Chapter 9 Chapter VII

As expected, the Zhang family really came to propose marriage.Widow Liu also said that if I was willing to pass through the door as soon as possible, their family would send a bride price.The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming soon. During the village and family festivals, a special celebration program will be held to honor Boss Zhang’s scientific contributions. At that time, every household will know that I am the daughter-in-law of the Zhang family. "She has to get married as soon as possible," both the aunt and the second aunt persuaded the mother, "otherwise they may retreat later. What if they find out that her background is not good and they don't want to marry her, what should they do?" I thought they said I was born If there is a problem, it means that my female celebrity did not do well, or that I got into some mischief by being naughty before. I have forgotten it, but they still remember it.But in fact, they are talking about my life experience.They all know whose daughter I am, but the Zhang family and I don't know.

My mother decided to let me go through the door in a few weeks before the Mid-Autumn Festival.She assured me that this time was enough for her and her aunts to help me prepare bedding and clothes for my wedding.After the mother announced her decision, she shed tears of joy, and said proudly, "I have always treated you well, and no one can blame me." Gao Ling also cried.Although I also shed some tears, but not all tears of joy.After all, I want to leave home, leave this familiar house.I will no longer be a little girl, I will become someone's wife, no longer the family's daughter, and I will become someone's daughter-in-law.No matter how happy my future life will be, I am still very sad to say goodbye to my former self.

Aunt Bao still lives in the same room and bed with me.But she no longer fetched water for my bath, nor fetched sweet water from the well for me to drink.She doesn't comb my hair, doesn't care about my complexion every day, and whether my nails are clean or not. She doesn't give all kinds of warnings and admonitions, and she doesn't talk to me in sign language anymore. The two of us lay on the kang far apart.If I wake up and find myself snuggled up to her like before, I will quietly move away before she wakes up.Every morning she wakes up with red eyes, so I know she has been crying all night.Sometimes, I have red eyes myself.

As long as Aunt Bao is not working in Mofang, she keeps writing, writing page after page.She always sits at the table, rubbing ink on the inkstone, and meditating.What she was thinking, I couldn't guess.Then she dipped the pen into the ink and started to write, stopping for a while, then dipped again.She writes smoothly and smoothly, neither blacking out anything, nor turning back to revise the previous words and sentences. Just a few days before I went through the door, I woke up one morning and found Aunt Bao sitting next to me, staring at me.She raised her hand and began to speak.It's time for me to tell you the truth.She went to the small wooden cabinet, took out a blue cloth package, and put it on my lap.Inside was a thick roll of paper, bound into a volume with thread.She looked at me with a strange expression on her face and left the room.

I opened the first page, and I wrote at the beginning: "I was born in a family of famous bonesetters in Zhoukoudian." I read a few more pages.It talked about their family's ancestral bone setting skills, how her mother died, and how her father grieved, all of which she told me.Then I looked down again: "Next, I want to tell you the ugly truth about Boss Zhang." I immediately put the booklet down.I don't want Aunt Bao to poison my mind anymore.So I didn't read to the end where she said she was actually my mother. During dinner, Auntie Bao returned to her old attitude towards me, as if I were a hopeless child.She put some vegetables into my bowl with chopsticks, and said to me, eat more.Why don't you eat it?are you sick?It seems to be a little hot.Your forehead is hot.Why is your face so pale?

After the meal, everyone came to the yard again as usual.My mother and aunts were busy embroidering a bridal gown for me.Aunt Bao is mending an old pair of trousers for me.She put down her needlework and tugged on my sleeve.Did you see what I wrote? I nodded, not wanting to argue with her in public.I was playing games with Gao Ling and my cousins, pretending to knit with string.I made a lot of mistakes, Gao Ling laughed happily when he saw it, and yelled that the Zhang family was going to marry a stupid daughter-in-law.Hearing this, Aunt Bao gave me a stern look. As the sun sets and night falls, the sounds of the night gradually start to sound, and all kinds of small animals that we can't see are chirping and thrashing in the shadows.Soon it was time to go to bed.I deliberately waited for Aunt Bao to go to bed first.After a long time, I felt that she must have fallen asleep, before returning to the dark room.

