Chapter 17: When It Rains, It Pours
Tangtang fiddled with a small yellow flower, the sound of the babbling brook in her ears. She tossed the flower into the water and watched the yellow petals drift further and further away.
“Tangtang—Tangtang!”
Hearing the call, Tangtang stood up from the grass and patted the dirt off her clothes. “Brother Juesheng, I’m over here.”
Su Juesheng heard her and ran over. “What are you doing all the way out here? Mom sent me to tell you to come home for dinner.”
At the mention of dinner, Tangtang glanced at her empty basket and her heart sank. She had only meant to be alone for a little while, but in the blink of an eye, it had gotten dark.
An indescribable guilt washed over her. Not only had she not done her chores, but she had also made them worry.
“Why are your eyes so red? You weren’t hiding here crying, were you?” Su Juesheng asked, as if he had discovered something incredibly rare.
Tangtang immediately lowered her head like someone caught red-handed, but she still bit her lip and denied it. “No, I wasn’t crying…”
For the past few days, Tangtang had been consumed with self-blame and fear. Su Yandi’s words calling her a jinx echoed in her mind, and the way the rest of the Su family had been avoiding her only made it worse. She was terrified that she was the one who had brought this disaster upon Su Huimin.
“Your eyes are so red, and you still say you weren’t crying… Did you believe your birth mother’s nonsense and hide here blaming yourself?”
Tangtang bit her lip, silent.
Seeing this, the playful look vanished from Su Juesheng’s face. He crouched down in front of her, his expression more serious than she had ever seen it.
“Tangtang, you must not believe those words. You are not a jinx. What happened to Dad has nothing to do with you. He was framed by someone on purpose. That’s why our family is in such a mess!”
“You’re so smart, kind, and thoughtful. If there really is some mysterious force at work, then you’re not a jinx, you’re a lucky star. Look, not only can you catch wild chickens in the mountains, but you also found that incredibly valuable ginseng. How many people have your kind of good luck?”
“Juesheng always wants to go to the mountains with you because his luck is always better when you’re around. We always find more and better pig feed, gather more firewood, and find endless sweet grass roots and wild fruits. When we’re really lucky, we even find bird eggs!”
“Second Aunt called you a jinx because she was angry that no one was on her side. She was just spouting nonsense to slander you. You’ve been with our family for a while now. No sane person would think that Dad’s arrest had anything to do with you. Only someone with a twisted mind would make that kind of connection!”
Tangtang could no longer hold back her tears. She grabbed Su Juesheng’s sleeve and wiped her eyes.
“Do you remember what I said?”
She bit her lip and nodded furiously. “I remember.”
“Then repeat after me: I am not a jinx!”
She wiped the tears from her face, forced a smile, and looking out at the green fields, she shouted at the top of her lungs, “I… am… not… a… jinx!”
After shouting, the weight in her chest seemed to lift, and she felt a sense of relief. A genuine, unburdened smile finally appeared on her face
.
Before Tangtang and Su Juesheng even reached the house, they saw Su Juexiao and Su Juesheng at the gate.
She looked at her empty basket, embarrassed. “I haven’t cut any pig feed yet…”
Su Juexiao took his sister’s hand. “We’ve already cut enough for today. Let’s go home, dinner’s almost ready!”
“Okay, let’s go home.” The four siblings walked home hand in hand. Regardless of the outcome of their father’s investigation, they would protect this family together.
.
When Tangtang woke up in the middle of the night, she saw a candle lit in the room. Yu Juanfang was sitting up, draped in a shirt. A thick layer of wax had already solidified on the candle, a sign it had been burning for a long time.
“Mom.” Tangtang rubbed her sleepy eyes, her voice thick and nasal. “Are you worried about Dad?”
Yu Juanfang pulled the child into her arms and sighed. “Yes. At home, no matter what we eat, at least he can have his fill. In that detention center, I don’t know if he’s getting a proper meal, if he can take a hot bath, or wear clean clothes.”
“Before they took Dad away, I ran up and saw him. He told me that he didn’t do those things, and that a clear conscience is a sure card.” As she spoke, Tangtang’s eyes reddened. A week had passed since his arrest, and they had no news. They didn’t even know if he was alive or dead.
Yu Juanfang wiped a tear from her own eye, a look of surprise on her face. “Your dad said that?”
Tangtang nodded earnestly. “He’ll be okay, I know it.”
Hearing this, Yu Juanfang’s tightly furrowed brow finally relaxed. “You’re right. Your dad will be okay.”
