newborn
The story begins with her rebirth.
…
Lu Wanqing turned from the passenger seat of the car and said to the 4-year-old girl in the back seat, "Well... Endi, from now on, uncle and auntie will be your parents, is that okay?"
The little girl nodded and smiled with her lips pursed.
"Then let's take uncle's surname Wen and name Zhili from now on, okay? Let's change this name."
This was the name the two had thought of for their future daughter long ago.
Lin Endi nodded.
No. Her name is Wen Zhili now.
Lu Wanqing smiled with satisfaction and turned back. "So good."
Xiao Zhili sat in the back seat and secretly looked at the two "new parents" through the rearview mirror.
They all look good, dress neatly, and speak like villagers, either calling each other "mother" or "uncle".
Wen Zhili knew that they were completely different from the villagers.
The "new father" is tall and strong, taller and stronger than most men in the village.
He didn't look as fierce as the men in the village, nor did he have the lingering smell of cigarettes and alcohol from the "old dad".
The "new mother" is even more so. She has been here since she was born. I have never seen a woman more beautiful than her.
At that time, she didn't know the words "elegant", "slim", "big eyes" and so on. She could only sigh in her heart: "The new mother is so beautiful."
Xiao Zhili turned his gaze to the window and watched the layers of mountains outside recede backwards.
She doesn't know what her life will be like tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, or even in the future.
She seemed to have no emotions.
Not happy, but not sad either.
Just accept all arrangements calmly.
At least one thing was certain—she could leave.
…
This is the big mountain in the west.
If you've ever been here, you know that no one talks about happiness here.
Wen Zhili has a classic bad family background - an alcoholic and violent father, a runaway mother, grandparents who favor boys over girls, and a poor and indifferent home.
When Lu Wanqing met her for the first time, she and her husband were counting the charity supplies that were about to be distributed to the school in the trunk of their car.
An older woman suddenly appeared beside them, holding a little girl with her head bowed in her hand, and spoke to them in broken Mandarin mixed with a large part of the local dialect:
"Didn't you tell Wang Fang that you couldn't get pregnant? I happen to have a spare one at home. Give me 200 yuan. Just 200 yuan and you can take her away."
Wen Jie, who was standing next to him, couldn't help but frown when he heard this.
"Sorry, it's inconvenient for us."
However, Lu Wanqing couldn't help but look at the "redundant" little girl she mentioned.
She kept her head down, her whole body was dirty, and her clothes were obviously too big for her. I wonder which son's discarded clothes these were.
When her eyes finally fell on the several scrapes and bruises on her knees and arms, Lu Wanqing's heart couldn't help but tremble.
He is so young, why does he look like this?
The woman began to plead, "I beg you, please take her away. You have money, but we don't. We can't raise a little girl."
Wen Jie still refused firmly: "Don't be ridiculous, we can't just take a strange girl home. Besides, human trafficking is illegal..."
The woman in the mountain village had no idea what was illegal or not, she just continued to chatter stubbornly.
Amidst her husband's reasoning and the woman's unreasonable demands, Lu Wanqing just kept looking at the little girl without saying a word.
The little girl seemed to sense that gentle gaze, and she timidly looked up and met her gaze, although the glance was fleeting.
But that glance was like a small stone falling into Lu Wanqing's heart, causing small but unignorable ripples.
So much so that after staring at her staggering back as she was dragged away by the woman, and after lying on the wooden bed in the village committee at night, those eyes still appeared before her eyes.
Those were a pair of clear and sad eyes.
Those eyes didn't belong to a little girl.
She chatted with her husband, and when she spoke, she had a tone that she couldn't quite put into words: "Did you feel that the little girl during the day was quite pitiful?"
Wen Jie was stunned for only a second before he knew which little girl she was talking about during the day.
"It's quite pitiful."
Lu Wanqing thought he would continue to say something like, "But it is really impossible for us to take her home." or "Girls born here are all like this."
