Long Night's Cry

And the child shall lie down in silence, and none shall remember her name.

In this nameless little city in the south, time always seemed to flow a little slower than elsewhere. The boundary between the city and the countryside was blurred, a place where jaggedly intertwined farmland and grey, dusty buildings faced each other in silence. It was here, at the edge of this borderland, on a patch of wasteland occupied by wild grass and forgotten rubble, that the stone tower stood.

The local people never spoke of it lightly, as if it were a name to be avoided. On the rare occasions they needed to give directions, they would refer to it vaguely as "that old tower over there," their eyes subconsciously drifting away. The tower had long been abandoned—at least, that was the official story. After years of erosion by wind and rain, the two-storey bluestone structure had taken on a sickly grey-white hue, like the bones of the dead. Inky-green vines, like giant pythons, coiled their way up from the base, strangling every crack in the stone. Their tendrils even reached greedily into the broken opening at the top, as if wanting to devour and digest this dead silence completely.

However, the tower was not entirely dead.

If you walked close enough, past the wild grass that grew taller than a person and swayed in the wind like spirit banners calling to the dead, you could glimpse a circle of dark openings at the tower's base. They were less windows than apertures, just large enough to accommodate a swaddled infant. The stone of the sills was worn smooth, with a strange, aged grease to it—the trace left behind by countless tiny, desperate handoffs.

Old Chen’s hovel was nestled in a grove of poplar trees less than a hundred metres from the stone tower. The shack was so crude it hardly seemed a place for a person to live; a few sheets of tar felt and some scavenged wooden planks were the sum of his world. To outsiders, he was just an eccentric and reclusive old scavenger, one of the most inconspicuous dwellers on the city's fringe. No one knew that he had been keeping watch here for ten whole years.

He was not an official guard, nor did anyone pay him a salary. He was a volunteer, like a monk cultivating on the shore of a sea of suffering, yet unable to ferry a single soul to salvation.

Every morning before the sky brightened, he would take his broom and sweep away the fallen leaves and windblown trash from the tower's base. He did this meticulously, as if tending to an altar. He never looked up at the openings, nor did he ever try to wipe the polished sills. He merely maintained the tower’s dignity—an absurd dignity befitting death.

During the day, he would go into the city to collect scraps to exchange for a pittance to live on. But when night fell and the city's clamour faded, the wasteland would sink into a silence so profound you could hear your own heartbeat. It was then that Old Chen would sit at the entrance of his hovel, light a bowl of the cheapest, harshest tobacco, and, through the curling smoke, fix his eyes on the silhouette of the stone tower.

He was waiting, and he was listening. Sometimes, weeks would pass in peace, the tower as silent as a true gravestone. But at other times, a faint cry, nearly masked by the sound of the wind, would pierce the night's curtain like an embroidery needle, and pierce Old Chen’s heart as well.

It was the sound of the infant girls abandoned in the tower, using the only language they had learned since coming into this world to let out their final wails. Most of them were only a few days old, their umbilical cords not yet detached. This seemed a premonition of their short lives: a cruel fate, with death as the inescapable end.

Sometimes an infant’s cry would last the entire night, only to vanish at the first light of dawn. They were, after all, too young, and they cried for too long and too hard, until their short lives came to an end. Before she could even open her eyes to see this world, before she knew its bitterness or its sweetness, she would vanish like so many of this world’s daughters. Those tender bodies would slowly rot at the bottom of the tower, returning to dust, never to find peace or rebirth. Yet the world slept soundly, indifferent to the heartbreaking cries. To them, it was just another commonplace event, nothing strange, nothing worth mentioning.

Tonight, the wind was strong, rustling the poplar leaves into a sound like the applause of countless anxious hands. Old Chen tightened the worn-out cotton coat around his body and refilled his pipe. He had a premonition that tonight's peace would not last long.

And sure enough, just as midnight was approaching, a blurry shadow appeared on the winding dirt road in the distance. The shadow moved slowly, its gait faltering, like a person whose bones had been removed. Old Chen’s heart sank. He extinguished his pipe and shrank back into the shadows of his hovel, leaving only his eyes, which had been tempered by the darkness into an exceptional brightness.

Another one had come.

The shadow drew closer. Old Chen could now see that it was a woman, a very young woman. She wore a faded, old-fashioned floral shirt that looked especially thin in the night wind. In her arms, she clutched something wrapped in grey cloth, holding it so tightly that her whole body was bowed forward, like a mother animal protecting her young.

Her name was Mei.

Mei’s home was in another village, dozens of miles away. Before coming here, she had already walked for over three hours on deserted field ridges, carrying her child. Blisters had formed on the soles of her feet, and every step felt like walking on knives, but she felt no pain. Or rather, a greater, more profound numbness had overwhelmed all physical sensation.

In the hazy moonlight, her face was a vast emptiness. There were no tears, no expression, like a piece of paper that had been soaked and then left to dry. It was the twentieth year of her life, yet she felt as ancient as if she had already lived a lifetime.

