Chapter 29: Unspoken Code
Before the morning mist had dissipated, the sound of Xue Han's boots crushed the dew outside the fence.
Xu Yao was curled up by the stove picking vegetables, her fingertips stained with green bean juice, when she suddenly heard three gentle knocks on the wooden window frame - this was their unspoken code.
"The malted milk is on the windowsill."
Xue Han's voice was wrapped in moisture, and the corner of his blue cloth shirt brought down a few petals of honeysuckle when it brushed past the window sill.
Xu Yao counted the sound of boots rolling over gravel until it gradually faded away before she reached out to grab the enamel jar with the Double Happiness logo printed on it.
A piece of candy wrapper folded into a square was stuck to the bottom of the jar. When it was unfolded, it was half a piece of kapok flower. There were neat pen words hidden in the pistil: There are new corduroys in the supply and marketing cooperative this morning.
Xu's mother fumbled with the straw curtain and said with a smile, "Comrade Xue brought medicine again? Your father's cough has eased in the past two days. I can even hear him snoring at night."
The sound of angelica in the bamboo sieve trembled slightly with the words. Last year's dried herbs had been embezzled by the third sister until only crumbs were left. Now the whole mushrooms were piled up like a small mountain in the pottery jar.
At noon, when the sun was at its hottest, Xu Yao picked up a camphorwood carved sewing box on the threshold of the main room.
The lid of the box is embedded with a lotus flower made of broken mirrors. When the hinge is turned, sawdust falls like fine snow.
Father Xu held up his reading glasses and examined the secret compartment at the bottom of the box. He suddenly laughed out loud: "Isn't this the mortise and tenon joint from our old spinning wheel? Captain Xue must have melted down the shells to use as rivets."
As dusk fell, Xue Han brought half a basket of freshly shaved wood chips as usual.
Xu Yao looked at the white sweat on the back of his military uniform, and suddenly caught a glimpse of cinnabar spots on his trouser legs - the red paint of the renovated land temple at the entrance of the village had not yet dried. No wonder she heard her third sister jumping up and down this morning and cursing about who had stolen the oil from the eternal lamp on the altar.
"For you."
Xue Han took out an object from the compartment of his belt. A small nightingale carved out of a bronze shell was perched in his palm, with a piece of dried wild ginger petals in its beak.
Xu Yao reached out to take it, and her fingertips brushed across the scabby knife marks on his palm. She was surprised to find that the direction of the scar coincided with the strokes of the word "injustice" on the bullet casing.
The third sister's gossip exploded with the muffled thunder of the plum rain season.
When Xu Yao was squatting by the well, washing clothes, she heard the clatter of Aunt Zhang and Sister Li’s hammers, sometimes louder and sometimes softer: “It is said that Xue’s ancestor had hysteria… His grandfather used to chase and chop down half of the village with a sickle…”
The snails in the cracks of the bluestone slabs were choked by the soapnut water and shrank back into their shells. Xu Yao, clutching the military uniform stained with the smell of gun oil, suddenly discovered that the stitching on the elbow patch was abnormally fine.
While decocting medicine for her father at night, Xu Yao stared at the stove in a daze.
In the bubbling steam from the medicine basket, she vaguely saw Xue Han squatting under the kerosene lamp in the barracks mending clothes, his rough fingers with calluses pinching the embroidery needle, his cold and hard jaw softened by the warm yellow light.
The bitterness of the angelica in the earthenware jar was suddenly mixed with the aroma of honey. It turned out that the locust flower honey that Xue Han sent yesterday had condensed on the edge of the jar and happened to drip into the boiling medicinal soup.
"Yaoyao, look at this!" Father Xu rushed into the kitchen holding a newly-pasted kite. The kite stretched on the bamboo frame was actually the candy wrapper that Xue Han had sent.
The colorful cellophane shone brightly in the moonlight, making the old man's long-lost rosy face look as if it were covered with rouge.
Xu's mother fumbled with the bowl of paste for the kite and suddenly sighed, "The porridge made from polished glutinous rice that Comrade Xue sent is very sticky and much easier to swallow than the porridge made from bran in previous years."
Xu Yao tossed and turned in sleep as the night dew was heavy.
The camphorwood sewing box beside her pillow was emitting a faint fragrance. The little nightingale's wings were cast on the earthen wall by the moonlight, swaying with the shadows of the trees as if it had spread its wings.
She gently turned the lotus flowers on the lid of the box, and suddenly a half-red hairband outside the courtyard wall flashed in the broken mirror - it was exactly the same style that was tied to the curtain of the sedan chair on the day of her third sister's daughter's wedding.
