Chapter 67
"The Central Meteorological Observatory predicts that a new round of cold air will arrive starting tomorrow, and this will also be the strongest cold air since the beginning of this year..."
During the Chinese New Year this year, it was snowing all over the north. The temperature dropped to minus 20 degrees Celsius overnight. Black smoke was once again emitting from the big chimneys. It was so cold that even the smoke was frozen, heavy and pressed into the air, unable to dissipate. It even stained the red glow in the sky, and the sky was gray. Every time I breathed, my nose was filled with the smell of frozen smoke. Every time I blew my nose, the paper was covered with coal slag.
You stand on the street in the evening. People coming and going are wearing thick black coats and hurrying along with their heads down. The white snow on the ground and roofs is a lonely and gloomy blue in the night.
The heavy snow lasted for a whole week. Even the roof of the bus parked on the roadside was covered with snow, and the windows were covered with white. The bus could seat more than a dozen people, most of whom were rushing back to celebrate the New Year. They were carrying large and small bags. There were more luggage than people on the bus, and the tires were sunken under the weight. The driver had to start the engine several times before it started. There was a puff of smoke, and the bus drove silently and slowly on the lonely road of this small town.
The car was driving very slowly, but no one was in a hurry. The days outside were busy and rushing, and every day was in a hurry, anxious to hurry, anxious to fight, anxious to grab, anxious to deal with this noisy and crowded world and a life that could not be lived well even if one had only one breath left.
Once you get home, you won’t be in a hurry anymore.
It was dark and the street lights were on. The young mother in the car was forced to hunch over due to the weight of the luggage in the front and back seats, but she still smiled brightly. She wiped the mist off the car window and showed her daughter in her arms the dead trees covered with snow and the crooked snowmen on the roadside.
But the little girl was used to living in the city, playing in Disneyland, watching colorful fireworks shows, and had no interest in dirty, ugly snowmen and withered, black birch trees. In her eyes, this depressed and declining industrial town was as boring and annoying as an old man who kept telling stories about the glorious past. After listening to a few words from her mother, she became impatient and looked around with her big round eyes, always looking at the last row. When she looked too much, her mother noticed her and turned back to take a look. She frowned and clicked her tongue, then scolded in a low voice: "What did your mother teach you? Don't stare at others!" After that, she twisted the back of the little girl's head and turned her head back.
The car arrived at the terminal and everyone got off with their luggage. In the dim light of the street lamps, people's shadows hurriedly passed by on the snow and scattered in all directions, leaving only one shadow, alone and seemingly without a destination. It stayed there for a while and then began to wander around like a silent little ghost.
The long snowfield ends at the residential area. People come and go here, and the snow is trampled into mud. Only some snow remains on the curb.
This area is too dilapidated, there are not even street lights. There are only a few scattered tube-shaped buildings hidden in the darkness. The low brick walls are dirty and mottled. One building is only five stories high, and a few sparse windows are lit. Warm light shines through, casting shadows on the ground.
The shadow stayed there for a long time, so long that people mistakenly thought it was a black line on the ground.
A family of three walked by, talking and laughing, carrying New Year's goods. The child was wrapped like a cotton ball, holding four or five firecrackers in one hand and a toy gun in the other, shouting proudly: "Mom, look, I'll blow one for you!" His father smiled and said, "Come and blow one for Dad to see!" But the mother was not happy, and pulled him to her side, and said impatiently while hurrying on her way: "Stop playing, you're going to blow people up!" He stepped over the black line on the ground and walked away.
Until their figures disappeared and everything returned to silence, the black line on the ground suddenly moved, became shorter, thinner, and disappeared.
It was New Year's Eve. Xiao Hu, who worked at the Old Walnut Cake Shop, was finally let out by his mother. He trotted out of the shop, turned a corner, and darted into the nearby Xingyue Restaurant. Too shy to go in, he placed a plastic bag of peach cakes on the plastic stool closest to the door and shouted towards the kitchen, "Auntie Xing, my mom asked me to bring you a hot bag of peach cakes! It's for my little brother Tiantian!"
