Her abilities had never been able to change the past—Pingping had known this for a year.
She only seemed formidable; in reality, she could only alter things that were vague or ephemeral.
She could change existing records, change her face, restore damaged limbs, but she could not change fate.
Enduring Jiang Yan’s probing gaze, Pingping frowned. “Why do you have so many questions?”
“Well, since you already know, I won’t keep up the act. All the medical staff here have been forcing Le Yi to take drugs. They’re not worth pitying. The rest can be handed over to the Public Security Bureau. I’m the one who killed these people. I heard someone like me will go to juvenile detention. But you still have to fulfill the promise you made to me.”
Jiang Yan: “What promise?”
Pingping: “Register my friends’ household status. And let them go to school.”
Jiang Yan fell silent.
After a long while, she confirmed, “Are you serious?”
Pingping nodded as a matter of course.
“You should think this through again,” Jiang Yan said with a furrowed brow. “Are you planning to control their corpses for the rest of your life?”
*
Pingping never had a proper name.
Jiang He said that when she was still her mother’s daughter, she was called “Ping,” for duckweed, and later Jiang He named her “Bottle,” for pottery.
Pingping didn’t remember any time when she was still called “Ping,” but there was always one memory that stayed with her.
She could recall being very, very small, still swaddled in her mother’s arms, and sensing herself float upward, and as a bystander, she saw herself and her gentle mother.
She never understood what had happened back then, but remembered being weightless, floating, surrounded by sweetness and warmth, feeling happy and safe.
That was the entirety of her memory before she was sold.
Everything after that was Jiang He and the circus.
Ah, those are her only memories, and she recalls that, rather amusingly, she once mistook Jiang He for her mother. Le Yao told her over and over that mothers aren’t like that, but at first, Pingping didn’t believe it—until she did.
Jiang He was far too harsh.
What kind of mother acts like that? Little Pingping once thought the role of mother must be a shift job—when one mother left, another would take her place.
Turns out, it wasn’t like that… Only little Pingping, the size of a bean sprout, worried: she no longer had a mother, but she had gained several good friends.
Jiang He formed something called a circus. There were four other children her age, each special in their own way; one of them could even recite poetry. Among them was a particularly confident little girl who not only recited poetry but also danced with a microphone, moving with such grace. Pingping liked to lie atop a vase and watch her, loudly calling her name and chatting with her.
“Le Yi, Le Yi, can you teach me to recite poetry too?”
Pingping’s voice was childishly sweet.
The proud little girl put her hands on her hips and refused: “I don’t teach dummies. You’re an idiot.”
Pingping was hurt: “But I’m not dumb…”
Le Yi: “You’re not dumb? We all have surnames except you. Obviously, you’re too dumb.”
Pingping lay on the vase, eyes filled with tears, while Le Yi rolled her eyes. “All you do is cry. So annoying! Go play with anyone who wants to. Don’t bother me.”
Le Yao heard this from afar and landed a slap on Le Yi’s head: “You’re the dummy! Bullying Pingping again!”
Le Yi clutched her head and wailed, while Pingping giggled until snot bubbled from her nose.
Le Yao carried Pingping out of the vase, staggering toward Le Yi.
“There, there, don’t cry, sister.”
Le Yi stubbornly turned away. Pingping took this as a game and kept turning circles, trying to see her face until Le Yi, mortified and angry, shouted and ran off to complain to Jiang He.
Jiang He came over and picked Pingping up to put her back in the vase. “Who let you out?”
She asked Le Yao, “Was it you who carried Pingping out?”
The smile on Le Yao’s face vanished. Xiao Jia and Xiao Tian finished their training and stood at a distance, stealing glances.
Jiang He told everyone, “The vase is Pingping’s skin. If a person leaves her skin, she cannot survive. Do you all want Pingping to be without her skin?”
Jiang He’s words scared them senseless.
But Pingping was bewildered. She looked at her clothes, then scratched her head. “Aunt Jiang, Pingping does have skin.”
Jiang He turned with a cold smile. “No rush.”
Half a month later, after passing a medical check, Pingping underwent surgery.
It was such a filthy little clinic, dark and dirty. After the operation, Pingping developed an infection and spent a whole month on the brink of death. But she survived, though she lost her limbs and sight forever.
Losing her sight caught Jiang He off guard, but since she’d chosen a clinic where any operation could be bought for the right price, she had to accept the outcome. Fortunately, Pingping’s performance didn’t require eyesight.
