Huina Zheng
Brothers
Lin stepped into her adopted mud house deep in the woods and saw the little girl.
The house Lin found a year ago was low to the ground and crudely built. The pitched roof had been pieced together from weathered planks and branches. There were no windows on the front, only a dark doorway cut into the right side. Though the afternoon sky was heavy with clouds, a dull gray light still lingered. But the light stopped at the threshold, unable to push its way inside.
Lin was used to this darkness. She didn’t need a flashlight to know where things were, though there was hardly anything to know. The hut was nearly empty. She looked straight toward the center of the room. A few bricks stacked together formed a low stool, and curled upon it was a small figure, head bowed, eating her crackers.
Hearing footsteps, the girl sprang up, turned, and stared at Lin with wide eyes, still chewing rapidly, swallowing desperately. She was short, only reaching Lin’s chest, looking at most six or seven years old, her hair a messy tangle tied back in a haphazard bunch.
Lin watched her in silence for a full two minutes before speaking. “This is my place.”
The girl didn’t answer.
“Get out.”
The girl whispered, “I’m hungry.”
Lin glanced at the empty wrappers scattered across the dirt floor. “You’ve already stolen several packs. If you were hungry, you should be full by now.”
The girl lowered her head.
Lin said nothing more. She walked over to the brick stool, sat down on the flattened cardboard, tore open another packet, and began to eat.
The girl edged closer. “I don’t have a home.”
Lin picked up a half-empty bottle of water, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip. “What are your parents? If you have parents, you have a home.”
The girl clutched the empty wrapper. “They… they don’t want me.”
Lin jabbed a finger toward the door. “Whether they want you or not is none of my business. Get out. Now.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw the girl hesitate, then shuffle toward the door, until her small figure disappeared outside.
This time, Lin didn’t bother picking up the cracker wrappers. She tossed them aside. Cardboard and old newspapers covered the floor. That was her bed. She lay down, irritation rising in her chest.
She had lived here alone on the outskirts of a small town in southern Guangdong without any human contact. When night fell, she lay down to sleep. If sleep didn’t come, she lay there anyway. The mud house had no door, but she had never been afraid. The place was empty. No people, not even stray dogs ever came near.
By now, night had fully settled. Rain began suddenly, then intensified. Water poured through the holes in the roof, splashing inside the house. First came the crisp drip-drop, then the heavy, muffled crashes, pooling in the low spots. Lin curled on the dry cardboard in the center of the room. The water hadn’t reached her yet, but she knew it was gathering.
A flash of lightning split the sky. Thunder exploded. Almost at the same moment, she heard crying.
She switched on her flashlight and walked to the door. Beneath the eaves, pressed against the wall, the same little girl was curled up. The beam swept over her soaked red T-shirt, the thin fabric clinging to her slight frame. She had buried her face in her knees, hands covering her ears, sobbing softly as if afraid of being heard. Like a kitten that had waited too long for a mother cat who never came.
Lin’s gaze dropped to the girl’s feet. They were filthy, mud packed beneath the nails. The plastic sandals were too big, barely hanging on. Most of her soles were exposed, the front of her feet planted in the mud.
Sensing the light, the girl lifted her head. Her face was slick, indistinguishable between rain and tears.
“Where’s your home?” Lin asked.
“I’m not going back.”
“If you don’t go back,” Lin said, suppressing her irritation, “you’ll starve or get trafficked within three days. Go home. At least you’ll have a roof and food. If you really want to run away, wait until you’re older.”
“My mom ran off. My dad works far away. Grandma hits me and yells at me every day, says it’s my fault Mom left.”
Only then did Lin notice the bruises, purple and blue, scattered across the girl’s arms and legs.
The rain eased. A cool night breeze carried fine droplets, brushing Lin’s face. From the ditch in the distance came the dull, rhythmic croaking of frogs.
“Gege,” the girl said. “Please don’t make me leave.”
