Chapter 22 What happened to the red handprint?
Before the morning mist dissipated, Xu Yao sensed something was wrong.
There was a thin layer of frost in the enamel basin hung by the earthen wall. Aunt Zhang from next door passed by with a bowl of corn paste. When her eyes drifted over, she shrank back as if she were scalded.
Several old women who were knitting insoles near the well saw her coming over with a bucket of water on her shoulder. The ball of twine rolled into the mud without being picked up. Instead, they gathered around her and moved three feet away towards the barn.
"Yao girl." A figure suddenly appeared under the old locust tree at the entrance of the village, and air leaked from the gap between his broken front teeth. "Late last night, I saw smoke coming out of the chimney of my third sister's house until the roosters crowed."
Xu Yao's hand, which was tightly gripping the hemp rope, paused, and the wooden barrel made a dull sound when it hit the bluestone slab.
Villager A squatted on a tree branch to pick persimmons. The yellow peels brushed against her hair. "If you ask me, the red handprint on the IOU..."
"What's wrong with the red handprint?" Xu Yao turned around suddenly, and the clear water in the bucket shook out a broken moon.
Villager A leaned back and almost fell off the tree branch because of the look. "Third sister told everyone that the red ink is the new Peony brand from the supply and marketing cooperative, but our village only had a road last month..."
Before he could finish his words, the sound of the bell of a passing mule cart drowned out the sound. The lantern shade hanging on the shaft of the cart cracked, which happened to reflect Xu Yao's instantly pale face.
The aroma of oil residue wafted from the east end of the threshing ground; my third sister was making pig feed for the Sun family.
Amid the sizzling sound of the iron spoon scraping across the bottom of the pot, the new plastic hairpin on her temples flashed so brightly that it hurt the eyes. "Hey, Miss Yao, are you going to the village to get a letter of introduction?"
She deliberately raised her red fingers, "Don't try to scare me with those bright red pieces of paper again."
When Xu Yao took out the IOU, she found that the fold was stained with osmanthus oil - the gold thread that Xue Han's sleeve had rubbed against that night was entangled in the edge of the yellow mounting paper.
The third sister's pupils suddenly shrank to the size of needles, and she slammed the gourd ladle she used to scoop pig food into the boiling water. "Forging documents will lead to punishment!"
The scalding steam, wrapped in threat, hit Xu Yao's nose.
The sound of a bell ringing came from the west end of the threshing ground, startling the sparrows all over the ground.
Xu Yao looked at the distorted reflection of her third sister among the flying wings, and suddenly remembered that torn night.
The smell of camphor from the hem of Xue Han's shirt still lingered on his cuffs, but the burning anger at this moment was like a ball of cotton stuck in his throat, which he could neither swallow nor spit out.
As dusk climbed up the haystack, Xu Yao was washing clothes by the river.
The hammer hit the bluestone slabs with a loud bang, scaring away the couple who were dating in the reeds.
The blue cloth shirt floating on the water was suddenly pulled by something. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be half a piece of cigarette box paper covered with mud. The words "critically ill" were swollen and there were dark red ink residues stuck on the edges.
There was a sound of something heavy falling into the water from the other side. When Xu Yao looked up, she only saw the reeds shaking unnaturally.
She walked back clutching her wet shirt, the moonlight stretching her shadow into a long slender shape. When she passed the outer wall of the educated youth site, she suddenly discovered that the newly posted "Initiative to Eliminate Feudal Superstition" on the bulletin board was missing the lower right corner, with half a gold thread remaining in the gap.
It was at this time that Xue Han appeared.
The sound of military boots rolling over broken porcelain pieces startled the quails in the grass nest. He held a lantern in his left hand and a half-broken piece of chalk in his right hand - the battle map he had drawn at the militia company meeting had not been wiped clean yet.
Xu Yao looked at his own swaying reflection on the lampshade, and suddenly felt a sour taste in his nose. The smell of camphor mixed with the smell of gun oil that blocked the wind for him that night now turned into tear-inducing gunpowder smoke.
Xue Han's lantern cast an elliptical halo in the night wind. The water droplets on Xu Yao's wrist rolled to the edge of the yellow mounting paper, leaving a halo on the ink words "Three Hundred Yuan".
