Chapter 7

When Hong Kong returned to China in 1997, the Zhou family moved as well. In those days, houses were still divided. Zhou Tiancheng "divided" a house in the Audit Office's staff housing complex from somewhere. Although most of the people living there were from prominent families, they were still quite low-key. Each building had eight floors, and each building was separated by a bicycle shed. A piece of rugged land was reserved in the center of the community, with willow trees planted on all sides. There were several steppers and parallel bars in the middle, and each building had a dedicated security guard.

What impressed Zhou Yue the most was that she felt for the first time that the daylight hours in the north were actually very long. In the past, her home was only bright when the sun was at its highest point in the sky. The lights had to be turned on at four o'clock in the afternoon, otherwise the house would be pitch black. She could see the whole picture of her parents' bedroom by tilting her head while sitting on the sofa. A few steps down was the kitchen, which was so cramped that the house would be filled with the smell of cooking fumes unless the range hood was turned on.

Dai Yan didn't care much about housework. The white tiles on the black and white checkered tile floor were greasy and yellow, while the black tiles were gray and white.

The sofa is always piled with dirty clothes or clean clothes, mixed together and difficult to distinguish, which makes it look more crowded and messy visually.

The action of Dai Yan that Zhou Yue remembers most is that she held up the clothes and looked at them in the already dim light. If she couldn't see, she would smell them. The ones with the scent of detergent were washed, and the ones without scent were to be washed. Once she could tell them apart, she would tilt her head, smile triumphantly, and hum "You ask ~ how deeply I love ~ you ~, how much ~ I love ~ you ~", while proudly throwing the dirty clothes over her shoulders, walking to the bathroom with her pigeon-toed steps, and then throwing the dirty clothes into the washing machine with a back throw like a professional wrestler, "Hey!" This was how she acted when she and Zhou Yue were alone at home. Zhou Yue felt that she was more manly than Zhou Tiancheng.

The new house is a north-south open-plan apartment, about 120 square meters. The new washing machine is placed on the balcony. The balcony is very large, and the sun is so hot that you can't open your eyes. You have to block it with your hands and it takes a while to get used to it before you can put it down.

But the space allocation was the same as before, with three bedrooms and two living rooms. Zhou Tiancheng connected the two living rooms into one hall. When Zhou Yue stood in the living room and shouted at Kang Xingxing, the sound would echo: "Orangutan...Orangutan...Orangutan..." It would echo for a long time, and it would take a while for Kang Xingxing to emerge silently from a corner. His big body looked small in this house.

Dai Yan meant to give Kang Xingxing a separate room. In a few years, when the child grows up, it will not be appropriate for the brother and sister to always sleep together. But Zhou Tiancheng obviously didn't listen. He converted the bedroom closest to the kitchen into a chess and card room. It was close to the kitchen because it was convenient for Dai Yan to serve him and the brothers who played cards with him anytime and anywhere. Serving tea and fruit was the norm, and when they were in the mood to play cards, she would cook noodles for them in the middle of the night.

As soon as you enter the chess and card room, you will see a mahjong table and a large cabinet that takes up an entire wall. It is used to store the strange and bizarre gadgets that Zhou Tiancheng has collected from all over the world.

He particularly loved going to Russia. His cabinet was filled with Russian nesting dolls, Fabergé eggs, and amber beeswax. Dai Yan firmly believed that he went to Russia to pick up girls. Every time she mentioned this, he wouldn't even turn around. He would just sit on the sofa and sneer, saying in a drawl, "Yeah! What's the matter? Slavs are just beautiful! You're nothing like me, with your droopy face and neck, and your legs so thick they rub your crotch when you walk!"

Dai Yan was not angry. She took a rag and wiped the TV before going to the inner room to wipe the table. Zhou Tiancheng didn't bother to pay attention to her. He smiled and opened the nesting dolls one by one, asking his daughter to guess how many dolls were underneath.

He was four years older than Dai Yan, at thirty-three, not considered old, but the black roots of his hair at his temples had faded. Looking closer, his pair of peach blossom eyes, which were about to overflow with tears, had fine lines of withering at the ends, especially when he smiled.

