Chapter 24 Xue Han's Body Temperature
The branches of the locust tree rustled in the night wind, and Xu Yao's hands, holding the Five Emperors' Coins, were sweating.
Xue Han's boots rolled over the paper ashes on the ground. The moonlight made his taut jawline look cold and hard, like a sword ready to be unsheathed at any time.
"Everyone, please give us your judgment!" The third sister clutched a handkerchief and banged her head against the tombstone, her dry hair like dead grass scattered in the shadow of the kerosene lamp.
"The Xu family relied on the support of their relatives in the city to forge an IOU in order to take away my son's life-saving money!"
The eight-year-old boy in her arms howled at the right moment, but his neck was stretched long to peek at the maltose on the altar.
Xu Yao caught a glimpse of her father huddled behind the crowd with his back hunched, his lungs trembling from coughing.
The mother tapped the bluestone slab with her blind stick and stumbled forward following the sounds of crying and cursing.
She dug her nails deep into her palms, and her newly washed dacron shirt stuck to her back, leaving a circle of salty sweat stains.
"Aunt San said the IOU was drawn up in December last year?"
Xu Yao's clear voice cut through the whispers and slammed the old account book mounted on a glass plate onto the altar.
A few dried osmanthus flowers fell between the pages, which were the molds my mother used to make sugar cakes every Mid-Autumn Festival.
The crowd erupted in low cheers.
Wang Ergou shook the kerosene lamp he was holding, illuminating the neat penmanship on the account book - the 1973 income and expenditure details clearly stated that the Sun family owed the Xu family 300 kilograms of food coupons.
The IOU in the third sister's hand was dated Spring Equinox 1974.
"Oh, why is my life so miserable——"
The third sister suddenly rushed towards the burning pile of paper money, and sparks splashed on Xue Han's military pants. "Xu girl is an accountant in the supply and marketing cooperative. Isn't it easy to change the account book?"
Xue Han raised his boots to crush the sparks, and the copper buckle on the tactical belt brushed against the back of Xu Yao's hand.
He silently untied his military bag and took out a stack of letters stamped with the red star seal.
A corner of the top transport dispatch sheet was lifted up by the night wind, and the ink seal of the winter month of 1973 matched the date on the account book exactly.
"I was on a mission at the border last December."
Xue Han pointed at the red seal on the dispatch form with his fingertips, and the scar dormant in the shadow rose and fell as he swallowed. "Comrade Xu asked me to bring the food coupons to the Sun family. They are still locked in the safe of the county armed forces department."
The third sister's nails, which were coated with clam oil, suddenly dug into the boy's arm. The child's cry of pain was mixed with her screaming in a different tone: "An official can give false testimony? Everyone knows that you climb over the wall of the Xu family every day..."
"Enough!" The village chief slammed his pipe heavily on the stone tablet, startling the night owl.
He bent down and picked up the Five Emperors' coins that were blown to his feet by the wind. The red thread was entangled in the eyes of the rusty copper coins. "I personally took this string of coins out of Old Master Xu's mouth."
Xu Yao was shocked.
Her mother fumbled and grasped her wrist, leaving a deep mark on the ground with the tip of her cane: "The night Yao'er was born, her grandfather held this string of money tightly and refused to close his eyes, saying that he wanted to suppress the evil debt in the Xu family's ancestral tomb."
The old man turned his cloudy eyes to the third sister, "Old sister, the person who stole the IOU will be struck by lightning."
The crowd suddenly became agitated.
Villager A squeezed to the front, his nose almost touching the glass plate: "The sweet-scented osmanthus print on this account book is exactly the same as the packaging paper of the relief food my husband received during the Mid-Autumn Festival!"
"That's right!" Villager B slapped his thigh and shouted, "Last spring, when there was a famine, the Sun family asked me to borrow sweet potatoes because they had been out of food for three months..."
The third sister suddenly grabbed the maltose on the altar and stuffed it into the boy's mouth to stop him from crying.