Tangtang’s words had lifted a great weight from her heart, but until she saw him with her own eyes, she was still on edge, as if suspended over a chasm.
…
After more than half a month of agonizing worry, Su Huimin was finally released. The heart that had been hanging in mid-air finally came to rest.
He hadn’t eaten or slept well the entire time and had lost over ten pounds. His cheekbones protruded, his face was covered in stubble, and his temples were streaked with white hair. He looked truly pitiful.
Yu Juanfang prepared a bath with pomelo leaves to wash away the bad luck. According to Su Huimin, the textbook had been passed to him by someone else, having gone through several hands. The source of the poems was difficult to trace. Some people believed his explanation, but most were skeptical, suspecting it was a lie to absolve himself.
His teaching position was temporarily suspended, and no one could say when, or if, it would be reinstated. Just like that, he was unemployed.
He was idle at home. Having not done farm work for many years, he couldn’t just pick up a hoe again. So, he took over all the household chores. Despite this, he faced complaints from other family members, who felt that a grown man shouldn’t be staying at home all day doing nothing.
Zhang Guixiang was the first to start making snide remarks.
“Everyone in this village works from sunup to sundown to earn work points for their family. But you, you’ve made housework your main job. You can’t even provide a basic living!”
“Third Brother, look at you. You’ve just been cooped up at home since you got back. You don’t help in the fields, and you don’t go out to find other opportunities. Are you planning to let the whole family support you from now on?”
If one were to ask who had contributed the most to the family, it was undoubtedly Su Huimin. He had been an excellent student, and the school had given him subsidies every semester, which he had saved, penny by penny, for the family. He had chosen the free vocational school over high school to save on tuition. After graduating, he had handed over his salary every single month, which was the family’s largest source of income. He had also tutored the other children in his spare time.
And then there was his wife, Yu Juanfang, who was quick, diligent, and hardworking, keeping the house in perfect order and never slacking off.
But now, he was the only one not doing “proper” work, and the family chose to selectively forget all his past contributions.
Su Huimin paced around the south room. “Maybe I should just go out to the fields with you all tomorrow.”
Although Yu Juanfang often called him an “elmwood block,” since the incident, she had become his most tolerant and understanding supporter.
“You haven’t done farm work in so many years. Can you handle it? Working in the main fields isn’t like tending our little private plot…”
“Why not? I may not have done it for years, but I grew up doing all sorts of farm work. If I don’t have any other livelihood now, I have to reclaim my identity as a farmer.”
Yu Juanfang knew how miserable he was staying at home. “Alright then. You can try it tomorrow.”
The next day, Su Huimin shouldered a hoe and went to the fields with his wife. Just as she had said, he hadn’t done this work in years. But just as he had said, he was resilient. By the end of the day, his shoulders were rubbed raw, and his face was burnt red from the sun, but he gritted his teeth and finished the work without a single complaint.
His attitude silenced the rest of the family. No one dared to say anything more.
…
More than three months passed. There was no sign of his teaching position being reinstated, and the results of the investigation were nowhere in sight. The primary school, now short-staffed, had hired a new teacher. The Su family speculated that even if the investigation cleared him, he would not be allowed to return.
Old houses were most vulnerable to leaks. After days of continuous autumn rain, the roof could no longer bear the strain. The house was damp and stuffy. Raindrops trickled through the cracks in the tiles, creating muddy puddles on the floor.
After a few days, the sky finally cleared. Su Huimin found a stack of new tiles and propped a ladder against the wall to repair the roof. The old tiles were covered in wet, slimy moss. After a long struggle, he finally replaced the broken ones.
He had just climbed down two rungs when he heard a noise from above. He looked up and saw that the tiles at the edge of the roof had come loose and were teetering, about to slide right towards him.
Su Huimin’s pupils contracted, and his heart leaped into his throat. The next second, with a great crash, a pile of tiles came hurtling down in his direction. He instinctively threw himself to the side, but the movement caused the already unstable ladder to topple. He fell to the ground, ladder and all. His thigh landed on the shattered tiles, which sliced open several bloody gashes.
Yu Juanfang, terrified by the sudden accident, let out a short, sharp scream, her hands flying to her mouth.
After a brief moment of shock, she rushed forward. “Third Brother! Third Brother, are you alright?”
A sharp pain shot through his leg. Su Huimin clutched his thigh, his face pale and contorted in agony. “My leg…”