Chapter 22 21. Housework

Chen Jianxia sat on the toilet seat in a daze for too long unknowingly, her mother's inquiry and Li Ran's text message rang at the same time. "What are you doing? Diarrhea?" The door of the bathroom is made of frosted glass. Although it cannot be seen clearly, the light from the screen can still be seen.Jian Xia quickly held the orange screen upside down in his palm. "Constipation," she replied. "I took all your sets of clothes to wash!" Mom left the door after she finished speaking. Jian Xia breathed a sigh of relief, and quietly unlocked it to read Li Ran's text messages.

"Why, why haven't you answered for so long?" "Dinner with the family," she replied. "You went home?" "Well. Go back and bring you special products to eat." Chen Jianxia pressed the send button and suddenly felt strange.Why did she bring him special products to eat?The county seat and the provincial capital of my home are separated by tens of kilometers, and they belong to the same place. Are there any specialties that are different? Sure enough, Li Ran replied: "Are you out of your mind?" She smiled: "I'll talk to you later. It's not convenient now."

Chen Jianxia was happy that he could calmly say "it's inconvenient now".She hardly used a mobile phone in junior high school, and never chatted with anyone by text message, but now she behaves as naturally as those junior high school classmates who are clacking and pressing the keyboard. She was a little proud. I went to the living room to sit with my parents for a while, and saw Xia spitting all over the place talking about what he had seen and heard in Zhenhua, of course the part that excluded Li Ran and Yu Sisi.The younger brother also moved a small bench and sat beside him, listening to her for the first time without interrupting, staring at her brightly, with adoration in his eyes for the first time.

They all went to bed at half past ten, and Chen Jianxia opened his schoolbag and studied for the midterm exam in the living room.The milky white desk was finally moved into the small room by his younger brother after Chen Jianxia moved away.Times have changed, and she doesn't care anymore, and her mother helps her clean the dining table, and she sits at the table and reads a book. Of course, she didn't go back to her room, and there was another more important reason than the midterm exam. Li Ran said to wait for her to text back. Jian Xia waited until eleven o'clock when her parents' snoring sounded, she finally felt relieved, took out her phone from her trouser pocket and muted it first.

The sound of pressing keys is very clear at night, like an elf walking. "Are you asleep?" she asked. After sending the text message, she put the phone next to the pencil case and opened the chemistry exercise book.I did a half-page exercise, but my phone didn't respond. Jian Xia's heart was like a pendulum clock in the living room, swinging from side to side and unable to stop. Suddenly annoyed, she reached out and pressed the power off button in the upper right corner. After less than two minutes of being turned off, I couldn't help but turn it on again. Looking at the black and white boot screen, Chen Jianxia wondered what was wrong with him.

The heart that had always been in her own chest was so carelessly attached to someone else. After Chen Jianxia turned on and off the phone several times, he was so anxious that he removed the battery board on the back of the phone, and even went into a small room once in desperation, and put the battery board on his bed, so as not to commit another crime. Finally, full of rage, she finished the chemistry workbook, opened the English version of "Five-Year College Entrance Examination and Three-Year Simulation" to review the rules of using clauses, and looked up at the clock. It was already twelve fifteen in the middle of the night.

Take one last look, just one look.she told herself. Chen Jianxia tiptoed into the small room.The wooden floor is a bit old, and it was flooded when it was warm and leaking before, and it creaks no matter how careful it is, not to mention the room door that needs to be oiled.She held her breath and leaned over to get the battery board on the bed, but her younger brother sat up suddenly. Chen Jianxia's heart almost stopped in fright.The younger brother's eyes were brighter than when he heard her talk just now, and he begged softly without thinking: "Sister, tell our parents to let me go to the provincial capital to go to school too?"

