Chapter 7 Chapter VII

A hundred days later, her second aunt officially moved here and lived with Zhenguan's mother and son. Since then, they have depended on each other day and night, and the sisters have been companions. When her second uncle died, Zhen Guan hadn't been born yet; no one had mentioned the reason for it; the only son of her second aunt was now in Kaohsiung Medical College, and he said that after he got married, he would take Yi to live there. Let's say that Sister Yinyue passed by here every day at work, and would always come in to greet the two aunts, and also visit Zhenguan, say a few words before leaving.

Everyone came and went that day, only Yinchan arrived late, Zhenguan couldn't help but say to her: "You might as well put the alarm clock under the bed, so you don't have to do this every day!" Yin Chan said clearly: "I got up at six o'clock this morning, how could I have fumbled here and there, and procrastinated until now, just now when I was going out, my fourth aunt called to stop me, she told you to go if you have nothing to do!" Grandpa's house is only 200 meters away from here. Although she hasn't been there much in the past three months, it is still inevitable to pass by occasionally;

"Is there a problem?" Yinchan didn't expect to come up at first, but now seeing Zhenguan's appearance, she was stopped by her question: "No! How come I don't know about something?" As she said that, she thought about it again, and then said to Zhenguan: "I guess there is something delicious for you; if I don't leave, I will be late!" Zhen watched her get on the bicycle and went away like the wind, so she had to turn around to accompany her mother and second aunt to have breakfast and wash the dishes, and then she confessed her intention and went to her grandfather's house.

At the gate of her grandfather's house, a black-clothed lady came out with a wooden basin. Zhenguan recognized it as an old woman who went to the kitchens to collect rice and water, and took it back to feed the pigs. Grandma saw her filial piety, and asked, "Are you Shui Hong's daughter?" "I am! Granny." The old woman put down the rice soup, took Zhenguan's hand, and looked at her carefully: "You look so much like your father..." Zhenguan felt that the old man's hands were shaking, and it was only after a while that Yi realized that Yi wanted to wipe away her tears.

"Your dad is the nicest person I've ever met in my life—" "..." Zhen Guan didn't respond, she lowered her head and raised it again, only to see Grandma's tears seeped into the wrinkled grooves on Yi's face, unable to flow down. She wiped her tears for her, but she couldn't care about the tears dripping on the palm of her hand.Grandma waited and said, "Your elder brother is studying in No. 1 Middle School in Tainan. I heard that his grades are so good! Alas! It's your father who is not blessed." When Yi realized that Zhenguan's eyes were red, she repeatedly said, "Don't be like this—it's my old lady who provoked you!"

"No--" Zhenguan wiped away tears, only to hear the old woman ask again: "Isn't Shuiyun living in your house now?" "Yes! The second aunt is here to keep us company." The old woman sighed and said, "Shuiyun is pitiful too! He is a widow in his early twenties; your second uncle, like a hero, is over six feet tall and weighs a hundred catties. A tiger can't finish it, so he will go as soon as he wants, man!" —” After Grandma left, Zhen Guan still stood in front of the door for a while, and then stepped in when her mood calmed down a little. Going out of the hall is the courtyard, before the people from Zhenguan arrived, they first saw her Sijin coming out of the inner room: "Sijin!"

"You're here; Grandma missed you last night!" "I'm going to see Grandma." "Wait a moment." Her four concubines stopped her and said: "I have a headache in the middle of the night, and I don't get sleepy until four or five o'clock. You come to my room first, and I have a letter for you." Zhenguan actually didn't hear what Yi said in the last sentence, so when Si Jin handed the letter to her, she still couldn't figure out the source: "This is——" It is a plain letter, look at the handwriting, never seen before.wrong!This character is so familiar, isn't it my own handwriting?

When did she write to herself? "Strange, isn't it? No postage stamps?" She turned around to close the closet, and said, "It's from a big letter, and it's caught in the letter to me." It turned out to be the boy with the fishbone choking his throat!The one who read martial arts stories and burned the mosquito net! Why is this word so similar to my own?Is there such a similar word in the world? ——Zhenguan took it over and fiddled with it for a long time, but didn't know how to deal with it for a moment. She looked around and asked her: "Aren't you going to take it apart and have a look? I'll transfer the big trust to you—"

"Yes—I'm looking for—scissors—" Her Sijin said again: "Uncle's matter, he didn't know until the day before yesterday, you can sit here and watch, Sijin will go shopping first." "Oh--" After Sijin left, Zhenguan touched the scissors, touched, touched, and finally opened the seal—there may be people with similar characters in the world, but will they be so similar? She opened the letter to read, and at the same time, there was a shudder in her heart: She read the letter twice, then folded it up and put it away, but after a while, she took it out again and read it again——.

