17.017 Fighting
Making braising liquid is not easy, and braised lotus root and potatoes will spoil in half a day if not eaten in time. Before going to work, Su Yu gave the leftover braised lotus root and potatoes in the pot to her two children as snacks, but unexpectedly it caused a fight among the children.
When Su Yu came home from get off work and was cooking, the two children weren't home. She had just started cooking the porridge and was pulling the tassels off the corn when she heard the front door open. Little Black, who was lying at the entrance of the main room, wagged its tail and went out to greet her. She knew that the children had returned. She squatted down inside and asked, "Is it Xiao Yuan and Ping An who are back?"
"Yes, it's us." Xiao Yuan peeked into the kitchen, and seeing that his mother didn't seem to be coming out, he grabbed Ping An and tried to rush into the house.
平安不乐意但也没甩开他的手，大摇大摆进了两人的卧房后才甩开许远，舔了下嘴角，像看傻子一般瞥了他一眼，说：“有什么好躲的，待会儿吃饭你妈又不是看不到，再说了，是大宝二宝先抢我们东西的，就该揍死他们。”
There was no mirror in the room, so Xu Yuan sneaked into his mother's room and brought back a small mirror. The person in the mirror had a scab on his left cheek from a scratch. He rolled up his sleeve and looked at himself; there were also several bloody scratches on his arm. He said anxiously, "My mom doesn't let me fight. I've gotten into trouble again. Do you think Da Bao's mom will come looking for us?"
“She said at noon today that we could fight back if we were in the right.” Ping An didn’t understand Xu Yuan’s panic. His father had never stopped him from fighting. Even when he fought with his cousins at his maternal grandmother’s house, no one would complain to his father.
Xu Yuan calmed down a bit after hearing this, but still stayed inside and refused to go out. In contrast, Ping An opened the door and went to check on the kitchen. "Mom, what are we having for dinner tonight?"
"Corn porridge, tofu with scallions." Su Yu was picking corn kernels, her fingers covered in the tender corn juice. It was dusk, and Su Yu didn't turn on the light in the kitchen since she wasn't using a knife. Ping An squatted beside her, helping her pick corn, and she didn't even notice the bruise on the corner of his mouth.
Even after the meal was ready, Su Yu still hadn't seen Xiao Yuan. She called out into the house, "Xiao Yuan, are you asleep in the house?"
"No."
"If you don't have any, come out and eat." Su Yu turned on the light in the main room, and only after three bowls of porridge were placed on the table did Xiao Yuan slowly come out, sit down in a chair, and keep his head down.
"Do you have a fever? Are you feeling unwell?" Su Yu went over and touched his head, but she had just finished cooking, and the temperature of her palm was higher than that of Xiao Yuan's forehead. There was no thermometer at home, so she lifted his head, intending to touch his forehead to test it. Before she could even touch his forehead, she saw a half-finger-long scab on his face.
"What's wrong?" Could this be the reason he kept his head down? But still worried, he pressed his forehead against the other's, and only sat back down after confirming the forehead temperature was normal.
"I got into a fight, and I was pinned to the ground and rubbed against it," Xu Yuan explained in a low voice.
Ping An looked at his little chick-like face, suppressed the envy in his heart, and stood up to say, "It was Da Bao and Er Bao who wanted to steal our braised lotus root, so we fought with them."
Upon hearing that it was Du Xiaojuan's son, Su Yu subconsciously frowned. Glancing at Xu Yuan's helpless expression, which seemed to indicate he was causing her trouble, she smiled and asked, "Did you win?"
Hearing this, Ping An got really excited, gesturing wildly as he said, "How could we lose? We'll definitely win!"
“I remember Da Bao and Er Bao were much fatter than you two,” Su Yu said, suspecting Ping An was exaggerating.
"Hehe, we have helpers..."
Before she could finish speaking, she heard Du Xiaojuan's cursing from next door, followed by a loud banging on Su Yu's front door. Startled, Xiao Hei barked at the door from the yard. Su Yu waited a while, and only opened the door after hearing the neighbors' voices. Besides her, there were only her two young children at home; Du Xiaojuan's husband was still there. She was afraid someone might break in and assault her.
"Where's your son? Call him out here! Look what you've done to my two sons!" Du Xiaojuan tried to push Su Yu aside and rush into the house.
"Who are you calling a bastard? Watch your mouth." Su Yu stopped her by holding the door bolt. "Are you trying to break in and rob someone? This guy's ancestors were bandits, weren't they?"
