Chapter 26: Tin Frog
The dusk dyed the wormwood hanging from the eaves into caramel color. Xu Yao's fingertips unconsciously stroked the burning oil mark on her earlobe.
The third sister's nails, which were dyed with tung oil, glowed eerily in the evening breeze, just like the cinnabar that had settled at the bottom of the medicine jar the year my father coughed up blood.
"There are termite holes in the beams in the southeast corner." Xue Han said suddenly, his boots rolling over the plantain that was growing out of the cracks in the blue bricks.
He was wiping the harpoon, and the Five Emperors' Coins made a clear sound on his waist. "Last year during the Autumnal Equinox, a heavy rain washed away the back wall of the Land God Temple."
Xu Yao's breathing paused, as she recalled that last night in the reed marsh, when Xue Han was teaching her to identify red clay, the moonlight was falling on his palms stained with engine oil.
"Sister said the title deed is in the iron box?"
She suddenly reached out and pressed the hibiscus pot on the windowsill, and pinched off half of a curled leaf with her fingernails stained with balsam juice.
But this morning when I delivered mugwort dumplings to the secretary, I saw him sprinkling realgar towards the southeast corner of the wall. “
The third sister's pupils suddenly contracted, and her fingers stained with tung oil crushed the hibiscus petals.
The scarlet flower juice dripped along her palm lines onto the delivery note, blurring out the words "20 pounds of tung oil".
The helper Wang Ermaizi swung his rake and was about to smash the bamboo plaque where the herbs were dried, but Xue Han's harpoon pierced through his raised sleeve first.
"The wall clock of the supply and marketing cooperative," the harpoon tip shook the half-piece of floral cloth, "is three minutes behind the production team's broadcast."
Xu Yao suddenly understood the meaning behind his words.
"About the IOU..." She deliberately dragged out the last word, watching the cold sweat oozing from her third sister's neck, "My father always said that writing can express more than words. When he wrote the marriage certificate for the Sun family, he even described the pattern of my mother's jade bracelet as a dowry clearly."
The third sister suddenly laughed out loud and took out a brown paper envelope from the secret pocket of her double-breasted shirt: "Sister, do you know why your father always hides from the village accountant?
On the night of June 8, it rained heavily. Someone saw Accountant Xu running towards the commune in the rain... "
She shook out a yellowed paper. The plum-shaped oil stain on the lower right corner just covered the borrower's fingerprint. "The strokes of the word '贰' in '贰百元整' are much blunter than those of the other characters."
Xu Yao staggered and held onto the bamboo rack where the mugwort was dried. The scene from late autumn last year suddenly popped into her mind.
Her father was curled up under the kerosene lamp copying the account book. He was coughing so hard that he couldn't hold the pen. She helped him trace the numbers in red that were blurred by water stains.
How can a hand with chilblains that can't even hold the brown sugar water?
“You are talking nonsense!”
The bamboo frame clattered as she bumped against it, and dried motherwort fell all over her shoulders. "When my father wrote the Spring Festival couplets for the Sun family, he even painted the word 'purple' in 'a myriad of purples and reds' with gold powder!"
She took out the fountain pen she carried with her. The words "Advanced Accountant" engraved on the pen cap hurt her palm. "This fountain pen was awarded by the commune. My father was reluctant to use it even to correct a wrong account!"
Xue Han suddenly inserted the harpoon into the gap between the floor tiles. The sound of metal collision startled the sparrows taking shelter under the eaves.
He took off the part of his tactical belt that was stained with red mud and shook off a few ginkgo leaf-shaped mud prints on the bamboo plaque where the herbs were dried. "The dog paw prints on the back wall of the land temple last night are quite similar to the mud prints on the windowsill of the accounting office."
Wang Ermaizi suddenly retracted his hand that was about to grab the IOU, revealing a brand new Shanghai watch on his wrist.
The third sister's face suddenly changed, and she dug into the envelope with her fingernails stained with flower juice, only to see Xue Han take out a tin candy box from his trouser pocket - it was the one that Xu's father always kept in the pocket of his Zhongshan suit, and a corner of the red painted words "Labor is Glorious" on the lid of the box had been rubbed off.
"Accountant Xu asked me to bring some painkillers this morning." He turned the candy box carelessly, and the five mints made a crisp sound in the iron box. "He said that when he was copying the account book last night, he found something interesting in the mezzanine."
The evening breeze suddenly changed direction, blowing the realgar powder piled in the southeast corner to everyone's feet.
As the third sister stepped back, she crushed the dried Xanthium sibiricum, and the fruits with thorns stuck into the soles of her cloth shoes, just like Xu Yao's spine, which was full of holes but still straight.
The chirping of cicadas suddenly tore through the twilight, and the Shanghai watch on Wang Ermaizi's wrist reflected a dazzling spot of light in the setting sun.
Xu Yao stared at the frozen hour hand on the dial, and suddenly remembered what Xue Han had said in the reed marsh last night - false evidence is like a leaky barrel, the truth will always seep out in unexpected places.
