The Silly Girl

Chapter 2

The new Trafficked Bride¹ in the village… she was the Immortal Lady in disguise.

In the entire village, only Sha Niu² knew this secret. Sha Niu thought it must be because she was the Immortal Lady’s favorite person in the whole village.

Sha Niu was seventeen this year. Her mother was also an Outsider Wife who had been “married” here twenty years ago. She had been through a lot, and now it was impossible to tell she had ever been an outsider.

It was currently the busy farming season. Sha Niu’s mother spent every day soaked in the fields and had no time to look after her, so she locked her in the cellar.

Sha Niu was not the type of person who could be kept locked up. The moment her mother left, she followed right behind and snuck out.

Sha Niu didn’t come out for anything else; she was just hungry and wanted to go into the forest to find wild fruit to eat.

It was September, and there were plenty of wild fruits in the mountains. The most common were hovenia berries³. Sha Niu was like a little monkey, quickly climbing up a hovenia tree.

This bunch is for me, this bunch is for Mom, and this bunch is for Li Qingqing…

Sha Niu was very lucky; she actually found a cluster of hovenia berries that no one else had discovered.

Before long, Sha Niu was covered in bunches of the fruit. She slid down the tree with practiced ease, her face full of pride. With so many, Mom would definitely praise her.

Who said idiots were useless! She was very useful!

Suddenly, Sha Niu’s ears seemed to catch the sound of people talking.

She stopped and tilted her head to listen. The sound seemed to be coming from the direction of the main road.

She climbed back up the tree to see who it was.

In the distance, a group of people was coming up. Sha Niu had good eyesight and quickly recognized them as the matchmakers⁴ who delivered brides to the villagers.

Xinghua Village was located deep in the mountains, and there was usually very little contact with the outside world. Every year, some outsiders would come in. These people brought Outsider Wives⁵ for the men in the village who couldn’t find a wife.

The people who delivered these Trafficked Brides usually consisted of three men and two women. One of the women would bring candy for the village children every time she came, and the children all liked them very much.

Sha Niu liked candy too. Back then she was only eight years old, and seeing the other children go to get some, she had foolishly followed along to get a piece to eat.

The weather had been particularly good that day. She had jogged all the way back with a candy in her mouth and two in her hands. Such sweet candy, she wanted to give it to her mom.

Her mother had been standing under the eaves, staring blankly toward the house of the family receiving the new bride.

“Mom!”

When the young version of Sha Niu’s mother saw her, she forced a smile, but the next second, when she saw the candy in her mouth, her expression changed.

“Where did that come from?”

Sha Niu was simple-minded and couldn’t tell that her mother was already angry.

“The auntie gave it to me.”

“Which auntie?”

“The aunties I don’t know.” Sha Niu pointed toward the family on the other side who were welcoming the new bride. She was very happy. “Auntie is nice…”

Sha Niu’s mother’s face had already turned dark. Her eyes were wide with rage and her body was shaking, but the silly girl couldn’t read her mother’s expression and kept saying how nice the auntie was.

Slap, slap, slap. Three strikes, and the candy in her mouth along with a tooth were sent flying.

Before Sha Niu could react, her mother had already stormed into the house in a rage, clutching the kitchen cleaver in her hand.

She was terrified, thinking her mother was going to hack her. She tried to hide, but Sha Niu’s mother grabbed her. The next second, she shoved the knife into her hand.

“Eat, eat, eat! Come on! You think anyone who gives you food is a good person? Come on, carve the meat off my body and eat it!”

Sha Niu didn’t understand what was happening at all. She was so scared she didn’t even dare to cry, and she didn’t know what to say. She just desperately refused to take the knife.

Seeing that her daughter wouldn’t take the knife, Sha Niu’s mother felt her daughter was being disobedient and taking the side of outsiders. She took the knife herself and began to slash at her own body. “Come, eat your mother’s meat! Since you like those aunties so much, go call them over to eat your mother’s meat together!”

Everything before her eyes was too terrifying. Sha Niu was frozen in shock, unable to utter a word or even cry.

It was only when the auntie from next door happened to return that she managed to pull them apart.

That incident truly traumatized Sha Niu. She often had nightmares where her mother took a knife, carved meat from her own body, and wanted her to eat it.

Every time, she would wake up from the dream in a cold sweat.

And every time this happened, Sha Niu would hate those people.

