Chapter Thirty-Nine: Family

On the shaded side of the hill, several excavators and construction vehicles were parked at the foot and along the slope. About halfway up, a swath of trees had been felled, lying in chaotic heaps like the gravestones scattered atop the hill. A few trees still stood at the summit, but their lonely silhouettes seemed all the more desolate.

Nestled beneath the trunk of a sawn-off tree, Maomao curled up, its long tail buried in the freshly overturned, soft earth, jaws agape, fangs pressing against the wood.

Beneath it, great swathes of soil quivered, as though some enormous beast was burrowing beneath the surface.

Suddenly, a razor-sharp bird’s beak pierced through the dirt, stretching toward the sky. The beak opened, emitting a harsh, guttural cry; a slender tongue flickered, spraying glistening blue viscous fluid.

“Daddy! What’s that sound?” A little girl’s voice called from the base of the hill.

Maomao’s emerald eyes narrowed until the pupils became thin slits, and black ink seemed to seep from them, gradually staining the entire orb.

...

Lu Meimei did not know how to describe her... home...

She had never thought of her uncle and aunt’s house as home, nor had she ever considered what her other relatives might be like. Even her parents—now a faded memory—were no more than abstract terms to her. In the first two years after moving in with her uncle and aunt, she had cried for her parents, but after that, she never imagined what life might have been like if they had survived.

The home her cousin described felt even more remote.

Her cousin, unconcerned with Lu Meimei’s reaction, calmed herself and continued, “And then there’s the matter of your parents’ death. Do you... know how they died?”

As she spoke, her expression grew subtly strange.

Lu Meimei nodded. “A car accident.”

That was what Grandpa Sun had told her when she clung to his hand, asking for her parents as a child. Her parents had been riding a motorcycle when they left their hometown, and the bike had careened off a field embankment—neither survived.

“Do you know why they fell from the embankment on their motorcycle?” her cousin pressed, her face still wearing that peculiar look.

Lu Meimei fell silent, her heart skipping a beat.

Zhou Hai squeezed her hand, a source of warmth that kept her from shivering.

“Your parents took kickbacks from their factory. When it came to light, they fled with you in the night, leaving you with us,” her cousin said with a faint smile tugging at her lips.

Lu Meimei’s scalp prickled; she dug her fingers into the back of Zhou Hai’s hand.

“They left on the motorcycle, but a police car blocked the village entrance. Panic-stricken, they lost control and tumbled down the embankment... That night, my father chased after them, saw from afar as they fell. My mother told me to look after you and ran out herself. I had to stay inside and watch you. By dawn, the story had spread throughout the village. My parents didn’t come back until daylight. I made you breakfast, but you complained it tasted terrible, swallowing it with tears streaming down your face.” Her cousin laughed, the sound as boisterous and lively as when she was a teenager.

As her cousin spoke, Lu Meimei recalled that day—a turning point in her life. She sat, lost and anxious, in a strange room, facing a cousin she barely knew, listening to the alternating quiet and commotion outside, trembling with fear.

The smile faded from her cousin’s face. “Because your parents died so suddenly, the case was left unresolved. My father was too ashamed to go to the police or your father’s workplace. My mother urged him to go to the city to sort through your parents’ things—maybe there’d be something useful left—but he berated her. It was the first time he had ever scolded her. He’d always been proud of his elder brother. Even after what happened with Grandpa, and when Grandma died without your mother or you attending, he just blamed your mother for leading your father astray. As for your mother, the police notified her family, but—her brother or sister, I think—said they had no such disgraceful daughter and ignored it. You know the rest...”

The wind swept over the hill, over Lu Guixiang’s grave and tombstone, drifting between Lu Meimei and her cousin, vanishing at the horizon.

Lu Meimei’s fingers loosened, yet Zhou Hai’s hand still held hers firmly.

“...Excavator!” A child’s shout rang out suddenly.

Laughter echoed from the shaded side of the mountain.

Her cousin turned her head for a moment, then looked back at Lu Meimei.

“If your parents were still alive, perhaps it would be a different story,” she said suddenly. “All I know is what my mother gossipingly told me.”

“Mama!”

From behind a cluster of trees atop the hill, two heads popped out.

A little girl, her hair in twin pigtails, sat astride a boy’s shoulders—one hand clutching his broad forehead, the other waving enthusiastically. She looked barely old enough for school. The boy was in his early teens, tufts of fuzz on his chin quivering in the breeze. One hand gripped his sister’s leg, the other twirled a foxtail, which he used to tease her face.

The girl squealed, ducked her head, and bit the boy’s spiky hair.

He cried out, “I surrender! I surrender!”

“Giggling!” The girl lifted her face, laughing, and waved at their mother.

Behind them, a bespectacled man hurriedly reached to steady the girl, scolding, “Don’t run so fast.”

A genuine smile dawned on her cousin’s face—one that was nothing like her earlier, strained grin.

“I’m heading home today,” she said, bending to pick up the bucket beside the gravestone. She started toward her little family, but paused after circling Lu Guixiang’s grave mound. “Before you leave, go pay your respects to Grandpa Sun.”

Lu Meimei watched her cousin’s retreating figure.

