Ma San sold Nian'nian to Shiqiao Village. The buyer was called Li Dashan, the village's famous lazybones. His wife, Wang Cuihua, couldn't bear children. Li Dashan haggled with the human trafficker for half an hour. Finally paid eight thousand. It was his coffin savings. His calculation was simple: raise her a few years and she can work the fields. When she grows up and gets married off, he can collect a bride price.



From that day on, she had a new name: Li Cuiting. Wang Cuihua gave it to her. Said a girl doesn't need anything fancy, just a flower or grass name so she's easy to raise.



Shiqiao Village was nestled in a mountain valley. The nearest town was a two-hour mountain walk away. Cuiting was five years old when she stepped on a stool to cook on the stove. Six years old when she went to the fields to pull weeds. The frostbite on her hands would heal and crack open again. No one cared. There was food. But the bowl was never filled more than half full. Wang Cuihua's words were: no point wasting food on a girl.



She only got to go to school after the village elementary school Teacher Liu came to persuade them three times. Li Dashan squatted on the threshold smoking. After a long time, he threw out a sentence:



"What's the use of studying? One less laborer in the house."



Teacher Liu personally covered the tuition and miscellaneous fees. That was when they relented.



Middle school was in the town. Cuiting's grades were top of her class every year. When the high school entrance exam results came out, she was in the top twenty in the county. The county's Number One High School wanted her with free tuition. Wang Cuihua slapped the acceptance letter on the table:



"Where does our family have money to support your high school? Your dad smashed his leg at the construction site. Has been lying on the kang for three months. The family owes a buttload of debt. You're sixteen. Time to earn money."



Cuiting stared at that acceptance letter for a whole night. The next morning, she placed the acceptance letter under her pillow. Took a two-hour minibus ride to the county seat. Found work on the assembly line at an electronics factory. Eight hundred yuan a month. Sent five hundred home.



She worked at the electronics factory for three years. Days on the assembly line. Nights holding old high school textbooks bought from a secondhand bookstore, reading in the dormitory hallway. The hallway light was voice-activated. It would go out every so often. She would clap her hand against the wall to turn it back on and continue memorizing. Her female coworkers at the dormitory all said she was crazy. What's the use of studying so much? Weren't they all working at the factory like her?



Cuiting didn't pay attention. At nineteen, she had saved enough money to register for the adult college entrance exam. Worked days and studied nights. When she was tired, she splashed cold water on her face. When the results came out, she checked her score on the public phone at the factory entrance. She had passed the admission line for the provincial capital university.



When she went to resign, the workshop director stared at her for a long time.



"A middle school graduate like you can get into university?"



She placed the acceptance letter on the desk. The director didn't speak.



She didn't return to Shiqiao Village once in four years of university. Tuition relied on student loans. Living expenses relied on weekend part-time work. The Li family called several times. Each time asking when she would send money. She sent it three times. Two thousand each time. The fourth time she didn't send it. The calls from that side stopped coming. At graduation, she stood at the school gate for a long time. Other people had parents coming to pick them up, loading the car with bags and packages. She dragged her suitcase by herself to the urban village. Rented a partitioned room. The next day, reported to Ruiheng Real Estate.



From childhood to adulthood, no one had ever genuinely treated her well. Her adoptive parents treated her as labor. Classmates thought she was poor and didn't play with her. Coworkers felt she was gloomy and didn't fit in. She was used to it. She also thought she didn't need it.



Then she met Lu Yichen. The sales team leader at Ruiheng Real Estate. Clean-cut. Smiled to reveal a row of white teeth. On her first day of work, he helped her move her box. The next day, he brought her a cup of soy milk. The third day, he sat across from her in the cafeteria with his tray and said, "Why do you always eat alone? Eat with me from now on."



With just that one sentence, her eyes turned red. From childhood to adulthood, no one had ever cared about who she ate with or whether she had eaten. She thought this was love. Thought that a man who helped her move a box, brought her soy milk, and spoke a few soft words was her destination.



The year they married, she was twenty-six. The wedding was held at a small restaurant below their rental. Three tables of people. The Li family didn't come. When Lu Yichen placed the ring on her finger, she cried. Not out of moved emotion. It was because she felt she finally had a home.



Later she learned that wasn't a home. It was another pit. But that was a later matter.



Now Su Wanting stood in the office building in the provincial capital. Gripping the DNA report in her hand. Looking at the line of text on it: Probability of parent-child relationship: 99.99%.



She was Shen Nian'an. The four-year-old little girl who was stolen from under the osmanthus tree twenty-four years ago. She had returned.



From four years old to twenty-eight years old. From Shen Nian'an to Li Cuiting to Su Wanting. Sold by human traffickers. Used as labor by adoptive parents. Trampled into the mud by mother-in-law and husband. But she didn't shatter. She dug herself out from the earth with her own hands. Piece by piece, put herself back together.



No one came to save her. She herself was the person who came to save herself.