But Aunt Bao immediately sat up and started talking to me in sign language. "I can't see what you're saying," I said.Seeing that she was going to turn on the kerosene lamp, I protested again: "Don't bother me, I'm so sleepy, I don't want to talk now." But she still lit the lamp.I climbed onto the kang and lay down.She followed me onto the kang, put the lamp on the ledge, curled up, the light reflected her face, and she stared at me.Now that you've read my story, what on earth do you think of me?to be honest. I made a grunt, which actually caused her to clap her hands and kowtow, thanking the Bodhisattva for saving me from the evil hands of the Zhang family.Before she continued to pray, I hurriedly said, "I still want to marry."

For a long time she remained motionless, then began beating her breast and crying again.She waved her hands quickly: Don't you have any feelings for me? I clearly remember what I said to her at the time: "Even if Zhang's family is all murderers and thieves, just to get rid of you, I will marry them." She slapped the wall with her hands.At last he blew out the lamp and went out. The next morning, she was gone.But I'm not worried at all.She also went away when she was very angry with me before, but she will always come back.She didn't come to breakfast either.So I knew she was even more angry this time than before.Let her be angry, I said in my heart.She doesn't care at all about my future happiness.Only the mother cares.This is the difference between a mother and a babysitter.

That's what I thought in my heart when my aunts, Gao Ling, and I followed my mother to Mofang to start our day's work.Upon stepping into the dimly lit room, we immediately saw the mess around us.The walls were covered with ink stains, as were the stools, and the floor was lined with ink stains.Could it be that some beast broke in?And what's with this sweet, rancid smell?Then I heard my mother start wailing, "She's dead! She's dead!" who diedThen I saw Aunt Bao, the upper half of her face was ashen-white, staring at me frantically.She sat bent over the far wall. "Who's dead?" I yelled at Aunt Bao. "What happened?" I walked over to her, her hair disheveled, and then I noticed flies all over her neck.Her eyes were still on me, but her hands didn't move.In one hand he held a knife for cutting ink.Before I got to her side, I was pushed away by a tenant who was scrambling to watch the excitement.That's all I remember of that day.I don't know how I got back to the room and lay down on the kang.When I woke up in the dark, I thought it was the morning of the previous day.I sat up, shaking, trying to put the nightmare behind me.

Aunt Bao is not on the kang.Then I remembered that she was mad at me and went to sleep elsewhere.I wanted to go back to sleep again, but I couldn't rest.I got up and went out the door.The sky was full of stars outside, no room was lit, not even the old rooster made a sound.That is to say, it's not morning yet, and it's still night. I wonder if I'm sleepwalking?I walked across the yard towards Mofang, thinking that Aunt Bao might be sleeping on the bench in Mofang.Suddenly I remembered the scene in my nightmare: a group of black flies were gnawing at her neck and crawling along her shoulders, as if her hair was moving.I'm afraid to see what's in Mofang, but my trembling hands are already lighting the lamp.

