Chapter 91 Water Ghost I am only 37 this year

The watch fell into the gap between the clothes in the snakeskin bag, like a bird shot by an arrow.

The room was dead silent for a moment, with only the sound of Zhu Jixiang breathing from between his teeth when he turned around.

Half a minute later, Liu Guifang retrieved the watch from the snakeskin bag, wiped the dial with her finger, and said with a smile, "He doesn't need it, so I do. I think this watch is very good. It looks very stylish on him."

Zhu Yingning also forced a smile, ignored Zhu Jixiang's words, and continued to explain the New Year's goods to Liu Guifang.

After introducing everything she brought, she went to the kitchen to help wash the dishes.

Liu Guifang pushed her aside with her arm. "No need. I'll wash it. It's a good time to try out your new gloves. If you want to help, go chop some wood. Otherwise, we'll be out of firewood in a couple of days."

Zhu Yingning was stunned for a moment. Usually when Zhu Jixiang was around, he was responsible for the firewood. She couldn't help but ask, "Didn't Brother Xiang chop the wood?"

"I called him, but he refused to go. He lives on campus now, so it's rare for him to come home. I figured I'd just be lazy, alright..." At this point, Liu Guifang seemed to suddenly realize that Zhu Yingning rarely came home, so she smiled awkwardly and said, "Daughters are so much easier to worry about. No wonder people say daughters are so caring. After you finish chopping wood, go and rest early. You must be exhausted after riding the bus all day."

Zhu Yingning nodded softly and turned to chop firewood behind the house.

She chopped wood for an hour straight until her arms were sore. The kitchen was filled with firewood, so she took a quick shower and lay down on the kang to sleep.

On her first day at Xu Sirui's house, she couldn't sleep because the Simmons mattress was too soft, and she only managed four or five hours of fitful sleep. Now, back home, she was no longer used to the hard kang (kang) after sleeping on the Simmons mattress, and she tossed and turned for a long time before finally finding a relatively comfortable position. Behind her, the sound of Zhu Jixiang playing a game rang out, and she suddenly felt a deep sense of panic, realizing that habit was the most terrifying thing in the world.

Because of habit, she could endure the poor life in the mountains for a long time.

Also because of habit, she actually couldn't sleep at this moment.

She was always in a state of half-sleep and half-wakefulness, unable to sleep soundly. Before she knew it, Liu Guifang turned off the light outside the curtain, climbed onto the kang, and said to Zhu Jixiang in a low voice, "Still playing? Put it away! It's not proper."

Zhu Jixiang muttered something in a low voice, but Zhu Yingning didn't hear it clearly. It might be a swear word, or just an interjection.

Liu Guifang lay down, shifted her body, and said, "You shouldn't have spoken to your sister like that just now. After all, she is your sister..."

"How else can I talk to her if not like this?" Zhu Jixiang threw his phone away, angrily saying, "She snatched my place to study in Beijing and went off to live a good life, leaving me to suffer in this desolate county town's No. 1 Middle School. How can I still speak to her in a kind and gentle manner? She usually pretends to be so selfless and kind, but in the end, she only cares about herself and doesn't even care about my life or death."

"That's not true. Look at her, she's still so thin. I guess she spends most of her time working..."

"Don't listen to her! She must be pretending to deceive us. You are the only one who would be fooled by her. Xu Sirui's family is so rich, how could they let her work? Before I participated in the variety show, her father gave me a lot of pocket money. He must have given my sister too, maybe even more. She only needs to give us a small part of her pocket money and lie to us that it was money from working, and you will be completely devoted to her. But in reality? She is not sure how much she has hidden, you stupid guy."

"Really?" Liu Guifang asked in surprise, "But I just cleaned up her snakeskin bag, and there wasn't any other money hidden in it."

"You're really stupid. Who would bring the money back for the New Year? You must have put it in the bank or left it with Xu Sirui."

Liu Guifang sighed and didn't say anything for a while.

Just when Zhu Yingning thought they were all asleep, she heard Liu Guifang's voice again, timidly saying, "Xiang'er, no matter what, you shouldn't be thinking about your iPhone. How can a mobile phone be so expensive? Isn't that just robbing people? I think your pager is pretty good. You can make calls and play games with it..."