After such a big change, although Zhenguan's mother got better gradually and slowly, her physical strength and spirit were much worse than before. Therefore, when her grandmother was ill, her mother asked her to live here and serve her in the morning and evening. Decoction, more or less do a little girl's heart. The old man had a headache this time, and it resolved after two days, and then it came back again... This dragged on for more than half a month, which made the whole family worry, and even her aunt who lived in Tainan came back to visit. Among the sisters, her aunt is the most similar to Zhenguan's mother. It is said that when she was a daughter, her uncle came from other places and wanted to peek at the woman.Now the matchmaker could only point to Zhenguan's mother, who was twelve or thirteen years old at the time, and said, "This is Miss Yi, and she was born with this appearance."

When Zhenguan's father just passed away, his aunt stayed at her house for ten days; Zhenguan listened to Yi every morning and evening, and persuaded his mother, Shui Hong, that the dead are dead, and the living must live! In the past few days after returning, all the brothers, sisters-in-law and sisters-in-law of the natal family stayed in Yi in unison, and her aunt went to Zhenguan's house to sleep at night-in order to relive the old dreams of the sisters and feel sorry for the people who had suffered accidents. That night, grandma's room was full of people who greeted her; Zhen Guan was sitting on the bedside, listening to everyone talking, when she looked up and saw her aunt came in with her clothes. "Auntie, don't you want to stay one more day?" "No, I've been watching the bus train for a long time, and I even asked Yincheng to buy a bus ticket—I'll sleep here tonight." Her three sisters smiled and said: "——I knew it: it's for breastfeeding!" Everyone laughed; her aunt sat down by the bed, and then said: "If you want to talk about weaning, I'm the first one! If you want to laugh, you should laugh at Ah Wu. He went to a national school when he was seven or eight years old. Refusing to leave his mouth, A Niang rubbed panacea and chili peppers on his nipples. He cried at first, but he still didn’t want to let go. A Niang had no choice but to let him—” Everyone laughed again. "How did it break?" "Every day when he goes to school, he has to eat a few bites before going out—" "Eat standing up?" "Standing, of course; I'm seven or eight years old, how can I hug her, and later some classmates came to wait for him to go to school together, probably afraid of being seen by others, or being laughed at, so I stopped eating after that—" Even her grandma couldn't help laughing; she said, "Shui Lian, why do you still remember?" "..." Only her five concubines were the only ones in the room who were a little unnatural; when Zhen watched Yi, she was embarrassed at first, because what they were talking about was Yi's husband, but the thing was really interesting, so Yi thought about it and laughed along with it—"The youngest son is That's it! How old was A Niang at that time? She was already in her 40s, and it's been a long time, so there's no milk left!" "..." After dark, the people who greeted each other left one by one; Sister Yinchan said: "Auntie sleeps here, let's go to the Yinyue Room—" "Where is the need—" Her grandma and aunt said at the same time: "This place is wide enough! Two more are also welcome!" Zhen Guan changed into her pajamas early and lay down next to her aunt. At first, she heard the mother and daughter talking, but later, there was no echo. It turned out that the old man had fallen asleep. Grandma has recovered for the past two days, but her spirit is weak. After all, she is an elderly person... Yi's headache seems to be an old disease, but in fact it was caused by crying Zhenguan's father; her father lost his parents when he was young, and after getting married, he treated his mother-in-law like his own mother, so grandma naturally loved this son-in-law very much—Zhenguan pulled the quilt, looked at Yinchan The two were already asleep, so he turned to ask her aunt, "Have you seen the second uncle?" Suddenly, her aunt did not expect such a sentence, she paused for a while, and then said: "What are you thinking about? Ask this temporarily?" "I—I've wanted to ask for a long time,... I've never seen my uncle and my second uncle!" There was only a small lamp left in the room, Zhenguan was under the light, looking at the aunt's face, suddenly felt that Yi Bian was a mother: "Ah Zhenguan, according to what you said, we have three sisters, who is the prettiest?" Zhen Guan thought for a while and said: "Second aunt's skin is very good, aunt and mother have beautiful hands and feet... and eyebrows, eyes, alas, I can't compare to—" Her aunt laughed and said, "You can talk like that! In fact, Shuiyun is still prettier than the two of us. When he was not married, he was called Yihei Maoyun—" In the provincial dialect, a black cat refers to a woman who is well-born and knows how to dress up and dress—her aunt's words made Zhenguan think hard: what would the second aunt look like when she was twenty years younger? If Yi didn't have to be a widow at an early age, if there were no 20 years of hard festivals, her second aunt would really be a very beautiful woman in her forties or fifties; however, now—— Zhen Guan thinks that Yi looks like: during the New Year's Eve, A bag of rice milk made by a stone mill, the mouth of the bag is tightly tied, and a big stone is pressed on it, and the water has been drained there all the time... Her aunt said again: "Have you heard this saying——The black cat wants to marry and luck—" The running hand refers to the driver who drives the car; if a good-looking woman wants to marry, she must marry the driver?What fashion is