The child in her arms, as if sensing its mother’s turmoil and unsteady gait, began to stir, letting out a few faint whimpers. Mei’s body tensed. She looked down, her gaze falling upon the small, wrinkled face in the faint light. The child’s eyes were shut tight, its long eyelashes like two tiny brushes.

The life in her womb had once been her last hope, her only comfort in that cold, unwelcoming house. But when the midwife, with a dismissive purse of her lips, had placed this wrinkled, wailing baby girl in her arms, when her mother-in-law’s words—“A worthless commodity, you might as well have laid an egg”—had been driven into her ears like poisoned nails, that last hope had shattered. Her husband worked far from home all year; the house was her mother-in-law's domain. And her mother-in-law had given the order: the family could not afford to raise this baby girl, nor would they.

"There's an old tower on the edge of the city," her mother-in-law had said, her voice devoid of any warmth. "Send her there. Sever the thought. It's better for everyone."

And so, Mei had come. She moved like a programmed puppet, carrying out a task she could not comprehend, yet was powerless to resist.

She finally reached the foot of the tower. The smell—a mixture of humus, mould, and the faint, unmistakable scent of blood—made her stomach turn. She looked up and noticed for the first time that the tower was several storeys high, showing signs of having been repaired. She gazed at the dark openings, which stared back at her like the eyes of a monster.

She chose an opening on the lowest level. She stood on her toes, held the swaddled infant in both hands, and prepared to place it inside.

At that very moment, the child, who had been quiet until now, seemed to sense what was happening and let out a heart-wrenching, lung-splitting cry. The wail was loud, full of life, a sharp blade that instantly sliced through the hard shell of numbness Mei had built around herself. Her hands began to tremble.

From the shadows of his hovel, Old Chen saw it all clearly. He had seen too many heartless or desperate mothers who, when leaving their children, moved as quickly as if they were casting off a piece of hot iron. But this woman, she was hesitating.

The child's cries echoed in the empty night, each one more piercing than the last. Mei's hands trembled more violently now, so much so that she could barely hold the weight in her arms. She looked at her child’s open mouth, unable to form a complete sound, and at the tears seeping from under those tightly closed eyelids. This was her own flesh and blood, a part of her that had been connected to her very veins inside her own body.

An immense sorrow overwhelmed her. She wanted to pull her hands back, to turn and run with her child in her arms, to run to the ends of the earth.

But where could she run? Her own family had long since cast her out, and she could never return to that so-called "home." She herself was living like a stray dog; how could she protect this fragile life? Besides, she remembered her mother-in-law's venomous eyes and icy words, which wrapped around her heart like a viper.

Just yesterday, she had knelt and begged her mother-in-law, saying she would eat and drink nothing, that she would go out and work, just to grant her child a chance to live. Her mother-in-law had only looked at her coldly, as if at an inanimate object, and said, word by word, "A chance to live? What right does a worthless girl have to live? I'm telling you, if you dare to keep her in this house, I'll dare to push her into the ditch by the village entrance myself! Just to let her know that she is not welcome in our family, and that she’d better watch where she’s reincarnated next time!"

"Push her into the ditch…" The words were like a red-hot brand, searing Mei’s very soul.

It was not as if she hadn’t heard of such things. Just last winter, Third Aunt on the west side of the village had also given birth to a girl. Her husband had slammed the baby’s head against the mud floor on the spot, cursing that he needed to “frighten” the ignorant soul so that it would be more discerning in its next life and not choose their family’s door again. Mei, separated by the courtyard wall, had not seen the scene, but she had clearly heard the dull and sickening thud, followed by the infant’s brief, sharp scream. And then, complete silence.

The next day, a small mound of earth had appeared behind Third Aunt Wang's house.

A cold, viscous fear rose from the soles of Mei’s feet, instantly drowning the flicker of maternal instinct that had just awoken. She dared not think what awaited her daughter if she insisted on taking her back. Would she be pushed into a cold ditch, to die in the agony of suffocation? Or would she, like Third Aunt's daughter, be treated as an evil spirit to be "frightened," her life of only a few days ended in excruciating pain?

Compared to that, this baby tower… it almost seemed a "mercy." Mei was surprised and ashamed that she would actually comfort herself this way. But it was the only way she could think. Here, her child would only die of cold and hunger, slowly, slowly falling asleep after her cries were spent. At least no one would hurt her small, fragile body in such a cruel way.

This absurd and tragic thought was the final straw that broke her. Tears finally streamed from Mei’s empty eyes. But she made no sound, weeping in silence. In the end, her trembling hands, bit by bit, pushed the swaddled infant into that cold, dark opening.

The moment the bundle went inside, the child seemed to pause for a second, as if sensing the change of space. But immediately, an even more desperate cry came from within the opening, echoing, sounding incredibly hollow and wretched.