But he didn't say anything further.
The sudden silence and her husband's overly quick reaction made Lu Wanqing vaguely aware that her husband seemed to have had the same idea as her at some point today.
There was something hesitant between them, but in the end they just hid this bit of pity and regret in the particularly lonely night of the mountain village.
…
The next day, when Lu Wanqing and her husband visited villagers with donated supplies, they met the girl again.
The woman from yesterday told them that her son was working in the fields and her granddaughter was in the kitchen. There was an old man sitting nearby, whom the woman said was her husband, smoking a cigarette and showing no interest in the couple.
Wen Jie sat down and chatted with the woman to learn about her family situation, while Lu Wanqing went to the kitchen to find the girl.
The wine bottles and cigarette butts scattered on the ground told her that the suffering of this family was definitely more than just poverty.
She found the girl under the stove. With a dusty face and frightened eyes, she was squatting beside the firewood, looking at her warily.
Lu Wanqing also squatted down so that their eyes were level.
She tried to make her voice sound gentle and non-aggressive:
"What are you doing?"
"To make a fire and cook rice." The little girl answered timidly.
"How old are you this year?"
"Four years old."
"May I have your name?"
"Lin Endi."
Lu Wanqing's heart trembled again. This was a name she knew how to spell without even asking.
It also reveals another kind of suffering lurking in this family.
Lu Wanqing subconsciously reached into her bag, hoping to find something that would make the child happy.
There was nothing else but a green apple and mineral water that he hurriedly grabbed before going out.
So, under the little girl's puzzled gaze, she unscrewed the mineral water, rinsed the green apple, and handed it to her.
The little girl looked at her and then at the green apple in a daze, and didn't dare to take it.
Lu Wanqing was amused by her quail-like appearance. She stretched the apple toward her again and said softly, "Here, have you seen this before? It's a green apple."
Lu Wanqing thought that green apples probably didn't grow in the mountains here.
Sure enough, the girl shook her head slightly, took it timidly, and whispered, "Thank you, Auntie."
"Good boy, so polite."
Lu Wanqing suddenly remembered that the green apple tasted a bit astringent, so she added, "But this apple may not be fully ripe yet. Let's leave it for a while and eat it when it's ripe."
As expected, the girl just held the apple in her hand without eating it, and there was less wariness in the look she gave her.
Realizing this, Lu Wanqing asked tentatively:
"Where's Mom? Why hasn't Auntie seen Mom?"
The little girl lowered her eyes and said in the same voice as the "Thank you, Auntie" she had just said: "Mom is gone."
She seemed to understand Lu Wanqing's shocked look and her hesitant questions, and explained generously: "He just ran away."
Reason told Lu Wanqing that she shouldn't continue to dig into other people's pain, but she really had an unusual desire to explore the girl in front of her. She was like a little adult.
He is not the kind of open-minded, generous and decisive adult - he is the kind of silent and pessimistic adult.
"Yes...why did you run away? Do you know?"
The girl nodded.
"Auntie Wang next door told me about it. She said my mother was a slut and a bitch, seduced my father, and later gave birth to me. My grandparents didn't like her either, so they ran away."
After saying this, he added comfortingly, "But I was too young when she left. I don't even have any memory of her. I don't even know what she looked like."
Lu Wanqing's face turned red and white when she heard this.
"Do you understand... uh... 'saucy', what does it mean?"
The girl nodded, then leaned her face against her knees, not looking at her.
“People here can understand it from birth.”
Just when Lu Wanqing was feeling overwhelmed and didn't know what to say, the girl spoke again sullenly, "But I don't think that's the case. I think Mom must have been hurt by Dad's beatings, so she left."
Lu Wanqing's eyebrows suddenly frowned again.
She understood where the girl's injuries came from.
"Dad hit you, didn't he?"
"Yeah." The girl still didn't look at her.
