“Ah Ying! Ah Ying!”
“Ah Ying…”
Faint cries echoed from afar, growing closer.
A bone-chilling cold pierced the chest, and the scent of iron, thick and sweet, filled the nostrils.
The water had risen above her head, and the only light gradually faded as her body sank deeper.
Darkness engulfed her surroundings, so deep that she couldn’t even see her own hand.
Above her, the fragmented shouts continued.
Trapped in a nightmare, the girl struggled to open her eyes and seek the voice, but her eyelids felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.
Helplessly, she continued to sink.
“Ah Ying—!”
The anxious cry, laced with desperation, pierced Chen Jiao’s eardrums.
The person curled up on the wooden bed jolted awake, gasping, as she was dragged out of the suffocating nightmare.
The struggling sounds from the next room confused her dazed mind.
She hesitantly called out, “Mother?”
The only response was a muffled, whimpering sob.
Realizing something was wrong, Chen Jiao quickly got out of bed, groping for the fire striker to light the oil lamp.
The dim glow flickered to life, illuminating the bare, crumbling walls of their home.
Inside the cramped earthen house, a silent act of violence was unfolding.
Madam Xu, her mouth tightly covered, struggled desperately, but as a frail woman, she was no match for the brute.
When Chen Jiao saw the man pinning her mother down, rage surged within her.
Instinctively, she grabbed a wooden club from the corner and swung it at the back of the man’s head.
The blow enraged him.
Clutching his head, he turned to glare at her—his scarred, twisted face was terrifying.
Chen Jiao recognized him immediately.
It was Scar Liu, an infamous thug in the alleyways, now preying on a widow and her daughter!
Fear gripped her heart, but she struck again, this time with even more force.
Enraged, the man retaliated.
He wrenched the club from her hands and kicked her hard in the stomach.
A searing pain exploded through her body.
She collapsed onto the ground, unable to move.
Seeing her daughter injured, Madam Xu went berserk.
She lunged at the man, biting and clawing, only to be yanked by the hair and thrown violently to the floor.
Because of her past as a courtesan, Scar Liu looked down on both mother and daughter.
He spat out vile curses:
“Filthy whore, passed around by thousands—why pretend to be pure? Once I’m done with you, I’ll break in the little one next!”
With that, he resumed his assault.
Chen Jiao lay on the floor, clutching her stomach, watching in helpless horror as her mother was violated.
Scar Liu pinned Madam Xu to the ground, straddling her, using brute force to tear at her clothes until they lay in tatters.
The flickering lamplight danced uneasily.
A helpless widow and orphan—too weak to fight, with no one to save them.
Just as the beast loomed over Madam Xu, ready to ravage her completely, Chen Jiao erupted with an astonishing force.
Ignoring the pain in her abdomen, she crawled over while Scar Liu was distracted, gripped the wooden club tightly, and aimed for his temple—swinging with all her might.
Fast, precise, ruthless!
The powerful impact made the man see stars.
Like a furious, wounded beast, he staggered up to retaliate.
But before he could react—another strike!
Then a third.
A fourth.
Blow after blow rained down until blood streamed down his face.
Scar Liu slumped to the ground, unconscious from the pain.
Scar Liu collapsed on top of Madam Xu like a dead pig, terrifying her.
She shoved the man off her in horror, scrambling away as if fleeing from the plague, not caring about her tattered clothing.
Chen Jiao, still gripping the wooden club, had lost all reason.
Bloodshot eyes filled with madness, she looked like a rabid dog as she swung again and again at Scar Liu’s head.
She did not stop until his face was completely unrecognizable—a grotesque mess of blood and flesh.
Only when she was certain he was no longer moving did she collapse to the ground, drained, clutching her stomach in pain, cold sweat beading on her pale face.
Silence filled the room.
The autumn night was chilly, and a gust of wind rustled the pomegranate tree in the courtyard.
From the distance, the sound of the night watchman’s wooden clapper rang through the streets, startling the two women like frightened cats.
Chen Jiao, dressed in thin, ragged clothes, leaned against the cold earthen wall.
Her young face was flushed unnaturally— a lingering heat from taking a life.
Beside her, Madam Xu sat frozen, horrified by her daughter’s brutality.
It took her a long moment to regain her senses.
She crawled over, her clothes in disarray, to check on Chen Jiao, who sat curled up blankly.
“Ah Ying…”
Chen Jiao’s vacant gaze slowly refocused, her body completely drained of strength.
She was only just past the age of fourteen, malnourished from years of hardship, and had exhausted every ounce of energy in her desperate struggle.
“Don’t be afraid, Mother.”
Her voice came out hoarse and mechanical, sending chills down one’s spine.
Despite her own pain, she tried to comfort her mother.
Madam Xu’s eyelid twitched violently.
She turned a fearful gaze toward the man on the floor, uncertain of what to do.