The walls are clean.The same goes for the ground.Aunt Bao is not there.I was relieved and went back to bed. It was already morning when I woke up again, Gao Ling was standing on the edge of the kang, and said to me with tears on her face, "No matter what, I promise to treat you like a sister." Then she told me everything that happened. Told me all.I listened as if it was still a nightmare. The day before, Boss Zhang's wife came to our house with a letter written by Aunt Bao in her hand.The letter was delivered in the middle of the night. "What does this mean?" The woman of the Zhang family wanted to figure it out.The letter said that if I married into the Zhang family, Aunt Bao's ghost would follow and haunt them forever. "Where is the person who sent this letter?" Mrs. Zhang asked, shaking the letter.Then the mother told her that the nanny had just committed suicide.When Mrs. Zhang heard this, she was frightened out of her wits and fled in despair. Afterwards, the mother rushed to Aunt Bao's body. Gao Ling said that Aunt Bao was still leaning against the wall of Mofang. "Is this how you repay me?" the mother cried. "I treat you like a sister. I treat your daughter like my own daughter." She raised her foot and kicked Aunt Bao's body over and over again, blaming Aunt Bao for not thanking her so much and being extremely ashamed. "Mother was mad with anger," Gao Ling said. "She said to Aunt Bao's dead body, 'If you dare to make trouble in our house, I will sell Lu Ling to a kiln and become a prostitute.'" Then, the mother ordered the old cook to drag the body to the car and throw it off the cliff . "She's down there," Gao Ling said, "Your Aunt Bao is lying on the end of the road." After Gao Ling went out, I still didn't understand the meaning of many of her words, but I already knew.I found the words Aunt Bao wrote to me.I'm done.Finally, I finally read her words.Your mother, your mother, I am your mother. That day, I ran to the end of the road to find her.I slid down, twigs and thorns scratching my skin.As soon as it slipped to the bottom, I looked for her in a panic.I heard cicadas chirping and vultures beating their wings.I walked towards the thick bushes, and the trees there grew sideways along with the toppled cliff wall, as if they were about to fall.I see moss, or is that actually her hair?I saw a bird's nest on a high branch, or, is that her body hanging from the branch?I touch a dry branch, could it be her bones?Already bitten to pieces by wolves? I turned and walked in the other direction, following the direction of the cliff.I glimpse scattered rags—her clothes?I saw a crow holding something small in its mouth—is that her flesh?I came to a rubble dump and saw thousands of pieces, her bones.Everywhere I go, I seem to see her broken and damaged.it's all my fault.I remembered the curse of their family, mine too, for the bones were not returned to their place of burial.The reason why the hateful boss Zhang wants me to marry his son is just so that I can help him find more keels.How could I be so stupid that I didn't understand it before? I kept looking for her to find the dark until my eyes were swollen with dust and tears.I didn't find her after all.By the time I climbed up again, a part of me was forever lost at the end of the road. For five whole days, I was motionless, unable to eat or cry, lying alone on the kang, feeling that I was only out of breath.I feel like I have nothing left, but my body is still breathing.There are times when I can't believe what's happening.I refuse to believe it.I thought hard, wanting Aunt Bao to appear, to hear her footsteps, to see her face.I finally saw her face, but it was in a dream, and she was still mad at me.She told me that the curse had come to haunt me now, and that I would never live in peace.I am doomed to be unhappy all my life.On the sixth day, I started to cry non-stop, from morning to night.By the time I was so exhausted from crying that I couldn't feel anything, I got out of bed and was alive again. No one mentioned the words of letting me marry into the Zhang family anymore.The engagement was broken.My mother also stopped pretending that I was her daughter.I don't know if I'm still part of the family.When my mother got angry with me, she threatened to sell me to that consumptive goat shepherd, Old Wu, as a girl.No one mentioned Aunt Bao anymore, neither what happened to her in life, nor what happened to her after death.Although all the aunts knew that I was Aunt Bao's illegitimate daughter, no one sympathized with me mourning my mother's death.When I'm crying, they just turn away and find something to keep their hands and eyes busy. Only Gao Ling spoke to me cautiously. "Are you hungry? If you don't eat this dumpling, I will eat it." I still remember: often, when I was lying on the kang, she came to me, called my sister, and stroked my hand. One day, Gao Ling told me that my mother was going to talk to me soon.I have noticed that since Aunt Bao died, my mother no longer calls me a daughter, nor criticizes me.She seemed to be afraid that I would also turn into a ghost to harm her.I could not help wondering if she had never felt any tenderness for me.I stood in front of her, and when she saw me, she seemed a little embarrassed. "Trouble at home," she began, her voice high-pitched. "Any personal feeling at a time like this is selfish. I'm sorry, but I have to tell you that we're going to send you to the Foundling Home." I was shocked, but I didn't cry, I just didn't say a word. "At least we didn't sell you into slavery," she added. I replied without emotion, "Thank you." Mother went on to say, "If you stay at home, who knows if the ghost will come back. I know the mage promised no, but this kind of saying is like people often say, 'There is no drought in the year of drought, and the year of disaster is not the same. It's the same as doing it all over again. Everyone knows it's too much to do, but that's not the case." I didn't open my mouth to refute, but she still lost her temper. "What face do you put on me? Do you still want to teach me how to look ugly? Just think about it, I have treated you like a daughter for so many years. Is there any family in this town who is willing to do this? Maybe you entered the nursery , On the contrary, I can learn to be grateful to our family. Go and pack up quickly. Old Wei is already waiting to pick you up and take a ride away." I thanked my mother again and walked out of the room.While I was packing my bags, Gao Ling ran into my room with tears streaming down his face."I'll come to you," she promised, and gave me one of her favorite clothes. "Mother will blame you if I take it," I said. "I do not care." She sent me to Lao Wei's car.The last time I left the yard and the house, it was only her and a few tenants who saw me off. I looked up at the sky, which was clear and bright.My heart is wailing.