Returning Home

Chapter 41

Sha Niu’s Mother returned in a police vehicle. It was a very large car. She and Sha Niu sat in the back. Although Sha Niu was simple-minded, as soon as she got into the car, she wanted to touch everything she saw.

Sha Niu’s Mother held Sha Niu tightly to keep her from causing trouble. As the car started moving, Sha Niu’s Mother felt Xinghua Village growing further and further away. Her heart felt like it was about to jump out of her chest.

She had fantasized about this scene many times, especially during those first few years. She used to constantly imagine that she had already escaped.

Now, she gave herself a secret pinch. It hurt, and that pain brought her peace.

She was going back to her old home. The thought surfaced in her mind.

What did her father and mother look like now? Were her older sisters married? Had her younger brother taken a wife? Would they still recognize her?

She had changed so much… She touched her face, which was covered in the scars left by years of suffering.

Suddenly, with a loud bang, the car came to a halt.

Why did the car stop?

Countless terrifying thoughts flashed through Sha Niu’s Mother’s mind. Were they unable to leave? Had someone caught up to them? Would the villagers come with hoes, determined to force them to stay?

“We have a flat tire,” the police officer in the front said. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine once we change it.”

She was about to get out of the car when Sha Niu’s Mother immediately grabbed her. “Don’t go down there.”

Sensing the woman’s terror, the two police officers drew their handguns and said, “Don’t worry, nothing will happen.”

Sha Niu’s Mother remained uneasy. She had stayed in that painful, oppressive environment for too long and felt that danger lurked everywhere.

Once they were outside, the two officers prepared to change the tire, but Sha Niu’s Mother wouldn’t let them. “You hold the guns. That way, if someone comes, you’ll know. Sha Niu and I will change it.”

She was thin and small, her face full of dread and her eyes panicked. The two officers listened to her. They remained on high alert, directing Sha Niu’s Mother as she changed the tire.

After an unknown amount of time, another car approached. Everyone was startled, fearing it might be human traffickers coming to intercept them.

As the vehicle drew closer, they saw it was their own people.

It was the police car transporting Wang Xia.

“What’s the situation here?”

“Flat tire. How did you guys get back so fast?”

“There was a bit of a situation.”

While the police were talking, Sha Niu’s Mother saw Wang Xia sitting in the car. Wang Xia was waving at her.

Sha Niu’s Mother saw the bright, glinting handcuffs on the other woman’s wrists.

What happened?

While Sha Niu’s Mother was wondering, the officer from her car asked, “Do you have any room in your vehicle? Let this mother and daughter go into town with you first. They need to go to the hospital.”

“Sure. The others will be coming along soon anyway. You guys stay safe.”

And so, Sha Niu’s Mother switched vehicles to join Wang Xia.

Sha Niu’s Mother asked, “Why are you wearing those?”

Wang Xia gave a small chuckle. “Because I killed someone.”

Sha Niu’s Mother froze, her heart skipping a beat.

Wang Xia had completely accepted her fate. She seemed to relax all at once, and for some reason, she felt a desperate need to talk.

“I should have killed him long ago. I should have killed him the day I arrived in Xinghua Village…”

Sha Niu’s Mother looked at the handcuffs on the woman’s wrists, her heart rising into her throat.

“What will happen to you now? Will you be executed?” Sha Niu’s Mother asked.

Wang Xia said, “On what grounds would they execute me? So many people died in that village, why aren’t they all being rounded up and executed?”

the officer in the front said, “The investigation is already underway.”

Sha Niu’s Mother maintained her usual honest and submissive expression as she asked, “It’s been so long, how can you investigate?”

“As long as the remains are still there, we can investigate whatever we want.” In Xinghua Village, everyone was buried in the ground.

Sha Niu’s Mother gave a soft “oh” and gripped Sha Niu’s hand even tighter.

The officer in the front asked, “By the way, sister, what is your name and where is your old home? Once we finish the registration, we’ll contact the police over there to come and pick you up.”

Sha Niu’s Mother hesitated. She looked at Wang Xia, who had been arrested by the police, and then she spoke. “I’m from Sichuan, near Dazhou. My name is Zhang Ping.”

“Your accent definitely sounds like you’re from the Sichuan area.”

The officer wanted to say more, but Sha Niu’s Mother began to yawn and leaned against Sha Niu to sleep.

