They Say I Can Curse People (20)

Chapter 51

Chang Fang had never been able to find a suitable job. This time, her goal was to find something she could do for the rest of her life.

Once she reached the town, she met many people, and many paths opened up.

For example, at Huanhuan’s kindergarten, there were no secrets among children. All the kids knew that Huanhuan’s older sister was a medicinal herb dealer. In the evenings, Huanhuan would talk about whose parents worked at the brick factory, whose father owned a tile factory, and whose parents carried goods into the villages to sell.

There were many choices in town. Chang Fang had even encountered some herself. Someone would bring out a portable stall in the morning to sell tangyuan¹. One day, it was raining heavily, and Chang Fang didn’t go into the mountains on rainy days.

The police officers had spent the previous day walking and hadn’t returned until very late, so they didn’t wake up particularly early.

Chang Fang got up early and went to that tangyuan stall. Students wouldn’t skip school just because of rain, so Chang Fang went to lend a hand, helping to start the fire.

It wasn’t just because she wanted to figure out if the business was profitable; it was also because Huanhuan usually ate breakfast there in the mornings, and the owner took good care of her.

Chang Fang wasn’t very good at socializing, so she just worked in silence.

Most people in Tonglin Town knew about her past. In particular, Chang Fang felt that raising her sister and supporting her education was something that required no second thought, but in the eyes of adults, this was extraordinary. Consequently, everyone had a very favorable opinion of Chang Fang, seeing her as someone with deep affection, integrity, and a sense of responsibility.

The adults were naturally very friendly toward her.

After a whole morning of helping with the fire and scooping tangyuan, Chang Fang stayed busy the entire time, her eyes constantly counting how many bowls were sold.

By the end, she could roughly calculate how much money was earned.

One large tangyuan cost ten cents. Adults usually ate three or four, while children ate one or two. They could sell over a hundred in a morning, bringing in over ten yuan. After deducting costs, making five yuan a day was no problem.

That was just for those few hours in the morning. She could find somewhere else to sell other things during the rest of the day. All in all, making over ten yuan a day was feasible.

Chang Fang felt this job wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t just about the money; she felt something was missing, though she couldn’t say exactly what.

When she went back, she brought breakfast for Yun Song and the other two.

Yun Song felt quite embarrassed, saying, “The three of us are adults, yet we’re having a child bring us breakfast… It’s truly shameful.”

Fearing Yun Song would feel burdened, Chang Fang quickly explained, “I didn’t go out specifically to buy breakfast. I wanted to see how much money they could make.”

Yun Song was somewhat surprised and asked, “Are you thinking of changing careers?”

Chang Fang lacked the ability to ask adults for help, always feeling she should handle everything herself. But now that Yun Song had asked, she spoke up: “The medicinal herb business won’t last forever. I want to switch to something more permanent.”

At this point, Chang Fang couldn’t help but ask, “Do you think there’s anything suitable for me to do?”

Yun Song spoke truthfully, “I think you have a talent for medicinal herbs. You could try to find a master² and study medicine.”

Yun Song had been worried about Chang Fang’s future for a while, and she had been keeping an eye on Chang Fang’s business.

Naturally, she had discovered Chang Fang’s talent. Among the herbs Chang Fang currently collected was mugwort. In the countryside, mugwort, wormwood, and sweet wormwood were extremely similar in shape and scent. Many adults couldn’t tell them apart, and it was even harder to distinguish them once they were dried.

When Chang Fang went to the villages to collect herbs before, some children hadn’t been careful and mixed mugwort with wormwood, but Chang Fang had recognized it at a glance.

Later, when she was identifying herbs at the pharmacy, many were just roots, so she could only look at pictures of the leaves. Yet after returning to the village, Chang Fang almost never made a mistake.

At that time, Yun Song felt that Chang Fang had a bit of a gift for this.

But back then, Chang Fang was happily collecting herbs every day and had no other thoughts. Yun Song naturally didn’t interfere, letting her earn more money first so she would have a material foundation before considering other things.

Now that Chang Fang had expressed her own confusion, Yun Song offered this advice from an adult’s perspective.

Become a doctor?

Chang Fang tossed and turned that night thinking about it. She had to admit, she was tempted.

During these days of collecting herbs, she dealt with them every day. At the pharmacy, she had several times seen people coming in to thank the doctor.

She was curious in her heart: why could these herbs, these plants growing in the mountains, cure illnesses? Once, she had even secretly sucked on a small piece of Astragalus. The taste wasn’t great, but it gave her a very special feeling.

Now, Yun Song said she could become a practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine. A doctor.

She thought of the doctor at the pharmacy; she wanted to be someone like that.

Chang Fang’s heart began to throb.

She was going to try.

The next day, when she went to sell her herbs again, she specifically spoke a few more words to the staff and asked, “Do you take on apprentices here?”

