Widow Tian had completely run aground this time.
Zhang Weimin had made a clean getaway, but she had nowhere to hide. Practically everyone in the village would spit as they passed her gate, and some even threw bricks into her yard.
Zhang Cuicui was especially relentless. Before and after work, she would stand at Widow Tian’s gate and curse her out four times a day, her insults endlessly creative and rarely repeated.
With Widow Tian’s usual temper, she would have come out long ago to trade curses. She’d either deny it to the death or turn the tables by slinging mud and shifting the blame.
These were all well-practiced tactics that had never failed her before.
But this time, they were useless.
Having been caught naked on the bed by so many people, her nerve was completely shattered, like the head of a drum that had been hammered through. No matter how thick-skinned she was, she couldn’t hold her head up any longer.
More than the insults and the bricks, what broke Widow Tian’s heart was her hair.
‘That damn Zhang Weimin! If he hadn’t been in such a rush and forgotten to bolt the door, it wouldn’t have come to this… At least there would have been some way to spin it.’
When Zhang Cuicui burst in with a knife, she was scrambling to find her clothes. She never expected that wretched girl to grab her by the hair; the hand rose and the knife fell with shocking swiftness.
For a moment, Widow Tian thought she was being beheaded and was so terrified she wet herself.
As for Zhang Weimin, he was stunned speechless. When he came to his senses, he leaped off the bed and bolted, not caring in the least whether she lived or died.
‘Men truly are unreliable!’
With her jagged, hacked-off hair, Widow Tian smashed every mirror in her house to pieces. Even if no one was outside cursing her, she was too ashamed to show her face.
With the scandal having blown up to this extent, the village chief had to intervene.
Ji Huan thought they were going to be drowned in a pig cage, but after asking around, she learned that was a form of private punishment practiced in the Southern regions.
For women who had affairs, violated their wifely duties, or failed to remain chaste as widows, their family members would judge the severity of their transgression and punish them by placing them in a pig cage.
For minor offenses, the person would be put in the cage and submerged in water for half a day before being pulled out as a warning. For serious offenses, or even for murdering one’s husband, stones would be tied to the bottom of the cage, and it would be sunk in the river to drown the person.
This practice was not against the law. A husband had the right to kill his adulterous wife and her lover without reporting it to the authorities, and the clan patriarch also had the right to punish such a woman.
Things weren’t so severe here in the Northern Pass region.
If the offense wasn’t considered too egregious, the guilty parties would be brought to the village entrance to recount their deeds in front of everyone and promise never to repeat them.
But for repeat offenders who refused to change, they faced the risk of being expelled from the clan and banished from the village. Alternatively, they could be forcibly sent to the nunnery on the outskirts of the city, which served as a labor camp. There, they would truly live out their days toiling in bleak servitude until death.
On the day Widow Tian was tied up and taken to the village entrance to confess, Ji Huan didn’t go to watch.
She heard that a few rotten eggs were thrown at her, along with clumps of dirt.
Widow Tian’s head was cut open, but instead of trying to stop the blood that streamed down her face, she desperately clutched the cloth wrapped around her head, likely wanting to hide her hideous appearance from prying eyes.
In the end, however, the headscarf was torn off anyway.
Neither the confession nor the promises had been enough to make Widow Tian break down. But the moment her headscarf was ripped off in public, she went berserk, fighting with the villagers to get it back.
Outnumbered, she could only take the beating. In the end, disheveled and filthy, she collapsed to the ground, wailing uncontrollably.
From beginning to end, Tian Jiao never made an appearance.
The other person who was conspicuously absent the entire time was Zhang Weimin.
It clearly takes two to tango, yet the villagers’ gazes were all fixed on Widow Tian. They felt Zhang Weimin had merely made a mistake any man might make, and the main culprit was Widow Tian. Who told her to be so promiscuous, so shameless, so willing to seduce a married man?
Widow Tian was certainly detestable, but as Widow Xie had said…
It takes two people to have an affair, so it should be two people taking the curses and the beatings, side by side.
‘But there was no use dwelling on it; after all, it had nothing to do with me.’
‘Then again, it wasn’t entirely unrelated. Zhang Cuicui was her employee, after all. With her family in trouble, I couldn’t just stand by and watch.’
