103. 103 Escape Sequel
"Where's Er Ya?" Du Xiaojuan asked about her daughter's whereabouts for the first time at the dinner table.
Daya shook her head blankly, "I don't know either. I haven't seen her since I got back." She served herself rice and sat down to eat. Erya was very opinionated, and Daya was always the one who kept her in check. She hadn't seen her second sister all night, so she didn't think much of it.
"Where did she go so late at night?" Du Xiaojuan complained casually, not taking it to heart. Now that Da Ya was around, whether Er Ya was home or not didn't affect her eating or sleeping.
"Why are you picking at so many steamed buns? Can you finish them all?" Da Bao tapped Xiao Hu's hand with his chopsticks, glaring at him with wide eyes.
Xiao Hu glanced at him unhappily, put the steamed bun in the empty bowl and moved it in front of him, whispering, "I saved this for my second sister, don't steal it."
"You bootlicker, wait till she goes to school and see what you do then." Da Bao snorted, took a bite of his steamed bun, and said to Daya, "Tomorrow, make cabbage buns with a few eggs. I'm tired of these choking steamed buns."
Erbao and his father ate in silence, their heads down. Only Daya and Xiaohu ate at home every meal, so the absence of this quiet person didn't seem unusual to them. Erbao even wanted to laugh at his brother's silly words. This idiot was now on par with Xiaohu at home; their parents didn't bother with him. And yet, as the eldest son, he hadn't heard a thing about such a big thing.
After dinner, Da Bao and Er Bao went out to play, while Du Xiao Juan went back to her room to sleep with her husband. Xiao Hu took the steamed buns from his bowl to the small room and placed them on the table where his second sister was doing her homework.
After washing the dishes, Daya took a shower. When she came into the room, Xiaohu was already asleep in bed. She leaned against the headboard, lost in thought. When Erya came back, she had to go open the door.
The wind blew in through the narrow window, and the meowing of the stray cats in the yard woke up the dozing people. Daya rubbed her neck and sat up, groggily wanting to lie down again. She glanced at the porcelain bowl on the table and suddenly woke up. Looking at the bed, she saw that Erya had not yet returned.
Suddenly, there was a sound of a door being pushed open outside. She slipped on her shoes, pushed the door open, and stood in the yard, asking, "Is that Er Ya?"
"I'll open the door."
It was Erbao's voice. She went to open the door, and after he came in, she peeked out and grabbed Erbao, asking, "What time is it? Erya hasn't come back yet. Could something have happened to her?"
It was already the dead of night when Erbao, who had been playing cards and was feeling dizzy, suddenly became clear-headed and frowned, asking, "They're not back yet?"
"Um, when is it?" she asked eagerly.
"Was she home at noon? When did she leave? You haven't seen her come back yet?" He kept asking. If Er Ya's admission notice hadn't arrived soon, he wouldn't have bothered to answer. Just like Da Ya, when she was dumped by her man and didn't come home for a day or two, he didn't react at all.
“She was home at noon, and she was home when I took Xiaohu out to play in the afternoon. But when we came back, she was gone, and she hasn’t been here since.”
"Mom and Dad, Er Ya hasn't come back yet. I'm afraid something has happened to her." He went to his parents' bedroom and knocked on the door, shouting loudly.
"What could possibly happen? Don't worry about her. It's the middle of the night. She might be back tomorrow." Du Xiaojuan was woken up and yelled a few words in annoyance before burying her head in her man's arms and going back to sleep.
Erbao, who had a bad feeling just now, was yelled at like that and then he just ignored it. He looked at the dark sky and went back to his room to sleep. Well, he had already filled out his college application and taken the college entrance exam. If something really happened, it would be less trouble.
"Hey, Erbao, why did you go back to your room? What about Erya?" Daya was worried. Although Erya sometimes came back late, she would never stay out overnight.
"Didn't you hear what the people inside said? They'll be back tomorrow." He turned and closed the door, leaving only Daya in the yard. She stood there for a while, then went outside and looked around on both sides of the road. Not knowing where to look for them, she had no choice but to come back in, bolt the door, and go back inside to sit on the bed and continue waiting.
When the rooster crowed, there was a noise at the front gate. She ran out and saw it was Da Bao. She went back inside to wait. As dawn broke, the door to the bedroom next door opened. It was her father coming out to use the outhouse. She stood outside the outhouse and said, "Dad, Er Ya hasn't come back yet. Could something have happened to her?"
