Under a gray sky, amid mottled walls stained with years of dust and dim, deserted streets, a twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl with a dirty face and childish features ambled home around eight or nine in the evening. Her little frame, less than 1.4 meters tall, cast a shadow stretched by the faint light across a pebble path freshly washed by the rain, as she walked through the narrow, dark alley. She looked lonely and desolate.
The twenty-minute walk home somehow took her an hour and a half... The moment she unlocked the door and stepped inside, she saw her mother, in her early forties, sitting upright on the living-room sofa with a furious look on her face. A thin willow switch lay on the coffee table in front of her. Seeing it, Qing Yi, still standing in the doorway, remained composed. Not a muscle in her face moved. It was just another helping of the usual "willow-switch stir-fried meat." This was routine: a minor beating every three days, a major one every five. Her eyes were cold and distant, without a trace of fear.
"Why are you so late? Don't you know your family is waiting?" As she spoke, her mother stood up, picked up the willow switch from the coffee table, and slowly walked toward the doorway...
The mother approached at an unhurried pace, willow switch in hand. When she was just an arm's length away, the switch slowly rose from its lowered position, poised to strike the girl's frail, slender body...
