A-Lan Battles the Wife-Beater

"I'm begging you. Give me something to eat. At least—at least let the child eat her fill."

A-Lan knelt on the ground, pleading with the man.

The man sat on a bench smoking opium, the white smoke of cheap tobacco curling around them.

"This is your punishment."

Who told you to go out and lead men on? Who said you could leave the house? The man snorted coldly: "Make that little debt collector of yours quiet down. Crying, crying, crying. Enough to deafen a man."

How could she not cry? The child was starving.

Helpless, A-Lan held the baby and bit open her own wrist, feeding her blood into that small, hungry mouth.

The man drank again. Of the rice grown each year, half went into his brews. In the slack farming season he drank and drank without pause, and when the drink was done he would seize A-Lan by the hair, leaving streak after red streak on her body.

"Wuwuwu..."

The baby was crying again.

The man spat curses, let go of A-Lan's hair, and walked step by step toward the bed.

"No. No." A-Lan threw her arms around his leg and was kicked away.

"All you do is cry, you little debt collector."

With one hand the man lifted the baby high. So high—A-Lan remembered her own father lifting her like that, when she was very small.

"Weee—flying—"

"Hahahahaha."

"Wuwuwu."

The child was raised high, then dashed down hard. The crying stopped mid-breath. The man had his silence at last.

"I'll kill you..."

"I'll kill you."

A-Lan's eyes went red. Suddenly nothing on her body hurt anymore, and she lunged at the man.

She was so small—her thigh no thicker than his arm. Unsurprisingly, A-Lan was flung to the ground and couldn't get up again.

"I hate him. I hate him so much."

A-Lan lay staring at the child beside her, gone silent forever.

"I hate him."

Spent from the beating, the man dropped onto the bed and snored.

A-Lan slipped quietly out. She came to the crooked tree again.

"Give me... give me strength... I'll kill him. I'll kill him!"

"Hee hee hee..."

The black mist at the roots rose high, laughing in a way that crawled under the skin.

The mist no longer merely hovered around A-Lan—it sank into her skin, bit by bit. The bruises from the beatings faded slowly, and beautiful A-Lan came back.

A-Lan touched her own body. Apart from the bruises vanishing, nothing had changed.

"Is that all it takes?"

"Go..."

"Go."

When A-Lan got home, the man was up. Seeing her return, he immediately lapsed into command: "Where did you crawl off to die this time? Sooner or later I'll break both your legs."

"I went out for air." A-Lan pulled a small smile.

She never smiled. The first time the man saw her smile like this, a chill slid up his spine.

"Stay in line." He tossed the words out and moved to shove past her.

But she wouldn't move.

A-Lan stood beside him, close as a shadow, an eerie smile on her face, as if everything were about to end.

"You..."

"I'm going to kill you..."

Horror prickled through the man, then boiled into fury: "You dare talk to me like that?!"

Black mist poured from A-Lan's beautiful eyes. The man's eyes went wide.

The next second he dropped to the floor, shrieking, rolling, thrashing without end.

"Aaaaaaah—"

"Hahaha... kill him..."

"Kill him."

The black mist shrieked in A-Lan's ears. She came back to herself, ran outside, and found a knife on the dinner table.

"Ah!"

A-Lan threw herself forward, raised the knife high, and stabbed down again and again. The blade sank into flesh; bloody froth sprayed everywhere.

The strong man only thrashed—not an ounce of fight left in him, like a New Year pig waiting for slaughter.

She stabbed until her strength ran out and the blade snapped half-short with a crack, its tip buried in the man's body.

The man didn't even thrash anymore. He just lay with his mouth open, bubbling blood.

"Killed him..."

The black mist spread out and wrapped the man up, almost gaily, and devoured him bit by bit.

A-Lan panted for breath, watching the mist swallow him. All strength gone, an enormous emptiness surged up. Then she remembered her child, crawled up, and gathered the small body from the floor.

The baby lay quiet in its swaddling, as if only asleep.

"There, there... there, there..." A-Lan rocked the child in her arms and hummed a lullaby, barely audible.

"She killed the man!"

"A madwoman!"

"Savage—there isn't a clean spot left on his body."

"Poisonous whore!"

"What a sin."

The villagers bound her and tore from her arms the child, stiff and cold.

"No! No!"

A-Lan's eyes stretched wide; she shook her head hard. Don't take my baby from me!

The men closed around her and threw her into a pitch-dark thatched hut.

"Burn her!"

"Madwoman!"

"A life for a life!"

the villagers muttered.

That night, A-Lan lay alone on a hay pile that stank of mold. Rats rustled past her feet. She didn't react—just sat with her head down, thinking who knew what.

Maybe thinking nothing. She sat like the dead.

"A-Lan."

Someone was calling her.

"A-Lan."

A-Lan raised her head, wooden. The hut had no window; its single wooden door was locked from outside, opening just a palm's width.

"A-Lan..."

The voices outside were pitched low, as if afraid of waking someone.

A-Lan leaned over and put half her face into the gap.

"Ah! You scared me."

said one of the women outside.

"She's still alive!" Before long, four or five women were crowded into that tiny gap.

A-Lan never went out and knew none of the village women. Of the men she knew a few: the ones who had raped her, and the ones who had snatched her child.

"Are you cold?"

"Are you hungry?"

The women chattered on.

The first woman to call her passed something through—a steamed bun, hardened with age.

"Eat this, all right?"

A-Lan took it. As the bun touched her lips, she suddenly remembered she hadn't eaten in nearly two days and nights.

"Cough, cough..."

"Look at you. Have some water."

Another woman passed in a bottle of water.

As A-Lan took it, she saw the frightening bruise covering the woman's hand.

A-Lan knew that kind of wound best of all. Looking closer—the woman who had passed the bun had a split lip too, that same frightening purplish green hanging there.

"Your man beats you." A-Lan said.

Her voice was so lovely. The women looked at each other, delighted.

"Beats us? What man doesn't?"

"You're so brave. I'd never dare fight back." said a very young bride. Had she stood up to walk, A-Lan would have seen one leg made lame by her man's beatings.

"We'll get you out!"

they said. And out came tools from their pockets, and bit by bit they worked the lock open.

"Come on." Come on, A-Lan.