My name is Yue Yaya; this name was given to me by my mother.
When my mother gave birth to me, she heard the midwife shout: "A baby girl," and then lay exhausted on the ground, her eyes catching sight of the small crescent moon at the horizon, and I have been called this ever since.
In my family, there were three older brothers and two sisters. My sisters got married at thirteen, one exchanged for a stone of rice and the other for two bags of beans; in my father's words, in times like these, there is chaos everywhere, keeping a girl serves no purpose, selling her can still earn some rations.
When I was nine, a drought struck my hometown, and people were starving everywhere. My parents took us to flee famine, but there was truly nothing to eat on the road. I fainted from hunger by the roadside, and in a daze, I heard my father say, "Give us the five cakes in your hand, and this girl will be yours."
