3: 3

How I walked out of that memorial hall that day, how I made it back to the rented place, I don't remember anymore.

For days afterward I was too furious to sleep.

Then a vicious cramp tore through my stomach.

The pain rolled me right off the narrow bed and onto the floor.

I gritted my teeth and called an ambulance.

The doctor stood over me with the surgical consent form.

"Acute appendicitis with perforation. You need surgery immediately. Your condition is dangerous. You have to have a family member here to sign and pay."

I lay slumped against the bed, weak, the room going dark in waves.

"Doctor, can I sign it myself?"

The phone rang for a long time before someone finally picked up.

Through the receiver came the knock of a wooden fish drum and the faint crackle of incense burning in the censer.

"Why are you calling in the middle of the night?"

My mother had dropped her voice, every word thick with irritation.

"Don't you know you can't go disturbing the deities at this hour?"

The pain was so bad I couldn't get a full sentence out, gasping between the words.

"Mom... I'm at the hospital... acute appendicitis, it's perforated... I need surgery..."

"Oh, be quiet! Today's the day your brother's civil-service exam results come out. We're honoring the deities and praying for his future!"

"Anything with blood in it, you don't report it. It offends the deities."

"Mom, I could die..."

"You won't die. Take some anti-inflammatory pills yourself! I'm hanging up!"

The line went dead.

And right then, Paul posted on social media.

The photo was a whole table of a lavish seafood late-night feast.

Steamed crab, raw marinated shrimp, a roast meat platter, packed edge to edge.

The caption read:

"Thank you Mom and Dad for staying up late with me to wait for the results. Tonight the whole family drinks till we drop. Here's to passing!"

In the corner of the photo, the three of them raised their glasses, beaming.

The doctor stood beside me, looked at my white face, and sighed.

"Did you reach them?"

I snatched the pen out of his hand and signed my own name right there in the family signature line of the consent form.

"I'll sign it myself."

I lifted my head and looked at him.

"If anything happens to me on that table, it has nothing to do with anyone."

In that moment, the Caroline Head who had still held on to one last shred of hope for the Head family died in the corridor of that emergency room.

4: 4

Half a month later, one hand pressed to a wound that still hadn't fully healed, I went back to the old house to pack my things.

I'd barely reached the door when I heard the laughter spilling out from inside.

The place was decked out, two big banquet tables set up in the living room, relatives raising glasses and toasting.

They were celebrating the pregnancy of Paul's girlfriend.

She sat in the seat of honor, a bowl of premium health tonic in her hands.

"Mom, this tonic's gone a little cold. Go heat it up again. My son can't be having cold things."

Mom took the bowl back with a face full of smiles.

"Oh, my sweet girl, I'll go right now, and mind you don't strain the baby."

Dad saw me come in, and the smile on his face vanished in an instant.

"Good timing. Tomorrow you quit your job, come back home, and devote yourself to looking after Paul's fiancée while she's carrying."

I stood in the entryway and watched him quietly.

"And hand over the passwords to all your cards. From now on your mom manages the money."

He blew out a ring of smoke.

"Cash out that retirement fund of yours too, so Paul can trade up to a bigger van, something roomy for hauling the kid around later."

Mom came out with the reheated tonic, spooning it to the mother-to-be while she wept at me.

"Caroline, so what if the aunt has to swallow a little? It's all for the Head line, for carrying on the family. You're a Head, after all."

I didn't answer any of them. I walked straight to the front of the living room.

That was where the Head family's household deities and ancestral tablets were enshrined.

I grabbed the most valuable teapot off the altar with one hand.

I slammed it down hard into the middle of the table.

Every single one of them stared, wide-eyed.

Dad raised his hand and came at me.

"You've lost your mind! You dare smash a Head family thing! I'll beat you to death today, you ungrateful girl!"

Just as his hand was about to land,

I yanked up my shirt.

The knife scar across my belly, stitches only just out, still weeping blood, laid bare for all of them to see.

Dad's hand froze in midair.

I looked at my whole family, every word drawing blood.

"You traded my life for a house and left me to die in an ER. Is this what a family does?"

I turned and strode toward the door.

Behind me came Dad's hysterical roar.

"Get out! Walk through that door and the Heads have no daughter like you! Die out there for all I care, don't ever come crawling back to me!"

My hand on the door handle, I didn't turn around.

"Good. I'm taking the household record with me. Tomorrow I'm changing my surname."