In this era, few couples actually got a marriage certificate when they wed. They would find a matchmaker to negotiate the betrothal gifts, arrange the engagement, and then simply host a wedding banquet—that was considered marriage.
Yet, even without a certificate, their household registrations had been transferred.
Her and Xiaoxi’s household registrations were both in the Zhao family’s household registration booklet. The booklet was usually kept by Old Zhao. If she wanted to leave, she first had to find that booklet and transfer their registrations out.
She carefully entered and closed the door, setting Xiaoxi down on a chair. “Xiaoxi, be good. Mommy needs to find something. Can you sit here and wait for Mommy for a moment?”
She hadn’t left Xiaoxi in her own room precisely because she feared her child, just found, would be scared alone.
Children under three are naturally in the most adorable, angelic stage of life, and Xiaoxi was an angel baby through and through. Hearing her mother’s words, she nodded obediently and sat perfectly still, watching her mother search.
Xu Huiqing had lived with Father and Mother Zhao for twenty years. One could say she had spent more time with them than the Five Sisters Zhao and Zhao Zongbao combined. The older Father Zhao got, the more he loved to boast and tell old stories. He especially loved recounting the glorious deeds of his youth: how he ransacked homes and smashed down doors, how he criticized and beat people, how he stole money and antique objects from other families, and how he built the family fortune.
He would even tell her where he had originally hidden those long-sold possessions, presenting them as proud accomplishments at the dinner table with such excitement that spittle flew everywhere. She couldn’t avoid hearing it even if she wanted to!
He didn’t say these things to outsiders; he only told Old Lady Zhao and her at home. He felt that keeping his youthful heroic deeds untold was like walking in brocade robes through the night. Yet, he knew he couldn’t talk recklessly outside. Dismissing Old Lady Zhao as an illiterate who understood nothing, he confided in her—the most educated person in the family. Day after day, year after year, he was so lonely in his obsession that he would chase her down anytime, anywhere, to talk, until her ears practically grew calluses.
Thus, she quickly found a key hidden under the bed frame and opened the wooden chest at the head of Old Zhao’s bed. From beneath the ragged clothes at the very bottom, she retrieved a rolled-up bundle.
A stack of cash, a bankbook, the household registration booklet, deeds and land deeds, and an old wooden jewelry box.
She put the bankbook, the deed, and the land deed back, taking only the stack of cash, the household registration booklet, and the wooden jewelry box. After closing the door, she returned the key to its original place and went back to her own room.
The money was in old-style bills; Xu Huiqing had no idea which generation of RMB it was. She didn’t count the amount, simply wrapping it in one of Xiaoxi’s belly bands. Without even checking what was inside the wooden jewelry box, she placed everything into a white plastic bag that had once held a color TV box. Capitalizing on the empty house, she slipped out the back gate. She found an abandoned cowshed, buried the items beneath the collapsed earthen bricks, and concealed the spot with wildly growing bushes. Returning to the Zhao house, she scraped the mud off her shoe soles in the yard grass before calling out to Mother Xu. She said to her, “Mom, everything’s settled here now. You should head back tomorrow. When you do, have Dad come to town with his household registration booklet. I need his help with something.”
Mother Xu asked worriedly, “What do you need your dad to bring his household registration booklet for?”
She feared her daughter was going to stir up more trouble.
Xu Huiqing looked into Mother Xu’s eyes.
Mother Xu loved her truly, but whenever she wanted to do something, her mother was the first to oppose it, and opposed it the most fiercely.
Mother Xu was the quintessential exemplar of the most virtuous and filial wife and mother, disciplined by society’s expectations. Her greatest wish for her daughter was stability.
By stability, she meant studying peacefully, marrying peacefully, bearing children peacefully—living a life without any change. The slightest hint of deviation would fill this model daughter-in-law, virtuous her entire life, with unease and terror.
It was much like her own past life, equally disciplined for a lifetime.
The only advantage she had over her mother was that she had been educated. She had lived in an era of flourishing information, always worked, and always been learning. While still young and strong, she had absorbed many different perspectives from the world, helping her correct the brainwashing and conditioning she had received since childhood.
