Go all out

Chapter 2: The Woman Who Was Shot

She’d come to let me know she was okay. Overcome with joy, I burst into tears and carried the wild rabbit inside to find my master. But the moment my master saw the rabbit, his face immediately darkened. “Xiaotian, from now on, neither of us will eat any of these things that are brought to us. There are some things we simply can’t afford to mess with!” my master said, shaking his head. I found this a bit strange—my master loves game more than anything. Why would he say something like that today? Also, who were these “certain things” my master was talking about? Since my master had said that, I had no choice but to give the wild rabbit to Xiao Hua next door. I stopped by the market to buy some vegetables on the way. On the way back, my master kept a stern expression, but I didn’t think much of it. After lunch, my master sat in the shop. It was a sunny day, and someone invited him to tell their fortune, but he said he had something to do later and wouldn’t go. I wondered to myself, what could possibly be happening today? Sure enough, in the afternoon, the village chief suddenly pushed open the door and walked in. My master immediately went to greet him, and I naturally walked over out of curiosity as well. The village chief sighed and said, “Old Li, come with me to Old Zhang’s house. Old Zhang was found dead at home—they only discovered him today. Since we’re all from the same village, let’s make arrangements for his funeral.” I was startled to hear this. The “Old Zhang” the village chief was referring to was Uncle Zhang, who had come to see me yesterday. How could he have died so suddenly? “All right, Village Chief, you go ahead. I’ll get a few things ready and be right there,” my master said, seemingly unfazed. After the village chief left, my master’s expression immediately darkened. “Did it have to be this brutal?” I didn’t know what my master meant by that, but upon hearing that Uncle Zhang had died—after all, he was a fellow villager—I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness. I went into the inner room on my own to fetch a box containing everything needed for the burial. Burial locations are a matter of great importance—a person is born into the world and returns to the earth upon death; the custom is to ensure they rest in peace, so everything must be done according to proper procedure. Since this wasn’t my first time accompanying the Master to a funeral, I packed the items quickly. I was about to carry the large box out after him, but the Master took the box from me himself and, with a single command, “You’re not coming!” rode off alone on his electric scooter toward Uncle Zhang’s house. I stood there dumbfounded for a while. Usually, whenever someone in the village passed away, the master would take me along—so why wasn’t he taking me today? Feeling a bit puzzled, I had no choice but to mind the shop by myself. It wasn’t until a little past ten o’clock that night that my master returned. His face was still stern, and he walked straight up to me and said, “Xiaotian, I’m forbidding you from going up the mountain again! Do you hear me?” “Huh? But my mom…” “She’s nothing but a beast! She’s not your mother!” my master said coldly. I was stunned. I’d never heard my master speak of her that way before. What on earth was going on? “Then who is my mom? Is the one who gave birth to me, then abandoned me in the snow where I nearly froze to death, really my mom?” My eyes welled up with tears. I’ve never been able to figure it out. I don’t have any congenital defects—I’m not mentally disabled, I’m not missing any limbs, and I’m not ugly—so why did my parents abandon me? And to leave me out in the snow—how is that any different from just strangling me to death? My master was silent for a long while, then finally just sighed. “Xiaotian, there are some things you’ll understand later.” Understand? I’ll never understand it in my whole life. Early the next morning, my master went back to handle Uncle Zhang’s funeral arrangements. I heard that last night, one of Uncle Zhang’s nieces had kept vigil over him—it was actually quite pitiful. There’s just one more day left; the burial will take place tomorrow. I was minding the shop alone again. It was a cloudy day, and anyone familiar with my master’s rules wouldn’t come by, so the shop was practically deserted. Things were quiet until six o’clock in the evening, when a woman walked in. She was dressed in peasant clothes, and her leg seemed injured—she limped as she walked in. I hurried over to meet her. “Ma’am, are you here for a fortune-telling session? My master is out right now, and we don’t do readings in the evening.” “I know,” the woman said, nodding at me. “Then what brings you here?” I gave the woman a puzzled look. She had a very