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墨書 Inktalez
Five years ago, in a small mountain village.
This was the poorest place in the country, with a staggering seventy percent of the population being single men. Every bride in the village was brought in from outside. There were no female villagers; whether beautiful or plain, all the women had left because it was too impoverished here.
The villagers once discovered a creature in the back mountains that resembled a pig but had a head like a human. People said this was due to single men being unable to contain themselves and mating with their pigs. However, due to reproductive isolation, humans and animals could not produce offspring together, so this was mostly just a rumor. Nevertheless, it did not stop people from developing an interest in pigs.
As such incidents became more frequent, the village chief stood at the village entrance crying out, "This is truly a sin!"
Thus, the chief decided that everyone in the village should contribute some money to collectively buy a few brides from human traffickers. The traffickers told them these were university students kidnapped from City, educated women who could also teach cultural knowledge while fulfilling their duties at night.
The chief was delighted: "Great! Once they have children, they can be teachers!"
With fifty thousand yuan, they acquired three university students, averaging over sixteen thousand yuan each. They might have been forcibly taken off the street and shoved into a van or lured here under false pretenses while meeting online friends. In any case, they ended up in this place. The three female students cried out that they could each give fifty thousand yuan to the villagers if they were released, allowing them to buy their own brides.
Some villagers found this plausible while others were skeptical. They asked the chief, who replied, "Isn't that nonsense? Our village has thirteen single men; if each gets fifty thousand, how much is that? Even the world's richest man only earns fifty thousand a month! These girls must have lost their minds studying at university."
The villagers thought the chief was wise and well-informed; indeed, it took them most of their lives to save up fifty thousand yuan.
From then on, these three young women became the brides of all the villagers. They didn’t have to do anything except fulfill their nightly duties. They had tried to escape before but to no avail; thirteen men took turns watching them—there was no way for them to get away. A few months later, one of the girls could no longer endure this life and, when no one was paying attention, she dashed headfirst into a wall and died.
This was a life lost; for the villagers, it equated to sixteen thousand yuan—especially since she hadn’t even given birth to a child. The remaining two were watched even more closely; they were tied up in a pigpen because it was made of mud and couldn’t cause fatal injuries.
Li Cunzhuang was an honest farmer. Like all other villagers who contributed money, he did not escape this fate; these two university students were also his brides. Most of Li Cunzhuang's time was spent watching over these two students to prevent their escape or suicide. He particularly favored one of them named Zhang Xutong.
Zhang Xutong told Li Cunzhuang that the outside world was vast and full of wonderful things. There was a square object that allowed people to communicate from different locations—if he stood at the west end of the village and she at the east end, they could talk to each other through it. Li Cunzhuang laughed and replied, "I have a loud voice; I can be heard from both ends of the village!"
Not long after, Zhang Xutong became pregnant.
Zhang Xutong told Li Cunzhuang that it was his child. Li Cunzhuang chuckled foolishly, and Zhang Xutong warned him that if he couldn't take her away, other men would eventually harm the baby in her womb. Li Cunzhuang believed her because another college student, Zhang Hui, had been pregnant before but was forced by another man, resulting in the death of her child.
Zhang Xutong claimed that she would only love Li Cunzhuang in this lifetime and looked down on all other men. She expressed a desire to move to the city with him, mentioning that she had a house and that it would be wonderful for just the two of them to live together. Li Cunzhuang was tempted; having a wife and being with her every day made a world of difference.
He agreed, and one day while he was watching over both wives, Li Cunzhuang told Zhang Xutong that he would take her away.
Zhang Hui asked if they could take her along if they planned to escape. After thinking for a moment, Zhang Xutong told Li Cunzhuang that they absolutely could not bring her. It was already dangerous enough for two people to run away; adding a third person would make it even easier to get caught. Besides, if both wives ran away, there would be no wives left in the village. Li Cunzhuang found this reasoning sound and felt that Zhang Xutong genuinely cared for him and the village.
Li Cunzhuang used a towel to gag Zhang Hui and tied her hands and feet so she couldn't alert anyone.
The last thing Zhang Hui said before being silenced was, "Zhang Xutong, may you never find peace."
No one expected that the honest and obedient Li Cunzhuang would actually run away with Zhang Xutong. By the time they discovered Zhang Hui bound up, Li Cunzhuang had already left the village with Zhang Xutong. They traveled for two days by various means of transportation, including ox carts, motorcycles, and cars.
It was Li Cunzhuang's first time in the big city, and it was also his first train ride. On the train, Zhang Xutong bought him a pack of instant noodles and then said she needed to use the restroom. It was his first taste of instant noodles, and he thought he would eat them for the rest of his life.
Then he realized that Zhang Xutong was gone.
From then on, he did not see Zhang Xutong for three years.
