3 Chapter Two

Calling him "Dad" won't work now!

Yu Jinyang's nickname is Miaomiao. Once, his whole family went to Mount Wutai to pray for his great-grandmother. On the way down the mountain, his father met a blind fortune teller. The fortune teller said that he was born with a tall and strong life. After chatting with the fortune teller for a while, his father realized that the fortune teller was referring to drought. He said that Yu Jinyang was lacking water in his life and would not grow tall without water.

His father, who was quick to anger and prone to making rash decisions, poured six basins of water into his son's bowl. He even added the character "津" (Jin) to his name.

The results were mediocre. Li Yingqiao was even half a head taller than him, and he wondered what she ate to grow so tall. At that time, he thought this girl was both fierce and reckless. According to Aunt Li Shuli, Li Yingqiao could eat three bowls of rice in one meal. So he often heard her asking the neighbors next door at mealtimes if anyone wanted to have a child. If someone actually said yes, she would say, "Dream on!"

Therefore, his mother often doubted Aunt Li Shuli's mental state. Not only his mother, but most of the adults in Xiaohua City felt that Aunt Li Shuli's mental state was too "good", which made the other adults seem a bit rigid. So they often talked about Aunt Li Shuli's two marriages in private.

Adults talk about each other without ever avoiding children, just as children don't seek adult help when they fight. Two worlds speak the same words, yet are separated by what seems like the Yarlung Tsangpo Grand Canyon. The bitter secrets of adulthood, it seems, have been petrified over the years, forever sunk to the bottom of the valley, slowly fading with the memories of children.

So almost all the children in the small town knew that Li Shuli had an ex-husband who had been to prison, but no one knew whether Li Yingqiao's father was the one who had been to prison, which is why Li Yingqiao developed her fists.

Everyone in Little Painting City calls her Little Tank.

As his father said, there are many children in Xiaohua City. They appear every now and then, and their names are all very similar. So when they play marbles or hopscotch together, they form teams according to their names. The regular guests of the "Zi" generation are: Zixuan and Zihao, and most of the "Jia" generation are girls: Miaojia and Shijia.

Because he and Li Yingqiao failed to be included in these generational names, they could only be reluctantly classified as belonging to the "wood" generation.

So they were always grouped together, but to be honest, he didn't really want to be in a group with her. This girl was too competitive! If she won, she would drag him to dance; if she lost, she would call him a pig. Sometimes, when she got impatient, she would swing her arm and punch him in the back without saying a word, leaving him with a bruise. She would then say, "Meow Meow, you should get some gua sha; you have too much dampness in your body."

The next day, Ms. Tang Xiang took him to get gua sha (scraping therapy). After the gua sha, she complained that it was too expensive and told him that if he felt uncomfortable in the future, he could ask Li Yingqiao to punch him twice, which would save him a lot of money.

Yu Jinyang: "...Mom?"

He tried to awaken his mother's conscience.

But from the day Ms. Tang Xiang decided to bring him to find his father, she gave him an important speech about conscience on the slowly moving train: "If a woman is too conscientious, she usually suffers the most. Although it's not absolute, in my narrow worldview, women who are too conscientious nowadays either suffer in love or in their families. So do you want me to suffer?"

He shook his head vigorously. "Of course not."

Tang Xiang nodded in satisfaction: "Mom has inquired and found out that Dad isn't married yet. This time, I'm taking you back to find him. If he accepts you, Mom will go back to Hainan alone and work hard for a few more years. You can live with Dad after that. He's well-off and can provide for you until you graduate from university. Later, when you're successful, you can come to Hainan to find me with Dad's money. Of course, if you hate Mom..."

Back then, he was still called Yu Yang. He was led by his dear mother step by step: "Of course not, I will study hard. When I graduate from university, I will come to find you with all of Dad's money."

"You should earn some money yourself first before you come here."

He nodded vigorously: "Okay! I'll earn money to support you!"

