Ah Heng, a child bride from Xikou Town, was sold into the He family at the age of thirteen. Her husband was an idiot. She lit the fire, washed the clothes, and was beaten in silence, like an object bought with money. Six years later, a surveying and mapping team entered the town. Shen Yanqiu, a young man from the provincial capital, asked her what her name was. She opened her mouth and gave an answer that had been forgotten for many years - Liu Hengwu.
Literacy, reading poetry, speaking - she tried to struggle out of a pool of stagnant water. However, in Xikou Town, where the rules are more important than the sky, the awakening of a child bride is an unforgivable sin. The ninth mother-in-law twisted her Buddhist beads to judge her as a "concubine", and her father-in-law waved a bamboo stick to force her to accept her fate. She was sold into the mountains with a clear price tag of 20 yuan as a betrothal gift.
She ran away, went crazy, and finally returned to the town in a faded wedding dress, saying the words that no one wanted to hear over and over again to the well, the trees, and the stones. The figure hanging on the old locust tree was the only time in her life that she made her own decision.
Bai Shouzhuo, an old Juren who could only write poetry but was unable to save others, wrote down everything about her with a bald pen. Those words were buried beside the grave, and in the spring of the next year, a clump of grass with fine leaves and white flowers grew. The people in the town call it Hengwu. Very bitter, but very fragrant.