Many years later, in 2010, Zhou Yue often thought that if her father were still alive, he would probably like Pop Mart very much.

But those years were actually the most peaceful days for the Zhou family. Zhou Tiancheng and Dai Yan were still not in love. They had never been in love, but they didn't quarrel much either. In fact, they hardly even spoke to each other.

Zhou Tiancheng was still running around. No one knew if he had other women, or how many there were, whether they were casual affairs or close friends. He would call home once or twice a week, usually answered by Zhou Yue, who loved answering the phone. Sometimes, when Dai Yan saw the caller ID, she would shout to the two children from a distance, "Your dad is calling."

On the phone, Zhou Tiancheng would ask how things were at home, how Xingxing was, how Yueyue was, but he never asked how she was.

Dai Yan couldn't tell whether she was happy about moving into the new house, and she no longer cared about Zhou Tiancheng's women.

She is not at home much, and she dresses up beautifully and shows off outside. When Zhou Tiancheng comes back, she becomes even more free and easy. She doesn't care about the two children, and plays mahjong all day long. In the evening, she goes to the disco or watches movies with her little sisters.

When she was dancing disco, she wouldn't wear a skirt. Instead, she'd wear a light blue or light pink tank top and jeans, which perfectly hugged her figure. Sometimes, she'd just sway past the card table, put food for the guys on the table, and say hello to Zhou Tiancheng: "Anything else? No problem, I'm going out now."

Zhou Tiancheng raised his head with a cigarette in his mouth, glanced at her from legs to face, then lowered his head to look at the cards. It usually took him three to five minutes to look at the cards. Then he said "hmm", and she turned around and left after getting the order.

Gradually, around the end of 1998, Zhou Tiancheng and his gang stopped coming as often. This was Zhou Yue's most direct experience, as the house became quieter, without the pungent smell of cigarettes, alcohol, and sweat. Instead, new guests appeared, usually elderly grandfathers or uncles. Zhou Yue could sense Zhou Tiancheng's seriousness and caution. He would sit upright on the sofa, his hands on his knees, nodding emphatically at every word he spoke, completely devoid of his usual cynicism. He would even introduce Dai Yan as "my love."

"Orangutan, what is lover?" Zhou Yue had never heard of this word before. She asked Kang Xingxing this question the same night she heard it. Now, when she has any questions, the first person she asks is not her parents or her teacher, but Kang Xingxing, who doesn't seem to be very smart.

"It's my wife." Kang Xingxing always answered questions concisely.

"Why should I call my wife my lover?" Zhou Yue was confused.

"Because only those who love can become wives." Kang Xingxing lay on the bed, staring at her seriously. His pupils were brown under the oily light of the desk lamp. His eyelashes were getting longer and longer, fluffy and curled, hanging down like a fan, looking at the tip of her nose and lips.

His black face was round and his arms were as solid as lotus roots. Zhou Yue looked at him and thought he was so cute. She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek, "Call me sister!"

He was stunned for a long time, then smiled innocently, "Sister."

Zhou Yue kissed him again, making him giggle and call him "sister". After several kisses, he still called her "sister". Zhou Yue spat in disgust, wiped her mouth and smacked it again, shouting, "You taste like salty chocolate!" Kang Xingxing put her hands under her face, smiled with dimples, and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, "Yueyue tastes like vanilla."

The two children giggled with their hands covering their mouths, their eyes curved into crescents, one biting the other, their eyelashes and breath tickling each other's cheeks like ticklish bugs, making them laugh louder and louder, until Dai Yan was alarmed, and she scolded them through the door before they stopped laughing. They all put their index fingers to their lips and made a "hush" gesture.

In 1999, Zhou Yue was nine years old and Kang Xingxing was ten years old. They were in the fourth grade of elementary school. The workload was not heavy, but Zhou Yue began to find math difficult and his grades dropped from second or third in the class to between fifth and tenth, but Kang Xingxing still remained in the top three.

He is very obedient, but it is not the kind of obedience that other children have to please the teacher or out of fear of being scolded. He just thinks those things are very simple to do, such as finishing an oral arithmetic problem when he arrives in the classroom early in the morning, sweeping the floor and wiping the blackboard when he is on duty, and then wiping the glass on the classroom door without any effort.

