Chapter 3

Chapter 3

She was silent for a few seconds before replying, “Let’s wait until Uncle Wei and I have settled in.”

Even if I was only going to see my mother as her niece, my heart was still full of joy.

I scrubbed every piece of clothing I owned, inside and out, until it was spotless. I even stitched up the holes in my socks, one careful stitch at a time.

She was my only mother.

It had been a year since I’d seen her. I had so much I wanted to tell her.

On the twenty-first day of the twelfth lunar month, Mom called again.

She said, “Jingjing, it’s not very convenient on Mom’s end right now. I’ll come see you after some time.

“Mom has to consider Uncle Wei’s family’s reputation too. Jingjing, try to understand, all right?”

The call ended.

Dapeng’s father, Uncle Meng, happened to return to the village.

At the beginning of the year, Dad had gone out to work with him.

He patted my head and said, “Your dad said the round-trip tickets are too expensive, so he won’t be coming back this year.

“Why don’t you go to your mom’s for New Year’s Eve?”

Mom had a new home now.

And I wasn’t welcome there either.

On New Year’s Eve, firecrackers started going off at every household early in the morning.

I sat on the big rock by the door, staring blankly into space.

Sister Xiangliu passed by and looked at me for a while. After walking quite a distance away, she turned back and sat down beside me.

She grabbed a handful of roasted peanuts from her pocket and shoved them at me. “Eat.”

They were probably over-roasted.

They tasted so bitter.

Sister Xiangliu was four years older than me and was famous in the village for being fierce.

Her father loved to drink, and whenever he got drunk, he beat his wife.

Her mother finally couldn’t take it anymore and ran away one dark, windy night.

So her father turned around and started beating Xiangliu instead.

It wasn’t until two years ago, when Sister Xiangliu picked up a kitchen knife and chopped off one of her father’s fingers, that her situation improved.

But ever since then, the adults in the village told their children to stay away from her.

They were afraid she would go crazy.

She didn’t like to talk. She was always scowling and going around by herself.

But right then, I thought she was very nice.

After I finished the peanuts, I ran back into the house and carried out a brand-new big candy jar.

I opened it and picked out two strawberry lollipops for Sister Xiangliu.

“Where did you get so much candy?”

“My mom bought it for me the day she left.” I smiled at her. “She said that when I finished all this candy, she’d come back to see me.”

Sister Xiangliu stuffed the candy back into my hands. “Then save it for yourself!”

“It’s okay. You can have it.” I lowered my voice. “She was lying to me.”

That candy was just a trick to coax a child.

Unfortunately, I had suddenly grown up, and no matter what, I couldn’t fool myself anymore.

Sister Xiangliu tore off the wrapper and bit down hard.

Then she said loudly, “What does it matter whether they come back or not? We can survive on our own.”

After that, she shared the biggest roasted sweet potatoes, the tenderest rose shoots, the largest Japanese raisin fruits, and the sweetest wild grapes with me.

Winter passed and spring came. I went up the mountain with Sister Xiangliu to cut pigweed.

On a barren rock face, I saw a clump of lush green wild grass I didn’t know the name of.

There were no flowers or trees around them.

They swayed there all alone in the wind.

I pointed at them and said, “That wild grass is just like us.”

With fathers who didn’t care and mothers who didn’t love us, we had nothing at all.

Sister Xiangliu looked at them for a few seconds, then smiled. “But they’re so green. They’re living so well.

“The grass under the shade of those trees isn’t growing nearly as well.”

Mm.

Even in such barren soil, they were still full of life.

A few months later, my mom gave birth to a little brother.

She carried him back to the village, so proud she couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

“Your dad used to always say I couldn’t give birth to a son. Now I’m going to let everyone see that the one with the problem was Cui Bighead, not me!”

Oh.

So she’d come back to hold her head high, not to see me in particular.

Dad refused to be outdone.

When he came home for the Mid-Autumn Festival, he brought back explosive news: he was getting remarried, and the woman he was marrying was from the city.

It would be the woman’s first marriage, and after they married, Dad could live with her in the city.

The men in the village were green with envy.

“Cui Bighead must have smoke rising from his ancestral graves.”

“Who knows what kind of damn luck he stepped in?”

“Did that woman get her eyes glued shut with gunk? How did she end up falling for him?”

The women, meanwhile, cracked sunflower seeds and teased me. “Jingjing, you’ll be a city girl from now on too. Are you happy?”

To be honest, I did feel a little hopeful.

After we got home, I asked Dad quietly, “Will you take me to the city with you?”