As she spoke, she lunged toward the door.

“Olympia!” Luther grabbed her arm, gripping tight, like he was afraid something precious might shatter.

When he turned to look at me, his eyes went cold.

“Look at her, then look at yourself! Isabella, when did you become so selfish and heartless? If Olympia stays here, her whole life is ruined! You're healthy, you're strong, you pull full work-points on the brigade. What's one more year? I'll fight to get you another transfer slot next year, I promise. Isn't that enough?”

Healthy.

I looked down at my hands, covered in chilblains, and laughed. It came out raw and ugly.

For that transfer slot, I had worked like a mule for six months straight.

Dead of winter, repairing the river levee. To prove my dedication, I was the first to jump into the frozen water to drive pilings.

Even on my period I didn't dare rest. I hauled sacks weighing over a hundred pounds through the rain, hiking more than ten miles of mountain road.

The day I got back, I started bleeding. It was a fully formed boy.

I swallowed every drop of blood and tears alone so Luther wouldn't lose focus, so nothing would hurt his chances at the model secretary award. The next morning I was back in the fields.

And where was he?

He was on Olympia's roof, patching her leaks. He was at her door, handing her a fresh bowl of hot ginger tea.

And now he was telling me I was healthy.

“Luther,” I braced my hand against the ground and pushed myself to my feet, staring at him with hollow eyes.

“If you care about her that much, why don't you give her your transfer slot?”

Luther froze for a second, then flushed with anger：

“My slot was assigned by the organization! I'm the party secretary. If I leave, who runs things here? Besides, I'm a man. My career……”

“Your career matters, and I'm just a stepping stone?”

I cut him off. My voice was so hoarse it sounded like I'd swallowed charcoal.

Luther took a deep breath. He seemed to decide that reasoning with me was pointless, and put on his official face：

“This is already done. The papers are burned, the name's been submitted. Throwing a fit won't change anything. Isabella, be sensible. Don't make a fool of yourself.”

Be sensible.

Those two words were nails hammered into the lid of my coffin.

“Fine.”

I looked at the basin where the ashes still trailed a thin ribbon of smoke, and said it quietly.

“I'll be sensible.”

Luther clearly hadn't expected me to give in so fast. Relief crossed his face, even a flicker of approval, the kind that said “I knew you'd understand.”

“There you go. I'll have your sister-in-law make dumplings tonight. Stop being upset.”

He turned to Olympia, his voice going soft：

“Olympia, it's all settled. Go on back and pack your things. The truck leaves first thing tomorrow morning.”

Olympia glanced at me, timid on the surface. A sliver of triumph flashed in her eyes, but her mouth still played sweet：

“Thank you, Luther. Thank you, Isabella. I'll repay you both someday, I promise.”

She turned and left, her steps light and quick, like a mouse that had just gotten into the oil.

Luther reached for my hand. I shifted away.

His hand hung in the air. Displeasure tightened his jaw：

“Still sulking?”

I didn't look at him. I walked into the back room and dug through the bottom of the storage chest on the bed platform until I found a battered little wooden box.

“I'm not sulking.”

I said it calmly.

Because there was nothing left to sulk about. Not for someone already dead inside.

This time around, since he had burned my way out, I would burn the only bridge left between us.

That evening, Luther did make dumplings.

Cabbage and pork filling, barely any pork, mostly cabbage stalks.

Even so, in an era when oil and salt were luxuries, it passed for a holiday meal.

He walked in carrying a bowl. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, mending a sweater.

It was his favorite gray one. The cuffs had worn through.

“Eat while it's hot.” Luther set the bowl on the small table, his tone noticeably softer.

“I know you're upset. But we have to be decent about this. You've seen the Ryder place. Is that any kind of home for a human being? A girl like Olympia, delicate as she is, she wouldn't survive a week in there.”

I didn't respond. My hands kept moving, needle through yarn, mechanical and even.

Luther watched me for a moment, sighed, then sat down beside me and tried to put his arm around my shoulders.

“Isabella, we're husband and wife. We're one. Helping her is good for our conscience too. Besides, you're here with me. I can look after you. If you'd gone back to the city, we'd be living apart, and that's no kind of life either.”

So that was what he really thought.

Keep me pinned at his side, feed his need for control, and still get to play the saint who “saved a damsel in distress.”

“Luther,” I stopped sewing and looked up at him.

“I remember sophomore year. The whole class turned their backs on me because of my family's political status. You were the one who split your roll in half and told me that as long as you had food, I'd never go hungry.”

A flicker of nostalgia passed through Luther's eyes：

“Yeah. Those were hard times. That's exactly why I say we've been through the worst together, and we should be understanding with each other.”

“Later, after we were sent to the countryside, I came down with a high fever. You didn't think twice. You carried me on your back twenty miles through the mountains to the county hospital.”

“That was my duty.” Luther sat up straighter.

“But Luther,” my voice shifted, and my gaze drifted to the bowl of dumplings still steaming on the table,

“do you have any idea how many times my rheumatism flared up in the last six months?”

