On the eve of the Spring Festival in 2002, Mom and Dad decided to take their daughter and son back to their hometown to celebrate the New Year.
They set out from the long-distance bus station in the provincial capital, boarded a crowded green bus, and after a bumpy ride, finally arrived at the village on the evening of the 28th day of the lunar year.
Dad carried the suitcase and snakeskin bag, and Mom held Lin Zhixia and Lin Zeqiu. The family walked quietly on the loess road in the countryside. The cold wind of severe winter blew from the empty fields. Lin Zhixia sneezed and whispered, "Mom, mom, I'm cold."
Lin Zhixia was only seven years old and had just started to grow her baby teeth. She was tired, sleepy, hungry, cold, and her feet ached. She clung to her mother, and her mother said to her father, "I'll take the suitcase, and you carry Xia Xia. We still have a long way to go."
Lin Zhixia looked up at her father, and her father bent down and picked her up.
She put her hands on her father's shoulders, and her vision became wider. She saw the cold moonlight sprinkled on the bare rice fields, and the river in the distance was flowing slowly. The dark night had no end, and there were no street lights in the alleys of the village. Cold white, dim yellow, and warm orange lights leaked from the windows of every household, and the blurred halo was like the colorful nebulae in the universe.
She could clearly identify where her grandparents' house was - two red lanterns were hung under the eaves of that house, highlighting the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival. Outside the gate was a black Santana sedan, which was her uncle and aunt's car. It was said that it cost 20,000 to 30,000 yuan to buy one.
Twenty or thirty thousand, that’s really expensive, Lin Zhixia thought.
Lin Zeqiu suddenly blurted out, "I'm so fed up with Ke Zhuangzhi."
The father was about to criticize his son when Lin Zhixia said, "Me too."
Dad persuaded the children: "Qiuqiu, Ke Zhuangzhi is your cousin, your uncle's biological son. He is only eight and a half years old and does not know much. Qiuqiu is ten years old, a big kid. The New Year is just a few days away, so please be patient. Your grandparents are old, and we should be harmonious as a family. Xiaxia, you too, dad is not criticizing you, you should be more careful with your words..."
Lin Zeqiu sneered, and Lin Zhixia asked a series of questions: "Dad, I'm younger than Ke Zhuangzhi, and my brother lets him go, so why doesn't he let me go? If Ke Zhuangzhi bullies me, should my brother and I endure it? If he scolds us, can't we talk back?"
"That's not what Dad meant," Dad explained.
Lin Zhixia said with reason: "My brother and I don't want to cause trouble, but Ke Zhuangzhi often makes trouble for us and he also steals my things. I won't tolerate it, we will definitely fight."
Dad was speechless.
But my mother said, "You are a little girl, don't fight with boys. We will stay at your grandparents' house for a day, then go to your grandparents' house for the New Year's Eve dinner, and we will go home on the third day of the New Year..."
Mom touched Lin Zhixia's head and said, "Xia Xia, be good."
Lin Zhixia said nothing.
It was winter, and she was wearing a thick pink down jacket, which was her new outfit for the Spring Festival this year. The gray down jacket Lin Zeqiu was wearing was the same children's clothing as hers. The two pieces of clothing cost her parents more than 300 yuan in total, which was one of the few huge expenses in their family.
Mom and Dad didn't buy new clothes. They were still wearing old coats. Dad's sweater was clean, but the collar was untied. Lin Zhixia grabbed the thread, and Dad said again: "Xia Xia, Qiu Qiu, when you get to grandpa and grandma's house, say hello to everyone you see, and sleep after dinner, eat and sleep, sleep and eat..."
Lin Zeqiu said impatiently: "I'm not a piglet."
Lin Zhixia echoed: "That's right!"
The father looked at his son with a reproachful look. His son, on the other hand, put on the hood of his down jacket even tighter, grabbed the long rope of the hood brim with both hands, and tied it tightly, with a heroic momentum of dominating the world.
At around seven o'clock in the evening, Lin Zhixia and her family stepped into the door of their grandparents' house.
Grandma came over from a distance and spoke to her mother in their hometown dialect. Lin Zeqiu didn't understand what they were saying, so Lin Zhixia translated for her brother: "Grandma left a table of food for us, we can have dinner now. I'm so hungry, are you hungry, brother?"
There was a "gurgling" sound coming from Lin Zeqiu's abdomen.
Lin Zhixia immediately called out, "Come on, Dad, Mom, and Brother, let's go eat together."
She ran through the night and into the lobby on the first floor.
