Aiven's only definite memory is that he returned home and handed the ring to his mother.
His mother held the thumb ring and looked at it over and over again, then rubbed it with a clean handkerchief.
Just as his mother was stroking the thumb ring, something suddenly fell out of what looked like a pocket inside and hit his mother's foot!
His mother cried out in anguish, "My leg! It's broken! Oh dear!"
In the dim light, Aiven looked down and saw that the thing that had fallen was dazzlingly golden.
When he picked it up in his hands, he realized it was a huge gold ingot!
His mother's foot was so badly swollen from being hit that she had to stay in bed for three months before she could get up.
The jade thumb ring vanished without a trace the instant his mother was hit on the foot by the gold ingot, in the midst of the chaos that ensued.
At first, Ai Wenxing suspected that his mother was too flustered, and that her small, withered hands, which looked like chicken claws, couldn't hold the ring on, so it might have fallen to the ground.
But later, Ai Wenxing dismantled the kang (a heated brick bed) and dug the entire house up to the floor, but he still couldn't find the thumb ring.
On a market day, Ai Wenxing took the gold ingot, which weighed a full twenty pounds, to the county town.
After finding out that there was no pawnshop in Laozhulin County and that he had to go to Heihe, 300 li away, to find one, Ai Wenxing endured several nights of wind and rain, eating dry rations, and finally made it to Heihe.
During his trip to Heihe, he brought back a large amount of silver notes and exchanged them for the limit of what he could carry—a hefty thirty catties of silver.
Yes, thirty jin, not thirty liang!
However, he did not build houses or acquire fertile land as the girl had suggested.
Society was in great turmoil at the time, and owning real estate was like a sin.
During the three months that his mother, Dujuan, was unable to walk due to a foot injury, Dujuan, that intelligent woman, made Aivenxing run all over the towns and cities around Old Pig Forest where there were pawnshops.
He quietly and discreetly exchanged all those banknotes for silver.
At the same time, he felt a deep sense of lingering fear—what good fortune Ai Wenxing had to be able to bring back thirty catties of silver intact from such a far place in this era rife with bandits!
The Ai family's life improved.
The two brothers are now able to eat their fill, and they can have meat at every meal.
He developed muscles in his arms and thighs, and his younger brother grew rapidly.
They even added a loom to their home.
His mother, Dujuan, was originally a woman who married into the family from outside the mountains. It is said that she came from a wealthy family that had suffered a misfortune.
Du Juan never mentions her past, but her past is evident in every action and every smile.
Both Ai Wenxing and Ai Wendou can read a little bit, and they were taught by Du Juan.
But I dare not teach them too much, for fear that they will become too wild and no longer be content to stay in this wooden house and courtyard for the rest of their lives.
Now that she had money, Dujuan rented a house in town and hired an old maid.
She sent both of her sons to school in town, but stayed in the small wooden house at the foot of the old pig forest, waiting for her husband Ai Ganbei to return.
Three years passed like this.
During this time, his younger brother Ai Wendou unexpectedly became the assistant of a senior reporter at the Heihe newspaper.
Ai Wenxing joined the army and became a communications soldier in the Young Marshal's unit.
For the past three years, there has been no news of Ai Ganbei.
Dujuan has always lived in the wooden house at the foot of the old pig forest.
Later, she took in an old woman who had fled from disaster and recognized her as her godmother.
The two of them depended on each other for survival from then on.
In fact, on the very night he met that girl, Ai Wenxing had a very unfortunate premonition—when his father and that girl walked away without looking back, he suddenly felt a deep sense of sorrow, as if he would never see his father again in this lifetime.
When this feeling arose, he quickly spat out several times, trying to drive away this ominous premonition.
However, this premonition followed him until his mother was wiping her thumb ring, when the gold ingot fell and broke his mother's foot!
At that moment, the feeling seemed to be confirmed—it seemed that his father's life had been exchanged for this gold ingot.
As Su Ruyi listened, she felt a chill run down her spine—the thumb ring that Old Ai was describing looked so much like her own!
She asked, "And then? What happened next?"
Ai Wenxing lowered her head, and after a few minutes, when she raised it again, her eyes were filled with tears.
"As you know, back then, Heilongjiang Province was plagued by war and there were many bandits with unorthodox methods."
Once, when I came home for vacation, I whistled from afar, but my mother…
She didn't come out to greet me...
When I got home, I found the gate to the yard wide open...
Everything in the house was ransacked...
My mother and the old lady she took in, both of them...
All……"
He couldn't continue, so he reached out and wiped his face with his large hand:
"Later...I buried my mother and that old woman—"
Fearing retaliation from the bandits, they dared not disturb the grave...
After burying them, I went to the back hill to take a look.
During the three months my mother broke her leg, she had me dig a very secluded cave in the back mountain.
All the silver I earned was piled up in that cave.
I checked, and the silver is still there.
My mother... my mother would rather die than reveal the matter of the silver.
She was hoping that Wendou and I would have a good life together in the future...
My poor mother…
Su Ruyi's eyes also reddened as she listened. She asked softly, "What about your father? Is there still no news?"
Aivenxing shook his head: "No. There has been no news of him since he took that girl home that night."
"And then what happened?" Su Ruyi asked again.
"Later... I returned to the army."
Not long after, my company, led by its company commander, staged a collective uprising.
It was at that time that I came to understand what a people's army and an army of ordinary people are.
I led my comrades back to my hometown, back to Old Pig Forest, and dug up the silver.
Although prices were soaring at that time, silver was still a hard currency!
That money allowed all the companies in the entire garrison to be fully equipped with gun ammunition and to have enough to eat for more than half a year!
As Ai Wenxing spoke, he fell into a long reverie.
Five full minutes passed before he finally looked up.
"Are you tired of hearing me say all this?"
These are all old, trivial matters, but without starting from the beginning, there's no way to explain my father's story clearly.
Little miracle doctor, all these years, I've always wanted to know where my father went...
I am 63 years old this year...
Since I turned 60, I've felt that I might never find out the truth in my lifetime.
Whenever I think about this, I get overwhelmed by inexplicable emotions—what you call somatization symptoms.
"Little miracle doctor, how can I untangle this knot in my heart?"
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