Life Plan

Chapter 45, Jiang Xiaonv's Notes

Photos of Lin Guang and Sun Qiang were placed in front of Jiang Xiaonv. Jiang Xiaonv pointed at Lin Guang, then looked down and tugged at her pants. Sun Zhixiao's eyes widened, and her translator almost gritted her teeth: "She said, 'Lin Guang, raped me.'"

Jiang Xiaonv came from an ordinary village. She couldn't speak from a young age. Everyone in the village had their own role, and her role was to do laundry and cook.

It doesn't matter if you can't speak, as long as you can "obey".

In the village, eighteen-year-old girls who haven't gone to school can go on blind dates. A mute girl with an ordinary appearance has no advantage in blind dates except for being able to work, but everyone in the village can work.

In the eyes of her neighbors, Jiang Xiaonv was "disabled," and the men she was interested in also had various "disabilities." Jiang Xiaonv's parents were unwilling to marry her off to these men, but the healthy men didn't want her.

Sun Qiang was the last one to come for a blind date. His parents had passed away early, and his old house had collapsed and was never rebuilt. He worked odd jobs outside and hitched rides with various relatives to come back for the Chinese New Year.

No one in the village wanted to marry this idle man, and Jiang Xiaonv's parents were also unwilling to marry their daughter to him. But he got a wife by simply picking a pot of wildflowers mixed with foxtail grass from the roadside.

That was the first time someone had given Jiang Xiaonv flowers. Many years later, every time Sun Qiang slapped her until her ears rang, she would remember the day he gave her flowers and whispered in her ear, "I heard that when you're dating a girl, you should give her a bouquet of flowers. I'm giving you some too."

Her ears were ringing that day too.

She was as quiet as a snail fairy who only moved when she was working. Her parents, busy making a living, also had to raise three other children. She was invisible, and no one ever paid much attention to her.

She secretly ran away with Sun Qiang.

Sun Qiang took her to a big city and bought her a dress. He said that once they had earned enough money for a wedding banquet, she would wear this dress back to get married. The villagers didn't care about marriage certificates; a wedding banquet was what made it a real marriage.

Jiang Xiaonv couldn't speak, but she was young and hardworking. Sun Qiang introduced her to a job at a restaurant, where she washed dishes with a woman in her fifties. Seeing how hard she worked, the woman introduced her to some handicrafts.

The restaurant closes for four days each month, and Jiang Xiaonv takes the handicrafts home. Sometimes she seals the tape on toys, sometimes she strings keychains. Most of the work is paid 3-5 cents a piece. Jiang Xiaonv didn't understand the price, so the aunt took out a five-yuan note and told her, "You can earn this much money by making a thousand pieces."

Jiang Xiaonv was very happy. A thousand cigarettes would earn her five yuan, enough to buy Sun Qiang a pack of cigarettes. Sun Qiang liked to smoke, and she wanted to make him happy. She wasn't good at anything else, but she was good at housework.

Jiang Xiaonv supported the family's entire income. Sun Qiang was a swearer, a heavy drinker, and a picky eater. He would only work odd jobs for three days at most before feeling tired and needing to rest, but Jiang Xiaonv followed him tirelessly. One Valentine's Day, Sun Qiang found some discarded roses at the factory. He took them home to Jiang Xiaonv, saying he hoped they could be together forever.

Jiang Xiaonv was very happy. She saved up money for her wedding by living frugally, but Sun Qiang could buy whatever he wanted, and her entire salary was deposited into his account. She only made sweet gestures when she saw other people getting married, but Sun Qiang didn't understand what she was gesturing for, and he didn't really care.

Even after Sun Zhixiao was born, they hadn't saved enough money to go home and get married. Sun Qiang said raising a child was expensive, so he introduced Jiang Xiaonv to a job on an assembly line, and her salary was deposited into his account. Jiang Xiaonv knew that Sun Qiang gambled, smoked, went to foot massage parlors, and flirted with other women, but she pretended not to see it. The foxtail grass from that bouquet that once fell into her eye has been blocking her view ever since.

After giving birth to Sun Zhixiao, Jiang Xiaonv never became pregnant again. Sun Qiang wanted a son, and Jiang Xiaonv was willing to have a child for him, but she couldn't conceive. Neither of them went to the hospital for a checkup, but the lack of a son became a constant topic of conversation for Sun Qiang. He became increasingly irritable with each sigh, and Jiang Xiaonv felt it was her fault, not daring to lift her head.

They lived year after year, nurtured by Jiang Xiaonv's forbearance and her own self-created illusions. Until Jiang Xiaonv fell ill, Sun Qiang became even more unhappy. Sun Xiaonv was difficult to manage; she had always attended boarding school. Ever since she saw Sun Qiang bring a strange woman home and sleep with her, she stopped calling him "Dad."

He knew he couldn't rely on his daughter anymore, and he might lose Jiang Xiaonv, who had earned money and served him for so many years.