Zhu Jixiang immediately exploded: "Are you done yet? I just want to buy a phone, why do you have to nag me for so long? I loved the sneakers Xu Sirui's dad bought me before, and I told you many times not to touch them, but you still sold them secretly without telling me? What's wrong with me wanting a new phone now? You owed me that anyway!"

"I sold your shoes to treat your father's illness. There's nothing I can do. Our family is so poor, and your father is in trouble again..." Liu Guifang defended.

"Why did you give birth to me if you were poor?"

"Does that mean the poor will have no descendants? Does that mean everyone will die without money?"

"Yes!" Zhu Jixiang said, "I would rather I had not been born. Since you can't give us the kind of life that Xu Sirui has, you might as well drown my sister and me in the slop bucket from the moment we are born. Why let me experience a good life and then throw me back to this hellhole?" After he said that, he lay down and no longer paid attention to Liu Guifang.

Liu Guifang covered her face and sobbed, "I've done something wrong... Yes! It's all my fault! Ever since I married your father, I haven't had a single good day. A few years ago, I followed your father to work outside. In the middle of summer, I, a woman, had to carry 80 kilograms of cement. Even the contractor said I could do the work of two men. Now I have to stay at home to take care of your father and your grandmother, two useless people. The children I gave birth to are not filial. My life is completely ruined..."

Zhu Jixiang did not respond to her self-pitying words. Liu Guifang cried alone for a while, wiped her tears, closed her eyes and fell asleep.

Not long after, Zhu Yingning heard snoring sounds coming one after another, some long and some short, each with its own rhythm and melody.

She opened her eyes and looked at the gecko lying in the corner of the ceiling.

The gecko looked shriveled, and the weather was cold, so it lay there motionless. It might be alive, or it might be dead.

**

The next day was New Year's Eve, and the children in the village had already started setting off firecrackers. Sporadic crackling sounds could be heard throughout the day.

Zhu Yingning got up very early, fed the pigs and chickens, and made breakfast. Later, he asked for a pair of Spring Festival couplets from someone in the village who was good at writing couplets. He tore up the old couplets and used cold rice grains to stick new couplets on both sides of the door.

Two chickens were slaughtered for the New Year's Eve dinner. One was cooked with rock sugar into a thick, sweet chicken broth, while the other was braised with chili peppers and other spices. Cured meat was a must, of course, along with a plate of cured fish. As the three of them sat around a low table eating their New Year's Eve dinner, someone outside had already set off a long string of firecrackers and sky-high salutes. The loud popping noises were interspersed with a couple of sharp "whoosh"s.

The roof was crackling, and debris from fireworks and firecrackers poured down on their roof like popcorn.

"Xiang'er, after dinner, go to the door of the house and set off firecrackers to make the house lively." Liu Guifang pointed to a box of red cigarettes in the corner of the room and encouraged with a smile.

Zhu Jixiang didn't even raise his head: "If you want to release it, do it yourself."

"I'm already old, why would I set off firecrackers? Firecrackers are for you kids to play with."

Zhu Jixiang didn't respond, as if he was too lazy to speak. Seeing no response, Liu Guifang lowered her head and fiddled with her cracked fingers, which were covered in black mud, trying to pick at the dead skin flakes from the completely frozen wounds.

After eating the New Year's Eve dinner, she sat at home for a long time, and said that she wanted to go to the village to find someone to play mahjong. Then she left, leaving Zhu Yingning and Zhu Jixiang alone at home.

The two of them were speechless. Zhu Jixiang's chin practically stuck into his chest as he buried his head in his phone, logged into QQ, chatting blissfully with classmates and friends. His face was illuminated by the cold light of the screen, and he occasionally let out a silly laugh. Zhu Yingning saw that he didn't seem to want to communicate with her. She turned around to tease her grandmother for a while, then turned Zhu Dashan over to prevent him from getting bedsores. Then she found the phone Xu Zhengkang had lent her and planned to send New Year's greetings to his friends.

First log in to QQ which you haven’t logged in for a long time, and the friend list will be full of green dots indicating online friends.

She didn't understand what group messaging meant, so she resorted to the most naive method: typing "Happy New Year" into the chat box in advance, logging out, and then waiting until midnight before clicking send one by one. This clumsy method was a testament to her hand speed and eyesight, but it also offered a hidden pleasure, because sometimes, when she clicked on the window, the other person's "Happy New Year" would appear simultaneously with hers, two identical greetings colliding.

