Autumn of 1978.
Before five o'clock, Liang Qiuhua and his elder brother Dahua got up and carried a basket to the mountain to cut grass for the pigs.
Liang Qiuhua is the third child in the family. She and Dahua were the first to be born, followed by Dad and Mom, then Xiaohua, and the laziest one is Erhua.
Before daybreak, smoke was already rising from several houses in Hetou Village. The mountain where they cut grass for pigs was next to Hetou Village, so they were familiar with the place. Besides, Dahua was nine years older than the thirteen-year-old Qiuhua, and was already a strong young man. Qiuhua was not afraid of the two of them traveling together.
"Girl, be careful, there's a lot of dew on the grass, it's slippery."
Qiuhua agreed and became more focused. Her elder brother was an honest and reliable man.
Qiuhua has four siblings, and she's the only daughter. Now her mother is pregnant with another child, but they don't know if it's a boy or a girl. Of the three brothers, Qiuhua likes her eldest brother the most.
Liang Dahua is handsome, tall, looks gentle, and works very hard. Logically, he should have been married off a long time ago, but the villagers all know his family well and are aware that his family is extremely poor. Who would be willing to push their daughter into this fire pit?
Erhua was six years older than Qiuhua. Although they shared the same father and mother, he was vastly different from Dahua in both appearance and temperament. He was also thin, but short and lazy. He complained that there was a famine when he was born and his mother didn't feed him, so he didn't grow up to be a human being. He spent his days wandering around, dreaming of doing something big.
Everyone in the family, regardless of age, calls Qiuhua "sister", even Xiaohua, who is nine years younger than her, calls her that. At first, she tried to correct him, but later she got used to it and just let him do it.
Qiuhua is young, but he is nimble. He grabs the top of the pig grass with one hand and uses the other hand to reach over and hook the bottom with the sickle. With a snap, a handful of pig grass is neatly cut off from the roots.
Soon, the basket was full, and Qiuhua's face was covered with beads of sweat. Her neck was sticky, and her chest was stuffy and hot. While Dahua was cleaning, Qiuhua stood up to catch her breath. After all, it was a cool autumn day, and soon the sweat on her face had almost dried.
"Brother, how is the little fishmonger you went to see the day before yesterday? Is she willing to come to our house to look at the beams?" They carried the baskets and walked home.
"They think we are poor and don't want to come." Dahai waved his hands. He was used to being rejected and didn't take it too hard.
In their time, after the matchmaker introduced the man, if the woman was interested, she would go to the man's house with the matchmaker to see if the beam was thick. If it was thicker, the family was better off, and if it was thinner, the family was not well off.
No one wants to come and see it.
Compared to his three brothers, Qiuhua was more worried. Their family wasn't so poor they couldn't afford to eat, but they only ate meat once a year, with the exception of pig's head cakes during Chinese New Year. His eldest brother was already 21, and still couldn't find a wife, which made Qiuhua very anxious.
She was calculating when she could finish the embroidery work, sell it for a little money and save it, and then raise some chickens and ducks when she had some money.
Junior high school was all you needed. Some of the young women in the village dropped out after just a few years of elementary school. It wasn't because of money; few families were poorer than theirs. They just said studying was useless and useless. But my father didn't think so. He was a sent-down worker who had previously worked as a blacksmith in Shanghai. He had seen the world.
Dad said she still needed to learn something, to be different from everyone else. Qiuhua thought his father made sense. But she wasn't cut out for school, and she knew it, so she decided to just go to junior high school.
The two of them went to the pigpen to unload the grass and shake the basket clean. Dahua continued to work in the back, while Qiuhua took the basket to the door to dry. When they were done and were about to go in, they found the door was ajar.
By this time, the other people in the family should have gone out to farm. Could it be that they forgot to close the door?
Liang Qiuhua was a little angry. She had repeatedly reminded her mother to lock the door before going out. The silk threads she used for embroidery were very expensive, only two yuan for a small handful. There were many young women doing embroidery in the village, and she was afraid that someone would take advantage of her.
Sure enough, there was a rustling noise in the room. She realized something was wrong and pushed the door open. As a result, two figures bumped into her and made her fall to the ground.
She looked closely and saw that it was the two spicy sisters, the big and small spicy sisters. Qiuhua had always been at odds with them, and now her anger flared up. She jumped up from the ground and chased after them: "You two spicy girls, you bad guys, you stole my thread, give it to me!"
"Who stole your wire? This wire is ours. We just passed by your house and went in to take a look. When no one was there, we came out!" Da Lazi's voice was hoarse and gurgling in his throat.
Qiuhua was furious and ran fast because she was light. The Lazi sisters were fat and could not outrun her, so they were held back by her hands.
They were clutching three small bundles of silk thread; there was no doubt they had stolen them. But although Qiuhua was light and fast, she was much weaker than them. With a flick of their hands, Qiuhua was knocked aside.
She got up again and chased after them, fighting with them, but she was at a complete disadvantage out of two to one. She had several bloody scratches on her face and was kicked to the ground.
When Dahua came back from the pigpen to the front of the house, Qiuhua was already crying like a tearful person.
"Brother, Lazi came and stole my silk thread!"
"How did they get in? The door wasn't closed properly?" Dahua felt heartbroken seeing the girl's face injured like that, and quickly pulled her into the house. There was some porridge on the stove, and he scooped it up, making just enough for two bowls.
"You must be hungry, eat first." He handed a bowl to Qiuhua and saw that there was a thread missing from her embroidery frame. He was furious. This was not the first time Lazi had stolen thread in the village, and now his sister had been stolen by them. He was confused. What should he do? But what could he do?
After asking himself this question twice in his mind, he actually felt a little relieved.
"Last time I heard Yang Ertou say that they stole the thread. It's really unlucky. It's not your fault. Don't be sad. Mom and Dad are the same. They always leave the door open!"
Qiuhua drank the porridge and listened carefully, but she didn't hear the brother say that he wanted to go with her to get the silk thread back. Her heart suddenly became bitter and tears flowed into the bowl.
My brother is a good person, but he is honest and cowardly. Even at this point, a 21-year-old man doesn't dare to come to my house to ask for an explanation.
"Sister, stop crying. Just buy some more silk thread."
Qiuhua put down her bowl and stopped eating, crying, "We're almost out of rice at home, how can we afford to buy silk thread? You're my brother, and you're afraid of those two rascals! I'll just get a beating today for having my silk thread stolen, and then I'll get another beating from Mom and Dad later!"
"No, no, I'll stop them and I won't let them hit you with a stick."
In the end, I still didn’t dare to go to Lazimen to ask for an explanation!
At this time, Erhua came into the room angrily. He sat down, glared at Dahua, and cursed: "Useless coward, you only dare to tell your sister at home when she is bullied."
He told Qiuhua to drink the porridge quickly, picked up a spiked rake from the pigpen, and shouted, "Come on, I'll help you get some silk thread. Those two bastards are bullying my sister. Rip off their doors!"
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