Leaning his bicycle against the wall, Wang Tianxiao pushed open the drafty door of his house.
It was pitch black inside.
He stood on the floor inside the room, closed his eyes tightly for a few seconds, his eyes slightly moist, and hesitated to turn on the light.
He knew what he was about to see, and even thirty years later, he was still heartbroken whenever he thought about it.
A rustling sound came from the darkness, and a delicate voice asked cautiously, "Who's there?"
Wang Tianxiao reached behind the railing and pulled out a match, intending to light the kerosene lamp on it. He tried twice but couldn't get it to light. By the dim light of the match, he could see that the lamp was already empty of kerosene.
But from that faint light, a loud "waa" suddenly came from the kang (a heated brick bed), followed by the rapid sound of small footsteps approaching, and soft, tender little arms wrapping around Wang Tianxiao's neck.
"Dad...Dad...my mom is dying."
His daughter, Wang Fang, just hugged his neck and cried, unable to say anything else.
Wang Tianxiao couldn't help but let tears stream down his face.
The daughter, Wang Fang, suffered from severe malnutrition during her childhood due to hardship. Despite being very talented, she faced discrimination everywhere because of her height. Depressed, she hesitated to get married and eventually developed moderate depression, even contemplating suicide at one point.
As a father, failing to provide his children with a good life and leaving them with lifelong regrets is ultimately his dereliction of duty.
"Fangwa, be good, your mother won't die. Sit down first, Dad will go find some kerosene to relight the lamp."
His daughter's soft body softened Wang Tianxiao's heart. Thinking about how his daughter had become strong and independent in his previous life, but was not very close to him, he felt very guilty.
To make a living, he had no choice but to work odd jobs all the time, which caused him to miss out on the precious years of his childhood.
Reasonable……
Yet, this left him helpless.
"My mom said we're out of kerosene," Wang Fang said sweetly, her hand still clinging to her father's neck, unwilling to let go.
Wang Tianxiao can only go home once every six months, and every time he comes back, his daughter is always so clingy.
"Then... let's go ask Grandma for some."
"Grandma said she's gone too."
"Then, let me ask you, Wu Da."
"The fifth and sixth roads are not there, only the third and fourth roads are."
Wang Tianxiao remained silent for a while, gritted his teeth, and came to the cave dwelling on the north side, which was the cave dwelling of the fourth brother, Wang Tianyi.
He has been married for just over four years and has not yet separated from his family.
"Fourth brother, do you have any kerosene? My lamp is out of oil, can you spare some for me?"
After a long pause, a rustling voice came from inside: "Second Brother, it seems we don't have much left... Wait a minute, let me take a look."
Wang Tianxiao waited in the snow for a full five or six minutes with his daughter in his arms before the door opened. Wang Tianyi was wearing a sheepskin coat and carrying a small bottle.
"Here you go, these are all that's left."
By the light of the snow, Wang Tianxiao could see that there was only a small amount of kerosene left inside. He gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, this is enough. I'll buy some more and return it to you tomorrow."
"It's okay, it's okay, you can use it. I'm going to sleep now."
"good."
Seeing the door in front of him close, Wang Tianxiao went back to his cave dwelling.
He walked past the cave dwellings of the sixth and fifth brothers, stood for a moment in front of his mother's cave dwelling, and then came to the door of the third brother's house, a hint of indifference flashing in his eyes.
Finally, they returned to the cave dwelling.
He lit the kerosene lamp, then climbed onto the kang (a heated brick bed), and held his wife, who was burning up in the corner of the kang and shivering from the cold, in his arms.
This was the second time he had experienced this night.
Just like thirty years ago, he returned home unexpectedly and found his wife unconscious.
The kang (heated brick bed) was freezing cold; there wasn't a single straw to start a fire, and not a single piece of firewood to boil some water for his wife. The water vat was almost completely frozen solid, so solid that even a steel knife handle couldn't break it.
He put his wife down, helped her wrap herself in the quilt, and then went to the woodshed. He saw that every other family's woodpile was full, but his own was empty.
His wife hadn't been allocated land after they married, and since he wasn't a rural resident, the family didn't own a single plot. Without land, they had no crops to grow and no straw to use for heating, making winters feel like an eternity.
Of course, this place is near the mountains, so there shouldn't be a shortage of fuel, but his wife is pregnant and has difficulty moving around, so it's impossible for her to go several kilometers away to collect firewood.
He entrusted his fifth and sixth brothers to help his wife gather firewood before he left, but for some reason they didn't. The sixth brother is unreliable, but the fifth brother shouldn't have ignored it.
Wang Tianxiao looked at all the firewood stacks for a while, then came to the first pile on the left, which belonged to his third brother, Wang Tianren. He filled a large basket with it and carried it back to his own cave dwelling.
They owe themselves more than just a basket of firewood; taking back some is better than nothing.
Soon, the kang (heated brick bed) was heated up.
The kang (heated brick bed) in Northwest China is similar to that in Northeast China. No matter how cold it is inside the house, as long as the kang is heated, it will gradually warm up. A warm kang for one's wife and children is the most simple and beautiful life goal for men in Northwest China.
Wang Tianxiao then painstakingly scooped some ice from the vat, put it in a pot, boiled it, poured some into a thermos, and filled two IV bottles, stuffing them into his wife's bed.
Wang Fang, being very sensible, leaned on the railing and talked to him, occasionally running over to put her mother's outstretched hand back into the quilt.
Children from poor families mature early; even at such a young age, she already knows how to care for her mother.
Wang Tianxiao rummaged through the drawers and found a piece of Analgin. He lifted his wife's head to feed her, but after thinking for a moment, he broke off half of it and only fed her half.
While Analgin is very effective, it can have significant side effects for certain groups of people. My wife is about to give birth, so we need to be careful.
After doing all that, he leaned against the wall, lay down next to his wife, and looked at her, her brow furrowed in her sleep. She was so young then, only twenty-three or twenty-four, in the prime of her life.
Think of how she worked hard with him for half her life, working in the fields when it was busy and doing odd jobs on construction sites when it was not. She was only in her fifties, but her hair was already completely white, she had lumbar muscle strain so bad that she couldn't straighten her back, and she was also severely anemic.
Raising three children to adulthood, she not only fulfilled the responsibilities of a mother, but also helped her husband share many burdens.
He... didn't give her a stable life, let alone a comfortable one. He tried very hard, but he still couldn't be a good husband.
As the kang (heated brick bed) warmed up, little Wang Fang began to feel drowsy. She snuggled close to her father, holding his left hand tightly, and occasionally kissed the back of his hand with her tender little mouth.
"Dad... Dad... Father."
Even after falling asleep, he still mumbled "Dad" in his sleep.
Wang Tianxiao gently rubbed her little hands, which were frozen stiff and looked like little steamed buns.
The family was poor and couldn't afford cotton, so the child still wore a padded jacket in winter, and developed habitual chilblains on his hands, which didn't gradually get better until high school.
After an unknown amount of time, Li Yali, the wife, slowly opened her eyes. She was initially confused, thinking she was dreaming, so she held her husband's hand and placed it on her face.
But soon she realized this wasn't a dream, and her husband was lying right next to her. She exclaimed in surprise, "Shopkeeper, when did you get back?"
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