She also added Xu Sirui’s QQ account, which was a small account with the original avatar.

Unlike the green dots on other people’s accounts, Xu Sirui’s secondary account showed as offline and his avatar was gray.

But she still sent him a New Year's greeting. In addition to the four words "Happy New Year", she also took great pains to pick out an original smiley face from the default emoticon library.

Unexpectedly, as soon as the smiley face was handed over, he replied, being very frugal with words, with only one word: "earth."

“…”

A moment later, another message came: "Happy New Year."

She stared at the word "earth" and "Happy New Year", and her eyebrows unconsciously curved.

My fingers struggled to press the tiny phone keyboard, trying to chat with him about other topics, such as what we had for New Year's Eve dinner, whether he was watching the Spring Festival Gala, and whether the skits were funny. But after typing two or three words, he asked, "Are you in an internet cafe?"

Zhu Yingning had no choice but to delete those two or three words and retype: "No."

She replied awkwardly, "I'm at home. We have signal now."

"Ha," he replied. "Epic progress."

She smiled and saw that he sent the next message: "So you can make calls now?"

Was it because the firecrackers outside were so loud that they resonated in her chest? She felt as if her heart was beating faster than usual.

Just as she was about to reply, she looked up and met Zhu Jixiang's eyes, who was sitting across from her. He looked at her phone with an unfathomable expression on his face. He only asked, "Is this from Xu Sirui's family?"

She suddenly felt like vomiting. The New Year's Eve dinner she had just eaten, mixed with stomach acid, rushed up her throat, burning it fiercely. She closed her flip phone, paused for a moment, and then replied, "No, I just borrowed it. I'll return it after the New Year."

"Oh." Zhu Jixiang lowered his head indifferently and continued to fiddle with his pager.

She took a deep breath, opened her phone again, and typed in the chat box: "The signal is bad, it's hard to call."

She didn't want to talk to him on the phone in this environment.

Not at all.

Xu Sirui seemed a little angry. Although his expression could not be seen through the screen, Zhu Yingning inexplicably felt that he must be angry.

Because he replied with a period: "."

The chat ended abruptly, and he didn't reply to her subsequent messages. The awkward laughter and speechlessness she felt at his bad temper dispelled the gloom in her heart. She logged out of QQ, turned off her phone, and carefully put it back in her bag.

Just think of her as selfish.

She didn't want Xu Sirui to be infected with any of the bitterness associated with her family, and she didn't want him to call and hear Zhu Jixiang's sarcastic tone.

The variety show was just a brief life mishap; he shouldn't have had any connection with the mountain where she was born. She hoped he would stay forever in the city that nurtured him, clean and pure, like a white peacock, proud and pure.

**

After the New Year's Eve, the next thing to do is to visit relatives.

From the first to the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, Zhu Yingning accompanied Liu Guifang to countless relatives, his lips drooping with "Happy New Year, all the best!" Zhu Jixiang would occasionally visit, but most of the time he felt a physical aversion to visiting relatives and friends. Liu Guifang tried to dissuade him several times, but seeing his growing impatience, she simply gave up, consoling herself by saying, "A rebellious period... Sister Ping's son goes through that too. It's normal for a boy."

On the seventh day of the first lunar month, Zhu Yingning planned to visit Chen Bin.

Liu Guifang still has strong opinions about Chen Bin's behavior of defrauding Zhu Jixiang of the funding quota. She feels that the strained relationship between her and her son is closely related to Chen Bin. When she heard Zhu Yingning say that he wanted to visit the teacher, her face frowned and she was silent for a long time.

Zhu Yingning picked up a basket of eggs and before she could leave, Liu Guifang came flying over and took out one, two, three... a full half of the eggs from the basket. Then she said reluctantly, "You can take the rest."

“…”

Zhu Yingning glanced down at the five eggs left in the basket, her face looking unhappy. She silently stuffed three more eggs back in, ignored Liu Guifang's distressed cries, said "Mom, I'm leaving," and went out, walking to the school in the mountains.

