After taking the medicine for a few days, I got better.
But even then, I still didn't understand. Where had Vũ Huyên gotten the money? And who had she borrowed it from?
Did she have relatives here?
But my father had once said that Vũ Huyên had no father or mother.
I asked my younger brother, but he said he didn't know either.
He only said that the purse Vũ Huyên had borrowed was a man's style.
Vũ Huyên was like a magician, furnishing our home with everything it needed.
Though things were still very simple, we could survive.
I thought my father was right. Vũ Huyên really was an extraordinary woman; she could always turn something rotten into something wonderful.
For example, she could pick a lock and escape, save us, and even borrow money in this unfamiliar place.
But whenever I couldn't help praising her, she'd say I was making fun of her.
Because she was always saying she was the biggest failure among people who'd transmigrated.
09.
Today, after finishing some thin porridge, I was going to take it to Vũ Huyên.
But I saw her smashing things in her room.
“Damn it, why didn't I study hard when I was a kid? Everyone else who transmigrates can build airplanes and cannons, while I don't even know how to make perfume or soap.”
I asked Vũ Huyên what airplanes and cannons were.
Vũ Huyên didn't answer. Instead, she asked how old I was.
I said I was almost nine, and my younger brother was almost seven.
She gulped down the thin porridge and pointed at me.
“You and Triệu Tranh are going to school. I'll send you to the village tutor!”
I hurriedly shook my head.
“I'm not going. You worked so hard to borrow the money; my younger brother can go instead.”
Vũ Huyên smacked me on the bottom. It was the first time she'd ever hit me.
“You're going. Just try refusing and see if I don't break your legs.”
Early three days later, Vũ Huyên said she was going to borrow money, and once she'd gotten some, she'd take us to find a tutor and learn to read and write.
But she didn't come back until dusk.
When she returned, her hair was disheveled and even the hem of her dress was torn.
“Come on, let's go. We can't stay in this town any longer.”
10.
Suddenly, a crowd gathered outside the door.
Vũ Huyên swore.
“Is this ever going to end? I said I didn't steal it, and I didn't.”
A richly dressed noblewoman ordered her people to search Vũ Huyên.
Vũ Huyên raised a chair over her head.
“Let's see who dares come near me!”
My younger brother and I were terrified, but we each grabbed a little stick and stood beside Vũ Huyên.
But after only a few exchanges, a group of older women had us under control.
Vũ Huyên was beaten until her nose bled.
“Damn it, don't you people know anything about martial honor?”
As Vũ Huyên was beaten, she started talking nonsense.
The noblewoman couldn't find any silver, so she let us go without even saying a word of apology.
Long after they had left, Vũ Huyên finally called me into her room and slowly took off her long skirt in front of me.
I was stunned.
Because it was the first time I'd seen someone sew pockets into their underwear.
She took out a small piece of silver and handed it to me.
“Take it. If the day ever comes when I don't want you anymore, at least you'll be able to afford a meal.”
“And remember this: I can borrow money, but you mustn't. If I catch you doing it, I'll beat you to death.”
11.
I nodded. I understood what Vũ Huyên meant.
I said,
“I understand. I won't borrow money. I'll do needlework and help support the family.”
We left the town and settled in a fishing village.
This time, Vũ Huyên said she couldn't borrow money again because the villagers here were so poor she couldn't bring herself to ask.
Before I knew it, I was nine, and my needlework was getting better and better.
But we still had no savings, and Vũ Huyên was fretting like an ant on a hot pan.
Because I was about to outgrow the age when children first learn to read.
“Maybe I don't need to go to school. If only my younger brother goes, that'll be enough.”
This time, Vũ Huyên was truly furious. My words had touched a raw nerve.
She beat me in a frenzy, breaking the wooden stick.
She was forcing me to remember that girls had to get an education, or they'd have no way out.
After I fell asleep, I had a dream.
I dreamed that someone quietly came over to apply medicine to me.
I dreamed someone told me that she hadn't studied hard as a child and had become a delinquent.
Human traffickers had forced her to steal. When she grew up, she managed to escape, but could only find work as a hostess in a nightclub.
Even after transmigrating, she was still nothing but a useless good-for-nothing.
The dream was very long, and I cried throughout it.
There was a lot I didn't understand.
But I seemed to understand that a girl without any skills would have a miserable life.
When I opened my eyes, there wasn't a soul around.
Only a faint fragrance remained—the unmistakable scent of Vũ Huyên.
12.
Vũ Huyên went fishing in the river.
She said she knew how to swim, so catching fish was the easiest thing in the world.
She got up very early every day and didn't come home until late at night.
My younger brother and I both insisted on going to help.
She heard us out, slammed her chopsticks on the table, and glared at us.
“What for? If you drown, I won't have the money to bury you.”
So I worked as hard as I could at my needlework, while my younger brother sometimes sneaked up the mountain to catch a few pheasants.
Half a year later, we'd finally saved enough for tuition.
For the first time, Vũ Huyên didn't get upset because she hadn't sold all the fish.
