Chapter 11 Hero Pen
The window of the village committee at the west end of the threshing ground was covered with half a piece of old newspaper. Xu Yao's fingernails unconsciously picked at the old wheat husks in the cracks of the bench.
Mother Sun's hand, holding the yellowed IOU, was shaking violently in the morning light, causing the worn-out hems on the cuffs of her blue cloth shirt to rustle.
"Eighty-six kilograms of food coupons!"
The militia captain gasped and startled the sparrows under the eaves, "Xu family girl, this is not a small number..."
Xu Yao stared at the blue-black ink spreading on the IOU and suddenly smelled the unique camphor smell from Sun Zhiqiang's shirt pocket.
In his previous life, he always said that this smell was the unique glory of the martyrs' relics, but now it smelled musty in the forged signature of "June 1971" - the commune only distributed Hero brand pens to the production team last year.
"My third sister taught you how to use rice water to stick together paper scraps, right?"
She suddenly chuckled, her fingertips brushing the edge of the IOU, "The new paste from the supply and marketing cooperative won't attract termites."
Sun's mother staggered and knocked over a bench, and the IOU fell beside Xue Han's military boots stained with motor oil.
When the man leaning against the door frame bent down, Xu Yao saw the three-edged scraper on his waist flashing coldly. That was the tool he used to repair the diesel engine for the agricultural machinery station last night.
"During the autumn harvest of 1971, your pigpen collapsed."
Xu Yao picked up the IOU and held it up to the light. Two overlapping fingerprints were reflected in the ink. "When I asked my father to borrow the stone, he said that he would wait until Zhiqiang got promoted..."
"Yaoyao!" Sun Zhiqiang suddenly knelt on the ground, and the dust raised by his knees startled the sparks in the village chief's pipe. "I'm bewitched. You believe me this time..."
The bulging veins on his neck reminded Xu Yao of the moment he kneeled outside the clinic on a rainy night.
At that time, his daughter had a high fever of 40 degrees. The man also begged the barefoot doctor with red eyes to bandage his third sister's sprained foot first, saying that he could not let down his comrade-in-arms' dying trust.
There were sobs from the crowd, and Widow Wang pulled Xu Yao's sleeve to persuade her: "A prodigal son who returns is more valuable than gold..."
Xu Yao's nails dug deeply into her palms.
In his previous life, everyone said that Sun Zhiqiang was kind and righteous, but they didn't know that the remittance slips he hid in the lining of his shirt sent more money to his third sister on time every month than he used to buy milk powder for his daughter.
Those envelopes with frontier postmarks always had a stronger jasmine scent than the stationery from the supply and marketing cooperatives - exactly the scent of the white jasmine flowers on Third Sister's temples at this moment.
Xue Han suddenly coughed lightly, and his oily fingertips seemed to accidentally slide across the windowsill.
Xu Yao looked in the direction where the sunlight happened to penetrate the pickled garlic in the glass jar, and a blurry "three" was reflected on the back of the IOU - that was a piece of paper torn from the homework book of the third sister's son, and the child's childish tracing still had the trembling of the vertical hook.
"On the twenty-eighth of the twelfth lunar month last year..."
Xu Yao suddenly raised her voice, her eyes sweeping across the evasive accountant in the crowd, "Your family hosted a funeral banquet for Zhiqiang, and it was my father who bought it on credit..."
Suddenly, the sound of a walk-behind tractor was heard at the entrance of the village, drowning out Sun's mother's screams.
Xu Yao saw Xue Han take out a copper lighter and flip it between his fingers. The metal shell reflected the sarcastic curve at the corner of his lips - exactly the same expression he had last night when he looked at the fallen wheat seedlings in Sun's field after repairing the water pump.
The wind swept across the newly tied straw stacks in the threshing yard, blowing a few strands of ramie ropes to Xu Yao's feet.
When she bent down to pick it up, she suddenly found half of a red-headed document sticking out of Xue Hanjun's trouser pocket, and the words "Investigation Letter on Work Style Issues" on the kraft paper seal were hot from the sun.