Normally, teachers' annual leave wouldn't be just seven days, but Chen Bin, ever since he started teaching in the mountains, hadn't been particularly fond of returning home for the Lunar New Year. He was always the last to leave and the first to return, spending only a hurried five or six days in his hometown. Zhu Yingning had heard from other teachers at the school that Chen Bin's parents had passed away, and they speculated that his absence from the holiday might be due to a lack of kinship with his hometown.

The dilapidated teaching building came into view, the school gate was half-open. Zhu Yingning squeezed in through the crack in the door and walked to the staff dormitory on the left as if he was familiar with the route.

Chen Bin was sitting inside listening to Huangmei Opera. When he heard her knocking on the door, he was startled and turned off the radio. Without saying hello, he started by scolding her: "What did you bring with you?" But he smiled with his round face.

Zhu Yingning brought the eggs in. As the elder, Chen Bin, as usual, first said something like "Why didn't you gain weight in Beijing?" Then he pulled her aside to ask about her studies and whether she was adapting to life in Beijing.

She said she was gradually adapting and everything was going well. She also told Chen Bin that she ranked in the top ten in the class in the final exam.

"How many people are there in your entire grade?"

"More than nine hundred."

"Hey! Good! Great!" Chen Bin laughed and patted her shoulder vigorously. "I knew you were great."

Later, they talked about Xu Sirui and Beijing, exchanging pleasantries and exhorting each other. When they talked about the book she was reading recently, Chen Bin excitedly flipped through the bookshelf, offering to lend her the book. He was almost handing it to her when he suddenly remembered, "Oh—you're in Beijing now, you've probably read more books than I have. Look at my brain, it's like Alzheimer's."

Zhu Yingning didn't like him using "Alzheimer's" to describe herself because she had seen real Alzheimer's disease, and the grandmother with Alzheimer's disease would call her Chunyan.

She held the yellowed book handed to her by Chen Bin, smiled and said, "I haven't read this one. I'll borrow it and return it to you in a few days, Teacher Chen." After she said this, she realized that Chen Bin was as old as Liu Guifang, and his thin short hair covered his head like a thin layer of frost.

In places where there are no expensive skin care products, a can of vanishing cream has multiple functions and is applied in the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter. The mountains make people grow old, and the mountain breeze sends away the prime of life.

Teacher, teacher, can you and my mom age slower?

**

We were so engrossed in the conversation that by the time we waved goodbye and walked back to the mountain road, it was already dark.

After a verbal argument, Chen Bin accepted the eggs but refused to accept the basket, because he knew that the basket was also a practical asset for the people in the mountains.

Zhu Yingning walked back carrying an empty basket filled with books.

As she approached Zhujia Village, she heard a woman crying at the entrance of the village. Her crying was loud and hoarse, and occasionally she cried out heart-wrenchingly, "My life is miserable."

Crying and wailing during the New Year is very rare because it will be regarded as unlucky by the villagers. Zhu Yingning took two quick steps and wanted to go over to help, but saw Liu Guifang kneeling on the ground like a puddle of mud, and was being pulled up from the ground by several aunties around her, holding her arms.

The aunts all tried to persuade her: "Fang'er! Why are you so depressed? If Jixiang wants to leave, just let him go! A man should have ambitions and should go out and make his own way in the world..."

"I saw he left and he didn't want to come back!" Liu Guifang burst into tears. "He doesn't want me as his mother anymore. He wants to recognize other people as his parents and live his life well! I'm left alone at home to take care of those two damn guys at home, one paralyzed and the other stupid. Auntie, I'm thirty-seven this year, I'm only thirty-seven this year! How am I going to live the rest of my life? Who can I rely on for the rest of my life?"

"Isn't there Ningning?"

When Zhu Yingning was mentioned, the aunts seemed to have suddenly noticed her standing beside them. They hurriedly pulled her over and poured the truth into her ears.

The truth poured down on me like boiling water.

They said Zhu Jixiang ran away.

What does "ran away" mean? Zhu Yingning couldn't understand.

The aunts explained, "He stole all your money and your cell phone, and told your mother he was going to the city to seek refuge with the Xu boy's parents and to accept them as his godparents!"

The language was so absurd that even after hearing the truth, Zhu Yingning couldn't react accordingly.