Hearing the girl call her big brother, Lin didn’t correct her. Her hair was cropped short; she wore boys’ clothes. Though she was already fourteen, her thin frame and habitual slouch hid any sign of adolescence. The word struck her lightly in the chest. If she had siblings, they might have called her that. Only family used that word.
She kept her face hard. “Come in. Annoy me and I’ll throw you out.”
She pulled a dry T-shirt from a plastic bag and tossed it over. “Change. I’m sleeping. Don’t make noise.”
The girl caught it. The shirt hung down to her thighs. She removed her sandals and lay down beside Lin. The flashlight clicked off. Darkness settled.
Lin felt the warmth of another body beside her. Before long, the girl’s breathing evened out.
Lin listened to the wind. The rain had likely stopped. A large triangular gap yawned between the roof and the mud walls; through it, the sky was visible. Though tonight, there were no stars. Insects and night birds called from near and far. And for the first time, alongside those familiar sounds, there was the warmth of a small body next to her.
She closed her eyes and drifted toward sleep.
When Lin woke, the sky was just beginning to fade out of deep black. She realized the little girl was curled against her chest, one of Lin’s arms draped across her small body. The air carried the sour smell of sweat mixed with damp earth. Lin stiffened. For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was. Then the night came back to her, slowly.
She tried to pull her arm away, then stopped. She had always hated being touched. She couldn’t remember her mother ever holding her, barely even taking her hand. All she remembered was that sealed, airless smell, as if it had never known wind.
From the ditch in the distance came a brief croak of frogs, then silence. Lin thought about what to do with the child. Feeding herself was already hard. One more mouth would make things impossible. Keeping the girl would only turn her into a burden.
As she was thinking this, the girl stirred. She opened her eyes, looked up at Lin, and gave her a sleepy smile. “Gege, good morning.”
Only then did Lin realize dawn was close. She cursed under her breath, yanked her arm free, and sat up, staring toward the doorway. “I have things to do,” she said. “Don’t cause trouble.”
She grabbed the burlap sack, slipped into her sandals, and headed out, praying the sanitation workers hadn’t started clearing the night-food street yet. If only she had an alarm clock.
Footsteps followed. She turned. The girl was jogging after her.
“Go back. Don’t follow me.”
The child didn’t stop. Lin thought the girl infuriating. She ignored her and quickened her pace toward town. She stepped straight into last night’s puddles, splashing muddy water up her leg. The girl stayed close behind.
The sky was paling. Somewhere ahead a truck horn sounded. By the time they reached the street, a sanitation worker was already dumping trash from the night stalls into a truck. Lin watched beer cans, plastic bottles, and cardboard disappear before her eyes. Her chest tightened. She shot the girl a hard look and turned, running toward another street. The girl ran too. At a corner, Lin slowed just long enough to glance back, making sure the small figure was still there. When she reached the loading entrance behind the market, she stopped, breathing hard. Good. The cleaners were still up front, not here yet.
She stuffed crushed, damp cardboard into her sack. The girl pulled leftover bottles from plastic crates and added them.
They went on to the garbage collection point at the edge of town, then behind repair shops and hardware stores, and finally looped past the transport hub near the town entrance. By the time they finished, the sun was already burning. The girl hadn’t said a word.
Back at the market, vendors were packing up. Rotten leaves and insect-bitten vegetables lay scattered across the ground. Lin pulled out a red plastic bag and began picking them up. The girl squatted beside her, doing the same.
Lin felt her stomach tighten. The child hadn’t complained once all morning. She looked at the girl’s sweat-soaked hair clinging to her forehead and motioned for her to follow.
When they dragged the sack to the recycling yard, the sun had climbed past the eaves. The iron gate stood half open. Inside, flattened cardboard and rusted metal were piled high. A man with a beer belly glanced at Lin, then let his gaze linger on the girl. Lin shifted half a pace sideways, blocking her, her back tightening.
