2. 生育簿

The dawn that broke over the East China Sea was the color of a healing bruise—purple at the edges, yellow in the center, with veins of red light threading through the clouds like broken capillaries. Chen Yulan had not slept. She had lain on her bunk, counting the ship's groans, the slap of water against steel, the distant coughs of other women in other cabins, each sound a reminder that she was not alone and not dead, though she was not sure which condition she preferred.

When the ship's horn sounded for the third time, it was not a cry but a command. A Shui rose from her lower bunk with the mechanical precision of a clockwork doll, her scarred lip twitching as she pulled a gray woolen coat over her shoulders. The rocking girl, whose name Yulan still did not know, had ceased her motion and now stared at the porthole with eyes that seemed to have been drained of all color. The third woman, the one who had sat in the corner with her back to the others, turned for the first time—and Yulan saw that she was not a woman at all, but a girl of perhaps fourteen, her face gaunt, her hair cropped short, her hands scarred with what looked like burn marks.

"The island," A Shui said, her voice flat as a millstone. "We're here."

Yulan swung her legs down and joined them at the porthole. Through the salt-crusted glass, she saw a shape emerging from the morning mist: a dark mass of rock and vegetation, crowned with a cluster of white buildings that gleamed like teeth. The island was smaller than she had imagined, no more than a mile across, but it rose steeply from the sea, its cliffs sheer and unbroken except for a single cove where a wooden jetty extended into the water like a broken finger.

A flag flew from the highest building—not a national flag, but a personal standard: a crimson circle on a black field, the same symbol she had seen on the door below deck, the eye sewn shut. She felt a cold knot tighten in her stomach.

The ship docked without ceremony. Ma Jiu appeared at the top of the gangplank, his clipboard now replaced by a leather-bound ledger that he held against his chest like a shield. He did not speak to the women as they filed past him, only checked their names off a list and pointed them toward a cobblestone path that wound up the slope.

Yulan searched every face for Yumei. She saw women of all ages, some with children clinging to their skirts, others alone, their eyes fixed on the ground as if the earth might open and swallow them at any moment. None of them were Yumei.

A man in a white coat stood at the top of the path. He was younger than Ma Jiu, with spectacles that caught the morning light and a smile that seemed to have been practiced in a mirror. He held a clipboard of his own, but his manner was gentler, almost paternal.

"Welcome," he said, his voice carrying the faint accent of Shanghai. "I am Doctor Zhong Wang. I am the island's medical director. You will all be given a thorough examination today—just a routine check to ensure you are healthy enough for the work ahead. Please do not be alarmed. We are here to help you rebuild your lives."

The word "work" hung in the air like a question mark. Yulan had been told nothing of work. The relief ship had promised recovery, not labor.

She followed the line of women up the path, past gardens of wilted vegetables and chicken coops that smelled of ammonia. The buildings were clean, whitewashed, with red-tiled roofs that might have been charming in another context. But the windows were small and barred, and the doors were fitted with heavy locks that gleamed like new coins.

They were led to a long dining hall where wooden tables were laid with bowls of congee and plates of pickled vegetables. A woman with a kind face and a missing front tooth ladled the congee with a steady hand. Yulan took a seat at the far end of the table, her eyes still scanning the room.

And then she saw her.

Yumei sat in the corner, her back to the wall, her hands wrapped around a bowl that she was not eating from. She had changed in three years. Her face had lost its roundness, her cheekbones now sharp enough to cut paper. Her hair, once black and thick, had thinned to a wispy fringe that barely covered her scalp. She wore a loose cotton dress that hung on her frame like a borrowed memory.

But it was her eyes that stopped Yulan's breath. They were the same eyes she remembered—large, dark, quick to laughter—but now they were empty, as if someone had reached in and scooped out everything that had made them alive.

Yulan crossed the room in three strides and dropped to her knees beside her sister. "Yumei," she whispered. "I came. I'm here."

Yumei did not look at her. She continued to stare at the congee, her fingers tightening around the bowl until her knuckles whitened. Then, very slowly, she turned her head.

"Yulan," she said. Her voice was a whisper, a rustle of dry leaves. "You shouldn't have come. You should have stayed dead."

The words hit Yulan like a physical blow. She reached for her sister's hand, but Yumei pulled away, her eyes flicking toward the door where Doctor Zhong stood watching them with his practiced smile.

"Later," Yumei said, barely moving her lips. "Talk later. Not here. Not now."

