Chapter 0038 The Old Woman
As I tried to get up, several people rushed over and held me down firmly. I became furious, grabbing the hair of one villager and pulling hard. The other villager punched me hard in the head and face. Wang Hong also caught up, panting, and patted the man who tripped me on the shoulder. The two laughed and chatted; they were clearly acquaintances. My teeth ached with hatred. The two villagers pulled out thick ropes and tied my hands and legs, stuffing me back into the car.
Wang Hong used my phone to call Frank Fang's number, but still no one answered. He asked me, "Is he the only person who can cure this? Why doesn't he answer the phone? How much longer do we have to wait?" I said with a bitter smile that I didn't know. He was busy eating, drinking, and womanizing in Thailand and might be sleeping all day. Wang Hong swore, put my phone back in the leather bag, and drove back to the village.
As soon as we entered the village, we saw two villagers rushing out of the village entrance, carrying a wooden stretcher. A woman was lying on the stretcher, blood flowing from her mouth, nose, and ears. She was clearly dead. A short, thin man was jogging closely behind. I quickly asked Wang Hong, "Didn't you say no one in the village ever dies from the strange illness?"
Wang Hong said, "That's Bai Laosan's wife. The man following behind is Bai Laosan. His wife started coughing up blood half a year ago. A few days ago, people from the township clinic came to examine her and said it was tuberculosis, requiring treatment in the city."
I asked, "Tuberculosis is highly treatable. It's impossible for her to die so quickly!"
Wang Hong laughed. "Who has money to treat her? The village custom is that if a wife gets a severe illness, the husband mixes rat poison into her rice and feeds it to her. This is better for both of them. The money saved can be used to find another wife." I was utterly shocked. How was this different from murder? Wang Hong saw what I was thinking in the rearview mirror and sneered, "How can people like you, who come from big cities, understand the life of a poor village? Bai Laosan's entire possessions wouldn't sell for a few thousand RMB. How can he treat his wife? Should he sell a kidney? Tuberculosis is a consumptive disease. She would die sooner or later and suffer more. It's better to take the medicine and die quickly."
I asked if they weren't afraid that Bai Laosan's wife's family would suspect foul play and cause trouble. Wang Hong curled his lip. "Everyone knows what's going on. Who would cause trouble? Bai Laosan's wife's sister-in-law died the same way the year before last. You can only blame your bad fate. Why did everyone else avoid tuberculosis, but you got it?"
"So, in this village, if a woman gets sick, she's practically given a death sentence, worse off than a sick pig?" I asked, trying to control my anger.
Wang Hong laughed. "A sick pig must be treated because a pig can be sold for money. Can a person? Well, some people can be sold for money. Actually, it's not just women; men are the same. If a man gets a severe illness, he has to take that path. His wife will also feed him rat poison. We are talking about gender equality now, right?"
Upon entering the village, Grandpa Hong and others came out and chatted with Wang Hong for a long time. Finally, Grandpa Hong waved his hand, and several villagers escorted me into a room. I looked back and saw Wang Hong carrying my leather bag and driving out of the village. Someone shoved me into a dilapidated room. Grandpa Hong personally locked the door, and two male villagers squatted outside, smoking water pipes.
I shouted through the wooden-slatted window, "Let me out! This is illegal detention! It's against the law! You know you'll go to jail, right?"
One male villager stood up, hit the window frame hard a few times with the water pipe stem, glared at me, and said a sentence: "Be honest!" I finally understood a complete sentence and roared at him again. The man simply ignored me.
It was getting dark. A few children came out with rice bowls, standing at their doorways to eat. I had been dragged around since noon and was starving. A woman approached the window with a large bowl full of rice, which she pushed through the wooden slats. On top of the rice was a small piece of beef cooked in red oil and two long, boiled chili peppers.
I was very dissatisfied and asked the woman if this was all I could eat. The woman understood what I meant and waved over a few children, telling them to show me their bowls. The children timidly walked up to the window, slowly holding up their rice bowls. I saw that their bowls contained only half a bowl of white rice and two long chili peppers on top. I felt a wave of guilt. The woman turned and left. I picked up the piece of beef with my chopsticks, reached my arm out the window, and offered it to the children.
