Chapter 2

There's a bone that juts out from my right wrist too!

I wasn't born with it. My father did it to me.

My parents didn't like me.

Even though I was naturally bright and scored perfect marks every single time.

They only ever lectured me with cold faces.

They said perfect scores were nothing special—city kids developed in every way, morally, intellectually, physically, aesthetically, and in labor—and they told me not to get cocky.

The year I was six, all the children in the village loved eating ice pops.

I wanted one too, so I spent a whole summer up in the mountains digging medicinal herbs, and with the money I earned I bought one sweet ice pop.

I cradled that ice pop, licking it carefully with my tongue, savoring the hard-won sweetness.

But my father saw it. Without a word he snatched the ice pop out of my hand and threw it on the ground.

Then he pinned my hand down hard against the stone steps and smashed it with a rock.

He said I wasn't applying myself, that I'd used my book money to buy snacks.

If I was that greedy, my hands deserved to be smashed.

Even though I cried and explained that the money came from digging and selling herbs.

My father wouldn't listen. He threw me into the cold, dark cellar to reflect on what I'd done.

The cellar was cold and dark. I cried until my voice went hoarse, and no one came for me.

It wasn't until three days later, when my mother pulled the five yuan I'd set aside for book fees out of my schoolbag.

Only then did my father take me to the village's barefoot doctor to set the bone.

But too much time had passed since the injury, and the bone had already healed.

Breaking it and resetting it could very likely leave me disabled for life.

So I had to go to school with that jutting hand bone.

My classmates mocked me for it, and I was miserable for a very, very long time.

A bone injury this particular—you couldn't find a second one like it in the whole village.

As I touched that protruding bone on the male corpse, my whole body was trembling.

Suddenly, someone up on the cliff called out to me.

"Hey, kid! Is the path down there slippery? Can we bring the coffin down?"

He was talking to me?

Joy shot through my heart, and I answered at once.

"You can bring it down! It's not slippery!"

The man nodded at me, then waved the people behind him to lift the coffin and start slowly down the narrow footpath along the cliff.

And my heart suddenly eased with relief.

Since someone could see me, and I could talk to him, that meant I was still alive.

As for that bone on the male corpse that jutted out exactly like mine…

How many wretched souls are there in this world?

Maybe it was just a coincidence.

I patted the last handful of soil over the male corpse.

I stood up to leave, and ran straight into the funeral procession coming down.

Out of politeness, I turned to the side and stepped out of the way to let them pass first.

But as my eyes drifted over the black-and-white memorial portrait in the leader's hands, I was nailed to the spot.

The face in that portrait was exactly like mine!