The examination took place in a separate building that smelled of carbolic soap and something else, something metallic and sweet, like the scent of a wound that had been closed too quickly. Yulan was led into a small room with a white cot, a steel cabinet, and a glass jar filled with cotton balls that seemed to stare at her like a collection of blind eyes.

Doctor Zhong entered with a nurse, a silent woman whose face was a mask of professional indifference. He took Yulan's pulse, listened to her lungs, pressed his fingers against her abdomen with a gentleness that felt more invasive than roughness.

"Have you ever given birth?" he asked, his eyes on his notepad.

Yulan hesitated. "Yes. A daughter. She died."

"I see." He made a note. "And you are not currently pregnant?"

"No."

"Good. That will make things simpler." He closed his notepad and smiled. "You are in excellent health, Chen Yulan. Strong bones. Good muscle tone. You will be a fine addition to our community."

He did not explain what community meant. He did not explain what she would be doing. But as he left, his nurse lingered, her eyes meeting Yulan's for a fraction of a second. In that glance, Yulan saw something she had not expected: a warning, urgent and silent, like a hand pressed against a window.

She dressed and walked back to the dormitory, a long barracks-style building with rows of narrow cots. The other women were already there, some lying down, others sitting in groups, their voices low and indistinct. Yulan found an empty cot near the back and sat down, her mind churning.

A woman with spectacles and a teacher's bearing approached her. She introduced herself as Zhou Wan, formerly of the Nanjing Girls' School, now a "guest" of the island, as she put it with a bitter smile.

"How long have you been here?" Yulan asked.

"Fourteen months." Zhou Wan adjusted her spectacles, and Yulan noticed a scar on her wrist, a thin white line that curved like a parenthesis. "I arrived with four other women from my village. Two of them are gone now. Transferred, they said. But no one ever comes back from a transfer."

"Gone where?"

Zhou Wan lowered her voice. "To the main house, the white building on the hill. Doctor Zhong runs the medical wing there. Women go in pregnant and come out empty. That's all I can tell you, because that's all I know." She paused. "Your sister is a regular. She's been taken up three times."

Yulan felt the blood drain from her face. "Three times? Three children?"

"Three pregnancies. I don't know how many children. They don't let us see them. They say the babies are adopted by wealthy families in Shanghai, that we're saving the nation by providing children to childless couples. But I've heard things—" She stopped, her eyes darting toward the door. "Never mind. It's not safe to talk."

That night, Yulan lay on her cot and watched the moonlight crawl across the ceiling like a slow silver tide. She had not eaten dinner. She had not spoken to Yumei again. But she had watched her sister from across the room, watched the way Yumei moved like a puppet with half its strings cut, watched the way she flinched whenever Doctor Zhong entered the dining hall.

At midnight, when the dormitory had fallen into a restless silence, Yulan felt a hand touch her shoulder. She turned and found Yumei crouching beside her cot, her face pale as bone.

"Follow me," Yumei whispered. "Quiet. No shoes."

They slipped out of the dormitory and into the moonlit garden, past the wilted cabbages and the silent chicken coops, to a small tool shed that smelled of rust and damp earth. Yumei closed the door behind them and leaned against it, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps.

"I didn't think you'd come," she said. "I hoped you wouldn't."

"Why did you write to me, then?"

Yumei's eyes filled with tears, but they did not fall. They seemed to be held in place by a tension she could not release. "Because I wanted to tell you the truth. I wanted someone to know, someone who might survive to tell the story."

She pulled up her dress, revealing her abdomen. Yulan saw them: three thin, horizontal scars, each one a few inches long, each one pale and puckered like a smile that had been stitched shut.

"C-sections," Yumei said. "The first one was natural, but I tore so badly they decided to cut after that. They don't use anesthesia anymore. They say it affects the baby's health. So I feel everything. Every slice, every pull, every stitch."

Yulan reached out to touch the scars, but Yumei flinched away. "The babies," Yulan said. "What happens to them?"

Yumei's voice dropped to a whisper so low that Yulan had to lean in to hear. "They don't go to adoptive families. I overheard Doctor Zhong talking with Ma Jiu one night. The babies are taken to a separate facility—I don't know where, maybe on another island, maybe on the mainland. They are used for—" She stopped, pressing her hand to her mouth. "Hearts. They need healthy hearts. One of the children born here, a boy, was taken when he was only three weeks old. I saw him before they took him. He had my eyes."

