Chapter 10 The Last Letter The boat of friendship is made of plastic...
"Escaped?"
This statement piqued Xu Sirui's interest. He had assumed that everyone living here was content with their circumstances, but he hadn't expected someone to be as obsessed with escaping as he was.
The story of Zhu Yingning and Zhu Juan is neither long nor short, clichéd but profound. It is like an entertaining article in "Story Club". Readers will feel pity after reading it, but will forget it after a few seconds. Only the parties involved are trapped in this story.
Zhu Juan was five years older than Zhu Yingning, and since childhood, Zhu Yingning had loved following her around and playing with her. But there was one thing Zhu Yingning couldn't figure out: why did Zhu Juan's mother always stay in her room? On the few occasions she visited Zhu Juan's home, she'd see her chained in a corner, her hair long enough to cover her eyes, her face dirty and sallow, her face constantly grinning at an embroidered pillow, looking completely clueless.
"Zhu Juan's mother is a fool." Everyone in the village said so.
Only Zhu Juan quietly told her: "My mother is not stupid, she is a college student."
The rare term "college student" was filled with the sacred glory of knowledge to Zhu Yingning. She asked Zhu Juan curiously, "How did you know that?"
"My dad said it himself when he beat my mom. He said, 'I spent so much money to bring you, a female college student, home, but in the end, you, a stinking bitch, can only lay hens and not cocks. All my money is wasted.'"
The fact that female eggs are laid but male eggs are not means that Zhu Juan has only daughters and no sons in her family.
Zhu Juan is the eldest daughter in the family and she has six younger sisters.
Seven sisters made up the seven Calabash Brothers, but Zhu Juan didn't find it funny because she knew she had several more sisters who weren't counted. There weren't seven sisters, but ten, and unfortunately, three had "disappeared," like snowflakes falling into a furnace, licked clean by the flames, never to be mentioned again.
One of them was taken away by Zhu Juan’s grandfather on the day she was born. The grandfather returned empty-handed and said only one sentence: "May the river god bless her." Another was sold to the next village as soon as she learned to speak. Another, because of a slight IQ problem, slipped and fell down a hillside when she was four years old. When the villagers found her, she had been eaten by wild beasts in the mountains and only half of her body was left - of course, these are all "rumors" passed down by word of mouth.
Zhu Juan didn’t know the truth, and Zhu Yingning didn’t know even more.
Zhu Yingning only knew that Zhu Juan always had a hard time. As the eldest daughter in the family, she shouldered all the household chores, not only serving her parents and caring for her young, hungry sisters, but also enduring the constant nagging and criticism from her grandparents. She dropped out of school in the fourth grade, and her most common comment to Zhu Yingning was, "Ningning, you must keep studying."
Such boring and dull days, whose end could be seen at a glance, should have lasted forever, until Zhu Yingning was eleven years old and Zhu Juan was sixteen years old, when her father arranged a marriage for her.
At sixteen, too young to even get a marriage certificate, Zhu Juan was betrothed by her father to a neighboring village. A few banquets were arranged, a quick meal was served, and they were hustled into the bridal chamber by the crowd. That was it. As for the marriage certificate? No one cared. Everyone said they could just get one when they reached the legal age to marry.
One night, half a year later, Zhu Juan secretly came to find Zhu Yingning. They held hands and ran to a secret cave. Zhu Yingning lit the candle and looked back. She was surprised to find that Zhu Juan's face was swollen.
"Ningning, I don't want to live anymore." After she said that, she burst into tears.
"He hit you?"
"Beat him! He beats me no matter what. Even if there's no reason, he'll make one up. I told him to eat, and he beat me up because I disturbed his sleep. I didn't tell him to eat, and he beat me up because I didn't respect him as a man. Ningning, look at my teeth."
She opened her mouth, revealing a shattered cavity. She resembled a wounded hippopotamus, broken teeth, red gums, and the constant flow of saliva from the pain, all forming a mournful, agonizing wail. She lifted her clothes. Bruises, bruised and blue, crisscrossed her tan skin. She was not a torn silk—silk was white and luxurious, but her life was far less precious—but she was a ravine-riddled loess plateau, the marks of sand her wounds.
Zhu Yingning gritted his teeth, trembling all over: "I'm going to beat him up!"
She possessed a strange sense of justice. Zhu Juan was startled when she heard this and quickly grabbed her arm, saying, "Don't! Don't do that! He has many relatives. If you provoke him, the two villages will be at odds with each other. You will be in dire straits!"
Zhu Juan said, "I can't stand it anymore. If I stay with him, I'll be beaten to death. Ningning, I want to leave now, I have to leave, I have to leave here!"
Escape was too unfamiliar to them, but the situation was urgent and there was no time for discussion. She came to Zhu Yingning to say goodbye one last time, and she planned to leave tonight.
Things were moving too fast, and Zhu Yingning was in a state of mindlessness. She had no time to savor the sadness. She could only catch the few remaining wisps of rationality in her mind and said to her: "I will give you money. You can't leave without money."
