Chapter 16 The Red Mark on Your Neck
The morning mist had not yet dissipated. Xu Yao squatted in front of the stove and added firewood. The loquat paste in the clay pot was bubbling.
She washed the tender leaves that Xue Han brought her with well water. The dew rolled along the veins of the leaves into the enamel basin. She vaguely saw the figure of the man climbing up the cliff on the back mountain when the morning dew had not yet dried.
"Yao girl, have you really thought it through?"
Father Xu's cough came from the inner room, with a hoarse sound like sandpaper rubbing against blue bricks.
His skinny hands were clutching the faded blue curtain, his knuckles a sickly pale color.
Xu Yao turned over the codonopsis slices that were drying on the bamboo sieve. The golden morning light shone through the mesh of the sieve and fell on the back of her hand. "Dad, look how bright these ginseng slices are after being dried."
She spread the cloth bag on the table on the kang, and pressed the faded IOU under the glass paperweight. "The money that the Sun family said they borrowed for my mother's medical treatment was actually used to fill the hole in the betrothal gift for his third brother."
Xu's mother groped and touched her daughter's wrist, her wrist bone rubbing against the callous on her palm. "The swallows built their nests on the beams again last night."
The blind woman pushed over the coarse porcelain bowl that had been warmed by the sun. Two red-skinned eggs lay at the bottom of the bowl. "The return of the spring swallows to their nests is a good omen."
In the Sun family courtyard at the east end of the village, the crisp sound of a coarse porcelain bowl hitting the blue brick floor startled the sparrows that were looking for food.
Mother Sun held the rolling pin tightly and banged the eight-immortal table, "How dare that little bitch dig out the IOU! She should have let her father cough to death on the kang!"
She suddenly grabbed the third sister's floral shirt and said, "Don't think I don't know that you instigated Zhiqiang to buy malted milk for that bastard!"
"Auntie, please be gentle..."
The third sister fell down on the bench, and the silver bracelet on her wrist made a crisp sound.
She lowered her eyes and stared at the cracks on Sun Zhiqiang's rubber shoes. Her voice was like honey: "Brother Zhiqiang values ​​friendship the most. How can you let the Xu family ruin your reputation?"
Sun Zhiqiang stared at the shadow of the straw raincoat swaying on the wall. The image of Xue Han catching the wild rose in the ancestral hall last night could not be erased from his mind.
He mechanically put steamed bread into the aluminum lunch box, and the cornmeal crumbs fell into the enamel pot. "Mom, how about..."
"Bullshit!" Sun's mother picked up the broom and hit her son on the back, "If it wasn't for old man Xu testifying for your father at the mine, would our family have received 300 yuan in compensation for nothing?
Now the mine is promoting cadres, so why cancel the engagement at this time..."
She suddenly grabbed her third sister's arm and said, "Tomorrow when you go to the village committee, tell them that Xu Yao hid your family's ancestral jade bracelet."
As Xu Yao walked on the dew towards the village committee, gossip from under the old locust tree drifted over with the smoke from the cooking stove. "I heard that the third son of the Sun family wants to be a truck driver."
"No wonder the girl from the Xu family wants to break off the engagement, she wants to marry into a rich family."
The old man selling tofu sneered at her, and the tofu on the wooden pallet trembled and made ripples.
She clutched the blue cloth bag containing the account book, the fabric texture still tinged with the fragrance of loquat leaves.
When passing by the threshing ground, several women who were sewing shoe soles suddenly fell silent. The needle tips flashed in the sunlight, and the wild flower that Xue Han caught on Xu Yao's wrist suddenly burned her skin.
"Accountant Xu!" Hu Zi, the barefoot doctor's son, jumped out with a slingshot in hand, his army green schoolbag slapping his butt. "Brother Xue asked me to tell you something!"
The boy stood on tiptoe mysteriously, "He said loquat leaves should be steamed with rock sugar..."
Suddenly, his mother grabbed his ear and dragged him away, leaving only half a sentence "The telegram is from the northwest" floating in the wind.
