Chapter 2: Rural Absurd Past Events Chapter 2: Shagou Village 2

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Li Xiulan was still hesitating, her head buzzing.

Yang Dafu had already undone the three buttons on Li Xiulan's chest.

More than half of the Xueshan Jinji was right before his eyes, within arm's reach.

He was like a starving wild boar, plunging into this primitive snowy mountain, rooting and gnawing, savage and eager.

Li Xiulan seemed to have resigned herself to fate.

But just then,

Wang Zhanggen's broad, radiant smile appeared in her mind.

And the words he said to her when he left:

"Wife, wait for me to come back, I will definitely earn lots and lots of money, and give you a very, very good life!"

Li Xiulan snapped back to her senses; no matter what, she could not do anything to betray her husband!

So she suddenly pushed Yang Dafu away.

Yang Dafu was completely unprepared, thinking Li Xiulan had already submitted to him, but this sudden push made him immediately stagger backward, losing his balance and landing with a thump on an old mulberry tree stump.

The branches of the mulberry stump poked his crotch, making him let out a miserable cry of "Ah!"

"Li Xiulan, don't you dare be shameless!"

Yang Dafu, crawling up in a sorry state, flew into a rage out of embarrassment, tore off his false kindness, and revealed a ferocious expression.

"Director Yang, I'm sorry, I cannot do anything to betray Zhanggen!"

Li Xiulan hurriedly buttoned up her chest, frantically picked up the bamboo pole, hoisted four heavy bags of mulberry leaves, and quickly walked out of the mulberry field.

She went to find her two sons.

Carrying the youngest son on her back, hoisting mulberry leaves on her shoulder, holding the eldest son's right hand, she hurried down the terraced fields.

Behind her, Yang Dafu's curses came clearly:

"Li Xiulan, you just wait, you'll get what's coming to you!"

She finally got home with great difficulty, and it was already past one o'clock at noon.

The scorching sun baked the earth; the messy courtyard was full of chickens, ducks, and dogs running around.

Seeing Li Xiulan return, these beasts immediately rushed up and circled around her feet, clucking, quacking, and barking.

It was clear they were starving.

Li Xiulan quickly fed them some leftover foul rice and dishes from the night before, and without making lunch for her two sons, she hurried to the silkworm room to feed the silkworms.

The silkworm room was covered with white silkworm babies wriggling wildly; the smell of lime spread on the floor for disinfection was very pungent; beneath the silkworm babies were piles of silkworm droppings and mulberry leaf stems several centimeters thick, with not a single green mulberry leaf in sight.

These silkworm babies had entered the "Great Eating Phase," exactly the stage of frantic eating; in one week, they could be put on silkworm racks to spin cocoons, and once they spun cocoons, they could be sold for money.

Li Xiulan hurriedly scattered the freshly picked mulberry leaves.

As soon as the lush green mulberry leaves were scattered, the "shasha" sound of chewing came immediately, like rain; in a short while, the mulberry leaves were crawling with silkworms.

The mulberry leaves covering them disappeared at a visible speed, replaced by dense, wriggling white silkworms.

The idiom "devouring like silkworms and whales" was concretized here at this moment.

After feeding the silkworm babies, Li Xiulan returned home again.

She first put rice in the pressure cooker, lit the firewood, then ladled a big bucket of congee simmered that morning from the large aluminum pot into two swill buckets, added bran and some leftover rice and dishes, mixed them evenly, then carried the swill buckets to the pigsty in the vegetable garden to feed the pigs.

The swill bucket was very dirty, flies buzzing around it, emitting a foul stench; the pigs in the pigsty were even dirtier, pig feces and urine everywhere, the stench reeking to the heavens.

But Li Xiulan did not mind the dirt, because she knew that when the New Year came and these two pigs were sold, she would have money to buy good food and pretty clothes for the children.

After feeding the pigs, Li Xiulan picked some water spinach and a few eggplants in the vegetable garden, then went home to cook.

That's how it is in the countryside: at mealtime, the beasts eat first; once the beasts are full, then they prepare food for people.

