The date selected was the death anniversary of Ol’ Xia’s father. That night, the entire Xia family returned to the old compound in memory of Ol’ Xia’s father. According to local culture, that day, they would drink to toast the departed. The family sat around the table, and there were 5 sets of chopsticks. The extra set was for Ol’ Xia’s father. Ol’ Xia by then was 30 and his daughter was 3. Ol’ Xia’s mother had been busy in the kitchen since morning, waiting for her son’s family to arrive.
Ol’ Xia’s mother drank a few cups of rice wine and said, “When I married your father, it was not because he had a government job but it was because he was hardworking and honest. You might have an impression of this. At the time, so many people worked at the factory but how many of them took their jobs seriously?” Ol’ Xia’s mother would always say things like this whenever she had something to drink. “Back then I knew that I was right to marry your old man. How many people were left stranded when the factory closed? But not your father, he immediately bounced back and didn’t he do well for himself? Marriage is not only about matching status but also about personality as well.” The family reminisced about the departed over the wine and eventually all of them felt sleepy. Too tired to clear away the table, they all retired to bed. No one would have known that was the scariest sleep Ol’ Xia ever had. If there was a chance to redo everything, Ol’ Xia would not go back to the compound that night.
This happened 2 years after Ol’ Xia rejected Ol’ An’s loan. From the moment Ol’ Xia rejected Ol’ An, Ol’ An had a serious goal for the first time in his life and that was to take revenge on Ol’ Xia. It was truly ironic. Ol’ An was still a nobody at 30 and he didn’t dare to make a peep before others but when he was around Ol’ Xia, he acted like a lord and Ol’ Xia was there to fulfil his every whim. Sometimes, kindness doesn't necessarily bring good karma. Ol’ Xia’s introverted personality caused a familicide.
That night, while Ol’ Xia’s family was enjoying themselves at home, Ol’ An who still lived next door in this old compound heard everything. The hatred welled within Ol’ An, he couldn’t wait to kill his neighbours. They came from the same background so who gave Ol Xia the right to be more successful than him? They had the same education background so who gave Ol’ Xia the right to lord his success over him? That night, Ol’ An finally lost control over his anger. He had to take revenge.
He stood at the front door and looked up. When the lights went out in Xia family home, Ol’ An grinned wickedly in the dark. This was an apartment given by the government, it was incredibly cheap. It was the only valuable thing An family left but for the sake of revenge, Ol’ An was willing to sacrifice everything. This was an old building so almost the entire frame was made from wood. If there was a lick of flame, everything would go up in flames in matters of seconds. Both An Family and Xia Family stayed on the first floor. To prevent theft, there were rails outside the windows. Ol’ An pulled on the rails. The rails were embedded inside the red bricks, without specialized tools, it was hard to remove them. Ol’ An was very satisfied. He walked to An Family’s front door, the door was firmly closed. Ol’ An tried the door and it was locked. He then returned to his own home.
When he walked out, Ol’ An had a new bucket in his arms. The bucket had liquid sloshing inside it, a kind of liquid which was highly flammable. People called them alcohol. Ol’ An slowly twisted off the cap and poured some of the alcohol down the window. The window frames were wooden so they would develop gaps as time went on. The alcohol slid through the gap and no one was none the wiser. Ol’ An had considered everything. The room beyond the window was where Ol’ An’s family slept. If he lit up the alcohol here, his enemies would soon be engulfed in flames.
Ol’ An’s fingers were itching to light the flame but he calmed himself. To make sure that the plan was flawless, there was another step to complete. After he was done pouring the alcohol, he moved the couch out from his own home and blocked it before An family’s front door. Ol An’s cleverness was always used in places like these.
If Ol’ An and his wife didn’t die in the fire, they would bring the old lady and the young bitch to find the exit. The rails on the window meant that exiting through the windows was not an option, therefore, the entrance became their only escape route. And what Ol’ An needed to do was to block that route. Of course, this would burn down Ol’ An’s own house as well but it didn’t matter anymore, as long as his enemies would die, he was willing to pay any price.