Xu Yao's fingers brushed against the prickly splinters in the cracks of the bench. In her previous life, her daughter felt the same intense pain when she was pushed into the operating room.
She met Sun Zhiqiang's red eyes and suddenly realized that even the patches on the knees of his military pants were sewn crookedly when he knelt - just like his life that could never be sorted out.
"On the day of the ceremony, you carried the medicine box and took the son of my third sister who had sprained his ankle to the county hospital." Xu Yao took out an aluminum candy box from his trouser pocket. The lid of the box was reflected with the red cross of the commune clinic. "But in the emergency room, you asked the nurse to replace the antipyretic injection with a tetanus vaccine because my third sister said the child stepped on a rusty nail."
Two beads on the abacus in the accountant's hand suddenly shifted out of place, and the crackling sound startled the sparrows dozing on the window frame.
Xu Yao remembered that in her previous life, this old man who always had a hunched back once desperately tried to grab the tuition money she had saved for her daughter when the granary was on fire - at this moment, his cloudy eyes were staring at the expired injection in the candy box.
Sun's mother suddenly screamed and rushed over, but was blocked by Xue Han who took half a step forward.
The engine oil on the man's sleeves glowed strangely in the sunlight, and Xu Yao smelled the faint smell of diesel on him mixed with the fragrance of new wheat in the threshing floor, like some kind of reassuring barrier.
"That night, I held my daughter, who had a high fever of 40 degrees, in my arms and waited until dawn at the clinic." Xu Yao's fingernails left a crescent mark on the candy box. "The barefoot doctor said that the vaccine is 20 cents more expensive than the antipyretic injection. Guess what Comrade Sun said?
'The lives of martyrs' orphans are more precious than anything else.' ”
The old locust tree at the west end of the threshing ground suddenly dropped several bunches of locust flowers, which hit Sun Zhiqiang's stiff back.
Widow Wang slowly loosened her grip on Xu Yao's sleeve, and the sound of fabric tearing was mixed with the sound of people gasping.
The white orchid flowers on the third sister's temples suddenly trembled, and the sweet fragrance pierced over with a sobbing voice: "Xu's sister is so eloquent, could it be that she learned this skill from repairing the water pump in the middle of the night with Technician Xue?"
The lighter at Xue Han's fingertips "clicked" and blue flames flew out, burning a charred hole in the yellowed IOU.
Xu Yao saw the flames dancing in his pupils, reflecting his back as he squatted on the ridge of the field repairing the water pump during the rainstorm last night - at that time, the hem of his shirt brushed against her muddy cloth shoes, and he said the first sentence after his rebirth: "Watch your step."
"It's time to feed the third batch of chicks for the swallow nest on the beam of my third sister's house." Xue Han suddenly turned to look at the village chief and scratched a black mark on the windowsill with his greasy index finger. "Last time I helped the commune investigate speculation and profiteering, the grain management department said that swallow droppings can be used to test whether the grain is old or not."
The crowd was buzzing with excitement. Xu Yao looked at her third sister's instantly pale face and suddenly remembered that in her previous life she always used a handkerchief with a swallow printed on it to wrap remittance slips.
In the envelopes sent from the frontier, in addition to the jasmine-scented letter paper, there would occasionally be a few buckwheat husks that are only found in the north.
The village chief's pipe made a dull sound when it knocked against the bench. "Xu's daughter, I'll give you three days."
The old man's cloudy eyes reflected the red-headed document sticking out of Xue Han's pocket, "If you can't find the real IOU..."
When Xu Yao walked out of the village committee, half of the newly-tied straw stack in the threshing ground suddenly collapsed, and the golden wheat straw rolled to the side of Xue Han's muddy military boots.
She bent down to pick up the locust flowers that had fallen on the ramie rope, and heard a deep voice above her head: "The third groove of the millstone."
As dusk fell over the old well at the entrance of the village, Xu Yao squatted in her backyard and stared at the mossy millstone.
The moonlight flowed through the spider web condensed in the third groove, and suddenly illuminated half a piece of greasy wax paper - it was the wrapping paper that fell out of the dragon and phoenix cake sent by the third sister on the day of her daughter's wedding in the previous life.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