"Su Yu, I'm not going to argue with you, and don't try to label me with your words. Look what your kids did to my two children." Du Xiaojuan pointed at the children's faces and even took off their clothes, but it was so dark that Su Yu couldn't see what they looked like.
"The kids got into a fight. My son Ping'an has a bruised and swollen lip, and Xiao Yuan has a scab half a finger long on his face. I haven't even come to your house yet, and you've already come. Let me tell you first, my son said that your kids stole their braised lotus root, which led to the fight. At such a young age, they're already robbing people on the street. They say you can see a person's future from the age of three. What will they be like when they grow up?"
"Nonsense." Du Xiaojuan sneered. "I work for the supply and marketing cooperative myself. Would my kids lack food? We don't even care for lotus root stewed with meat. Why would we fight over some damn braised lotus root?"
"It's Da Bao and Er Bao fighting over Ping An and Xiao Yuan's braised lotus root." A little boy outside suddenly blurted out.
There was a moment of silence. Du Xiaojuan glanced at her two sons, secretly pinched Da Bao's arm, and asked, "Is what Xiaoshuan said true?"
"No, we didn't rob anyone." Da Bao immediately understood what his mother meant, and stammered a few times before saying, "Er Bao and I were playing on the road when Ping An and Xu Yuan ran over and beat us up."
"Ha, like begets like, even a rat's son knows how to dig a hole." Su Yu looked at the chubby boy with disgust, grabbed the shirt from his hand and threw it at Du Xiaojuan's face. "This shirt still smells like my family's braised lotus root. Take a good sniff. You're all liars. Get out of here and don't come to my house. You're dirtying my floor."
Su Yu realized there was no reasoning with Du Xiaojuan's family; they were all shameless, from the eldest to the youngest. She shoved the unsuspecting Du Xiaojuan, slammed the door shut from the inside, and sneered, "Your kid is fatter than a rat that steals oil. Who knows if he stole something from someone else, got beaten up, and then framed my child? My child is skinny and can't win a fight."
Su Yu simply refused to admit it, insisting that Ping An and Xiao Yuan hadn't fought with anyone and hadn't even left the house that day, while Du Xiaojuan fussed outside the door as she ate with the two children inside.
"How did you defeat them?" she asked.
"Whoever helps beat Da Bao and Er Bao gets to eat braised lotus root and braised potatoes," Ping An said smugly.
"Whose idea was this?" Su Yu continued to ask.
"Your son's." Ping An stopped laughing, picked up the bowl, and took a sip of porridge.
"Which son of mine? Aren't you my son too?"
"Your own son." Ping An forced a smile, pursing his lips.
“Not bad, my son is brave and resourceful, well done.” Su Yu gave a thumbs up and gently pressed it on the scab on Xiao Yuan’s face, and continued, “Da Bao and his brother provoked you first, so you had to fight back. Mom doesn’t blame you, and I even want to praise you. You protected yourself from being bullied by others. Thank you for protecting my son.”
Two tears fell into Xu Yuan's bowl. He didn't wipe them away, but instead took a big gulp of porridge, swallowing the sob that escaped his throat.
Fighting is not a good thing, but for Xu Yuan, it was like untying the strings that bound his hands and feet with admonitions, pleas, and forbearance. Su Yu didn't say a word of reproach to him that night.
Su Yu sat on the bed at night, flipping through the books she had bought. With Shu Manpo's guidance, she had already read quite a few. She closed the book, rolled it up, and tapped it against her palm, grumbling to Shu Manpo, "I've been here for less than a month, and I've clearly never had a child, but I'm getting more and more adept at calling myself a mother. As long as these two kids don't act up, I quite like them."
"You need to pay attention to the pruning techniques mentioned in the book..."
"Du Xiaojuan's family is so annoying. They have no moral compass. I'm afraid that when I'm not home, her husband will go and harass Ping An and Xiao Yuan," Su Yu continued to grumble.
The tree, having failed to find a way to stop its rambling, simply shut up and remained silent. It could sense the vitality of the green hills and trees. This era was unlike the one in which it was born; there was no crisis of soil erosion or glacial melting. Its working system was quickly becoming a retirement system, just like its host, drifting with the tide.
For the next two days, Su Yu reminded her two children to play in crowded places every time she went out, and not to get lost. Once things calmed down, she started going to the black market again. One day, she saw a man selling pork for 1.2 yuan a pound, no coupons required. She immediately grabbed two pounds of fatty pork and one pound of lean pork, and also bought four pig trotters.
