Chapter 21: The Old Things
The haystacks in the threshing ground were coated with a layer of silver by the moonlight. Xu Yao held a half-full box of osmanthus oil in her arms, and the word "Xu" on the glass bottle made her heart burn.
The village committee compound was so crowded that there was no room to move one's feet. My third sister leaned against the faded honor roll, her fingernails picking at the mottled red paint on the words "Model Worker", and the crumbs of honor fell on the legs of her maroon corduroy pants.
"Is the girl from the Xu family making trouble again?" Villager A squatted on the millstone and cracked melon seeds, and the spitted out melon seeds fell beside Xue Han's shiny boots.
Xue Han silently placed the kettle on the edge of the millstone. The sound of metal knocking against each other startled the man and he shrank his neck.
Xu Yao untied the blue cloth bag, and the abacus beads rolled on the bench.
The third sister's eyelids twitched suddenly. There was a brand new lacquered bead mixed in the string of beads. In the moonlight, it glowed the same indigo color as the "Wu" on the IOU.
"On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month in 1975, my third sister said she wanted to learn how to keep accounts."
Xu Yao's fingertips brushed over the marks on the abacus, which were left when her father taught her to count the beads. "You said that the numbers should have hooks, so I used the newly bought Hero fountain pen dipped in indigo ink to demonstrate."
The third sister twisted the faded red hairband on the end of her braid and sneered, "What does this trivial matter have to do with the IOU..."
"The sunflower seed shells you ate are still on page 78 of the barefoot doctor's manual." Xu Yao shook open the yellowed pages, and a few pieces of sunflower seed shells fell at the village chief's feet. "When you said you had a headache and wanted to borrow that book, when you returned it, the chapter on hysteria happened to be missing."
The crowd was buzzing with activity, and several women whose things Third Sister had borrowed from them suddenly seemed to remember something and began to whisper to each other.
Xue Han lowered his eyes and looked at the light and shadow swaying on the surface of the kettle, and the corners of his mouth curled up slightly - he had found that book after searching through the scrap yard last night.
"The character '五' on the IOU has a hook at the end, but after you broke your right wrist in the spring of 1976..." Xu Yao suddenly grabbed the abacus and slapped it on the table. The three beads jumped up and rolled in front of the third sister. "Now write the numbers horizontally and vertically!"
The third sister stumbled backwards, her lower back hitting the glass-framed photo on the honor roll.
The old photo of her holding Sun Zhiqiang's widow in the frame was tilted by the vibration, revealing half of the yellowed letter on the back.
Villager B shouted sharply, "Isn't that Accountant Sun's handwriting?"
Xu Yao pulled out the cork from the glass bottle, and the osmanthus oil seeped into the folds of the letter paper. The blurred pen handwriting gradually became clear under the infiltration of the oil. "On March 6, I received 20 kilograms of corn from my third sister." Sun Zhiqiang's personal seal was stained by oil at the signature, and it overlapped with the ink marks on the IOU like twins.
"There was a famine last year, and you said your family couldn't afford to eat." Xu Yao pushed the oil bottle towards her third sister, and the sweet aroma made her face turn green. "How come you have food to help Accountant Sun?"
The third sister's distant cousin suddenly squeezed out from the crowd, his arms still stained with grass from the threshing floor: "The girl from the Xu family is slandering me!
That IOU clearly states... "
"It's clearly the wooden seal that my father carved." Xu Yao picked up the abacus beads and threw them to the ground. It was the abacus pendant with "Xu Ji" engraved on it that rolled to his cousin's feet. "You bought the ink at the cooperative yesterday afternoon. Aunt Wang from the supply and marketing cooperative remembers it clearly."
The crowd suddenly made way for her, and Xu's mother slowly moved in, leaning on a bamboo stick, her skinny fingers clenched around half a cigarette paper.
The third sister's pupils suddenly shrank - that was the paper she used as a pad when she secretly copied Xu's father's private seal. The tobacco crumbs were still stuck in the groove of the last horizontal stroke of the word "Xu".
The night wind blew up the broken wheat straw in the threshing ground, and Xue Han's kettle suddenly made a crisp ding-dong sound.
Everyone looked back and saw the sheets on the clothesline blown up by the wind. The moonlight revealed dense patches of patches - the stitches were exactly the same as the model worker apron that the third sister had "carefully sewn".