this? Zhenguan asked: "How should I say it? Auntie." "Of course it is outdated now. It was a saying that was circulated among the people a few years before the liberation; during the war, transportation was inconvenient and supplies were rationed, and people who could drive were especially popular!" Zhenguan is not difficult to understand: In the past, grandfather and the others had to travel three days to Tainan and one and a half days to Chiayi. During those days, how would a vehicle driver win a woman's heart and make people treat him Look at it differently. The second uncle turned out to be driving! "How is it?" "The year when the war was the most intense,... you were not born yet! Born in that time, it was also suffering!" "..." "Shuiyun took the children and went back here to avoid air raids. Your second uncle just happened to be free that day, so he stole a few catties of fish from his own fish farm. He walked straight from Daliao and brought them here—" Zhen Guan interrupted the topic and said: "That's not right! Since the second uncle's family's fish farm, how can it be said to be stolen?" Her aunt said with a smile: "You are lucky now, you can eat whatever you want, how could you have it at that time? The Japanese say that when soldiers fight, good things must be sent to the front line, and the supplies are controlled by them, and ordinary people can't have things in private!" "..." "To give an example, in your third uncle's backyard, someone lost the bagasse. The Japanese said that his house had private goods. They sent them to ask for a few days and nights, and when they came back, they cut their bodies black—" "...Does Third Uncle eat sugar cane?" "Where is there any sugar cane to eat?" "..." "The funniest Japanese search for gold. They lie to women: Where is the gold, take it all out—" "Who will take it out?" "It's just that no one takes it. When they get annoyed, they make up nonsense and say yes—it doesn't matter if you don't take it out. We have a tool that can be tested. When the time comes, you will know the suffering—" Such a sad thing is Lian Zhenguan. Those who have never experienced it will sigh when they hear it-"Ration, how to divide it?" "Grade according to class; Japanese people are class A, good food and clothing, common people are class C—" "Where is B?" "Those who are willing to change their ancestors' surnames and follow their surnames Yamamoto and Okada will receive second-class supplies—" "Accept a thief as your father—" Zhenguan shouted: "The surname is passed down from the ancestors, how can it be changed? Are there people who deceive and betray the ancestors like that?" "Yes, there are hundreds of kinds of people in the world—" "..." Zhenguan paused for a while, then asked back to the original question: "Since the second uncle came here on foot, did he meet a Japanese soldier on the way?" "..." Her aunt shook her head and was speechless for a while; Zhen Guan thought about it and said, "Auntie—let's stop talking—" "——Let me tell you that your second uncle is a righteous man; on the day he came, it rained heavily, and the sea water poured in. The water in the streets and roads was two or three feet high..." "..." Zhen Guan didn't dare to ask any more questions, she even lay quietly, not even daring to turn over. "Your second uncle is wearing a cape hat, hiding from planes and Japanese soldiers along the way, and he is almost at the end—" "..." Zhenguan's heart almost jumped out of his mouth. "——It was in front of the village, I mistakenly made the fish farm flat, and stepped on it... It didn't come up until the third day—" "..." Zhenguan closed his eyes, thinking about the predicament of the second uncle: there were bombs and planes in the air, sentries and floods on the ground; it took an hour to walk from Daliao to here; he had such a dangerous journey all the way, just to treat his wife and son to the fullest— ——There are people like the second uncle in the world, and there are all kinds of things in the world, what can't you do? "After a hundred days, there are still people who come to marry Shuiyun... Oh, these people!" Zhenguan thought to herself: The second aunt has been a person for several lifetimes, and she can't stop thinking about him. How could she marry again? The aunt and nephew were relatively speechless, and after a while, Zhen Guan suddenly pushed the quilt up and sat up, looking at the watch under the lamp. "Oh, it's past ten o'clock—" "Is there a problem?" "Grandma wants to listen to the opera of 'The Seventh Couple', so tell me to call Yi—" As she spoke, she got out of bed and turned on the radio; her aunt yawned and said, "If you turn it on again, it's only the end of the show. What are you listening to? Let's talk about it tomorrow night—when will you come to Tainan?" "OK--" Zhenguan responded and was about to turn off the knob. At this moment, the talking body suddenly mourned and complained; it was an outdated old song: "——spring stamens, for the end of spring—" ... She didn't understand what happened before and after, because just such a sentence was enough to break her soul and frighten her heart--the stamens in spring, for the end of spring--the melody and lyrics have been echoing in her heart; she is like The whole person was instantly ground into powder, grinded into ash, and mixed into the rhyme and words—should the second aunt be a stamen?Or uncle? From it, Zhenguan suddenly understood: what kind of heart-to-heart and heart-to-heart is the word love; her second aunt and his wife are each other's stamens, and in spring, they both show their full blooming period and life for each other! Everyone in the room had already fallen asleep; Zhen Guan quietly lay down on the side by the window, when she looked up at the night sky, she suddenly thought of "this love asks the sky"——