Chapter 3

Just before daybreak, the rooster outside the yard crowed.

She suddenly flipped out of bed, her eyes sharp as blades. “It’s light out. Let’s go. Get the shovel.”

My palms were covered in sweat, and I was still thinking of an excuse to keep delaying.

Bang, bang, bang!

Suddenly, the courtyard gate was pounded so hard it shook the whole yard.

“Ethan! I heard Sophie came back alive!”

It was Old Mr. Lewis next door, shouting at the top of his lungs.

A wave of relief hit me like I’d grabbed a lifesaving rope. I hurried over and opened the gate.

Outside, half the village had crowded together in a noisy mass.

Seven or eight men and women had come carrying eggs, brown sugar, and two jars of home-brewed liquor.

“Sophie is the war hero of our county. She survived the worst of it!”

The villagers rushed into the yard all at once and instantly surrounded her.

Her eye twitched hard.

But the next second, she immediately put on a simple, enthusiastic smile and shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with everyone.

Even when Old Mr. Lewis patted the old wound on her shoulder and cried, she answered without missing a beat.

This spy had been trained to an extremely strict standard.

Too terrifying.

Seeing that, I took the yard table out and placed several rough ceramic soup bowls on it.

“Surviving disaster means greater blessings ahead! No one is leaving today. We’re drinking at my house!”

I popped the clay seal off the jar of home-brewed liquor, and the sharp smell of alcohol instantly spread through the yard.

This 136-proof sorghum moonshine could knock down a bull with just three bowls.

“Sophie, the villagers came to see you. You should toast everyone with a bowl, right?” I handed her a full soup bowl of liquor.

She stared at the bowl, and for a moment her eyes went dark.

“Ethan, I have an old injury on me, and... we still haven’t finished the work by the old locust tree.”

She lowered her voice, speaking only loud enough for the two of us to hear.

I deliberately raised my voice. “Hey! What kind of work could be more important than toasting the villagers? Are you trying to hurt everyone’s feelings?”

The men around us immediately started egging her on.

“Exactly! Sophie, you look down on us country boys or something?”

“Drink! You have to drink!”

With more than a dozen eager eyes on her, she had no way out. She could only grit her teeth and take the bowl, then drink it all down.

After one bowl, her face immediately flushed an unnatural red.

Just then, a shout came from outside the gate.

“Dad! I’m home!”

My heart clenched hard.

The crowd parted, and a girl wearing a patched blue school uniform and carrying a backpack stood at the entrance.

Lily, eleven years old.

Two years.

Ever since Sophie went to the front, Lily had been sent to a boarding school in the county seat, and she hadn’t seen her mother for a full two years.

Lily looked at the woman sitting at the table.

The spy was stunned for a moment, then reacted.

Her eyes lit up, and she opened her arms, her voice trembling. “Lily? My good girl, come here and let Mom take a look at you!”

Lily didn’t move.

She stared hard at that face, which was exactly the same as in her memory, her brows tightly furrowed, then turned to look at me.

I clenched my fists and looked at my own flesh and blood with nearly pleading eyes.

Maybe father and daughter really were connected by heart.

Lily, who had been frowning a moment ago, suddenly smiled.

She dropped her backpack and strode over, picking up the second bowl of liquor that had just been poured on the table.

“Mom! These two years you’ve been out fighting, and your daughter has been waiting for you at school every single day!”

Lily held the soup bowl high with both hands, her voice loud and clear. “Today you came back alive, so your daughter is toasting you with this bowl of liquor! If you don’t drink it, then you’re not admitting I’m your daughter!”

A flash of extreme irritation crossed the spy’s eyes.

But she didn’t dare expose herself at this moment, so she could only take it with a stiff smile.

“Good girl, Mom will drink.”

Glug, glug.

Second bowl.

Third bowl.

The men in the village took turns pressuring her, while Lily kept shouting “Mom” and forcing drink after drink down her.

At last, the spy’s eyes started to go unfocused.

She staggered to her feet, trying to walk toward the old locust tree.

“Ethan... box... bring it...” she muttered slurringly, grasping at the air.

“Drink! Mom, let’s have another one!”

Lily grabbed her shoulder hard and, in one motion, forced the remaining half bowl of liquor straight into her mouth.

She coughed violently and staggered two steps.

Finally.

She crashed heavily onto the eight-seater dining table like a pile of rotten mud that had lost all control, and then stopped moving.

The yard was still noisy, but I felt like everything around me had suddenly gone quiet.

I stared hard at her hunched back and cautiously shoved her shoulder.

Dead drunk.

The sweat on my back had long since dried, leaving my shirt icy cold.

Lily walked around the table to my side and quietly tugged at my sleeve.

“Dad,” the eleven-year-old girl lowered her voice, her eyes cold.

“My mom stopped drinking two years ago, after she went to the front.”

“The villagers didn’t know, but she swore it to me back then.”

My whole body shook, and I tightly grabbed my daughter’s hand.

I couldn’t hold back my tears anymore.

Now, she was dead drunk.

It was time for the two of us to fight back.