There was a round wooden table in the center of the lobby, with a stove burning brightly beside it. Melon seed shells were scattered on the cement floor, and my uncle and his family were sitting around the stove. Ke Zhuangzhi was eating melon seeds while saying, "Hey, my cousin is here."
My uncle smiled but didn't stand up. He sat lazily and just called out, "Sister, brother-in-law, why did you get here so late? I guess there was a traffic jam on the highway, and you didn't even call home."
My aunt interrupted and said, "Sister, brother-in-law, you should buy a cell phone. It's very easy to use and comes with a year-round warranty." She pulled out from her pocket a Sony Ericsson's latest color-screen flip phone, which came with ringtones, camera, and MP3 and MP4 playback functions.
Lin Zhixia sat on a chair. She turned her head and stared at the phone quietly, as if to record every detail in her mind. The price of mobile phones was too expensive, and her parents were still using "Xiaolingtong" - Xiaolingtong could only receive calls and send and receive text messages, and the signal was not very good, which was much cheaper than brand-name mobile phones.
Ke Zhuangzhi knew that Lin Zhixia was very curious. He deliberately took out his mobile phone, played music and videos, and laughed to himself. When Lin Zhixia came a little closer, Ke Zhuangzhi asked provocatively: "Did I let you see it?"
The fire lit up Lin Zhixia's cheeks, which were red. She had a white complexion, black pupils, and big, bright eyes, as watery as a clear spring, but she and her brother were poor and annoying, always against their own family - Ke Zhuangzhi thought.
As expected, Lin Zhixia said, "I don't want to watch it."
She turned around and picked up the chopsticks.
Grandpa and grandma brought a bowl of rice, braised spareribs, chili peppers, minced meat and eggplant, and fried tomatoes and eggs. The aroma of the food wafted in, and Lin Zhixia was overjoyed: "Thank you, grandpa and grandma."
Mom served Lin Zhixia a bowl of rice and helped her shave off the pork ribs because she was still teething and couldn't chew the ribs. She happily mixed the pork ribs her mother had shaved into the rice, added a few spoonfuls of tomato and egg, and had a hearty meal.
After dinner, it was almost 8:30 in the evening. Lin Zhixia and Lin Zeqiu were so sleepy that their mother took them to bed. They lived in a bedroom on the second floor. The room was filled with the unique smell of old-fashioned furniture. The spacious wooden bed was covered with bedding. Mom reached out to try it out, but said, "This mattress is not thick enough. Xia Xia will not be comfortable sleeping on it. I will find another quilt..." She turned her head and looked at her father: "Take the children to brush their teeth and wash their faces."
Dad opened the suitcase and took out a toothbrush and a towel: "Come with Dad, Qiuqiu, Xiaxia."
Lin Zhixia was the most obedient. She followed her father like a little tail. When her father looked back at her, she stretched out her hand and he held her hand: "Did you have enough for dinner, Xia Xia?"
"I'm full." Lin Zhixia said honestly.
Dad murmured to himself, "Next year on the way back home, Mom and Dad will bring more food for Xia Xia."
Lin Zhixia said, "I don't want to go back to my hometown next year."
Lin Zeqiu brushed his teeth while speaking unclearly, "I don't want to either. I get annoyed when I see Ke Zhuangzhi. He wants to show off his broken phone. Why doesn't he just hang it on his forehead?"
This time, probably because Mom wasn't around, Dad didn't say much. He patted Lin Zeqiu's shoulder and said, "That's enough, Qiuqiu." He picked up the thermos, which was very light.
Dad asked Lin Zeqiu to take care of Lin Zhixia while he went downstairs to get some hot water.
Not long after his father left, a door at the end of the corridor opened. Ke Zhuangzhi, wearing a set of pure cotton pajamas, staggered out to use the toilet. He caught a glimpse of Lin Zhixia and Lin Zeqiu, a pair of bumpkin siblings from the slums, and asked in a half-awake state: "Who told you to live on the second floor? Why don't you live on the first floor? My father paid for the toilet on the second floor. Why are you using it? Have you paid?"
Lin Zhixia was stunned.
Ke Zhuangzhi insisted, "Go downstairs and use the toilet outside the first floor."
Lin Zeqiu exploded on the spot: "What a shame! How dare you bring this up! How much does your dad owe my mom?"
"My dad doesn't owe any money!" Ke Zhuangzhi shouted conscious and clear-headed, "My dad is a lawyer! What are your parents?"
Lin Zeqiu is only ten years old this year and is in the fourth grade of Experimental Primary School. He has been influenced by his sister since he was a child, and has mastered the trick of sarcasm: "Your father is a big lawyer, how come he doesn't have money to pay me back?"
