01.
Early one morning, after Father had been murdered by a villain,
A great many soldiers burst into the inner courtyard, every one of them clad in gleaming armor.
My younger brother and I hid behind our stepmother, trembling like leaves.
Our stepmother pushed us aside and stood with Father to face the soldiers.
But then she said something we couldn't understand:
“A bunch of lowlifes like you wouldn't last through a single episode back home. The disciplinary inspection commission would've hauled you off for tea ages ago.”
Even after saying that, she still wasn't satisfied. She stepped forward, intending to hit the officer on the head.
Instead, the soldiers knocked her unconscious.
“Vũ Huyên!”
Father hurried to shield our stepmother, only to have two blades pressed to his neck.
In the blink of an eye, Father seemed to have aged ten years.
His eyes reddened as he looked at our stepmother and my younger brother and me. In despair, he said:
“I confess. Spare my family.”
The officer in charge laughed and said:
“Lord Triệu, wouldn't it have been better to confess sooner? Why cling to all that rigid reasoning? The prefect is the highest authority around here!”
And so Father was taken away under guard.
Only later did I learn that Father had been taken to the executioner's block.
As for us, we were put in cangues and locked in a prison cart.
We were about to be exiled to the frontier as slaves.
On the road, my younger brother and I cried until we had no tears left, but we didn't dare wake our stepmother.
Our stepmother had a bad temper, and when she got angry, she was terrifying.
02.
After our stepmother and Father married, our relatives kept coming to borrow money from him every few days.
Our stepmother grew angry and drove them out with a stick:
“When my husband fell on hard times, weren't you the ones who wanted to strike his name from the family register?”
“Now that he's doing well, you've got the nerve to come here and ask for money?”
“Why should you get to enjoy all the good things? Have some shame!”
The clan head pointed a trembling finger at our stepmother:
“You've violated all decency! What a disgrace to the family!”
Our stepmother said no more. She chased the old clan head for two whole miles.
I thought Father would scold our stepmother.
But while our stepmother was making a scene, Father only laughed.
Father always called our stepmother “a remarkable woman.”
Our stepmother really was strange. She was always saying things none of us understood.
She said that back home, men and women were equal.
Once a man got married, a woman should keep him in line.
At first, I didn't believe her.
But then I realized she scolded my younger brother even more harshly than I scolded myself, and I believed her.
When my birth mother was alive, she always scolded me, but never my younger brother.
The prison cart slowly rolled out of the city and began to jolt along.
“Stepmother, you're awake.”
03.
“Damn it. I haven't fought in so long, I've gotten rusty.”
Those were the first words our stepmother said when she woke up.
When she saw the prison cart, the guards, and the cangue around her neck, she started raving again:
“If you've got what it takes, fight me one-on-one! What kind of guts does it take to tie me up like this?”
Our stepmother cursed for an hour, but no one paid her any attention.
I thought maybe the guards couldn't understand what she was saying either.
After cursing the guards until she was hoarse, our stepmother's eyes turned red:
“Marrying your father was the worst luck of my life.”
I understood that.
Father really had treated our stepmother unfairly.
At first, our stepmother hadn't wanted to marry. She always said she was only eighteen, far too young.
But my father was stubborn. He sent eighteen matchmakers to ask for our stepmother's hand.
On their wedding day, our stepmother had Father arrange for a small gold ring to be made.
She called this little ring a wedding ring.
Father put the ring on our stepmother's finger and swore he would take care of her for the rest of his life.
But now Father had broken his promise.
Not only had our stepmother failed to enjoy any good fortune, she was also being exiled to the frontier because of him.
On top of that, she had to take care of me, who was eight, and my younger brother, who was six.
Thinking of that, I bowed my head and knelt before our stepmother.
Our stepmother helped me up. “Don't pretend to be pitiful. I hate that sort of thing. And don't call me Mother from now on. I'm not your stepmother. My name is Lâm Vũ Huyên.”
04.
After that, I didn't dare call her stepmother anymore. I could only call her by her name.
The prison cart creaked as it headed south.
The air was thick with dampness, weighing on everyone's spirits.
Every now and then, even a patch of green by the roadside was enough to excite our stepmother.
Seeing that she was in a decent mood, I tentatively asked, “Mother… Vũ Huyên, could you tell us how you met Father?”
That's right. I did it on purpose.
Vũ Huyên said she wasn't our stepmother, which probably meant she didn't want us anymore.
I wasn't afraid of dying, but I still had my younger brother to think about.
I wanted Vũ Huyên to spare us for Father's sake and not abandon us.
She seemed not to notice my ulterior motive. She casually picked up a blade of foxtail grass and put it in her mouth:
“Before my bed, the bright moonlight…”
Vũ Huyên said she only knew the line by heart as, “Before my bed, the bright moonlight; I wonder if frost is on the ground.”
Father had been curious about the next line of the poem, so he kept after her.
Father had misunderstood. He thought Vũ Huyên was a gifted poet.
But Vũ Huyên said she hadn't studied for very many years and only remembered the first half of the line.
