Lin Yue

"Ha, I knew you'd run. I've got you—"

Thud.

The broom head smacked him straight to the side. The boys slowly closing in all silently slowed their steps.

Li Xiang touched his face, looking ready to cry.

"Fuck, can't you see she's already attacked? Beat her up!"

Two of them took a few steps forward, but a short boy lagging behind said hesitantly, "Li Xiang, you didn't say we were here to beat up a girl."

Lin Er tightened her schoolbag and faced the group with the broom in her hand.

"Are we fighting or not? Hurry up. I've got things to do at home."

Was that a provocation? It absolutely was. How could the boys put up with it? They immediately surrounded her.

Lin Er regretted that the half bottle of Potions would probably go to waste as she grabbed the broom and swung it at them.

This time, she wasn't afraid of seriously hurting anyone. They'd surrounded her after school; even if they broke a bone, they wouldn't dare have their families come to school and cause trouble for her.

The broom was quickly snatched away, and Lin Er was about to start biting when a group of hooligans several heads taller than them rode over on motorcycles.

One of them looked at her twice, then suddenly stopped his motorcycle.

"Lin Er?"

Lin Er looked up. His bangs covered half his face, and she didn't recognize him.

She lowered her head and bit someone hard enough to draw blood.

"Fuck, a bunch of guys ganging up to beat one girl, and you've got no guts. You even dare gang up on someone from our village!"

Only a few of them came over, but everyone ran except Li Xiang, whom Lin Er was holding down and beating, refusing to let go with her teeth.

A girl wearing smoky eye makeup pulled Lin Er to her feet. Li Xiang got a slap, then ran off crying, holding his bleeding hand. He was angry but didn't dare say a word.

"Tsk, tsk, little sis, you really are from the same village as Yueyue. You've got a vicious bite!"

Lin Er ran a hand through her hair. That was the trouble with long hair: it was easy for people to grab.

Then she looked up at her dear older sister, who had a different father and mother. Hmm, she couldn't tell what she looked like!

"Sis, I had to be vicious. Look how many hands they had compared to me. I had to make up for quantity with quality!"

The young men and women laughed. Lin Er glanced at the boy who had called out to her. For a moment, the long bangs that reached halfway down to the tip of his nose were flung aside. Remembering the name the girl had just called him, she hesitated.

"Brother Yueyue?"

She couldn't be blamed for how mushy that sounded. People there really did have reduplicated names. She was supposed to have been called Yiyi, but because of her youngest paternal uncle, she was named Lin Er instead.

It was the Er from "Cangshan, an inkless painting for a thousand autumns; Erhai, a stringless zither for ten thousand ages." Supposedly, her uncle had thought of the lines, picked out a few nice-looking characters, and written them on slips of paper. She had picked the character Er herself.

That character didn't work well repeated, so she was the one with a single-character given name. Her younger sister was called Huihui, and her younger brother was called Weiwei.

Lin Yueyue flicked his bangs again and tilted his head at her.

"What happened to your face? Did they splash gentian violet on you?"

Lin Er retrieved the broom and shook her head. "No. A few days ago, I got into a fight with the one you just slapped. I put it on myself."

"Did you win?"

Lin Er's eyes curved. She suddenly thought the head hooligan she'd been afraid of as a child was rather cute.

"I took three punches and two kicks, and the back of my hand got scratched. I slapped him three times, kicked him five times, and cut the corner of his mouth. I also gave each of the people who took his side a bite.

"I got a thousand-word self-criticism. They got a thousand-word self-criticism and a month of cleaning toilets. Our parents have to come in on Monday."

Lin Yueyue clicked his tongue and gave her a couple of disdainful looks.

"You're a girl. Why are you fighting people? Don't you know how to call for help?"

Lin Er took a small comb offered by an older girl whose face she couldn't make out and combed her hair into two pigtails.

She had too much hair to hold in one ponytail.

"Come on, I'll take you home."

None of the young men or women said anything. The girl riding behind Lin Yueyue scooped Lin Er onto his motorcycle, then got onto the back of another boy's bike.

Still not quite recovered from her surprise, Lin Er huddled there with the broom, her face growing hot.

Wait, had she just picked her up and put her on the bike?

"Put that broom away. Why carry a broom? Are you bringing other people a weapon? You girls don't have much strength in your hands, so don't carry something that's easy to snatch. Putting a rock in that shabby bag of yours and swinging it at someone's face would work better than a stick!"

Lin Er held the iron bar behind her with one hand and the broom with the other, nodding obediently.

This time, the group didn't race or lean into turns. They dropped her off on the hilltop and left.

With her bag on her back, Lin Er watched them head back the way they had come.

Honestly, she had never expected anyone to help her.

Her village was small, built around a little hillside. Though the villagers shared a surname, they were descended from two different ancestors, so a dozen or twenty households lived on each side, and they rarely visited one another.

Although she called Lin Yueyue "brother," their families weren't related at all. They just shared a surname and lived in the same village.

Lin Yueyue's family made tofu in the village. She saw him at least twice a year; otherwise, she might not even have remembered his name.

Their village belonged to another town, though it was closer to the town where she went to school.

Because a junior high principal had come from their village, even though they could choose to attend school in their own town, most went to school in that town instead.

Lin Yueyue and Lin Er were among the few who studied in this town.

Lin Yueyue had been hanging around as a hooligan since graduating from junior high. He was seventeen or eighteen now, and she had no idea how he had recognized her with her face covered in purple.

He had also meant well by dropping her off on the hilltop. He was the village's negative example, and if any parents saw their children hanging out with him, the children would be sure to get a beating.

Lin Er appreciated it too.

Once the group had disappeared completely from sight, Lin Er took the broom to the new house first, then went back to the old house.

The red-and-blue striped bag under the courtyard corridor was gone. Lin Er breathed a sigh of relief, went back out, and followed the "crack, crack" sounds to the pigsty.

The pigsty, which had stood empty for years, was very clean. Her grandparents were inside threshing peanuts.

Holding a handful of peanut vines, they struck the roots, peanuts still attached, against the crossbar at the edge of a sieve, knocking the peanuts loose.

The dirt and broken peanut kernels fell through the sieve, while the peanuts rolled along the mesh into the pigsty. Once enough had accumulated, her grandfather would bag them and carry them home.

After drying, some would be sold and some pressed for oil. Peanuts for seed had to be picked by hand; the ones knocked off this way wouldn't do.

"Grandpa, Grandma, I'm home."

Grandma Lin didn't turn around. Hearing her voice, she answered and told her to go do her homework.

Grandpa Lin looked back, immediately dropped the peanuts, and pulled her outside the pigsty for a closer look.

"What happened to your face? Did someone bully you? I'm going to find your teacher!"

Grandma Lin turned around and jumped up too. Cursing, she came over to look at Lin Er's face, then pulled her along, ready to go to the school.

Lin Er struggled but couldn't break free, and followed her for a few steps.

"Grandma, it's fine. It's been several days. The teacher already handled it."

Grandma Lin let go of her and took another close look, making sure it was only gentian violet and that there was no swelling.

She raised her hand and slapped Lin Er on the back.

"I sent you to school to study, not to fight. What did you do to get beaten up like this?"

As expected, Lin Er pulled a face. "He pushed my books, and we accidentally got into a fight. The teacher put the gentian violet on me. It looks scary, but it's nothing."

"All right, all right. If you're fine, go do your homework. Your sister isn't back yet. Go cut an apple and save half for her!"