Chapter 2 preamble

On the last day of my mother's life, I finally know her and my grandmother's real name. I dedicate this book only to the two of them. Li Bingzi Gu Jingmei These things I know are true: My name is Liu Yang Ruling.I have been married twice. My first husband was Pan Kaijing and the other was Edwin Yang. Both of them have passed away, and our secrets have gone with them.My daughter is Yang Ruyi and her English name is Ruth.Our mother and daughter are both born in the year of the dragon, but she is a water dragon, and I am a fire dragon. They have the same zodiac signs but completely opposite personalities.

I know all this, but there is one surname that I can't remember.It is hidden in the deepest layer of my memory, and I can't find it anywhere.I have remembered hundreds of times that Aunt Bao wrote that word to me that morning.I was six years old at the time, and I was extremely intelligent.I can write and read, know books and numbers, and remember things.Here's what I remember from that morning. I was sleepy, lying on the kang and refused to get up.I slept with Aunt Bao, and the hut we lived in was the farthest from the stove in the main room, and the bricks under my body had already been cold.I feel someone shaking my shoulders.Seeing me open my eyes, Aunt Bao wrote something on the paper and showed it to me. "I can't see," I grumbled. "It's too dark."

With a hissing breath, she put the paper on the base cabinet and signaled to me that it was time to get up.She could not speak, only panting and panting sounds, like the howling of cold wind.She told me by grimacing, whining, and beaming.I carry with me a tablet of stone, on which she has written to me everything in this world.She also drew pictures for me with her jet-black hands.Sign language, facial expression language, written conversation, these are the languages ​​that accompanied my growth, silent but powerful. Her bangs are the same as mine, down to her eyebrows.The rest of the hair is tied into a bundle and tied together with silver hairpins.She has a peach-like moist and smooth forehead, big eyes, plump cheeks, and a small and plump nose embedded in the middle.This is the upper part of her face.The second half is out of the ordinary.

No one can understand what Auntie Bao is trying to say except me, so I have to be her mouthpiece.Not to say everything, we also have our secrets.She often talked about her father, the famous bone-setter in Zhoukoudian, and about the cave where they found the keel, and the power of the keel, which could cure all ailments except broken hearts. "Tell me again," I said that morning, hoping she would tell how she burned her face and became my babysitter. I'm a fire cooker, she told me with sign language and eyes.Hundreds of people came to the market to see me perform.My mouth is a brazier, I throw in raw pork, add chili and bean paste, mix it, and then ask people to taste it.If they say "delicious!" I open my mouth and catch the coins they throw.Unexpectedly, one day, I swallowed the fire, and the fire turned back and burned me.Since then, I decided not to be a brazier for cooking, so I changed my career to become your nanny.

I clapped and laughed and liked the story she made up very much.The day before, she had told me that she had watched a hapless broom star fall from the sky, land in her mouth, and burn her face.The day before, she said that she ate something spicy and thought it was a spicy Hunan dish, but it was actually the charcoal used for cooking. No more stories, Aunt Bao told me, gesturing very fast.It's time for breakfast soon, and we have to worship God on an empty stomach before eating.She took the paper from the cabinet, folded it in half, and tucked it into the pocket of the shoe.We put on winter coats and went to the cold corridor.The air smelled of charcoal fires from other wing rooms.I saw the old cook struggling to turn the pulley to draw water from the well, and heard a lodger shouting at her lazy wife.I passed the door of my mother and sister Gao Ling, who were still up.We hurried through a small south-facing room on our way to our ancestral hall.Auntie Bao glared at me at the door and warned me to be dignified.Take off your shoes.I stepped on the cold gray brick floor in my stockings alone.Immediately, my feet felt a biting cold, all the way to my legs, and even my whole body. The cold air seemed to drip from my nose.I couldn't help shivering.

Aunt Bao lit a few sticks of incense.She took a few breaths, and the smoke rose slowly.The smoke is getting thicker and thicker, mixed with our breath, our offering incense candles, and the thin morning mist. I always think that the mist is the form of ghosts. wandering through the underworld together.Aunt Bao once told me that the body becomes cold after death.That morning I felt frozen to the bone and terrified. "It's so cold," I whimpered, tears welling up. Aunt Bao sat on the stool and hugged me on her lap.Don't cry, puppy, she scolded softly, or the tears will freeze into icicles and dig out your eyeballs.She kneaded my feet quickly, like kneading dough for dumplings.Do you feel better?How about now?Feel better?

I gradually stopped crying, and Aunt Bao lit more incense.She walked back to the door and picked up a shoe.Everything seems to be vivid in my mind—the gray-blue cloth upper with black edges, and an extra leaf embroidered on it to cover a hole.I thought she was going to burn the shoes as an offering to the ancestors.Unexpectedly, she took out a piece of paper from the interlayer of the shoe, which was the same piece of paper she showed me just now.She nodded to me and told me in sign language: This is my surname, and all bonesetters have this surname.She put the piece of paper in front of me again and said, never forget this last name.Then, she carefully placed the paper on the altar.We salute, get up, salute again, get up.Every time I look up, I see that last name.That surname is——

Why can't I see it now?I finished reading hundreds of surnames, but none of them could bring back my memories.Is that unusual last name?Is it because I kept this secret for so long that I lost it without realizing it?Maybe, all the things I loved were lost in this way—the coat that Gao Ling gave me when I left home to go to the Yogyakarta, the dress that my second husband said I looked like a movie star in, Ruyi The first baby clothes that couldn't fit.Every time, when I love something so badly, I put it in the treasure box.I've kept these things for so long that I almost forgot I ever had them.

This morning, I remembered my treasure chest and wanted to collect the birthday present that Ruyi gave me.It was a string of black pearls from Hawaii, and it was unbelievably beautiful.When I opened the lid of the box, swarms of moths rushed towards me, and there were also a large number of silverfish inside.My baby was a tangled web with holes in it one after the other.Those embroidered flowers, bright colors, all disappeared.All my life's treasures have been lost, and worst of all, Aunt Bao's last name is gone. Aunt Bao, what is our last name?I've been trying to get that last name back.Come and help me.I am no longer a child, no longer afraid of ghosts.Are you still mad at me?Don't you recognize me?I am Ruling, your daughter.