"No need! Where would you get the money?" Zhu Juan took out her pocket and showed it to her. "Look, I stole all the hidden money that old man had hidden while he was sleeping. Don't worry, I have money."
"No, no... It takes a lot of money to go to a big city. I'll get some more for you."
In Zhu Yingning's impression, cities are steel forests. Zhu Juan wants to escape from one forest to another, a completely unfamiliar area for them. She is powerless and can only instinctively fill her bag with enough money.
"But where do you get the money?" Zhu Juan asked her.
"Don't worry about it. Just stay here and I'll go back to the house and get the money for you."
Zhu Yingning planned to give all the family's living expenses for this month to Zhu Juan, but when she ran back to the cave with a stack of tissues, Zhu Juan had already left.
This was the last time they met.
Three months later, Zhu Yingning received a letter from Zhu Juan, in which she said that everything was fine.
The city is huge, completely different from the countryside. There are good people and bad people in the city. I was unlucky and met a bad guy who ripped me off, but I was also lucky and met a good person who took me in and gave me a job. I'm working as a waitress in a restaurant now. Ningning, I miss you. Love you, Juan.
After that, Zhu Yingning would receive a letter from Zhu Juan every two or three months, until April 2, 2008, when Zhu Juan told her her birthdate.
From then on, there was no news from anywhere in the world.
**
After the story ended, Xu Sirui fell silent, not knowing what to say for a long time. The embarrassment of having to get up in the middle of the night to find something to eat and being seen crying had been largely alleviated by this story. He couldn't help but ask, "Why are you telling me all this? We're not even close, are we? Aren't you afraid I'll tell everyone about your friend's whereabouts?"
"I'm not afraid."
He thought Zhu Yingning would say something like "I believe you", but she took out all the envelopes from the tin box and showed him the covers. "Look, I blacked out all her addresses. I will never let anyone find her."
Xu Sirui curled his lips: "Can you remember her address?"
"Of course, I'll keep it in mind. When I grow up and go to college, I'll go find her and see if she's doing well."
After chatting for a while, they yawned at the same time. Looking at each other's slightly tired faces, Zhu Yingning suggested, "Shall we go back? The photographer should have gone to bed."
Xu Sirui said indifferently: "You lead the way."
They retraced their steps in the dark.
I returned to the village anxiously. Fortunately, the whole crew did not mobilize to search for people all over the mountains like last time. Perhaps the photographer who attacked in the middle of the night also knew that he was in the wrong.
They stepped into the room one after another. Zhu Yingning pretended to climb onto the kang, but when she turned around, she saw Xu Sirui standing in front of the wardrobe. He took out a pair of clean pajamas from it, and then took off his pants in front of her.
“!!!”
The moonlight barely illuminated Xu Sirui's long, straight, white legs, and...
She was stunned with shock, and quickly turned her head back and buried her face in the quilt, her heart pounding.
After a while, she felt the weight of the mattress beside her. Her cheeks flushed red and she stammered, saying in a whisper: "Why, why did you take off your pants in front of me...?"
The emphasis of this sentence should have been "in front of me", but Xu Sirui failed to interpret it and focused on taking off the pants. He responded as a matter of course: "Nonsense, we were just sitting in the cave, and our pants are dirty, so of course we have to change. But you, why are you lying on the bed without changing your pants? Hey, Zhu Yingning, don't be so sloppy, get up and change your pants." As he spoke, he pretended to pull her pants.
Zhu Yingning was so frightened that she grabbed the waistband of her pants tightly and used her other hand to open his hand without any hesitation.
Pop.
A crisp sound.
Xu Sirui covered the back of his hand, stunned by her blow, and cursed softly: "Fuck, are you sick?"
Fortunately, he didn't insist on pulling down her pants. He cursed for a while and then lay down, repeatedly forbidding her: "If you don't change your pants, stay away from me. You are so dirty."
Zhu Yingning didn't say anything.
After everyone had lain down and covered themselves with blankets, ready to go to sleep, she asked softly in a tone that made Xu Sirui very uncomfortable: "Are all the people in your city like this?"
"ha?"
"It's just... you, are your customs so uncivilized?"
Xu Sirui didn't know how changing into clean pants before bed could be linked to uncivilized customs, so he angrily said, "You think you're really pure? Trafficking women? Forcing people to marry? If that's pure, then our city is really not pure."
Zhu Yingning didn't expect him to say that. He seemed to be choked. After a long while, he sighed and replied in a low voice: "...You are right."
After a pause, she continued, "But...but I think people are complicated. There are good and bad people everywhere, and even the same person can have both good and bad sides. I hate some people and things in the village, but we also have many good people. Generally speaking, most of us are simple and honest, definitely more simple and honest than you people in the city. As long as you are willing to get along with them seriously..."
"Stop." Xu Sirui interrupted her, "Are you Tang Monk? What are you chanting?"
“…”
"Don't think you can lecture me just because you helped me tonight. I'm telling you, I just hate you. No matter how much you say, I hate you. I hate all of you. Get away from me!"
“…”
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