Zhou Nianxing was washing dishes in the kitchen. When he heard the noise, he poked his head out and said, "Taotao! Don't be in a hurry to leave! Come in!" He came out wearing an apron, squinting his eyes and smiling as he wiped his hands with a towel. He touched the back of his round beard and turned to the kitchen to get two large bags of things. He said, "Go and get your mom her favorite sweet and sour pork and pork ribs with beans. Be careful of the burns."
Ten-year-old Hu Taotao asked Aunt Xing to touch him, and his face instantly turned red, turning pink with a hint of white. He smiled foolishly, and when Aunt Xing asked, "Is your place still open?" he finally came to his senses, scratched his head and smiled, "It's almost closing. My mom said she's going back to watch the gala. Aunt Xing, you and your little brother Tiantian haven't come back yet?"
"Yes!" Zhou Nianxing smiled and took out a few "Sunday" square cakes from the freezer and handed them to Hu Taotao. "Wait for Auntie to wash the dishes, clean up and then go back."
In fact, on weekdays, Xingyue Restaurant closes at three in the afternoon because it has to pick up students from school. But now it is winter vacation and the Chinese New Year is coming soon, so this small restaurant is open until seven or eight in the evening, and people returning home can always have a hot meal here.
"Oh!" Hu Taotao had torn the square cake open in a blink of an eye. No matter how cold it was outside in the Northeast in winter, it was warm inside, so hot that it felt a little dry. It was so delicious to lick the square cake at this time.
"Aunt Xing, you fainted last time and just came back from the hospital. My mom told you to get enough rest."
Little Hu Taotao always prefixed his caring words with "my mom said." Zhou Nianxing smiled and looked at his little face, her fox eyes narrowed like a crescent moon, and she said softly, "Okay."
The two, one big and one small, exchanged a few more pleasantries, and then Hu Taotao went back contentedly while eating the square cake.
As soon as he left, Tiantian came out and wiped his hands with a towel like his mother, with a shy smile on his face. He had just been helping his mother wash the dishes.
When Zhou Nianxing saw this, he rubbed his little head and scolded him, "Why didn't you say hello when Brother Taotao came? He brought you some peach cakes!"
He doesn't talk every day, just lowers his head and smiles. He is too shy and too quiet, more like a girl. The more he likes someone, the more he wants to play with them. The more he hides when he sees people, and he doesn't talk to them. Then he treasures the things people give him, and remembers their every word and action.
Look, he has quietly moved to the door, sat on a small plastic stool, held the peach cake that Taotao gave him in his arms, took out a piece, took a small bite, and chewed it carefully.
Zhou Nianxing had no choice but to smile and shake his head, then turned around and went back to the kitchen to busy himself.
Tiantian sits on a small stool, his calves swinging back and forth, eating peach cakes happily while watching the sparse crowds in the vegetable market. The empty stalls with the lights off are covered with dustproof cloths, and the neon signs that usually flash so brightly that it hurts the eyes are also off. In a while, the entire vegetable market will be cleared out as everyone will go home for the New Year.
Tiantian was eating when her dangling legs stopped, still holding the peach cake in her arms. She tilted her neck and stared blankly at the glass door that was gently pushed open. She stared for a long time, forgetting to wipe the crumbs from the corner of her mouth, and whispered:
"Uncle, we're closed."
…
"uncle?"
He jumped off the stool holding Taosu, ran through the store, ran past the wall where the food was taken, and ran to the kitchen, "Mom...Mom, an uncle came in."
He ran to his mother, leaned over the edge of the sink and stood on tiptoe to look at his mother's profile.
Now there was only a dim kerosene lamp lit in the kitchen. Mom stood there with her back to the door, looking at the wall above the sink. Her hands hung at her sides, water dripping down, as if she was dreaming while awake.
I look at the wall every day, but there is nothing on it, only a long, dark shadow.
A very long time passed, and the mother did not move, and the shadow did not move, as if the shadow was the mother's shadow.
"Mom..." Tiantian held her mother's hand, "Mom, are you cold? Why are you shivering?" Then she stood on tiptoe and leaned forward to look at her mother's face, "Mom, why are you crying..."
"Tiantian." Zhou Nianxing spoke, his voice so soft that it was inaudible.
"That's not your uncle, that's your dad."
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