Chapter 1
My name is Guimei.
My grandfather told me that the day I was born was unlucky. It was the winter solstice, and the sunlight shining on my body was not warm at all, but rather a bit cold. All the dogs in the village lay in their kennels whimpering.
When I was born, I didn't cry. Instead, I kept staring at the midwife and smiling. She was so scared that she almost dropped me. It was my grandfather who caught me and took out the family heirloom feather stone and placed it on me. Only then did I cry like a normal baby.
At this time, all the dogs in the village began to bark.
The village couldn't keep the secret, and the midwife spread the story of my birth throughout the village the next day. Everyone said I was a ghost baby, and because of my strange surname, other children my age were warned by my family to stay away from me.
Later, my parents went to work in the city and never came back. I depended on my grandfather for everything. This made me become a little withdrawn and afraid to talk to people, so I had almost no friends throughout my childhood.
But there are always exceptions. When I was in the third grade of primary school, I had a new deskmate. He was from the next village, named Mao Jianming. I always called him Maomao, and he called me Xiaomei.
Maomao is my first friend.
Their village is called Xigou, and it's separated from ours by a mountain. It's called a mountain, but it's not actually very high. If he shouted from the mountainside, we could hear him clearly. Xigou is small, with only a few households and no school, so he came to our village every day to attend school, then went back home on his own. It took about ten minutes to get home.
Sometimes when he was too playful to go home after school, his mother, Aunt Chen, would call out from the mountain: "Maomao, it's time for dinner!"
When he heard me, he would say, "Let's continue playing tomorrow. I have to go back."
Then he was seen running up the mountain, and the figures of the mother and daughter disappeared on the mountainside.
When we became very close, he would have dinner at my house after playing late, and we would sit in the yard and listen to my grandfather tell stories. Later, when Aunt Chen found out, she no longer had to call him and he could come home whenever he wanted.
He was very timid back then, afraid to walk alone at night. If he stayed out late, I'd always take him home. Aunt Chen would often tell him about this, saying, "You young man, you're not as brave as a little girl." She'd often add, "I think the little girl is pretty. Let her marry our Maomao."
Hearing this, Maomao looked at me and laughed. At that time, I didn’t know what a wife was, so I just laughed foolishly along with him.
That period should have been the happiest time of my life. I thought my childhood would continue to be carefree until that incident happened.
That day, Maomao and I came to my house to play after school as usual. After dinner, we sat in the front yard. Grandpa held a palm-leaf fan, smoked his pipe, and told Maomao and me a story with a kind face. The story went like this:
Once upon a time, there was a village surrounded by mountains on one side and water on three sides. In the innermost part of the village, there lived an elderly couple with no children. Due to their age, their eyesight and hearing had become blurry, and they lived a very hard life.
Until one day, a heavy rainstorm suddenly fell, and the rain did not stop all day. In the middle of the night, the old couple heard a knock on the door, and then heard someone outside shouting, "Is anyone there? Open the door and hide from the rain."
The old lady was surprised to hear this. Who would knock on the door in the middle of the night? In the old days, there was basically no electricity in the house. Light came from candles. People would go to bed around 7 or 8 o'clock. So the middle of the night was around 10 o'clock now.
But the old couple were kind-hearted. They thought it was raining heavily and it was midnight, so they decided to let someone in first. At that time, the people in the village were simple and honest. Besides, there was nothing valuable in the house, so they didn't think there would be any bad people. So the old man went to open the door in the rain.
As soon as the door opened, the old man saw a tall black shadow. He was wearing a bamboo hat and carrying a black object on his back. Because it was night and the old man had poor eyesight, he thought it was luggage and didn't pay much attention to it.
The old man quickly ushered the man into the house and turned on the light. Only then did he see clearly that the man had a round face, small eyes, and a long mustache. He said, "Brother, you are really righteous. I knocked on more than ten doors, but no one opened the door for me."
"It's late at night, maybe everyone is asleep," said the old man.
The man just smiled and said nothing.
Seeing that he didn't say anything, the old man said, "Young man, I don't think you are from around here. Why aren't you staying at home on such a rainy day?"
The man said, "Well, I just got here today too. Is there anything to eat at your house? I haven't eaten all day."
Although the old man's family was poor, he couldn't bear to see anyone hungry, so he asked the old woman to boil some eggs and heat a pot of wine.
The old man put the small wooden table on the kang, and after about ten minutes, eggs and wine were on the table.
At that time, people were reluctant to eat eggs themselves, and would either sell them or eat one or two during the New Year. When the man saw the old lady bring out four or five eggs, he immediately picked up one, peeled it, and stuffed it into his mouth.
Seeing him like this, the old man thought that he must have come here to escape famine and might have been hungry for several days. He picked up the wine pot and poured him some wine, saying, "This is just the muddy wine brewed by me, so just drink it."
The man didn't hesitate and drank the wine in one gulp.
After drinking a cup of hot wine, he started chatting with the old couple about family matters, and the four or five eggs were also eaten by him.
They drank like this until almost midnight, and then the man said to the old couple, "Thank you so much for coming today, brother and sister-in-law. It's time to go, and I have to leave too. After I leave, you should close the door and no matter what you hear, don't go out to see. Just sleep soundly in the room. I think brother has had too much to drink, sister-in-law, so you'd better remember this."
The old couple wanted him to stay for one night before leaving. After all, it was raining heavily and it would be difficult to walk in the dark at night. But the man refused to stay and just told them to sleep no matter what they heard.
The old lady saw him off. Seeing the round object on the man's back, she thought it was luggage and said, "Young man, be careful. This road is not easy to walk on."
"Sister-in-law, please lock the door and go back. Don't see me off." The man said to the old lady, and then gradually disappeared into the night.
When the old lady saw the man walking away, she locked the door and went back to her room to sleep.
Late in the night, lightning and thunder woke the old couple from their sleep. The old man listened carefully and saw the sound of rain outside, even louder than during the day, occasionally mixed with the sound of water. The old man said worriedly, "What's going on, old woman? I'll go out and take a look."
When the old lady heard the old man was about to leave, she remembered what the young man had said tonight. She grabbed the old man and said, "Have you forgotten what that man said to us?"
The old man then remembered what the man said and did not dare to go out. However, listening to the sound of water outside, the old couple felt uneasy and could not sleep. They spent the whole night in a daze.
The next day, when the rain stopped, the old couple got up and went out to see what had happened.
Who knew that when they opened the front door, there was a flood outside, and the old couple were the only ones left in their village flooded.
After hearing this strange story, the moon had already risen.
I sent Maomao back as usual.
The moon is abnormally bright tonight.
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