Chapter 1 Nightmare
Xu Yao was awakened by the thick smoke.
She opened her eyes suddenly, the smell of hospital disinfectant still lingering in her throat, and her fingertips touched the wet straw mat.
A faded slogan "Learn from Daqing in Industry" was posted on the mottled earthen wall, and the blue cloth curtains were patched up and swayed gently in the hot August wind.
"Cough cough..." A familiar cough came from next door, startling her and making her tremble all over.
Xu Yao raised her hand and pinched her arm hard. She gasped in pain but laughed until tears came out - the cicadas chirping through the cracks in the blue brick wall were real, the bitter scent of wormwood that repelled mosquitoes on the bamboo mat was real, and even the jasmine tea stems floating in the enamel jar were real.
She jumped out of bed barefoot and stepped on the half-wet urine pot on the floor, only then did she remember that it was the summer of 1975.
The mirror reflected my 19-year-old self, with two shiny black pigtails hanging in front of my floral shirt and tears in my almond-shaped eyes.
"Yaoyao had a nightmare again?" Father Xu hunched over and lifted the curtain. His sallow face was red from coughing, and he was holding a handkerchief soaked in pus and blood in his hand. "Dad made sweet potato porridge for you..."
"I want to cancel the engagement." When Xu Yao heard herself say this, her voice was as crisp as dried corn stalks.
She looked at her father's suddenly stiff back and dug her nails deep into her palms.
Those thirty years when she was treated like an animal in the Sun family, and the cold look in her daughter's eyes when she pulled out the oxygen tube, all turned into the bloody smell on the tip of her tongue.
The aluminum spoon in Xu's father's hand fell into the iron pot with a clang, and the splashing porridge scalded the back of his hand, which looked like dry tree bark: "Nonsense!
The three turns and one ring given by the Sun family are all ready. Where can your second uncle put his face when he works as a clerk in the Revolutionary Committee? “
"Is your face more important than your life?" Xu Yao grabbed her father's wrist, which was covered with needle holes. The festering wounds from his previous life seemed to be about to come out from under his skin. "You've been coughing up blood for three months. Sun Zhiqiang promised to take you to the county hospital eight times, but did he ever keep his promise?"
A draft suddenly blew into the main room, and the flame of the kerosene lamp danced in the glass cover.
Xu's mother groped her way through the door frame and moved in, her cloudy eyes looking into the void: "Yaoyao, don't be stubborn. Your father asked someone to calculate, and the Sun family is prosperous for you..."
"Wang, you want me to work like a slave?" Xu Yao suddenly laughed out loud, picked up the enamel pot on the windowsill and drank the herbal tea.
The astringent taste of inferior jasmine exploded on the tip of the tongue, and memories mixed with the taste of rust came flooding back - kneeling down to clean the cotton shoes of the ten members of the Sun family in the twelfth lunar month, going to the well to fetch water in the snow during the confinement period, and Sun Zhiqiang always "taking care" of the widow next door who had an orphan.
Father Xu slapped the crooked elm table and coughed, causing the medicine bottles on the table to clink: "They are the relatives of martyrs!
Zhiqiang values friendship and loyalty, and he will surely be able to..."
"He is so loyal that he wants to move our food rations to the widows' home?" Xu Yao opened the rice jar, revealing the empty brown rice. "Last month he borrowed 20 kilograms of food coupons and said he would return them in three days. What happened?
When my third sister's son had a fever, he carried him to the clinic overnight, but when you were coughing up blood, he said he would talk to you in the morning! “
Xu's mother groped for the edge of her daughter's clothes, but caught nothing.
Xu Yao stared at her father's flickering eyes and suddenly remembered that when she died in her previous life, Sun Zhiqiang was accompanying her third sister to pick out woolen sweaters in the department store.
The red scarf around the woman's neck was exactly the same as the one her daughter wore when she got married.
"Anyway, the marriage report hasn't been approved yet." Xu Yao grabbed the wooden comb and ripped the tangled hair. "I'll go to the commune to get it back tomorrow. It's time to settle the IOU that my third sister wrote."
