After lunch, Ye Zhao was going to find Liang Po, the scrap collector, to inquire about the news of the educated youth back then, and to sell the scraps that they had secretly hidden before.
I went downstairs with my sister, carrying a tattered snakeskin bag. When we reached the corner of the stairs, we heard Aunt Qiao cursing downstairs. It seemed that the tenant was being evicted. The male owner ran away with his mistress, leaving behind his wife and children with nowhere to go.
This made Aunt Qiao very angry.
The two sisters were in a dilemma when they saw Aunt Qiao coming towards them. Xiaoqin was so scared that the snakeskin bag in her hand fell to the ground with a "clang", making a crisp iron sound.
Aunt Qiao stared at the snakeskin bag with a slightly gloomy expression, as if asking, didn’t you lie to me and told me they were two bags of sweet potatoes
Ye Zhao knew that Aunt Qiao was angry, so she didn't dare to provoke her. She immediately slid down to her knees without hesitation and confessed the truth: "Aunt Qiao, this is the junk my sister picked up..."
She patted the scapegoat lightly and continued, "Let's deal with it now. I promise it won't happen again."
I will never bring junk home again.
Zeng Erqiao waved her hand to let it go, fearing that they didn't know the way, and pointed to the door: "Turn left and walk to the end of the street behind. It's about 500 meters away. Granny Liang likes to take advantage of small opportunities, so be careful that she might cheat you on the scale."
"okay!"
Following the direction pointed by Aunt Qiao, we found a dilapidated shack for collecting scrap in the most remote and desolate area at the west entrance of the village.
Ye Zhao stood at the door of the shed and looked inside. In addition to a small shed, there was a large open space with all kinds of junk piled up in a mess.
If she remembered correctly, this location would be the most prosperous commercial district in Shenzhen where four subway lines would intersect in the future.
Ye Zhao was drooling over this piece of land. When she had money, she would definitely buy land and build a house here.
"anyone there?"
After calling a few times, a skinny old lady came out. I guess it was Granny Liang. The old lady was extremely impatient: "Why are you calling me? What are you selling?"
"Iron and aluminum cans and cardboard..."
"Just this little piece of cardboard?"
Granny Liang opened the snakeskin bag and saw the iron bars inside. She exclaimed, "Is this iron stolen from the construction site?"
Xiaoqin hurriedly explained: "I didn't steal it, I picked it up."
"Where can I find such good iron branches?"
"I just picked up the broken metal that fell from the dump trucks at the construction site. A group of kids went to pick it up. I didn't pick up much."
Ye Zhao pulled his sister and said, "It's just a bunch of scrap metal. Do you want to take it?"
Granny Liang looked at the two sisters. They were wearing nice clothes and had fair skin and tender flesh. They didn't look like children from poor families.
"Two cents a pound, weigh it."
"Isn't it 3 points?"
"Your iron is from an unknown source, I can only give you 2 points at most, if you don't want to sell it, take it away."
“Not for sale.”
"If you don't want to sell it, leave now."
It was only worth a few cents in total. Ye Zhao curled his lips and said, "I won't sell these scraps of iron anymore. I'll give them all to you."
"Oh my, the little girl has quite a temper." Granny Liang thought Ye Zhao was angry.
"I'm not being grumpy. I really want to give it to you, but I want to ask you about someone."
Granny Liang looked at Ye Zhao again. She was sure that she didn't know this girl, so she looked more alert. "Who are you looking for?"
"I want to ask you about an educated youth who used to work here." Ye Zhao heard from Aunt Qiao that Granny Liang and her husband were responsible for receiving the educated youth. In theory, she should know all the educated youth who came here.
"How did you find me? Who do you want to ask about?"
"Jin Jingzhi." Ye Zhao was afraid that the old lady would not remember, so he explained in detail, "The 'jin' in 'gold', the 'jing' in 'quiet', the 'zhi' in 'zhihuzheya', Jin Jingzhi."