Luther blinked：

“I saw you put on the medicated patches……”

“Last month I coughed up blood. I told you it was nothing, just a sore throat. The truth is my lungs are failing. The doctor said if I don't get out of this kind of labor, it'll turn into tuberculosis.”

The color in Luther's face shifted：

“Why didn't you tell me sooner? Something this serious……”

“I tried to.”

I held his gaze, my voice level,

“That night you'd just come home. I told you I wasn't feeling well. You said Olympia's window paper was torn and you were worried she'd freeze. You grabbed your tools and left. You were gone for two hours.”

Luther's expression went rigid：

“She's a neighbor, I was just……”

“And,” I set down the sweater,

“two months ago, I had a miscarriage on the river embankment.”

The air in the room turned to stone.

Luther shot to his feet. The bowl on the table went flying.

Dumplings scattered across the floor, rolling through the dirt.

“What did you just say?!” His voice was shaking. His pupils contracted to pinpoints.

“It was a boy. Fully formed.” I touched my flat stomach. There was nothing there now but cold skin.

“I didn't want it to affect your evaluation for the model-worker commendation. Didn't want you distracted. So I handled it myself. Up at the old graveyard on the hill.”

“Isabella! You…… have you lost your mind?! You kept something like this from me!”

Every trace of blood drained from Luther's face. He stared at me like I was a stranger.

“I wasn't trying to keep it from you.”

I bent down and picked up a dumpling from the floor, blew the dust off it,

“That day I came back white as a sheet. There was still blood on my pants. I asked if you could boil me some hot water. You said the Village Brigade was meeting to discuss the nomination list and told me to tough it out.”

Luther opened his mouth as if to argue, but the memory caught up with him, and his face turned even worse.

That night, he had said exactly those words.

I did wash them. I scrubbed those blood-soaked trousers clean in a basin of cold water.

The chill seeped from my fingertips into my chest and settled there. It never left.

“Luther,” I said his name, and my own voice sounded foreign to me.

“You always thought I was the strong one. That I could take it. That Olympia was the fragile one, the one who couldn't survive without you.”

“But I'm flesh and blood too. I'm human.”

“I lost my child. My body broke down. And now the one road I had left to get back to the city for treatment, you burned it with your own hands.”

Luther's chest heaved. Guilt, shock, and a flicker of cornered anger fought for control of his face.

After a long silence he crouched down, clutching his head in both hands, his voice muffled：

“I'm sorry……Isabella, I really didn't know. If I'd known……”

“If you'd known, would you have given me the transfer slot?” I asked quietly.

Luther said nothing.

A silence like death spread through the room.

A long time passed before he lifted his head. His eyes were red-rimmed, yet he was still scrambling to salvage things：

“Olympia's paperwork……has already been submitted. It's too late to change it now. Isabella, since the baby is already……we can have another one. I'll make it up to you. From now on I won't let you do any of the housework. I'll take care of you. Isn't that enough?”

I looked at this man, and the last ember inside me went dark.

Even now, after everything, his first thought was still to protect Olympia. I was still the one who could be sacrificed, the one who could be “compensated.”

He would never understand. Some things, once shattered, can't be pieced back together no matter the cost.

“Fine.”

I smiled. The smile never reached my eyes.

“I don't blame you.”

Because from this moment on, he was a dead man to me.

The next morning, the Settlement was buzzing.

Olympia was leaving for the city, and everyone pitched in to help carry her bags.

She wore Luther's old military overcoat. It was too big for her, which only made her look smaller, more pitiable.

A shy, excited flush colored her cheeks as she said goodbye to each person in turn.

“Where's Isabella?” someone asked.

“Probably can't bear to come out,” someone else murmured.

“I heard the transfer slot was supposed to be hers, but she gave it up for Olympia. Secretary Gilbert is truly selfless.”

“If you ask me, Isabella always seemed shrewd enough, but when it really counted, it was Secretary Gilbert who had the principles. A girl as frail as Olympia would've died out here.”

I stood behind the curtain, listening to every word.

This was Luther's brilliance.

He had swapped my transfer slot behind my back, then told everyone that we, husband and wife, had “nobly” volunteered it to someone more in need.

That way he got the reputation, Olympia got the transfer, and if I dared make a scene, I'd be the one with “low principles” and a “petty heart.”

The door curtain lifted, and Olympia walked in.

No one else was inside. Luther had gone to borrow the tractor.

The timid look vanished from Olympia's face the instant the curtain fell, replaced by the posture of someone who had already won.

She glanced around our bare little room, then let her gaze settle on my pale face.

“Isabella, thank you so much.”

She moved closer, her voice dropping low.

“Actually, Luther told me everything last night. He said you're strong, you can handle hardship. But me? I can't survive without him.”

I didn't respond. I kept sorting through the old books beside me.

When I refused to take the bait, a flicker of boredom crossed Olympia's face. She leaned in closer：

“Oh, and Luther said that to make it up to you, once you're feeling better, he'll slaughter that hen of his and stew it for you. See? He treats you so well.”