Lu Wanqing didn't know what to say or do again.
Is it comforting? It's not very comforting.
Call the police?
Then the old and the young in the family would have no source of income at all.
Just leave here as if nothing happened?
Leave this little girl to continue in this pouring rain that will last for a lifetime.
But she really couldn't ignore the melancholy and confusion in the girl's eyes anymore.
So the only thing she could do was to walk over to Wen Jie, who had just entered the kitchen, and ask him quietly but firmly, "Can we take her home? We've tried so many ways but can't get pregnant."
Wen Jie looked at his wife in surprise, then at the frightened child squatting in the corner, clutching a green apple.
silence.
silence.
After an indeterminate amount of time of silence, he nodded without asking any questions.
Lu Wanqing smiled.
This is what she likes most about her husband - he always understands her and they have a tacit understanding.
So she squatted back beside the girl and held her hand.
"Endi, do you like uncle and aunt?"
The girl opened her ignorant eyes and looked at the two adults in front of her who were obviously better looking than anyone else in the mountain village.
She felt the soft and white hand holding hers.
She nodded.
"Then, Endy, would you be willing to go home with us?"
…
People always say that childhood memories are vague.
But not for Wen Zhili.
She clearly remembered the pain that had been with her since birth, just as she clearly remembered the redemption that suddenly came to her at that time.
If you were born in the mountains, you would know that no one here talks about happiness.
What people always talk about is which family gave birth to a son and which family gave birth to an unlucky daughter, not happiness, and certainly not which man beats his wife - after all, there is no man who doesn't beat his wife.
What is happiness?
In fact, Xiao Zhili had secretly thought about this issue that was incompatible with this place a long time ago.
Those were the unfamiliar words she heard by chance from a rocking car telling stories on the roadside when her grandmother took her to the county one day - from then on, the prince and princess lived happily together.
What is happiness?
She looked into the eyes of the children of the same age around her - those children who had mothers, those children whose mothers cried and blocked their fathers' punches and kicks - and couldn't help wondering, do they know what happiness is?
She often wondered if her mother had not hated her entire family, including her own daughter, to the point of running away, would she have known what happiness was.
But she later discovered that the eyes of children with mothers were also gray.
So she lowered her eyes forever - no one here talks about happiness, after all, such a thing does not exist here.
…
It was in this foggy and desolate mountain, in the midst of her father's wrath, in the contempt and gloom that continued day after day—that a woman suddenly appeared, willing to squat before Xiao Zhili, with a gentle smile that made her dizzy, and asked her:
"Would you like to go home with us?"
Wen Zhili will never forget that moment.
No one ever asked her if she was willing.
When her mother didn't want her anymore, she didn't ask her.
When Dad and Grandma didn't want her anymore, they didn't ask her.
The two adults in front of her asked her if she was willing.
Would you like to go home with us?
Those words were too tempting, and Xiao Zhili hadn't learned how to say no yet.
…
"Uncle and auntie promise to treat you like their own daughter."
The woman in front of me said this again.
Xiao Zhili looked at her and smiled.
In a daze, she nodded.
Lu Wanqing's smile deepened, and she stood up and pinched Xiao Zhili's tender cheek.
"So good."
After she finished speaking, she noticed the green apple still in Xiao Zhili's hand and gave a final warning: "Don't eat it yet, it will be very sour."
Xiao Zhili nodded obediently. Lu Wanqing smiled and couldn't help but rub her head. Then she followed her husband out of the kitchen to discuss the adoption.
Xiao Zhili looked down at the green apple lying quietly in the palm of her hand.
She pursed her lips, the warning ringing in her ears.
But she had never seen such a beautiful apple. It had a beautiful shape, a beautiful color, and even a pleasant smell.
Finally, she couldn't help herself, slowly opened her mouth, and took a small bite of the fruit.
Not as sour as imagined.
There is a hint of sourness in the green sweetness.
Very delicious.
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