Following the morning glow, I arrived home. I didn’t dare to go through the front door, so I climbed over the wall to enter.
The courtyard was eerily quiet, and I couldn’t hear my mother’s pipa playing. I guessed she must have been napping, so I quietly opened the window to take a peek, but what I saw inside shocked me. My mother’s usually tidy room was a complete mess, as if it had been ransacked. Clothes were pulled out of the wardrobe, jewelry scattered across the vanity, and even the bedclothes were overturned. There were strands of hair and bloodstains on the floor.
My heart sank, and I rushed into the room and ran toward the main courtyard. As soon as I entered, I heard a woman’s desperate cry. Recognizing my mother’s voice and its direction, I sprinted toward the ancestral hall. In my haste, I stumbled and fell halfway.
Ignoring the bruises on my face from the fall, I dashed all the way to the ancestral hall. There, I saw the main doors tightly shut, with two large, burly servants standing guard on either side. My younger sister was kneeling at the door, repeatedly kowtowing.
I rushed over and hugged my younger sister, seeing her in a daze, her eyes filled with panic. Her once-beautiful face was pale, and there was a handprint on her cheek. My heart instantly ached as if it were being torn apart.
“What’s happened, Sister? I haven’t been home for two days. What has happened here?”
My sister burst into tears, crying loudly, “Why did you only come back now! Mother has been wronged! They say that Mother cheated, and they’ve locked her in the ancestral hall!”
“How is that possible!” I pushed her away and rushed toward the door of the ancestral hall, but two house servants grabbed my arms. At that moment, a sharp cry from Mother rang out from inside, “Ah, Master, have mercy—!”
“Say it, the soles you made in your room, were they for him? That shoe size is neither the Master’s nor could it possibly be for Mi Jia! You, a female servant, have been fed and clothed in luxury by the master, yet you sneak around under his very nose, you’re nothing but a cheap woman!” A harsh, cruel voice echoed from inside the ancestral hall, followed by the sound of a whip cracking. Mother’s cries grew increasingly miserable.
The soles. The soles Mother asked me to deliver to Master, Mother did that for my studies! I was about to open my mouth to explain, but then I heard another voice from inside, “The soles are one thing, but what about those embroidered belts you made? Those red bean sachets, who are they for? Tell me!”
I froze in place.
A belt? Red bean sachets?
When did Mother make those?
My father’s voice came from inside, it was cold and menacing, like a judge from the underworld ready to claim a life. “Not speaking, huh? Well then, just in time, the saintess is collecting human skins, and here I have a ready one. Ma Niang, Gasa, tear the skin off her back for me!”
I was shocked, my body trembling. I forcefully broke free from the two house servants’ grasp, rushing toward the door, pounding and kicking it. “Father! Father, have you lost your mind?! Let Mother out! I am willing to take the punishment for her!!”
“Master, it’s me!” A rough voice came from behind. I turned around to see a figure as large as a small mountain kneeling. His blood-red eyes fixed on the door of the ancestral hall. “Stop tormenting Madam Zhu. I’m the one who seduced her. I’m the one who threatened her into making those things. If you want to kill or cut me, do as you please, Master.”
“You’re the one who harmed Mother!” My sister screamed, throwing herself at Baluo, biting and hitting him. I quickly pulled her back, shouting toward the door, “Father, do you hear? Mother is innocent!”
The door creaked open, and several figures rushed out, grabbing Baluo and dragging him inside. I looked inside and saw my stunningly beautiful mother, her hair disheveled, her whole body resembling a blood-soaked gourd. I screamed and lunged toward the door but was immediately kicked back out.
“Lock these two wretched children in the horse stable! Don’t let them out without my orders!”
All night long, I covered my sister’s ears tightly, listening to my mother’s screams and the man’s cries of pain coming from the direction of the ancestral hall. When the sky brightened, it was finally quiet outside. I don’t know when I fainted, but what woke me up again was my sister’s heartbreaking cry.
“Is Mother dead, Mi Jia? I can’t hear her voice anymore…”
I held my sister in my arms and patted her back: “No… Father won’t be that cruel…”
I was deceiving myself and coaxing her, my eyes were blurry.