The village chief stroked the cracks on the honor roll, his eyes falling on the red paint fragments on the third sister's trouser legs.
The half-bucket of red paint that was missing when the wall was painted seems to match the color of the new chest of drawers built by Accountant Sun.
The moonlight shattered into silver scales in the puddles in the threshing ground. The village chief bent over to pick up the barefoot doctor's manual that was stained with melon seed shells, and rubbed the torn page gaps with his fingertips.
The third sister’s maroon trouser legs suddenly trembled, like a chicken blood vine struggling in the autumn wind.
"The work points account book for the canal repair in 1976..." The village chief suddenly spoke, startling the night owl squatting on the millstone. "Accountant Xu always said that the numbers didn't match. The missing corn was made up here."
His rough thumb pressed on the smudged oil stain on the letter paper, and the edge of Sun Zhiqiang's private seal oozed a strange purple-blue color in the moonlight.
The third sister's distant cousin suddenly turned around and tried to run. Xue Han's kettle had been lying across the muddy ground, and the army green kettle body tripped him and caused him to stumble and fall into the haystack.
A few strands of wheat straw were hanging from the back of his collar, looking very much like the ears of wheat that were hung on the fence when he stole grain last December.
"Return them." The village chief took out his reading glasses from his trouser pocket. The tape wrapped around the temples was still stained with last year's glue. "Return the IOU from the Xu family, the accounts from the Sun family, and..." He suddenly knocked on the glass of the honor roll with his pipe, "Return all the sewing machine bobbins that were lost at Widow Wang's house."
Xu Yao felt the glass bottle in her arms suddenly get hot. The faded red hairband on her third sister's braid unraveled in the night wind, revealing half of a brand new gold thread.
The golden color stung her eyes so much that they hurt - it was the dowry thread from her mother's bottom drawer, which her third sister borrowed last year to help embroider a pillow.
"I didn't..." The third sister suddenly covered her mouth, and the Hero pen slipped from her sleeve. The indigo ink on the pen cap glowed faintly in the moonlight.
Suddenly, there was a cry among the villagers. Aunt Li rushed in holding a pillowcase that had been half gnawed by a mouse. The thimble of my third sister was still pinned to the pistil of the golden peony.
Xue Han bent down to pick up the pen, and lightly stroked the abacus beads with the metal tip, revealing the old sandalwood texture under the new paint.
Xu Yao suddenly remembered that on the night her father was seriously ill, the ginseng roots that her third sister sent her were wrapped in exactly this kind of sandalwood-scented wrapping paper.
“Give it back to you!
I’ll give it all back to you! "The third sister suddenly screamed and tore open the buttons of her double-breasted jacket, and the yellowed IOU fluttered out of the inner pocket like snowflakes.
A piece of paper fell at Xu Yao's feet, with the words "I owe Xu Yao a rattle" written on it in a child's red handwriting, and the date was exactly her sixth birthday.
The villagers' saliva condensed into white mist in the moonlight, and someone's wife threw a half-finished shoe sole at him.
When the third sister dodged, she stepped on her own braid. The golden thread from the ends of her hair got tangled up on the nail on the honor roll and pulled off half of the award certificate that read "Advanced Elements in Learning from Dazhai."
When Xu Yao squatted down to pick up the IOU, she smelled the scent of camphor wafting from the hem of Xue Han's military uniform, mixed with the faint scent of gun oil from his fingers.
He shielded her from the pushing crowd, his palm accidentally brushing against the back of her hand, and the rough callus caught a golden thread.
"Be careful." His whisper mixed with the night wind, but it made her ears burn.
The golden thread wrapped around his fingers three times and finally hid quietly in his rolled-up sleeves.
When the last lantern was blown out, Xu Yao discovered that a corner of the moon shadow in the osmanthus oil bottle was missing.
On the old locust tree at the west end of the threshing ground, half a piece of golden thread was wrapped around a piece of scrap paper and swaying in the wind, through which fragments of the words "Father Xu is critically ill" could be vaguely seen - that was the urgent telegram that the third sister had intercepted that year.
Xue Han's military boots silently rolled over the shadow, and the moonlight elongated his figure, just enough to cover Xu Yao's thin shoulders.
And in the reed marsh at the end of the threshing ground, something sank to the bottom of the water with a "splash", scattering the reflected stars in the sky.
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