Another situation is that he feels that what the teacher asks is necessary, such as doing eye exercises is to protect eyesight, and running is necessary to strengthen his body, and he will complete it 100% without being forced.

He does everything in a calm and composed manner. Unlike other children who like to move around or forget what they are supposed to do as soon as they turn their heads, he never forgets what he has to do. It’s just that compared to speaking, he prefers to remain silent. “Obedience” allows him to avoid friction with others to the greatest extent and create unnecessary resistance to what he really wants to do.

And when he felt it was necessary, such as when the teacher wanted to separate them because he was too tall and Zhou Yue was too short, he would stand up from his seat, look the teacher calmly in the eye, and say, "Teacher, I want to be with my sister. She doesn't listen well in class and her grades have declined. I want to encourage her to study. This is the task my father gave me."

Regardless of the era, the school's care for good students is generally manifested in: "Giving face on issues big or small."

So little Zhou Yue sat in the last row of the classroom with big Kang Xingxing. She didn't mind it at all, as it was just a way to avoid the teacher's surveillance. She drew Sailor Moon's moon prism in the corner of every page of the textbook.

She loves music class the most. She sings very well, with a clear childish voice and a cute appearance. She always stands in the middle of the first row in all the school's large and small art performances.

She has many good friends. Beautiful and cheerful children always have many good friends. During the cultural performance, the chattering little girls surrounded her in the audience, cheering and smiling at her with their necks tilted up. Kang Xingxing was standing in the last row of the auditorium. The lights on the stage were bright, and the colorful spotlights flickered and jumped to the rhythm. Zhou Yue stood on the stage and looked at the last row of the auditorium, and could only see a bunch of black shadows.

"Why don't you look at me?"

After the performance, she and Kang Xingxing went home together. Walking across the Bridge of Sighs, she looked at her own reflection on the water, smeared her face with colorful oil paints into a ball, and made herself look ugly. But she still couldn't vent her anger, so she stomped her feet angrily and yelled at Kang Xingxing.

"I saw it," Kang Xingxing, who often felt helpless about Zhou Yue's violent temper, walked in front with her head down, holding her changed gauze skirt and dance shoes. "I can see even from the last row. My eyesight is pretty good, but standing in the first row will block other students from seeing you."

"I don't want them looking at me!"

Zhou Yue angrily threw the little red flower in her hand. It was the biggest one awarded to her by the principal. She threw it on the ground and stomped on it to pieces.

She didn't understand, and Kang Xingxing didn't understand either. He just didn't want to stand with those noisy little girls and boys to look at her. Those idiots were stunned, as if they were admiring a priceless treasure through bulletproof glass. He was willing to give up the seats in the first row for them to admire, because the treasure never belonged to them.

Zhou Yue was a very vindictive girl. After that, she ignored Kang Xingxing for a long time. She invited her good friends to the Audit Office compound to play, skipping rope, jumping in squares, and kicking shuttlecock. They played from noon to dusk, raising a lot of dust and becoming so happy that their voices became hoarse.

Kang Xingxing moved a small stool far away and sat down. His dark skin was tanned and oily, his eyes were narrowed into slits, and sweat was on his forehead and nose. He read a book with his head down concentrating. The setting sun stretched his shadow long. Only when he looked up at Zhou Yue did the motionless black shadow move.

"Yueyue, drink some water." He put down the book and picked up the cup of water that he had hidden under the shade of a tree. He touched the water and found it was still cold. He called her several times before she turned around and glared at him fiercely, "I'm not thirsty!" She would endure anything to get angry with him.

She was so angry and aggrieved at the time, thinking that this was just an insignificant afternoon in her ordinary life, so ordinary that it was a little boring. However, she didn't know that on such a quiet afternoon, he was sitting on a small stool, his dark little face was tanned, holding a water cup with Mickey and Minnie printed on it, sitting under the fluttering willow branches and looking at her and smiling. These were the days she could never go back to, the treasures she casually threw away but could never find again, and her entire complete life. Whenever she thought of it, her heart was sour and bitter, and the cracked wound was flowing with sweet pain.