"She's only in her twenties, what could possibly happen to her? Is she seeing someone else? Otherwise, why would she spend the night out?"
"I...I don't know." But Da Ya breathed a sigh of relief. Although she was scolded for spending the night out with her boyfriend, it was better than something bad happening.
The man, disgusted by the smell of the outhouse, shut up and stopped talking. He was thinking that if Er Ya really had a boyfriend, he would marry her off as soon as he got the acceptance letter, and he could make two sums of money at once.
He thought to himself, "I should have more daughters; one son is enough to carry on the family line."
When he came out of the outhouse, he was startled to see that idiot Daya still standing outside. He frowned in disgust. "If you can't sleep, go cook. Why are you standing here like a fool?"
Da Ya didn't say anything and hurried back to her room. She hadn't slept all night and needed to go back to her room to sleep for a while.
The next day, Er Ya was still nowhere to be found. Apart from Daya and Xiao Hu going out to look for her, the other four people in the family went about their own business. It wasn't until lunchtime, when Er Ya still hadn't returned, that they started to take it seriously.
"Have you searched the entire town?"
"We've looked everywhere. Someone said they saw her walk out of town yesterday afternoon, and they haven't seen her come back," Daya said frantically. Leaning against her little tiger, she finally couldn't hold back anymore and burst into tears.
The town is very peaceful, with few thieves and no kidnappers. Even if there were kidnappers, they wouldn't be interested in her skinny appearance. She has nothing and is known for being unable to have children, so there's only one possibility.
She ran away!
The father of the second child rushed to the low-walled hut, called over Daya, and asked, "Come and see if she's missing any clothes?"
"No, they're all here." Xia Tian only had two sets of clothes to change into. She had already worn one set, and she still had the other set. Da Ya knew the answer with just a glance.
"Household registration booklet!" he exclaimed, and went back into the house, turning it upside down, but he couldn't find the rarely used household registration booklet.
"She really ran away, damn it." The man slammed the box on the ground, coughing incessantly in anger. Du Xiaojuan was stunned for a moment, then burst into a tirade of curses, using the most offensive language imaginable.
Erbao stood in the yard watching the family, some cursing and some crying, while someone inside coughed incessantly. He couldn't help but curse, "Cowards."
He went out alone, took the only yuan he had, took the bus to town, went straight to the county high school, and asked around for the homeroom teacher who taught the second year of high school.
"Who are you? What do you want with me?"
"I'm Er Ya's second brother. Is the mailing address she filled in on her college application form her home address?"
"Which Er Ya? There are two Er Yas in our class. They both filled in their home addresses on their college application forms. Otherwise, where else could they have filled in their addresses?"
"Zhang Erya, are you sure you filled in your home address?" Erbao asked anxiously, confirming again.
The teacher, whose home had been visited, grew impatient. "It's your home address, why didn't you fill in your own address instead of someone else's? What's wrong with you? Not receiving the admission notice isn't just because the mailing address was wrong; another possibility is that you didn't pass the exam." He slammed the door shut, too lazy to talk to the hoodlum. After the person outside left, he spat, "Zhang Erya's lousy grades think she can get an admission notice? Dream on."
With his worries alleviated, Erbao felt relieved and walked out with a sense of ease. However, by the time he reached the bus stop, he had already missed his stop. The last bus was at four o'clock, and it was already sunset.
Left with no other option, and lacking both money for lodging and a letter of introduction, and without any of his cronies in the different towns of the county, Erbao had no choice but to walk back.
He didn't get home until almost 10 p.m. He sat down and immediately said he was hungry, asking Da Ya to cook for him.
"I went to ask Teacher Er Ya, and the mailing address for the admission notice is home." He crossed his legs, tapping his fingers back and forth on his lap, his face full of smugness. While they were only focused on yelling and cursing, he had already thought of the most crucial thing. By the time they thought of it, he had already taken care of it. He was always one step ahead. He couldn't help but think that with his brains, he was just lacking luck to get rich.
It was as if he had been born into the wrong family. Erbao couldn't help but glance at his father, who still had a bitter face and a hint of disdain on his face.
