She was sold into marriage at twenty and widowed at twenty-three. For nearly twenty years, she lived in a dilapidated old house with her blind mother-in-law. The villagers called her “husband-killer.” Women avoided her like the plague, while men looked at her with undisguised desire. She thought this was all life had in store for her, until Li Huya, born in 1995, came into her life.
Eleven years younger than her, 188 centimeters tall, all muscle, and a sunny boy whose smile revealed his pointed canines, he was the only university student in the village. His family owned the biggest brickworks in town. Every girl wanted to marry him, but he stopped her at the village entrance and said:
“Yinhua, I've been watching you for three years. From today on, you're my wife.”
Everyone said Li Huya had gone mad. A university student marrying a widow eleven years his senior? His father chased him halfway through the village with a belt.
But Li Huya cornered Yinhua in a cornfield, his breath hot:
“Yinhua, I'm an adult. I know what I want. I want you.” I want you. I think about you day and night.