As the man weighed the sack, his eyes slid past Lin’s shoulder again. When he handed over the money, she took it quickly. Not even ten yuan. Lin grabbed the girl’s wrist and hurried away. Only after they had gone several dozen meters did she look back. The gate was still half open. No one followed. She let go. Her palm was cold.
They stopped at a small corner shop. In a plastic crate by the door sat a few packs of expired bread and biscuits.
“How much?” Lin asked.
The shopkeeper named a price. Lin paid, stuffed the food into a plastic bag, and left. After a few steps, she stopped, broke open one pack, and handed it to the girl. The girl took it and stood by the roadside, eating in small bites. Lin swallowed her own bread in a few mouthfuls. Her eyes stayed on the street corner while her fingers pressed against the money in her pocket. Still there.
When the girl finished, Lin took the empty wrapper and walked on.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Min Chen.”
“This world is dangerous for girls,” Lin said. “From now on, if anyone asks, you’re Ming. Remember?”
The girl nodded.
“You have to pretend you’re a boy,” Lin went on. “No, believe that you are one. That’s safer.”
She waited for the girl to ask why, already prepared to snap at her to shut up or leave. But the girl only nodded.
“How long have you been away from home?”
“I don’t remember.”
Pressed by Lin’s questions, Ming explained that her grandmother had brought her to town to look for her mother, left her by the bus station, and told her to wait, that she’d be right back. But by the time the sky grew dark, her grandmother never returned. She wandered, digging through trash when she was hungry. Sometimes people gave her food. She followed a small dog and ended up at Lin’s mud house.
“A dog?” Lin asked.
“A little black dog.”
Lin said nothing. She stepped around a puddle. Something didn’t add up, but she didn’t push it.
Back at the mud house, Lin set the food down and pulled out a pair of scissors. “If you want to stay, your hair has to be cut.”
Ming touched her ponytail and looked at Lin’s cropped hair. “Short like yours, Gege?”
Lin nodded. Strands fell to the ground, clinging to Ming’s face, neck, and shoulders. Then Lin led her to the river and handed her a cloth.
“Wash up. If people see you dirty, they’ll chase you away.”
She showed Ming how. Maybe one day Ming would realize she wasn’t really a brother. Lin had no intention of saying so. Watching Ming scrub her hair and face, she thought that keeping her might not be such a bad idea after all.
By October, the nights had turned cool, though the sun still burned during the day. Lin carried a bundle of dry branches toward the river and spotted Ming from a distance, fanning their stone-built stove hard with a paper fan folded from old newspapers. Thick smoke billowed upward. An old aluminum pot, one Lin had traded for at the recycling yard, sat balanced on top. When Ming saw her approaching, she waved and broke into a grin so wide her eyes nearly disappeared.
Lin stopped short at the sight of that smile. Unease rose in her chest. It had only been three months, and already she had grown used to having this “younger brother” beside her. If Ming left one day, would she still know how to live alone? Lin reminded herself to keep some distance, to always be prepared.
She had also been left in the countryside not long after she was born, raised by her grandmother. Her parents worked far away year-round, coming home only for a few days during the Spring Festival. Even then, her mother stayed indoors, avoiding people. Her father drank with relatives, and when he was drunk, he cursed, threw things, hit people. Her grandmother issued orders and slapped her when she hesitated. Lin learned early on to rely on no one. After she ran away, they likely never thought of her again, much less went looking. That was fine. She didn’t want them either.
She slowed her steps, thinking the vegetable soup must be boiling, the eggs surely cooked. As she drew closer, the soup was bubbling steadily. She ladled out a bowl for each of them, making sure to scoop extra greens for Ming. Then she lifted a whole boiled egg from the pot and set it in an empty bowl. Ming took the ladle, reached back in, and fished out another egg.
“Gege, while you weren’t looking, I put in an extra egg. This is for you.”
Lin was about to say they couldn’t afford for each of them to eat an egg every day, but when she met Ming’s gaze, the words stalled.