"She really enjoys reading, and she even took the college entrance exam. Why did she suddenly run away? Are you sure the address on her acceptance letter is her home address?" The man, looking exhausted, was uneasy and suspected that Erbao had made a mistake. He didn't think Er Ya would run away at this time unless she did poorly on the exam. He voiced this possibility, which made him even more anxious. If she didn't pass the exam, he would have to pay her back, especially since she had eaten and drunk the things that people brought.
"Impossible." Erbao was full of pride and displeased with his father's skepticism. He scoffed, "She's always in the top ten of her grade. Even if she did poorly, how badly could she have done? Would she really run away? She doesn't know anything about us. She's probably been seduced by some man. Otherwise, why would she only take her household registration book? It's obvious she has someone outside taking care of her." He said with certainty that if he were to run away and there was no one at home, the first thing he would need was money. But now, apart from losing a person and the household registration book, the family hadn't lost a single penny. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became.
"Alright, let's grant her wish. She ran away on her own, so let's not bother looking for her anymore. We won't find her anyway. Let's just live our lives properly." He hummed a tune nonchalantly as he took the noodles that Da Ya brought him and slurped them down.
Indeed, Erbao was right. Erya ran away on her own, and they didn't know who she ran off with. Where were they supposed to look for her? Without her household registration book, they couldn't get a letter of introduction, and he had nowhere to sleep if he went to the county to spend the night.
Daya watched helplessly as her family's anxiety turned to calm. They didn't know, but she did. Erya would never run away from home because of a man. No one wanted to go to university more than her.
"Dad, let's go call the police. There's no way Er Ya would run off with a man," she pleaded.
"Why call the police? Will they find her then? What can they say if they do? Oh, she ran away yesterday afternoon, walked out of town on her own, and then what? Where are we supposed to find her? She ran away on her own, let's not cause trouble for the police." We can't call the police, if things get out of hand and the summons comes through, how will they continue their transaction?
The man threatened, "If you don't know what's good for you and cause me trouble, you'd better get out of here now. If you're eating and drinking my food, you'd better behave yourself."
Da Ya dared not say anything more. She hugged Xiao Hu and patted his back. When Er Ya was around, she didn't worry about anything. Now that Er Ya was gone, she had lost her backbone. She was flustered, helpless, and timid. The familiar Xiao Hu became the rope she held tightly.
Xiao Hu cried for a long time until his howling became hoarse. He let his eldest sister bathe him and carry him into the house. When he saw the dried buns on the table that had gone bad, he smashed the bowl and the buns against the mud wall. He grabbed his eldest sister's collar and silently shed tears. "My second sister doesn't want me anymore." He mumbled, "I don't want her either."
"Er Ya will come back. She promised to take me to see a doctor." Daya still couldn't believe that Er Ya had run off with a man, but she didn't know where Er Ya had gone. She had no money and hadn't received her university acceptance letter, so how could she have just left?
“She probably went to see your Aunt Su. She’ll definitely come back.” Da Ya thought that Er Ya was closest to Xiao Yuan’s mother, so she must have gone to see her. “Your second sister must have gone to see her. She has nowhere else to stay.” She covered Xiao Hu’s mouth and shushed him. “Don’t tell Mom and Dad. Your second sister must have her reasons for not telling us. We’ll just be good and listen to her. If she doesn’t tell us, we won’t tell us either.”
"Hmm, I won't say either." Xiao Hu wiped away his tears and pouted, "My second sister must be sick, otherwise she would have told me before leaving." He slipped off the bed, crawled under the bed, and pulled out a grimy jar. He reached inside and felt around; sure enough, there was candy inside. "She didn't eat any of the candy I gave her."
He felt like crying again.
Er Ya's departure was like a drop of water falling into a water tank, causing a brief, tiny ripple before the surface returned to calm. At first, some people in the alley asked about it, but Du Xiaojuan kept saying that she had stolen the household registration book and run away with a man. The neighbors asked Daya and Xiaohu, but when they saw that the two of them didn't refute it, they were surprised for two days and then the matter passed.
As July drew to a close, the town began to hear firecrackers every few days. Erbao and his father couldn't sit still any longer. Erbao even waited at the post office every day to ask if there was any mail for his family. Instead of receiving a letter, they received a letter from a "cousin from the same clan".
"No notification? The person ran away? You haven't said a word for so long?" The man was furious, his face contorted with rage, looking fierce and intimidating.
