Three Women in the Cage

Xinxin wouldn't tell Teacher Wu about this. She couldn't bring herself to say it, and even if she did, what would it really matter? It would just make her look more pitiful.

Faced with Teacher Wu's invitation, Xinxin just lowered her head and cried, without responding.

Teacher Wu saw her silently crying and couldn't help but comfort her: "Don't cry. I know you feel embarrassed to eat with Teacher Wu. How about this? I will apply for poverty assistance for you. Then you will get a 20 yuan meal allowance every week. That way you don't have to go home specially for meals."

Xinxin continued to cry silently without answering, but Teacher Wu's words deeply moved her, making her cry even more aggrieved.

Teacher Wu said with a smile: "Why are you crying even harder? Teacher Wu knows that you are feeling wronged. Didn't you say that you can come to me if you have any problems? Why do you always keep it to yourself? Teacher Wu really wants to care about you..."

Xinxin finally looked up at the young male teacher. He smiled at her handsomely with a light in his eyes, and seemed to really care about her.

Xinxin wanted to say something, opened her mouth, but suddenly turned her head away from Teacher Wu's gaze and closed her mouth.

Teacher Wu didn't know that Xinxin had never been so close to a man. Her father had never been so close to her, her uncle had never been so close to her, her younger uncle had never been so close to her, and her male classmates had never been so close to her. She had been afraid and terrified of men since she was a child.

Because she was used to seeing those men's faces. She had seen her father's cold and ferocious face as he yelled at her mother, even punching and kicking her. She had seen the expressionless and distant faces of her elder and younger uncles, the faces of her younger uncles that were always filled with hatred and disgust, and the indifferent faces of her male classmates. But she had never seen a face of the opposite sex that was filled with such care.

At this moment, facing Teacher Wu's care and concern, she felt strange and strange. She didn't believe that someone of the opposite sex would treat her like this, but she couldn't express such doubts.

Seeing Xinxin's hesitant look, Teacher Wu finally sighed and said frustratedly: "Okay, if you don't want to say it, then don't say it. By the way, I see you always wear school uniforms. Do you like it? If so, I will apply for a new set of uniforms from the school so that you can change into them and don't have to wear such old ones all the time..."

Teacher Wu didn't know that it wasn't because she liked the school uniform, but because the school uniform was the only new piece of clothing that made her feel comfortable wearing it.

However, she couldn't express her true thoughts. She was too embarrassed to speak and could only lower her head and cry silently.

Teacher Wu looked at her lovingly, waved his hand and asked her to go into the classroom first. After Xinxin's back disappeared in the corridor, Teacher Wu stood there in a daze, feeling deeply powerless.

He didn't understand why he couldn't open her heart. She was just a child. What had she been through? He wanted to know, desperately, but he had no way of knowing. What should he do? What should he do? Should he contact the students he had arranged for him to meet? He had tried, but in the end, he could find out nothing because Xinxin had never told anyone.

In order to find out Xinxin's secret, Teacher Wu stood on the podium and made a request to all the students. They were asked to write a weekly diary, recording their events of the week, no matter big or small, even their inner thoughts, and they had to hand it in every Monday.

It was because of this requirement that Teacher Wu found out what he wanted to know, because Xinxin finally wrote down her thoughts.

I don’t know if she was touched by Teacher Wu’s concern, or if she was really too lonely and wanted someone to understand her heart, but she finally used her weekly diary to let Teacher Wu know her story.

She knew that she would not be able to say it in person, but she could accept it and was willing to try it in this way.

This was her first time writing a weekly diary. She gently opened the notebook and wrote down the secret that had been buried in her heart for a long time.

March 29th, 2005

“Today the sky is sunny and gloomy, and it is drizzling outside. Winter mornings are always so cold. When I was woken up by the cold wind blowing in through the broken window, it was already daybreak outside.

I touched the place next to me and found that the temperature there was already ice-cold. I knew that my mother had gotten up early and gone out. Yes, she was even busier after she came back. She was either working or on her way to work. She was not afraid of the cold, wind or sun, and was always busy in the fields.

It used to be a bed for four people, but after my eldest sister went to college, it gradually became a bed for three people. Later, my second sister didn't come back, so there were only two people left. Later, my mother didn't come back either, so it became a bed for one person. Now my mother is back, but it is still a bed for one person.

There is no longer the crowds and warmth of the past, only the emptiness and coldness of the room.

I miss the past so much, and I also want to leave the past urgently, because the past was crowded and warm, but also full of suffering.

I had to work hard to grow up, because only when I grew up could I take my mother out of this sea of ​​suffering.

Why is this place called a sea of ​​suffering? Because we are children that our fathers don’t want, and we are also children that our grandparents dislike. We didn’t know why they didn’t like us.

Later I realized that because we are girls, we are destined to be disliked from the moment we are born. The identity of a girl is an original sin from birth.

It was because my mother couldn't bear it, or was unwilling to give up, that she gave birth to one girl after another. So, we became three sisters, and we kept each other warm.

I don’t know if there was ever a moment when my mother disliked us. Maybe she did, maybe not! In any case, in the end, my mother always protected us.

But my mother was a weak woman after all. It was so difficult for her to protect three despised girls alone. Later, she and her father quarreled more and more. However, her quarrels were useless and would always result in a beating from her father.

But my mother was unwilling to give in. Even though she was beaten every time, she still did not give in and fought back. In this way, there were always endless quarrels, endless beatings, and endless crying at home.

Because we could do nothing but cry. We couldn't take the beating for Mom, nor could we stop Dad from beating us. We could only watch helplessly and cry.

However, these endless days seemed to be getting worse and worse. I don’t know if it was because of my father’s indulgence or something else, but gradually, the uncles also came to bully my mother.

They either harvested the rice that my mother planted, or occupied the land originally allocated to her. In short, they were either exploiting her or on the way to exploiting her.

Dad not only refused to help, but also aided and abetted the evil. Mom refused to accept such humiliation and fought to the death. But how could a weak woman like her resist them?

In the end, as expected, my mother always came back injured after an angry argument. Every time I saw her standing at the door with injuries all over her body, angrily and unwillingly cursing the person who bullied her.