Ke Zhuangzhi was so angry that his face turned red. He grabbed Lin Zeqiu by the collar and said, "If you say that again, my dad will sue you! I will make you lose everything!"
"Lose everything" is an idiom that Ke Zhuangzhi had recently learned from a TV drama, but his Chinese literacy was so fragile that it was vulnerable in front of Lin Zhixia.
Lin Zhixia said lightly: "Ke Zhuangzhi, go back and read the Civil Law first, then come over to scare people." She calmly held the toothbrush and squeezed out the toothpaste: "You don't understand anything."
She didn't even look at Ke Zhuangzhi, but her contempt was evident.
The water pipe in the toilet leaked a few drops of water, making a light "tick-tick" sound. The light bulb hung on the beam, emitting a dim yellow luster. Old dirt accumulated in the corners of the wall, making the white wall faintly black. Ke Zhuangzhi kicked the wall without feeling disgusted and cursed: "You and Lin Zeqiu are both sick."
He pointed to his heart: "Lin Zeqiu is sick here." He poked his temple again: "Lin Zhixia is sick here!"
When Lin Zeqiu was born, he unfortunately suffered from congenital heart disease. His parents spent a lot of energy to cure him. Ke Zhuangzhi's simple two sentences made Lin Zhixia furious: "You are sick! Your whole family is sick!"
Ke Zhuangzhi's neck turned red, and he cursed at her: "You are a freak! Your family is so poor! You live in a garbage dump! Your brother deserves to be sick!"
Lin Zhixia could no longer bear it: "You are mentally retarded! Your brain is as dumb as a pig! You can't understand classical Chinese! You can't even do multiplication and division of four-digit numbers!"
The eight-year-old Ke Zhuangzhi roared crazily: "You are a pauper! You are a poor ghost! Your whole family will die of poverty!"
The seven-year-old Lin Zhixia fought back fiercely: "I would rather be poor than be a snob upstart like you who is ignorant, stupid, arrogant, arrogant, vicious, cunning, mean, and calculating!"
Lin Zhixia's vocabulary is obviously not on the same level as Ke Zhuangzhi's. Ke Zhuangzhi racked his brains and tried his best but still couldn't compete with Lin Zhixia, and Lin Zhixia continued to say: "If you don't allow others to use the toilet, just sleep in the toilet tonight!"
Before Lin Zhixia finished speaking, her uncle scolded her not far away: "Lin Zhixia, shut up! What did your mother teach you?"
Before Lin Zhixia opened her mouth to explain, Lin Zeqiu said angrily: "Ke Zhuangzhi was the first to curse, how did you teach your son?"
"Ke Zhuangzhi said that our family would die of poverty," Lin Zhixia said, "It's New Year's Day, and he cursed others like this."
My grandparents lived in the countryside, and the neighbors were all honest farmers who had no money at all. Ke Zhuangzhi's words "poor to death" probably hit everyone's pain point. The more Ke Zhuangzhi thought about it, the more scared he became. He was so anxious that he couldn't speak. He hugged his father's waist and cried wildly.
Lin Zhixia's parents and grandparents heard the noise and went upstairs.
All the lights on the second floor were turned on, and the light suddenly became bright. Lin Zhixia covered her eyes. Her mother hugged her in her arms. She whispered, "Mom, I haven't brushed my teeth or washed my face yet."
Mom just stroked her head, but my aunt said, "Zhuangzhuang got along well with other students in elementary school, but why can't he get along with your brother and sister? Whose education problem is this? My family paid for the toilet, so it's not illegal to not let you use it, right?"
My grandfather had asthma and high blood pressure. He leaned against the wall and said in unstandard Mandarin: "This is a mess. Your toilet... You won't let your own children use it. Is this a toilet made of gold?"
While the grandmother was calming the grandfather down, she lectured his son: "That's outrageous!"
My aunt took my uncle's arm and said, "What are you doing, husband? Why don't you say something?"
My uncle forced a smile and tried to smooth things over: "Sister, if this goes to court, both of our families will lose face, don't you think?"
The silence lengthened in the air.
The sound of water dripping from the toilet pipe was icy and cold, as if it fell into Lin Zhixia and Lin Zeqiu's hearts.
Dad quickly protected Lin Zhixia and Lin Zeqiu behind him and apologized to his uncle: "I'm sorry, uncle, calm down, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, the children are young, Xia Xia is only seven years old, she is ignorant and speaks her mind. Look, it's almost nine o'clock, the children are growing up, let them go to bed first. Let adults talk about adult matters."
