Peach and Lotus

[Writing practice. Starts in December, with an irregular update schedule.]

Yuetang is an ancient town in Jiangnan.

A hundred years ago, nineteen-year-old A-Tao moved to this unfamiliar waterside town with her husband's family. They were skilled at making shaobing, and from then on, they put down roots there for good.

As a child bride, she took her husband's family name, Zhang, so everyone called her Zhang A-Tao.

Only Liansheng didn't call her that. He called her A-Tao.

Liansheng was a well-known orphan in town.

His father had died young, his mother had run away, and his grandmother, who raised him, died when he was ten. If he hadn't been much prettier than most people from a young age, the neighbors might not have pitied him and given him scraps to eat. He would have died long ago.

One night, her husband beat A-Tao nearly to death. At dawn, she stood at the doorway selling shaobing, her face covered in scabs of dried blood. Liansheng quietly walked over, looked at the wounds on her face, and asked softly, "Are you all right?"

She began to cry. Liansheng searched his clothes and pulled out a handkerchief to give her. She took it, but it had a big hole in it. Liansheng gave an awkward smile, and the next day he brought her a new one.

In the middle of the night, her husband beat her savagely again. The noise was so loud that it brought Liansheng, who was on night watch. He rushed in, beat her husband, and took her to the clinic.

Even though Liansheng's actions meant her husband beat A-Tao even more fiercely afterward, her heart, long dead and withered, came fully back to life.

A-Tao seduced Liansheng, and he fell in love with her, throwing caution to the wind.

They often met in secret, plotting to flee Yuetang together, hide their identities in another town, and become a married couple in the open.

But their affair was soon discovered. According to local law, they were both to be drowned in the pond.

A-Tao was afraid to die. She fled, leaving Liansheng behind.

A hundred years later, A-Tao, reborn, stepped into Yuetang once more. She walked to a pond and set up a ritual array.

After waiting day and night, Liansheng rose from the pond, soaked through and deathly pale.

Looking at the woman standing on the bank, he asked mournfully, "A-Tao, have you come back?"

Theme: Reject domestic violence and pursue freedom