unusual face—why would she say that? According to the Twelve Palaces of facial physiognomy, this woman’s Life Palace—the area above the eyebrows—was exceptionally full. Combined with her drooping eyebrows, it was unmistakably the mark of a person destined to live to a very old age. But what was strange was the scar—or rather, the wound—between her eyebrows. This invisible mark had disrupted her destiny, shortening her lifespan, and to me, it signaled that she was about to face a calamity very soon! What kind of calamity could happen in the middle of the night? I thought I must have misread it. “It’s nothing—I hurt my leg. Could you help me take care of it?” As she spoke, the woman rolled up her pant leg, revealing a wound that looked like a small mound—red and swollen, with a hole the size of a little finger in the center, from which blood and fluid were still oozing. Isn’t that a gunshot wound? How could a farmwoman have sustained a gunshot wound? I was puzzled, but didn’t dwell on it. I hurried to the back, grabbed the first-aid kit, crouched down to examine her wound, and discovered the bullet was still lodged inside. “Ma’am, the bullet’s still inside, and I don’t have any anesthetic here. Why don’t I take you to the hospital?” That was all I could say. Removing a bullet without anesthesia—not to mention a woman—even I, as a man, wouldn’t be able to handle it. “No need. I came here specifically to see you. Please take care of it for me,” the woman said, shaking her head. “But without anesthesia, I’m afraid you might…” “It’s fine.” Seeing that she’d made up her mind, I had no choice but to grit my teeth and nod. I took a small knife from the first-aid kit, heated it red-hot with a lighter, and prepared to make a small incision in the wound. “You’ll have to bear with it for a moment, ma’am.” “Just get on with it,” the woman said, her expression unflinching. I felt a bit of admiration for her. I gently touched her wound with the red-hot scalpel and found that she still showed no sign of distress—it seemed she wasn’t afraid of pain at all, which gave me the courage to proceed. I had absolutely no experience treating this kind of wound. By the time I’d dug the bullet out, blood had pooled all over the floor. Most people would have fainted from the pain by then, but this woman didn’t utter a sound—she just looked a little pale. Half an hour later, I bandaged the woman’s gunshot wound with gauze and applied a special herbal poultice my master had gathered from the mountains to stop the bleeding and dispel the bruise. The woman stood up and walked straight out. I thought she was heading home, but to my surprise, she came back carrying two dead wild rabbits. “Auntie, what’s this?” I was a bit puzzled. Wild rabbits are hard to hunt—how did a woman like her manage to catch them, and two of them at that? “Here, have some. It’s not enough—I’ll bring you more in a while,” the woman said, looking at me. “No, thank you, Auntie. Please take them back and keep them for yourself.” I quickly shook my head. Two wild rabbits this big would fetch at least three or four hundred yuan if sold to a restaurant. I’d only treated her wound—there was really no need for her to go to such lengths. “I want to eat them. I can catch them anytime.” “Anytime?” I was taken aback. Are wild rabbits really that easy to catch up in these mountains?? “Do you like wild boar? I’ll bring you one next time,” the woman continued. “Um… really, no thanks.” “You don’t want my things anymore?” The woman narrowed her eyes slightly, and her voice took on a different tone—she seemed surprised. Hearing this, I was completely baffled. I was certain this was the first time I’d met this woman—and she wasn’t even from our village—so why was she talking as if she often gave me things? “Auntie, I just gave you a quick treatment earlier. You really don’t need to go to all this trouble.” I said helplessly. Usually, my master only charges thirty for a fortune-telling session. If I charged two wild rabbits for this little treatment, that’d be three or four hundred—wouldn’t my master give me hell? The woman gave me a long, penetrating look, then walked out without saying a word. I reached out to stop her, but seeing that she’d already walked out, I didn’t say anything. With a resigned sigh, I looked at the large pool of blood on the floor. I went inside to grab a mop to clean it up, just as my master walked in from outside. He glanced at the bloodstain on the floor, then quickly sniffed the air. His expression immediately changed, and he rushed over to me. “Xiaotian, who was here just now??” Seeing my boss’s grave, even slightly panicked expression, I was puzzled—wasn’t it just a woman? “A woman in her forties,” I replied honestly. My boss gave a cold chuckle. “A woman? Hmph, your mom came to see you!”