Chapter 7 Going to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative
The dusk was like spilled ink staining the bluestone road, and Xu Yao's fingers, holding the anonymous letter, trembled slightly.
Xue Han bent down to pick up the fragments of the Guanyin statue. The cellophane of the fruit candy glowed strangely under the kerosene lamp. She suddenly remembered the taste of loquat syrup that remained in her throat when she died in her previous life.
"Go to the supply and marketing cooperative." Xue Han put the military knife back into the leather sheath and swayed the copper coins lightly between his wrists.
Xu Yao noticed that he always rubbed the dent on the knife handle with his thumb. That was the scar caused by being burned by the beam when he was fighting a fire last year.
There was a thin layer of dust on the glass counter of the small shop at the entrance of the village, and a few packs of damp animal biscuits were scattered on the shelves.
The shop owner, Wang Laosi, was rolling a cigarette with newspaper. When he saw them walk in side by side, the tobacco fell to the ground.
"What...what do you want to buy?" Wang Laosi's gapped teeth revealed air, his eyes fixed on the collar of Xue Han's military uniform.
Xu Yao noticed that half of a pair of work gloves were exposed under the counter, exactly the same as the ones Sun Zhiqiang got at the agricultural machinery station.
Xue Han slapped the anonymous letter on the glass, scaring away the green-headed fly resting on the brown sugar jar.
Xu Yao smelled a familiar scent of camphor, which was the moth-repellent incense that her third sister used when she knitted a sweater for Sun Zhiqiang in her previous life.
"Have you ever seen anyone delivering this kind of letter?" Xue Han tapped his knuckles on the words "ancestral hall altar".
Wang Laosi's Adam's apple rolled twice and he suddenly started coughing violently, making the malted milk cans on the shelf clink.
Xu Yao bent down to pick up the glass marbles that had rolled to her feet, and her fingertips were stained with some sticky icing sugar.
This is my daughter Niuniu's favorite toy. In her previous life, she always asked the boy from my third sister's family to go to the cemetery to dig pebbles for it.
"Last afternoon yesterday..." Wang Laosi suddenly fell silent and stared at the copper coins shaking on Xue Han's wrist.
The red rope on Xu Yao's wrist tightened in response. The word "Shu" on the edge of the Qianlong Tongbao coin glowed green under the kerosene lamp, just like the moss on the tombstone of her third sister's deceased husband.
Xue Han suddenly pulled out a knife and cut off half of the candle, and the blade brushed past Wang Laosi's ear: "The work protection gloves are quite new. Did the agricultural machinery station only issue them this month?" Xu Yao saw that there was half a piece of work protection gauze wrapped in the spider web that the tip of the knife was picking up.
The cloth curtain behind the shelf suddenly moved without wind. Xu Yao caught a glimpse of a wild shepherd's purse leaf stuck to the corner of the curtain, exactly the same as the one in the bamboo basket of the village chief's wife.
Xue Han's military boots crushed the cigarette butts on the ground, and the smell of cheap tobacco mixed with the fishy smell of grave soil filled the room.
"It's the kid from the Sun family!" Wang Laosi suddenly collapsed on a bench, with the legs of the bench pressing down on half of the supply and marketing cooperative's purchase order.
Xu Yao saw clearly the words "Hard Candy" circled in red pen on it, and the arrival date was exactly the day of her rebirth.
Xue Han picked up the purchase order with the tip of the knife, and Xu Yao discovered a new wound on his palm, as if it had been cut by a sewing needle.
In her previous life, the third sister always said that "needle and thread are the best way to understand a woman's heart", but in her late pregnancy she cut up all the baby's swaddling clothes.
The sound of suona from outside the village drifted in again, this time playing "All Members Are Sunflowers".
Xu Yao counted the cracks on the glass counter and recalled that in her previous life, when Niu Niu had a high fever, Sun Zhiqiang used labor protection gauze dipped in white wine to wipe her body.
"Sun Zhiqiang came here yesterday to exchange three bags of brown sugar." Xue Han suddenly spoke, pointing the tip of his knife at the spider web on the top shelf.
Xu Yao saw a piece of paper stuck in the net, which had the unique straw paper texture on the anonymous letter.
Wang Laosi's pipe fell to the concrete floor with a clang, and when Xue Han bent over, a shrapnel wound on the back of his neck was exposed.
Xu Yao recalled that when she was buttoning his uniform this morning, there was a small "殳" engraved on the back of the second button.
The night wind blew the ashes of paper money onto the door panel, and Xu Yao suddenly heard the sound of fingernails scratching on wooden boards from behind the curtain.
Xue Han's copper coin suddenly stopped vertically, and the Manchu characters of Qianlong Tongbao were twisted into spell-like patterns in the reflection of the glass.
The mouse behind the shelf suddenly squeaked and knocked over the clay jar containing corn flour.
Xu Yao saw half a piece of peach wood talisman at the bottom of the jar, with the words "suppress evil" engraved on it. It was exactly the same talisman that her third sister had asked for Niu Niu.
The moment Xue Han put the saber back into the leather sheath, the dogs at the entrance of the village suddenly barked collectively.
The copper coin on Xu Yao's wrist trembled violently, and the red rope left cinnabar-like marks on her skin.