"How dare you!" Father Xu picked up the bamboo broom and put it down dejectedly, his hunched back bent like a shrimp. "Who in the village doesn't know that the wedding will be held on the eighth day of next month? Your second aunt has already sewed the wedding quilt..."
Xu Yao stared at the swaying shadows of the paulownia trees outside the window, and the sound of cicadas suddenly became shrill.
At the wedding banquet in his previous life, the third sister rushed in holding her son who had a fever, and Sun Zhiqiang left her in public and ran to the health center.
The whole village laughed at the bride staying alone in the empty room. She sat on the wedding bed clutching the red veil until dawn.
"Dad, smell this." She suddenly took out an oil-paper bag from the pillow, and the smell of moldy wolfberries mixed with codonopsis pilosula hit her face. "My third sister said this is her mother's secret recipe. You drank it for half a year, but your coughing up blood has become worse."
Mr. Xu's cough was stuck in his throat and his face turned the color of liver.
The kerosene lamp popped and sparked, causing the award certificate on the wall to flicker - it was the award certificate for "Model of Learning from Lei Feng" awarded to Sun Zhiqiang last year. At this moment, the cracks on the edge of the certificate looked very much like the cracks in the oxygen tube that Xu Yao saw before she died in her previous life.
The sound of bicycle bells came from outside the courtyard wall. Xu Yao stood on tiptoe and looked. The moonlight was shining on the army green overalls hanging in the next yard.
The bamboo broom hit the door frame, raising fine dust, and Xu Yao's forehead was scratched red by the flying bamboo strips.
When she touched the bleeding wound, she suddenly laughed out loud. The pain was more painful than the words "Mom, you look so tacky in this red cheongsam" that her daughter said when she got married in her previous life.
"Do you know where Sun Zhiqiang went last month?" She turned around and pulled out a neatly folded newspaper from the bottom of the camphorwood box. Inside the yellowed Red Flag magazine was a shipping order from the supply and marketing cooperative. "He said he went to the county to study, but he was actually helping Third Sister transport kerosene! Look at the date, it was the night you had a high fever and were talking nonsense!"
Father Xu's hunched back suddenly straightened up, the medicine bottle was swept to the ground, and the brown medicine juice spread out distorted patterns on the rammed earth ground.
The moonlight shone through the window, making the three words "Li Sanjie" on the delivery note shine brightly. He recognized the handwriting - the application for hardship allowance that Sun Zhiqiang wrote for him last year was also written in such a flamboyant style.
"My third sister's son was going to take the county middle school entrance exam, and Sun Zhiqiang walked twenty miles along the mountain road overnight." Xu Yao's voice suddenly choked up. She looked at her mother's trembling hands as she fumbled for the medicine bottle, and remembered that there should have been a rainstorm on this summer night in her previous life. "That night I carried you to the clinic and fell three times on the way. Do you remember?"
Xu's mother suddenly stopped moving, and her blind eyes blinked rapidly at the void.
Her dry, branch-like fingers touched her daughter's damp cuffs, which still had traces of Xanthium sibiricum from collecting herbs the day before.
The paulownia leaves outside the window rustled, and the sound of cicadas was mixed with the smell of traditional Chinese medicine wafting from the next yard - the third sister was boiling the donkey-hide gelatin that Sun Zhiqiang had sent her.
"When he gave the widow brown sugar and eggs, we even counted the salt!"
Xu Yao picked up the paint-chipped thermos and shook it. The empty echo startled the swallows nesting on the beams. "Last New Year's Eve he said he would work the night shift, but he was actually staying up with my third sister! You were coughing so hard that you couldn't breathe, so I went to knock on the barefoot doctor's door in the heavy snow!"
Father Xu staggered and fell onto a bench, the shadow of the award wall covering his gray hair.
The kerosene lamp suddenly went out with a puff, and the moonlight flowed over the silver bracelet on Xu Yao's wrist like water - this was made by her mother with the silver dollars she brought as a dowry, and it now reflected the flickering flames in her eyes.
"Yao..." Xu's mother suddenly groped and clenched her daughter's hand, her blind eyes glistening in the moonlight, "When you were seven years old, you had a rash. I carried you to the clinic, but I fell into a ditch on the way..."