Xu Huiqing smiled at her mother, her expression soft. “Mom, Xiaoxi’s registration is in the Zhao family booklet. I’m not comfortable with that. Go back tomorrow and ask Dad to come. I want to transfer Xiaoxi’s registration out.”
As expected, the first to object upon hearing this was Mother Xu. Frowning with worry, she said, “Huiqing, you’ve found Xiaoxi. Just stop this trouble and live well with your husband. You’ve given birth to a son now, so your position in the Zhao family is secure. They wouldn’t dare harm Xiaoxi again!”
But what Xu Huiqing knew was that this wasn’t her mother’s real concern. Her real concern was that transferring Xiaoxi’s registration to the Xu family would upset her three daughters-in-law.
A wave of helplessness and sorrow surged in Xu Huiqing’s heart.
In reality, even decades into the future, it wouldn’t be easy for a woman to transfer her household registration after divorce, because there was usually only one place to go: her parents’ home.
If her parents’ family refused to accept her registration, and unless she owned a house herself, there was no place for her to register. She would be forced to keep her registration with her ex-husband’s family, completely at their mercy. If she wanted to remarry years later and needed to transfer her registration, she would have to beg her ex-husband’s family, watching their faces to see if they would even agree.
But how many women can own their own house before marriage, without relying on their parents’ family?
Xu Huiqing had no homestead land, no house. To transfer her and Xiaoxi’s registrations out, she had no choice but to plead with her own family to take them in first. If she ever wanted her own independent household registration booklet, she would first need to own her own house.
She could only hold Mother Xu’s hand. In the blink of an eye, her eyes filled with tears. “Mom, I’m scared!”
Mother Xu’s heart softened immediately, and she began to weep along with Xu Huiqing. “Fine, fine, do whatever you want. You’re just as stubborn as your father. I can’t persuade you!”
Xu Huiqing pressed two hundred yuan into Mother Xu’s hand, startling her greatly. She immediately tried to push it back. “What are you doing? Take it back, quick!”
Xu Huiqing forced the money into Mother Xu’s pocket. “Mom, use this money to buy snacks for the nephews when you get back…”
“That’s far too much…”
Xu Huiqing held down her mother’s hand as she tried to return the cash. “Just buy a bit more stuff, so the sisters-in-law have nothing to gossip about.”
Seeing her insistence, and thinking of her daughters-in-law and grandchildren at home, Mother Xu finally stopped trying to force the money back.
She felt bitter deep down.
Her three sons had divided the household, and she and her old man were assigned to the eldest son, living under his roof. Her eldest daughter-in-law now called the shots, not her. She naturally had to consider her eldest daughter-in-law’s feelings. If she returned home transferring her granddaughter’s registration into the family without bringing back any gifts, she could only imagine how much resentment her eldest daughter-in-law would harbor!
After appeasing Mother Xu, Xu Huiqing didn’t say anything more. She returned to her room, held Xiaoxi close, and lay down to rest.
She was likely utterly exhausted from the past two days. Soon after lying down, she fell asleep holding Xiaoxi.
Mother Xu sat beside the baby’s rocking crib, gently rocking the newborn while mulling over her own troubled thoughts.
Her daughter had caused such a huge scene at the Zhao family this time, even breaking the son-in-law’s leg. Once the in-laws returned, who knew how they would bully her daughter? Her father definitely needed to come. If they dared bully her daughter again, her three sons were no pushovers. The Zhao family only had one son; the old Xu family wasn’t afraid of the old Zhao family!
Before long, Third Sister Zhao and Fifth Sister Zhao returned after driving the Xu brothers and sisters-in-law, along with Eldest Sister Zhao and Fourth Sister Zhao, home.
Third Sister Zhao also had a mountain of work waiting at home. It was the busy farming season, with fields full of work to do. They had only stayed because they were worried about Father Zhao, Mother Zhao, and Zhao Zongbao, and needed to figure out how to get them released quickly.
