We Are Filthy, Born From Mud - Chapter 41

Chapter 41: Yes, She is Relieved. Zhang Yinyang (2)

If a bottle of water is knocked over, who is responsible?

Is it the person who knocked it over? The person who put the water there? Or the person who poured the water in the first place?

This question had long haunted Zhang Yinyang.

To be honest, she didn’t actually know whether Zhang Mumu had died or not. After all, shortly after they returned to the orphanage, the director passed away from illness. Everyone was consumed by anxiety over their own uncertain futures. The children she grew up with were sent to nearby orphanages one after another, and others were gradually adopted. In those days, parting was the norm.

Consequently, no one noticed Zhang Mumu’s disappearance, and Zhang Yinyang never had the chance to investigate her fate. Her mind was constantly filled with fragments of her time with Mumu, and her ears echoed with Mumu’s voice—voice that was childish yet trying so hard to sound mature. Pain transformed into tears and spilled from her eyes.

It’s fine, at least I still have Liangu, she would comfort herself.

With that thought, she returned to the dormitory. The orphanage dormitory was a large shared room where all the children lived together. As people left one by one, it was no longer as lively as before. She walked a few steps and then froze.

Liangu’s bed was covered with plastic sheeting. The bedding, pillow, and cup were all gone. Through the white, dust-shielding plastic, she could only see the slightly moldy bed slats. Zhang Yinyang had always been slow and dim-witted, but for once she was sharp: she knew Liangu was gone too. Whether she had been moved to another orphanage or adopted, Yinyang didn’t know. But she knew that she and Liangu would likely never meet again.

They were still small; for them, a parting was often a final goodbye.

—“Little Cow, Liangu, let’s the three of us get married!”

—“The director said even if we don’t get married, the three of us are family. Our relationship is even stronger than the ones on TV!”

—“Little Cow, Liangu, neither of you can get married, not for your whole lives! If you get married, what will happen to me?”

Tears began to gush out. She cried loudly; hyperventilation made her limbs go numb, and she gradually lost all perception of her surroundings. However, there was no choice but to accept fate. Her family had scattered.

People say that time heals all wounds. But for Zhang Yinyang, time was like the fire on a stove, boiling a pot of porridge until it became thicker and more concentrated. She was never adopted; she stayed in the orphanage until she was sixteen.

Her physical constitution was good, and her movements were swift. As she grew up, she “opened up” and her mind became more active. She successfully passed the admissions for the local police academy.

It was at that moment that the memories of the past surged back. Did she deserve a bright future? Could someone who spent their childhood constantly engaging in petty theft truly have such a future? Would Little Cow hate her?

She crumpled the admission notice into a ball and threw it in the trash. Then, as if that wasn’t enough to vent her frustration, she fished it out, tore the pink notice into tiny shreds, and flushed them down the drain. From that point on, her life went into a downward spiral. She taught herself how to degenerate. She took random day-labor jobs and turned to stealing whenever she was truly broke. Being beaten and cursed at became her daily bread.

While working at a garment factory, a distracted coworker failed to notice Zhang Yinyang still operating the machinery. Her leg was crushed and broken then. She wasn’t sad for long; a disabled leg allowed her to better trigger people’s sympathy, and she earned far more begging than she ever had before. Moreover, the physical and mental pain gave her a sense of pleasure—a feeling of atonement.

Liangu must be the same, Zhang Yinyang thought, and the idea brought her some peace.

“Yes, I am Zong Yougu.”

This was the second time Zhang Yinyang saw Liangu on television. Zong Liangu was doing very well now. Although she wasn’t famous yet, her work was respectable. The smile on her face was so wide, and her curved eyes actually held a sense of innocence and drive—something neither Zhang Yinyang nor Zhang Mumu had ever seen.

Why?

Zhang Yinyang was smart now. She stayed up all night, and based on the few clips available online, she synthesized the time and location of every fragment. She roughly deduced Liangu’s range of activity. Two types of people have the most time: the extremely wealthy, often called the “leisure class,” and the unemployed who loiter around. Zhang Yinyang clearly belonged to the latter.

So, she staked out for several days and finally found Liangu. She was going to gamble. She gambled on the fact that Zong Liangu’s memory was still unclear. She wanted Liangu to live with guilt forever; she wanted Liangu to suffer just as much as she did.

“Liangu! How could you do this? Do you have any idea that because of you, we all rotted in the mud!”

Zhang Yinyang rushed forward and grabbed Liangu’s collar. Knowing Liangu loved cleanliness, she deliberately wiped the filth on her hands onto Liangu’s clothes.

“You really are—”

How could she be the only one suffering?

“If it weren’t for you! If it weren’t for you! I and Little Cow could have had a wonderful future!”

Although Liangu acted as if she were untroubled, Yinyang saw a momentary blankness on her face. She smirked inwardly because her gamble had paid off.

