Chapter 1374 Returnee's Notes (Extra Chapter 3)
My name is Qiu Tiandi, and this name is like a tiny thorn, deeply embedded in my heart.
However, I don't want to write about myself; I want to write about my mother.
I've known since I was little that my mother is different from others.
Her eyes were always empty, like a dried-up well, unable to hold anyone's shadow.
The village children said she was crazy and mute, but I knew she just didn't speak; perhaps the painful howling at night had robbed her of the strength to speak.
My mother rarely looked at me. Occasionally, her gaze would fall on me, but she would quickly look away, as if she had been burned.
I always thought my mother didn't like me, so I didn't want to like her either.
After all, she was so dirty, covered in mud and cow dung.
Yes, my mother often lived in the cowshed. My grandmother said it was a punishment for disobedient people. I was afraid, so I was always very obedient.
I don't want to live in a cowshed or go hungry.
I am very obedient; I am the most obedient and capable child in the village.
Although I don't intend to like my mother, sometimes when I see her clean and tidy, I can't help but want to get close to her. My mother is fair-skinned and when she is quiet, she is like a wild lily on the mountain.
But Dad and Grandpa and Grandma are like wind and rain, hitting Wild Lily again and again. I think Wild Lily will eventually be completely buried in the mud.
I was inexplicably scared; I didn't want the wild lily to be broken.
So when my mother was locked in the cowshed, I would secretly feed her the food I had saved up, like fertilizing a wild lily, hoping that the flower would live longer that way.
I originally thought my mother wouldn't eat it, after all, she's too cold, she's cold to everyone, including me, her daughter.
But that day, my mother only glanced at me once, and then ate the whole half of the multigrain bun.
I am very happy.
For a while afterward, my father and grandmother stopped hitting my mother. My grandmother even cooked brown sugar eggs for my mother, which made me even happier.
I thought I would have a happy family, but at that time I didn't know that it was all a mistake from the beginning, and that happiness would never come.
Later I learned why Grandma stopped hitting Mom: because Mom was pregnant with a golden egg.
Zhao Di's mother next door is also pregnant.
However, her mother gave birth to a younger brother, while Zhao Di's mother gave birth to a younger sister.
Grandma praised me, saying I brought good fortune to the family by giving them a little brother. She said I was great, and then I even got to eat a small ice cream, which was so sweet. I was so happy.
Then I ran up to Zhao Di to show off, and together with the other kids, I mocked her, "Zhao Di, Zhao Di, you can't find a brother!"
I consider myself superior to others, at least superior to Zhaodi.
Then I saw my mother carrying a bucket of clothes. Her gaze was very cold at that moment, and I was instinctively scared. I ran up to her and offered her half an ice cream, hoping she would have some too.
But my mother stopped looking at me and staggered home. After hanging up the laundry, she started doing housework and taking care of the children.
Yesterday, Mom was screaming so hard, but today she's acting like nothing happened. I'm a little unhappy. I want Mom to talk to me and take a look at me.
Then I deliberately started to pull the cloth off my younger brother's clothes.
But my mother didn't care at all, and then my grandmother saw what I was doing when she came home.
My grandmother, who was so loving not long ago, is now like a demon from the Black Mountain, grabbing me and throwing me to the ground.
There was a thin bamboo stick lying in the yard. I had seen my father and grandmother use it to hit my mother, and now it had landed on me.
It hurts so much.
So, it hurts that much...?
But her mother rarely cried out; she would only howl a few times when the wooden stick next to the small bamboo whip fell on her.
I wanted my mom to save me, but her eyes were still empty; she didn't look at me.
In the end, I wasn't beaten to death, but I was completely subdued and realized that I couldn't treat my younger brother badly, or I really would be beaten to death.
After being beaten, I suddenly became silent.
It's not that I don't want to talk, but every time I try to speak, my body instinctively becomes afraid.
I'm afraid of being beaten.
I'm afraid of dying.
I became as obedient as my mother, no, it seems I've forgotten something.
Yes, my mother wasn't obedient before, otherwise she wouldn't have been beaten so often, and the villagers wouldn't have called her crazy.
Why is Mom so well-behaved now?
Perhaps they are afraid of being beaten, just like me.
Modern mothers neither laugh nor cry; they're like bodhisattvas in a temple.
I don't like this kind of mother, but I like her even more when I actually see her cry.
