In the winter of 1990, deep in Daxinganling, snow was falling everywhere, thick as torn cotton batting.

The wind cut across a person’s face like a blade.

“Move! Hurry up, you jinx! Nasty little curse!”

Mildred Crane had a thick cotton-padded coat wrapped tight around her. In her hand, she gripped a coarse hemp rope so hard her knuckles were stiff.

At the other end of it was a tiny child.

Lily Ashford did not look like a four-year-old at all. She was so thin she looked like a dry stick, all bones and no flesh. She wore a ragged cotton jacket, split open in places, black stuffing poking out. It was useless against the thirty-below cold.

One of her feet was bare.

The other still had on a torn cloth shoe with its mouth split wide.

Every time she dragged herself one step forward, a string of bloody footprints was stamped into the snow.

“Auntie… I can’t walk anymore…”

Her voice was faint, thin as a gnat’s buzz.

In her little purple, frost-bitten hand, she clutched half a stale steamed bun, hard as stone and furry with mold.

She had snatched it from the dog’s food basin last night.

She had not even brought herself to eat it.

“Can’t walk? Then die here!”

Mildred Crane turned and spat into the snow.

The moment she looked into Lily Ashford’s eyes, a chill crawled through her chest.

That damned girl looked exactly like her short-lived mother. Especially those eyes. Whenever they stared at someone, they made a person’s heart go tight for no reason.

Vivienne Ashford, that shameless woman, had been dead four years.

But the little bastard she left behind had plagued her for those same four years.

“Auntie, don’t throw me away…”

Lily Ashford seemed to feel something. Her tiny body shook like a leaf in a storm.

She didn’t want to die.

Her mother had told her, as long as she stayed alive, one day her uncle would come and take her away.

She didn’t know what an uncle really was. But her mother had said there would be steaming white rice at his place, and more new clothes than she could ever wear through.

“Auntie… eat this…”

Lily Ashford’s little hand shook without stopping. She held up that half piece of sour, stale bun as high as she could. The thing was smeared all over with black handprints.

But in her eyes, it was the best thing in the whole world.

The moment Mildred Crane saw that bun, her stomach turned.

She lifted her leg and drove a kick straight into Lily Ashford’s skinny shin, thin as a dry reed.

“And you’ve still got the nerve to eat? Worthless money-loser!”

The kick sent Lily Ashford tumbling headfirst into the snow.

Even then, she still clutched that half bun tight in her fist.

She crawled back out of the snow and didn’t cry.

She had cried all her tears dry already. Besides, in weather this cold, if she cried, the skin on her face would split open for sure.

Mildred Crane yanked the hemp rope and dragged Lily Ashford forward the whole way, step by step, until she stopped in front of a black hole in the ground.

Everyone in the village knew that pit.

They called it the “abandoned baby pit.”

Back in the famine years, babies people couldn’t afford to keep, and those born broken or incomplete, were all thrown in there.

The pit was so deep the bottom couldn’t be seen. It stank all year round, rank and bloody, the foul odor rolling up from below. Even the village dogs circled wide around it.

“We’re here.”

Mildred Crane let go of the rope and panted, breath coming hard.

Then her eyes dropped to the pair of ragged shoes on Lily Ashford’s feet. Her gaze shifted, mean and quick.

“Take that shoe off and give it to me!”

Lily Ashford shrank back and curled her toes. “Auntie… if you take my shoes off, my feet will freeze bad…”

“Good. Better if they do!” Mildred Crane snapped. “These soles were stitched layer by layer. Fine shoes. My Huzi can wear ’em just right. Putting them on your feet is a damn waste!”

As she spoke, she lunged forward, pinned Lily down, and in a few rough tugs stripped the broken shoes right off her feet.

Lily stood barefoot in the snow.

The cold bit like shattered ice. It stabbed up from the soles of her feet straight into her skull. The pain made her suck in breath again and again, thin and sharp.

“Enough. Down you go.”

Mildred Crane stuffed the shoes into her coat. Her face eased a little now that she had them. Then she rose, lifted her leg, and drove a kick straight into Lily’s backside.

“Ah—!”

The little girl’s body flew like a rotten rag bundle, stiff and helpless, straight into the pitch-black pit.

Bang.

A dull, heavy sound.

Her body smashed onto frozen dirt and dead men’s bones.

Mildred Crane crouched by the edge and peered down. It was black as ink. She couldn’t see a damn thing.

“Don’t blame your aunt for being hard-hearted. Blame that dead mother of yours. Died outside and still wouldn’t let anyone live in peace. In your next life, be smart and stop coming to our family to collect some cursed debt!”

