Shen Burnshuang hated two things most in her life - fire and rainy nights. The fire burned her home, and the rainy night took away all her relatives. In the autumn when she was ten years old, it rained continuously for three days and three nights. She remembered that it was the third day after the Mid-Autumn Festival, and her mother said she would make sweet-scented osmanthus cake for her. But before the sweet-scented osmanthus cake was steamed, the sound of neat footsteps could be heard outside the yard, as well as the metallic sound of scabbards clashing. Then there were screams, screams, and fire. It was raining, but there was fire everywhere in the house. Those people used tung oil, and rain can't extinguish that kind of fire. She saw her father draw his sword to face the enemy, but was shot through the chest by dozens of crossbow arrows. She saw her eldest brother standing in front of her mother and being stabbed through the abdomen. She saw her mother holding her hand tightly, with cold fingertips and trembling lips, saying something about "live on." The mother's hand finally loosened. It was Uncle Yuan who wrapped her in a blanket and escaped from the waterway in the backyard. She remembered that she was soaked all over, and she looked back desperately on Uncle Yuan's back - the outline of her ancestral home was engulfed in flames, and thick smoke rose in the rain, like a monster with its mouth open. A masked man chased after her. Uncle Yuan put her down, picked up an oar and rushed towards her, but was knocked away by the man's palm. When the man was about to kill her, she found the strength to pick up a piece of red-hot iron from the waterway and smashed it into the man's face. The man screamed and covered the left side of his face, and she was picked up again by Uncle Yuan, stumbling and disappearing into the rainy night. Since then, Shen Burnshuang has ceased to exist. The only person who survived was Ran Jiu, a young man who sold bruises in a small southern town.