In her eyes, her mother was the most capable and best person. Mom couldn’t be wrong, so the ones at fault had to be the people who gave her candy.

Pah! Bad people! They must have put rat poison in the candy.

From then on, whenever she saw those people, she would hide. Then, when her mother came home, she would curse those people in front of her.

“Mom, I saw those ** today, *, ***!”

Sure enough, after she cursed them, her mother was very happy and even stroked her head.

Hehe! Mom was right! Those people really were the worst, most evil people in the world!

The little idiot only had this much wit, and she used all of it on her mother. If her mother was happy, she was happy.

So the next time, simply cursing wasn’t enough to satisfy the little idiot. She wanted her mother to be even happier. The little idiot hid herself away, and when those people passed by, she quickly threw stones at their heads.

She threw accurately and fast, making the people below howl in pain.

When she went back, she told her mother what happened.

As expected, her mother was very happy. She kept stroking her head and saying, “You really are my child, taking after me.”

The silly girl was so happy in her heart, even happier than when eating candy or meat.

The girl thought to herself that when she grew up a bit more, she would definitely bash these people until their heads bled, and then she would have to take a knife and carve their meat!

The silly girl’s memory could be deceptive. She had already replaced the terrifying memory of her mother carving her own meat with the memory of those bad people using a knife to carve her mother’s meat.

So, this time, when she saw these people, she didn’t even think about going back. She hid in the bushes, and seeing a snake, she began to plot using the snake to bite them.

When the time came, she would tell her mother about how they looked after being bitten by the snake. Her mother would definitely be happy for days.

The group over there was probably tired from walking, as they sat down on a large rock to rest.

Sha Niu heard the voices of the people over there.

These outsiders were all speaking Mandarin⁶. Most people in Xinghua Village couldn’t speak it and didn’t understand it, but Sha Niu was different. Sha Niu’s mother could speak Mandarin, and she had taught Sha Niu to speak it since she was a child.

At first, she couldn’t learn it, so her mother spoke to her only in Mandarin. In this way, a little simpleton who wanted to talk to her mother eventually learned the language.

Sha Niu heard that the person on the other end was extremely angry.

“I really want to kill her!”

“Brother, she’s caused the deaths of two of our men!”

Sha Niu was very sensitive to the word “death” and couldn’t help but poke her head out to look.

A man’s voice said impatiently, “You’ve been talking about this non-stop the whole way. I told you, that was just a coincidence.”

“That’s just how women are, not suited for business, too emotional,” another man’s voice said. “If she hadn’t broken that girl’s leg for no reason… she’s a college student, an educated person, we could have gotten more money for her. Now that her leg is broken, we’ll have to sell her cheap.”

Sha Niu peeked out stealthily, intending to release her snake. However, in the next instant, she froze.

The Immortal… the Immortal Lady? How could it be?

When Sha Niu was little, she had a high fever. Her body was burning hot. Her mother carried her on her back for over ten kilometers to the neighboring mountain to see a doctor. The doctor said she was beyond saving and told her mother to prepare for the funeral. Her mother refused to give up. Weeping, she carried Sha Niu to the temple of the Immortal Lady at the top of the mountain, begging the Immortal Lady to save her.

Sha Niu would always remember what happened then. She had opened her eyes, and a full, beautiful face had entered her field of vision.

That was the Immortal Lady.

In Sha Niu’s heart, the Immortal Lady held the same position as her mother. Over the years, she had asked her mother to tell the story over and over again. Every time she heard it, she felt a profound sense of comfort, as if she were being held by a hundred mothers.

There were never any women with such a face in the village. Everyone was covered in dust and grime; they didn’t have a face like the Immortal Lady’s.

Terrified, she pulled her head back, and the snake in her hand escaped.

Fortunately, those people were still arguing and didn’t notice the small disturbance in the bushes.

“How was it me who broke her leg? She tried to run, so Old Second broke her leg. Old Second is dead now, are you going to keep scolding him?”

Sha Niu’s eyes widened. She was already reeling from the shock that the woman looked exactly like the Immortal Lady in the mountain temple. She had thought it was impossible; how could someone look exactly like the Immortal Lady?

Did these people not know this was the Immortal Lady?

That was it. These people were bad things. The Immortal Lady certainly wouldn’t let them know who she was.