Fearing the meat would spoil, Su Yu asked Ping An to ask for half a day off for her. She rendered the fat in the house, chopped up two pig trotters and stewed them on the stove, and took the other two pig trotters and half a jar of still-hot lard to her parents' house to visit them.
"Xiao Yuan, are you going to your grandma's house?" she asked.
Xu Yuan glanced at the pig's trotters stewing on the stove and refused, saying, "I'll stay home and watch the fire. I won't go. I'll go in a few days."
When Su Yu arrived at her parents' home, her mother was drying cloth shells, which were used to make shoe uppers. They were made by layering cloth and paste, drying them, pressing them under the bed, flattening them, taking them out to dry, and then pasting another layer of paste and cloth.
"Mom, is Dad not home?" Su Yu took the basket into the kitchen, chopped the pig's trotters into pieces and soaked them in water so that her mother wouldn't be too heavy to chop them.
"Just went out, I don't know where they went to chat." Yu Anxiu asked the maid, "Where did you buy this? If you have money, buy more meat. This pig's trotter is all bones, it's not satisfying to eat."
"When I went to buy it, all that was left were pig's trotters. The jar contained lard, and I added salt so it wouldn't spoil easily." Su Yu mumbled twice, touching the stiff cloth hanging on the bench. Remembering the flimsy undershirt she was wearing underneath, she went inside, grabbed some scissors, and said, "Mom, I'll cut two pieces of cloth about the size of my palm."
"It's not finished pasting yet. Once it's finished, I'll cut it in half for you to make shoes for your family."
"This firmness is just right; any harder and it will chafe my skin." Even so, Su Yu wasn't confident she could make it into a bra. She could only try it out. She couldn't stand the feeling of the fabric swinging freely inside her clothes, so she didn't dare to run or make any big movements.
When she returned, she replaced the pig's trotters in her basket with dried eggplant. As the old lady saw her off, she reminded Su Yu, "What does Xiao Yuan do at home? Let him come over to play when he has nothing to do."
Seeing her mysterious demeanor, Su Yu guessed, "Which of my eldest, second, or third sisters came to see you again?"
"Your eldest sister is here."
Did I buy you cookies, peach shortbread, or brown sugar?
"Don't worry about it, go back and Xiaoyuan will come to see me." The old lady pushed her to leave quickly. This little girl still wants to meddle with her now, she's so talkative.
"You two should eat the things I bought for yourselves. Don't save them for your grandchildren. They're young, and who knows how many good things they'll eat in the future." Su Yu had guessed this was the case, and reminded her not to be stingy with the food, as it would spoil easily in the hot weather.
"Stop nagging. I still have thirty-three years to live, and plenty of good food to eat. Don't talk like I'm going to die next year." Yu Anxiu waved her hand to let the little girl go, too lazy to talk to her.
Su Yu returned to town with a withered lotus leaf on her head. When she passed by Daye, she heard the sound of clothes being pounded but no one was speaking. When she got closer, she saw that it was Er Ya, and she was all alone.
"Er Ya, don't stand on the underwater stone steps. They're covered in moss and it's easy to slip," Su Yu reminded her from the shore.
Er Ya started walking barefoot, smoothing her disheveled hair as she said, "It's okay, I'm gripping the stone slab with my toes. I'm used to it, I won't fall."
"It's better to be careful. The moss is very slippery. You might slip and fall if you're not careful." Su Yu saw that the girl didn't take her words seriously, so she simply sat on the tree stump and kept an eye on her. She was afraid that Er Ya would slip and fall again after she left, which would be terrible.
But Su Yu didn't help Er Ya carry the clothes basket anymore. The two went back one after the other. When they were almost home, Su Yu said to Er Ya, "You have to be good to yourself. If there are things you can't do, you have to say so. It may not be of any use, but if you don't say anything, no one will understand your grievances."
"Mom?" Xiao Yuan excitedly opened the door. "It really is you! I knew I heard your voice. Ping An even said that Xiao Hei didn't react, so it couldn't be you."
"Xiao Hei's laziness has returned." Su Yu didn't wait to see Er Ya's reaction. She slapped Xiao Yuan's head and pushed him into the house. The aroma of pig's trotters filled the yard. Before she could even inhale the fragrance, Ping An asked, "Mom, when is Dad coming back?"
"...Your dad, he has at least five or six days left." She was living a pretty good retirement life with a house, money, a dog, and a child. During the day, she almost never thought about that man. But now, when asked about him, along with his image, the condom under her pillow also came to mind.
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