“I’m sorry, Gege. I know eggs are expensive. Starting tomorrow, we’ll take turns.”
“I don’t need it.”
“You do,” Ming said. “You’re still growing too.”
Lin didn’t know how to answer. No one had ever picked food for her before. No one had cared whether she was full. Her nose stung.
“Let’s raise two chicks,” Ming said. “When they grow up, we’ll have eggs every day.”
Lin nodded. She could already see it: two yellow chicks cheeping in a coop by the doorway, straw underfoot, the soft weight of a warm egg cradled in her palm. Maybe by next spring, if they were still together. Her eyes drifted to Ming’s wrist, thin as a dry twig, as if it might snap with a bend. Eight years old, yet built like a child of six. Even one egg a day wouldn’t be enough. Maybe she should buy milk. Or she could help at the breakfast stall selling rice rolls at the market, washing dishes and wiping tables. But that would mean Ming collecting recyclables alone. She already knew all the routes. And her face was dark from the sun, her hair cropped short, nothing about her looked like a girl anymore. Maybe it could work.
Lin sat down beside her and drank the soup. They peeled the eggs and ate slowly, draining the pot before carrying the dishes to the river to rinse.
It hadn’t rained in nearly a month. The river had thinned, exposing wide stretches of yellow-brown riverbed along both banks. The grass had lost its summer sheen, turning stiff and dull. The water felt cool at first touch, then lukewarm. A rustle came from the grass. They looked up.
A black dog emerged from behind the flattened stalks on the opposite bank. It was small and painfully thin, standing sideways to them. Its body was mottled with bald patches, some dark red and scabbed over, others still raw and bright.
Ming edged closer. Lin patted her back with one hand and picked up a large stone with the other, never taking her eyes off the dog. The dog looked back at them. There was no warning in its gaze, no aggression, only dullness. It lowered its head and drank. In the sunlight, the wounds stood out, too many to count.
Lin stared as the stone slipped from her hand. A familiar metallic taste rose in her throat. She could almost picture it: curled in a corner, chased away again and again, torn at, nowhere to run. How could she have forgotten? This world always bares its fangs the moment you let your guard down. The weaker you are, the more the wounds find you, again and again, until you stop resisting.
“Gege,” Ming said softly, “this is the dog that led me to your mud house. Back then, it wasn’t hurt.”
“All dogs look the same.”
“It looks so hungry… can we—”
“We can’t afford a dog. And it might bite, or carry diseases.”
Lin took Ming’s hand and pulled her away. She had no extra mercy left for another life. Keeping herself and Ming alive had already taken everything she had.
Lin carried a plastic bag full of vegetable leaves in one hand and two boxes of rice noodle rolls from the stall owner in the other, striding toward Ming, who was waiting at the street corner. She handed over the food, took the heavy woven bag from her, and turned into the half-open iron gate.
After letting Ming follow her into the scrap yard on the first day, Lin never allowed her inside again. That way the beer-bellied man looked at Ming, clinging to her like a dog’s tongue licking skin, made her feel nauseating and unsettling.
The man weighed the load and handed over the money, his eyes sliding toward the doorway as he smacked his lips. “Your little sister’s not coming in?”
Lin froze. She didn’t look up. The smell of rust and rotting cardboard suddenly felt sharp in her nose. “I don’t have a sister.”
“Who are you kidding?” The man chuckled low. “She stands at the corner every day. You think I don’t see her?”
Lin clenched the money in her fist and said nothing. She turned and walked out. Outside, she grabbed Ming by the wrist without looking at her.
“Go.”
She dragged Ming along at a brisk pace, crossing one intersection, turning into a narrow alley, their hurried footsteps tapping against the concrete. Emerging from the other end of the alley, they were already on another street.
Not until they stepped onto the dirt road home did Lin release her grip. Her voice was dry. “Starting tomorrow, you stay home. Don’t go out scavenging.”
“Gege... did I do something wrong? Please don’t be angry.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Lin drew a breath. “It’s safer at home.”