The blue brick walls of the village committee were covered with wisteria. Xu Yao rubbed the mud off the soles of her cloth shoes on the stone steps.
When the morning mist dissipated, she saw Sun Zhiqiang supporting her third sister and coming out of the alley from the east. Her third sister's moon-white dacron shirt shone coldly in the morning sun, and there was a bandage wrapped around her wrist.
The cicadas suddenly fell silent.
Xu Yao touched the foxtail grass sticking out from the cracks in the rocks, and dewdrops were condensed on the grass stems.
The iron gate of the village committee compound creaked, the old wall clock in the accounting office struck seven times, and the seat of the village chief, who was supposed to be sitting on a rattan chair, was empty.
She turned around to ask someone, but saw Sun's mother and four uncles blocking the door. The bandage on her third sister's wrist had turned dark red at some point, and in the morning light it was as bright as a newly written Spring Festival couplet in the twelfth lunar month.
The blue brick walls of the village committee were covered with dark brown ivy, and the morning dew dripped from the tips of the leaves onto Xu Yao's blue cloth shoes.
She was about to push open the red-painted wooden door when her mother's sharp voice suddenly exploded from behind her: "You conscienceless money-loser!"
The bandage on the third sister's wrist happened to rub against the door knocker, and dark red blood stains were stained on the verdigris.
Sun's mother stood in front of the steps with her hands on her hips, her silver bracelet clanging against the door frame: "When your father was coughing up blood and almost dying, who carried half a bag of cornmeal to help him overnight?"
Xu Yao's knuckles turned white as she clutched the blue cloth bag. The fresh fragrance of loquat leaves mixed with the pungent smell of camphor from her grandson's mother hit her in the face.
She suddenly remembered the bag of cornmeal sent by the Sun family in her previous life. It contained half a bag of moldy stale grain, which caused her mother to suffer from appendicitis and almost died.
"Auntie has misremembered it."
She took out the yellowed account book from her cloth bag and said, "On the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month that year, you sent me half a bag of corn flour mixed with stones, which caused my mother to roll around in the snow on New Year's Eve, holding her stomach."
Turning to the corner of the account page, the crooked pencil writing was stained with oil. "You said at the time, 'Just consider it as saving up a decent dowry for Zhiqiang.'"
The cracks on Sun Zhiqiang's rubber shoes were stained with fresh mud, obviously he had just come from the back mountain.
He stared at the red mark on Xu Yao's wrist that was pierced by the wild rose, and suddenly said in a muffled voice: "Yaoyao, the mine will soon give me a permanent position..."
"Can becoming a regular employee offset the 300 yuan life-saving money I owe my father?"
Xu Yao sneered, her eyes sweeping over his bulging trouser pockets.
In her previous life, this pocket was always filled with candies bought for her third sister's son, while her daughter could only lick the candy wrappers helplessly.
The third sister suddenly staggered and held onto the door frame, with half of the red rope showing at the collar of her moon-white shirt.
Xu Yao's pupils shrank slightly - that was clearly the longevity lock that her mother had pawned to the Sun family, and now it was hanging around this woman's neck.
"Say less!" The village chief came out from the east wing leaning on a jujube wood crutch, with chicken feathers on his indigo cloth shoes.
He caught a glimpse of Xue Han's silent figure appearing at the foot of the west wall, and his gray eyebrows trembled: "Is Han kid here to deliver herbs again?"
There were still water droplets condensed from the morning mist on Xue Han's shoulders, and his army green shoulder bag was bulging with a few loquat leaves revealing it.
He walked straight to Xu Yao's side and took out an oil-paper bag from his pocket.
The sweet and bitter taste of rock sugar mixed with Fritillaria cirrhosa spread, covering up the pungent smell of camphor on Sun's mother.
Sun's mother suddenly slapped her thigh and howled: "Everyone, please judge! This wild man climbs over the wall of my house every day to deliver things, who knows..."
Her cloudy eyes suddenly stared at Xu Yao's collar, "Ouch! Could this red mark on your neck be..."
"We caught a rat stealing oil last night."
Xue Han suddenly spoke, his voice as cold as the icy pond in the back hills.
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