Chapter 12 Butterfly Brooch
When Xu Yao's fingertips touched the wax paper, the iron horses on the eaves made a clear sound when they were hit by the night wind.
Buckwheat husks wrapped in oil paper fell into the cracks of the blue bricks, and the moonlight reflected the blurred ink marks on the back of the wrapping paper - the blue-black ink that was only found on sewing plane tickets.
She suddenly remembered that her third sister always liked to use a sewing machine to make insoles, and those insoles embroidered with lotus flowers once filled Sun Zhiqiang's cloth shoes.
Suddenly, there was a flapping sound from the chicken coop in the backyard. Xu Yao was so startled that she ran to the main room, clutching the oil paper. The dew-soaked ramie rope broke the locust flowers on her temples.
When the kerosene lamp wick burst into flames, Xu Yao was staring at the camphorwood boxes stacked in the corner.
The faded paint box at the bottom was my mother’s dowry, and the lock is still stained with wormwood ash from last year’s Dragon Boat Festival package.
She suddenly remembered that on the eve of her daughter's wedding in her previous life, her third sister stayed in the inner room for half an incense stick under the pretext of delivering a wedding quilt.
“Click.”
The moment the rusty copper lock popped open, the smell of mold mixed with the scent of mothballs hit me in the face.
The blue cloth bundle at the bottom of the box was wrapped with three pairs of insoles with crooked stitching. When the third layer of coarse cloth was lifted, the yellowed rice paper corners were scorched by the oil lamp - the handwriting of "I have borrowed RMB 200 from Comrade Xu Yongfu" was so powerful that it could be seen through the back of the paper, and the private seal of Sun's father at the signature was dazzling red.
When the cuckoo called outside the window for the second time, Xu Yao had already used an enamel iron to iron out the wrinkles on the IOU.
She touched the ink spots on the back of the rice paper and suddenly laughed until tears came out.
In her previous life, she knelt in the main hall of the Sun family and wiped the floor for three days. It was with this IOU that Sun's mother forced her to sign a letter of guarantee to "voluntarily give up the debt."
The morning mist had not yet dissipated, and the fragrance of new wheat was wafting over the threshing ground.
Xu Yao specially changed into the Dacron shirt that her mother had sewn before she died, and pinned a silver butterfly brooch that she found in the camphorwood box on her lapel.
Xue Han leaned against the door of the village committee and peeled salted peanuts. The peanut shells crushed by his military boots formed an arrow on the bluestone slab, pointing to the thermos with the Double Happiness logo printed on it under the accountant's desk.
"Has Xu's daughter thought it through?"
The village chief tapped the marriage report on the table with his pipe. Sun's mother grabbed the third sister's arm and squeezed to the front row. The fake collar with silver trim was stained yellow by sweat.
When Xu Yao unfolded the IOU, the accountant suddenly exclaimed "Ouch!"
The thermos cork had rolled to the foot of the table at some point, and the gurgling hot water was pouring onto the homestead certificate that Sun's father had approved last year.
Xue Han's action of bending down to pick up the plug created a gust of wind, and the IOU floated down next to the village chief's pipe.
"impossible!"
Mother Sun dug her sharp nails into the third sister's arm, "This paper has been eaten by mice..."
"Eat it by rats?"
Xu Yao interrupted the conversation and raised the rice paper towards the rising sun, "Your mice are really particular. They only pick the red frame of the ink to chew?"
Between the fine bite marks on the edge of the paper, the red seal of Sun's father's private seal was flowing in the morning light.
The crowd suddenly became so quiet that one could hear the old donkey at the east end of the threshing ground sneeze.
The silver bracelet on the third sister's wrist clanged
The aluminum lunch box that Sun Zhiqiang brought back from the militia company fell to the ground with a clang after hitting the bench. Half of the word "Award" sprayed with red paint on the lid of the box happened to be knocked off, turning into a crooked word "Zhuang".
"After investigation, it was found that the documents held by the Sun family were forged." When the village chief shook out the red-headed document, half of the file bag with a steel stamp appeared in Xue Han's military uniform pocket, "The marriage contract between the Xu and Sun families is cancelled today."
From the west end of the threshing ground came the crisp sound of a daughter-in-law beating on a sieve, startling a whole nest of sparrows on the elm tree.
Xu Yao watched the marriage report burn to ashes in the enamel basin, and suddenly she felt the burn scar on her wrist that had not faded for twenty years begin to itch - that was the boiling water splashed when she was boiling medicine for the Sun family in her previous life.
The back of Sun's mother dragging her son home looked like an eggplant vine hit by frost. The third sister's handkerchief embroidered with jasmine flowers was stepped into the mud by someone.
When Xu Yao bent down to tie her shoelaces, she heard Xue Han using peanut shells to make a swallow shape on the bluestone slab. The officer from the Grain Management Office, who was mixed in the crowd, was looking in the direction of her third sister's house and touching his notebook.