She kept her eyes closed, her mind filled with the officer’s words about investigating as long as the bodies were there.

The Old Bachelor… The Old Bachelor’s body was still there.

Her mind was filled with the memory of how the Old Bachelor died.

She hadn’t told anyone about this.

That afternoon, after thinking it over, she had gone to the temple to vent her grievances to the Immortal Lady. But as soon as she arrived, she saw the Old Bachelor inside, praying for the Immortal Lady to bless him so he could marry Sha Niu.

Her anger flared instantly. She went up and knocked over the vegetable oil the Old Bachelor had offered.

“It’s no use praying to the Immortal Lady for this. Even if I die, I’ll take Sha Niu with me. I’ll never let her be with you.”

The Old Bachelor listened. Nothing had gone right for him lately. He had bought a Trafficked Bride and incurred so much debt, only for the Outsider Wife to disappear, making him a laughingstock in the village. Now, he felt he was settling for less by marrying the idiot Sha Niu, and yet he was being cursed like this.

He looked at Sha Niu’s Mother and remembered he had just prayed to the Immortal Lady when she appeared. Perhaps this was the answer the Immortal Lady was giving him.

“Then you can go die right now!”

Even now, Sha Niu’s Mother could still feel the sensation of that red cloth tightening around her neck, making her lungs feel like they were about to explode.

Recalling it now, Sha Niu’s Mother felt it was only thanks to luck. She had also brought something for the Immortal Lady that day.

The first time Sha Niu’s Mother had prayed to the Immortal Lady was when the doctor said Sha Niu couldn’t be saved. That night, she had frantically bitten herself to offer her own blood to the Immortal Lady.

The child who was supposed to die had survived.

So, that day when Sha Niu’s Mother was driven to desperation, watching the Old Bachelor harass her simple daughter, her heart was in a panic.

She couldn’t bite herself this time, so she had a pair of scissors in her pocket.

Those scissors were originally intended to cut off a piece of her own flesh to give to the Immortal Lady, to beg for her help.

But in that moment, she had plunged the scissors into the Old Bachelor’s leg. In his agony, his reflex was to let go of the red cloth.

Sha Niu’s Mother stood up, her first instinct to run. But in the next second, she looked at the scissors in her hand, then at the nearby Immortal Lady, and finally at the Old Bachelor across from her, who was screaming that he would kill her and torture Sha Niu.

She took the red cloth too.

Afterward, she had nightmares several times, until she discovered that Ming Wen was the Immortal Lady. Ming Wen never mentioned the incident and treated her so well that she felt the matter had passed, that she had been forgiven by the deity.

Now… Sha Niu’s Mother panicked.

It was the early hours of the following morning by the time Yun Song returned to the city. The first thing she did was go to the hospital to check on Sha Niu’s condition.

Sha Niu had finished all her examinations, and Yun Song consulted with the doctor.

“There are no more needles in her head, but her intelligence may remain at the level of a one or two year old indefinitely. If she continues with rehabilitation training, there might be some improvement.”

Yun Song found Sha Niu’s Mother. “Don’t worry, I will stay with Sha Niu through her rehabilitation.”

Sha Niu’s Mother had already asked around; rehabilitation training cost a great deal of money.

When she brought Sha Niu for the checkup today, she had seen Ming Wen’s grandmother looking for people to borrow money from to help them. Only then did she realize that Ming Wen’s grandmother had originally been quite wealthy, but everything had been taken by scammers.

Sha Niu’s Mother looked at the Immortal Lady before her and said, “Thank you.”

She had once made a wish to the Immortal Lady.

She hoped to leave that place and return to her hometown, even if it was only to be buried there.

She wasn’t greedy. This was enough now. It was truly enough.

Sha Niu’s Mother took Sha Niu and left.

Yun Song only learned the news from the hospital the next morning. The woman had asked a fellow patient in the neighboring bed to leave a message for her.

“She said thank you for saving her and her daughter. They will remember your great kindness for the rest of their lives, but they can’t be a burden to you anymore. She took Sha Niu away and told you not to worry about her,” the patient said.

Yun Song already knew about her grandmother’s situation, but she had never felt that Sha Niu’s Mother was a burden. If they hadn’t been there in the village, she might not have endured. She had to find them.

The patient added, “Oh, she also said to please tell the police she’s sorry. She lied to them. Her name isn’t actually Zhang Ping.”