After saying this, I remembered that the old woman might not be able to read.
Granny Liang said "Oh" thoughtfully, and asked, "Who are you to her?"
"I'm her daughter."
Granny Liang looked at Ye Zhao with some doubt, a little unsure, "You are Jin Jingzhi's daughter? You are this old?"
"yes."
Ye Zhao pointed to the cardboard sign hanging at the door that said "exchange for maltose" and asked, "Can I exchange my cardboard and cans for maltose?"
"This little stuff can't be exchanged for much." Granny Liang came into the house and gave them a small paper bag of malt sugar. Ye Zhao picked up a small piece and put it in his mouth, and gave the rest to his sister, asking her to go home first.
Ye Zhao ate maltose and brought the topic back: "I was born the year my mother returned to the city."
There was an old wooden chair at the door of the shed. Granny Liang sat on the chair and drank water from the enamel cup. "Why did you come to me to ask about your mother? Why can't you ask her directly?"
"I have never met my mother. I just want to know about her." Ye Zhao pulled a stool and sat next to Grandma Liang, looking obedient and lovely.
Granny Liang glanced at the snakeskin bags at the door. The two bags contained dozens of kilograms of iron. She was aroused by the little girl's words "I'll give it all to you" and could not help but ask patiently, "Did your mother have an accident?"
"I don't know. I was born here, and my mother disappeared after I was born."
"Were you born here? What year were you born?"
"August 1970."
"Impossible. You are lying to me, little girl. My husband handled the procedures for your mother to return to the city. It was the summer of 1970. I don't remember the month. She didn't even have a partner at the time, let alone get married. How could she have given birth to you? I never saw her pregnant. You couldn't have been born in 1970."
Ye Zhao was confused. "Grandma, you mean that before my mother returned to the city in 1970, she was single and not pregnant?"
"It's impossible for them to get pregnant. They are from Group A. In 1970, several educated youth from Group A were still guarding Qiansui Island. Jin Jingzhi and Su Yingmin would come out to buy goods almost every month. Every time they bought goods, they had to come to our house to stamp them. I can't remember it wrong." Granny Liang pointed to her head. "I have a good memory. My grandfather used to say that I have a good memory. In ancient times, that would be a female champion."
Facing Ye Zhao's doubts, Granny Liang waved her hands and said, "Your mother returned to the city in 1970. At that time, she and another female educated youth from Beijing, Xiao Guo, went through the procedures for returning to the city at the same time. After completing the procedures, they couldn't stay here. How could they stay here without rice and food? It was still a planned economy at that time."
In fact, Ye Zhao had doubts about the original owner's birth before. When the original owner was born, her household registration was not here, but at her second uncle's house. Later, because of family planning, her household registration at her second uncle's house affected her second uncle and his wife's desire to have a boy, so Ye Dingguo moved her household registration to Shenzhen.
So from the very beginning, there was a lot of room for maneuver regarding her date of birth.
Her parents may not have obtained a marriage certificate back then, so Bai Yunlian's statement that Ye Dingguo was unmarried may be accurate information. However, in order to allow Ye Zhao to settle down smoothly, Ye Dingguo changed his marital status to divorced when he moved his household registration.
Ye Zhao: "But I was indeed born here. If it wasn't in 1970, it was probably in 1971. Is it possible that after my mother completed the procedures to return to the city, she did not return to Beijing City, but secretly stayed on Chitose Island? Are there many people on Chitose Island?"
"That's possible. Chitose Island was uninhabited before, but later educated youth were sent to guard the island. They stayed on the island for several years."
"How many people are there in Group A of the Educated Youth?"
"In the beginning, there were five people guarding the island, two men and three women. Later, the two women, your mother and Xiao Guo, went back to the city. The remaining three stayed on the island until 1972. If your mother really stayed on the island for another year, it would not be easy to find out as long as they didn't tell anyone."