When the first locust leaf fell into the ashes, Xu Yao discovered that there were many more aunties sewing shoe soles beside the threshing ground.
Those gossiping women who had laughed at her for being a "self-giving" man were now rubbing the needle into her hair again and again. One of them was bold enough to stuff a handful of freshly roasted pumpkin seeds into her pocket.
The sparrows in the threshing yard flapped their wings and flew over the grain bin, and the yellow stains on Sun's mother's fake collar with silver trim finally completely disappeared.
The silver bracelet on the third sister's wrist was deeply embedded in the mud, which seemed to put a crooked end to this farce.
Xu Yao tightened the collar of her dacron shirt and was surprised to find that the sunlight filtering through the tops of the locust tree was not scorching.
Aunt Seven stuffed pumpkin seeds into her pockets, the freshly roasted seeds still smelt warm from the iron pan; Widow Wang pushed a half-finished insole into her arms, the stitches were so fine that you could count the rows - remember, she fell on the ridge of a field while carrying firewood last month, and these people all took a detour.
"Yao girl is more insightful than us old guys."
The daughter-in-law of Mr. Chen from the Grain Administration Office suddenly raised her voice, and the copper-plated watch on her wrist gleamed in the sun.
This attracted several shoe-sole sewers at the west end of the threshing ground to come over, and their thimbles jingled against each other.
Xu Yao touched the silver butterfly brooch on her lapel, and her mother's skinny fingers before her death seemed to have brushed the back of her hand again - at that time she was making loquat paste for her grandson's father, and the gurgling sound of the medicine bottle drowned out her mother's last sigh.
When Xue Han's military boots crushed the last peanut shell, the DHS thermos under the accountant's desk suddenly exploded with a bang.
As the crowd dispersed in panic, Xu Yao saw a half-stamped file bag sticking out of his military uniform pocket. The words written in blue ink looked like prescriptions from a clinic.
As he bent over to pick up the fragments, the holster on his waist was faintly visible, and the entire nest of sparrows on the elm tree was startled into silence.
"Sister Xu."
The new apprentice at the grain management office handed over a straw cricket with a red face. The reed leaves were still wet with morning dew. "My mother said...she asked you to come home when you have time to pick up two kilograms of new wheat."
Xu Yao was about to decline when she saw half of the "Barefoot Doctor's Manual" sticking out of the boy's Zhongshan suit pocket. The red cross on the cover was worn white.
As the sun set, smoke rose from the threshing ground.
Xu Yao was walking home, stepping on the locust petals leaking out from the cracks in the blue bricks, when she suddenly heard the crisp sound of military boots crushing dead branches behind her.
Xue Han's shadow and hers overlapped on the earth wall, startling the chickens that were napping on the fence.
The third button of his military uniform was loose, as if it had been pulled off by someone.
The scent of medicine mixed with mugwort could be smelled from a long distance away, and half of the faded couplet on the Xu family's courtyard door was lifted up by the night wind.
Dad's cough was muffled behind the blue cloth curtain, and sounded like a leaking clay pot from old times of rain.
Xu Yao opened the coarse earthenware jar that was being warmed on the stove, and saw two shriveled monk fruits floating in the black medicinal residue - these were clearly what should have been thrown away the day before.
The blue cloth bundle at the bottom of the camphorwood box suddenly hit her knees, and Xu Yao felt the oil-paper package sandwiched between the third layer of coarse cloth.
The dried Astragalus slices were curled up like a moth, and their fragrance was even stronger than the wild ginseng that the Sun family had sent them that year.
The copper thimble used by his mother on the windowsill was half filled with rainwater. As it swayed, it reflected the swallow pattern that Xue Han had made in the threshing ground.
Suddenly, there was a sound of something heavy falling to the ground in the inner room. When Xu Yao rushed in, he saw his father rolling to the foot of the bed.
His skinny hands tightly grasped the red plastic notebook beside his pillow, and the candy wrappers in the notebook fell to the ground - they were all orange candy wrappers that she had collected as a child.
When Xu Yao helped him up, she felt his bony spine, which hurt her palms.
When the kerosene lamp emitted its third flame, Xu Yao found a tin box at the bottom of the chest of drawers.
Under the silver bracelet left by my mother was a yellowed photo. It showed a girl with pigtails standing in front of the clinic sign with a blurry badge on her chest.
On the back of the photo, "Save the dying and heal the wounded" were written in blue ink, but the words were worn out by time.
The night wind blew the aroma of wheat from the threshing floor into the window frame, and Xu Yao suddenly felt that the burn on her wrist was no longer itchy.
The ashes of the marriage certificate in the enamel basin had long been blown away, but new bubbles were bubbling up from the medicine hook in the corner, waking up the sleeping gecko on the beam.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
