Chapter 4: Snowy Night Before Rebirth
When the morning mist was evaporated by the sun and only a few drops of dew remained on the eaves, Xu Yao stepped into the Sun family's doorstep holding the letter of divorce.
Xue Han's boots crushed the dandelions that came out of the cracks in the door sill, and the fluff stuck to Xu Yao's patched trouser legs, like a piece of walking starlight.
"Three pounds of food coupons, five feet of cloth coupons, even the prescription for your father's medicine was bought on credit!" Xu Yao slapped the IOU on the eight-immortals table, shaking the wood ear mushrooms in the enamel jar.
Sun Zhiqiang huddled in the rattan chair, digging his fingernails into the cracks of the bamboo strips to dig out the melon seed shells that were stuffed in at the wedding banquet three years ago, "Yaoyao, those were used to treat our father's illness..."
"The grass on your father's grave is three feet high." Xu Yao suddenly leaned over, her hair brushing against the red and blue pencils in Xue Han's pocket, "But the corduroy you made for your third sister last month, Aunt Wang at the tailor shop said it took eight feet?"
Sun Zhiqiang's Adam's apple trembled violently, and at the right moment, the shrill voice of his third sister singing "Red Lantern" came from outside the courtyard wall.
The village chief was moving the seal with chili oil in his coat pocket. He was suddenly interrupted by the wild ginseng handed to him by Xue Han: "Excuse me, can you give me a look? Is this ginseng good enough to be used as medicine for Uncle Xu?"
While everyone's attention was drawn to the ginseng, Xu Yao brushed her fingertips across the thin calluses on Xue Han's palm.
The wound from which he had been cut by gravel while digging ginseng last night was still oozing blood, and was now neatly wrapped in the half piece of red paper she had torn off from the marriage report.
"The letter of withdrawal of engagement has already been stamped with fingerprints. Comrade Sun still wants to imitate the old locust tree at the entrance of the village to block the road?" Xue Han tapped the date at the end of the IOU with the cap of his fountain pen, and the gilded pattern of his third sister's rouge box suddenly floated up in the ink bottle.
Last December, Sun Zhiqiang said he was going to the county to buy New Year pictures, but when he came back, his coat was stained with this unique rose scent.
Sun Zhiqiang suddenly knelt down in front of the pickle jar. The cracks on the silver bracelet at the bottom of the jar reflected his tearful face: "Yaoyao, you fell into the ice hole that year, but I risked my life..."
"So your mother wants me to work as a farmhand for ten years to repay her kindness?" Xu Yao opened her collar, and the centipede-shaped frostbite scar below her collarbone startled the village chief so much that he dropped his pen into the chili can. "Last year when you pushed me to stop the falling rocks while repairing the canal, why didn't you say you loved your wife?"
There was a sound of cloth tearing in Xue Han's pocket, and the word "Xu" on the edge of the marriage report happened to fall on the top of Sun Zhiqiang's head.
Xu Yao caught a glimpse of the wooden hairpin that her third sister was clinging to the wall, and deliberately raised her voice: "Xue Han, what do you think the Revolutionary Committee thinks of those who cheated on marriage and food?"
The tune of "Red Lantern" outside the courtyard suddenly went out of tune.
The village chief's hand, which was about to press the seal with chili oil, was interrupted by Xu's father's cough. The old man held onto the door frame and coughed as if he was going to vomit out his lungs. A brown blood plum blossom bloomed on the handkerchief in his palm.
"Dad!" Xu Yao tried to help, but her father grabbed her wrist with his dry branch-like hand. "Yao, yesterday, matchmaker Wang said that the old bachelor whose wife died in the West Village..." The old man's cloudy eyes reflected the stars on Xue Han's epaulettes. "If you cancel the engagement, our family won't even have money to buy paper money..."
Sun Zhiqiang suddenly crawled on his knees and hugged Father Xu's legs: "Uncle, I will bring Yaoyao to get the marriage certificate tomorrow!
The sewing machine at my third sister's house..." Before he could finish his words, Xue Han's kettle suddenly hit the edge of the pickle jar, startling the tadpoles at the bottom of the jar and causing them to bump into the fragments of the silver bracelet.
"Uncle Xu, the medicine shop can give 15 kilograms of national food coupons for wild ginseng." When Xue Han took out the marriage report, the ink of the pen just happened to smudge the four words "voluntary union", "My revolutionary friendship with Comrade Xu Yao..."
The cough of Xu's father was pierced by Sun Zhiqiang's scream: "What does he, a foreigner, know!
Yaoyao loves to eat the cicada monkeys I roast the most! "The wooden hairpin on the wall fell with a thud. The third sister was holding half a handful of burnt black insects. In the cracks of her fingernails were still stained with blood scabs from last year's autumn harvest when Xu Yao was pushed into the grain pile.