Only then did Yun Song realize she didn’t even know where Sha Niu’s Mother’s hometown was.

She left the hospital and went to the station. It was crowded with people, but the person she was looking for was nowhere to be found.

Standing there at twenty years old, Yun Song felt the helplessness of being an ordinary person.

She desperately wanted to save everyone, but the reality was that she couldn’t.

Standing amidst the city crowds, watching the people coming and going, she didn’t know who could truly be saved.

A real deity? But did deities truly exist in this world?

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Sha Niu’s Mother returned to her hometown. She took her daughter on a train and then transferred to a bus.

Her money was mostly what her daughter had earned while working in the village clinic.

Her home had changed significantly. The original thatched cottage had become a house with earthen walls. Standing outside, she felt a bit hesitant to step forward.

“Do you want some water?” An old woman came out from inside. Thinking the mother and daughter were just passersby, she spoke up to ask.

“Mom-“

The elderly woman froze for a moment, seemingly failing to recognize the person before her.

Until she saw Sha Niu following behind.

“Wenwen! You’re my Wenwen!” The old woman cried first, then couldn’t help but hit her. “All these years! You had the heart to stay away and never come back!”

Sha Niu’s Mother didn’t need to think twice to know that after her distant cousin sold her back then, she certainly wouldn’t have admitted to selling her. She must have said that she ran away on her own.

After considering it, Sha Niu’s Mother didn’t explain what happened back then. She simply asked, “How is Cousin Xiu and her family now?”

Her heart was full of hatred.

“Why ask about her? They’ve been dead a long time. Didn’t their family have money? They bought a motorcycle and were showing it off everywhere, but the couple ended up dying in a crash.”

It felt as though Sha Niu’s Mother’s heart was being gently embraced. She began to feel that the Immortal Lady was protecting her.

Look, those wicked people died on their own. And she was back.

It was so good. Lying on her own bed at home, Sha Niu’s Mother’s tears flowed continuously, but this time, they were no longer bitter.

Once she was truly back, many practical problems arose.

Her siblings were all married, the house had been rebuilt, and her brothers had all gone out to work. Now her parents lived with each of the families in rotation.

Furthermore, her share of the family’s farmland had long since been redistributed.

It was fine to bring her daughter back to stay for a few days, but what about the long term?

Sha Niu’s Mother was so worried she couldn’t sleep.

Lying in bed, she felt as if there was no place in this world for her. The year was 1994.

In a large city thirteen hundred kilometers away from these mountains, her brothers were getting into a fight with someone at a construction site.

They were working on digging piles¹. This job required two people to cooperate on a single pile: one person at the top responsible for mixing cement, while the other descended into the pile hole, which was over ten meters deep.

The person below certainly worked harder, and so the problem arose. The payment for a pile was settled directly; the foreman wouldn’t divide it for you. The two workers had to split it privately, and they fought every day over this.

An Wen’s brothers had always wanted to call their wives out to work with them.

But there were children and elderly parents at home. If the women left, what would happen to the children and the elderly?

Just as they were worrying, news came from their hometown that An Wen had returned.

Sha Niu’s Mother, whose name was An Wen, was quickly pulled aside by her enthusiastic sisters-in-law. They wanted her to stay in the village to help look after the children and tend the fields.

Everything grown in the fields would belong to An Wen herself.

The more An Wen listened, the more she felt the protection of the gods. How could it be such a coincidence! Whatever she lacked was being delivered to her now!

How could things be this good! She looked at her daughter; even though the doctor said the child’s intelligence would remain at the level of a two year old forever.

But at this moment, An Wen felt that the gods would protect them!

What she did not know was that this moment in her life would one day be distilled into a single passage in the future:

In the mid-1990s, the rapid pace of urban industrialization increased the capacity of towns and cities to absorb surplus rural labor, leading to a massive influx of migrant workers seeking a livelihood in the urban centers.

At this moment, however, she was merely a rural woman tormented by fate. After spending half her life looking up in hope, she had finally tasted the sweetness offered by the changing times.

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Translator’s Notes

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1. digging piles: Refers to ‘hand-dug piles’ (人工挖孔桩), a dangerous and labor-intensive construction method common in 1990s China. One worker digs at the bottom of a deep, narrow shaft while another operates the hoist at the surface. It was notorious for high accident rates but offered higher wages for migrant workers. ↩