The fish she cooked was fresh and delicious, and my younger brother and I ate our fill.
It was the first time we'd eaten meat since my father died.
My younger brother and I exchanged a smile, silently agreeing to eat just one fish and leave the other for Vũ Huyên.
But Vũ Huyên's face darkened.
“Eat it or don't. If you won't, I'll throw it away.”
I hurriedly said,
“I wanted you to have some.”
Vũ Huyên said she was allergic, so I asked her what being allergic meant.
She said it meant you'd die if you ate it.
But while washing the dishes, I sneaked a look and saw her gnawing on a fish bone.
How could eating fish meat kill her, but eating fish bones not?
I kept staring, and then I started crying again.
13.
My younger brother and I studied hard at school, and our tutor praised us as his quickest learners.
When Vũ Huyên found out, she smiled with delight.
So we worked even harder.
I thought life would continue passing by quietly and uneventfully.
But my younger brother became more and more worrisome.
He suddenly became obsessed with martial arts and said he wanted to be a general when he grew up.
I thought Vũ Huyên would give my younger brother a beating.
But she didn't.
She said she supported my younger brother's dream.
She even asked me, “What do you want to study?”
I thought for a moment, then shook my head and said,
“I just need to learn how to read and write.”
Vũ Huyên smacked me on the bottom again.
I felt so wronged.
She'd said men and women were equal, so why didn't she hit my younger brother when he said that, but hit me instead?
“Your younger brother has added another subject, so you have to add one too.”
I understood.
Her idea of equality between men and women applied to me.
I said I wanted to learn needlework, so I could sew lots of beautiful clothes for Vũ Huyên to wear someday.
Vũ Huyên smiled and said, “All right!”
14.
Vũ Huyên hired a martial arts instructor for my younger brother and an embroidery teacher for me.
I had no idea how much silver it cost.
All I knew was that Vũ Huyên grew busier and busier.
She got up earlier than before and came home later.
Her hands had soaked in water for so long that they looked even rougher than Auntie's.
When Vũ Huyên married my father, I was eight and she was eighteen.
But now I was eleven, and Vũ Huyên looked twenty-eight.
Only three years had passed.
I felt sorry for Vũ Huyên and said,
“The neighbors say the waves are rough today, so nobody's going fishing. You shouldn't go either.”
But Vũ Huyên said, “What do they know? Back in my hometown, we have a saying:”
“The stronger the wind, the higher the price of fish.”
Sure enough, something happened to Vũ Huyên.
My younger brother and I waited for Vũ Huyên to come home for dinner, but it was pitch-dark and she still hadn't returned.
We were so worried that we went out to search the shore.
At last, we found Vũ Huyên unconscious on the beach.
Her belly was swollen, her face deathly pale, and her eyes shut tight, but she still clutched her fishing net.
I was scared.
Really scared.
“Stepmother, please don't die. I'm begging you!”
15.
I didn't want to call her Vũ Huyên anymore.
She was my stepmother.
A stepmother who was closer to me than my own mother.
An old man had said that when someone had just died, their spirit wouldn't have gone far.
If their family kept calling them, they could call them back to life.
I held my stepmother in my arms and called her again and again.
My younger brother ran back to the village to ask the neighbors for help.
Before long, the neighbors—both the men and women—came running.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed? The waves are huge today!”
The neighbors clearly couldn't understand why Vũ Huyên had done it.
But I understood.
It was only because she wanted to earn money for my “tutoring classes.”
I let go of my stepmother and kowtowed to each of them in turn:
“I beg you, elders, please save my stepmother! I'm begging you!”
One of the women held a hand beneath Vũ Huyên's nose.
“Thank goodness, she's still breathing.”
She called another woman over, and together they pressed on Vũ Huyên's belly.
I cried out in anguish:
“Please be gentle! I'm afraid you'll hurt her.”
The woman said,
“Silly child, if we're gentle, your stepmother will really die.”
So I didn't dare say anything more.
I began praying to Guanyin:
“Great and compassionate Guanyin, please don't let my stepmother die. Let me die instead.”
My younger brother followed my example and knelt down:
“Don't let Stepmother die. Don't let my sister die. Let me die instead.”
“Ptui, ptui, ptui!” I scolded my younger brother:
“Don't say such things. Nothing can happen to you. You're the only son carrying on the Zhao family line.”
For the first time, my younger brother argued back: “Stepmother said men and women are equal. Only someone with something wrong with their head talks about carrying on the family line all the time.”
I knew that was something Vũ Huyên often said.
But I was his older sister. Didn't I have to convince him to stay alive?
Perhaps our sincerity finally moved Guanyin.
Vũ Huyên retched, vomited a large mouthful, and began coughing hard.
16.
Vũ Huyên didn't die.
Thank goodness.
After the neighbors carried her home, she lay weakly in bed.
Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes.
I said,
“Vũ Huyên, you're crying.”
She gave a little huff and said,
“I'm not. It's seawater.”
Seawater? But I'd just wiped it all away.
Vũ Huyên struggled to sit up, but I pressed her back down.