Braised pork and cold rice

The winter of 2008 was unbelievably cold.

The camphor tree outside the window has lost all its leaves, and its branches are pointing towards the gray sky.

I curled up on the sofa, sniffing my red, frozen nose.

Watching the man in the dark coat on TV, speaking to the dark crowd in the snow.

"It's still snowing and cold, so everyone is going to have to endure hardships, but hold on. After a while, things will get better and everyone can go home. If the house is cracked or collapsed, we can still repair it. Everyone should work hard to build a good house, settle down, and raise their children well."

The house cracked? Collapsed?

I subconsciously looked up at the white ceiling of my house. What a miserable sight that must have been.

I was daydreaming when a quick knock on the door interrupted my thoughts.

My father got up to open the door. As soon as he opened it, a gust of cold wind rushed in. I immediately sneezed and stretched my neck to see who it was.

Uncle Ye was standing outside with a strange look on his face.

He lowered his voice and spoke hurriedly to my father. I pricked up my ears and could only vaguely catch the words "check...hospital..."

Dad’s back stiffened for a moment.

"Li! Come here!" Dad leaned over and called out to my mother.

"What are you doing? I'm cleaning the dishes." Mom came out of the kitchen wiping her hands.

"Really? What should we do then?" My mother's voice outside the door suddenly rose.

I also smelled an unusual smell in the air and couldn't sit still in the house, so I followed her out in my cotton slippers and squeezed next to my mother.

The cold wind in the corridor blew harder.

"What can we do? If we're pregnant, we can only give birth to the baby." Uncle Ye's face was very pale. He was only wearing a sweater without a coat. He must be very cold.

"The government is very strict now, it's difficult to deal with!" Dad frowned. He was not wearing a coat.

"What does Fang Wen think?" Mom also frowned.

"Uncle Ye, let's talk inside. It's too cold outside." I shrank my neck and couldn't help but interrupt them.

The adults seemed to notice me only then, and Uncle Ye gave me a panicked look.

"Why are you listening to adults talking like a kid? Go inside!" My mother rolled her eyes at me and drove me inside.

"Fang Wen also wants..."

Before entering the house, I heard Uncle Ye’s last words, and the tail end of his voice dissipated in the cold wind.

After a long time, my parents came into the house with serious expressions.

No one paid any attention to the man on TV who continued to say, "If it is beneficial to the country, life and death are of paramount importance. Why should we avoid it because of good fortune or misfortune? The lives of the people are above all else..."

A few days later, we were doing art homework in Aunt Shen's studio, which was always filled with the smell of paint.

The semi-finished paper figure that the art teacher taught us to make in the last class was spread out on the table and was being decorated with crepe paper and wool.

When I saw Ye Zhixia, I suddenly remembered Uncle Ye’s strange expression that night.

"Xia Xia, what happened to Aunt Fang?"

Ye Zhixia was using a strand of black wool to make hair for the paper figure in her hand.

Hearing my question, he raised his head and glanced at us quickly, "My mother is pregnant with another little brother."

My hand, which was about to grab the scissors, stopped in mid-air and I stared at her in disbelief.

Our generation grew up under various slogans of the family planning policy, and almost all of our friends were the only child in the family.

I never thought that there would be creatures like younger brothers and sisters.

"Brother? But..." Even the smartest Lulu was stunned. She was usually eloquent but now she couldn't say anything.

Lu Xingye next to me had already lost his patience with making paper figures, so he crumpled up a large piece of newspaper and threw it at me across the table. It hit my head and bounced off.

"Ouch!" I covered my forehead and turned back to glare at him, "Lu Xingye, what are you doing!"

"Why are you so gossipy?" Lu Xingye said impatiently, "Xia Xia wants a brother, what does it have to do with you?"

He brushed aside the paper figurines on the table and spread out his rice paper again.

"I don't want a younger brother!" Ye Zhixia suddenly raised her head, her eyes red.

We all stared at her blankly.

"I don't want it!" she repeated softly, twisting the wool in her hand until it was almost tangled.

Lu Xingye paused as he spread out the rice paper.

"Then go find a Taoist priest and get rid of your brother."

He seemed to think this idea was funny and laughed twice."

He picked up his brush, dipped it in ink, and began to draw the space battleship he imagined.

I looked at Ye Zhixia's red ears and the yarn in her hands, not knowing how to comfort her.

Looking at Lu Xingye's heartless look, he felt very depressed.

This guy Lu Xingye is too unreliable!

————

In my childhood memories, my grandmother's shadow always carries a bit of indifference and alienation.

At that time, I was too young to understand the complicated thoughts in the adult world. I just felt that the way my grandmother looked at me was always different from the way she looked at my cousin.

On the day my cousin came to the city from the countryside to go to school, grandma made a big plate of braised pork.

While eating, I watched her fill my cousin's bowl with one, two, three... five pieces of braised pork, and the sauce was almost overflowing.

"Grandma, let me help you peel the garlic." I stood on tiptoe to reach the enamel bowl on the stove, wanting to help her do something.

But she elbowed me away and said, "Go away, go play somewhere else and don't make trouble here."

A few cloves of garlic slipped from her hand and spun on the tile floor.

I didn't give up and went over again, "Grandma, are you tired? Let me give you a back massage."

"Oh, no, no, you're helping me just by being quiet for a while." Grandma waved her hand and rejected me again.

I stepped aside angrily.

Later, I stopped trying to get my grandma's attention with such childish behavior.

————

In the middle of the night, I heard the muffled sounds of an argument coming from my parents' bedroom.

"...Every time I go back home, Mom is like this. She can't wait to stuff the whole chicken into her grandson's bowl, and Nian Nian just watches eagerly..."

"Just say less. Mom is old, and you know her ideas..." Dad tried to comfort her.

"When will this 'preferring sons over daughters' mentality change?" Mom's voice suddenly rose, then quickly dropped. "What's wrong with a girl? Doesn't that mean she's not her granddaughter?"

"Can't you be understanding? Old people have old ideas..."

The sound penetrated the thin wall and went straight into my ears.

I curled up in bed and covered my head with the quilt, but the sounds of the quarrel were still clear.

Preferring boys over girls?

I softly repeated this word that I had heard many times but didn't quite understand.

This word was like the cold wind of that winter, blowing into my heart early on.

I couldn't quite understand their quarrel, but I could feel that the atmosphere at home was becoming increasingly heavy.

From then on, I began to inexplicably develop a sense of vigilance and prejudice towards creatures like "brother" and "little brother".

In my naive understanding, they seemed to have their own halo and could easily take away the attention and love that should belong to me.