If a bottle of water is knocked over, who is responsible? Everyone should be equally responsible for that spill and the glass shards on the floor. Zhang Yinyang smiled.

“Why am I doing this? Heh, you’re asking me? Are you very angry right now, feeling like I lied to you?”

Zhang Yinyang was pinned down firmly. She couldn’t lift her head, but her eyes remained fixed on the Liangu in front of her.

“If I hadn’t come looking for you, you would have forgotten us entirely. You are so heartless, wanting nothing more than to forget everything from the past—including me, including Little Cow.”

A look of venomous resentment flashed in Zhang Yinyang’s eyes. Her teeth chattered as she gritted them, and her facial muscles began to twitch. The person behind her increased the pressure; under the restraint, Zhang Yinyang could hardly move an inch.

“Let go.”

Zhang Yinyang heard Zong Yougu pat the arm of the person behind her, and she was released. Her arm hurt, and just as she was about to lash out, she heard Liangu speak slowly.

“Why did it turn out like this?” Liangu murmured to herself.

Zhang Yinyang said nothing. She just looked at the Liangu before her. Despite Zhang Yinyang’s repeated harassment and sabotage over the years, she hadn’t been able to stop Liangu from shining. The current Liangu was dressed decently and had a glamorous career. Seeing Liangu on TV, even though they were separated by a screen, Zhang Yinyang knew in her heart that they were worlds apart.

She thought of Little Cow, who had come to find her recently. Oh, right—Little Cow was now called Quan He. Little Cow had actually become the daughter of the dog owner; that person was a merchant and very wealthy. The clothes Little Cow wore now were so sophisticated—thick fabric, well-tailored, fitting her perfectly.

Little Cow wasn’t dead; Little Cow was living well. From the bottom of her heart, she was happy for her. But hatred inevitably surged from her soul.

What had she been all these years? Little Cow and Liangu were living well, lives Zhang Yinyang didn’t even dare to dream of. Only she was trapped, living in a swamp every day.

Why?

Zhang Yinyang resented everyone. She hated Liangu’s indifference and Little Cow’s late arrival. She hated herself. She thought of that admission notice again. If she had accepted it and successfully entered the police academy, what would have happened? She probably would have moved toward a normal life. Right—if she had become a police officer, she could have helped more people. That would have been a form of atonement, a way to put her mind at ease.

Why was she so foolish back then not to realize this? If she were a cop and Little Cow and Liangu were actors, she, Zhang Yinyang, would have the right to be a family with them again. That accident would have just been one of the small storms they faced together.

But she had flushed that future down the drain. Her life was fixed like this now.

“Take it.”

A familiar kraft paper bag appeared in her vision. Liangu was handing it to her.

“Take it. The money inside should be enough for you to live on for the rest of your life. Don’t come looking for me anymore, and I won’t look for you. I won’t harm you.”

She heard Liangu say those words. She took the bag indignantly; as usual, it was filled with cash. The difference was that this time it was significantly thicker. The bundles of bills made the bag bulge, feeling very heavy in her hand.

“Liangu, you don’t want to send me away anymore?” Zhang Yinyang asked with a smile, cutting straight to the point.

Liangu still treated her as the stupid, slow “Little Sheep” from the orphanage. In reality, she knew everything. She knew Liangu wanted to harm her, wanted to send her to prison.

If a bottle of water is knocked over, who is responsible? Anyway, she was the least innocent one; it was only right for her to go to prison.

“I’m sorry.”

She heard Liangu say that. No, that’s wrong, wrong.

“Why are you apologizing to me! It shouldn’t be like this! You should resent me, then hit me and curse at me! What is this? Do you think a ‘sorry’ can solve everything? Don’t say this from the perspective of a ‘good person.’ I don’t need it… I don’t need it!”

Liangu didn’t speak again. Where was she looking? Zhang Yinyang followed her gaze and realized that Liangu’s eyes had been fixed on the person behind her.

Is that so?

Zhang Yinyang laughed. She laughed shamelessly, acting like a thug as she began to count the money in the paper bag. Covetous, greedy—she tried her best to act like someone everyone would hate. Liangu’s gaze finally turned toward her, but it was filled with nothing but pity.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Resentment filled Zhang Yinyang’s heart. She threw the paper bag heavily onto the ground, where the puddles soaked the paper.

“Let’s go.”

She heard Liangu sigh. Two silhouettes grew smaller and smaller in her vision.

“Liangu!” Zhang Yinyang called out anxiously.

She saw those two silhouettes turn their heads at the same time, their movements perfectly synchronized.

—“Marriage?”

—“They can’t talk too much, must be quiet… must be smart, quick to learn things…”

—“Most importantly, they must know exactly what I’m thinking.”

—“Isn’t that just yourself, Liangu?”

Zhang Yinyang smiled, waving away the absurd thought in her mind. She crouched on the ground, picked up the soaked paper bag, and began gathering the money scattered in the dirt.