“No. Gege, I want to go. I want to earn money.”
The word money pierced Lin like a thorn. It was almost December. Guangdong winters couldn’t kill you, but Mingming was still young. What if she caught a chill, got sick? She couldn’t wear sandals anymore. She needed thick clothes, needed blankets. Lin herself could dig through trash bins, but what if it wasn’t enough?
“Only to the market,” Lin said, suppressing her voice. “Nowhere else.” She paused, her tone softening slightly. “This is for your own good.”
After December, hunger became something tangible. It was no longer just a growl in the stomach, but a dull ache spreading from deep inside her abdomen. Night after night, Lin was wrenched awake by it. She often dreamed of sitting before a table piled with food; the moment her chopsticks touched the edge of a plate, she would wake.
Beside her, Ming was curled up like a kitten. Their thin blanket barely covered them both, and cold air kept slipping in through the doorway and the triangular hole in the wall, licking at their skin, leaving Lin suspended between sleep and wakefulness. She pulled Ming closer. In her sleep, the child sometimes smacked her lips softly, as if chewing on something invisible. The sound tightened Lin’s chest. How much did a growing child take to fill that hunger? When Lin was eight, she needed a full bowl for a single meal. But whenever she asked, Ming only shook her head and said she wasn’t hungry.
That afternoon, while cooking vegetable porridge, Lin found several meatballs buried among the wilted leaves, stark against the dull green.
Ming’s ears flushed red at once, panic flashing across her face. “The—the meatball vendor wasn’t looking… I—I just took…” Her voice dropped to a murmur. “Only three, gege. You eat two. I’ll eat one.”
“Took?”
Lin’s head rang. Before she could stop herself, her hand rose and fell against Ming’s face. The slap wasn’t hard, but it landed loud. Ming’s head turned aside. Lin stared at her own palm, stunned.
Then the anger hit, panic, self-loathing, and something with nowhere to go, exploding in her chest.
“Taking without asking is stealing!” Her voice sounded sharp, unfamiliar. “You stole something. Do you hear me?”
Tears spilled from Ming’s eyes, but she clamped her mouth shut. That mix of hurt and stubbornness pierced straight into the place Lin most feared to touch.
“Today it’s a few meatballs. Tomorrow what? sausage? candy? money?” Lin lunged forward, her hand striking Ming’s back. The moment it landed, she froze. “You saw me steal and you learn it. Is that what you’re staying here for? Do you know where that leads?”
By the time she stopped shouting, her throat was raw.
She pointed toward the dirt road leading back to town, her whole body shaking. “Get out. Now. I don’t keep thieves here.”
“No, gege! I won’t do it again. I swear!” Ming broke down, sobbing, throwing herself at Lin and clinging to her waist.
“Let go!”
“I won’t! Please don’t send me away, please…”
Lin pried at her fingers one by one, using force, her nails digging into skin. Ming stumbled back into the dirt, then scrambled up again, wrapping herself around Lin’s legs.
“Don’t leave… Gege… don’t throw me away…”
The sound of her crying stirred something hot and distant inside Lin. She stood there, frozen, her lifted foot unable to move. She had been about this age when her parents left. She had chased after them barefoot, only to be held back by her grandmother. She screamed until her throat tore. Don’t go. Please don’t go. Take me with you. Her mother never looked back. She and her father climbed onto the old bus. The door slammed shut. The engine roared. Only when the bus began to move did her grandmother release her. Lin ran after it, crying, all the way to the edge of the village, until the bus disappeared around the bend in the road.
Ming’s tears soaked through Lin’s pants. Her vision blurred. Slowly, she turned around. Then she crouched and, after a moment’s hesitation, pulled the small, trembling body into her arms.
She buried her face against Ming’s narrow shoulder. Her throat closed; no sound came out. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried. Tears were useless, a mark of weakness. She had sworn long ago she would never need them again. But holding this child who refused to let go, the hard shell around her cracked open, and something hot and human finally seeped through.
