Chapter 1 1
"What's the point of educating girls? Aren't they studying for others?" Uncle Jiang squatted on the ridge of the field, looking at his father who was cutting rice in the field and took a puff of cigarette: "Ningning is already fifteen years old. She can get married in a few years. Look at the family who loves the country and the party. Their daughter went out to work early and can earn a lot of money a year. They have built a house. Look at your family..."
He pointed to the only low, gray tiled house among the white buildings at the entrance of the village not far behind him and said, "Your house is the shortest in this area."
What I mean is, you see there are buildings all around you, but your house is still an old gray house.
The proudest thing in Uncle Jiang's life was that he built two-story houses for both of his sons by himself. He spoke with full confidence at this moment, and his tone was filled with uncontrollable pride and complacency.
Speaking of this, Jiang's father felt a little ashamed. In rural areas, houses are the foundation and roots.
He sighed and said, "What's the point of just having a house? As long as the three brothers and sisters are successful, I'm happy even if they don't have a house!"
Jiang's father had two sons and one daughter, the youngest of whom was Jiang Ning.
Jiang Ningtou was still a little dizzy, looking at the familiar scene in front of him vaguely, thinking that he was dreaming and dreaming about his childhood.
Perhaps the childhood memories were too profound. Even though her family later built a three-story building, every time she dreamed, the home in her dreams was still that low, gray old house.
The big house that she built herself had one floor for her eldest brother's family, one floor for her second brother's family, and one floor for her parents' family. The day after her wedding, her own small room was occupied by her sister-in-law and her nephews and nieces, who couldn't even wait for her to come back in three days.
She once saw a sentence on the Internet that said a woman has no home after she gets married.
She originally disagreed with that statement, but when she saw her sister-in-law and nephews and nieces lying on her bed on the day she returned home, she suddenly understood that statement.
"What's the point of you being happy? The girl has to be happy. Jiang Song is already nineteen. He didn't pass the exam this year, but he will have to get married in two years. Jiang Bai is also seventeen. He will have to get married in two years. When the girl sees such a house, who would be willing to marry them?" Uncle Jiang said realistically: "Let Ning Ning go to work and earn for a few years. Even if she earns one thousand a year, it will be more than five thousand in five years. You and your wife can earn a little more and build the house by then. Jiang Song needs a house whether he repeats his studies or works. When Jiang Bai graduates from university, you can get married. Now there are three of us studying, and only two of you are making money. I tell you, don't delay Jiang Song and Jiang Bai by then!"
Father Jiang thought about letting his son repeat a year, was silent for a while, and waved his hand: "Don't say it, it's definitely not okay to let Ningning drop out of school. At worst, I'll just be a little tired and find something else to do."
Uncle Jiang sneered.
Jiang Ma, who had been concentrating on cutting rice without saying a word, suddenly stood up and asked Jiang Ning, who had woken up and was lying in the shade of a tree, "Ningning, what do you think?"
Jiang Ning had just woken up and was still a little confused. Hearing this, he instinctively retorted, "I don't want to work, I want to study."
Jiang Ning would never have said such words in the past. She was used to being obedient and never knew how to fight for it. Even though she was unwilling to drop out of school, after being beaten and scolded by her mother with both soft and hard methods, and then begged her a few times with soft words, she could no longer say anything in rebuttal.
Jiang's mother was used to her daughter's obedience. When she heard Jiang Ning's rebuttal, she was furious and her eyebrows immediately raised: "Study? We also want you to study, but where is the money? Where does the money come from? Girls your age would have brought tens of thousands of yuan to the family long ago. You study all year round, not only don't make money, but also spend money!"
Jiang's mother has always had a hot temper and speaks like a machine gun.
If it were the Jiang Ning of the past, she would have been so filled with guilt and fear that she wouldn't know what to do.
But she is no longer the Jiang Ning who was criticized and suppressed when she grew up, and was too cowardly to resist. She said, "It is now nine years of compulsory education. I am only in the third grade of junior high school, and it doesn't cost money to study."
Jiang's mother didn't expect Jiang Ning to dare to talk back. She was furious like a lit powder keg and said, "Do you spend money on food? Do you spend money on drinks? Do you spend money on clothes? If you are so capable, don't ask me for money to study!"
Jiang Ning smiled, looked down at her sleeves and trouser legs which were obviously too short, and said, "Aren't the clothes I've worn since I was a child all those my cousins gave away when they were too young? They didn't cost me money in the first place."
She suddenly thought of an incident in high school. She wore the same pair of pants from junior high school to high school. She was thin, but grew fast. The pants that fit her in junior high school had become cropped pants in high school, and the sleeves of her clothes were also shorter. It was winter, and her high school classmate noticed it. He compared it with his own normal-sized clothes and deliberately asked her, "Jiang Ning, why are all your clothes hanging?"