“I talked to her teacher, and her teacher said that the address she filled in was her home address.” Erbao lowered his head and spoke honestly. In order to shirk responsibility, he said, “It must be because Er Ya didn’t do well on the test that she ran away out of guilt.”
"Coward." The man slapped him, grabbed his collar, and headed towards the station. "Tell me which teacher it is, and I'll go ask."
"It's you again? I told you, the possibility of filling in the address incorrectly is small, failing the exam is the main reason." The bespectacled teacher glanced at Erbao.
"Can I check her grades? My daughter is always in the top ten of her grade in every exam."
The teacher glanced at Erbao, then at the man in front of her, and said in surprise, "Impossible. Zhang Erya's grades are among the worst in the class, while Guo Erya's grades are a little better than hers."
The man took a couple of deep breaths, wishing he could slap this family of idiots to death, and squeezed out a sentence through gritted teeth: "My daughter's name is Zhang Baozhi."
“Baozhi, she does have good grades, but the mailing address for her acceptance letter is Harbin in Northeast China.”
Erbao was stunned. She jumped up, grabbed his collar, and cursed, "You stinking old man, didn't you say they all filled in their home addresses for mail? I remember you saying—if they don't fill in their home addresses, they should fill in other people's addresses, huh? Didn't you say that?"
"You stinking intellectual!" These were the three words he hated most. The middle-aged man shouted into the office. When he saw someone come out, he grabbed the man's arm and started punching him. "You little hooligan who was born of a mother but not taught by one, I'm not going to tell you anything. You're obviously no good. It's a waste of my spittle to talk to you."
The man raised his left hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, revealing a brown centipede-like scar on his little finger. He glanced at the person pinned to the ground, turned around, and strode away. He knew he couldn't get the notification back now, and he wasn't sure if the family had changed their minds halfway through and were putting on a show together. But he had to leave quickly and not let things escalate to the police station.
He glanced back at Erbao; this wasn't over yet.
Erbao returned home covered in injuries. He first went to Old Man Ning's house with his father, but they didn't get any information. Then they went to Xinhe Brigade and asked around until they finally found Old Man Su's house.
"Give me Su Yu's address. She kidnapped my daughter," the father of two said angrily.
"No." Old Man Su knew this man, but he looked down on the dead man who abused his daughter and didn't want to talk to him.
"So you really knew, wasn't it your idea for Er Ya to run away?" He pinned the old man against the wall and threatened, "Are you tired of living? Give me the address."
"Are you fucking tired of living? How dare you come to our village to beat people up? What kind of blind dog is this?" Su Qingguo rushed in, followed by a group of young men surnamed Su. He grabbed Erbao's father and threw him to the ground. Erbao and his father were squeezed into the small courtyard scattered with sheep droppings and were given a good beating by Su's nephews and nieces.
"Your second sister is so smart." Da Ya peeked through the crack in the door at the burly man who had forced Er Bao to kneel on the ground. Her eyes caught sight of the centipede scar on his left hand. She stroked Xiao Hu's head and whispered, "Your second sister has gone to university. We don't have to worry about her anymore. I knew it. She's so smart, how could she run off with a man?"
Xiao Hu smiled slightly, relieved that his second sister was alright. He picked at his thumbnail, staring outside, a look of disappointment flashing across his face. "My second sister didn't even tell me. All my crying was for nothing."
Er Ya, who traveled to Northeast China in Ping An's father's transport truck, received her admission notice in early July. She chose law as her major. Since it's still early before school starts, Su Yu introduced her to tutor a junior high school girl. She sleeps in Su Yu's dormitory at night and has already started earning money.
“Aunt Su, I didn’t use the money you gave me before. Now that I’ve earned some money, I’ll return this money to you.” Er Ya handed over fifty yuan.
“Didn’t you promise to pay me back in ten years? The time hasn’t come yet.” Su Yu pushed her hand back and said, “I don’t need the money. Don’t rush to pay me back. Save any extra money you have. That way, if something comes up, you won’t have to grit your teeth and bear it.”
"I've saved up more than forty yuan."
“Don’t be stubborn, kid. I’ll lose fifty yuan if I buy a pair of leather shoes. You save it for me, and I’ll remember it. You can pay me back fifty yuan in ten years.”
"There are still eight years left. I've already borrowed for two years. Auntie, don't make it ten years forever. Don't you want me to pay you back?" After leaving her stifling home, she dared to joke around.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