Xu Yao suddenly grabbed the chili jar on the eight-immortal table, and the bright red juice flowed along the fingerprints on the IOU into a river of blood: "Last year you said you would grow chili for me, but you ended up giving all your private plot to my third sister to grow peonies?"
The village chief's seal finally fell heavily, scaring away the chickens pecking at food in the yard.
Sun Zhiqiang reached out to pull Xu Yao's braid in the midst of the chicken feathers, but his hand was hit by the stamp on the marriage report - Xue Han had pinned the military medal on the end of her braid at some point, and the edge of the five-pointed star was stained with wild ginseng mud.
"Comrade Xu Yao, it's time to go to the commune to exchange for food coupons." The second button of Xue Han's shirt was dazzling in the sunlight. Last night, he squatted in the leaky kitchen of the Xu family and used this button to fill up the brown sugar water to feed her father.
Father Xu ran to the fence clutching the bloody handkerchief, and suddenly he staggered when the wild ginseng stuffed into his arms fell.
Sun Zhiqiang wiped his face and was about to chase after her, but he saw the third sister flashing out from behind the firewood pile, holding the receipt for the sewing machine. The date on the receipt with a peony pattern was clearly the day Xu Yao fell into the ice hole.
When the sun climbed up above the willow branches, the marriage report in Xu Yaojun's green shoulder bag exuded a faint ginseng fragrance.
Xue Han looked back at the two people still fighting in the Sun family courtyard, and suddenly took out a tin box from his trouser pocket: "Fill your stomach with red dates."
There were three candies wrapped in rice paper in the iron box, and a yellowed copy of "Combat Heroes Newspaper" underneath.
Xu Yao's fingertips brushed across the familiar eyebrows and eyes in the headline photo, and she suddenly remembered the last snowy night before her rebirth. It was this kind of candy wrapper with teeth marks that melted on the radiator in the morgue.
Suddenly, a bunch of locust flowers fell from the old locust tree at the entrance of the village. Xu Yao turned around to point out the remaining "marriage vows" marks on the tree to Xue Han, but she saw that he was drawing a route map on the back of the food coupon with a red and blue pencil. The tip of the pen was hovering above the three words "County Hospital", and he was reluctant to put the heavy comma.
Sun Zhiqiang crawled on his knees to reach Xu Yao's trouser legs, with mold stains from the edge of the pickle jar embedded in his fingernails, "Fellow villagers, please give us your judgment!
When I fished her out of the ice hole, my lungs almost froze into icicles! "He suddenly opened his cotton jacket, revealing the dark red scar on his chest that shone in the sun, looking like a leech that had sucked enough meat.
Xu Yao twisted the military medal on the end of her braid, the metal edges pricking her fingertips and making them numb. "Last year on the Autumnal Equinox, you said you wanted to nourish my body, so you stole fish from the production team in the middle of the night." She suddenly pointed to the fishing nets drying in the corner of the yard, with a faded blue cloth hanging on the mesh. "In the end, there were no fish scales, but the salted fish that had been drying for three days at my third sister's house disappeared."
The village chief's seal stained with chili oil was suspended in the air. The chili oil dripped along the edge of the table onto the IOU, smudged the words "five feet of cloth coupons" like solidified blood stains.
Father Xu hunched his back and rubbed himself against the door frame. The blood foam he coughed up splashed on the hem of Xue Han's military uniform, leaving a few dark brown spots.
"Dad!" Xu Yao tried to help him, but the old man's hand, like a dry vine, grabbed her wrist.
Father Xu's breath mixed with the smell of blood sprayed into her ears: "Liu the blacksmith from West Village... is willing to exchange two pigs for a bride..." Before he finished speaking, Xue Han suddenly took out a tin candy box, and three red date candies wrapped in glutinous rice paper fell into the enamel teacup with a clang.
"Uncle Xu, the county hospital has just received penicillin." Xue Han used a red and blue pencil to draw a zigzag line on the back of the food coupon. The tip of the pen touched the three words "County Hospital", and the ink suddenly smudged into a full dot.
Father Xu's cloudy eyes moved, and veins bulged on the back of his hand where he was holding the wild ginseng.
Sun Zhiqiang suddenly jumped up, and the hem of his coat swept over the chili jar on the eight-immortals table.
The bright red juice flowed down the table legs like a river, overflowing the wooden hairpin that the third sister dropped. "Yaoyao loves to eat my roasted cicada monkeys the most! Last summer I caught a whole bamboo tube in the back mountain!"
"Yes, there was a peony handkerchief embroidered by my third sister under the bamboo tube." Xu Yao suddenly opened her collar, and the centipede-shaped scar below her collarbone startled the village chief so much that he took a half step back. "That night you said you would apply frostbite cream on me, but you ended up applying all the new Vaseline from the supply and marketing cooperative on my third sister's cracked heel."