The pressure cooker in the firewood room made a "hiss hiss" sound; by the time Li Xiulan returned from the vegetable garden, the rice was cooked, and the firewood in the earthen stove had just burned out.

This was experience Li Xiulan had gained from cooking for many years; every time she cooked, she could manage to add firewood only once and cook the rice perfectly without burning it.

After washing the water spinach and peeling the eggplants, Li Xiulan started a fire under the large iron pot to stir-fry dishes.

A spoonful of white congealed lard was put into the hot large iron pot, making a sizzling sound and giving off fragrant oil vapor.

The two sons had played enough in the living room and ran to the firewood room, jumping and shouting noisily.

Li Xiulan asked her eldest son Wang Dashan to help add firewood to the stove, and told her youngest son Wang Erhai to play with the big yellow dog beside the firewood pile.

Fleas jumped from the big yellow dog onto Wang Erhai; Wang Erhai noticed nothing at all, only crawling happily in front of the big yellow dog, lowering his head to open his mouth wanting to suck the big yellow dog's teats.

The big yellow dog dared not resist and barked "woof woof" at Li Xiulan twice.

Li Xiulan turned back and only then realized the seriousness of the matter; she hurriedly picked up Wang Erhai, made some thin congee, added white sugar, and while feeding Wang Erhai, she stir-fried dishes.

The kitchen was filled with dark smoke and foul air; the nonstop busyness left Li Xiulan haggard and exhausted in body and mind.

But she seemed to have already adapted to it, or rather, become numb to it.

She was born poor and did not think any of this was strange.

Nor did she know that to city people, these were shocking scenes of hardship.

After lunch, Li Xiulan turned on the small ceiling fan in the living room, let her two sons play in the living room, while she could not be idle for a moment; putting on a straw hat and shouldering a hoe, she went to weed the peanut field beside the vegetable garden.

Whether they could eat peanut oil next year depended entirely on whether this one mu and three fen of peanuts had a good harvest.

She did not feel the midday sun was scorching; on the contrary, she felt hoeing weeds under the big sun was just right, because the sun could dry the weeds just hoed up to death.

Li Xiulan bent her waist, waved the hoe, and stirred the soil of the peanut field.

Her thoughts drifted, thinking of those words Yang Dafu had said to her in the mulberry field that morning.

Yang Dafu said the Family Planning Office people had their eyes on her, and this matter was probably true.

She was now seriously considering whether to take the child to her maternal home to hide for a while tomorrow morning.

But if she went to her maternal home, who would look after the beasts at home and the silkworm babies at home?

Li Xiulan was in a dilemma.

Just then, a person floated up in Li Xiulan's mind.

He Dazhu.

She had originally not wanted to disturb He Dazhu, after all He Dazhu had once pursued her, the two had had an emotional relationship, and later for various reasons, it led to them being destined but without fate.

Now she and He Dazhu had each started their own families.

If she went to ask He Dazhu for help at this time, would it be inappropriate? If He Dazhu's wife found out, what would she think?

But besides He Dazhu, she really could not find anyone else who could help her.

Because those relatives of her husband's family did not have a very good relationship with her.

Or did she have to call her husband working far away in the city and specially ask him to take leave to come back once?

Better not.

His travel fare back would cost dozens or hundreds of yuan.

Additionally, making a long-distance call cost three yuan per minute, terribly expensive.

Finally, Li Xiulan made up her mind to go to He Dazhu's house in person at dinner time tonight, and explain the matter clearly in front of He Dazhu and his wife.

Li Xiulan thought that as long as He Dazhu's wife still had a bit of sympathy, she should agree to let Dazhu come help her.

But what Li Xiulan didn't expect was that when it was eight o'clock in the evening, she came to He Dazhu's home, only to discover that He Dazhu's wife was not at home.

In the dim light of the living room, only He Dazhu with hazy drunken eyes was alone at the table, drinking cup after cup of sorrowful wine, muttering words in his mouth:

"Xiulan, Xiulan, my Xiulan..."