My mother also said, "Brother, do you really want to sue me? It's hard to explain."
My uncle spread his hands and said, "I don't want to. I'm just afraid that the children from our two families won't get along well and have disputes. You're going back to your hometown to visit your parents during the Spring Festival, and so am I. We brothers and sisters are only free during the Spring Festival. A harmonious family is the foundation of everything. Blood is thicker than water. If my Zhuangzhuang hadn't been forced into a corner, why would I have resorted to legal means to resolve the issue? Don't you think so, sister?"
Lin Zhixia wanted to say something, but her father waved at her.
Mom took Lin Zhixia by the hand and wanted to take her back to the bedroom. She and Lin Zeqiu didn't want to leave, but Mom leaned over and said to them, "Your uncle is a lawyer, your aunt doesn't work, they know a lot of people, including the community clerk. Dad and Mom are both in the community looking after the store, so they don't have time to waste with them."
"Mom..." Lin Zhixia's voice was filled with tears.
Mom's eyes also turned red: "Mom knows you are smart. You and Qiuqiu should be good and go to bed. Mom and Dad are tired too."
Lin Zhixia turned her head and saw her father handing a cigarette to her uncle and bending over to coax Ke Zhuangzhi. This made her feel worse than if Ke Zhuangzhi had scolded her ten thousand times. Tears welled up in her eyes. She felt embarrassed for herself and her brother, and sad for her parents. She could only lower her head, and tears fell one by one onto the pink down jacket she had just bought for the Chinese New Year.
Lin Zeqiu and Lin Zhixia, a brother and sister, have one thing in common - if they were in a bad mood the night before, they would stay in bed the next morning, and their parents would have to urge them repeatedly to get up.
At 10:30 in the morning, Lin Zeqiu and Lin Zhixia woke up slowly. After having breakfast at their grandparents' house, they prepared to go to their grandparents' house. Their grandparents lived in the same village as their grandparents, but one was in the east and the other in the west.
Uncle drove a tricycle to pick up Lin Zhixia and her family. He also brought Lin Zhixia and Lin Zeqiu a bag of egg cakes that he bought at the market. Lin Zhixia took the paper bag and said politely, "Thank you, uncle."
My uncle was a reserved man who spoke little. He had been farming for almost his entire life and was very kind to his relatives. He was a well-known good man in the village. The egg cake he gave to Lin Zhixia and Lin Zeqiu was worth 4 yuan per pound, but he and his wife were reluctant to eat it and were only willing to share it with the children of the Lin family to have a taste.
Lin Zhixia's father patted his uncle on the shoulder and said, "Brother, you've lost weight."
My uncle waved his hand and asked everyone to get in the car.
The back seat of the tricycle was covered with haystacks. Lin Zhixia sat in a haystack holding a hot water bottle and tightly grasping her mother's hand. She heard that tricycles were not very safe. She began to calculate the various physical states of the tricycle and paid close attention to the weather vane on this muddy road.
Lin Zeqiu thought of the Santana sedan at his uncle's house. He whispered in Lin Zhixia's ear: "How much is the Santana?"
"It's very expensive," Lin Zhixia whispered to her brother, "It costs tens of thousands."
My brother picked up a withered straw and asked: "How much is the color screen flip phone?"
Lin Zhixia's voice became even softer: "I don't know." She tried to comfort her brother: "Don't care about these material things, brother, we are still young, we must first enrich our inner world..."
My brother folded his hands behind his head, resting his head on the haystack and holding a straw in his mouth, just like a shepherd boy in the countryside.
Lin Zhixia suddenly had an idea: "Let me tell you a story."
"I don't want to listen." said my brother.
Lin Zhixia threw herself into her mother's arms: "Mom, mom, I want to tell you a story."
Most children like to pester their parents to tell stories. But Lin Zhixia is just the opposite. She always has a lot to say and wants to confide in others. Her mother raised her until she was seven years old and was already familiar with her habits, so she agreed: "Xia Xia, go ahead and tell it."
Lin Zeqiu muttered: "Mom-clinging spirit."
Lin Zhixia ignored him. She and her mother described the stories in Homer's epic, focusing on the wars between Greece and other countries. The complicated war was not over yet, and the cold wind seemed to blow into her scarf. Lin Zhixia sneezed, and her mother tied her hat tightly and covered half of her face with the scarf, leaving only a pair of watery eyes.
Dad reached out to touch Lin Zeqiu's nose: "Is Qiuqiu cold?"