Yulan's mind struggled to process the words. Hearts. Healthy hearts. She thought of the babies she had heard crying in the ship's hold, the face in the window, the sewn-shut eye.

"Who is doing this?" she asked.

Yumei shook her head. "The man who owns the island. His name is Zhong Yuxiu. He's a merchant, very rich, very powerful. His son has a disease that destroys the heart. He needs new parts, new tissue, new—" She broke off, unable to finish.

"And we are the factories," Yulan said. The words came out flat, devoid of shock, because she had run out of shock months ago.

"Some of the women know," Yumei continued. "Others don't. Those who resist are drugged. They're given opium—the same opium that killed our father. It makes them obedient. It makes them forget."

Yulan remembered the detention house, the stone floor, the millet gruel. She remembered the pipe she had chosen over her child. The shame rose in her throat like bile.

"There is a woman named A Shui," Yumei said. "She has been here the longest. She lost twins last year. She is trying to organize something—an escape. But Ma Jiu has eyes everywhere, and the boats are all locked. The only way off the island is through the cove, and the cove is watched."

Yulan gripped her sister's arm. "Then we'll find another way. We'll find the babies. We'll—"

"Yulan." Yumei's voice was suddenly clear, her eyes focused. "I didn't call you here to save me. I called you here to warn you. They have already selected you. Doctor Zhong told me this afternoon. You're healthy, you're strong, you've already had a child. They will breed you. They will use you until your body breaks, and then they will transfer you to the other facility, the one where they take the women who are no longer useful."

She pressed a folded piece of paper into Yulan's hand. "These are the names of the other women in the dormitory. Some of them know. Some of them don't. The ones with the mark—a dot in the corner—are allies. The ones without are too afraid to help. But there is one woman, the young one with the burn scars on her hands, her name is Xiao Taohong. She works in the kitchen. She can get us access to the medical wing at night."

Yulan unfolded the paper. The names were written in Yumei's careful hand, each one a life, each one a hope or a fear. She saw A Shui's name, with a dot. Zhou Wan's, with a dot. And at the bottom, her own name, freshly written, with a dot and a question mark.

"What happens if we try and fail?" Yulan asked.

Yumei's face was unreadable in the darkness. "They don't kill us. That would be a waste. They just make sure we can never leave. There are women here who have been pregnant ten times. Their bodies are ruined, their minds are gone. They walk the gardens all day, murmuring to babies that don't exist. Doctor Zhong calls it 'maternal psychosis.' I call it truth."

A sound came from outside: footsteps, crunching on the gravel path. Yumei pressed a finger to her lips and extinguished the small candle she had lit. They stood in the dark, their hearts beating together, waiting.

The footsteps passed. A voice—Ma Jiu's—muttered something that sounded like a curse. Then silence.

Yumei took Yulan's hand and squeezed it. "Tomorrow, you will meet the others. We will talk properly. But remember: smile, nod, do everything they ask. Pretend you are grateful. Pretend you are broken. Broken women are not watched as closely as angry ones."

They crept back to the dormitory, their bare feet silent on the cold earth. Yulan lay on her cot, the names still clutched in her hand, her sister's words echoing in her skull.

They will breed you. They will use you until your body breaks.

She thought of the faces of the women in the dining hall, the hollow eyes, the scarred stomachs, the whispered lullabies. She thought of the babies in the hold, real or phantom, she no longer knew. And she thought of the island itself, beautiful from a distance, a cluster of white teeth in a dark sea.

In the bunk across the room, A Shui turned in her sleep and muttered the same word she had whispered on the ship: Mama. But this time, Yulan understood it differently. It was not a cry for comfort. It was a name, a title, a claim. A Shui was not calling for her own mother. She was calling for the mothers who had been unmade, the mothers who had been erased, the mothers who were still fighting to become something other than a wound.

Yulan closed her eyes. The moon had moved behind a cloud, plunging the dormitory into absolute darkness. Somewhere in the main house, a light flickered—and then went out.

She felt a presence beside her cot. She did not open her eyes.

"Don't sleep too deeply," a voice whispered. It was Xiao Taohong, the burned girl from the kitchen. "They do the examinations at dawn. When they come, they take your blood. They mark you. And once you're marked, you're theirs forever."

The girl's footsteps retreated. Yulan lay perfectly still, her hand still pressed against the paper with its names and dots, her heart a drum in her chest.

In the distance, she heard the cry of a baby—or the cry of the sea pretending to be a baby.

She did not know which was worse.