On the third day of being locked up, my sister and I were so hungry that we had to eat the horse fodder. The first madam couldn’t bear it, so she secretly released us from the stable and gave us some food. Before we finished eating, two servants who always followed my father dragged us to the ancestral hall. My mother and Baluo were no longer in the ancestral hall, and the floor was clean, as if last night was just a nightmare. My father looked at my sister and me with a cold face and ordered the servants to prick our fingers and drip blood into a bowl. I didn’t know what he was doing. I just saw the bowl was handed to my father, and he took a look, and his face changed.
“Lock these two ungrateful children in the side yard and don’t allow them to eat!”
When I was dragged out of the ancestral hall, I suddenly pushed away the servant and fell to my father’s feet. “Where is Mother? Where has Mother gone? Father, give Mother back to me, she is innocent…”
Dragged into the gate of the side courtyard with my sister, I immediately saw that the door to the room where Mother lived was locked with thick chains, and the windows were sealed with wooden planks. Long streaks of blood stretched from the courtyard gate all the way to the door of her room, a sight that was shocking to behold.
After placing my unconscious sister into her room, I rushed to the door of Mother’s room, pulling at the lock, pounding on the wooden door, but there was no sound from inside.
I came to the window, stood on tiptoe to pry at the wooden slats, and peered through the gap. The room inside was dim and unclear, and I couldn’t see how Mother was, but I could smell a strong, pungent odor of blood.
“Mother! Mother!” I shouted hoarsely, I couldn’t count how many times I called from dawn till dusk, and only then did I hear a faint voice of Mother, coming from the dark room.
“Jia’er…”
“Did they… hurt you two?”
Tears surged down, and I broke into loud sobs.
“Jia’er, don’t cry… If Mother… dies, you must… take good care of Luo’er…”
I choked up, “Mother won’t die, I’ll go find… find medicine…’”
“Mother… is seriously injured… I won’t survive… don’t… anger your father again… protect yourself… and Luo’er…”
I shook my head, wiped away my tears, climbed over the wall, and rushed to the medical hall on the street. I exchanged my mother’s bracelet for the most expensive wound medicine, had the physician prepare it overnight, and brought it back home.
I sent the bowl of medicine to my mother’s door and pushed it through the crack. I cried and kowtowed for a long time before I finally heard a faint sound from inside, like a dying mother beast struggling to lick its wounds. I knew then that my mother was fighting to survive for the sake of us, her children. She was drinking the medicine.
I didn’t dare cry, biting my lip hard. After my mother finished drinking the medicine, I secretly started a fire and snuck into the kitchen to make porridge from leftover food. I delivered the porridge to my mother and then went to take care of my feverish younger sister.
Two days passed, and my younger sister’s fever finally subsided, but my mother’s condition worsened. No matter how much I shouted, there was only faint breathing from inside the room, and the medicine bowl I had passed in was never returned.
I rushed to the medical hall again and sought out the physician, but the physician only shook his head and said that if even the most expensive ointment for wounds couldn’t heal the injury, it must be extremely severe, and no medicine could cure it.
Before I left, I noticed the shrine on the wall of the pharmacy and saw the statue of that Tunshe Tianzun. Suddenly, I remembered that the day I had promised to meet with Nalin had already passed. Vaguely recalling the discussions I had overheard on the street, a glimmer of hope emerged in my heart; perhaps, only he, with his blood… could save my mother.
When I arrived at the inn, I noticed that there were quite a few patrolling soldiers nearby. They were watching every person who came into the inn, as if they were searching for something. A strange intuition arose in my mind. I approached the counter, and while paying for the carriage fee, I took the opportunity to ask the innkeeper what these soldiers were here for.
“You don’t know? Haven’t you been out in the streets these past few days? The Young Saint Lord is missing! The soldiers are searching everywhere! Ai, the Young Saint Lord is the incarnation of a god, and if something happens to him, it will affect the nation’s fate. The king has issued a reward; anyone who finds the Young Saint Lord will be granted a thousand gold coins!”
Nalin is missing?