There were two men and three women. The two men were Ye Dingguo and Su Yingmin, the three women were Jin Jingzhi, Su Yingmin's wife Aunt He, and the other was Xiao Guo, a female educated youth who had already returned to Beijing.
Granny Liang asked, "Who is your father?"
Ye Zhao didn't want Liang Po to know too much, so she smiled awkwardly: "I don't have a father."
Granny Liang said "Oh" meaningfully, "Then where did your mother go? Oh, you don't know."
"Yeah, I don't know where she is."
"Who raised you?" Granny Liang began to take the initiative.
"relative."
Granny Liang sighed, "Your mother was born in a poor family. She came from a big city, but I heard that her family was so poor that they could barely make ends meet. Of the three girls who came from Beijing, she was the only one wearing patched clothes. She was even poorer than us country people, but she was also able to endure hardships. Of the three girls, I like her best."
That’s not right. Su Yingmin told her that her mother was spoiled since childhood and couldn’t endure hardship, so she was determined to return to the city. How could it be completely different from what Liang Po said
The information here is distorted.
Ye Zhao suddenly realized that if her mother died in an accident, how did it happen? Did she fall into the water when she was fleeing to Hong Kong? Then who did she flee to Hong Kong with? Who was the legendary lover? Is that person still alive
"Who did my mother have a better relationship with at that time?"
"How should I know that?"
"Do you still have any photos from that time?"
"No."
"I can buy it with money."
Granny Liang looked at her. If she had money, the story would be different. The old woman smiled and asked, "How much can you give?"
Ye Zhao thought for a moment and held up two fingers: "20."
Generous. It seems that he is fostered in the home of a wealthy relative.
"I'll go home and look for it when I have time, but I can't guarantee that I'll find it. Come back to me in a few days." Seeing that Ye Zhao was generous and easy to talk to, Granny Liang did not forget to assign her tasks, "Move these two bags of junk in there."
Ye Zhao gave Liang Po an OK sign!
Under the moonlight, shadows and figures were intertwined in the house. In the cupboard, a rough big hand was covering the mouth and nose of a boy of five or six years old.
The little boy looked through the crack in the cabinet door at everything that was happening outside the cabinet. Fear and anger kept accumulating in his little eyes. He wanted to break free!
But he was hoisted so tightly that he couldn't move.
Suffocating! Uncomfortable!
Can't breathe.
Zeng Xiang sat up, sweat condensed into beads on his jawline. He closed his eyes slightly. It was dim outside and he couldn't tell whether it was morning or evening.
"Xiangzi!" His mother knocked on the door and came in, "Get up and have dinner."
It turned out that he slept all afternoon.
The lights in the house came on, he closed his eyes and lowered his head.
Zeng Erqiao saw her son sitting on the bed, his mood was very low, so she walked over and asked softly, "Are you having a nightmare again?"
"No."
"Are you... blaming me for renting out Feng Ma's room?"
Xiangzai had finally come to terms with his condition over the past two years, and Gangcheng was eager to take him away. She was unwilling to do that, so she found an excuse to drive away Feng Ma, the nanny sent by Gangcheng.
"Mother Feng is that woman's spy."
"no."
"You are heartless. Your father abandoned his wife and children for that woman..."
Zeng Xiang covered his ears and didn't want to listen.
"Okay, I won't say anything." Zeng Erqiao was afraid that her son would vent his anger on Ye Zhao because of what happened in Feng Ma's room, so she added, "Xiao Zhao is a few months younger than you. His father doesn't love him, and his mother doesn't care about him. He's quite pitiful. You..."
“I think she’s living a happy life.”
"The little girl...she has good grades. She's naturally happy when she has good grades."
What kind of fallacy
"I've already told her that I'll start giving you extra lessons tonight. I'm warning you, don't scare her away."
Zeng Xiang stood up to feed water to the lizard, and remembered what Ye Zhao said about loving the house and loving the crows. How could he, with just a roof, scare away the crows
(End of this chapter)