After that, Father became more and more taken with her and wrote her a love poem every day.
At that point, Vũ Huyên got angry, because she hated reading poetry more than anything.
Then Father changed his tactics and brought Vũ Huyên food every day.
He even went along with all of Vũ Huyên's peculiar demands.
Vũ Huyên figured that Father was the most powerful man in the county, and being its queen was good enough for her.
As she said that, the corners of her eyes sometimes curved into crescent moons.
She was so beautiful. I wished I could grow up to be as beautiful as her.
05.
But after talking for a while, Vũ Huyên got angry again:
“Your father was stubborn when he pursued me, and he's just as stubborn now during the trial. He knew the accused was the prefect's brother-in-law. Why couldn't he just turn a blind eye for once?”
“Was his conscience more important than me? Huh?”
I tried to defend Father:
“Father wanted to be a good official.”
Vũ Huyên snorted:
“He got to do what he wanted, but what about me? What about you children?”
She looked out of the cart and continued:
“Don't think I don't know what you're thinking. I don't care about morality, and no one gets to tie me down. I've still got plenty of good years ahead of me.”
Sure enough, Vũ Huyên saw right through my little scheme.
Since she'd said it outright, I stopped hiding my intentions:
“Please, don't abandon us. I don't eat much, and I can work.”
I pulled my younger brother close and wept bitterly.
But Vũ Huyên turned her back on us and said no more.
I knew that once we reached the border, my younger brother and I probably wouldn’t live to grow up.
The forced labor there was so grueling that even adults couldn’t endure it for more than a few years.
That night, I was so heartbroken I couldn’t sleep.
In the darkness, I saw Vũ Huyên using a small wooden stick to pick the lock on the cangue across her chest.
It took only a few tries to open it.
With my small hands, I clutched the hem of her robe so tightly my fingers dug into her flesh.
Startled, she glared at me:
“Let go.”
I gritted my teeth and shook my head hard.
The jailer’s snoring suddenly quieted. Vũ Huyên didn’t hesitate any longer; she seized her chance and yanked me away.
Her silhouette quickly vanished into the vast darkness.
And in that moment, my world went completely dark.
06.
Vũ Huyên’s escape caused little of a stir.
The family of a minor official wasn’t exactly a group of major criminals. Besides, we were traveling thousands of miles south, and it was only natural that some of us might die of illness along the way.
The jailers didn’t make things difficult for me and my younger brother, but the other prisoners bullied us.
They forced us to give up our spacious prison cart, leaving us no choice but to walk.
Our steps were small, so we walked very slowly.
Then it started raining, and the ground turned muddy, slowing us even more.
This time, we finally angered the jailer.
My younger brother and I were kicked to the ground, our mouths full of mud.
We struggled to our feet, trembling, only to be cruelly knocked down again.
Fresh blood ran from the corners of our mouths to the ground, quickly blending with the rainwater and disappearing.
Then let us die.
That was what I thought.
At least it would be better than living in misery.
But I couldn’t die in such a humiliating way.
I summoned the last of my strength, lunged at the jailer, and bit down hard on his arm.
It was rank and foul. So that was what blood smelled like.
But before I could tear the flesh from his arm, a searing pain shot through my back.
“Stop!”
Through my blood-soaked hair hanging over my face, I made out who had arrived.
It was my stepmother.
No, she only let me call her Vũ Huyên.
07.
Her face was dark with anger as she spoke to the jailer.
My ears were ringing, and for a long while I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
A little while later, Vũ Huyên took a ring off her finger and handed it to the jailer.
The jailer smiled and waved Vũ Huyên on.
And just like that, we were released.
I limped along, not even getting the chance to thank her.
Vũ Huyên frowned and spoke first. “Marrying into your family was bad luck. I got nothing out of it, and now I’m stuck with two stepchildren.”
“And now even the last of my savings is gone.”
For the first time, I saw how beautiful she was when she scolded someone. No wonder Father had put up with her scolding.
“Thank you, Stepmother,” I said.
She looked at me with disdain:
“No need. I just wanted to make sure you two weren’t dead. I told you, don’t call me your stepmother.”
“You’re free now. Don’t follow me anymore.”
At that, I started crying again and grabbed Vũ Huyên’s sleeve once more.
After something happened to my father, our relatives had long since disappeared.
I didn’t know where else to go except with her.
I said nothing, only clutching her sleeve even tighter.
This time, she only sighed and didn’t push me away.
08.
The rain gradually let up, and the walls of a city came into view ahead.
But I collapsed, too.
When I woke, I found myself in a dilapidated courtyard.
My whole body ached so badly I couldn’t move, and my forehead was burning hot.
I asked my younger brother where Vũ Huyên had gone.
My younger brother said she’d gone to borrow money to hire a physician.
I tried to get up. I wanted to take my younger brother and find Vũ Huyên.
I was afraid Vũ Huyên would abandon us again.
But then I heard Vũ Huyên scolding someone outside the gate:
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Thank goodness, she hadn’t abandoned us.