her heart, and the Immortal Lady had returned her daughter to her.

And now, the grown-up Sha Niu was still chattering away.

“Mama carried me on her back to find the Immortal Lady. Mama knelt for a long time, begging the Immortal Lady not to take me away. The Immortal Lady originally wanted to take me to be an attendant, but she thought Mama was very pitiful, so she let me come back. Later, in the future, I can go to heaven to be the Immortal Lady’s Child Attendant².”

As Sha Niu said this, she stole a glance at her mother, adding a bit of her own selfish logic: “I gave up going to heaven to be a Child Attendant just for Mama, so Mama can’t hit me anymore.”

These words were, of course, lies Sha Niu’s mother had told her. At the time, she realized that although Sha Niu had survived, her mind seemed a bit slow, no longer as sharp as before.

Her parents-in-law were dissatisfied and treated her cruelly day and night. Back then, wearing an honest face that looked incapable of lying, she had woven a whole web of falsehoods. Every morning the moment she opened her eyes, she thought about how to make everyone believe her.

She claimed that on the night she returned, she had actually had a dream. In the dream, the Immortal Lady told her that she had intended for her daughter to become an attendant at her side.

However, the Immortal Lady saw how pitifully she cried and saw her kneeling there for so long. Unable to bear taking the daughter away, she returned the child.

Others didn’t believe it at first, but soon, everyone noticed that although Sha Niu was slow and couldn’t speak even at three years old, when she spoke for the first time at age four, she didn’t call for “Papa” or “Mama.”

At this moment, Sha Niu was still full of pride and self-importance over these childhood events: “The first thing I ever said when I opened my mouth was ‘Immortal Lady’.”

Sha Niu’s mother remembered hiding the little fool under the covers late at night, teaching her over and over again how to say “Immortal Lady” in the local dialect.

Sha Niu’s mother had never told a lie in her life, but now, she had to maintain a lie that deceived everyone.

Sure enough, while some in the village remained skeptical, many others believed her. Sha Niu’s mother and Sha Niu enjoyed a period of relatively comfortable days.

That comfort didn’t last very long. One day, a new saying suddenly emerged, claiming that all the children in the village who didn’t survive had actually gone to serve as the Immortal Lady’s attendants.

It was true that many children in the village did not survive.

Everyone seemed very willing to believe this explanation.

Suddenly, being a Child Attendant wasn’t special anymore, because there were far too many children in the village who hadn’t made it.

Consequently, Sha Niu’s special status vanished. Some even vaguely felt that by keeping Sha Niu, her mother was showing a lack of respect for the Immortal Lady. But since it was something the Immortal Lady had supposedly already agreed to, people didn’t say much more.

Because there were so many children already serving as attendants before the Immortal Lady, this silly girl, Sha Niu, didn’t seem to stand out.

And so, after ten years of erosion, few people still remembered that Sha Niu was the Immortal Lady’s Child Attendant.

Except for Sha Niu herself.

Originally, Sha Niu’s mother had used this lie to deceive outsiders, but in the end, the only person she truly fooled was Sha Niu.

Sha Niu now clung to her mother’s arm. “When Mama and I die later, I’ll go to heaven to be a Child Attendant, and Mama can wait for me in our home in heaven.”

This was also an idea Sha Niu’s mother had instilled in her.

Every time Sha Niu’s mother looked at her, she felt she was being cruel. But if she died and left this fool alive, the mother couldn’t imagine how miserable the rest of the girl’s life would be.

It would be better to die together.

Sha Niu’s mother snapped out of her memories. She couldn’t say for sure if the Immortal Lady had helped that night.

Sha Niu, however, was certain that the Immortal Lady liked her best.

“Mama, the Immortal Lady likes me the most.”

“Yes, yes, yes, she likes you, which is why you’re still a little fool.”

Sha Niu didn’t care much about the fact that something was wrong with her brain. She began to count on her fingers.

“When I was seven, Second Aunt Zhang carried her baby to find the Immortal Lady, begging for her blessing. But the Immortal Lady didn’t bless them, and after that, there was a new grave behind their house.”

“And when I was ten, Old Li from the village entrance fell off a slope and was stuck in bed. They also went to beg the Immortal Lady to make him get better quickly, but then he turned into a grave, too.”

She remembered these things very clearly. To other families, these were tragic events, but to this fool, it was just more proof that the Immortal Lady only liked her.

“You must never say these things out loud, or people will beat you to death,” Sha Niu’s mother couldn’t help but say.

Sha Niu continued to boast: “And that other time, when it didn’t rain for a long, long time, everyone went to beg the Immortal Lady for rain, but the Immortal Lady didn’t make it rain then either.”

Sha Niu’s mother remembered that. It happened a few years ago when there were months of high temperatures. The village ponds had all dried up, to say nothing of the crops.

“Didn’t it rain eventually?”

Sha Niu gave a silly giggle and said, “That’s because I went to ask for it.”

“The Immortal Lady definitely heard my voice, so she made it rain. She likes me best.” Sha Niu was certain of it.

“This time, the Immortal Lady came back to the village to find us, so she must be looking for me. That’s why I’m the only one in the village who could recognize her.” Sha Niu’s words returned once again to that college student.

Sha Niu’s mother didn’t know why Sha Niu thought that college student was the Immortal Lady, and she didn’t ask. After all, her daughter was a fool, and fools always had different ideas than everyone else.

Before going to sleep, Sha Niu had a new thought, one that filled her heart with joy.

Could it be that because she hadn’t died yet, the Immortal Lady had come to find her? That way, she could be the Immortal Lady’s Child Attendant without having to leave her mother.

Sigh, Mom liked her so much, she couldn’t bear to be apart from her at all. And the Immortal Lady liked her so much too. No one else in the village knew she had come, only Sha Niu knew. It must be because the Immortal Lady liked her.

Sigh, why did everyone like her so much? She was going to be so busy now!

Sha Niu grinned and couldn’t help but pull the quilt over her face.

Sha Niu’s mother was not in the same mood. She listened quietly, hearing the sound of distant crying in the night.

She didn’t know which new bride was crying. The sound mixed with the wind, sobbing and wailing, making one’s heart feel restless and afraid.

The gods in the heavens lived so far away; how could they ever hear the crying of the mortal world?

Translator’s Notes