Fly, even if the wings are broken, the heart is still there

Author: Han Qingchen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: If the railway had a soul and could write poetry, it would surely sing not of the wild grasses that grow alongside it, but of the wild children who depend on it for survival. They are wounded spirits, crying in despair, having left their homes and families, blindly trusting the railway. They run and run along it, believing that at the end of the tracks lies a paradise of happiness. The railway carries them into one city after another, where hunger, cold, fear, loneliness, humiliation, and betrayal—like locusts—surround and attack them, yet paradise never appears. Thus, their wounded hearts bleed as they walk, and the railway, weeping with the weariness of ages, sees the trail of bloody footprints left behind by them. Cui Cui is a girl who escaped from a remote mountain village in Guizhou, seeking happiness and peace. She was nine years old when she left, already understanding the world. The case took place in a poor mountain village in Guiyang. Because the protagonist of the case was a woman, and a beautiful one at that, the bored and lonely villagers chewed on it with great interest for three years. Three years may seem like a blink of an eye, but they also stretched long enough for a little girl to grow. In their rumors, Cui Cui grew from six to nine years old. The girl who couldn’t speak, smile, or do anything but stare fixedly with her enormous black eyes was named Cui Cui. The mountain village had no laws to govern it, yet adults and children alike avoided Cui Cui. They said she was a disaster and a plague, that to encounter her brought bad luck. Once, when Xi Liu, her neighbor, secretly laughed and chatted with Cui Cui, her mother grabbed her ear and kicked her three times. Cui Cui was very sensible and didn’t want to harm them. She would hide whenever she saw them from afar. Sometimes, when Heishui went too far in bullying her—such as relentlessly chasing her, shouting "little plague," stepping on her grass basket, or carving "chestnuts" on her head—Cui Cui would cry, feeling wronged and heartbroken. After crying a few times, Cui Cui stopped, afraid of upsetting her grandmother. Cui Cui had a grandmother in her seventies. Despite working hard together, their lives remained tight, and they relied on government aid every year. The grandmother loved Cui Cui deeply. Whenever she learned that Cui Cui had been bullied outside, she would despairingly hold her and scold her. Cui Cui didn’t want to make her grandmother angry. Cui Cui never smiled because she had neither mother nor father. Her mother had killed someone and been taken away by the police in handcuffs. Her father had died, and her mother had killed him herself. The villagers, including her grandmother, said her mother was a witch, but Cui Cui knew her mother wasn’t. Her mother was so beautiful, kind, and loving—Cui Cui was not a child who cried easily, but whenever she thought of her mother, her heart would break, and tears would moisten her dry, big eyes. Cui Cui could only cry in the dark, secretly crying until her pillow was filled with a moldy scent. Although the grandmother loved her, she forbade her from thinking of her mother. The grandmother hated her mother, hating her with a deep, bone-deep resentment. Occasionally, the grandmother would stare blankly, then suddenly roar at Cui Cui, striking her with fists and feet, forbidding her from looking up at her. She said Cui Cui’s eyes were just like her witch mother’s. Since her mother left, Cui Cui’s heart had become damp