“Shanqiu, it’s not that I want to rush you, but what will you do if you keep carrying on this way? And to think that you’re the only university graduate in our family!”

Shanqiu, Shanqiu, Shanqiu.. I started to hate my own name.

Eventually, I stopped having any expectations for myself. The next year, I got married to a completely unfamiliar ex-coworker who said he really loved me.

During the wedding reception, both my mother and father were extremely happy, receiving several thousand dollars worth of registry money, and yet didn’t give me a cent. They told me in pretty words and phrases, “You didn’t have a job for two years, did you think that we were supporting you for free? Once you earn some money, then come back and ask us for it!”

Using my new husband’s connections, I found a new teaching job. I had originally thought that even if there was no love in my life, I would still be able to live out my life peacefully, with a man who loved me by my side.

However, I never imagined that even that was only one of my ‘too good to be true’ dreams.

“The house is filthy, don’t you know how to clean it up a bit! Why did I even marry a woman like you who don’t know how to do household chores? As a trophy to just stand there and look pretty?”

“Such a pampered princess! You can even injure yourself washing clothes? You’re tricking no one! Do you not want to live together anymore? You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? Don’t look at me like you were wronged! If I wanted to look at a pretty face, I’d go to a whorehouse, why would I need you?”

Every day, at home there would be the sound of things smashing and him yelling like a monkey.

Every day, there would be many new wounds on my body. However, even if I told my family this, they would only mock me for being useless.

Kill them. A voice whispered in my ear.

Kill him, and you’ll be free.

Years passed, the same as the first day, in pain. Until finally one day, I heeded that voice.

Kill him.

Then I’ll be free.

I prepared carefully, enduring the inhumane torture my husband subjected me to, and then sharpening my chef’s knife in the middle of the night.

The moment when I raised my hand and plunged the knife down, I let myself smile.

Wonderful.. it was finally over. The problem that had troubled me all these years turned out to be able to be resolved with such a simple method.

I buried my husband and reported him missing. The police came and investigated it carelessly, his family came and cried loudly. And then this entire thing was like a rock sinking to the bottom of the sea, everyone continued on with their own lives. That death didn’t seem to really affect anything.

The funniest thing was, not even a year after my husband had died, my mother who was graying at the temples, pulled me aside and started nattering away again.

“Shanqiu, look at you, it’s a pity that your luck isn’t very good. It wasn’t easy for you to marry, and now this damned man has gone missing somewhere. Let me tell you, my aunt’s daughter has a classmate who has a teacher and he’s about forty. Even though he’s a little old, but I hear that he’s quite honest. And I also think that his family is in the fabric business and are pretty well off. You can’t always be alone, don’t you think you should consider what other people around see you as? Look at your older brother and your older sister, they’ve now become quite respectable in their own right. Even your little sister, even though she’s divorced, she’s also growing her own clothing business. I hear that men are jumping at the chance to be with her..”

This again..

Unbelievable.

It was as if she had been cursed, even a death couldn’t change her mindset. It was as if a woman’s only reason for existence from birth was to marry a man and become his broodmare.

It was like apart from this, ‘a female life’ was completely pointless.

Were women... Just a giant XX?

That voice started whispering in my ear again.

“Kill her.”

“Kill them.”

“Completely, utterly, the pedantic and the hopeless, the dirty and the laughable.”

“Wouldn’t it be good if you killed them?”

“It’ll be fine once you kill them all.”

— That’s quite right.

My mother was still nattering on about something non-stop, and I only stared coldly at the wind-swept scenery outside the window.

— It’ll be fine after they’re all dead. It was that simple.

— Let’s start with this woman.

——————————————————————————

Just when I hesitated, frozen in place, my second aunt suddenly screamed like a crazy beast and charged straight at me. The shiny knife slid past my gaze with a whooshing sound.

“You dumbass! Move!”

Before I could react, Wen Jiubo brought me crashing to the floor, my second aunt’s knife cut through the air, as we knocked a bunch of random things in the hospital room to the floor, making a loud commotion.

“What’s wrong! What’s happening here?”

The sound attracted the attention of some hospital workers. Listening to the footsteps, they were closing in on us.

My second aunt was crouched on the floor like an animal, her sharp ears picking up the sound of the yelling. Suddenly, she leaped, actually jumping out of the window that was taller than a person, and escaped.

“What’s happening?! What happened here?!”

A doctor rushed into the hospital room and the first thing they saw was us in disarray and my grandmother covered in blood.

“There’s an injured patient here, can you please treat her?!”

Wen Jiubo dropped that sentence and pulled open the door, charging out. From here, you could still vaguely see the direction where my second aunt escaped towards.

“Please, I’ll leave it to you.” I also hurried, nodding to the doctor and nurses, and chased behind Wen Jiubo.

“Hey! Wait! What happened here?!” The voice behind us still continued to ask, but I had long since run out of their line of sight.

What was happening.. I was the one who actually wanted to ask this question!

My messy state of mind has finally managed to sort out a piece of information: the one possessed wasn’t my grandmother, but rather my seemingly kind and gentle second aunt.

How could it be? How could it be my second aunt?

Was that to say.. it was my second aunt who had muted my grandmother and caused this entire series of ludicrous events?

“Oh no, they still haven’t left!” Wen Jiubo hollered and my eyes followed in the direction of his gaze.

Wen Jiubo was referring to my male cousin and uncle. I looked carefully, and they were sitting in a restaurant having breakfast, laughing and chatting, as if not worried about what had happened.

“She wants to go there!” I shouted back, startled. My second aunt was currently like an agile bug, utilizing all fours and rapidly crossing the road, heading straight towards the breakfast restaurant where my uncle and cousin were.

“..hahaha, so like I said, she actually prepared a swimsuit and then brought a nose clip and swim ring, dumbly asking us where the swimming pool was.”

“That’s hilarious, she actually thought that there was a swimming pool there!”

My uncle and cousin were still chatting away and laughing, not noticing the danger approaching at all.