In the village, people often sent their children to learn trades like masonry or carpentry, which of course required payment.

The older woman collecting the herbs laughed. “We definitely don’t take any. Why, do you want to learn? Someone brought over five thousand yuan before wanting to be an apprentice, and our Doctor Tang turned them down.”

Over five thousand yuan.

Chang Fang felt a pang in her heart. In an instant, a voice appeared in her mind: Why am I so delusional? They must have guessed what I wanted and just didn’t want to take me.

Shame and sadness suddenly gripped her, feelings that hadn’t appeared for a long time.

Perhaps this experience of not being chosen triggered her past memories, and she couldn’t help but start harshly belittling herself in her heart.

When she walked out of there, the sky was gloomy and it was about to rain. She walked past the kindergarten where her sister was, past the tile factory, her heart heavy.

The words the woman at the pharmacy said kept repeating in her mind: “You want to learn? We don’t take apprentices. Someone offered five thousand yuan before and was refused.”

It was just one sentence, yet she felt miserable. A voice in her heart seemed to tell her that they had seen through her desire to find a master, that they looked down on her, and they surely disdained her for not having much education…

That voice kept telling her: forget it, don’t go back. In the future, just sell herbs and never mention this matter again.

She walked back toward the school, where Yun Song and the other two officers were talking to people about Hukou registration.

This matter had tormented the three police officers until they had all lost a significant amount of weight.

Chang Fang remembered when Yun Song and the other officers had come to the village to persuade everyone to register their over-quota children. At that time, the villagers didn’t just refuse; many directly slandered Yun Song and her colleagues, claiming they were only doing it to collect money.

But the officers hadn’t cared. They simply continued doing what they believed was right.

Watching from the side, Chang Fang felt a bit more at ease. She felt that what the people at the pharmacy had said wasn’t so excessive after all.

She had to try again.

So, from then on, whenever she had free time, she would go to the pharmacy to watch the doctor treat patients.

Doctor Tang merely watched her with a cold eye, neither driving her away nor speaking plainly to her. Occasionally, when the older woman who handled the prescriptions had to go home for something, he would even let Chang Fang fill the prescriptions. Whenever this happened, Chang Fang was as happy as if she had found another thousand yuan.

On the other side of things, Chang Fang’s grandmother also heard about these matters.

Chang Fang’s grandmother, Old Lady Zhang, had been unable to recover her spirits ever since her third daughter had come back and defied her to her face. Later, a cluster of red sores had broken out across her back.

She vaguely remembered having such sores when she was young. At that time, her mother had gathered a lot of Cat-claw Thorns³ for her. She remembered them being boiled in a teapot. Back then, her back had been very itchy, and she had sat by the stove while the teapot full of Cat-claw Thorns simmered above the flames.

Her mother had told her not to scratch, saying the itching would stop once they washed her with the Cat-claw Thorns.

Thinking of this brought back other memories of that time. Because their family had no sons, after her father died, her mother had been tied up by her uncle and forced to marry a man from another village. Recalling those events made her heart ache, and an unventable pain overwhelmed her.

She quickly found an outlet for her frustration: it was all the third daughter’s fault! That girl had caused her great suffering since the day she was born, and even now that she was grown, she was nothing but trouble!

She refused to think about the things her third daughter had said. She didn’t dare think about them, for if she did, it would mean she had lived all these years in vain. She could not bear that reality.

The sores on her back became increasingly unbearable, so she decided to go into the mountains to find some Cat-claw Thorns.

The slopes of the mountain behind the village used to be covered in Cat-claw Thorns, but when she went this time, they were all gone.

She carried her basket and sickle, searching everywhere, but the ground was bare.

There used to be a large patch by the pond as well, but now that spot was also empty.

“Where have all the Cat-claw Thorns gone?”

Someone weeding on the hillside said, “You really don’t know?”

The old lady was irritable. The sores on her back were already making her miserable, and now the inability to find the medicinal herbs she needed made her feel even worse. She snapped, “Is this some sort of major event? Is it a crime if I don’t know?”

“Auntie Zhang, don’t be so angry. I only mentioned it because of your family’s Chang Fang.”

“Your Chang Fang is in the medicinal herb business now. All these herbs in the mountains have been dug up.” Speaking of this, the woman found it quite amusing. “I don’t know why, but that child Chang Fang won’t come into the village to collect the herbs. She has the village kids carry them to that big tree down by the village entrance.”

What else could the reason be? She didn’t want to run into her own family.

If everyone is poor and one family suddenly strikes it lucky out of nowhere, it makes people feel resentful.

But if everyone is poor and your neighbor, who has a grudge against you, strikes it lucky because one of their own turns out to be talented, yet they don’t get a single benefit from it, then that is something people truly enjoy seeing.

Old Lady Zhang’s first reaction upon hearing this was that it was impossible.