That's what she said, but Tang Xiang couldn't bear to part with her son either. Looking at her child sitting obediently on the train, barely taller than the table, his eyes red-rimmed, tears welling up like water slowly filling a small pond, glistening in the sunlight, yet his gaze was stubborn and understanding as he stared at her. Tang Xiang's hardened heart suddenly softened.

Why did you break up in the first place?

Children are curious about their parents' love stories and how they came to be. But Mom never mentions Dad, and he doesn't dare ask.

"It's a long story," but Tang Xiang still decided to tell him, "Your father said he wanted to have ten children. Who wouldn't run away if they heard that?"

"..."

"Of course, there are other reasons as well, but that's just how the people in that town are; they're full of outdated ideas, like 'incense spirit,' you know?"

He clearly only partially understood.

Tang Xiang had decided to leave, so for the first time, she said many things to her son that she wouldn't normally say. At that time, Yu Yang didn't quite understand. "Our hometown is a very dry, very dry yellow land. You must remember not to listen to the adults there, and if you do, don't take it to heart. But you must study hard and read more books, which will give you a new way of thinking about the world."

Unexpectedly, under her father's persistent nagging, her mother decided to grow up with him in Fengtan. Sometimes he admired his father. Before the wedding, his grandfather hinted that he should get a paternity test. His father, who usually seemed a bit slow-witted, was able to say firmly at the crucial moment: "Not doing it would be an insult to Tang Xiang. I believe her. A-Yang is my child."

And so, he returned from Hainan to the place where he should have grown up. Here, he met Li Yingqiao, the tank boy; Gao Dian, a left-behind child; Zheng Miaojia, whose grandfather's farts were punctual and loud, like the rallying cry of Xiaohua City; and various people of the "Zi" generation.

His father would recount the backgrounds of each family's elders, mainly emphasizing who he didn't get along with, so that he wouldn't associate with them. He immediately understood: "Uncle Li is so bad, then what kind of person is Aunt Li Shuli?"

Yu Renjie: "A person who feels a lot of pain when slapped."

**

For quite some time, Yu Jinyang felt that Li Yingqiao must have been beaten quite badly at home. Because she always came to class with her face covered, and during class she would always make hissing sounds. When asked what was wrong, she would not say, and would cover it up as if she had some unspeakable secret.

So, when he got home that night, he hesitated for a moment, but still told his mother that Li Yingqiao might have been a victim of domestic violence, as she had been covering her face during class for the past two days.

"Damn it!" the mother cursed first, "How could Li Shuli hit the child!"

His mother abhorred domestic violence. Several times when his father came to pick a fight with a bamboo strip passed down from his grandfather, his mother would grab a feather duster and throw it at his father, or sometimes a slipper, and then warn his father with great force: "Yu Renjie, you dare to touch him and see what happens."

His father could only reluctantly pack up his things, but his eyes were full of resentment. Actually, he had always been a little confused by his father's behavior, not knowing what he was trying to do. He accepted being punished for his mistakes, but sometimes he just seemed to be looking for trouble. Until one summer vacation, an animated series became a nationwide sensation. He was squatting in Li Yingqiao's family's general store, watching it with great interest, until he saw the resentful look on Grey Wolf's face, and suddenly a sense of familiarity washed over him. The only difference was that Grey Wolf's butt was patched, while Yu Renjie's wasn't.

That evening, Ms. Tang Xiang went to the general store in Xiaohua City to gather intelligence. She quickly returned and told him, "Li Yingqiao ate potato chips in bed last night and got cavities."

Yu Jinyang: "..."

Yu Jinyang felt like the sky had fallen. He ate potato chips in front of the teacher, and now he had to hide under the covers to eat them at home?

She's a tank, you know.

Although he didn't know exactly what the tank was for, he just heard that the kids in Xiaohua City all supported her.

"By the way, Miaomiao, did you two fight? I just found out at the grocery store that Li Shuli said your nose was bleeding. Why didn't you tell your mother?" Tang Xiang squatted down as if to look at his nose.

Yu Jinyang snorted and said, "What's there to say about losing? Her fists are like giant iron hammers, Mom, can you believe it? When Li Yingqiao threw a punch, I thought the teacher had turned off the lights."