She cursed as she worked, dragging over the big stone she had prepared long ago.

With a hard shove, she sent it rolling toward the mouth of the pit.

Thud!

The stone sealed off most of the opening, leaving only a narrow crack. Bitter wind came whistling through it and poured into the hole.

Mildred Crane slapped the dirt from her hands, shoved the pair of broken shoes deeper into her coat, then turned and walked back, even humming a tune.

Whether the little brat froze to death, starved to death, or got dragged off by the wolves in the hills—that was up to her fate.

Either way, nobody knew Mildred Crane had dumped her here.

...

Inside the pit.

Lily Ashford felt like every bone in her little body had come loose.

She had slammed down on a heap of hard, unyielding things. Her back hurt so bad it felt split open. The dark pressed in from all sides, thick and dead. She couldn’t see a thing. Some foul, rotten stink rushed straight up her nose, so heavy it made her stomach twist.

“Mom...”

Her small body curled tight into itself. She tugged that ragged cotton jacket around her with all her strength, the one with stuffing leaking out in clumps. But it was no use. The cold still bit through her, gnawing into her skin, into her bones.

She was freezing too hard to bear it.

Her eyelids kept sinking, heavier and heavier.

If she fell asleep... would she see her mother?

Just then, Lily Ashford suddenly realized her hand was empty.

The bun!

Her bun was gone!

That was the half bun she wanted to save for her uncle. It couldn’t be lost. It just couldn’t.

Panic hit her at once. She forgot the pain, forgot the cold, and dropped to crawling, groping around on the ground with both hands.

What her fingers touched—some of it was round and smooth, some of it long and stiff.

Then, all at once, her little hand froze.

These “stones” had holes in them.

These “branches” crumbled when she squeezed.

A thin wash of moonlight leaked in from the pit mouth above. Under that weak, ghostly light, Lily Ashford finally saw the “bed” beneath her.

It wasn’t stone.

It wasn’t branches.

Those were bones.

Human bones.

They were everywhere, piled layer over layer, choking the whole bottom of the pit.

Some were grown folks’.

Some were children’s, no bigger than hers.

“Ah…”

Lily Ashford tried to cry out, but her throat was scraped raw. Not a sound came.

She was just about to curl herself into a tiny ball when two points of light suddenly burned in the dark.

Green.

Cold and eerie, like ghost-fire.

Right after that, a gust of hot air rushed at her, thick with the stink of blood.

“Huff… huff…”

The breathing sounded right by her ear.

Lily Ashford went stiff. Bit by bit, she turned her head.

By those two green lights, she finally saw the brute crouching there.

A tiger.

At that moment, the king of the forest was lying across a mound of bones, its green eyes locked on her, on this little thing that had stumbled into its hole.

There was blood smeared at the corner of its mouth.

Its fangs shone white in the dark.

She could even smell the rank, bloody stench from its jaws.

It’s over.

Despair washed through Lily Ashford. She shut her eyes tight.

The old folks in the village always said the tigers in the mountains loved eating children most. One bite, one child. Didn’t even need to chew.

If it really ate her...

Would she never see Uncle again?

Lily Ashford knelt in the dark, her tiny hands groping wildly across the frozen dirt and scattered bones. By pure luck, her fingers touched that half piece of sour steamed bun.

She snatched it up at once and hugged it tight against her chest.

Even if she had to die, she would not die on an empty stomach.

The tiger rose slowly.

Its huge frame shifted in the pit, heavy and silent, like a shadow peeling itself off the dark. Its wet nose pressed in by Lily Ashford’s neck and sniffed hard, hot breath washing over her skin. That rough tongue hung just behind its fangs, and it looked like the next moment it would strip the thin skin right off her.

Lily Ashford went stiff all over.

She didn’t dare move.

Didn’t dare breathe.

Her little body locked up like dead wood in winter.

But after a long while, the pain never came.

The big tiger did not bite her.

Instead, it let out a low growl.

Then something even stranger happened.

With that growl, a voice suddenly popped into Lily Ashford’s head, out of nowhere, clear and raw.

“Pain... hurts so bad...”

Lily Ashford’s eyes flew open.

Who?

Who was talking?

There was nobody in this pit except her, this tiger, and a heap of dead men’s bones. Where would a living person come from?

“Foot... damn, it hurts like hell...”

The voice sounded again, this time with a trace of impatience, almost urgent.

Lily Ashford stared blankly at the fierce beast in front of her. Its green eyes glowed in the dark, savage and cold, yet that voice kept ringing inside her head.

She looked at the tiger and whispered, soft and shaky,

“Big kitty... does your paw hurt?”