Chapter 51

The night was deep, with no stars and no moon, and now and then a child's crying came from somewhere in the village.

Ning Shu and Gouwa waited until the household was asleep and slipped out, and came to the wall of the Chen yard.

The Chens were not well off and the place was half falling down, so Gouwa got Ning Shu over the wall without any trouble.

The yard was empty except for a big yellow dog, which heard them and barked once. The red mark on Ning Shu's forehead threw out a light, and the dog went silent at once and took itself back to its kennel with its tail down and did not bark again.

Gouwa kept watch while Ning Shu went to the black room and put the torch through the bars.

The girl heard them and got down off the bed and came to the window.

Ning Shu heard a chain drag and knock as she came.

They had her on a chain.

Like a dog.

"Help me. Please help me." The girl threw herself at the window and took hold of the bars with both hands. "Please, you have to help me. I'm not from here. They've shut me in. I want to go home."

Her breath was coming fast and there was a wild hope all over her face.

She was nothing like the woman Ning Shu had seen that afternoon. She had most likely heard Ning Shu arguing with the old woman after she left, and worked out that this was somebody who might help.

"Don't panic. I'm going to get you out. Do you remember how to reach your family? An address, a phone number, anything. Tell me and I'll contact them."

"I remember. I'll never forget it as long as I live." The words came out of her in a rush. "My name is Wu Qingqing. I'm from Wujia Village, Tonghu County, in Shaanxi. My mum and dad went to Guangzhou for work. I was at a vocational college there, and after I finished, a woman said she'd take me to Shenzhen to find work, so I went with her. We stayed at a guest house for the night, and when I woke up in the morning I was here."

Wu Qingqing was not making much sense and her account kept doubling back, but there was nothing wrong with her mind.

"How do I reach your parents?"

"My father's name is Wu Dajiang. His number is 1879302846, and they live at 38 Huangjia Road in Guangzhou."

Ning Shu wrote all of it down. "Don't worry. I'll get in touch with them straight away."

Wu Qingqing's eyes stayed on her as though she were the one rope out of deep water. "Will you take me away with you?"

Before Ning Shu could answer, Gouwa called to her under his breath. "There's a light on in the house. Sis, have you got what you need?"

So Ning Shu had to say, "I have to go. Don't worry. I'll find your family and they'll come with the police and get you out."

"No. Don't go. I can't stand another day of it. Please take me with you."

Ning Shu said helplessly, "I can't get you out tonight. But I promise you I won't leave you here. I'll come for you."

"Sis, hurry. They're coming out."

Wu Qingqing seemed to understand that Ning Shu could not do it tonight, and said, "Then. Thank you."

Ning Shu and Gouwa went back over the wall and away.

---

Ning Shu rang the number the moment she got home, and a recording told her it was out of service.

The number was dead.

Ning Shu remembered Gouwa's aunt saying Wu Qingqing had been sold into Shangping a year ago. Gone a year, and her parents might well have left and changed their number.

If she could not reach the parents, what then? The police?

Tell them there was a trafficked girl shut up in Shangping and have them come and get her out. That ought to work.

Ning Shu told her aunt about it, and her aunt was gloomy. In the back country, she said, buying a wife is too common a thing, and unless the family reports it, the local station will not put officers on it.

Because if they started pulling women out, four or five households in every ten would turn out to have a bought wife.

There was no end to it. And a great many of the women, particularly the ones who had borne children, did not want to be rescued, so it earned the police nothing but trouble.

To get her out, they had to reach Wu Qingqing's family, so the family could report it where they lived, and the two forces could open a case between them.

Ning Shu remembered that Wu Qingqing had given her an address as well. Perhaps the family could be traced through that.

Time was short and she could hardly go to Guangzhou herself.

So she needed somebody to do it for her, and in Guangzhou she knew nobody. Even the people she had known were from the last life, and none of them would give her the time of day now.

And while Ning Shu was still working at it, Gouwa had already rung Lu Zheng.

"Mm, that's it. We're looking for a family called Wu, in Guangzhou, 38 Huangjia Road. Mm, my sister says thank you, and sends you a kiss."

Ning Shu's face went through several things at once and she snatched the phone off him.

"Lu Zheng, I didn't…"

"Thirty-eight Huangjia Road. I'll have someone on it now. There should be an answer by tomorrow at the latest. Don't thank me."

"Er." Ning Shu could not find anything for a long moment, and in the end said, "Thank you."