Tang Xiang exclaimed "Ah!" as if she wanted to rip open his skull to check. "You don't have a concussion, do you? Are you dizzy? Here, change your clothes right now, and Mom will take you to the hospital for an X-ray. I need to call your teacher tomorrow."

Yu Jinyang quickly said, "Don't call anymore. I've already made up with her. We even took a picture. Teacher Xu said it will be hung on the blackboard in the classroom for two weeks as punishment."

The classmates have been laughing for days now. Whenever the two of them walk into the classroom, the once-silent room erupts in laughter. It's gotten to the point where he's afraid to go too late now, and he sits alone in the classroom reading early in the morning.

Tang Xiang: "What's so funny, son? Don't worry about what others think."

Yu Jinyang: "Because they said it was like Nokia's boot-up ads."

Hahahahahahaha.

He looked at Tang Xiang's face: "..."

When the 'punishment period' is over, he will go to the teacher to get the negatives, tear them into pieces, and then make Li Yingqiao eat them!

However, he soon realized that there was still a gap between his vision and that of "Tank".

That evening, the small town remained quiet. It was the peak time for adults to leave work, and the sounds of bicycle bells and the dull thud of car wheels rolling over the cobblestones could be heard intermittently.

The store's shutter door was half-closed, and the lights inside were off. The dim twilight cast lingering shadows on the doorway, revealing a small figure curled up behind the glass display case. Li Shuli was still out driving long distances, and her aunt had been sleeping with her these past few nights. Her aunt hadn't finished work yet, so Li Yingqiao left the store door half-open after school. This way, familiar neighbors would come in if they wanted to buy something, and tourists from the scenic area would ask a few questions and then leave.

With Li Shuli absent, Li Yingqiao, being so young, dared not open his own shop without permission, fearing he might receive counterfeit money. Just then, Teacher Xu was enjoying a large bowl of wontons at a nearby shop, his old bicycle, the 28-inch model, which he usually rode in and out of, was now conspicuously parked in front of Li Yingqiao's shop. For years, hardly anyone rode that bike; he was the only one in the entire school who loved riding it.

Li Yingqiao's hands were itchy.

She wanted to rip out Mr. Xu's valve core, since he had hung the photo on the blackboard and made the students laugh at him for days.

She tiptoed out and peeked out through the half-rolled-up shutter. The rear wheel of the old-fashioned bicycle was right in front of her, and she was immediately delighted.

Teacher Xu, shall we walk home today?

Yu Jinyang was just about to deliver dinner to her great-grandmother when she happened to witness this lewd scene. A suspicious "cricket spirit" was huddled under the roller shutter of the general store. The shutter was only a third open, and she was folded up in the crack, her braid swaying under the doorframe, baring her teeth as she reached out to pull the valve stem out of Teacher Xu's old bicycle. Typical tank mentality—she never looks for enemies within; she always seeks revenge on the most difficult boss.

The next second, just as Li Yingqiao was about to finish tightening the nut, she felt someone lift her up by the back of her neck and pull her backwards out of the roller shutter door by a strange force. A familiar voice boomed into her ear like thunder: "You little brat, how many times this month? Tell me yourself, how many times have you pulled out my valve core! Why are your hands so itchy!"

"..."

To be honest, Yu Jinyang had never seen this old bicycle before. Ever since the first day he came here, his father had been the kind of person who couldn't leave the house without posing in front of the car's rearview mirror for a few minutes every day.

Li Yingqiao was being held in his hand, calling him "Uncle, Uncle" repeatedly.

Yu Renjie: "Calling me 'Dad' won't work now. You come home with me, get the air pump, and pump it fifty times! Let's see if your hands still itch next time."

[Author's Note]

I saw many familiar faces, and also many new ones.

Thank you everyone! (bows)

Happy Friday everyone! Enjoy reading.

Tonight, I'll randomly select 300 children to receive red envelopes.

Thank you. [heart][heart]