A simple girl is still a person. Because she was slow, she was often bullied by others, yet there was almost no trace of submissiveness in her. This was because a voice was always hidden in this simple child’s consciousness: she was the child the Immortal Lady had brought back from the brink of death.

No one else was. There was once an adult in the village who fell ill. That person’s family sent many offerings to the Immortal Lady. Sha Niu had hidden outside and watched it all, but in the end, the Immortal Lady didn’t save them.

The Immortal Lady only saved her. She must only like her.

For this reason, she loved hearing anything related to the Immortal Lady and could remember every detail.

In the entire village, there was no one more devout than this simple girl.

Now, she had heard those words.

Immediately, her mind recalled what people often said to her:

“Go away, go away! You simpleton, don’t point your finger at the Immortal Lady. If you offend her, she’ll come and cut off your ears while you’re sleeping.”

Disrespecting the Immortal Lady would lead to having one’s ears cut off. These people had broken the Immortal Lady’s leg, and so… people died.

It made perfect sense.

Sha Niu was convinced that the woman must be the Immortal Lady.

The men over there grew impatient. They stopped resting and dragged the person along as they left.

Sha Niu waited until they were far away before she came out.

Her mind was filled with the thought that one of the Trafficked Brides this time was the Immortal Lady in disguise.

Sha Niu ran back by another path. As soon as she got home, she told her mother.

“Mama, the Immortal Lady is here! Those bad things brought the Immortal Lady here! Mama, let’s hurry and get things to worship the Immortal Lady!”

Sha Niu’s mother was carrying a large basket of sweet potato vines⁷ and was exhausted.

Sha Niu kept pulling at her. “No one else knows she’s the Immortal Lady, and they even broke her leg. We have to hurry and please her so she’ll always like us best and not like anyone else.”

At this moment, she was actually quite clever.

Two Outsider Wives had been brought in today. Such a big event was naturally known to Sha Niu’s mother. When she passed by those people, she had taken a look. She heard them say that one of the young women with a broken leg was a college student named Ming Wen.

The Immortal Lady her daughter spoke of must be this college student named Ming Wen.

Seeing her simple daughter talking nonsense as soon as she arrived, she said crossly, “Stop talking such rubbish, or the Immortal Lady will come and cut off your tongue in a moment.”

Sha Niu’s mother didn’t believe for a second that the female college student from the city was the Immortal Lady in disguise.

If she were the Immortal Lady, if the Immortal Lady truly existed, then as long as the Lady sitting in that temple opened her eyes and cast a single glance at this mountain, at least half the people on this mountain would drop dead.

Sha Niu didn’t notice her mother’s displeasure. Thinking her mother agreed with her, she immediately said, “Mama, how did you know? Someone broke the Immortal Lady’s leg, so the Immortal Lady killed him.”

As Sha Niu spoke, she gathered the sweet potatoes she usually kept hidden. This was food she had hoarded for a long time. Imitating the way adults worshipped the deity, she first bowed to the offering of sweet potatoes and then said, “These are all for the Immortal Lady!”

Others used incense oil and candles⁸ to worship the deity.

Sha Niu felt her sweet potatoes weren’t enough, so she packed all the raisin tree fruits⁹ she had just picked in the mountains into her basket.

These were all for the Immortal Lady.

Sha Niu’s mother watched as her simple daughter stood before her with the basket on her back. “Mama! I’m about to be turned smart by the Immortal Lady. Are you happy?”

Sha Niu’s mother had completely lost her temper. She set her back basket down, remembering how this child had nearly been beaten before for talking nonsense. Now that it was happening again, she knew she couldn’t let the girl go around spreading such rumors. She pulled her to the side and warned, “I don’t care what she is, don’t you dare say such things to anyone else, do you hear me?”

Sha Niu protested, “But…”

“Say one more word and see if I don’t whip you!”

Sha Niu shut her mouth instantly.

There were times when Sha Niu got very frustrated with her mother, and this was one of them.

How could her mother not recognize her!

Sha Niu simply couldn’t understand it. How could someone as capable as her mother fail to recognize the Immortal Lady!

Fine, whatever. At worst, she would just be twice as good to the Immortal Lady herself to make up for her mother’s part.

Sha Niu was already busy planning exactly how she would win the Immortal Lady’s favor!

The author has something to say: The villagers in this story all speak in dialect, but for the sake of clarity, I have written it in standard Mandarin. Please just assume they are speaking their local dialect.

Translator’s Notes