There were 2 matches, 1 was squeezed through the front door gap and the other left on the window frame. The flame snaked through the trail of alcohol and instantly the fire burst. Watching the burning house, Ol’ An cackled. He never felt that happy in his life. In less than 2 minutes, Ol’ An heard the screams coming from inside the house. The burning house lit up the sky like it was daylight. A howling wail pierced through the night, Ol’ An recognized that as Ol’ Xia’s daughter crying. Then there was another female scream. It was Ol’ Xia’s wife. They sounded like the ghosts Ol’ An saw on television but Ol’ An felt no fear, only joy.
‘Well, keep on flaunting your money and your happiness? This is all your fault for not giving me the money! Perfect, now your whole family is going to die. Bring that money down to hell with you! This is what you deserve for your heartlessness!’
The house burned, the people cried and shouted. The people inside had no place to escape, the windows were blocked off and the front door was a ball of fire. They were going to be burnt alive inside this death trap. The fire and screams alerted the other neighbours. They all came to rescue the fire. But once again they were thwarted by Ol’ An’s wisdom. Ol’ An knew that water would only help alcohol spread so their acts of kindness only sped up the fire’s destruction. While the neighbours helped to ‘feed’ the fire, the man stood before the burning house and laughed loudly. The laugh contained the man’s greatest joy.
The screams inside eventually quieted down. The fire crawled over to Ol’ An’s home. The people had not seen a fire that fierce before. Someone called for the firefighter but everyone present knew that it was pointless. No one dared to barge into the building to save the people inside because it was no different from a death wish.
But at that moment, a shrill voice was heard, “Take my granddaughter and go!” It was followed by a scream. It was Ol’ Xia’s mother.
Later, the people found out that the entrance was burning so greatly that there was no way out. However, Ol’ Xia’s mother refused to stay there and wait for all of them to perish. She summoned super human bravery and charged into the inferno. She resisted the scalding pain and pried open the wooden front door, using her life to hack out a path for her son and granddaughter. Ol’ Xia carried his daughter and rushed out. Ol’ Xia was a walking human torch. Everyone rushed forward to douse out the fire on Ol’ Xia.
“Save my daughter, save my daughter.” Before Ol’ Xia fainted, that was all he said. Later, people used the term ‘hell’ to describe what happened to this family. When the firefighters took down the fire, they discovered 2 charred bodies inside the crime scene. They belonged to 2 women, one was young and the other was old. One was Ol’ Xia’s mother and the other his wife. They were so charred, they were unrecognizable.
The police reconstructed the scene when the fire started. Ol’ Xia’s wife slept nearest to the window, next to her was her daughter and finally Ol’ Xia. When the fire started, Ol’ Xia’s wife immediately caught on fire. It was her screams that woke up Ol’ Xia. Ol’ Xiao tried to put out the flames around her wife and daughter but it was already too late. The fire consumed his wife almost immediately. He turned to escape with his daughter but the fire at the door was fiercer than the one in their bedroom.
The nearby residents came to help but they had inadvertently made the flames larger. Just as Ol’ Xia believed they were going to die inside their family home, Ol’ Xia’s mother performed a miracle.
Ol’ Xia was heavily burnt and was in ICU for 3 days and 3 nights. Unfortunately for Ol’ Xia’s daughter, she died when Ol’ Xia was still in coma. Ol’ Xia’s relatives came to help, after spending all of his savings and selling his new home, Ol’ Xia managed to keep his life. But Ol’ Xia’s life was forever changed. All the kids called him ‘monster’.
He lost everything. The savings of 3 generations, a happy family, everything was taken away by a heartless fire.
Ol’ Xia couldn’t face it alone so one night, he moved from China’s southern part to this small town in the northern part. After some travelling, he settled at this so-called Handicapped Village where he wouldn’t stick out too much. And it had been a decade since he arrived here.
Ol’ Xia in front of us suddenly straightened himself even though he still stood facing away from us. His shoulders shuddered like he was crying but I didn’t hear any tears. After a person’s sight was damaged, their hearing would become better.
He had been listening in.
He couldn’t stop his emotions anymore.
And he cried.
1 comment:
Thank you for the chapter.
Such a heavy chapter, thank you for translating it so beautifully.
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