Her stepmother sold Shen Qinghe for three hundred yuan to a remote mountain village, where she was supposed to bring good fortune to her new husband. But the groom ran off with the money that very night.
She became the village laughingstock, an ill-omened woman rejected by the living and blamed for bringing death to the “dead.”
On a desperate, rainy night, her in-laws drove her to the back mountain to be buried alongside the so-called “mountain demon.” Instead, she awakened the ability to hear the thoughts of all things.
The rice jar cried that it was hungry, a hen bragged about the twin-yolk egg she had hidden, and from the supposedly haunted house came a man’s suppressed, anguished growl: “Get out... Don’t come any closer...”
She felt her way inside and found not a mountain demon, but Lu Zheng, a battle hero with a disfigured face and a crippled leg, abandoned by the whole world.
He was surrounded by a murderous aura, and his eyes could kill. “Aren’t you afraid of me?”
But Shen Qinghe heard the thoughts that said the exact opposite: “Why is she here? Hurry and leave! Don’t let my ghastly appearance scare you! What if I get her into trouble?”
She suddenly smiled and walked toward the man whose words belied his feelings. Rising onto her toes, she whispered in his ear, “My husband ran off, and my in-laws don’t want me. From now on, you’re my man. No answer? I’ll take that as a yes.”
“D-don’t come so close... She smells so good...” His heart thundered, though his face was darker than the bottom of a wok.
I also really want to have an ear that can hear everything.