Mei’s hands froze in mid-air. A moment later, she snatched them back as if she’d been burned. She turned and fled, not daring to look back. The heart-wrenching wails were like a whip, lashing at her back, lashing at her soul. Her steps were unsteady, stumbling, until she finally vanished into the night, a frantic shadow on the dirt road.

Old Chen emerged from the shadows. He watched the direction in which the woman had disappeared and sighed heavily. He knew that tonight would be another sleepless one.

Mei was gone, but her child remained. The cry became the sole ruler of this wasteland.

Old Chen did not go home. As usual, he moved a small stool outside his hovel and kept watch. He was now the child’s only audience in this world.

At first, the cry was angry, full of life. It was a healthy infant, protesting and calling with all her might. Calling for the warm embrace with the familiar scent that had just departed. The cry pierced the stone walls, rose above the wind, and travelled far into the night sky. Old Chen could imagine how, inside the tower’s narrow, cold space, piled with the remains of others, the child’s tiny body was turning red with effort, her limbs flailing uselessly in the air.

He smoked in silence, the tip of his pipe glowing and fading in the darkness like a weary firefly.

This cry was all too familiar to him. Every child sent here began this way. Their cries would overlap with all the faded cries in his memory, converging into a sorrowful, inexhaustible river that roared in his mind.

He thought of his own granddaughter, Hua. It had been more than ten years ago. When Hua was born, she was plump and fair, and her cry was as loud as this child’s tonight. His son and daughter-in-law worked in the city, leaving the child with him and his wife. When Hua was three, she came down with a high fever. The village’s barefoot doctor dismissed it as a common cold and prescribed some medicine. But the child’s fever grew worse; she was delirious and cried all night. By the time they scrambled to get her to the big hospital in the city, it was too late. The doctor said it was meningitis, and the best time for treatment had been missed.

On her last night in the hospital, Hua had cried just like this. Sharp at first, then gradually weakening to an intermittent whimper, until finally, even the whimpering stopped. And the world fell silent.

His wife couldn’t bear the blow; she followed Hua the next year. After that, Old Chen moved here, next to the baby tower. He wasn’t seeking atonement; he knew he was not to blame. He just felt he owed something to those cries. He hadn’t been able to watch over his own granddaughter, so he would watch over these children who were just as helpless, and listen to them on their final journey.

Time ticked by. Midnight passed. The child’s cry began to change. The anger and protest gradually faded, replaced by a fearful, intermittent sob. Her strength was draining away. Hunger and cold, like two vipers, were coiling around her tiny body.

Old Chen’s heart tightened in rhythm with the cry. He knew this was the hardest part. Life and death were engaged in a primal tug-of-war.

By around three or four in the morning, in the darkest hour of the night, the cry had become extremely faint, like the flame of a candle in the wind, liable to be extinguished at any moment. It was no longer continuous. After long pauses, a whimper like that of a small kitten would emerge. Each sound seemed to take all the strength she had left.

Old Chen extinguished his pipe, stood up, and began to pace. His heart was in an unprecedented state of torment.

Usually, at this hour, he would silently return to his hovel, lie down, and cover his head with his quilt, waiting for the dawn. When dawn arrived, the long night’s cry would cease completely, and everything would return to a dead silence. He would sweep the memory from his mind as he swept the fallen leaves. This was the rule he had set for himself, the only way he could survive on the edge of this hell—to be only a witness, never to intervene.

But tonight was different. The mother’s trembling hands, the child’s exceptionally loud first cry, and deep in his memory, the sight of Hua’s lifeless eyes—the three images intertwined, stirring a monstrous wave in his heart.

Why should it be so? A thought struck him like a bolt of lightning through the fog in his mind. Why should they die so silently? Why, when they had only just come into this world, could they not even see a single sunrise?

The young mother’s face appeared before him again. She was not entirely cold; she had tears, she had struggled. She was a pitiful soul herself.

The faint whimper drifted from the tower again, as tenuous as a thread of silk, as if bidding a final farewell.

Old Chen stopped pacing. He stared at the stone tower, which looked all the more menacing in the pre-dawn darkness. In his cloudy eyes, a flame ignited. He had watched for ten years, listened for ten years, and witnessed countless deaths. He was old now, his life worthless. What was there to be afraid of?

“Damned wretched sky!” he cursed in a low, hoarse voice.

He hesitated no longer. He turned and rushed toward the corner of his hovel, toward the dilapidated wooden ladder with a missing rung. The ladder was heavy and rotten, but he summoned a surprising strength and heaved it onto his shoulder.

He was going to break his rule. He was going to do something before that cry disappeared for good. He carried the ladder, step by step, walking resolutely toward the stone tower. Each step felt like a heavy tread upon the numb fate he had accepted for the past ten years. He was going to that opening. He was going to make this tower of death, which had devoured countless lives, spit out a living one.

He had listened for ten years, and endured for ten years. The sin and punishment, the bitterness and tears, passed down on this land for countless ages, seemed to be concentrated in this single sound. Tonight, he would personally put an end to this endless, long night's cry.