Chapter 385: The Light of Beacon
I stared at the cockroach in my hand for a long time, and then a smile suddenly broke across my face.
All my life, I have considered others. From beginning to end, I have pursued fairness. I have made fairness my life’s creed.
But in this world, who has ever considered me?
I hold the scales of justice in my heart as I face the whole world, yet others tip them and make them tilt at every moment.
When everyone introduces me, they say I’m a famous “female” lawyer from Chengdu. I truly hate that title.
What I want is equality, not preferential treatment.
I am a lawyer—whether famous or not. Why must they emphasize that I am a “female” lawyer? I just want to be like any other lawyer. I want them to look at my work ability, not my gender.
But…
None of that matters now.
Right now, I just want to drink some water. I also want to eat something sweet and something salty.
My gums are bleeding. They won’t stop.
I might be dying…
Tell me… has anyone died in this room before?
Why are there so many scratches on the walls?
Those scratches weren’t made by me, yet they are still clear. Did someone once live here?
The next night, Butcher Ma appeared again.
This time, he must have been unable to stand the smell on me, so he deliberately brought a hose.
After he opened the door, without a word, he sprayed water all over me. He recorded the entire process with his phone.
Yes. I was just like a pig.
I remembered that butchers like him use water guns to wash the bodies of pigs.
Now, I have no dignity or personhood left. I am just a pig waiting to be slaughtered.
Can you just kill me?
He sprayed me for about ten minutes. Most of the dirt and mud on my body were washed away.
Although I am very much like a pig, I have to say it feels much better than before. At least I’m clean now.
As a human being… at the very least, you have to make sure you’re clean, right?
I lay helplessly on the ground, waiting for Butcher Ma’s “favor.”
This absurd life is just ridiculous. My living situation is no different from the pigs in his pigpen.
No… to be precise, keeping me is cheaper than raising a pig.
I can survive on just three yuan a day. But a pig can’t.
Pigs have to be raised plump and white to be sold for money. But I don’t need that.
As long as I still have a breath left in me and am still a living woman, I am still useful to him.
When Butcher Ma was on top of me, moving up and down, I gathered all my strength and said one sentence: “I’ll agree to anything… can you let me go…?”
“Let you go… definitely not…” he replied, panting heavily. “I have to keep you locked up for at least a few years… wait until those cops can’t find you anymore…”
A few years…?
Did I hear that right?
There are three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, right?
I’ve only been here for twenty days, and I’m already dying.
Do I have to stay here for a few years?
“I’ll die…” I couldn’t even shed tears anymore. Only my voice was choking. “If you leave me here… I’ll die… Didn’t you want me to be your woman? What if I die…?”
“You’re my woman now!!” he said forcefully. “It doesn’t matter if you die. Before you die, give me a kid. If you give birth to a boy, then you can die.”
Such a life.
Exactly like the one I imagined as a child.
“I agree… I agree to give you a child…” I wailed. “Can you let me out…?”
“Stop dreaming. After you have the kid, I’ll take you out!”
Watching him move his body as if he were lost in his own world, I felt completely hopeless.
He really wants me to die.
Slowly, I wrapped my arms around his neck, opened my mouth wide, and while he was beside himself with pleasure, I bit directly down on his artery.
I wanted to kill him.
But I overestimated myself. I had no strength left at all.
All I did was hurt him enough to leave deep teeth marks.
He let out a howl and stood up, then started punching and kicking me.
I could clearly feel his feet constantly kicking at my abdomen, but I couldn’t block them.
I would definitely be injured. In this completely defenseless state, my internal organs and bones would be damaged.
They would hasten my death.
The next day, I couldn’t even crawl anymore. I could only barely drag myself along the ground.
I kept coughing up blood.
Yesterday, Butcher Ma had splashed water all over the floor here, but there was no drain.
All kinds of excrement and mud were mixed in the water, soaking the moldy hay. In the heat of July, it gave off a maddening stench.
And me?
I couldn’t stand up. I was swimming in the filthy water.
I was covered in all the grime. Now, I was a pig rolling in the mud.
I groped around in the wastewater, looking for today’s water and food.
“Laidi, if you ever go to the city, go to the police station and change your name as soon as you can.”
A voice sounded in my ear. That was my guiding light, my teacher. Her name was different from all the other girls in the village. She wasn’t called Zhaodi, Pandi, Erni, or Sanni. Her name was Ning Wan’er.
That year, she and I were standing by the lake at the head of the village, watching the sunrise.
“Why?” I asked.
“Although you are excellent, this name will bring you a lot of trouble,” she said with a sigh. “I hope you can live a better life, not be trapped here forever. You can choose your own life.”
Back then, I didn’t understand. I was born inferior to others. How could I possibly choose my own life?
“But… what name should I take?”
“Whatever you like. A name is meant to bless your own life, not to bless someone else’s life.” The teacher coughed a few times and continued, “I hope you can be like this lake in the morning. When others give you a bit of warmth, you reflect back the dazzling sunlight. Even if your depths are dark and cold, you still show the world a tenderness like ripples.”
Back then, I couldn’t understand the teacher’s words at all. I only saw her growing more haggard day by day.
The lake in the morning?
Now that I think about it, she must have been sick at that time.
Is she still okay? Did she recover?
Did she live to this day in good health?
As a child, I never even thought to get the teacher’s contact information, and now, after all these years, I can never find her.
“Laidi, I’ve heard a legend,” the teacher said, looking at the lake with a calm smile. “After everything in this world dies, it continues to live on in other forms.”
“What does that mean?”
“If I die one day, I might become a blade of grass, a tree, a bird, or an insect.”
I felt that what the teacher said was very profound, but also very interesting.
So… does that mean no one in this world ever truly dies?
If they die, they become something else and live on forever in another form.
That sounds quite fair.
“I hope the teacher never dies,” I said to her.
“Why?”
“Because there is no one in this world who is so good to me.” I looked into her eyes at that moment and felt as if she wanted to cry. “Teacher, even if you turn into a bird, an insect, or a stone, I don’t want you to die.”
“Then the teacher will wait,” she said with a smile.
Teacher Ning said she was going to leave in three days, but the very next day, she was gone.
She must have had something urgent and returned to the city ahead of schedule.