Chapter 63
◎A Cowardly Youth (Revised)◎
Xia Lilan had finished making dinner and looked at Song Dazhu, who was smoking his pipe on the floor with his head lowered. She sighed. “Her dad, why don’t I go and call him again?”
After the father and son had argued yesterday, Song Xiaojun had locked himself in his room and hadn’t eaten or drunk anything all day.
“If he doesn’t eat, then let him starve! I’d like to see how long he can be stubborn!” Song Dazhu’s pipe slammed heavily on the corner of the table, and he couldn’t help but curse. “If he has the guts to die for that slut, then I, Song Dazhu, will just pretend I never had this son!”
The room was not even lit with a kerosene lamp. Song Xiaojun was paralyzed in the corner of the kang, his head resting against the cobweb-covered crack in the wall, silent. The side of his face that had been slapped by Song Dazhu was swollen high. If it weren’t for the rise and fall of his breathing, one might have thought that this person was already dead.
Song Xiaojun was the only son in the family, and he was weak, so he had been under more control since he was young. The Song family was a typical combination of a strict father and a strict mother. When he was a child, during the hot summer, the children of his age in the village would spend all day in the river, catching fish and shrimp. Only he was strictly forbidden to go near the river.
Even the amount of food he ate was fixed. His rice bowl was always three inches shallower than others. His mother, Xia Lilan, would always use a chipped bamboo tube to measure the rice. Three horizontal lines were carved on the tube—his bowl was always aligned with the middle line, half a section less than his father Song Dazhu’s, and two fingers wider than his mother Xia Lilan’s.
He started to grow taller in his teens, and his appetite increased dramatically. He would be dizzy from hunger every day, but his parents were unwilling to give him an extra bite of food. It wasn’t that the family had no grain. Every time he wanted to get more rice, his father would slam the enamel mug on the table and glare at him. “Eating until you’re seventy percent full is what nourishes a person!”
His mother would hit the back of his hand with a fire poker. “Fine rice and flour will strain your internal organs. Your weak body can’t take it!”
The strict control of Song Dazhu and Xia Lilan had created his cowardly and indecisive personality. The peers in the village all thought he was an incompetent weakling and were unwilling to associate with him.
And so he endured until he graduated from junior high and was arranged by his father to be an accountant in the team. He still couldn’t eat his fill. Every time he did a small thing that was not to their liking, they would cast a deeply disappointed look at him, and then there would be a long silence and a sigh. He never dared to look up and speak in front of them. The oppressive atmosphere at home was about to drive him crazy.
During the busy farming season, Song Xiaojun also had to go out to work. Once, he was assigned to sow seeds in the terraced fields and happened to run into the widow Liu, who was working with her child. Sowing seeds in the terraced fields required bending over to dig a hole with a hoe, and then kneeling on one knee to sow the seeds. This work was quite strenuous. Each mu of land required bending over thousands of times. A sore back was a common occurrence. She was a woman, the weather was hot, and the child was wailing in the earthen pit, his face covered in snot and tears. On one side was the unfinished farm work, and on the other was her wailing son. The widow Liu was so anxious that she was in tears. Song Xiaojun happened to pass by and helped her, finishing the rest of the land.
Song Xiaojun’s small act of kindness was like a timely rain for the widow Liu. She looked at the tall and thin young man in front of her, her eyes filled with tears. She had long been used to the reputation of “cursing her husband to death,” “a jinx,” and “a slut.” This was the first time someone had extended a helping hand to her.
When Song Xiaojun met the widow Liu’s moist eyes, a tremor spread through his limbs. For the first time, he felt that he was a valuable adult.
He quickly avoided the widow Liu’s gaze and looked at the child next to her. “It’s so hot. Why don’t you leave the child at home?”
“There’s no one at home. The child is still small. I’m not at ease.” The widow Liu’s in-laws were already very old and lived with her younger brother-in-law’s family. They couldn’t help her. Her own family also disliked her for being unlucky and had long since cut off contact with her.
“The workload is too heavy these past few days. It’s really difficult for you to be alone with a child.” Song Xiaojun looked at the mother and son with sympathy.
The widow Liu had originally thought that Song Xiaojun was just helping out casually, but she didn’t expect that the next day, after Song Xiaojun had finished his own farm work, he would come over and help her finish the rest.
More than half a month passed like this. On this day, seeing the dark clouds pressing down and the heavy rain about to fall, the widow Liu had just brought the dried clothes into the house when she found Maodan lying on the kang, vomiting nonstop. The widow Liu’s mind went blank for a moment, and then she threw down the clothes in her hand and rushed forward. “Maodan, what’s wrong? Why is your forehead so hot? Where are you uncomfortable? Tell Mom quickly?”
Maodan’s face was pale. “Ugh, Mom, I’m not feeling well…”
“To the hospital! Mom will take you to the hospital right now.” The widow Liu carried the child on her back. Before leaving, she opened a drawer and took all the family’s savings.
Before she reached the village entrance, a clap of thunder rumbled, and raindrops as big as beans began to fall. The son on her back was burning hot, and the rain and tears covered the widow Liu’s face.
With a slap, not paying attention, the widow Liu was tripped by a tree branch blown down by the heavy rain. Maodan also fell from her back, and cried out in pain.