They looked at me with confusion, not quite believing it. I smiled and gestured for them to come over. A brave little boy walked forward, holding his rice bowl high. His face was dirty, but his eyes were black and bright, filled with expectation. I dropped the beef into his bowl. The little boy cheered and ran off, and the other boys and girls laughed and chased after him to try and grab some. The two villagers guarding the door ate their meal while pointing at me with their chopsticks and muttering something. They were probably saying, "Eat what you're given. Why try to be generous?"
I couldn't understand why, when I had clearly seen someone slaughter a cow during the day, and the entire village only had a few hundred households—enough for everyone to have a piece of beef—why these children weren't eating any? As I ate, I regretted it. The two long chili peppers were the spiciest thing I had ever eaten, spicier than any BT Crazy Grilled Wings. I was bouncing around the room, shouting for water. The villager guarding the door brought me a large bowl of water, but it didn't help at all. My eyes were red, and I was panting like a dog. Later, someone brought some unknown powder mixed with water for me to drink. The burning sensation gradually subsided. I later learned it was kudzu root powder.
It grew dark. Villagers successively locked their doors and windows. The children who had been playing in the mud outside were also dragged home by adults. The two villagers responsible for guarding me also grabbed their water pipes and hurried away. The village was deathly silent. The moonlight was bright, illuminating the village with a clear, cool glow.
Wang Hong had said that no one was allowed out after dark in this village and that the place wasn't "clean." What did that mean? The room only had a crude wooden bed covered with thick dry grass. All I could smell was cow dung. I even suspected this room used to be a cowshed. How was I supposed to sleep? I paced back and forth in the room, hoping Frank Fang would see my text message soon and send help.
Late at night, I was unbearably sleepy. I lay down on the dry grass, fully clothed. Surprisingly, the dry grass was quite comfortable, softer than I had imagined. Just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard rustling noises outside, like someone rummaging through things. I turned over, groggily walked to the window, and peered out through the slats. By the moonlight, I saw an old woman bent over, searching for something in the pile of grass beneath the window. Hearing my movement, the old woman looked up, scaring me back two steps. Her face was almost fleshless, just a thin layer of chicken skin covering bone, and her eyeballs were yellowish and cloudy.
The old woman searched and uttered sounds like sighs: "Goose, goose... wants to eat noodles, goose..." I later realized she was trying to say "hungry" (e). After searching for a long time, the old woman finally gave up, sighed a few times, and slowly walked away, hunched over. I didn't know where she went. I bravely walked to the window. The old woman was no longer visible. Just as I was wondering, suddenly, shouting and a woman's tragic crying came from the house diagonally opposite. The village was extremely quiet, and the sound was very clear.
A few minutes later, the door of that house was violently kicked open. A woman stumbled out and ran toward the village entrance. A man chased out of the house, holding a thick wooden stick, panting heavily, cursing as he pursued her. I could smell a faint scent of alcohol. The woman must have been panicking; she tripped. The man caught up and brutally beat her with the wooden stick, hitting her headlessly.
Despite such a commotion, no villager came out to stop them or even watch. The man beat her while cursing, "I'll smash you, I'll smash you!" I couldn't understand what he was saying, so I shouted loudly through the window, telling him to stop. But the man ignored me completely, beating her with lethal force. Many blows landed directly on the woman's head. Her face was covered in blood. Her screams turned into high-pitched wails. When she couldn't run, she crawled on the ground, futilely shielding her head with her hands. The man cursed and beat her. The woman's cries turned to screams, then to groans, and the sound gradually weakened. I yelled, "Stop hitting her! Are you trying to kill her? Stop it!"
The man glanced toward me and cursed, "What business is that of yours? Get back inside!" He struck a few more blows. Suddenly, the raised stick paused in mid-air and wouldn't come down. The man tugged at it a few times. Suddenly, his body convulsed, and his head violently slammed against the whitewashed wall. He screamed, and the wooden stick fell to the ground. The man started acting suicidal, continuously hitting his head against the wall. Blood splattered out onto the wall. He hit the wall very hard, making a loud "thump, thump" sound. The man let out screams and wails, as if an invisible person were grabbing his hair and slamming his head against the wall. Later, I thought I could hear the sound of a skull cracking, a crunching sound. The man's face and head were covered in blood. He stopped making noise, and his body went limp, but his head continued to slam against the wall, one slam after another. Soon, his head was unrecognizable, completely smashed.