The sound of her father's snoring came from the west wing. Xu Yao walked into the yard, clutching the bullet shell that was still warm from her body.
The burnt aroma of wheat straw wafted from the direction of the threshing ground, mixed with the scent of mugwort that Xue Han had brought with him at dusk, weaving a gentle web in the damp night fog.
Suddenly, she heard a rustling sound outside the fence. The moonlight cast a tall figure on the clothesline. The military uniform hanging on the line swayed in the wind, and the hem of the clothes made a slight sound of fabric rubbing against each other as it brushed against the man's epaulettes.
As the moonlight spread over the clothesline, Xu Yao's fingertips were stroking the wings of the Bullet Nightingale.
The sound of the copper bell startled the pumpkin seed shells to fall, and she was suddenly embraced in an embrace with the scent of mugwort.
The hem of Xue Han's military uniform was still stained with wheat awns from the threshing floor, but his heart was beating like a drum in his chest.
"Don't move."
His voice was hoarse as if it had been roasted by a stove fire, and the scorching heat from his palms burned through Xu Yao's coarse shirt and into her waist.
The sound of Aunt Zhang pouring out night-blooming incense came from outside the fence. Xu Yao hurriedly took a half step back, but her lower back hit the bamboo plate where the herbs were dried.
The dried dandelions fluttered down and stuck to Xue Han's eyelashes like fine snow.
"Tomorrow at 3:45 in the morning," Xue Han suddenly grabbed her wrist, and his rough calluses rubbed the pale blue veins on her wrist, "Meet under the old locust tree in the west of the village."
When he turned around, his belt brushed against the back of Xu Yao's hand, and cold night dew condensed on the metal buckle.
Under the locust tree in the morning light, Xu Yao watched Xue Han put the hatchet and hemp rope into the backpack. The word "injustice" was crookedly carved on the mossy bark, exactly the same as the mark on the bullet casing. "Grandma Wang broke the bucket yesterday."
She suddenly spoke, her fingertips running over the newly woven straw rope in the backpack, "I heard that her firewood room was leaking."
Xue Han paused as he was tying the knot, and took out an oil-paper bag from his trouser pocket.
After peeling off the three layers of rough paper, it turned out to be the butterfly hairpin that had been displayed in the window of the supply and marketing cooperative.
The silver-plated wings trembled in the morning light, reflecting the suspicious blush on the tips of his ears: "When you repair the roof, someone has to pass the tiles."
While the third sister was fanning herself with a palm-leaf fan and gossiping by the well, Xu Yao was holding the ladder and watching Xue Han replace the roof beam for Grandma Wang.
The rough hemp rope left red marks on his palms, and his sweaty military uniform stuck to his back, outlining the taut muscles.
Aunt Zhang was passing by with a basket on her shoulder and suddenly exclaimed, "Why do these mortise and tenon joints look like the workmanship on Old Xu's spinning wheel?"
"Captain Xue, help me fix the spinning wheel!"
Father Xu came hobbling over with a newly spun cotton thread in his arms. Half a piece of candy wrapper was still wrapped around the spool. "Look at this thread winding board. It's made from a discarded bullet box from the barracks."
When dusk dyed the threshing ground red, Xu Yao caught a child who was eating locust flowers behind a haystack.
Xiaoman wiped the nectar from the corners of her mouth and smiled: "Uncle Xue gave me the maltose. He said he wanted to thank us for collecting firewood for the five-guarantee households."
The candy wrappers that leaked out of the children's pockets were clearly the newly arrived gold foil from the supply and marketing cooperative - exactly the hot-selling goods that my third sister said had been robbed yesterday.
"Comrade Xu!"
The old carpenter came after him, trembling with his cane, his cloudy old eyes glistening with tears, "Please take this to Captain Xue."
He trembled as he took out an oilcloth bag, peeled off the three layers inside and outside, and found a rusty military medal. "His grandfather carried eight children out of the fire back then. How could it be hysterical..."
Xu Yao stroked the words "People's Defender" engraved on the medal and suddenly felt a sharp pain in her palm.
Xue Han had unknowingly stood at the edge of the threshing ground, wrapping his finger that had been cut by a carving knife with gauze.
The setting sun stretched his shadow very long, just enough to cover the morning dew that was about to fall off her embroidered shoes.
When the night was darkest, the third sister sneaked into the storage room of the village chief's house.
The moonlight filtered through the air vents, illuminating the iron box in her hand. The bullet-hole-shaped rust marks on the lid of the box just happened to coincide with the edge of the medal.
She used her fingernails stained with marigold juice to pick open the lock and smiled like a venomous snake that found a hole in the chicken coop.
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