She heard the sound of rubber-soled cloth shoes crushing dead leaves on the stone road. The alternating rhythm of light and heavy footsteps was very similar to the sound Sun Zhiqiang made when he hid his private money in his previous life.
The flame of the kerosene lamp suddenly jumped three inches high, casting the shadows of the two people on the mottled earth wall.
Xu Yao saw Xue Han's shadow and raised her hand to press on his lower back, where he kept a Type 54 pistol with him. The red silk wrapped around the gun handle was cut from her dowry bundle.
The wooden door of the supply and marketing cooperative was suddenly kicked with a clang, and Sun Zhiqiang rushed in, smelling of cheap cigarettes, with diesel stains from the agricultural machinery station on his trouser legs.
He caught a glimpse of the red silk gun handle that Xue Han had pinned to his waist, and a cold laugh rolled out of his throat: "Accountant Xu broke off the engagement in such a hurry that it turns out he had already found someone in military uniform." He deliberately bit the word "accountant" because that was the position that Xu Yao had earned after taking his place at the agricultural machinery station for five years in her previous life.
Xu Yao held Xue Han's tense arm and felt that his pulse was beating faster than the production team's harvester.
She stared at the third button of Sun Zhiqiang's Zhongshan suit - it should have been pinned with the copper abacus given by his father before his death, but now it was replaced with a gold-plated button, exactly the same as the gilded pattern on the buttons of her third sister's cheongsam.
"The twenty kilograms of food coupons lost by the supply and marketing cooperative..." Xue Han suddenly knocked on the glass cabinet with the handle of the knife, startling Sun Zhiqiang so much that he took a half step back and stepped on his own shadow. "Comrade Sun, how come one of the work protection gloves from the agricultural machinery station is missing?" The tip of the knife picked up a half piece of cotton yarn in the gap of the shelf, which was exactly the cloth that wrapped the fragments of the Guanyin statue in the anonymous letter.
The third sister's embroidered shoes floated in to the tune of "All Members Are Sunflowers", with a white velvet flower pinned to her temples.
She put the bamboo basket on the counter. The freshly dug wild shepherd's purse in it was still covered with grave dirt. "Comrade Xiao Xu, please don't wrongly accuse a good person. Yesterday afternoon, my son Qiangzi was helping the village chief copy the honor roll." The end of her voice was sticky with tears, which sounded very much like the tone of Niu Niu when she pretended to deliver medicine to her in her previous life when she had pneumonia.
Xu Yao suddenly noticed that her third sister had a work gauze wrapped around her wrist, with dots of blue ink on the edge of the gauze - exactly the same as the crooked words "ancestral hall" on the anonymous letter.
She grabbed Xue Han's copper coin and slapped it against the glass plate. The Qianlong Tongbao coin turned in a strange arc under the kerosene lamp, and finally the word "Shu" was facing the third sister's embroidered shoes.
"On the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month last year," Xue Han suddenly spoke, his military boots crushing half of a peach wood talisman on the ground, "the warehouse of the agricultural machinery station caught fire, and among the people who put out the fire..." He paused deliberately, watching the veins popping out of Sun Zhiqiang's neck, "there was a man wearing labor protection shoes, the shoe print was size 42, and the right heel was missing a nail."
The villagers who were watching suddenly became agitated, and Xu Yao heard someone in the crowd mutter, "The Sun family kid was repairing the roof for the third sister at that time."
Wang Laosi suddenly grabbed the purchase order and tried to put it close to the kerosene lamp, but Xue Han hit him on the wrist with the back of a knife. The order fell to the ground, revealing a route map drawn in blue ink on the back - it was the shortcut to the ancestral hall.
The third sister suddenly covered her face and sobbed, but her fingers were fixed on the red rope on Xu Yao's wrist.
Xue Han's copper coin suddenly made a buzzing sound. Xu Yao remembered that when she was mending his military uniform this morning, she found a yellowed birth certificate sewn into the lining pocket, and the family column had the character "Shu" and number written on it - which was exactly the same as a certain chiseled mark on the ancestral hall's monument of merit.
"We have to pay our taxes tomorrow." Xue Han suddenly pulled Xu Yao out, the hem of his military uniform sweeping away the cobwebs on the top shelf.
When Xu Yao turned around, she saw her third sister prick Sun Zhiqiang's palm with an embroidery needle, and blood dripped into the soil at the root of the wild shepherd's purse. The dark red color reminded her of the blood-stained peach wood talisman that Niu Niu was holding when she died in her previous life.
The night wind blew the newly-milled rice husks from the threshing floor onto Xu Yao's face. She counted the rhythm of Xue Han's military boots crushing the dead leaves.
When passing by the old locust tree at the entrance of the village, Xue Han suddenly pulled her behind the tree, and his warm breath swept across her earlobe: "The copper coin went around the supply and marketing cooperative three and a half times." He spread out his palm, and the edge of the Qianlong Tongbao coin was stained with blue ink, glowing like phosphorescence under the moonlight.
Xu Yao was about to speak when she suddenly heard the sound of rubber-soled cloth shoes rubbing against bluestone slabs in the distance.
Xue Han quickly stuffed the coin back into her palm, and the remaining body temperature made her wrist hot.
When the beam of flashlight pierced the night, Xu Yao saw Xue Han's Adam's apple move, and there was a fresh scratch there - it was the crescent-shaped wound left by the third sister's fingernails when she rushed over to grab the anonymous letter.
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