Maodan’s cries mixed with the thunder, shattering the rain screen.
This was almost the widow Liu’s most desperate moment.
“Sister Liu? Are you okay? Get up quickly!” Song Xiaojun happened to be coming back from outside. Seeing this situation, he quickly threw down the hoe on his shoulder, not caring about the mud splashing on his trouser legs. He squatted down and picked up the child. The child’s burning forehead was pressed against his collarbone, as hot as a branding iron.
He took off his own coat and wrapped it around the child, then went to pull the widow Liu. “The commune hospital is more than ten li away from our Yuhuai Village. You and the child can wait at the broken temple ahead. I’ll go back and get my bicycle and take you to the hospital!”
Out of kindness, Song Xiaojun used his bicycle to take the pitiful mother and son to the hospital, helped with the admission procedures, and paid the fees.
The child had acute gastroenteritis. He was sent to the hospital in time. After taking some stomach medicine and getting an injection, he would be fine after a few days of rest.
After paying the medical fees, Song Xiaojun returned to the hospital room and heard Maodan pointing at him and calling, “Daddy, Daddy!”
This pitiful child’s biological father had died of illness before he was one year old. His memory of his biological father was already very vague. Song Xiaojun had helped the widow Liu with the farm work and had also taken them to the hospital. Maodan had mistaken Song Xiaojun for his father.
The widow Liu quickly covered the child’s mouth and scolded, “Maodan, don’t talk nonsense!”
Song Xiaojun’s enthusiastic help during this period had also brought some stimulation to the widow Liu’s already numb inner world.
But she also understood that there was no chance for her and the young man in front of her. Not to mention that she had been married, had a child, and her husband had died. Even if she hadn’t been married, she was not worthy of the well-off Song Xiaojun.
In her moist pupils, Song Xiaojun saw his own stooped shadow.
He couldn’t quite describe the feeling. He only felt as if a sun-drenched pebble was in his chest, so hot that his heart panicked, and so hard that it was uncomfortable.
“The child is delirious from the fever.” The widow Liu’s voice was as soft as a yellow oriole’s cry in spring.
He went forward and patted the child’s head. “It’s okay. Let the child call me that if he wants to.”
The widow Liu looked up at him in astonishment, the tears on her eyelashes trembling.
At night, the widow Liu made him a bowl of fragrant noodles. Song Xiaojun had never eaten so full before. The widow Liu also said that her full name was Liu Yueqin. If he didn’t mind, he could call her Sister Yueqin.
After that, whenever Song Xiaojun finished his own work, he would secretly go and help the widow Liu with her labor, leaving a little money for the mother and son to buy salt and oil. If he went out on business, he would also buy a small gift for Maodan, bringing some candy and sponge cakes. Over time, the two of them naturally got together.
But his unusual behavior was soon discovered by his parents. The thorny rattan cane whipped his body. Song Xiaojun knelt on the ground without a word. The old couple sternly ordered him to break off contact with that widow immediately, or they would no longer have him as a son.
The old couple was afraid that his affair with the widow Liu would be exposed. They hurriedly found a wife for him, not hesitating to offer double the betrothal gifts, just to get him a clean girl from a normal family.
The hot food quickly grew cold again. Looking at her son, who was only breathing in and not out, on the earthen kang, Xia Lilan could no longer hold back and threw herself on the kang and cried loudly. “Son, just listen to Mom and take a bite. You haven’t eaten for three days. It’s not good not to eat. If you continue like this, you’ll die…”
At first, Song Xiaojun could still feel hunger. The next day, his stomach was burning with pain. But now, he felt nothing. He felt as if he were asleep, but his consciousness was still clear. He lifted his eyelids, which seemed to weigh a thousand catties, and his hand struggled to reach forward.
“Son, take a bite. Mom made it with millet. It’s so fragrant.” Xia Lilan thought he wanted to eat and quickly blew on the cooked congee to cool it and fed it to his mouth. But she didn’t expect that Song Xiaojun didn’t want to eat. He stretched out his arm and knocked the congee in Xia Lilan’s hand to the ground.
Song Xiaojun’s mouth was already cracked like old tree bark. “I’m not eating. I only want Yueqin…”
“That jinx who cursed her husband to death, that slut, what kind of love potion did she give you! Are you determined to use your life to go against your parents?! Your dad and I raised you to this age. Are we not as important as that woman in your heart!”
Xia Lilan cleaned up the mess on the floor. When she walked out of the room, she saw Song Dazhu smoking his pipe under the eaves and shook her head helplessly.
“Her dad, I’m afraid that if Xiaojun continues like this, his body really won’t be able to take it. It’s already the third day. Even an ordinary adult can’t stand it, let alone a child like Xiaojun who has been weaker than others since he was young.”
As soon as she finished speaking, she heard a thud from inside the room. Song Dazhu and Xia Lilan’s faces changed, and they quickly rushed into the room. They saw Song Xiaojun lying on the ground, unconscious. “Her dad, why do I feel like Xiaojun is not breathing?”
Song Dazhu’s face was cracked. He quickly threw down the pipe in his hand and helped him up. “Quick, quick, to the hospital!”