She remembered falling into the river on this very day in her past life. She'd lost a large bamboo basket and a worn-out sickle. When she got home, her mother, Liu Fengying, had berated her. The more Liu Fengying scolded her, the angrier she became, until she grabbed a piece of firewood and beat her mercilessly. Later, when her father returned and heard what had happened, he too grew angry and rapped her hard on the head several times, raising two large bumps that didn't fade for days.
And that wasn't all. She wasn't allowed to eat dinner that night and starved to the point of collapse. The next morning, she still had to get up at the crack of dawn to light the fire, cook the pig feed, and make breakfast. She nearly fell down the wooden stairs.
In the rural villages of Jiangnan in 1977, most of the land was collectively owned. The production brigades and teams organized all farm work. People had to perform manual labor to earn work points, which were then exchanged for food rations. Every household was more or less equally poor, and living conditions were abysmal. A sickle was certainly valuable, but not so valuable as to warrant that kind of reaction. If this had happened in any other family, the parents' first concern would have been their child's safety. But Mo Xiaoman was treated this way for one reason: she was not the Mo family's biological child.
In her past life, Mo Xiaoman had been utterly oblivious. For over twenty years, she was beaten, scolded, and forced to slave away for the Mo family, yet she never once questioned her parentage. Mr. and Mrs. Mo, however, had known the truth ever since she was five or six years old and her features began to set—they had taken home the wrong baby.
Of the six children in the family, all but the eldest, Mo Xiaoman, took after their parents. The daughters resembled their mother, Liu Fengying, with round, apple-like faces, while the sons had their father Mo Guoqiang's square jaw. Only Mo Xiaoman had a delicate, oval face and double eyelids. Her lashes were long and curled, framing large, sparkling eyes that were clear and bright. The other children all had monolids with slightly puffy eyelids; none of them had her captivating eyelashes, nor were their mouths and noses as refined and pretty as hers.
Growing up, Mo Xiaoman was so naive she was almost simple-minded. She never fought back when hit or talked back when scolded. She remained loyal to the family, even after marrying. She would secretly save what little, hard-earned spending money she had and give it to her younger siblings for school. Later, her husband's abuse caused her to miscarry her first child. When she failed to conceive again over the next two years, her in-laws despised her for it, and her husband divorced her. Liu Fengying brought her home, and Mo Xiaoman, weeping with gratitude, slaved away even more desperately for the Mo family—right up until the day she was forced to leave.
It was only on that day that she learned the truth: she had biological parents, and they were government officials in the city! They had known about the baby swap long ago but never came to claim her. They couldn't bear to part with the well-behaved, sensible, and considerate girl *they* had raised.
Even after getting in touch with Mo Guoqiang and Liu Fengying, they never once visited her or inquired about her life.
It would have been one thing if they had just left her to fend for herself in the countryside, ignorant and impoverished. But no, when they needed her, they sought her out, used her up, and then plunged a knife into her heart.
Mo Xiaoman recalled the unbearable past and let out a cold, mad laugh. 'How could parents like that even exist in this world?'
Mo Guoqiang and Liu Fengying at least put on an act. This was especially true during the years Mo Guoqiang was ill. Liu Fengying stopped working to care for him full-time, leaving Mo Xiaoman to become the family's pillar, shouldering all the heavy labor. During the farming off-season, she'd even follow dump trucks up the mountain to dig earth to sell to the cement factory. The money went to Mo Guoqiang's medical bills and her siblings' schooling. While enjoying the fruits of her labor, the couple had just enough conscience to praise her now and then, calling her "Big Sis" or "our eldest daughter" in front of others, making it seem as if she were the true head of the household whose word was law.
But her parents in the city? They couldn't even be bothered to pretend.
They had seen the photograph Liu Fengying brought them. Later, when they needed Mo Xiaoman's bone marrow and she went to the city for a blood test, they glimpsed her from afar but never met her formally. All arrangements were handled by a middleman who negotiated with Mo Guoqiang and Liu Fengying. Money paved the way; everything was negotiable.
Liu Fengying had pulled Mo Xiaoman out of school in the second grade, forcing her to stay home to care for her younger siblings and do housework. She only knew a handful of characters and could barely write her own name. At home, her siblings couldn't be bothered to talk to her, often brushing her off with a curt, "You're illiterate. What would you know?"
From the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, televisions became common in the countryside, and almost every household owned one. Mo Xiaoman worked all day, and with no other entertainment at night, her only pastime was watching TV. After seeing all kinds of dramas, she knew—no matter how uneducated or simple she was—what it meant for someone to need her blood and bone marrow.
Weeping, she begged Liu Fengying to let her meet those parents, to meet the family she was related to by blood. Liu Fengying looked her up and down, then said coldly:
"You've looked in a mirror, haven't you? You should have some idea of what you look like. Look at you—rough hands, clumsy feet, reeking of the countryside. The mangled skin on your neck... it makes me sick just to look at it! Your face is covered in dark spots, and you have those scars on your forehead... People say it looks like you've been branded, like some criminal exiled in ancient times! What a jinx! They're a high-class family. Every one of them is a high-ranking official, all of them important people! Their own daughter is as precious as gold, delicate and pampered! And you saw the young master in the hospital room. What kind of man is he? Even a god couldn't compare! Who the hell do you think you are, trying to show your face in front of such people!"
