Chapter 4
On the second day of the first lunar month, Zhou Yue took Kang Xingxing to her grandfather's house for the first time. She originally wanted to take Kang Xingxing to see her grandfather's four treasures of the study and ask her grandfather to teach them how to draw a rooster and a prawn, but her grandfather was not happy at all when he saw Kang Xingxing.
Ever since Zhou Yue could remember, every time Dad returned to Grandpa's house, he would first eat a "broom meal." Mom would cry out of heartache, but Dad never cried. He would get up, stretch his muscles, look up, take a long breath, and smile, "I feel refreshed!"
Zhou Yue thought Dad must be feeling quite refreshed, otherwise why would he go to Grandpa's house every year on the second day of the Lunar New Year to eat "broom rice" without fail? After eating a full broom rice, he couldn't even eat dumplings. Every time he went, he would bring so many things that Mom and Dad couldn't carry them all, so he had to ask several uncles to help.
When those uncles saw grandpa, they were like mice seeing a cat. They put down their things and ran towards the door, bumping into each other. It was a pity that the door was too narrow and couldn't let them escape together.
But today was different. As soon as they entered the door, Grandpa did not come out to greet them. He did not smile kindly and pick up Zhou Yue to let her ride on his neck to see the world. He just sat on the sofa. The black leather sofa was majestic and solemn. Grandpa's face was calm, and the two words "Hongyi" framed in a wooden frame above his head were vigorous and powerful.
"Kneel down!" The loud shout was as powerful as thunder.
Of the four people, except Zhou Tiancheng, the other three shuddered, their knees became weak, and they wanted to kneel down involuntarily.
Looking at Zhou Tiancheng again, he took his hand out of his trouser pocket, walked over slowly, and knelt down with a thud as if he was familiar with the place. He knelt in the middle of the living room, with a coffee table between him and his father.
Zhou Tiancheng's father was named Zhou Yi. As his name suggested, he was a man of great integrity. His wife had been dead for almost twenty years, and he had no other woman around him. He only had one son, Zhou Tiancheng. He could not understand how he and his wife, who had spent their entire lives in military service, could give birth to such a bad boy. When he was a teenager, he led a group of hooligans in the compound to do nothing, engage in speculation and profiteering, and was obsessed with making money through illegal means. There was no shortage of beautiful women around him, just like harvesting wheat, one after another.
When he met the girl's parents, they were not pushovers. They made their daughter stand at his door and scolded him all day long. In his life, he had never been afraid of the Japanese or the Americans, but now he was old and was so cowardly that he couldn't sleep when he heard any noise at the door. If Zhou Tiancheng didn't look too much like his deceased wife, he would have been shot long ago to prevent any future trouble!
"Where did you come from?" Zhou Yi was not in a hurry to feed Zhou Tiancheng broom rice today. He raised his chin towards the three people at the door.
"Where did it come from?" Zhou Tiancheng knelt on the ground and grinned, "I gave birth to it." Before he finished speaking, there was a crisp sound, and a small teacup flew through the air like a stray bullet, passed through Zhou Tiancheng's brow bone, and hit the wall at least one meter behind him, breaking into pieces.
The air froze and the sound of blood hitting the ground could be heard.
Zhou Yue didn't even dare to cry. She grabbed her mother's skirt and hugged her legs, looking up at her mother, "Mom..."
My mother's face was dry, without a single tear, and her expression was also dry, as if she was in a daze.
"Dai Yan," Zhou Yi said, "take the child into the house."
Dai Yan responded and took Zhou Yue's hand like a puppet and went into the inner room. Kang Xingxing followed them silently like a little shadow through the corridor and into the master bedroom. She saw the black and white photo on the wall, which was hung high and no one could reach it. The woman in the photo was not similar to Zhou Tiancheng, but exactly the same.
"He is older than Yueyue." Zhou Yi sat upright in the living room. His previous blow was well-aimed, but he was old after all, and he was furious. His chest heaved violently, causing waves of resonance in his lungs.
"Yes." The smile disappeared from Zhou Tiancheng's face, and blood was splattering.
"You already had it before you married Dai Yan. Why did you marry Dai Yan and not that woman?"