Once the stumps of Pingping’s limbs healed smooth, Jiang He placed her into the vase.
“This vase will be your skin from now on.”
“You must take good care of your skin, alright?”
Pingping didn’t understand anything at all. She only knew to nod. “I will take care of myself.”
She asked Jiang He, “But, Aunt Jiang, I can’t see anything. How can I take care of myself?”
Jiang He laughed, “Don’t worry, I will help you.”
Pingping nodded, still confused.
Jiang He understood sustainable development well. She modified the vase: to make it easy for Pingping to relieve herself, she dug a hole at the bottom; for emergencies, she carved a hatch in the side. Whenever Pingping felt cold, Jiang He would open the hatch and cover her up. Whenever Pingping felt unwell, Jiang He would open the hatch to inject medication.
Pingping was frequently given injections of various medicines. She was at the age when a child grows fastest, yet she grew very slowly. Still, nothing could completely stop her growth—even if it was slow, she continued to expand.
By age six, she was nearly overflowing from the vase.
The vase was much larger than ordinary ones, but for a child, it was still far too small. In the first months, Pingping often cried in pain, screaming hysterically.
“It hurts so much, it hurts so much,” she would bang her chin against the vase. “Le Yi-jie, I hurt.”
Le Yi covered her ears and closed her eyes.
She’d trained hard all day and was sore all over; she had no desire to comfort anyone.
Le Yao hurried over to check on Pingping. “Pingping, what’s wrong?”
Xiao Tian waved a magician’s cloth, showing off his new trick. “Ta-da-ta-da! Xiao Tian, the magician, is on stage! Pingping, look at me!”
Pingping turned her hollow eyes toward Xiao Tian’s voice, “Is it this way I should look?”
Suddenly, Xiao Tian could say nothing.
Xiao Jia glanced at Xiao Tian, then tiptoed over to place a kiss on Pingping’s cheek.
Pingping’s crying stopped abruptly. With her chin resting on the rim, she asked softly, “Was that Le Yi-jie kissing me?”
Le Yi rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I kissed you. Now stop crying.”
Pingping nodded thickly. “Then I’ll try not to cry.”
Seeing that Pingping really did stop, Xiao Jia was puzzled. She whispered to Xiao Tian, “Why do you think Pingping likes Le Yi so much?”
Xiao Tian was baffled, too.
In the end, Le Yao guessed the reason: “Maybe because Le Yi doesn’t take pity on Pingping.”
“She never shows any mercy when scolding her.”
But Le Yi never felt that Pingping liked her; she muttered, “What like? She just hates me. Every time she cries, she comes to me. I’m not going to coax her; so childish.”
Le Yao: “You’re the youngest two here; you have no right to say Pingping is childish. You’re childish, too.”
Xiao Jia stifled a laugh and fetched a big palm-leaf fan to cool Pingping off.
It was midsummer, teeming with mosquitoes; the basement Jiang He rented had no air conditioning. The children lay wide awake, tossing restlessly in the heat. Le Yao finally suggested a relay song.
“Five tigers, five tigers, running fast, running fast—” She sang softly. “One can walk the tightrope—”
“One can do magic!” Xiao Tian chimed in energetically.
“One jumps through the ring of fire.” Xiao Jia clapped her hands.
“One just wants to sleep.” Le Yi muttered, burying her head in the covers.
They all turned to Pingping. Pingping thought a moment, then sang, “One turned into a vase.”
“So strange, so strange.”
*
Their days underground didn’t last. By coincidence, Jiang He made contact with a manager at an underground performance venue.
Decked in luxury, the manager came to their tiny basement.
It was full of flying insects and the stench of waste not properly cleaned up, but as soon as the manager saw Pingping, his eyes lit up.
“Absolutely perfect!” He gave Jiang He a thumbs-up.
“Just follow my lead—once this little gem is on stage, you’ll be buying a villa downtown in less than half a year!!”
Jiang He had spent every penny she owned on Pingping’s surgery and treatment; she was sick of being poor, so she eagerly signed a contract with the manager.
The day arrived, and the underground theater’s curtain rose.
Each child gave their all, Le Yi and Le Yao twisting their bodies at impossible angles. On the highwire, they wore no safety gear; the whole point was the thrill of danger as they bent and crawled above the ground.