Li Cunzhuang did not hide anything from us; it was as if he were a balloon filled with air that burst under our questioning, revealing all the facts. He spent three days in City searching for Zhang Xutong but found no trace of her. He rummaged through trash cans for food and slept on the streets.
For the first time, he became a homeless person, and he discovered that the garbage of City residents was far more delicious than anything he had eaten back in his village.
After searching in vain and rummaging through every trash can in the city, Li Cunzhuang found himself back in the village.
That day, the villagers gathered together, angrily cursing Li Cunzhuang. They claimed he looked honest but was actually wicked to the core. For his own selfish desires, he had been taken away by Zhang Xutong. Now, having been fooled by that woman, he was left with only one wife. How could that be fair?
Li Cunzhuang cried, heartbroken.
The villagers insisted that they couldn't let Li Cunzhuang off the hook unless he could buy another wife. But where would he get the money? So they decided to punish him. Since Li Cunzhuang had let one wife go, they would ensure that he could never be a man again.
They tied him up and prepared to cut off his genitals.
At that moment, Zhang Hui stepped forward to stop everything. Li Cunzhuang looked at Zhang Hui with some gratitude as she addressed the crowd, saying, "Even if you cut this off, as long as those two testicles are there, he won't truly be a eunuch. Bring me a hot iron; I'll burn them off!"
Hatred was stronger than any other emotion, and even as time drew to a close, the hatred remained.
Thus, Li Cunzhuang could no longer be a man. He ran out of the village and broke a leg while descending the mountain. Later, that broken leg was replaced with a wooden one, and he became a true vagabond.
"Zhang Hui, is she still in the village?" Captain Shao asked after a moment of silence, his first question concerning Zhang Hui.
Li Cunzhuang nodded and smiled as he replied, "That woman seems to still be in the village; I haven't been back for a long time."
Captain Shao instructed, "Mary, arrange for a team to go to that village and find Zhang Hui. If she’s willing to come back, bring her back."
Li Cunzhuang continued recounting his story.
Four years passed in a flash. Li Cunzhuang wandered aimlessly in this vast city until one day he finally saw Zhang Xutong. The chances of this happening were pitifully small; by then, his broken leg had been replaced with a wooden one, and he ultimately couldn't catch up with Zhang Xutong. From then on, he began to wander near where he discovered Zhang Xutong until last night's rainy night when he finally spotted her again.
This time, he could not let Zhang Xutong escape.
On a rainy night, Zhang Xutong did not know where to go. The homeless man endured the excruciating pain from his prosthetic limb, desperately following behind. The fierce wind snapped the wire, and the already dim streetlights went out in an instant. He could only rely on the flashes of lightning to see the shadow ahead, silently trailing behind Zhang Xutong.
One flash of lightning followed another; the downpour was relentless. Suddenly, Li Cunzhuang noticed that Zhang Xutong's figure vanished in the flicker of thunder. It was just a brief moment—how could a living person simply disappear before his eyes?
He moved forward slowly and finally discovered Zhang Xutong—or rather, what remained of him.
Zhang Xutong's body was hung on a barbed wire fence, beneath which lay a wooden board with a chair on top. He stood on the chair and looked at Zhang Xutong. The more he looked, the angrier he became; Zhang Xutong had deceived him. Lying was the worst thing in the world, and Li Cunzhuang had never told a lie in his life.
Using his long, sharp nails, Li Cunzhuang began to slice open the corpse's abdomen. He felt hatred; Zhang Xutong had been pregnant with his child, yet her belly was flat now—the child was no longer there.
Li Cunzhuang had heard other homeless men say that consuming a woman's organs could restore vitality; perhaps he could become a man again. So he ate the corpse's viscera, unable to finish it all as large chunks fell onto the wooden board. He was too full to continue but thought he could still eat her eyes.
They say you become what you eat; recently, Li Cunzhuang felt his eyesight was failing, so he consumed Zhang Xutong's eyes.
Afterward, he found it meaningless. He had always wanted to find Zhang Xutong, but now that he had, he felt nothing inside. He didn't care who had killed Zhang Xutong or whether she was truly dead. Li Cunzhuang only wanted to ask one question: When you said you loved me, was it real?
He retraced his steps back to the dilapidated container where he lived. Soaked through, he stripped off his clothes and went to sleep. Before he could fully awaken, we found him.
He said that throughout his life, he had eaten many things; there were plenty of high-quality items in trash bins. He had consumed chicken, duck, fish, beef, pork, and even shark fins and abalone—all treasures he had scavenged from dumpsters. Yet he believed that the best thing he ever tasted was still Zhang Xutong's flesh.
The meat of a woman is delicate, especially her two eyes; they were slightly salty and reminded him of the tofu pudding he ate as a child.
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