When she opened her eyes again, the morning light had already filled the entire yard.
From outside came the sounds of people washing up, mingled with the faint sound of chickens crowing and dogs barking, a scene filled with the tranquility and vitality unique to the countryside. She rubbed her eyes, quickly put on her clothes, and walked to the main room.
The calendar hanging on the wall read April 18, 1988, the third day of the first lunar month, the Year of the Dragon. She read softly, "Surprisingly, it's also the Year of the Dragon. I traveled here from the Year of the Dragon, thirty years later. I don't know the difference between these two years, but they're both Chinese dragons. Since we're destined to be together, please bless me with the protection of the Golden Dragon!" Her voice was filled with anticipation for the future and a hint of uncertainty.
"Second sister, please help me comb my hair. You got up later than me today."
At that moment, Huang Wenxia ran in, holding a small round mirror in her left hand and a comb in her right. Xu Mengyao naturally took the comb and began to comb Wenxia's hair. She expertly tied two pigtails and looked at Wenxia's rosy little face and big, watery eyes in the mirror. Her adorable appearance filled her heart with love.
However, when she looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn't help but sigh. She wasn't as pretty as her older sister. Even her annoying brother had inherited their father's big eyes, while she herself had single eyelids. This made her feel a little melancholic. After all, in her previous life, she had undergone a process of manipulation, with naturally scalloped double eyelids and beautiful inner corners of her eyes.
While his thoughts were drifting, Wenxia picked up a schoolbag from the small bed in the main room, slung it over his shoulders and said, "Hurry up, second sister, we're going to be late."
She quickly put down the mirror and went to the yard to wash. As soon as she hung the towel on the rope, Wenxia handed her schoolbag and two steamed buns. The two sisters walked towards school while eating the steamed buns.
Along the way, Xu Mengyao often saw white slogans sprayed outside brick and tile houses: "Don't work outside the home until you finish junior high school," "If you want to be rich, have fewer children and plant more trees," and "Control population size and improve quality." The sense of the times made her sigh with admiration. She thought to herself, "This is truly a testament to history!"
When they arrived at school, they went to their respective classrooms.
She was sitting in her seat, arranging her textbooks on the table, when suddenly a boy's voice sounded in her ears.
"Huang Wenjuan, your father came back the day before yesterday, right? I smelled the smell of chicken when I got home." Liang Mancang said with a bit of mischief and pride.
Xu Mengyao raised her head and glanced at him with a smile, "You have a dog nose, you know everything about my family."
The boy chuckled and puffed out his chest proudly: "That's right, my nose is very sensitive!"
Seeing his arrogant look, Xu Mengyao deliberately said, "Mancang, if you could use your nose for studying, you would get a perfect score on every test!"
Liang Mancang was stunned, then scratched his head and smiled embarrassedly.
At this moment, the classroom door was pushed open, and a teacher came in with a book under his arm and a small stick in his hand. The children immediately quieted down, sat back in their seats, and prepared for class.
Xu Mengyao sat there obediently. Although she was curious about the textbook courses of this era, for her, who graduated from a 211 university, spending the whole morning studying fifth-grade knowledge was still too long.
Finally, the school bell rang, and the children in the classroom rushed out like wild horses. Wenxia stretched his neck at the school gate, looking around anxiously. When he saw Xu Mengyao, he shouted, "Second sister, hurry up! I'm so hungry!"
The two of them trotted all the way home. Wenxia went straight to the kitchen as soon as he entered the door, stood on tiptoe to open the cupboard, and prepared to take out the steamed buns left over from the morning to fill his stomach.
"Wait a minute, eating cold steamed buns is bad for your stomach. I'll heat them up for you." Xu Mengyao persuaded softly.
"It's okay, I'll just eat a couple of bites and go out and play for a while." Wenxia took a big bite of the steamed bun nonchalantly.
Xu Mengyao shook her head helplessly and added water to the pot to start the fire. Huang's mother was still busy in the fields. Her eldest sister, Huang Wenrong, was studying in a town several miles away, living on campus and only coming home on weekends. Xu Mengyao was responsible for making porridge and heating steamed buns every noon, waiting for Huang's mother to come home and stir-fry a simple dish.
Just as the meal was ready, the gate of the yard slammed shut, and then Xiao Wenxia rushed in with a panicked look on his face.
"What's wrong with you? Why are you closing the door in broad daylight?" Huang's mother asked in confusion.
Little Wenxia swallowed nervously and explained in a low voice, "Mom, Erya, Yinliang and I were playing with a sedan chair. When it was our turn to lift Yinliang, I lost my balance and dropped him, making him cry. I was afraid my grandma would come to our house and beat me."
Erya was the adopted daughter of my uncle. My uncle and his wife had been married for over twenty years, but they only had one son. Grandma Huang was extremely dissatisfied with this, believing that my aunt had failed to fulfill her responsibility to reproduce. She often nagged her and even wanted my uncle to marry another child.
But my uncle disagreed, and a few years ago, he even brought Erya home to raise. Grandma Huang was furious and cursed at my uncle for three days and three nights. From then on, the relationship between my uncle's family and Grandma Huang became strained, and apart from some filial gifts during festivals, they rarely interacted.
Yinliang is the youngest son of my uncle and the apple of Grandma Huang's eye.
Huang's uncle was a posthumous child, and the old lady always favored him. However, because he was blind in one eye, it was difficult to find a husband for him. Later, their aunt fled from Sichuan Province and was chosen by Grandma Huang as her daughter-in-law. Soon, the Huang family had two grandsons: Huang Jinliang and Huang Yinliang.
The old lady has been living with her youngest son, spending all day with her two grandsons, and often asking Huang's father for money to support them.
After hearing this, Huang's mother sighed softly:
"Oh, I don't know what your grandma will do now."
As soon as the voice fell, the old lady's angry curse was heard:
"Old family! Look at how your money-losing son threw the silver beam! I told you not to keep a bastard from outside, you can't! You two are so obsessed with raising an outsider instead of raising our own child from the Huang family. You have no conscience!... I raised you with all my heart, and now you've got a family and a wife, you've forgotten your mother... You actually let an outsider bully your own nephew!..."
Xu Mengyao ate her meal while listening to the old lady's scolding, and couldn't help but laugh inwardly. This old lady really had a way of scolding people, it was almost like she was performing an opera.
After a while, the uncle's voice of comfort was heard, and the old lady's angry scolding gradually subsided.
Little Wenxia looked at Huang's mother nervously and asked cautiously, "Mom, my grandma didn't scold me? She won't come to settle the score with me tonight, will she?"
Huang's mother smiled and said, "Don't worry. If I hadn't scolded you just now, you wouldn't have come tonight. You should thank our family for the chicken we sent yesterday."
After hearing this, Xiao Wenxia breathed a sigh of relief, a relieved smile on his face: "Haha, that chicken didn't die in vain!"
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