They figured that since Xiaoxi was found, Father Zhao, Mother Zhao, and the others would likely be released soon too. Staying just one or two more days before heading back should be fine, so they had sent Third Brother-in-law Zhao home first.
Fifth Brother-in-law Zhao, a rascal with no land or job, stayed in town to continue helping out.
When they returned, they found Xu Huiqing asleep in her room and Mother Xu caring for the sleeping newborn in there. They didn’t disturb them. Instead, the two sisters, along with Fifth Brother-in-law Zhao, sat in the courtyard, trimming vegetables and quietly discussing Second Sister Zhao.
Fifth Sister Zhao couldn’t help but complain: “Is there something wrong with her brain? Does she think this is our generation, with nothing to eat or drink? When we were kids and so poor, our grandparents never talked about selling us off. Now the family has plenty of good food and drink, and she actually sold Xiaoxi?”
Fifth Brother-in-law Zhao chimed in: “No wonder Little Sister-in-law, normally so good-tempered, got so furious.”
He and Fifth Sister Zhao had been married for six or seven years and had only one daughter. The family had tacitly accepted that he would have no heir in this life, already separating them as a couple to be supported in old age by his elder brother’s children.
Thus, he could especially empathize with Xu Huiqing. If someone sold his precious daughter, he’d commit murder!
Third Sister Zhao, picking beans, said helplessly, “Exactly. Her brain hasn’t been right since she was little. When Grandpa told her to go to school, she wouldn’t. Back then, tuition was only fifty cents a semester, and other girls were fighting to attend. She went for just one year, then ran back home and quit. Because of her, our grandparents eventually stopped letting the rest of us study too.”
Fifth Sister Zhao looked down on Second Sister Zhao with contempt: “After that too, it’s like her brain’s filled with shit. She found herself a man from deep in the mountains. Isn’t that just choosing hardship for no reason!”
All the Zhao sisters had married into villages around the town. Even the furthest one was east of the big river, along the Provincial Highway, convenient to anywhere. Only Second Sister Zhao, a perfectly eligible girl from the town outskirts, married into the remote mountains.
Because Father Zhao had been a Little Red Guard in his youth, he had privately looted quite a number of houses, so the family wasn’t short on money. Thus, although the five daughters’ marriages involved bride prices, they weren’t sold off to the mountain folk. At most, they were raised from childhood to put their parents’ family first, their brother first: live for their brother, die for their brother, go through fire and water for their brother!
“I don’t know what she was thinking,” Third Sister Zhao said.
“She just can’t stand seeing others doing well!” Fifth Sister Zhao said piercingly. “Among all the sisters, she’s the only one living so poorly now. Look how old and worn she looks! My god, selling her own niece for five yuan—only she could do such a thing!”
Third and Fifth Sister Zhao didn’t want to talk badly about Father Zhao, Mother Zhao, or their brother. They pinned everything on Second Sister Zhao. Everything was her doing, her fault.
Even if their father, mother, or brother were at fault, they wouldn’t dare say it.
Their parents’ family was thriving more and more, and they still relied heavily on them.
It wasn’t until ten in the morning, hearing the chime of the mantel clock, that Third Sister Zhao decided Xu Huiqing must have slept enough. She and Fifth Sister Zhao went to knock on her door: “Huiqing? Huiqing, are you awake yet?”
They had already cooked lunch. Figuring the situation was about right and that the police officers at the station would definitely be working by now, they called Xu Huiqing to go together to the Police Station to bring Father Zhao, Mother Zhao, and Zhao Zongbao back home.
If they went to fetch them now, they could make it back just in time for lunch.
Roused from sleep, a cold, sarcastic smile curled at the corner of Xu Huiqing’s lips.
Did they think the Police Station was run by their family, that they could bring them home whenever they wanted?
Yesterday, when she went into the mountains with the officers to pick up Xiaoxi, the police in the car had told her that this case had alerted the County Public Security Bureau. Shortly after they had left to search the mountains for Xiaoxi the previous day, the Zhao family members had already been taken away by officers from the County Public Security Bureau!