Chang Fang… Chang Fang…

In the old lady’s mind, Chang Fang was either a sullen, lifeless thing or a screaming, raving lunatic. How could she possibly have the brains for that?

Had they mistaken her for someone else?

Then she heard someone say, “Your Fangfang is really doing well for herself. She’s even sent Huanhuan to the kindergarten in town.”

Auntie Xie had always disliked this family. Everyone in the village chased after having a son, but they would always register their first daughter. Even if they didn’t want to register them, most children were kept at home to be raised, though they might be introduced to outsiders as a relative’s child.

Where else would you find someone who refused to register both the first and second daughters and sent them both away to be raised by relatives?

Once, she had said a word about it, only to be told by this family that she would eventually learn the bitterness of not having a son.

Human relationships are like that; she still held a grudge for what they had said about her own children.

“If you ask me, your vision was a bit short-sighted back then. Look at that child Chang Fang, she’s been clever since she was little. If you had kept her by your side and sent her to school, your family would have more benefits than you’d know what to do with now, and more white rice⁴ than you could finish eating.”

Chang Fang’s grandmother felt her chest tighten with pain just listening to this. How could this be! How was it possible?!

She recalled when Chang Fang was first born. She had consulted a Bazi Master to read the girl’s fortune. He had said, “This fate is extremely precious, a life of great wealth and honor. But such a fate carries a hindrance. Since your family has been blessed with this destiny of wealth and honor, the fate of any sons born after her will be extremely poor.”

How could that be allowed? Daughters were meant to be married off. No matter how good their fate, no matter how much wealth and honor they possessed, it would all belong to another family!

See? Now Chang Fang was doing well, but she didn’t even think to come back and visit her own grandmother! Truly, girls were completely useless.

There were also people on good terms with Chang Fang’s grandmother who came to advise her after hearing the news.

“No matter what, Chang Fang and Huanhuan are your granddaughters. Now that the sisters are with the police, they’re living a good life.”

“Go and have a good talk with them, especially Chang Fang. She’s a grown girl now; don’t let her heart drift away completely.”

At first, Chang Fang’s grandmother was unwilling to go. But then she looked at her daughter-in-law’s bulging belly. The child inside was surely a son, but then she thought of Chang Fang’s fate.

“I still need to make a trip to town.”

When she arrived, Chang Fang wasn’t home. She was received by the three police officers.

Yun Song recognized her as Chang Fang’s grandmother and prepared to chat with her to find out why she had come to town. Now that Chang Fang’s life was finally on the right track, she wanted to do her best to ensure the girl didn’t get dragged back into her past.

“Chang Fang went out on business today, so you can just speak with us,” Yun Song said, pouring hot water for them with a tone that remained gentle.

The Old Lady had already assumed that Chang Fang was relying on the police. Now that she saw the officers in person and was being treated kindly, she could not help but speak up.

“Officer, I didn’t want to come here. I’m already at such an age, I have crops at home, and my daughter-in-law is pregnant with a child.”

“Then you must have a reason that forced you to come,” Yun Song said.

“Exactly. I remember you said you could help people with their Hukou. We want to register Chang Fang’s Hukou now.”

Hearing this, Yun Song naturally assumed they had seen Chang Fang’s success and wanted to repair their relationship.

“There is no rush for that matter.”

“How can there be no rush?” the Old Lady said. “You surely don’t know, but Chang Fang is telling people her original birthday again. That birthday of hers was born to be a curse on others. It was with great difficulty that her Eldest Aunt found a Bazi Master to change her birthday to a new one to suppress her fate. Now she’s using the original one again. This won’t do. If she does this, no high-born baby boy will ever be willing to be reincarnated into our family.”

Her tone suggested she didn’t think this was an inappropriate thing to say at all; she made no effort to hide her true thoughts.

“These are all superstitions. There is no need to believe them.”

“You young people don’t believe in these things, but you should know they were passed down by the ancestors. If they weren’t useful, would they have been passed down?”

Yun Song watched the old woman, listening to her repeat over and over that Chang Fang would curse people and that she couldn’t be allowed to use her original birthday.

Looking at the old woman who was becoming increasingly agitated as she spoke, a strange thought suddenly surfaced in Yun Song’s mind: Was her sense of self still inside her body?

Yun Song tried to observe her, trying to find any remaining traces of self-awareness in her movements and her speech.

The words she spoke, the things she did, and the hateful gaze every time she mentioned Chang Fang – were these her true feelings? Did she truly see Chang Fang as a person?

Yun Song’s gaze remained fixed on the old woman. She had a feeling that she had arrived too late. If she, as a police officer, could have come decades earlier, she might have witnessed the process of this old woman’s self-awareness being “murdered” – the slow murder of their souls by the outside world.

It was strikingly similar to the Golden Cicada Flowers that Chang Fang had dug up.

Translator’s Notes