It was an ordinary day, the only difference being that someone died in the village.
Zhao Di's mother died.
When Zhao Di's mother was dragged back, she was covered in injuries. The villagers all said that Zhao Di's mother had fallen to her death, but I didn't believe it because Zhao Di's mother's injuries were the same as my mother's, only more severe.
It's so serious.....
She was beaten to death.
When I realized this, I subconsciously looked at my mother. I saw that her eyes were moist for the first time, no longer like a dried-up well, but I didn't like it.
My mother was dragged here by my grandmother, who said she wanted to see what would happen if she ran away, so that my mother would stay at home and do chores, and then have a few more sons.
My mother has become more silent than before; that's my feeling.
But to others, Mom seemed to have become more cheerful and willing to laugh.
At least Dad likes it very much.
Dad rarely hits Mom anymore because Mom is very well-behaved and very beautiful.
At that time, I had a happy thought again, and I thought that if I continued to live like this, I would have a happy family.
But it was all fake.
My mother is a very good actress. She fooled everyone. Just when everyone thought she was going to give up, she suddenly ran away, just like Zhao Di's mother.
Looking at the endless mountains, my breath caught in my throat; I was terrified.
I'm afraid that my mother will be like Zhao Di's mother, afraid that I will become a child without a mother.
Whether my mother dies or runs away, I will become a child without a mother.
I sat blankly next to my younger brother, unsure of which outcome to pray for.
In the end, I still prayed to God to let my mother live.
My father and the other villagers chased after her for a long time, but in the end they couldn't catch her. I was a little happy, but soon that happiness turned into resentment.
Because Dad took his anger out on me.
Because he knows that I was the one who unlocked the chains.
They asked me why, but I couldn't explain. I just wanted to see my mother smile.
The pain filled me with hatred. I resented my mother for not taking me with her when she ran away.
I thought I was going to die, but my dad stopped because my grandpa said I would grow up in a few years and could be sold for money.
I look like my mother, so many people will like me and I can sell me for a good price.
Marriage here is like being sold, but I don't want to get married... I hate my mother even more now.
I thought my fate was sealed and I would never see my mother again, but suddenly, a few people came to the village. They said they were from a geological team and wanted to stay in our village for a few days, offering a very high fee for lodging.
To pay for the money, Grandma moved to the woodshed, while I lived with one of the older sisters from those people.
My gaze fell on the woman's wrist and I couldn't look away, because there was a red ribbon there. It used to be mine, but I gave it to my mother, and now it was here.
The older sister smiled very gently. She gave me a lot of delicious food and asked me many questions. At first, I was wary, but as soon as I saw the red ribbon, I told her everything.
I want to know what's happening to my mother. I want to tell her that I hate her and why she won't take me with her, even though I'm so well-behaved and capable.
The older sister dug up Zhao Di's mother's body based on what I told her, along with other people's bodies. It turns out... so many people were buried in the back hill.
The villagers discovered their whereabouts, but they were quickly apprehended as the police arrived.
Many, many people came to the village. I saw police officers in uniform and doctors. Well, maybe I should call them doctors, but aren't doctors supposed to save people?
How could those doctors be treating people to death? It's like slaughtering pigs.
I also saw my mother. She was standing next to a pretty auntie, whom everyone else called Lawyer Jiang.
My mother is even more beautiful now, but she seems very sad. I saw her holding a small corpse.
The body was completely rotten.
I leaned closer to look, and oh, it was me.
I looked like my mother, and I was very pretty, but I looked really ugly after I died.
"Mom, don't look."
Qiu Tiandi died while fleeing.
Her mother didn't abandon her; she just couldn't run anymore. But her mother could still run, so her mother would keep running and running, over those mountains, to the outside world, where there was freedom, and... happiness.
"Click".
"Smile."
It's that older sister, Sister Yu Shu.
Her photo was printed out and pasted into a notebook. Then the smiling older sister said to her, "Your mother gave you a name, so you're no longer called Qiu Tiandi, but Xia Baihe."
The fragrance fades with the flowing water, spring returns with old friends, and time flows on like this.
"Summer lilies? I like them."
Xia Baihe's gaze fell on Yu Shu's hand. "What is this?"
"We all have notes, but we'll all compile them in the end."
Yu Shu gazed at the starry sky, "We are all doing the same things as that person."
Ghosts, returning home.
The End
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