She stood there expressionless for a long time, until Liu Guifang, after being prompted by the aunts, rushed towards her as if awakened from a dream, and grabbed her arm tightly, with a force as strong as dodder wrapped around an oak tree, muttering over and over again: "Yes, I still have Ningning... I also have a daughter! I tell you, giving birth to sons is useless! No matter how many sons you give birth to, they are not as caring as a daughter--"

Liu Guifang's hand clamped around her arm, leaving deep marks. The pain made her shudder, and suddenly sobered her up. She said to Liu Guifang, "Mom, when did Brother Xiang leave? Tell me, I'll go get him now. Maybe we can still make it!"

As soon as she finished speaking, Liu Guifang's face froze, revealing a bit of evasion and panic. She asked her, "Are you going to abandon Mom too, Ningning?"

"I just went after him."

"I know, I know everything! Don't try to trick me!!" Liu Guifang suddenly screamed, "I know you both want to leave! Are you just going to chase him? After the New Year's holiday, you're going back to Beijing! You're as heartless as your brother Xiang. You're all going to live your good lives, and what about me?! Your father is unlikely to wake up, and your grandmother is a dead weight on the shoulders, an old thing! I take care of their shit and urine every day, cook three meals a day for them, take care of the livestock, and grow those crappy vegetables! Do you know how many times I've wanted to buy some pesticides to poison them to death?! No! You can't leave!"

As Liu Guifang spoke, her hand movements changed, from clinging to pinching and twisting her. Her rough fingertips, like sandpaper, scratched tiny wounds on her arms. Liu Guifang cried and howled.

The aunts came over and pulled her aside, saying, "Okay, okay, why take your anger out on the child?"

Liu Guifang shook off their hands and suddenly turned around and ran into the house.

Zhu Yingning chased after her, fearing that she would do something stupid in anger.

Liu Guifang did not do anything stupid to hurt herself. She just rummaged through the drawers and found Zhu Yingning's ID card. She also found a pair of big scissors and cut up the ID card in front of Zhu Yingning.

There was a crisp sound.

The ID card broke into two asymmetrical pieces, the force of the rupture so great that it left a red mark on Liu Guifang's hand. But she seemed to feel no pain. After twisting the ID card, she let out a long sigh, turned her head, and looked at her with tears streaming down her face. Her voice weakened, becoming low and hoarse as she said, "Ningning, you don't want to leave Mom alone at home to suffer, right? I can't rely on your brother Xiang. You're the only filial son, the only one who can stay with me. You see, a daughter is the best... Only a daughter can feel sorry for her mother."

Zhu Yingning said nothing, nor did she step forward to stop them. She simply stood there, staring at Liu Guifang's face in the darkness.

A long time ago, probably when he was in elementary school, Chen Bin chose the topic of his composition as "My Mother".

At that time she wrote, My mother is a hard-working woman.

Now she would write, My mother is a hard-working water ghost.

A young, naive girl, devoured by the puddle. Her vitality, her hopes, and even her best years were devoured. Now, the water ghost is looking for a scapegoat. Having released his son, he's decided to drag his daughter into becoming the new puddle ghost.

In fact, she understood everything. She understood that Liu Guifang was indeed devastated by Zhu Jixiang's escape, and she also understood that even though Liu Guifang was devastated, she couldn't bear to "arrest" him.

Liu Guifang is like a dodder, always needing to cling to something to survive. When Zhu Dashan was still alive, she clung to him. Later, when he was no longer useful, she turned to Zhu Jixiang, seeing him as her new hope. Now that Zhu Jixiang has also run away, Zhu Yingning has naturally become her only tree to cling to.

She chose to hold on to her tightly, both because of the deep-rooted bond between mother and daughter that could not be severed, and because she loved her son more.

I loved him more, so I chose to let him go.

And Zhu Jixiang was indeed heartless and lived up to expectations. His son seemed to be born knowing how to leave in a cool manner, but his daughter was trapped in the intergenerational curse of her mother, inheriting her mother's heavy fate and will.

Liu Guifang, who is a water ghost, wants to drag her to become a water ghost.

Zhu Yingning understood everything, but she could not resist her fate because Liu Guifang's words "I am only 37 years old this year" were a curse left for her.

She suddenly realized—

Yes...it turns out that my mother is so young.

So young, yet so old.