Scar Liu was nothing but a rogue, a scoundrel.
Now that they had caught his attention, they would never have peace again.
Her lips trembled as she shrank beside her daughter, helpless and lost.
But Chen Jiao remained eerily calm.
Her dark eyes were cold and shadowed with an unnatural ruthlessness far beyond her years.
One hand pressing against her aching stomach, she steadied herself and crawled over to check the man’s condition.
She had struck with deadly force.
Scar Liu was already dead.
She had taken a life.
Over the past two years, this cruel world had worn her down, making her numb to suffering.
Most women would be trembling with fear in this situation.
Yet after the initial shock, a strange, twisted sense of satisfaction flickered within her.
Scar Liu’s face was nothing more than a bloody pulp, his features unrecognizable.
Chen Jiao stared coldly at her own handiwork, eyes filled with an unsettling calm.
“Mother, we can’t stay in Shenyang anymore.”
Madam Xu panicked.
“But—”
Chen Jiao cut her off.
“No buts.”
She paused for a moment before adding, “He’s dead.”
Madam Xu’s mouth fell open in shock.
Chen Jiao’s gaze was like that of a ghost, half her face hidden in shadow.
Despite her frail figure, an unyielding force radiated from within her.
“I know you want to stay in Shenyang and wait for Father. But now, I’ve taken a life.”
Madam Xu wanted to say something, but in the end, no words came.
She was never the sharpest, and now she was even more lost, like a headless fly, completely clueless about how to deal with the consequences of their actions.
While Madam Xu remained in a daze, Chen Jiao quickly calculated their next steps.
Scar Liu had broken into their home in the dead of night to assault a helpless widow and orphan—no one would have known he was here.
The most urgent task was to dispose of the body properly and prepare for their escape.
They had to leave Shenyang before the corpse was discovered; otherwise, they would be doomed.
Ignoring her mother’s bewildered state, Chen Jiao, exhausted but resolute, began searching for a place to hide the body.
Their rented house was small, but next door were three vacant tiled rooms.
The previous tenants had moved out last month, and the landlord had been using them for storage, leaving them temporarily unoccupied.
There was a small courtyard in the front, and beneath the pomegranate tree seemed like a suitable resting place—but digging a hole there would be too conspicuous.
Now somewhat calmer, Madam Xu suggested burying Scar Liu under the kitchen’s water vat.
Chen Jiao thought about it and found no objections.
Scar Liu’s head was still bleeding, and worried that the bloodstains would be difficult to clean, Madam Xu fetched some ashes from the stove and sprinkled them over the floor.
The fresh blood quickly clotted with the ashes.
Chen Jiao found an old, tattered cloth to wrap the head, and together, mother and daughter dragged the body aside before cleaning up the bloodstains.
Then, they moved the chipped water vat away from its spot.
Since the area was frequently damp from scooping water, the soil beneath was soft and easier to dig.
The oil lamp was covered, its dim light flickering weakly.
Their desperation to survive fueled their frantic digging.
It was still midnight, with hours left until dawn.
They worked tirelessly, not daring to rest.
By the time the sky began to lighten, they had managed to dig a small pit where the water vat once stood.
But Scar Liu was a grown man—he would never fit.
Seeing time slipping away, Chen Jiao made a ruthless decision.
Without hesitation, she and Madam Xu dragged the stiffening corpse to the pit’s edge.
Madam Xu’s voice trembled with panic.
“This pit is too small—he won’t fit.”
Chen Jiao frowned but remained silent.
She had no intention of giving Scar Liu a proper burial.
Without hesitation, she positioned the body over the pit, took a deep breath, and leaped down with all her weight—
A sickening “crack” echoed through the room as the corpse snapped in half at the waist.
Madam Xu’s face turned ghostly pale, too horrified to utter a word.
The body had been forcibly broken and shoved into the hole.
The cloth wrapping the head had fallen off, revealing a ghastly mess of flesh and blood.
Suppressing the urge to vomit, Chen Jiao pressed down with her foot, mercilessly snapping both arms at the elbows to make them fit.
She did the same to the legs, breaking them at the knees, though it required more effort.
Twisted into an unnatural shape, the corpse was finally crammed into the narrow pit.
Chen Jiao wasted no time.
“Mother, don’t just stand there. The sun will rise soon.”
Snapping back to reality, Madam Xu hurried forward and began shoveling dirt over the body.
The two frail women, driven by the instinct to survive, did not dare rest.
They worked tirelessly to return the soil to its original state, covering every trace of their crime.
Somewhere nearby, a rooster crowed—a chilling sound that sent Madam Xu into a flurry of panic.
Chen Jiao hastily swept the loose dirt from the floor.
To further conceal the freshly disturbed soil, she found a wooden board and placed it over the pit.
Only after ensuring there were no visible signs of disturbance did they carefully move the water vat back over the board, pressing it down.