She glanced at the shadow behind the locust tree, and Xu Yao keenly caught the crisp sound of rubber shoes crushing dead branches.
Xue Han adjusted his position quietly, with the spikes of his combat boots facing the direction of the sound.
"Even if the dates don't match..."
The third sister's handkerchief swung in a strange arc, and a silver bracelet fell into the paper ashes with a clang.
"Xu girl stole my dowry bracelet yesterday! It was under her kang mat!"
Xu Yao was so angry that she laughed.
She unbuttoned the second button, revealing a longevity lock hanging on a red rope.
The moment the lock popped open, the yellowed oil paper wrapped around the silver bracelet rolled to the ground. The words "temporary deposit" were written crookedly on the paper, and the signature was actually the autumn of 1972.
"Three years ago, when you used the bracelet to pay off your debt, my mother changed it into an oil paper bag out of fear that you would be embarrassed."
Xu Yao bent down to pick up the bracelet, and the silver light reflected her mother's sunken eye sockets. "If you can't read, you should be able to recognize the hemp knot of this snack. My mother is the only one in the village who can weave a love knot."
The night wind suddenly swirled, and the burning paper ashes gathered into a small tornado.
Someone exclaimed, and everyone saw that the white velvet flowers on the third sister's temples were blown away by the wind, revealing a brand new red hairband underneath.
The dazzling red color swaying in the cemetery looked like a bride's hair accessory.
Xue Han suddenly pressed Xu Yao's shoulders.
The warmth of his palm burned into her skin through her shirt, and the nylon thread of his tactical gloves caught a strand of her hair.
Xu Yao looked along the line of his tense shoulders and found that the village chief was bending down to pick up the oil paper that had floated to his feet - on the back was the price list of pastries from the county supply and marketing cooperative in 1972.
The sound of rubber shoes crushing dead branches suddenly approached, and the third sister's cousin Wang Tiezhu jumped out from behind the locust tree, and his iron-like hands grabbed the account book in Xu Yao's arms.
The fishy smell of sweat from his arms, which he swung when carrying sacks all year round, was so strong that the kerosene lamp on the altar shook.
"Be careful!" Xue Han's tactical gloves brushed past Xu Yao's ears and accurately grabbed the tendon on Wang Tiezhu's wrist.
As Xu Yao staggered backward, her lower back hit the copper buckle on Xue Han's belt. The cold metal made her gasp.
"Someone is stealing something!" Villager A suddenly howled at the top of his lungs, his hoarse voice causing the night owls on the treetops to flutter in panic.
He poked Wang Tiezhu's knee with the pipe in his hand, and his movements were as skillful as if he was driving away a wild boar that was stealing food in the fields.
Seven or eight hands suddenly reached out from all directions.
Villager B's bamboo winnowing basket slammed onto Wang Tiezhu's head, and the dried corn silk covered his face.
The lame widow Zhang swung her shiny peach wood cane and accurately hit his right wrist as he tried to touch the knife - she learned this skill of hitting thieves when she was fighting bandits.
“This is outrageous!”
The village chief's pipe slammed heavily on the bluestone stele, and sparks flew around Xue Han's military boots.
The old accountant raised the lantern tremblingly, and the dark brown blood fingerprints on the corner of the account book were reflected on the glass cover: "On the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month in 1973, Sun Zhiqiang's blood fingerprints are still here!"
Xu Yao felt her mother's dry vine-like hand suddenly clench her wrist.
The tip of the cane made a sharp scraping sound on the bluestone slab, and the old man turned his sunken eye sockets towards the third sister: "During the snowstorm that year, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law of the Sun family knelt at the Xu family.
Xu Yao turned around and saw his tense lower body.
Father Xu suddenly burst into a heart-wrenching cough.
He squeezed out of the crowd with a hunched back, and a yellowed envelope slipped out from his patched sleeves. The winter month of 1973 on the postmark was clearly visible.
The old accountant read out the beginning under the lantern, his hoarse voice startled the night owl perched on the top of the monument: "My wife Xu Yao personally wrote..."
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