IS MONEY EVER CLEAN?
How far would you go, to make it?
How far would you go to make it?
Sweet sixteen. Their nine-year anniversary.
They were only 23, and were born next door to each other in a dirt-poor neighborhood. They were married to one another when they turned seven.
The young couple was surprisingly prosperous; mainly because she would do anything for money. She would clean homes, deliver babies, make videos of herself churning butter while singing traditional folk songs in costume, then sell the recordings as CDs to visiting foreigners. She even performed on the Spring Festival stage for tips, on sunny days.
Anything that paid.
Born in poverty and raised with his child-wife, he was familiar with her ambition. His mill worker friends laughed at him, but he just blinked. He found that the creature comforts her jobs provided were easy to get used to.
She wasn’t doing anything wrong, hard work never killed anybody. Yet.
Their first two children were in boarding school when she had the third. She casually told him that it wasn’t his, but was the local Minister’s child instead. The Minister would pay for it, she said. She had proof recorded to a DVD and would demand a DNA test. Publicly, if necessary.
