In the winter of 1990, deep in Daxinganling, snow was falling everywhere, thick as torn cotton batting.
The wind cut across a person’s face like a blade.
“Move! Hurry up, you jinx! Nasty little curse!”
Mildred Crane had a thick cotton-padded coat wrapped tight around her. In her hand, she gripped a coarse hemp rope so hard her knuckles were stiff.
At the other end of it was a tiny child.
Lily Ashford did not look like a four-year-old at all. She was so thin she looked like a dry stick, all bones and no flesh. She wore a ragged cotton jacket, split open in places, black stuffing poking out. It was useless against the thirty-below cold.
One of her feet was bare.
The other still had on a torn cloth shoe with its mouth split wide.
Every time she dragged herself one step forward, a string of bloody footprints was stamped into the snow.
“Auntie… I can’t walk anymore…”
Her voice was faint, thin as a gnat’s buzz.
In her little purple, frost-bitten hand, she clutched half a stale steamed bun, hard as stone and furry with mold.
She had snatched it from the dog’s food basin last night.
She had not even brought herself to eat it.
“Can’t walk? Then die here!”
Mildred Crane turned and spat into the snow.
The moment she looked into Lily Ashford’s eyes, a chill crawled through her chest.
That damned girl looked exactly like her short-lived mother. Especially those eyes. Whenever they stared at someone, they made a person’s heart go tight for no reason.
Vivienne Ashford, that shameless woman, had been dead four years.
But the little bastard she left behind had plagued her for those same four years.
“Auntie, don’t throw me away…”
Lily Ashford seemed to feel something. Her tiny body shook like a leaf in a storm.
She didn’t want to die.
Her mother had told her, as long as she stayed alive, one day her uncle would come and take her away.
She didn’t know what an uncle really was. But her mother had said there would be steaming white rice at his place, and more new clothes than she could ever wear through.
“Auntie… eat this…”
Lily Ashford’s little hand shook without stopping. She held up that half piece of sour, stale bun as high as she could. The thing was smeared all over with black handprints.
But in her eyes, it was the best thing in the whole world.
The moment Mildred Crane saw that bun, her stomach turned.
She lifted her leg and drove a kick straight into Lily Ashford’s skinny shin, thin as a dry reed.
“And you’ve still got the nerve to eat? Worthless money-loser!”
The kick sent Lily Ashford tumbling headfirst into the snow.
Even then, she still clutched that half bun tight in her fist.
She crawled back out of the snow and didn’t cry.
She had cried all her tears dry already. Besides, in weather this cold, if she cried, the skin on her face would split open for sure.
Mildred Crane yanked the hemp rope and dragged Lily Ashford forward the whole way, step by step, until she stopped in front of a black hole in the ground.
Everyone in the village knew that pit.
They called it the “abandoned baby pit.”
Back in the famine years, babies people couldn’t afford to keep, and those born broken or incomplete, were all thrown in there.
The pit was so deep the bottom couldn’t be seen. It stank all year round, rank and bloody, the foul odor rolling up from below. Even the village dogs circled wide around it.
“We’re here.”
Mildred Crane let go of the rope and panted, breath coming hard.
Then her eyes dropped to the pair of ragged shoes on Lily Ashford’s feet. Her gaze shifted, mean and quick.
“Take that shoe off and give it to me!”
Lily Ashford shrank back and curled her toes. “Auntie… if you take my shoes off, my feet will freeze bad…”
“Good. Better if they do!” Mildred Crane snapped. “These soles were stitched layer by layer. Fine shoes. My Huzi can wear ’em just right. Putting them on your feet is a damn waste!”
As she spoke, she lunged forward, pinned Lily down, and in a few rough tugs stripped the broken shoes right off her feet.
Lily stood barefoot in the snow.
The cold bit like shattered ice. It stabbed up from the soles of her feet straight into her skull. The pain made her suck in breath again and again, thin and sharp.
“Enough. Down you go.”
Mildred Crane stuffed the shoes into her coat. Her face eased a little now that she had them. Then she rose, lifted her leg, and drove a kick straight into Lily’s backside.
“Ah—!”
The little girl’s body flew like a rotten rag bundle, stiff and helpless, straight into the pitch-black pit.
Bang.
A dull, heavy sound.
Her body smashed onto frozen dirt and dead men’s bones.
Mildred Crane crouched by the edge and peered down. It was black as ink. She couldn’t see a damn thing.
“Don’t blame your aunt for being hard-hearted. Blame that dead mother of yours. Died outside and still wouldn’t let anyone live in peace. In your next life, be smart and stop coming to our family to collect some cursed debt!”
She cursed as she worked, dragging over the big stone she had prepared long ago.
With a hard shove, she sent it rolling toward the mouth of the pit.
Thud!
The stone sealed off most of the opening, leaving only a narrow crack. Bitter wind came whistling through it and poured into the hole.
Mildred Crane slapped the dirt from her hands, shoved the pair of broken shoes deeper into her coat, then turned and walked back, even humming a tune.
Whether the little brat froze to death, starved to death, or got dragged off by the wolves in the hills—that was up to her fate.
Either way, nobody knew Mildred Crane had dumped her here.
...
Inside the pit.
Lily Ashford felt like every bone in her little body had come loose.