How You Can Sue Me for My Crimes in Dreams

Time: 1997–2003

Winter

Prologue: [”A Prostitute’s Confession”]

...

”I... am a goddamn whore.”

Inside a psychiatric hospital.

A woman in a blue-and-white-striped hospital gown slowly began to speak.

Her voice was pleasant, but the words she spoke were completely disarming.

She said:

”Maybe... Maybe I’m just a woman who was born to be a whore...”

”Sometimes, I forget when it all started... If I count the years, it must have been six years now.”

”But when I think back, it feels like time has flown by. It’s as if... as if what happened six years ago was only yesterday...”

As her voice drifted, a scene began to form in the minds of those around her.

...

...

January 3, 1997.

A light, fine snow fell from the sky, white flakes dusting strands of black hair.

The world was painted a sheet of white, making the dark clothes of pedestrians a stark contrast against the ground.

Three in the afternoon.

The sky was still bright, but the temperature was below freezing.

Two girls huddled close together.

They squatted by the side of the road, trembling all over, sharing body heat to stay warm. Their breath turned to vapor, vanishing with the wind in the dry, cold air.

”Sister...”

A little meatball of a girl whispered fearfully, nestling into the other girl’s embrace. Feeling the warmth of her body, she felt a little more at ease.

She had a delicate, childish face, and a pretty name.

Her name was Xiao Miao. She was ten years old, and very well-behaved.

”Don’t be scared, don’t be scared. The New Year is almost here. Don’t be scared...”

The older girl, Lin Miao, huddled her small frame, the cold air making her shiver uncontrollably. She glanced at the house behind them, yet still managed to whisper words of comfort.

Behind them was their home.

But not anymore.

”Are Mom and Dad not coming back?” the ten-year-old little meatball, Xiao Miao, whispered, huddled in her sister Lin Miao’s arms.

”Don’t be scared, don’t be scared...”

Lin Miao didn’t know what to say. She was only a few years older than Xiao Miao—still just a child herself.

But she did her best to comfort her.

She knew, however, that their parents were dead.

They had died in a car crash half a year ago.

Back then, she had received the notice of her parents’ deaths. Not long after, her maternal uncle and his wife arrived.

With no other immediate family, the two of them became the girls’ legal guardians.

By extension, their property also belonged to them, in a sense.

Six months later, the couple sold the house through some means or another.

Her uncle and aunt disappeared.

The new owner of the house looked at the unfamiliar pair—one big, one small—and fell silent for a moment. They gave the girls two thousand yuan and took them to the police station.

After leaving the police station, they instinctively returned to the doorstep of their old home.

But the door was shut tight, and she didn’t try to go inside.

Lin Miao knew that from this day forward, this was no longer her home.

They could never go back.

The wind and snow raged on.

The cold wind howled.

Everything was a blanket of white. Two small figures sat on the curb, huddled together in a corner, clinging to one another.

Their clothes were already covered in a thin layer of white snow, which had begun to freeze.

On Lin Miao’s childish face, her eyes stared out, lost and afraid, at a world that was both familiar and strange.

She held Xiao Miao, pulling her sister deeper into her embrace.

She had nothing left—only her little sister.

She suppressed the fear in her heart, and her voice, no longer trembling so much, grew soft.

”Don’t be afraid...”

”Don’t be afraid...”

...

...

”And that’s when I started to become a whore.”

”I remember... I think it was... because of money?”

”My uncle sold the house, left me a thousand, and disappeared. The person who bought the house took pity on me and gave me two thousand.”

”Three thousand yuan. That was everything I had in the world. But it wasn’t enough.”

”I knew it wasn’t enough. It really wasn’t. Without telling anyone, I stopped going to school. I didn’t even care about the upcoming exams.”

”But even so, it wasn’t enough to cover daily expenses for two people.”

”I tried to find work, but no one would hire me. I was too young, too weak. Even for sweatshops, hiring a boy was a better deal.”

”And even when I did find a job, it didn’t pay enough to live on.”

”Xiao Miao was a good kid, and she did well in school. I had to keep her in school. She couldn’t just disappear without a word like me.”

”But rent, utilities, gas, food, school fees, clothes...”

”So, I took another path.”

”I remember it was spring, and I only had eight hundred yuan left.”

...

...

June 10, 1997.

Lin Miao stood awkwardly beside several other women, dressed in a revealing white dress. She nervously clutched the hem, her head bowed as she instinctively tried to cover her exposed skin. Her face was covered in makeup that someone else had expertly applied.

She was being displayed like a product, for others to choose from.

”Hey, you. The one with her head down. Look up.”

A voice called out. A manager lifted Lin Miao’s chin, forcing her to look up. A strained smile was plastered on her face.

”You’ll do!”

Another voice declared.

This was Lin Miao’s first time. She didn’t know what kind of place this was, only that they were hiring, that they paid a lot of money, and so she had come.

Her role, it seemed, was to be a bar hostess.

The manager had told her it was just drinking with clients. The client was a very important person, he had said, and she needed to drink with him. The more she drank, the more money she would make.

So Lin Miao sat silently on the sofa and drank.

The liquor was harsh. The other women were making excuses to avoid it, but Lin Miao wanted to earn more money, so she drank nonstop.

It seemed like the glass would never empty.

She’d finish one glass, and a second would appear. The second would disappear, and a third would be poured.

Lin Miao’s vision began to blur. Her mind grew dizzy, and the dim, flashing lights swam before her eyes.

She didn’t know how many glasses she’d had.

She only knew...

She was crying.

Her tears mixed with the liquor. She couldn’t tell one from the other as they diluted the harsh taste, and she drank them down.

And she cried until morning.