"Throw it at her!"
"Look at her face—throw it!"
"Smash the basket! Don’t spare a single egg!"
They hit Ye Changge from every side. Straw and rotten fruit slapped her shoulders. A cowhide slipper struck the back of her head. Someone shoved her down into the packed snow. She tasted blood and grit.
"Hold her!" a man barked. "Tie her to the post."
They packed the square like a market on ration day. The communal office sign leaned over a mud-streaked cart. Women clutched ticket books. Children shrieked and ducked. The snow carried the stink of spoiled fish and humiliation.
"Jiang Hao says she seduced his cousin!" a woman shouted.
"She took meat coupons!" another called.
"She slept with a man from the county!" someone else lied louder.
Ye’s mouth was bound with a strip of red cloth soaked in old tobacco. Her wrists were knotted behind her with a rope pulled from a delivery cart. The gag muffled words but her eyes burned with fury.
"Look at her. Tried to trap a gentleman," Chu Lingfei drawled, walking in pearls and cheap silk. He smiled at the crowd, a practiced charm that would make a magistrate nod. He liked the sound of his own applause.
Jiang Hao stood beside him, hair slicked, shirt collar perfect like a man permanently prepared for a tea ceremony. His hand rested on a cane nobody needed. He stepped forward and yanked the gag down to show her face.
"Speak," he