Lin Zeqiu said: "I'm not afraid of the cold."
As soon as he finished speaking, he sniffed.
Dad laughed heartily. He asked his uncle to drive slower and put the only cashmere sweater in the family on Lin Zeqiu's head - Lin Zeqiu knew that this sweater was very precious. He covered the sweater with both hands and his nose stopped running.
The morning sun was just right. But the winter sun was cold, gently and finely covering an old-fashioned bungalow. Grandpa and grandma stood at the door of the house, waving at Lin Zhixia's family.
The tricycle stopped on the side of the road, and Lin Zhixia got off the tricycle holding a hot water bottle. With her scarf covering her mouth, she said in a muffled voice, "Hello, Grandpa and Grandma."
Grandpa gave Lin Zhixia a red envelope, and grandma gave Lin Zeqiu her red envelope. Dad took the two red envelopes from Lin Zhixia and Lin Zeqiu, saying, "I'm afraid you two will spend them carelessly, so I'll give you the red envelopes tonight."
Why did Dad do this
Soon, Lin Zhixia discovered her father's secret.
After lunch, Lin Zhixia wandered around the rooms bored. She happened to overhear the conversation between her father and mother. Her mother spoke first, "How much does your mother dislike girls? The amount of money in the red envelopes is different every year. Two hundred for Qiuqiu and twenty for Xiaxia. We have to take the red envelopes and make them the same for our son and daughter."
Dad sighed and said, "My mom just thinks that we are too partial to Xia Xia. She is reminding us..."
"Xia Xia and Qiu Qiu are different," the mother argued. "Xia Xia can't forget anything that happens to her, but Qiu Qiu will be fine in two days. You make it sound like I never took care of my son."
Dad coughed, cleared his throat, and then said, "No matter how many faults my mother has, she is always presentable. She is more honest than your brother."
Mom was so angry at Dad that she was boiling with anger: "I have nothing to say to you."
Dad sighed and said, "Then why did you agree to marry me?"
Mom's voice faded away.
Lin Zhixia thought her mother was crying. She was worried about her mother. She slammed the bedroom door, trying to save the situation: "Mom, mom, it's me, mom, open the door!"
After a few minutes, Dad unlocked the door.
Dad was over 1.8 meters tall, while Lin Zhixia was only seven years old and only 1.2 meters tall. Compared to her father, she was too short. Dad squatted down and looked at Lin Zhixia straight in the eye: "Xia Xia, you've had lunch, aren't you going to take a nap?"
Lin Zhixia said, "Xia Xia doesn't want to take a nap."
"Where is your brother?" Dad asked again.
Lin Zhixia said honestly: "My brother is catching sheep in the sheepfold. He wants to pull a bag of wool from the sheep so that he can make a new wool sweater for mom and dad. I just advised my brother not to do such a thing, but he didn't listen to me. He is still pulling the wool. My brother is much stronger than me, and I can't pull him."
Dad's face turned pale in an instant. He rubbed his temples and sighed deeply. Then he put on his coat and ran to the Lin family's sheepfold.
The sheepfold of the Lin family was built with wooden sheds, and the base was covered with rows of wood, which gave off a unique smell of sheep. But Lin Zeqiu didn't care about the smell at all. He held a plastic bag in his left hand and a pair of scissors in his right hand. If he saw a fat sheep, he would cut off a handful of wool and stuff it into his bag.
He was busy for a while, and suddenly he heard his father calling him: "Lin Zeqiu, come out!"
The sheep bleated, and Lin Zeqiu stood there quietly. Lin Zhixia didn't see her brother for a long time, so she quickly went into the sheepfold - perhaps because she was too short and not aggressive at all, she successfully mixed into the sheep and hugged a pure black lamb.
"Don't touch it," Lin Zeqiu said, "This sheep has never been bathed."
"Then why did you cut their hair?" Lin Zhixia asked.
Lin Zeqiu put the plastic bag and scissors behind his back: "I want you to care?"
Lin Zhixia clapped her hands and said, "I don't want to care about you. The sheep here are all raised by my grandparents, and there are pregnant ewes. If you scare them like this, my grandparents will be angry, and my parents will have to pay compensation."
Lin Zhixia had used the same words to persuade Lin Zeqiu before. Now, her tone became more firm, and Lin Zeqiu couldn't help but waver: "I am responsible for my own actions. I will use the New Year's money to compensate grandpa and grandma."
The author has something to say: Ah, this chapter is not finished yet. I will add it to the end of this chapter when I finish it. Thank you! There will be a little bit of abuse at the end! I will give you a warning first qaq
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