"Hanging" is the local dialect in Jiang Ning's hometown, which means that the clothes are too small and the sleeves and trouser legs are too short, hanging on top.
Jiang Ning was just telling the truth, but it made Jiang's mother so angry that she rushed over to hit Jiang Ning, but Jiang Ning got up and ran away.
Jiang's mother couldn't catch up with her, so she waved her sickle and shouted from behind: "You still dare to run? Unless you die outside today, I will skin you alive when I get back!"
The air seemed to be distorted by the scorching summer sun.
Jiang Ning was barefoot, her feet were covered in mud, and the ground was scorching hot from the scorching sun.
She probably had heatstroke, she felt very dizzy and her arms were covered with red sand.
This is their folk remedy for dealing with heatstroke. If anyone has heatstroke, just scrape out the sand from the neck, between the eyebrows, and the bends of the arms.
Jiang Ning didn't know whether this was an illusion or reality. She only knew that if she didn't take a rest, she would faint on the road.
She sat down in the shade of a tree by the pond to wash her feet and rest.
The leeches on my legs were firmly attached to them, as if they were going to burrow into my flesh, and I couldn't pull them off.
It was pulled off with great difficulty, and blood was flowing out.
The leeches in the pond swam gracefully and leisurely, and the crayfish waved their lobster claws in the cracks of the rocks beside the pond.
She had nothing to do, so she picked up a snail, smashed it, tied the snail meat with straw, and went to the pond to fish for lobsters.
People passing by on the road shook their heads when they saw her, a grown-up girl, not helping her parents with work but sitting leisurely under the shade of a tree fishing for lobsters. They said, "She is so ignorant. She is such a grown-up girl, but she doesn't know how to help her parents with work. She is still fishing for lobsters. She is really too obsessed with studying."
"Isn't it a waste of money to give a girl an education?"
"What can we do if her father wants to let her study? The big guy is just brain-blocked and wants to give up three college students!" The women who were washing by the pond were chatting and laughing.
Big Guy is Jiang's father's nickname. He is 1.84 meters tall, the tallest in the village.
Rural people don't have any implicit thoughts about saying bad things about others behind their backs. They just say it to their faces. They wish the louder the sarcasm, the louder the laughter, and the more people who agree with them, the happier they are.
This is their general idea and this is what they do.
Jiang Ning remembered that among her generation of girls, only three went to college: one was the daughter of the brigade secretary, one was an older daughter in the family, and the other was her.
She dropped out of school and repeated her senior year before she was admitted to university.
Seeing that she didn't say anything, the auntie who was washing clothes started to lecture her, saying, "Xiao Ningzi, your parents worked so hard to support your education. Now they are harvesting rice in the fields, and you don't even want to help?"
Another aunt who was washing vegetables said, "My third daughter has been able to harvest rice from two mu of field since she was twelve years old. She works better than her brother. If my third daughter was so lazy, I would have broken her legs long ago."
"Girl, if you are so lazy, no one will want to marry you in the future."
"Hasn't she been beaten to death by her husband's family?"
Then a group of women started chatting about the trivial matters of women after they get married, such as which wife is lazy, who is beaten by her in-laws, etc.
Jiang Ning was still fishing for lobsters.
No one eats lobsters at this time, and they can be seen everywhere. There are so many that you can pick up a basketful of them just by picking them up from the ditch. These lobsters are also very stupid, and you can definitely catch one by fishing with snail meat.
After a while, Jiang Ning caught a small pile of fish and picked two large lotus leaves from the pond to wrap them and take them home.
The house was brighter than the gray one in her memory, with a cement floor, a newly built rice barn, and white lime walls with neat and childish words written on them with a brush: "Prevent fire and there will be rescuers" and "Prevent forest fires, everyone is responsible." She still remembered that these were written when she was a child practicing calligraphy, and her mother beat her for writing on the white wall.
In addition to the ceiling fan in the living room, there is also a desktop fan at home. The metal frame on the outside of the fan is gone, and the fan blades are exposed outside.
She turned on the fan, and while fanning herself, she looked at the home in her memory. She could see every detail of the home clearly, and it was exactly the same as she remembered, so clear that it seemed like this was not a dream.
On the coffee table in the main hall of the living room, an old-fashioned pendulum clock was ticking, indicating that the time was already past ten in the morning. On the wall next to the clock hung a palm-sized calendar. She walked closer and saw that the time on it was July 20, 1995.
It was 1995, the year her brother had just finished the college entrance examination. His results were not ideal, so he did not want to come back and stayed in the city to work. Her father wanted him to repeat his grade, but he refused to do so and went straight to work.
Her second brother will be in his third year of high school in the second half of the year and will not have a summer vacation. She had just finished her high school entrance exam, so she dropped out of school and went out to work that year.
Her mother went to great lengths to get her to work, using sticks, red dates, singing, reciting poems, and performing martial arts.