Lu Zheng made a small sound.

"Well. Goodnight."

"When are you back?"

"I don't know. When term starts."

"You do find a great deal of other people's business to mind." His voice was slow and easy with it.

"It isn't other people's business. It matters."

Ning Shu said goodnight and got off the phone fast, and turned round to find Gouwa grinning at her, thoroughly pleased with himself.

"Who told you to ring Lu Zheng?"

"Because my big brother's the only one who can actually help." Gouwa said, "He's the only one who can find Wu Qingqing's family that fast, and the only one who'd be willing to do it for you at this hour."

Ning Shu had nothing to say to that.

---

The next morning Lu Zheng rang. He had had friends in Guangzhou asking around Huangjia Road overnight. A man called Wu Dajiang had given up his job and left with his wife a year ago. They had lost their daughter, by all accounts, and had gone looking for her the length and breadth of the country, and nobody knew where they had ended up.

The phone was dead and the address led nowhere. There was no reaching Wu Qingqing's family in the time they had, and Gouwa's plan had failed.

Then Lu Zheng told her he had traced the family's old home in Shanxi and could send somebody, and the fastest it could be done was two or three days.

---

And that night Ning Shu came awake out of her sleep.

In the dream she had heard Wu Qingqing screaming, and the sound of it tore and went on tearing, and there was nothing in it but despair.

Something in Ning Shu knew. Something had happened.

She was out of bed and into her clothes and next door shaking Gouwa. "Come to the Chen house with me. Something's wrong."

Gouwa's eyes were still shut. "At this hour? What could happen at this hour?"

He complained and got dressed all the same and went out with her.

There was a motorbike by the gate. Gouwa got on it with Ning Shu behind him and they went for the Chen house.

With the wind roaring past, Gouwa called over his shoulder, "Sis, are we going to take her by force?"

"I don't know. Let's see when we get there."

"Should we bring my dad? The two of us is a bit."

"Bring your father, in the middle of the night, to carry off another family's wife?"

"Er."

The village was small, and round one fold of the hill they came to the Chen gate.

From a long way off they could hear a woman screaming and crying inside the yard.

Gouwa put the bike by the roadside. "That's like killing a pig."

Ning Shu noticed that every door around them was shut. The neighbours had plainly heard this often enough that they could not be troubled to come out and look.

Ning Shu and Gouwa went into the Chen yard the way they had before.

The little black room where Wu Qingqing had been kept stood open, and there was nobody in it.

The screaming was coming from the house at the back.

The door was shut and the lights were on.

Ning Shu could hear more than Wu Qingqing in there. There were men talking, and laughing.

Ning Shu went to the window and looked in, and her blood stopped.

There were several men in that room, and they had Wu Qingqing held down on the bed while she fought them and screamed. The old woman was standing over her son at the foot of it, shouting at him, pushing him forward.

Ning Shu understood exactly what was being done, and what the old woman meant to force her son to do.

She did not watch any more of it. Her hands were shaking and the rage went up through the top of her head.

She looked at the stack of firewood in the front yard, said the fire charm quickly under her breath, and the woodpile caught. The fire took hold fast and went up, and in another moment it would have the wooden outbuilding beside it.

"Fire! The front yard's on fire!"

The men let go of Wu Qingqing and came out of the door at a run, and the old woman came tearing after them. "God above. Get water on it!"

Inside, Wu Qingqing lay on the bed, pulled about, crying so hard she could not get a sound out.

Ning Shu got her own coat off and put it round her and said gently, "Don't cry. I'm taking you out of here."

Wu Qingqing looked at her and could hardly believe it. "You came back for me?"

"I did. Can you walk?"

"I can. I can walk."

Ning Shu got her up and out of the door, and in the back yard the Chen son was standing staring up at the sky, chanting to himself. "Little mouse, up the lampstand, eating the oil, can't get down."

He was simple, right enough.

And then Gouwa brought the motorbike round to the back gate and waved at her. "Sis, get on."

Ning Shu helped Wu Qingqing over, put her in the middle and got on behind, and at that moment the old woman looked round and saw her son's wife being carried off, and came howling after them and caught up a stone to throw.

Gouwa had already opened the throttle and gone.

A few seconds later the stone curved round in the air and came back and caught the old woman square, and the blood came down her head at once.

---

Gouwa and Ning Shu having carried off another household's wife in the middle of the night, the house they were staying in went up like a kicked hive.