Among all the beautiful girls, Zhou Yi despised Dai Yan the most. She was uneducated and had been hanging out with boys since she was a teenager. She got pregnant before she got married. She couldn't continue working as an accountant in the meat processing plant, so she begged Zhou Tiancheng to use his connections to get her a sinecure at the Power Bureau. But she couldn't do this job well. She either took leave or was absent from work all day long. She either played mahjong or made appointments to go to the dance hall to dance disco.
Among the girls around Zhou Tiancheng, there were also some that Zhou Yi thought were good. Zhou Tiancheng got married at the age of 27, which was not too early. He said it was because of the child. Zhou Yi also accepted it. He was not an old man who favored boys over girls. He was content to have a lovely granddaughter like Yueyue before he died.
But he couldn't understand why Zhou Tiancheng, this bastard, had spent so much time picking and choosing and ended up picking up something like Dai Yan.
That dark-skinned little Tiedan, who looked so honest, bowed respectfully upon entering and called him Grandpa. He didn't look like Zhou Tiancheng, not at all. So, did he look like his mother? Not very good-looking, just an ordinary child like you'd find everywhere. But God knows how much the old man loves an ordinary daughter-in-law, and he even raised such a polite and well-behaved child. He couldn't be any worse than Dai Yan, right?
Zhou Tiancheng looked at the shadow on the ground, his face pale, but the haze in his eyes only flashed for a moment before it passed. He put on a cheeky grin again, "Why else? I just like Yan Zi! She's the only one I'll marry!"
"Hahaha!" Zhou Yi laughed out loud in anger, pointing at Zhou Tiancheng's nose and scolding him, "Zhou Tiancheng, Zhou Tiancheng, I told you not to marry Dai Yan, but you insisted, saying you already had Yueyue. Fine, marry her! Then live a good life! But what about you? You married one and then a bunch of other people, and now you tell me you have to marry her? You still like her? Do you deserve that?"
"Why not, Dad?" Zhou Tiancheng laughed so hard that his mouth stretched to his ears. "How many troubles has she caused me? She's been beating this and kicking that person outside. Does she really think people are afraid of her?
I traveled all over the world by myself, and she would lose tens of thousands of dollars at the poker table. She gave birth to a girl and then died. What can I say? If this doesn't count as love, then what counts as love?"
"Then you better live a good life!" Zhou Yi couldn't hold it in any longer. He sat up and cursed, slamming the coffee table so hard that it clanged and his roar shook through the wall. "Can't you control those two taels of meat? Can't you let me die in peace? Can't you let Dai Yan live in peace? How can Dai Yan and Yueyue live their lives in the future if you bring back such a murky child?"
"Traveling out on business is stressful," Zhou Tiancheng said, sucking his teeth. "It's unavoidable."
"Besides," he said, tired of kneeling, and sat down on the ground with a nonchalant smile, "people do things for themselves, not for others to see. If I were to die one day due to my sick bones, would Dai Yan be able to keep the wealth? But as long as Xingxing is here, Yueyue will not be without a home."
Zhou Yue and Kang Xingxing lay on the head of the bed in the bedroom, leaning against the wall to listen, but they could only hear vaguely.
Zhou Yue thought her father was finished and was going to be beaten to death by her grandfather today.
"Gorilla, what should we do? Daddy is going to be spanked by Grandpa again."
Zhou Yue looked at Kang Xingxing, who shook her head sadly. Then she looked at her mother, who was knitting a sweater. She was carrying a large leather bag containing a half-finished sweater. It was Zhou Yue's favorite sapphire blue, with a little bear on the front and a small crescent moon on the back.
She specifically asked her mother to knit the little bear on the front so that she could see it when she looked in the mirror, but she didn't dare tell her mother that she wanted to see the little bear because Kang Xingxing looked like the little bear.
Mom didn't care. She said absentmindedly, "Okay, I get it." There was no smile on her face. She just sat in the rattan chair by the bedroom window, knitting in the afterglow of the setting sun. From time to time, she would pick up the wool and look at it from a distance. Without even looking up, she greeted, "Yueyue, come and try it."
"Mom, Grandpa is going to make Dad eat broom rice." Zhou Yue lay on her mother's lap, her little face wrinkled with worry, as if she was the one in pain.
But my mother just tilted her head, her eyes moving back and forth between the sweater and Zhou Yue.