She stroked the scar on her daughter's forehead with her skinny fingers. "You were delirious due to the fever and cried, 'Mom, please don't abandon me.'"
Xu Yao shuddered all over, the alarm sound of the ECG monitor before her death in her previous life overlapped with the chirping of crickets at this moment.
She watched her mother take out a blue cloth bag from under the pillow. Wrapped in a faded red hairband were three food coupons - exactly the amount that Sun Zhiqiang had borrowed last month.
"My third sister came to deliver medicine this morning..." Xu's mother stuffed the food coupons into her daughter's palm, her fingertips still stained with the musty smell of wolfberries, "Mother smelled the scent of Sun Zhiqiang's cigarettes on her." The turbid tears left dark marks on the blue cloth, and the secret that had not been revealed for twenty years was blown away by the hot summer night breeze.
Mr. Xu suddenly started coughing violently, and pieces of paper fell from the wall of awards.
He looked at his daughter's resolute back, and vaguely saw his wife in her wedding dress 23 years ago - she was also clutching a blue cloth bag, and when she stepped out of her parents' home, she turned back and said, "Dad, take care."
"Stop!" Father Xu grabbed the enamel pot and smashed it against the door frame. The jasmine tea splashed out silver water marks in the moonlight. "Once you walk out of this door, don't recognize me as your father!" His roar alarmed the wolfhound in the next yard. Amid the barking of dogs, Xu Yao stepped on the badge of "Model of Learning from Lei Feng" on the ground and broke it.
The night wind lifted the hem of Xu Yao's floral shirt, and cold sweat broke out on her palms as she held the food coupons.
When passing by the old locust tree at the entrance of the village, a dark figure suddenly jumped out from the shadow of the tree, and the Hero brand fountain pen that Sun Zhiqiang often used slipped out of the man's pocket - it was his second uncle who had said during the day that he was going to the county for a meeting.
Xu Yao bent down to pick up the pen. The words "Advanced Worker" engraved on the pen cap were stained with the scent of powder.
She looked at her second uncle's figure fleeing to the end of the village in panic, and suddenly remembered that in her previous life, when she was kneeling to wipe the floor, she heard her third sister say to Sun Zhiqiang with a sweet smile: "Director Xu is more caring than you..."
The moonlight made the dirt road look pale. Xu Yao's cloth shoes stepped on the wilted wild amaranth, and memories of her past life came flooding back like a tide.
That year, Sun Zhiqiang said that he wanted a gift for housing at his workplace, so she sold her mother's jade bracelet as a dowry. When her third sister's son needed tuition for school, she made thirty pairs of soles overnight. Even when she was seriously ill and wanted to have some egg custard, her daughter complained that she was "wasting the Sun family's food."
Turning around the threshing ground with stacks of wheat straw, the scent of osmanthus mixed with traditional Chinese medicine from the Sun family's courtyard hits you in the face.
Xu Yao was looking at the men's vests drying on the fence - there was a crooked "three" embroidered on the collar, when she suddenly heard the crisp sound of a porcelain bowl breaking in the yard.
"I told you not to touch my enamel pot!" Sun Zhiqiang's roar startled the sparrows on the jujube tree. The moonlight stretched his shadow on the window paper. "This is for Uncle Xu..."
The voice suddenly lowered to a gentle whisper, "I know your hands are tender, I will buy you new ones tomorrow."
Xu Yao dug her fingertips deeply into her palm. This was the enamel pot in her previous life. Sun Zhiqiang said that it was bought specially for her father, but it had been placed on the stove in her third sister's house for ten years.
She touched the IOU hidden in her waistband. The ink writing was blurred by sweat, but it was stamped with a bright red commune seal.
The cicadas' chirping suddenly stopped, and the iron lock on the Sun family's courtyard door shone coldly in the moonlight.
Xu Yao fished out a green brick from the wall to use as a foothold. A gecko that came out from the cracks in the bricks brushed past her instep, startling the dewdrops on the grass leaves.
In the distance came the sound of the night watchman's clappers, mixed with the crying of a baby, tearing a scorching crack in the summer night.
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