Just as she was about to speak, she suddenly heard a faint sweet-scented osmanthus scent floating in the light - it was the scent that seeped out from the crease of the IOU.
"This is moth-proof powder for old camphorwood boxes." Xue Han twisted the gold thread on the corner of the paper with his thumb, and his cold voice was wrapped around the chirping of crickets in the cracks of the bluestone slabs. "I copied the list of materials purchased by the Revolutionary Committee last year."
Xu Yao stared at the half-opened blue book sticking out of his military uniform pocket, and suddenly remembered the time she ran into him copying the account book behind the barn a month ago.
At that time, there were still straw crumbs stuck behind his ears, and the tip of the pen drew fine golden rays in the sunset, which were 70% similar to the golden thread.
Xue Han suddenly knelt on one knee and placed the lantern on the bluestone slab.
When Xu Yao was squatting down with her sleeve pulled by him, she happened to see tiny particles floating in the light - the osmanthus oil that fell on the IOU last night actually showed a lavender color in the warm light.
"The new Peony brand ink from the supply and marketing cooperative..." He ran his index finger across the edge of the red handprint, "It's mixed with castor oil and will turn yellow when exposed to heat."
Before he could finish his words, a dog at the educated youth's site in the distance suddenly started barking wildly, causing the reeds to rustle.
Xu Yao's hand holding the IOU was trembling in the night wind, and Xue Han suddenly stopped unbuttoning his clothes.
He then pulled out an aluminum lunch box from his trouser pocket, and when he opened the lid he found half a box of snow-white plaster powder inside - that was what was left over from repairing desks for the village primary school this morning.
“Don’t move.”
He suddenly pinched Xu Yao's wrist, and plaster powder fell on the red handprint.
The moonlight mixed with the lamplight actually revealed a blurry imprint of the word "Sun". It was the mark left by the Sun family account book that was placed underneath when the third sister pressed her fingerprints that night.
Xu Yao was about to speak when there was a sudden splashing sound of water coming from the reeds on the opposite bank.
Xue Han suddenly pulled her behind him. When the lantern swept over, he saw a wet cigarette box stuck in the crevice of the stone - it was the half that she saw by the river in the evening.
"Accountant Xu received the Peony brand last month, and the last digit of the batch number has a plum blossom stamp." Xue Han used the pen cap to lift up the cigarette box paper, and under the swollen word "critically ill" there was indeed a half red stamp, "My third sister secretly stamped it."
Just as Xu Yao was about to reach out her hand, she suddenly heard the sound of something heavy being dragged from the direction of the threshing ground.
Xue Han blew out the lantern quickly, and the hem of his military uniform with a salty and sweaty smell brushed against her nose.
In the darkness, seven or eight messy muddy footprints were spreading along the riverbank towards this side. The torn shoe print in the front looked very much like the shape of the one that was scratched on the wall of her house this morning.
“Take the small path.”
Xue Han's breath swept across the hair behind her ear, and Xu Yao then realized that his left hand was always hanging three inches behind her waist.
When she was going around the crooked willow tree, she stepped on a dry branch. The crisp breaking sound startled a wild rabbit from the grass nest, which ran into the oncoming black shadow.
"Where are you going, Yao girl?"
The third sister's helper came out from behind the old elm tree, his gapped teeth glowing green in the moonlight.
The hemp rope in his hand was still dripping with water, and the knot pattern was exactly the same as the one that broke off Xu Yao's clothesline at noon.
Xue Han suddenly coughed lightly, and Xu Yao felt something hard being stuffed into her palm.
He glanced over and saw the warm bronze whistle of the militia company - it was hanging next to his battle map this morning.
“Run and don’t look back.”
As he spoke, he stepped back slightly with his right foot. The iron nails on his combat boots scraped against the bluestone slabs, and the sparks scared away an owl in the treetop.
As Xu Yao rushed towards the village chief's house, clutching the copper whistle, she heard the sound of cloth tearing behind her, mixed with Xue Han's deliberately suppressed sneer:
"Wang Ergou, the new belt on your waist from the supply and marketing cooperative... which food coupon did your third sister use to exchange it for?"
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