Ming’s sobs faded into broken hiccups. After a long while, Lin loosened her arms and wiped her face with her sleeve. She studied Ming’s cheek, red, but not badly so.
“…Does it hurt?” Her voice was hoarse.
Ming shook her head, eyes still swollen, looking at her anxiously. “Gege, don’t be angry. I won’t do it again. Really.”
Lin drew a breath and met her gaze. “There won’t be a next time. Do you hear me?”
Ming nodded.
January brought another layer of cold. The sunlight was pale, like sugar water thinned too far, landing on the skin without its former sticky warmth. Lin walked Ming back toward the mud house when, still some distance away, she stopped short.
Two cigarette butts lay on the ground by the door. From inside came the soft rustle of things being moved.
She grabbed Ming’s hand, signaling her to stay silent, and hid the pot and bowls in the grass by the road. Then she led her into a patch of low shrubs and crouched down. Lin scanned the ground. Only small pebbles, nothing she could use. The wind blew from the direction of the house, carrying a faint smell of tobacco.
They waited without moving. Lin’s calves went numb. In the end she couldn’t hold it anymore and sat down on the dirt. Ming sat with her. Time stretched thin in the silence. Lin’s mouth grew dry; her lips cracked, and when her tongue passed over them it brought a sharp sting.
Dusk fell. The washed-out daylight that had filtered through the branches gave way to a different kind of light. Lin looked up and caught sight of a corner of the sky on fire. Blood-red color spread across it, clouds pulled into fine feathers and torn brocade, layered with blood orange, rust, and a deepening purple. It was so beautiful she almost wanted to swing her fist at it.
At last, someone stepped out of the house.
A beer belly. A face that always seemed coated in grease. The scrap dealer.
Lin’s heart slammed harder. She felt Ming trembling and pulled her closer. How had he found this place? Had he followed them? Why hadn’t she been more alert? She wanted to slap herself. If they were discovered now, she was sure she could outrun that fat pig, but what about Ming?
The man circled the house a few times, spat on the ground, crushed his cigarette under his shoe, muttering curses under his breath. Then he headed down the dirt road, his footsteps fading. Lin strained to listen. From far off came the low sputter of an engine, swallowed by the wind. So he’d come on a motorized bicycle. A chill slid down her back.
What if he came back? What if he returned in the middle of the night?
Lin pulled Ming up, pounding life back into her stiff legs. She went into the mud house, grabbed a few packs of biscuits, a bottle of water, and the flashlight, then turned and left. She took a narrower, more secluded path, and only after she was sure they’d put at least half an hour between themselves and the house did she stop so they could eat a little.
She didn’t know how they were going to get through the night. Cold pressed in, scraping across her face, neck, ears, hands. Even under layers of clothing, the chill seeped through the fabric and into her bones. By the time they reached the town, the streets were pitch black, with only a few concrete houses leaking light from their windows. Lin held her close and slipped into a public restroom, the only shelter she could think of, however cold and foul-smelling.
She hesitated between the men’s and women’s entrances. If they went into the women’s room, would they run into someone with bad intentions? If they chose the men’s room, what if someone came in?
In the end, she pushed open the door to the men’s restroom. She found a dry patch of floor and sat down with Ming in her arms. The concrete was hard and cold; even through her padded jacket, the chill crept in, thread by thread. She held Ming tighter, feeling her shiver softly.
“Gege, I’m cold…”
Lin wrapped both arms around her, drew her legs in as well, folding the child fully into her body. There was no light. The darkness was thick, impenetrable. She looked up toward the corner of the wall. There was no triangular gap, no sky, only a heavy blackness pressing down.
She began to whisper about the stars, about how they blinked one by one, as if winking at them. She named them, one after another, until Ming’s breathing grew light and even.
END
Share your comments on our Community Billboard
Huina Zheng either writes as an admission coach at work or writes for fun after work. She lives in Guangzhou, China, with her family.