Mo Xiaoman listened to the merciless tirade, her heart aching as if it were being torn apart.
'Yes, she hadn't met the others, but she had seen the young man in the hospital room who needed her bone marrow. He was so noble and handsome, and as cold as ice. He wouldn't even deign to look at her, let alone speak to her.'
'She knew they looked down on her. She was rustic, crude, and uneducated. But was that her fault?'
The four deep, dark, crisscrossing scars on her forehead were from being whipped with a red-hot iron wire by Liu Fengying's eldest son, Mo Xiaoqiang. He was only a ten-year-old boy, but he had a vicious, violent temper. Over the slightest disagreement, he had snatched a homemade poker glowing red from the coals and lashed out at her. CRACK! CRACK! The wire had sizzled, raising puffs of acrid smoke as it branded her forehead. If Mo Xiaoman hadn't thrown her arms up to shield her eyes, she would have been blinded.
The pain had been so intense that she'd passed out, only waking a full day and night later. Mo Guoqiang and Liu Fengying never took her to a hospital or bought any medicine for her. They just had the village's "barefoot doctor" take a look, who dabbed some unknown medicinal liquid on the wounds. After Grandpa found out, he had to gather some herbs—some for a poultice and others to be boiled into a soup for her to drink. She had no choice but to tough it out and heal on her own.
The large, ugly scars on her neck were from a burn that Liu Fengying had "accidentally" caused. She had bought two pounds of fatty pork to render lard. Usually, when she did this, her two gluttonous younger daughters would crowd around, waiting to eat the cracklings. But this time, Liu Fengying shooed them away, leaving only Mo Xiaoman to feed firewood into the stove. Just as Mo Xiaoman was craning her neck to adjust the fire, the pot on the stove tipped. An entire container of scalding hot oil poured down over her, running from the left side of her scalp, down her neck, and onto her body... It left her ear deformed, and just like the twisted, hideous scars on her neck, great patches of scarred skin covered her back and chest.
Again, they didn't take her to the hospital. They didn't let anyone know what happened, simply locking the severely burned Mo Xiaoman in the house for two days. Only when it looked like she was on the verge of death did they finally go to Grandpa for herbs. Grandpa was so furious he nearly beat Mo Guoqiang with a wooden club, but it was no use. Mo Xiaoman was permanently disfigured.
As for the dark spots on her face, what hardworking woman in the countryside didn't have them? It was also likely due to the gynecological problems she was suffering from at the time—a lasting consequence of the miscarriage her ex-husband's beatings had caused.
So tragic, so unlucky, so ill-fated. That was why those noble people only wanted her blood and bone marrow. They didn't want *her*.
They bought her bone marrow with money. Mo Xiaoman never knew how much. She only saw the go-between hand Liu Fengying a black leather bag. Liu Fengying opened it, took a look, and then lifted out a thick stack of hundred-yuan bills, kissed it, and smiled with satisfaction. She carefully stored it in the hotel room's safe and locked it, never intending for Mo Xiaoman to even get a peek.
Her bone marrow saved the life of that noble, handsome, and cold man in the hospital room. Perhaps out of a pang of conscience, he wanted to reward her. That's what Liu Fengying told her, anyway. Clicking her tongue in an exaggerated display of envy and jealousy, Liu Fengying said the "young master" didn't want her to return to the countryside to suffer any longer. He wanted her to stay in the city and live a life of comfort!
Liu Fengying went back to the village, and just as she'd said, she didn't take Mo Xiaoman with her. Instead, Mo Xiaoman was sent to a place they called a "nursing home."
The place was nice enough. The food, lodging, and clothing were a hundred times better than in the village. But she quickly realized she was a prisoner. She had an entire courtyard to herself, but there was no one to talk to. Aside from the young nurse who delivered groceries and other supplies each day, the only living creatures she saw were the birds in the trees and the ants on the ground.
After a few months, just as she was on the verge of going mad, she finally steeled herself. She knocked the young nurse unconscious, locked her in the room, and ran.
What happens to an uneducated country woman, penniless and wandering the streets? She ran into human traffickers.
She was sold into a remote mountain village and forced to be the wife of a local man. Two years later, when she still hadn't borne a child, the family got her an ID card and had a relative take her away to work as a migrant laborer. Under that relative's supervision, every cent she earned had to be sent back to them.
She dutifully sent them her hard-earned money for a year before running away again. This time, she was luckier. She met a good man. Unfortunately, good people rarely live long; he passed away three years later.
But those three years were the only time in her entire life that she had lived like a human being. What he left her was enough to allow her to face the world with calm composure, to become an elegant, independent woman with self-respect, self-worth, and self-love.
Thinking of that man from her past life, Mo Xiaoman felt her heart quicken. She bit her lip and sighed softly. 'I still have my memories from my last life, which means that good man's kindness has benefited me across two lifetimes! I wonder if he exists in this one, too? I owe him such an enormous debt. I should repay him, shouldn't I? But how?'