[County town lit | Underclass | Adoptive father | Deaf-mute roughneck | Twisted | Pessimistic | Hard life | Stoic | Impure | Taboo | BG | Traditional] His surname is Hu; his given name was chosen by his parents, though a fortune teller once said he was born under an unlucky star. At fifteen, his parents died in a car accident. With a sixty-square-meter old apartment and an unfinished mortgage, he took every odd job he could find—hauling freight, delivering water, frying dough sticks, delivering food—shouldering every dirty and grueling task imaginable. He didn't die. At twenty-two, he entered an arranged marriage with a woman named Liu Shu'an. She was plain, but her smile was warm. He thought his life was finally rising above the misery, but less than three years later, an empty bottle fell from the sky and killed her. He took the thirty-thousand-yuan settlement, tied a noose to the rafters, but failed to die. At twenty-six, he found a child near a trash can, lips purple from the cold, crying like a sick kitten. He brought her home, raised her, registered her, bought her formula, and wanted her to live like a human being. To make money, he started underground fighting. Blow after blow hammered into his skull; his ears were ruined, his throat was destroyed, and he became a deaf-mute wreck who could only make guttural, incoherent noises.
"...ah... go away"