Chapter 1

The day after the news of my father's death arrived,

my mother was found by the whole village lying in the same bed as my disabled uncle.

Even though nothing had happened, everyone still called my mother an adulteress who'd take any man.

Grandma gave her two choices: die, or marry my uncle.

My mom looked at the rat poison on the nightstand and at me, and cried for half a month while clutching my dad's photo. In the end, she chose the latter.

But on the day of her wedding to my uncle, my dad came home covered in injuries.

My dad refused to believe my mom would betray him, and was determined to get to the truth.

Grandma, though, grabbed a kitchen knife and blocked him from seeing my mom.

"A man as fine as you will have no trouble finding another wife. Do you know how much effort it took me to get her to nod yes?"

"Besides, what's worth clinging to in a woman like that—so shameless she couldn't stand the loneliness the moment her husband died?"

My father broke down completely, and in the end he took his own life.

After my father died, my mother lived like a walking corpse for ten years.

Never for a moment did she stop regretting her "shamelessness."

After I grew up, she drank that same rat poison and went to join my father…

When I opened my eyes again,

I was back at the moment my mother learned of my father's death.

I looked at my mother and spoke firmly.

"Don't cry! If he's alive we'll see his face, if he's dead we'll see his body."

"Whether Dad is dead or alive, we'll go bring him home together."

One:

Grandma Iris Finch had finally coaxed my mom into taking the sugar water she'd laced with drugs.

But my words—if he's alive we see his face, if he's dead we see his body—froze my mom in place. She wept for a while, murmured to herself that I was right, then set the sugar water down and struggled to her feet to pack.

Iris Finch's eyes flared red with panic in an instant.

"What does a little brat like you know?"

"You've read that letter a dozen times. It says it plain as day—Arthur fell off a cliff saving someone. That cliff is impossibly high, and there are wild beasts down below. How could he possibly still be alive?"

"He's already dead, and there's nothing left of his body. What are you going to go bring back?"

As she spoke, she pressed my mom back down onto the bed and handed her the sugar water from the nightstand.

"Arthur is gone. If you won't live properly and keep running wild with Jenny, do you mean to let Jenny lose her father and then her mother too?"

"Drink this sugar water now—if not for yourself, then for Jenny!"

My mother's eyes were a pool of dead water, but they stirred when she heard my name. She nodded stiffly, took the sugar water, and was about to drink.

Something felt wrong.

Many years had passed, but I still remembered that day clearly. My mother took a few sips of the sugar water, then gave the rest to me to drink—and after we finished it, we both fell fast asleep.

When we woke up, my mother had become the "loose woman" everyone talked about!

So there had to be something wrong with this bowl of sugar water.

Without a second thought I rushed over, pretending to be falling apart and knocking the bowl of sugar water flying as if by accident, then shouted at Iris Finch.

"The comic book Tom and I read said so—if you fall off a cliff you don't die."

"Grandma, why are you cursing my dad to die? Does my dad dying somehow do you some good?"

Iris Finch had been staring hard at the sugar water in my mother's hand. When she saw it knocked away and heard me hit right on her secret, she cracked.

Without thinking, she slapped me across the face.

"You're talking nonsense."

The slap actually wasn't hard, and I could easily have dodged it, but I pretended it hurt terribly and then threw myself with all my strength into a stone jutting out from the wall, drawing blood at once.

"Mom, help—Grandma's going to kill me!"

"Grandma always said I was a money-loser. She won't give us any of the money Dad sent home, and now, when we don't even know what's happened to Dad, she wants to kill me!"

My mom hadn't eaten or drunk anything all day.

But when she saw the blood on my forehead, she came alive at once.

"Mother, what Jenny said really is far-fetched, yes, but she only wants her father to be alive. How could you strike her so hard?"

"Even without Arthur, I can raise Jenny on my own."

"If you keep this up, I'll take Jenny back to my parents' house right now!"

Iris Finch had no way to defend herself and stamped her feet in fury, but people kept coming by to pay their respects to my father, so she didn't dare make a scene. She quickly put on a smile and apologized.

"I was just so heartbroken I didn't know my own strength."

"Here's what we'll do—you bandage Jenny up, and I'll make you some steamed egg custard. You need to eat something to have the strength to go bring Arthur home."

With that, Iris Finch left our room, unwilling.

The moment she was gone, I broke free of my mother's arms, ran to lock the door from the inside, and then took out the milk candy my dad had bought me last month.

"Mom, eat this."

"And whatever Grandma brings over next, you can't eat any of it!"