My name is Li Shisan.
I don't know why I was called that name—at least not until I was eight years old. Other children in the village have names that are either aggressive and easy to feed, such as Goudan or Tiezhu, or names that bear the mark of the times, such as Jiangjun and National Day. Only my "thirteen" is neither fish nor fowl, like a casual number.
Later I probably understood a thing or two.
This matter has to start from the time when I was not born. I heard the gossiping old ladies in the village secretly discuss that our family—the Li family in a small village that cannot be found on the map under the black market in Heilongjiang Province—had once been "rich." It's not wealth in terms of money, but another kind of "richness" that is inexplicable and makes people feel spine-chilling.
