Book Synopsis
Book Tags
Donation Rankings
Comment
0 Comments
You May Also Like
墨書 Inktalez
Twenty years, a full twenty years. From his mother's plea of "Please, Mom," he pretended to be mad and endured humiliation for two decades.
At eight years old, on a cloudy day—perhaps it wasn't even cloudy, but in Li Li's memory, it was a day without light. He returned home from school and pushed open the courtyard gate, only to witness his father knocking his mother to the ground, an old pair of cloth shoes pressed against her face, while he raised a stool high above her back before bringing it down heavily.
His mother dared not resist; she could only plead, "I know I was wrong. I won't do it again. It was just that one time; I wasn't thinking clearly. I was foolish and didn't know what I was doing. Wei Min, really, just that once. Afterward, I regretted it. I never expected to become pregnant with this illegitimate child..."
"Damn! I provide for you, feed you, and you betray me with another man! You filthy whore, you deserve to die! You did it and then gave birth to a bastard! I've raised someone else's child for eight years and lived like a turtle for eight years! Damn it, I'll kill you!"
Blow after blow, his mother was left bruised and battered.
Li Li timidly ran to his father's side, tugging at his pant leg and cautiously said, "Dad, please don't be angry anymore. Don't hit Mom..."
Before he could finish speaking, his father—who usually treated him gently—looked down at him with a changed expression. He lifted his foot and kicked Li Li far away. "You little bastard, get lost!"
Li Li clutched his chest and lay on the ground for a long time. At eight years old, he couldn't understand what had angered his father so much.
That night, Li Li returned to the west room where he lived with his brother Li Cheng. Li Cheng had gone to bed early. Li Li lay on his small bed, holding his stomach and tossing and turning unable to sleep. He sat up, covered himself with a blanket, turned on the small nightlight, lifted his nightgown, and saw that his belly was covered in dark bruises. When he touched it lightly with his finger, a sharp pain shot through him.
He gasped in pain and turned off the nightlight. Just as he was about to lie down again, the door suddenly swung open and his father's footsteps sounded beside the bed.
Li Li felt extremely anxious; he didn't know what had displeased his father or if he would be angry about him still being awake at such a late hour. So he carefully lowered himself down, afraid to make any noise.
His father's footsteps were heavy and slow; he must have been drinking because he always walked like this when drunk.
Before Li Li could fully bury himself into the pillow, the blanket was suddenly yanked away.
The air was cool, causing him to shiver as he timidly turned to look at his father. His father's face was red from alcohol; he reeked of liquor and stared down at Li Li with a dazed expression that seemed both angry and filled with hatred.
"Dad..." Li Li whispered.
His father suppressed his breath while staring at him with an odd gaze.
Li Li froze in place, too scared to move.
Suddenly, his father reached out a hand and grabbed the back of Li Li's collar tightly; the hair on the back of his neck was painfully yanked as if pulling him up by it.
"Dad! Dad! It hurts!" Li Li cried out in pain.
His father had lost all gentleness; he yanked Li Li off the bed and dragged him across the floor towards the door.
"Brother! Brother! Help me!" Li Li cried out to his brother Li Cheng who was sleeping in another bed.
Li Cheng woke up with his head buried under the covers but peeked out with bright eyes as he watched Li Li being dragged out of the room. He sighed in relief; thankfully Dad wasn't coming for him. With that thought in mind, he turned over and went back to sleep.
Li Li was dragged out of the main room by his father, pulled through the yard, and thrown into the storage room. He was very scared, lying on a pile of garbage while his father stood at the door, the moonlight falling from above him, casting him as a towering and terrifying shadow. Li Li was enveloped in this shadow, never able to escape it for the rest of his life.
The next morning, Li Li woke up in excruciating pain. He wiped away the dried tears from the corners of his eyes and stumbled out of the storage room. Breakfast time had already passed; his brother had gone to school, and his father had left the house. Only his mother sat alone under the eaves, wiping her tears.
"Mom," Li Li said as he struggled to walk over, "Mom, Dad hit me last night. It hurt so much. He took off his pants to hit me. Mom, please check for me. I think there's blood on my butt; my intestines might come out. Please help me, Mom."
His mother looked up at him with a complex expression. He tugged at her pant leg. "Mom, I really didn't do anything wrong. I got a hundred on my exam; I forgot to tell Dad..."
His mother stood up, ignoring Li Li's pleas. She reached under his armpit and pulled him towards the kitchen. "Mom, slow down; it hurts..."
She brought him to the water tank, picked up a ladle floating on the water's surface, scooped some water, and before Li Li could understand what she was doing, she splashed it all over him.
In winter, the icy water pierced through him. Li Li instinctively shivered and covered his head. "Mom, it's cold; what are you doing?"
But his mother seemed possessed; one hand held onto Li Li while the other continued to splash cold water on him. As it went on, Li Li was soaked through. She even picked him up and threw him into the full water tank.
"Mom—" Li Li struggled to surface but didn't have time to utter a complete word before his mother pressed his head down forcefully into the water.
Through the churning water, Li Li saw his mother's face filled with coldness and disgust, as if separated by an icy river—so blurry and fragmented.
Li Li had a fever but was grateful he survived. That day, if not for a neighbor coming over, he truly believed his mother would have drowned him in that tank.
He trembled all over, alternating between cold and hot, wrapped in blankets with a pounding headache and immense pain. He wanted to see a doctor, but neither his father nor mother showed any mercy or willingness to take him to the pharmacy.
In a daze, his mother appeared by his bedside. She squatted beside him, her rough fingers gripping his shoulder as she uttered a curse-like plea: "Ali, you will be a fool from now on. Remember this—you will be a fool from now on; otherwise, Mom can't stay in this house anymore. I'm begging you; please be a fool. No matter what your dad does to you, don't resist or speak out; just do it for Mom, okay? Please."
Not wanting to see his mother cry, he pulled out his painful hand and wiped away her tears obediently. "Okay."
This was a thin and fragile barrier—more transparent than paper—but it provided their father with a slight sense of security to act recklessly and gave his mother a refuge while condemning Li Li to twenty years of unbearable pain.
From age eight to twenty-eight, he was merely an object for his father and a talisman for his mother—twenty years of hellish suffering where he resembled neither human nor ghost, drooling and wearing tattered clothes while dutifully playing the role of a fool.
Sun Bai remained silent for a long time. During her two years living in the Li Residence, her main focus had been on her husband and avoiding Li Weimin. Although she cared for Li Li somewhat, it wasn't much; she never imagined such shocking events had occurred under the same roof. At that moment, she suddenly understood—the suspicious ambiguous sounds coming from her father-in-law's room that night were not from an outside prostitute but from the abducted Li Li himself. Standing in the yard and hearing it all firsthand, knowing the truth yet choosing to send her own son to her husband's bed was an unbearable reality for her.
In her impression, the mother-in-law had always been submissive and numb. She had once felt pity for her situation, but later, due to her own lack of ambition, Sun Bai began to despise her. Now it seemed that she deserved not only disdain but also scorn.
Compared to Li Weimin, she was not entirely innocent. From Li Li's perspective, she was even more cruel and heartless.
Sun Bai looked up and asked with a choked voice, "Then why didn't you run away after you became sensible? They did not imprison your freedom. When you were fifteen or sixteen and could stand on your own, why didn't you escape?"
Comment 0 Comment Count