No one knew what he was thinking, or who brought it up first. Anyway, after Sun Qiang and a group of unemployed men had two drinking sessions, he took 100 yuan from Lin Guang and several 50-yuan deposits, and sold his sick wife.

He hadn't given Jiang Xiaonv a kind look in a long time, so when he sat on the edge of the bed that day, speaking to her gently and telling her to have dinner together the next night, to dress up nicely, and to cook a couple more dishes, Jiang Xiaonv thought that she had finally gotten over her suffering, that she had survived those slaps, and that she was going to have a good life.

She went out early in the morning to buy groceries and wine, and even took out the dress she had prepared for her wedding twenty years ago. Although it was out of fashion, it was her only dress. But so many years had passed, and she was no longer an eighteen-year-old girl; the dress could no longer contain her many years of experience.

She had no choice but to wear the brightest factory uniform. She couldn't remember which factory it was from; she had worked in so many places and had so many factory uniforms, but this one was the only bright yellow one.

She didn't realize that bright yellow would make her complexion look even darker; she only felt that she was radiant and that she was finally about to have better days.

But instead of Lin Guang, she was greeted by him.

Expressing that she had been assaulted by Lin Guang was a very shameful thing for Jiang Xiaonv, who was conservative by nature. She blushed and gestured towards her name. Listening to her daughter recount how she was assaulted, how she escaped using the strength she had gained from years of hard work, and how she frantically slashed at Lin Guang with a knife in a panic, injuring him.

Attorney Yan told her, "We need evidence for these matters. What evidence do you have to prove that you were in that situation at the time?"

"I have it," Sun Zhixiao suddenly said. "When Sun Qiang hit me last time, I crawled under the bed and found some white powder there. The house we live in is damp, and the floor is cement, so you probably couldn't see it when you first checked the scene. It's probably crystallized from repeated dampness and drying during the autumn and winter. Sun Qiang mentioned 'drug' in that phone call, so I guessed there should be more at home. He left in a hurry and only remembered to take money. I later found a small packet of white powder when I got home."

Why didn't you say so then?

"I didn't expect it to be this kind of thing. I thought he was using drugs. I was afraid that my mother would be upset if she found out, so I wanted to wait until my mother's condition stabilized before reporting him."

"Where is it?"

"Buried in the clivia by the door."

Illegal pharmaceutical supply chains will be investigated separately. In this era of big data and high information technology, as long as such things don't appear out of thin air, they can always be found out.

If Jiang Xiaonv is telling the truth this time, and we obtain the chat logs and other relevant information between Sun Qiang and his associates—it's impossible for an organization to operate without leaving any records or information—then establishing a solid chain of evidence would be sufficient. What often complicates cases are the individuals involved themselves.

Sun Zhixiao suddenly turned to Jiang Xiaonv: "Mom, he's still in that alley, right? You know where he is, right?"

Jiang Xiaonv remained silent, as if making a final struggle, or perhaps a final farewell.

She gestured: But children without fathers get beaten.

During Jiang Xiaonv's childhood, children without fathers in the village were the most bullied. It seemed everyone knew he had no one to rely on and could take advantage of him. They were even crueler to him than to Jiang Xiaonv, because Jiang Xiaonv had a father.

"No, I'm all grown up now." Sun Zhixiao held her hand. "Mom, don't be afraid, don't rely on him. Rely on me, I'm all grown up now, I'll protect you."

Looking at her daughter's face, Jiang Xiaonv seemed to see herself at eighteen. The tears finally washed away the swirling weeds, and she saw Sun Qiang's carefree, irresponsible face.

An hour later, Jiang Xiaonv appeared in the alley in a wheelchair and stopped at a tin-roofed house outside an old house.

The tin-roofed houses are illegal structures left over from many years ago. These small houses, which can only fit a bed and a table, were the common rental accommodations for migrant workers twenty years ago.

Aside from being cheap, it has all the downsides. You even have to carry a small gas cylinder outside to cook, and remember to bring the gas cylinder back inside after you're done to prevent it from being stolen.

It's cold in winter and hot in summer. When it rains, it sounds like bullets hitting the ground. Jiang Xiaonv has good hearing, and when she first moved in, she couldn't sleep all night on rainy days. She would even touch the sink with her head while washing dishes. But after a while, she got used to it.

The old house was deserted, located in a corner of an abandoned alley, the tin-roofed structure still standing. The police opened the door, and Sun Qiang was squatting on the metal-framed bed inside. The footsteps around him told him what he was about to face; he knew there was no escape.

His gaze swept over the uniformed police officers, finally settling on Jiang Xiaonv, and instantly turned venomous. He kept his head down, his hands cuffed behind his back, but his eyes remained fixed on Jiang Xiaonv, as if she were the real culprit.

This wasn't the first time Jiang Xiaonv had seen him look at her like that, but at this moment she seriously thought that she didn't want to spend her life with Sun Qiang.