So Ji Huan had Ji Xuelan send some money to the Zhang Family.
At first, Zhang Cuicui refused to take it. But when she heard it was an advance on her wages so she could get a doctor for Mrs. Liu sooner, she accepted.
The next day, when Ji Huan was heading to Yeyang, Zhang Cuicui was waiting for her at the crossroads early in the morning.
This time, there was no hemming and hawing. She thanked her straightforwardly and went off to work.
Ji Huan thought back to their childish argument on the mountain and then looked at Zhang Cuicui’s retreating figure, which seemed to have matured overnight, and felt a little emotional.
In the afternoon, Zhang Cuicui asked for a short leave to go home.
She had reminded her mother to take her medicine when she left that morning, but she worried her mother might have gotten busy weaving and forgotten, so she wanted to go check.
It was a good thing she went back.
She was still a long way off when she heard her little brother’s cries. Zhang Cuicui sprinted into the yard to see Zhang Weimin pinning her mother to the ground, kicking her.
“Zhang Weimin!”
Zhang Cuicui screamed his name through gritted teeth, snatching up a nearby wooden stick and swinging it at him.
Zhang Weimin was a grown man, after all. The last time he had fled in a panic was because it all happened so suddenly and his daughter had a knife.
This time he was prepared and easily snatched the stick away.
“You wretched girl, do you have any idea who I am? I’m your father!”
Zhang Cuicui helped Mrs. Liu up, her face full of scorn. “You still remember you’re my father? I thought you only had eyes for that whore!”
“You! You’re a young lady, yet all that comes out of your mouth is ‘whore’ this and ‘whore’ that! No wonder people say you’re improper, always lusting after other people’s husbands…”
“Widow Tian told you that, didn’t she? Ptooey! She’s a prostitute herself, so she thinks everyone else is one too.
“Don’t you glare at me. The whole village knows about her disgraceful affairs, but I bet you still don’t. While she was with you, Widow Tian was sleeping with three other men at the same time! A while back, she was fooling around in the cornfield with my second uncle and got caught red-handed by my second aunt. My aunt wanted to eat her alive; she’s the one who smashed her head open yesterday… With her business booming like this, what number are you in line?”
“You… you shut your mouth! I’m going to beat you to death today, you wretched girl!”
Zhang Weimin had already lost all face two days ago, and now his own daughter was tearing away what little dignity he had left and grinding it into the dirt. Feeling his paternal authority completely gone, he raised his hand to slap Zhang Cuicui.
Afraid his sister would be hurt, Little Brother Zhang turned and ran into the kitchen, returning with a cleaver that he handed to Zhang Cuicui.
Zhang Weimin’s face twisted with rage. He never imagined his own son and daughter would gang up on him.
“You little beast! Don’t you know I’m your father? You’ll be struck by lightning for such disrespect! Put the knife down!”
Zhang Cuicui gripped the cleaver, her eyes filled with hatred as she stared at Zhang Weimin:
“You’re not my father! We don’t have a shameless father like you! My mother has worked herself to the bone for this family her whole life, and her health is ruined because of it. It’s bad enough that you beat and curse her at every turn, but you also sneak into a widow’s house! You’re disgusting! I’m not afraid of being called disrespectful, and I’m not afraid of being unable to marry. I, Cuicui, take responsibility for my actions. I’m not some spineless coward. You listen to me: if you ever dare to hit my mother again, I’ll kill you! This family doesn’t need you. Get out! Go find your widow! Get out!”
Zhang Weimin hadn’t planned on staying long anyway. He had only snuck back while Zhang Cuicui was at work to grab a change of clothes and some spending money, but he hadn’t expected Mrs. Liu to refuse him even a single coin.
He was even more surprised that his own children would turn on him with a cleaver, treating him like an enemy.
“Fine, I’ll go! This poor-ass house… I wouldn’t come back even if you begged me! The three of you can just suffer on your own!”
Zhang Weimin spoke with such finality, as if leaving this poor home meant he was free of a burden, that his life would only get better, and that he and Widow Tian could live happily ever after.
Too bad for him, he wouldn’t even live to see the next day’s sun.