Below them, Xiao Jia, barefoot, danced atop scalding hot bricks. Her feet were covered in thick callouses, but she still twisted her face in pain. Emaciated Xiao Tian was trapped among steel plates by a clown. The clown pretended to fumble and dropped a steel knife, cutting a lock of Xiao Tian’s hair.
The audience’s screams nearly tore through the roof. Countless red bills were flung into the air, raining down on the stage.
Jiang He pushed Pingping onto the stage. Pingping felt herself burning up, even though she was blind; the stares felt like knives, slicing her body into pieces.
“What a miraculous work of art!” someone shouted.
“How did she survive?”
“Too beautiful. I thought something like this only existed in doctored images.”
“Can we touch her? Name your price!!”
Jiang He pushed Pingping to the edge of the stage; countless hands rested on her head, encircling her like a suffocating net—she was a wind that could not escape.
The show was a massive success. Jiang He earned hundreds of thousands in one night and became the acclaimed leader of the circus, famed for her human oddities. Tickets were impossible to come by.
The children’s standard of living improved immensely. They moved into air-conditioned rooms; Pingping was finally allowed to stretch her twisted bones.
She always longed for the breeze, wished her body could feel it.
So Jiang He made perfect use of her wish, controlling her moods with a secret door and a lock.
When the lock on the vase’s side was opened, Pingping, with Le Yao’s help, tilted her mutilated lower body toward the warm sunlight.
“So comfortable,” she whispered.
Le Yao gently massaged her, Xiao Jia covered her with a blanket, and Le Yi sat by, chin in hand, asking, “Why don’t you cry these days?”
Pingping smiled. “Why would I cry?”
Le Yi fell silent, then asked, “Do you hate Jiang He?”
They’d grown older, seemed to know how to control their emotions, and tasted the hardships of the world.
“I don’t know,” Pingping answered truthfully.
She asked them, “Have any of you ever hated someone?”
The children all replied no, so Pingping said no as well.
“I haven’t hated anyone either. What is hate?”
Le Yi: “It’s wanting to crush her to pieces!”
Pingping shook her head hastily. “Don’t, that sounds painful.”
Le Yi: “Why are you still worrying about Jiang He?”
Pingping quickly explained, “No, I mean your hand would hurt from crushing someone. Besides, I don’t have hands…”
Le Yi rolled her eyes.
Jiang He returned and Pingping’s time in the sun ended. Her soft flesh was pushed back into the vase, the lock fastened, and the others sent off to train.
“See you tonight, Pingping,” Xiao Jia patted the vase in farewell.
“See you tonight.” Pingping nodded her little head.
Training was grueling. By dusk, everyone was exhausted; Xiao Tian fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, and Le Yao, struggling to stay awake, only managed a few words with Pingping before dozing off.
They scattered across their bunks.
Only Pingping was still awake.
Evenings after fresh air were always the hardest. Her bones ached for that feeling of being able to breathe. Her whole body itched as if covered in crawling ants; she could only weep quietly.
She cried so softly that everyone else slept soundly. No one heard her.
After a very, very long time, there was a faint rustling.
The clear sound of metal tapping porcelain; suddenly Pingping stopped itching. The lock was opened; someone gently drew her lower body outside. Though she could not move her upper half because of the vase, it was enough—enough to bring her joy.
Le Yi whispered, “So annoying, can you stop crying already?”
Pingping was bewildered. “Did Aunt Jiang tell you to open the lock?”
Jiang He never did this. She never allowed her to breathe without a reason.
Le Yi snorted, “Of course not. I stole the keys. Awesome, huh?”
Pingping whispered in admiration, “Super awesome.” Then quickly worried, “But what if you’re found out? You’ll get beaten.”
Le Yi: “Just don’t tell her. If I can steal them, I can put them back.”
Then she asked, “Well? Want some moonlight?”
Pingping nodded furiously. “Yes!”
So Le Yi turned the vase toward the window and the moon.
“Just so you know,” Le Yi rattled the key ring, “I don’t like you at all. I just think your crying is too noisy.”
Pingping: “Mm-hmm.”
Le Yi: “And don’t act like you know me or anything. You’re really annoying.”
Pingping: “Why am I so annoying?”
Le Yi stuck her chin up, arrogance all over her little face. “Exactly. Good that you know it.”
*
In the blink of an eye, two years passed. Jiang He made more money at the underground venue than she could spend in a lifetime.
Her ambitions grew—no longer just money, but the right to live under the sun.