“After what happened with your parents, my father wouldn’t let them be buried in the ancestral grave, nor would he adopt you. I don’t know what happened on your grandmother’s side—we never saw them, only heard rumors. The whole village felt the same. Only Grandpa Sun... it was he who decided to bury your parents and keep you here. Maybe... if you’d been sent to the orphanage, you’d have been happier... If Grandpa Sun hadn’t fallen ill and been rushed to the hospital that day, my father wouldn’t have...” Her cousin turned abruptly, eyes wide. “The year you went to college, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He spent everything he had on surgery. There was nothing left for treatment after that...”

She lowered her head, eyes squeezed shut. “Grandpa Sun always regretted it after learning what happened. He could never bring himself to blame my father. Before he died, he said he was too ashamed to face you. I heard he wrote a will for you, but burned it himself before he passed... The reason the village insisted we two sisters come back this time is because of him... Otherwise, I’d have moved away with my mother long ago. Would the new village chief or secretary care about our family’s old scandals? No one else would meddle, either...”

She shook her head and laughed at herself. “You probably didn’t want to come. I didn’t want to either...” She glanced at her husband and children. “But my son answered the phone, and the little one overheard. They kept pestering me with questions... My husband encouraged me to come. My mother scolded him for it...”

She sighed and, without pausing again, went straight to her family.

Her husband took the bucket from her hands. She tried to pick up her daughter, but the little girl twisted away, clinging to her brother’s head and pressing fingers to his eyes, making him yelp.

Her cousin and husband hurried to pry her hands loose, scolding her. The girl, perched on her brother’s head, peered earnestly into his eyes.

The boy blinked, then shook his head violently from side to side, his bristly hair poking the girl’s belly and making her shriek with laughter.

“Giddyup! I want to ride the horse! I don’t want Mama to carry me!” the girl shouted, smacking her brother’s head. “Go, big brother! Giddyup!”

“Off we go!” The boy gripped her legs and dashed down the hill.

“Careful!” Her cousin’s husband hurried after them, bucket in hand.

“Zhang Yu! Zhang Xuan!” Her cousin shouted, exasperated, chasing after them.

“Giggling! Hahaha!”

“Hahaha!”

Lu Meimei stared, dazed, at the family of four as they disappeared over the hilltop.

If Grandpa Sun hadn’t kept her, if she’d gone to an orphanage, would she have met a kind sister, a playful brother?

A pair of arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

Lu Meimei turned; it was Zhou Hai.

He tilted his head, resting it against hers. “All that belongs to the previous generation. Honestly, some of my own relatives have their own issues... If you find out about them later, don’t hold it against me, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Lu Meimei burst out laughing, turned sideways, and hugged Zhou Hai around the waist, burying her face in his chest. Muffled, she said, “My cousin never did farm work. Even though they kept chickens and ducks, my aunt never asked her to help feed them... She never cooked or did the dishes. The village kids all envied her. When she turned ten, my uncle bought her a little cake, a new backpack for her birthday. I was so jealous...”

“Mmm...”

“Actually, I never did any chores either...” Lu Meimei’s eyes grew hot with tears. “My uncle hit me, my aunt never had a kind word. She said she was afraid I’d poison the chickens, the ducks, even them... Heh... When I went to school, they never bought me a backpack or a pen, always made me use my cousin’s old things, never cared about my grades, but at least they didn’t stop me from studying. I used to read until midnight with the light on. My cousin and I shared a room—she’d just curse me, pull the covers over her head, and go to sleep...”

Her expression turned dazed. “It’s strange... I always thought they were so awful...”

Zhou Hai gently patted her back. “They’re not bad people. They just never saw you as family.”

Tears welled up in Lu Meimei’s eyes.

“Meimei, I’ll be your family. You’ll have more family from now on,” Zhou Hai said solemnly.

Lu Meimei bit her lip, tears streaming down her face.

If her uncle and aunt hadn’t taken her in, she never would have met...

Her tears stopped abruptly. She lifted her head in alarm. “Where’s Maomao?”

Zhou Hai froze, then hurriedly looked around, searching anxiously for the gray tabby cat.

...

In the darkness of the television room, the glow of a phone revealed a grotesque creature. It had the head of a cat, the saber-teeth of a tiger and a mammoth, human hands growing from its back, and its tail buried in the earth, with only two strange bird beaks protruding.

In its black eyes, the images of a boy and girl were reflected. The pupils shifted, and now reflected the running figure of her cousin.

The earth trembled; through some cracks, sharp, pitch-black bird beaks could be seen.

The camera panned to her cousin’s feet. The ground loosened—something was about to burst through. Her cousin’s foot was about to come down.

The doctor’s blue eyes narrowed.

The ten faces etched on his nails began to pant deliberately, heavily.

“Maomao!” Zhou Hai’s voice suddenly rang out.

On the screen, her cousin’s foot came down, landing directly on the hard bird beak. She twisted her ankle, but quickly regained her balance, not even glancing down before chasing after the children ahead.

“Oh—”

“Ah—”

“Wow—”

All ten fingernails cried out in different tones.

The doctor’s eyes widened again.

The camera returned to the monster.

Its bizarre feline head turned, and in its pitch-black eyes, something began to stir.