Chapter 2: Her Name Was Mu Yin

February 12, 1997. In a farmhouse courtyard in a small southern town, a little girl of six or seven lay on a bed in an upstairs room. Her brows were tightly furrowed, and her lips moved with indistinct murmurs. Suddenly, she opened her eyes wide, gazing around, blinking as the haze in her eyes gradually cleared.

“Why do I keep having these strange dreams? And every time I wake, I can’t remember any of them,” Mu Yin muttered. She glanced at the sky outside—it was barely dawn. Shivering as she crawled out from under the covers, she nearly dove back in but managed to resist. She grabbed her clothes from the bed, pulled on a red cotton jacket, stretched, and went downstairs.

“You’re up early again today, Yin. Such a good girl. You’ll be starting school soon, so it’s right to get up early,” her grandparents greeted her cheerfully, already awake due to their age and light sleep.

“Good morning, Grandpa, Grandma,” Mu Yin replied before heading off to wash her face and brush her teeth. She checked the time—already seven o’clock, hardly early.

On a whim, she decided to go for a run. Heaven knows, she’d always been strong, running up hills and swimming rivers with her friends since she was young, but she never liked exercise much. When she stopped, panting, she wondered if she’d lost her mind—why was she doing all these inexplicable things today?

Mu Yin was eight years old, living in a remote mountain town of Z Province in the south of China. To reach the city would take seven, eight, maybe nine hours by bus, and the roads were terrible.

Their house was an old-fashioned clay-tiled home, spacious enough, with a main hall and two side wings.

There were many people in the family: Grandfather Mu Tong, fifty-nine; Grandmother Dong Feng, fifty-seven; First Uncle Mu Yang, thirty-two, a carpenter, and his wife Huang Shan, thirty-one, with two sons—Mu Qin, twelve, and Mu Li, nine—and an adopted daughter, Mu Miao, also nine.

Second Uncle Mu Song, twenty-nine, was an electrician. His wife, Zhou Qi, also twenty-nine, had been his high school classmate. After marriage, they opened a repair shop in town. Their eldest, Mu Shao, was nine; their second child, Mu Yin herself, was eight, the siblings twenty months apart.

Third Uncle Mu Bai, twenty-four, now worked at the post office. His wife, Zhang Yi, twenty-two, had just given birth to a daughter, Mu Xi, who had turned one.

Such large families were common here. Their home was harmonious enough; though Grandpa and Grandma favored boys a little—mainly when it came to pocket money—otherwise, they treated all the grandchildren equally.

Mu Yin, though counted as seven by traditional reckoning, was six years old by Western age. She was about to enroll in school—not elementary, but the preparatory class, something akin to kindergarten. There were no kindergartens here yet, only these preparatory classes.

In the rural south in 1997, elementary school lasted five years, but with a year of preparatory class, it was nearly the same as a six-year system. Originally, she was to go straight into first grade.

There were two reasons she didn’t. One, she wasn’t old enough—here, you had to be seven by Western age to start school. Two, it wasn’t the right time—the New Year festivities weren’t yet over, and the Lantern Festival was still to come. The school term starting was for the second semester of first grade, and that would never do.

Besides, the preparatory class taught pinyin and numbers ahead of time, so those who skipped it couldn’t keep up in first grade. So Mu Yin had no choice but to start in the middle of a preparatory class.

She didn’t know why her parents were so insistent on her starting school now, even if it meant she’d spend half a year more than others. She only understood later.

With just days to go before enrollment, Mu Yin was excited. Children who’d never been to school looked forward to it—so many friends to play with. But, as she would learn, actually going to school wasn’t always so joyful.

On the day of the Lantern Festival, she shouldered her little backpack and went with her mother to register. She didn’t do much—just followed her mother, paid the fees, collected her books.

Waiting for school to start two days later, she packed her heavier backpack, head held high as she strutted past her peers, feeling immensely proud.

At first, classes were motivating, even though it was still cold. Mu Yin was gifted and learned quickly—pinyin, numbers, everything. Her pronunciation was the most accurate in the class, and the teacher often called her up to demonstrate.

There were just five subjects in the preparatory class: Chinese, math, drawing, music, and PE. For some reason, Mu Yin felt a special fondness for drawing—whenever she picked up a pencil, she felt an urge to create. Even if her pictures were childish scribbles, they were better than those of her peers.

“Ah!” She woke with a start from another dream, her face still marked by resolve and determination, soon replaced by confusion. She scratched her head. “Again. And I still remember nothing.”

With that, she climbed out of bed, dressed, and went downstairs, her feet thumping on the wooden steps. “Good morning, Grandpa, Grandma.”

“Morning.” The two elders were used to their granddaughter’s early rising by now—though it was already eight o’clock.

Mu Yin dashed outside and saw her eldest uncle preparing his hoe to head to the fields. “Morning, Uncle.”

“Mm,” he grunted without looking up.

She didn’t mind. She ran to the water tap, fetched her little towel, filled the basin, grabbed her cup and toothbrush, turned on the tap to get some water, then poured in some hot water from the kettle, mixing it before washing her face and brushing her teeth.

Once finished, she went to see if breakfast was ready. Though all three branches of the family lived in the same house, they’d already divided the households. Her eldest uncle’s family, her father’s, and her grandparents who now lived with her youngest uncle. She didn’t know why her grandparents chose the youngest uncle over the oldest.

Their house was a spacious old southern farmhouse, standing alone with no neighbors nearby, making it all the more expansive. The rear of the house backed against the mountain—though not all of it belonged to them.

Here in the mountain village, every household had several terraced fields and a few hills. The hills were mostly for firewood. The forests were mainly small pines and a few other trees; there were supposedly wild boars—though Mu Yin had never seen one herself—while rabbits and pheasants were more common.

It was Saturday, a holiday. Mu Yin decided to find her friends. After washing up, she set out for their homes. The village houses sat atop hills—her family alone on one, while the rest clustered on another, that one crowded with houses and even the school. The town’s only middle school was in their village, but her family’s home was solitary.

“Lily! Bailing! I’m here to play!” Finding no one at either friend’s home, she went to the middle school and, sure enough, found them by the dump at the edge of the playground.

Mu Yin ran over happily. Outside the playground was a steep slope, ending in what looked like a sheer cliff, perhaps three or four meters high—a dangerous spot, used for dumping trash and always dirty. Yet for the village children, it was the perfect playground.