"Almost." This was all she said at last.
But this day, for the first time, Grandpa didn't treat Dad to broom rice. Dad, even without broom rice, could still eat dumplings. The whole family gathered around the table. The nanny made dumplings. Northerners are obsessed with carbohydrates, so they also made noodles with soybean paste. In addition, the table was also full of other dishes: pickled pork, pig's trotter soup, steamed hairtail fish, braised spareribs...
Zhou Yi adhered to the principle of not talking while eating and not talking while sleeping. He sat upright and focused on eating. Zhou Tianben was not a talkative person and had a poor appetite. He would be full after a few chopsticks, but he still followed the rules. He crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair, occasionally glancing at Dai Yan beside him, like bright red peach petals floating between the two of them.
Zhou Yue dropped her chopsticks. When she bent down to pick them up, she saw her father grabbing her mother's hand that was on her knees. Her mother broke free, but her father was not satisfied and kicked her under the table. Her grandfather coughed violently, and her father laughed silently with his head tilted back.
The dumplings had sugar syrup filling, peanut and red date filling, and some even had coins on them. Zhou Yue was determined to find the one with the coin in it, but after eating two, she found both had sugar syrup filling.
Kang Xingxing buried his head in eating, beads of sweat streaming down his forehead, as if he was competing with the crackling firecrackers outside the window.
He suddenly stopped eating, his round black eyes sparkling under the light. He excitedly held the bowl and approached Zhou Yue. He took a small bite of the dumpling and a coin popped out.
"Ah! You got it, gorilla! How come you're so awesome?"
Zhou Yue didn't care about any rules. She held the dumplings in Kang Xingxing's bowl with her two little chubby hands, as if she was holding newborn chicks, laughing and shouting.
The child didn't know, but the adults at the table knew it. Except for Zhou Tiancheng, everyone felt bad.
The two little guys huddled together, Xiao Heidan's eyes never left Yueyue's face, but when Yueyue looked at him, he immediately lowered his head, his fluffy eyelashes covering his eyes. When Yueyue smiled, he also smiled.
The second day of the Lunar New Year that year was the most painful day in Kang Xingxing's life. He had indigestion and asked Zhou Tiancheng to take him to the hospital for an IV drip overnight. He vomited all over the hospital bed.
"Haven't you eaten yet?" Zhou Yue went to the hospital to see Kang Xingxing. She lay beside the bed and glared at him mockingly, then stuffed an apple into his hand. Her mother had peeled it at home and brought it over. She just wanted to offer her some gift.
Kang Xingxing finally felt that the sky and the earth had stopped spinning, Zhou Yue's little face was no longer doubled, and her stomach was empty, but she still followed the doctor's advice and took small bites.
"Are you speechless again?" Zhou Yue imitated her mother and felt his forehead. "You don't have a fever!"
The sun was shining brightly outside the ward window, the leaves were lush green, and birds were chirping. But Kang Xingxing was preoccupied. He stopped eating halfway, blinked his eyelashes, and whispered, "When can I go home?"
"You can go home when you recover!" Zhou Yue didn't know the exact time, so she tucked in the quilt like an adult, "Don't worry."
"I want to go home."
"Why?" Zhou Yue felt strange. There were only so many things in the house, and they wouldn't run away!
Kang Xingxing lowered her head, her face darkening, the thin parts of her ears dark red. She swallowed the crumbs in her mouth and whispered, "I miss Yueyue."
"I'm right here, aren't I?" Zhou Yue held her chin with her hands, her face redder than an apple. "I came to see you every day before you were discharged from the hospital."
"I want to pick up Yueyue from school," Kang Xingxing hesitated, looking at the oxidized apple in her hand, "and stay with Yueyue forever."
"Don't worry, Orangutan!" Zhou Yue thought this request was easy to meet. They would go to school together in the future and spend more time together.
"We'll always be together!" She fished a coin out of the front pocket of her pullover and waved it in front of his eyes. "Look! You earned it by eating!"
She stuffed the coin into his palm, poked his thumb, and giggled, "Look at your thumb, does it look like a coin?"
Zhou Yue and her parents all have thin and pointed fingers like the tips of grass, but Kang Xingxing's fingers are short and thick, with flat nails like a horizontal oval.
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