But the audience wouldn’t accept that.
They loved the circus, loved everything freakish; they looked as glamorous as one could imagine, but took pleasure in watching human ugliness. When someone caught wind of Jiang He’s intent to leave the underground circuit, they even sent her threat letters, vowing to expose her on the news if she dared.
Jiang He’s identity was always one-sidedly public. She never knew who her patrons were—they all wore masks, hiding in the mist. Jiang He had no choice but to build a legitimate circus while still performing underground.
But she hated it.
She couldn’t choose her own life, and detested the loss of freedom—she came to hate the new circus she’d trained as well.
Eventually, she devised a sort of “death feint.”
While performing in a village, she deliberately started a wildfire. The flames devoured an entire forest. The trained animals scattered; she didn’t care. She just quietly took the few children locked in containers and fled.
After scouting, Jiang He discovered a storage space under the freezer at the Baishan Sanatorium. She bought the facility and became its third director.
The children had a new home.
At first, people still contacted Jiang He. But the underground scene changed fast; as soon as she vacated her spot, new circuses swarmed in. In just three months, Jiang He’s name was forgotten—no one cared about the fates of those five circus children.
Time slipped by. For several months, the children spent the happiest days of their lives in that confined space.
Jiang He no longer forced them to practice; they no longer had to take the stage if they didn’t want to.
Xiao Jia liked to stretch her arms up; since they were hidden underground, under the freezer, the room was a few degrees colder than usual.
“I love it. So cool,” said Xiao Jia.
She’d always gone barefoot over scorching bricks, sometimes jumping through fire. She hated the burning pain.
“If I could, my future home would be in a freezer!”
Xiao Tian was exasperated: “You’d freeze to death!”
“Not me. My wish is practical. I want to gain fifty pounds!”
He tugged on his bony arm. “I’m a boy. I’m way too skinny.”
In the gloomy basement, everyone made their wishes.
Le Yao: “I wish I could have a household registration, so I could go to school.”
She asked Pingping, “What about you?”
Pingping thought. “I still want to see the river. The sound of flowing water is beautiful.”
Pingping had said this wish many times.
Though she couldn’t see, she loved colors. In her mind, every river sparkled with pink and red leaves floating on top.
For her birthday, the children had once painted her such a scene. Pingping had been so happy, kissing the drawing over and over.
Le Yi scoffed at this wish: “No ambition at all.”
Pingping asked peaceably, “Then what’s your wish, Le Yi?”
“I want to live in a big house and go to school,” she said vainly, “Someone as smart as I am will skip grades for sure. If I do it a few times, I’ll be in the same class as kids my age, and a few more times and everyone will call me ‘senior’!”
“But that’s pretty boring. My real dream is to be an assassin,” Le Yi declared, miming. “Holding a huge needle and dressed in a black trench coat with high heels, running through the rainy night—swoosh, swoosh, and I’d take out the enemy, then save the world!”
“Wow—” Pingping had never dreamed so big, but she believed Le Yi really could do it.
“Le Yi-jie is amazing!”
Le Yi tossed her head haughtily.
Happy times always pass in an instant. Half a year later, Jiang He brought them all up to the surface.
Because Baishan Town was far from the city where the underground shows were held, and the children were now forgotten, Jiang He no longer feared discovery. After giving them psychiatric diagnoses, she settled them at Baishan Sanatorium.
There were few patients in Baishan Sanatorium, just enough to count on one hand. They suffered many ailments but were gentle, always sharing what little candy and snacks they had.
Pingping, because of her appearance, could never go out in daylight. So when someone got a treat, they would sneak down to the sub-basement, slip past the freezer, and come to her room, holding the snacks high to feed her.
One time, Le Yi got a tiny bag of tomato chips and, stingy as could be, shared two pieces with Pingping.
It was the first time Pingping ever tasted chips.
She swore it was the best thing ever; she would love tomato chips for her whole life.
But she only ever had them that once.
Sometimes darkness is safety. Jiang He was afraid the children would run away—but breaking their legs would be too much trouble, so she gave them psychiatric drugs with heavy side effects.
Before their very eyes, the children’s mental states grew worse. Their memories became spotty. Sometimes, they’d come down to Pingping’s room and forget why they came.
Pingping, who could see nothing, would often hear hesitant footsteps pausing before her, but no one spoke.
“Who’s there?”
No answer; only the faint sound of breathing.