She couldn't be as indifferent to Liu Guifang's fate as Zhu Jixiang. During her days back home, she helped care for Zhu Dashan and his grandmother. She discovered that not only was Zhu Dashan, in a vegetative state, unable to defecate on his own, but his grandmother had also become so demented that she could barely care for herself. The two adults, wearing adult diapers, urinated and defecated like babies, filling the house with a foul odor if they weren't careful.

Wiping a newborn's poop and pee is bearable because the baby will grow up and everything will get better.

Helping adults wipe their feces and urine is so hopeless that it makes people want to die, because no one can predict how long such a horrible day will last. Those pieces of diapers filled with feces and emitting a strong stench are like the caregivers' lives that are trapped in a box.

It is completely understandable that it will collapse over time.

From the moment she empathized with her mother's fate, Zhu Yingning knew that she would be dragged down by Liu Guifang.

Her kindness and softness are her armor against the outside world, but also her inevitable hesitation and weakness when dealing with her relatives.

She said, "I won't leave, Ma."

Liu Guifang laughed.

**

Zhu Yingning gradually lived a regular life.

It should be said that for the past ten years, she has been living this kind of regular life - getting up in the morning to feed the pigs and chickens, chopping wood, working on the small cabbage field at home, feeding her grandmother, and helping her wash her body - this kind of life should be called "return" to her.

Liu Guifang was like a frightened bird. In the first few days, she became nervous when she saw her walking out of the house. She straightened her neck, widened her eyes, and her pupils turned into searchlights. She did not extinguish the prying light until she was sure that she was just going outside to chop wood or fetch water.

The ID card was broken into pieces on the desk and no one picked it up.

On the eve of the Lantern Festival, Liu Guifang said that tomorrow is the Lantern Festival, so let’s make some Lantern Festival dumplings to eat.

So the mother and daughter made Yuanxiao together, filling a large basin. There was so much that two people definitely couldn't finish it, so Zhu Yingning decided to share some with the villagers tomorrow morning. The old hunter was greedy for sweets, and he had a child's taste at his age, so she could give him a few more.

After the discussion, Liu Guifang lay down happily. Soon, snoring sounds came from the other end of the kang.

Zhu Yingning had not fallen asleep yet. She opened her eyes and looked at the gecko in the corner of the ceiling, which she didn't know whether it was dead or alive, and her thoughts were aimless.

She had originally agreed with Xu Zhengkang and Xu Sirui that she would be back on the tenth day of the first lunar month, but she still hadn't been back for such a long time, and she didn't know how they would feel.

You might think she is a very rude person.

And there is Sister Weiwei.

How did Sister Weiwei escape in the first place? Zhu Yingning suddenly couldn't remember.

She thought about these people and these things and slowly closed her eyes.

In the middle of the night, the windowpane rustled, as if someone was smashing it with stones. No, who would come at that hour? Maybe it was a ghost. Zhu Yingning was a light sleeper and woke up immediately. He rubbed his eyes, slipped on his slippers, got out of bed, and walked to the window to take a look.

Nothing.

She frowned, took a pair of scissors from the desk, held them in her hand, turned around and pushed open the door.

If it's a human, she'll scare it away with scissors; if it's a ghost, she'll stab it to death with scissors. She has clear and organized thinking.

Zhu Yingning walked around the house and to the window, squinted his eyes and took a look, and was stunned.

She understood. It wasn't a thief, nor a ghost. She was dreaming. Otherwise...

Why is Xu Sirui here?

He was wearing a white down jacket and forgot to wear a hat and earmuffs. His ears were frozen red and his face was whiter than the snow on the ground. No wonder she didn't recognize him in the house. It turned out that he had blended into the snow.

Zhu Yingning had mixed feelings about dreaming about Xu Sirui.

Even though she was in a dream, she still stepped forward out of habit and said with concern, "Come into the house and warm up."

"...You are very calm, Zhu Yingning." Xu Sirui spoke, his voice was particularly cold.

"Should I be surprised?" She pouted and went forward to tug at his hand, only to find it was terribly cold. She suddenly felt confused. Could a dream feel so real? She touched his neck again, and it was warm!

Zhu Yingning was horrified: "You...you are real! Why are you here?!"

"I don't know." He smiled coldly, "Maybe I'm crazy."