"Don't be scared, I'll be gentle!"
Chuntao was sleeping soundly in the melon shed when she suddenly felt a suffocating weight on her chest, as if a large rock were pressing down on her. She jolted awake with a start.
She then realized what was pressing on her wasn't a rock at all, but a large, burly man.
The man was panting heavily, his hot breath hitting the nape of her neck, carrying the smell of sweat and the earthy pungency of old tobacco.
Chuntao was terrified, her entire body stiff as if under a spell, unable to move.
Her throat felt clogged with a soaked wad of cotton; she wanted to scream but no sound would come out.
...
"Creak... creak..."
The rickety wooden bed next door started its symphony again, sounding as if it would fall apart any second!
After her father-in-law passed away, her mother-in-law had taken in an old bachelor, and the noise they made at night was unbearable.
Her sister-in-law, just a young girl, was too embarrassed to listen and had moved to stay with a friend in the same village.
Her brother-in-law and sister-in-law were twins. He was in junior high, lived at the school dormitory, and only came home on weekends.
Only Chuntao had nowhere else to go. Every night, her ears were denied any peace.
Her room was separated from her mother-in-law's by only a wall woven from sorghum stalks, which did nothing to block any sound.
The strained, uncontrollable light gasps and the intermittent, muffled groans all traveled clearly into Chuntao's ears.
How could a young woman like her, lying alone in an empty bed, bear to listen to this?
Irritated, she pulled the coarse cotton sheet over her head, but the sounds stubbornly drilled into her ears, each one like a heavy hammer striking her heart.
Her heartbeat rose and fell with the creaking of the bed boards, her face flushed crimson with shame, her body burning like a hot coal.
This shameless, tantalizing torment every night left her flustered and restless, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.
When the "creaking" sounds started again from the next room, she rolled up a worn mat from her bed, grabbed a flashlight, and went outside.
Holding the flashlight in one hand and clutching the mat under her arm, she headed towards the melon field in East Gully.
The moon was completely shrouded by thick clouds. The beam of her flashlight illuminated the path ahead on the ridge, surrounded by pitch-black darkness.
The night was deep, with only the intermittent chirping of insects from the grass.
Chuntao had been timid since childhood. Walking alone in this dark night, her heart was in her throat, terrified that someone—or something else—might suddenly leap out from the surrounding sorghum fields.
The melon field was right by the riverbank, with a shed in the middle. Inside, a simple bed was propped up with old planks and wood. She spread the mat on it and lay down.
In those days, the countryside was still very poor. Petty theft and pilfering were common, and anything edible was especially coveted. Once the watermelons ripened, someone had to guard them day and night.
The melons weren't ripe yet, so there was no need for night watch, but the commotion from her mother-in-law's room was too much for her to bear. That's why she had come to the melon field.
Anyway, in a few days when the melons ripened, she'd have to sleep here every night to watch over them. Coming early to get used to it and practice her courage seemed like a good idea.
The night was woven thick with silence, utterly still except for the sporadic chirping of crickets under the melon vines and the buzzing of mosquitoes near her ears.
The July weather was unbearably hot and stifling. She broke into a sweat soon after lying down, but Chuntao didn't dare take off her clothes. She thought that if any danger arose, she could just run for it.
She only pulled her coarse cloth shirt up a bit. Soon, the exposed skin was covered in large, itchy welts from mosquito bites.
She quickly pulled the shirt back down, but the mosquitoes still found every gap to bite her.
She got up, plucked a few watermelon leaves from near the shed, and used them to swat at the mosquitoes.
She had never grown watermelons before. Planting these two acres was to pay for her brother-in-law's schooling.
Ever since her mother-in-law took in a man, she hadn't wanted her son to continue his studies. But her brother-in-law was a good student; he wanted to go.
Chuntao couldn't bear it. She told her mother-in-law to let him keep studying. For that, her mother-in-law had cursed her out fiercely.
"Can't even keep your own man in check—he ran off with another woman on your wedding night—and now you're meddling in other people's business...
Fine, you want him to go to school? You pay the tuition then..."
Chuntao had a soft, gentle nature, while her mother-in-law was a fierce, sharp-tongued woman. Chuntao never dared talk back to her, but that time, with tears in her eyes, she said firmly, "Fine, I'll pay then!"
"Let's see what you'll pay with!" her mother-in-law sneered.
"I'll plant watermelons on those two acres in East Gully. I'll earn money selling them!"
Growing watermelons did indeed earn more than grain, but Chuntao had no experience. Her mother-in-law found her words laughable, certain she would fail.
She snorted coldly and said, "Fine, do whatever you want with those two acres. I'll wait and see what marvel you can really grow!"
To learn how, she swallowed her pride and asked the old, experienced farmers in the village for tips on growing melons, then copied their methods as best she could.
From sowing seeds to pinching off tips and training the vines... she put her heart into every task, asking for help when she didn't know how.
To make the vines stronger and bear more fruit, she got up before dawn every day to collect cow dung around the village. People laughed at her, calling her foolish.
Her man had eloped with another woman on their wedding night, yet she didn't leave. She stayed, working like an ox for this family, even wanting to support her brother-in-law's education. They said she must have been kicked in the head by a donkey.
She pretended not to hear what others said. She believed supporting her brother-in-law was the right thing to do.
She had never attended school a day in her life; the few characters she knew were learned from the neighbor's children. Supporting her brother-in-law's schooling was also a way of fulfilling her own dream of education.
Crops were more reliable than people. If you treated them well, they repaid you in kind. Chuntao's efforts were not in vain. Her melon plants grew strong, and the young watermelons sat close together, a delightful sight.
Exhausted from a long day's work... Chuntao drifted into sleep as she lay there thinking.
Just as she was sleeping soundly, she suddenly felt a heavy weight press down on her, and her mouth was tightly covered, suffocating her until she felt she would pass out.
In that moment, her mind went blank. She couldn't move. From her throat came only a faint, mosquito-like plea, "No... please..."
Fear and humiliation flooded her heart together. Tears poured out like a bursting dam.
The man's movements grew rougher. His large, calloused hands scraped against her tender skin, a hot, stinging pain.
On this pitch-black summer night, in this remote watermelon field out in the wilds, Chuntao cried out to a heaven that wouldn't answer, to an earth that offered no relief.
When she felt the strange change in the man's body, she finally began to sob aloud, but dared not let the sound grow too loud, only a suppressed, low weeping.
She had left the flashlight on, but now it had gone out. She was tightly wrapped in this terrifying darkness. She struggled with all her might, but it was utterly useless.
The man's breathing grew more and more ragged, his brutal actions intensifying.
Chuntao had always been delicate and frail. Her strength was long spent. Her body went limp, unable to move.
Resigned, she closed her eyes, letting the tears stream down, flowing into the hollows of her ears.
...
The heat from the man's palms was searing. Her suppressed sobs intertwined with his coarse, heavy breathing, drowning out the chirping of insects in the watermelon field.
"If he doesn't want you, I do!... Don't be afraid... I'll be gentle..." The words were squeezed out, fragmented between heavy, ragged breaths.
Chuntao's heart gave a violent shudder. That voice... it was all too familiar.