Often it would be a long, long while before Pingping heard a sigh.
“I was going to bring you some peach jelly,” Le Yao said, “but now I can’t remember where it went.”
Pingping replied at once, “It doesn’t matter. I’m happy just to see you, Le Yao-jie.”
“They all want to come too,” Le Yao said, “but Jiang He’s temper is worse now, so she pulled everyone back to their rooms.”
Jiang He had never been kind, and Pingping could hardly imagine her being any worse.
Le Yao continued, “She felt ill a few days ago—turns out it’s liver cancer.”
“Looks like she’s going to die.”
Pingping listened quietly; knowing Jiang He was dying brought her no joy. It felt wrong to be happy at someone else’s end. In the end, she nodded lightly. “I understand.”
Where Pingping could not see, Le Yao’s gaze was mournful.
“But what about Pingping?”
Pingping laughed as if she didn’t understand. “Whatever happens, happens. Just take care of yourselves.”
…
Her words proved prophetic.
Sometimes, sorrow comes too soon, and fate judges you first.
Pingping’s health was always poor. After moving to Baishan Sanatorium, Jiang He gave her all kinds of life-sustaining drugs for this most perfect specimen—but never imagined her failing body would one day be key to their survival.
Once Jiang He was diagnosed with liver cancer, her grandest ambition came down to a single wish—she wanted to live.
So she spent a fortune to import experimental drugs for liver cancer, not yet approved for clinical use. The few remaining healthy children became test subjects.
Jiang He maintained her contacts at the shady clinic that had performed Pingping’s surgeries. She bought out the place, bringing the amoral doctors and nurses to Baishan Sanatorium, to the newly remodeled lab. They unleashed experimental drugs on the children’s bodies. Jiang He’s money flowed out like water. None of this, Pingping knew.
At first, she only realized her friends had suddenly vanished.
With so few patients left in the sanatorium, the staff made no effort to keep their voices down.
After two months, Pingping finally picked up bits of news.
She learned Le Yi had a rare blood type, and a rich foreigner had been seeking such blood for two years—for his beloved daughter. Some children are cherished beyond measure; others are just blood banks.
She learned more.
That Xiao Tian had fallen into a coma.
That Xiao Jia vomited blood at dawn the previous day.
That Le Yao-jie had more than thirty tubes in her body.
That, so she could make money in the future, Jiang He was desperate to find a donor match for the dying Le Yi.
She wanted to continue Le Yi’s blood.
Eleven months after their arrival at Baishan, three months after her friends disappeared, Pingping matched as a compatible donor for Le Yi. The vase was smashed, and she was taken to the lab by Jiang He.
Famous transplant experts from China and abroad came to this dismal place to perform bone marrow surgery for her and Le Yi.
Meanwhile, the other three children, too sick to be of further use, had what healthy organs remained removed and sold at high prices.
Perhaps out of gratitude for Le Yi’s value, Jiang He didn’t immediately sell her organs after dealing with the other corpses—she simply left her to die in the ward.
Pingping lay right beside her.
She was hooked up to every possible life-support machine. Le Yi, freshly clean, made a stark contrast.
Pingping felt deeply sorry to Le Yi; she didn’t know how things came to this.
They were all so healthy.
The suffering of the circus never made them this ill.
How did they all die so suddenly?
Three days after surgery, Le Yi woke from her coma.
“What rotten luck.”
Her voice was frail, but her spirit seemed good.
“I really hope there’s no next life. I’m so sick of living.”
In the hospital bed, Pingping sobbed uncontrollably, her tears flooding down. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry, my foot,” Le Yi rolled her eyes. “Cry, cry, cry. That’s all you know.”
Pingping couldn’t stop her tears.
Le Yi ignored her tears and muttered softly, “There’s really only one thing I regret.”
“I really wanted to own some awesome weapon and be a rainy-night assassin and save the world. That’s so cool.”
Having said that, Le Yi sighed deeply.
She dug in her pocket and pulled out a tiny handful of tomato chip crumbs, looking mildly disgusted, and with the solemnity of a graveside libation, scattered the powdered chips on the floor.
“Goodbye, Le Yao.”
With each scattering, she spoke.
“Goodbye, Xiao Jia.”
“Goodbye, Xiao Tian.”
Once finished, she closed her fist and punched the air toward the sunlight outside the window, as though striking at the world.
At last, exhausted, she gently closed her eyes.
“Goodbye, Pingping.”