Chapter 1
I was born with a cursed mouth. Whenever I spoke of something bad, it came true.
When I was four years old, I dropped a single grain of rice at dinner. My grandmother flew into a rage, yanked me by the arm, and dragged me toward the old outhouse behind the house.
“You worthless little girl,” she snapped. “Wasting food already? Maybe I should leave you in there and be done with it.”
I looked up at her with wide eyes and said softly, “You’re the one who’s going to fall in.”
The words had barely left my lips when her foot slipped. She tumbled backward into the pit and never climbed out.
My grandfather pointed at me and called me cursed. He said I had killed his wife. Not long after that, he secretly sold me to a trafficker passing through town.
As I watched him walk away, I whispered, “You and that man are both going to die on the road.”
The people in our mountain town started calling me a monster. They said my mouth would bring disaster on everyone around me. Some of them even wanted me gone for good before I ruined the whole town.
My parents had no choice. They went to a remote temple in the hills and begged the abbess for three days and three nights before she finally agreed to take me in. They hoped the prayers, the incense, and the Buddha’s mercy would silence whatever darkness lived in my words.
Before they left, my mother held my hands and promised, “When life gets better, we’ll come back for you.”
I believed her.