"I...I also heard it from Widow Zhang at the west end of the village!"
The third sister suddenly pulled her hair apart, and the dry yellow hair stuck to the saliva at the corners of her mouth. "That day she was delivering tofu to the accounting office, and she heard Accountant Xu discussing the IOU with the Sun family!"
She suddenly poked Xu's father's window with her nails stained with marigold juice, startling the young swallows under the eaves, which fluttered and flew into the pile of dried mugwort.
There was a crisp sound of a pottery jar breaking in the room, and Xu's mother's dry hands groping for the window frame cast a trembling silhouette on the window paper: "Yao'er's father!
Quickly take a piece of licorice... "The blind woman was so anxious that she knocked over the bamboo basket, and the dried orange peels fell into the charcoal basin where the medicine was boiled, and the rising green smoke wrapped in bitterness spread over the windowsill.
Xu Yao's knuckles turned white as she gripped the pen, and the mark of "Advanced Accountant" on the pen cap was deeply embedded in her palm.
She clearly saw a hint of triumphant smile flash across her third sister's lips when she heard the cough - this woman had even calculated the time when her father would cough up blood.
"Sister-in-law Zhang broke her leg half a month ago."
Xue Han suddenly took out a tin frog from his belt, and the spring mechanism made a light clicking sound. "Yesterday, her second child came to ask for bone-setting grass, saying that the barefoot doctor told him to stay in bed for 100 days."
He flicked his fingertips, and the tin frog jumped accurately into the rolled-up trouser leg of Wang Ermaizi, startling the other party so much that he staggered back and crushed the cockleburs on the ground.
The color on the third sister's face faded faster than the motherwort hanging in the sun. She suddenly grabbed the honeysuckle vine hanging on Father Xu's windowsill and said, "Xu Yao!
Do you dare to go to the accounting office to check the handwriting now? "The undried dew on the vines splashed onto the yellowed IOU, smudged the suspicious word "贰" into a twisted ink ball.
Xu Yao was about to speak when she suddenly heard the thud of something heavy falling to the ground inside the house.
Father Xu's suppressed coughs were mixed with the harsh sound of porcelain scrapes across blue bricks. She seemed to see again last winter, when her father was curled up under the kerosene lamp copying the account book, and the blood foam he coughed up fell on the abacus beads.
"Brother Xue, please..."
She turned suddenly, her hair brushing against the dusty hibiscus leaves on the windowsill, but her pupils shrank slightly when she caught a glimpse of the envelope held by her third sister - the shape of the oil stain on the lower right corner of the kraft paper was exactly the same as the twined branch pattern of the jade bracelet her mother gave as a dowry on the Sun family's marriage certificate.
Xue Han's tactical boots rolled over the mess on the ground. The sound of the five emperors' coins colliding suddenly drowned out the cicadas' chirping. "The village chief went to the neighboring village to transport fertilizer this morning. The back of the tractor was loaded with two sacks of account books." He kept staring at the trembling knees of the third sister while speaking. "I heard that the Yangshugou production team lost half a basket of official seals."
Xu Yao's heart suddenly skipped a beat.
Three days ago, she saw her third sister's nephew moving sacks onto a tractor in the threshing yard. At that time, she thought they were filled with newly harvested castor seeds.
Thinking about it now, the dark brown marks seeping out from the edges of the sacks look more like mold stains that would only appear on old account books.
"Get out of the way!" She suddenly pushed Wang Ermaizi away, and the tassel of the herbal sachet in her arms hooked on the other's watch chain.
The dial glass reflected Xue Han's sudden sharp eyes as he was pulled - he pulled out the harpoon that was stuck in the crack in the ground with his backhand, and when the cold light passed by, the evening breeze blew up the jute leaves all over the ground.
The third sister's scream got stuck in her throat.
The floral cloth held by the tip of the harpoon fluttered in her hair, and the red clay stained on Xue Han's tactical belt fell onto the bamboo plaque for drying medicine as he moved sideways, spelling out a crooked "twenty" - exactly the secret code they agreed on at the reed marsh last night.
When Xu Yao ran through the village alley, the twilight had already dyed the blue cloth shirt hanging on the bamboo pole.
The wall clock on the supply and marketing cooperative chimed, seven beats slower than the production team's broadcast.
She looked at the shadow of the pendulum cast on the loess wall, and suddenly remembered the time when Xue Han taught her to identify a sundial - the deviation of the pendulum's shadow at this moment matched the undried mud print on the windowsill of the accounting office.
"The village chief has gone to deal with the accounting dispute in Yangshugou."
The village head's wife who opened the door was sewing a shoe sole. The needle tip rubbed against her temples. "She said she wanted to settle the accounts from 1973..."
The hemp rope in her hand suddenly broke, and the end of the rope fell on the pot of night-blooming jasmine on the windowsill.
Xu Yao clearly saw that there was a half piece of yellowed paper hidden between the petals covered with night dew, and the jagged edge of the paper was exactly the same as the IOU in her third sister's hand.
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