Jiang's mother knew that she couldn't convince Jiang's father and grandfather, so she kept telling her how difficult the family was, how it was not easy for her and Jiang's father and grandfather to have three children to study, and how their blood was being squeezed dry. She said how capable other people's daughters were, how much money they made for the family, how good they were to her, how they let her study until she was fifteen, and then they would throw things around at home, say cold words to her, and use cold violence. Then they used the policy of a pitiful soldier towards her, sighing and saying, "If the family really couldn't afford the money, I wouldn't have let you go to work!"
Jiang Ning started school early and was only fifteen years old. She was born in winter, so she was only thirteen years old. She loved her parents so much that she could not stand her mother's soft and hard tactics.
It just so happened that a primary school classmate of hers came to her house every day and said that she was working as a waitress outside, earning at least two to three hundred yuan a month, and those with strong working ability could earn five to six hundred yuan a month. She said she was willing to take her to work with her.
When her mother heard about it, she became jealous of the huge salary of two or three hundred yuan a month, and begged her elementary school classmate to take her to work and asked him to take good care of her.
She didn't even think about the fact that the monthly salary of workers in the city is only about 800 to 100 yuan. What kind of waiter could have such a high salary, earning 200 to 300 yuan, or even 500 to 600 yuan a month.
Jiang's father and grandfather didn't let her go, so Jiang's mother cried and made a fuss at home, dragged Jiang Ning out of the house and pushed her onto a tricycle.
She was so cowardly at that time that she didn't know how to resist at all. She was taken by her elementary school classmates to work as a "waiter" in panic and confusion.
The waiters are real waiters, just waiters in nightclubs.
In such an environment, even the best girl can easily be influenced astray over time.
Jiang Ning was young and ignorant at that time. When she saw such a scene, she felt scared instinctively and felt that something was wrong, so she secretly ran back while those people were not paying attention.
It was my first time traveling far away. I had less than two dollars on me and couldn’t afford a train ticket, so I walked along the railway tracks all the way home. It was hundreds of kilometers, asking people and begging all the way. I don’t know how many times I got lost, and some people even deliberately gave me the wrong way. When I got home, I was no different from a beggar.
Even now when thinking back, Jiang Ning still feels scared. She was so young at that time and didn't know anything, yet she dared to go on the road alone. She was really lucky to be able to go home.
Even if it happened again, Jiang Ning would not dare to walk the same road again.
It was really God’s blessing that the little girl, who was alone in her teenage years, was not sold by human traffickers.
Thinking of that dark period, Jiang Ning felt sad.
She opened the door to her room.
The door was made of wood and creaked like something from a horror movie when touched.
The room is separated from the kitchen and, as it faces north, a little sunlight can only come in through the narrow window in the evening.
Her memory of her childhood room was nothing but darkness. It seemed as if it had never been lit up and the light was extremely dim.
The only window, covered with a transparent plastic bag, emitted a faint light.
There is a wooden table made of bricks in front of the window. It is called a wooden table, but in fact it is just an old wooden board. To maintain balance, there are piles of books on both sides, all of which are hers.
She flipped through the books on her desk, which were filled with notes. Almost every book was filled with notes. The exercise books and notebooks on the desk were also full.
The dusty memories seemed to be opened along with the notebooks. The knowledge that had been learned but forgotten was gradually recalled as the notebooks were flipped through, even clearer than before and understood more deeply.
She started laughing as she watched.
She had been looking at it for a long time without realizing it, until she was suddenly slapped on the back of her head, causing her entire upper body to crash against the table. Then her ponytail was grabbed, and she was slapped all over her face, while being beaten and scolded: "I thought you were dead outside, and you dared to come back? Can't you run? If you run again, I'll see where you can run to! You little thing, you dare to talk back to me, I worked so hard to support your studies, but you have lost all your knowledge! You still want to study?"
As he spoke, he slapped him again.
Jiang Ning was stunned by the slap.
Jiang's mother has been doing farm work all year round and is very strong. She grabbed Jiang Ning's hair as if she was holding a chicken, and she couldn't get free.
She originally thought she was dreaming, but she didn't expect the dream to be so real, and the pain and humiliation were so clear.
She was no longer the submissive little girl who dared not fight back when she was beaten. Even though she was so weak now that she had nowhere to escape, the suppressed anger and humiliation in her heart made her take advantage of Jiang Ma's hand that was holding her braid and rush into Jiang Ma's arms, knocking her onto the table and grabbing the sickle that Jiang Ma had placed on her desk.
Jiang Ma was hurt by her collision, and her hands loosened subconsciously, but she didn't let go completely. She slid from the roots of her hair to the middle of her hair, still holding it tightly. Seeing that she dared to take a knife, she was furious: "You dare to take a knife? You are getting more and more daring. What are you going to do with the knife? Do you still want to kill me?"
Jiang Ning took the sickle and slashed his hair from bottom to top. All the black hair was cut off along the scalp due to the force of Jiang Ma's grip.
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