Bones Under the Locust Tree - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

In Huai Mountain Village, you can’t say the words “picked up” in front of my mother.

If anyone was foolish enough to mention it, she would chase them halfway down the alley with her herb shovel in hand.

But just because people didn’t say it to her face didn’t mean they didn’t keep it in their hearts.

When I was a child, whenever I went near the well, the women would stop talking.

“Sang Ning is here.”

As soon as those four words fell, even the sound of the water buckets grew quiet.

I asked them what they were talking about just now.

Aunt Wu smiled so hard the corners of her eyes twitched.

“We were saying your mother has a bad temper.”

I believed that for years.

It wasn’t until my twelfth birthday that Aunt Wu secretly tucked an egg into my hand.

She pressed the egg into my palm and kept her voice very low.

“Take it. Eat it on the way back, and don’t let your mother see.”

Before I could even warm it in my hand, a man rushed out of the house.

“Are you looking for death?”

He snatched the egg away.

“Why are you giving it to her? Is there not enough bad luck in this house already?”

Aunt Wu’s face turned pale, and she forced a smile.

“Oh, I was just teasing the girl. I wasn’t really going to give it to her.”

The man cracked the egg against the stove.

“Of all the people to tease, you chose her?”

Aunt Wu didn’t dare say another word.

At the time, I only felt embarrassed.

Later, I learned that many people in the village remembered exactly what day I was born.

The Old Locust Tree at the village entrance was massive.

It was so big that when I hid behind it as a child, ten people couldn’t find me.

But no one in the village liked to go near it.

Children were scolded if they ran close, and livestock were driven away if they were tied near it.

Yet, on the first and fifteenth of every month, every household would go to the tree to burn incense.

Layer after layer of incense ash piled up, and even the rain couldn’t wash it clean.

I once asked my mother about it.

“Since everyone is afraid of it, why do they worship it?”

My mother was chopping herbs, and her knife paused on the cutting board.

“Ah Ning, stop asking about things that don’t concern you.”

She usually had a loud voice and never hesitated to scold the chickens or the dogs.

But whenever she spoke of the locust tree, her voice would drop very low.

After speaking, she would always glance out the window.

When I was fifteen, I snuck out to the tree at night to pick up a kite.

Just as I leaned over, a sound suddenly came from beneath the roots.

It was very soft.

Thump, thump-it traveled up through the soil.

I was so scared I ran back, losing a shoe in the process.

After my mother found out, she made me kneel in the courtyard all night.

She didn’t hit me.

She only looked at me with bloodshot eyes.

“Sang Ning, if you still want to call me mother, stay away from that tree.”

I remembered those words for two years.

And for two years, I truly listened.

But that summer, the hillside collapsed.

And some things were exposed from the earth.

After that, my mother moved me from the west room to the inner room.

If you opened the window in the west room, you could see the Old Locust Tree.

She even stuffed yellow paper into the cracks of the window.

My birth date was written on the yellow paper.

“Do you need to write characters just to block the wind?”

She reached out and slapped the back of my head.

“Stop being smart. Isn’t the wind strong enough?”

At that time, I didn’t know why she was doing it.

I only remember that from that day on, she never dared to sleep soundly.

On the seventh day of the sixth month, it rained for three days.

The hillside on the west side of the village collapsed halfway, and a large section of the Old Locust Tree’s roots was washed out.

The Village Head led men to fill it with soil.

With one thrust of a shovel, something rang out in the mud.

The sound was very crisp.

It didn’t sound like a stone, nor did it sound like a wooden root.

Someone crouched down and brushed the mud away, and their face instantly changed.

A section of white bone was exposed in the mud.

By the time I arrived, a crowd had already gathered under the tree.

No one spoke; even Aunt Wu, who loved to gossip the most, kept her mouth shut.

Someone whispered, “Doesn’t this look like that other time?”

The person next to him immediately covered his mouth.

“Do you want to die? How dare you let those words out.”

When Aunt Wu saw me, the bag of incense ash in her hand fell to the ground with a thud.

She hurriedly bent over to pick it up.

“Girl Ning, why are you here?”

“The tree caused such a commotion, why wouldn’t I come?”

She didn’t dare look at me.

“You can come, you can come.”

The Village Head coughed.

“Disperse, everyone. Don’t crowd around.”

That bone was very thin.

A Red String was wrapped around the wrist.

The Red String was so old it had turned black, and a small copper bell hung from the end.

The wind blew, but the bell didn’t ring.

I looked down at my own ankle.

My Red String was also old, and it also had a bell.

I pulled my skirt down a bit.

My palms were covered in sweat.

My mother rushed out from behind the crowd, grabbed me, and started dragging me away.

Her strength was terrifyingly high, and her fingernails pinched me painfully.

“Mother, let go.”

She wouldn’t let go.

She didn’t even dare to look at that bone.

After being dragged a few steps, my temper flared up.

I violently shook her off.

“What are you afraid of?”

Her lips trembled.

She couldn’t say a word.

Aunt Wu whispered from the side, “Sister Sang, just take the child away first.”

I stared at her.

“Aunt Wu, are you afraid too?”

Aunt Wu gripped the bag of incense ash tightly.

“Girl, listen to your mother. Go home.”

“Why?”

No one answered.

The Village Head glanced at me.

That look was very strange.

He quickly looked away.

But I saw his grip tighten on the hoe in his hand.

He gave a dry cough.

“Sister Sang, take your Girl Ning back. Don’t let her cause an offense here.”

My mother immediately reached for me again.

This time she didn’t scold me, nor did she explain.

She only pleaded in a low voice.

“Ah Ning, come back with Mother.”

She rarely pleaded with me.

So, I went back with her.

Along the way, I looked back three times.

Each time, I saw the villagers still gathered under the tree.

No one dug.

No one dared to touch it.