There was a crisp sound of tiles breaking from the wall, and the third sister retracted her head, clutching the half-broken sewing machine shuttle.
There was a sudden sound of cloth tearing from Xue Han's military uniform pocket. The four words "voluntary union" on the edge of the marriage report happened to fall into the chili oil, and were instantly dyed a glaring scarlet.
The village chief finally put down the seal dipped in chili oil, but stopped abruptly half an inch away from the divorce agreement, "Old Xu..." He turned to look at Xu's father who was curled up like a shrimp due to coughing, "If we cancel the engagement, the food rations for both of you..." Before he could finish his words, Xue Han suddenly unfolded his military green satchel, and twenty kilograms of national food coupons fell onto the edge of the pickle jar.
Sun Zhiqiang's eyes almost popped out of their sockets. He rushed to the jar to grab the food coupons, but his palm was cut by the fragments of the silver bracelet at the bottom of the jar.
The scene of him tricking Xu Yao into losing her silver bracelet at the beginning of summer last year, and then melting it down to make a new hairpin for her third sister suddenly appeared in Xu Yao's eyes. In the peony pistil of the hairpin, there was still half a piece of broken jade from her dowry embedded in it.
"Comrade Xu Yao, it's time to go to the commune to change the medicine."
Xue Han tapped the red stamp on the food coupon with the cap of his fountain pen, and a peony petal suddenly floated in the ink bottle.
Xu Yao recognized that it was the silk flower that Sun Zhiqiang bought with the money she had intended to use to buy medicine for her father on her third sister's birthday last year.
Father Xu suddenly grabbed his daughter's wrist, his skinny fingers almost digging into her flesh, "Before your mother closes her eyes... I'm most afraid that you'll become a rootless duckweed..." The old man's bloody sigh drifted in the draft, startling the swallows on the beams so much that they knocked over their mud nests.
Xu Yao pried open her father's hand and slapped the broken grass with bird's nest mud on the divorce letter, "Dad, Mom was forced to drink the magic water and that's why she had a difficult birth."
She suddenly pointed to the half-broken yellow talisman under the Sun family shrine. The burnt marks on the edge of the talisman overlapped with the incense ash on the cuffs of the midwife in her memory. "Do you really want your daughter to follow your mother's old path?"
Sun Zhiqiang suddenly picked up the door bar behind the door and shouted, "Who dares to cancel the engagement!" He swung the bar in a roundabout way, creating a fishy gust of wind, but when it was about to hit Xu Yao, it was stopped by a military kettle.
Xue Han unscrewed the lid of the pot, and the strong aroma of ginseng mixed with a few slices of angelica exploded in the air - these were the herbs that had been missing from Xu's father's prescription for half a year.
"Uncle Xu, let's stew the ginseng roots now and drink it at noon."
As Xue Han spoke, the second copper button of his military uniform swayed in front of Xu's father.
The old man's confused pupils suddenly contracted. The warm touch of the button filled with brown sugar water that he fed to his lips last night suddenly overwhelmed the bloody smell surging in his throat.
Xu Yao took the opportunity to grab the letter of divorce and rushed out. The military medal on the end of her braid drew a silver arc under the sun.
Sun Zhiqiang wanted to chase after her, but was tripped by the third sister's foot that stretched out from behind the firewood pile.
When Xu Yao turned around, she saw the grains of rice stuck on her third sister's peony-embroidered shoes. Last autumn, Sun Zhiqiang had grabbed the grains stained with her blood, saying that he wanted to exorcise the evil spirits for her.
A bunch of locust flowers fell from the old locust tree at the entrance of the village, and a corner of the marriage report in Xu Yaojun's green shoulder bag was blown up by the wind.
The route map that Xue Han had drawn on the back of the food coupon suddenly floated out. The pen-drawn arrow pointed directly to the obstetrics and gynecology department of the county hospital, and the ink left a meaningful dot on the word "marriage examination".
Sun Zhiqiang's curses mixed with the third sister's sobs chased for two miles. Xu Yao turned into the cornfield, clutching the divorce letter that smelled of chili oil.
The leaves wet with dew scratched the scar on the side of her neck, and she seemed to return to the night in her previous life when she was pushed into the delivery room, and the incense ash from the midwife's cuffs fell on her pale belly.
When the sun reached the zenith, Xu Yao slumped in front of the stove in her home.
The chipped clay pot was filled with corn paste left over from last night. Dust was swirling up and down in the beam of light leaking through the window frame, just like the ashes of paper money floating in the morgue in the previous life.
The wooden door suddenly creaked, and Xu Yao was so startled that she knocked over the clay pot.
The bitter aroma of ginseng roots mixed with the sour smell of corn paste lingered in the air. She clenched the candy box and stood up. The shadow cast by the jujube wood window frame on the earthen wall was suddenly covered by the outline of the military uniform. The cap of the red and blue pencil reflected a faint blue light under the sun.
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