It turned out that I was thinking about this when I didn't sleep. Jian Xia was relieved, and smiled at him: "Okay, I beg them, but you have to study hard." The younger brother nodded sharply. "Go to sleep." She said, holding the battery board firmly in her hand, and exited the room. She installed the battery and turned it on solemnly, her heart pounding. "3 new information comes from Li Ran".What is that feeling?It's like walking a long way in the wind and snow when I was a child, and finally returned home and soaked my frozen feet in hot water. After a moment of shivering warmth, there was a gentle pain.

Chen Jianxia's smile was reflected on the glass door of the clock, she was frightened by her own happiness, and desperately suppressed the corners of her mouth. "I'm sorry, I played billiards with my brother. They confiscated my phone because I kept looking at it. I didn't see your text messages. Are you asleep?" "Don't answer me, are you really asleep?" "Don't you good students all study in the second half of the night? Who are you lying to? Have you slept yet?" Chen Jianxia held the phone in his right hand, and gently pressed it against his chest, laughing so hard that he couldn't stop it.

She didn't reply, with a little temper and pride, her heart was at ease, and her speed of doing the questions was much faster. Although I still couldn't help unlocking the phone from time to time, I read the three text messages from beginning to end over and over again. When the clock pointed to half past one, Jian Xia finally couldn't bear it any longer. She closed her notebook and prepared to wash up and go to bed. When she brushed her teeth, she raised her head and saw her ordinary face in the mirror. Chen Jianxia thought that she was one of the fair-looking girls who did well in junior high school.

Of course, such a long attributive has already explained the problem. She moved closer to the mirror and stared carefully. These sesame spots on the nose are called blackheads, she has already learned about it through cute TV commercials; her forehead is not bad, the fortune teller said that she has a full sky, but it is a pity that the earth is not round. And the blessings of children. Of course she didn't believe it. Chen Jianxia's skin is very fair, her eyebrows are very light, and her hair is a little yellow, not as lush and vibrant as her younger brother and parents; she has a pair of almond-shaped eyes, not too big or too small, with double eyelids, but unfortunately her eyelashes are not long; her nose is small , is the most beautiful part; the lips are thin, always pursed, and because they don’t like drinking water, they always turn white; the hairstyle has always been dull and bright, all the hair is combed up, and tied into a ponytail at the back of the head, Just like most girls in Zhenhua. In junior high school, many female students were keen on hairstyles. When bangs were popular, they went together to cut bangs so thick that they covered the entire forehead, and left a few long pieces of hair on the left and right sides.Jian Xia also thought about it, but she didn't dare to tell her mother. In the mother's concept, cutting a daughter's hair only means cutting it short, and there is no option of "beautiful". But it's different now.The trickle of envy that used to be, suddenly converged into a river at this moment, surging forward. I really want to be beautiful. Chen Jianxia soon knew why her mother urged her to come back. On Saturday morning, after she had breakfast, she just took out a stack of papers from her schoolbag, when her mother found a new big red windbreaker and said to her, try it on. Seeing that Xia Le was happy, Chen hurried over to put it on. The windbreaker is a bit too big, and the waist is empty. My mother frowned and looked at it a few times, and said to her: "Let's make do with it. I'll change to a smaller size after I finish wearing it today. You can wear the belt, it will be better." Jian Xia nodded, and was about to take it off, but was held down by her mother: "Put it on, let's go out later, to your grandma's house." "To grandma's house?" "That's right." Mom straightened her slightly curly short hair in front of the mirror, "You have been going to school in the provincial capital for two months, and you haven't gone to see grandma. Today is just right, let's go and see." Jian Xia was surprised: "How long will you stay? Come back in the afternoon? If I don't come back, I will carry my schoolbag and exercise book on my back." "No need to." Mom took her and her younger brother downstairs to take the bus.The car drove slowly, stopping and picking up passengers at any time, and it took 20 minutes to get downstairs to the second uncle's house.The newly built residences in the county in recent years are all planned communities, but the surroundings of the second uncle's house are still independent eight-storey gray buildings with no names, only street numbers. Although in front of my parents, I still want to call this place "grandma's house", but in Jianxia's heart, the old house at No. 2 on the seventh floor of Unit 3 has long since changed from "grandparents' house" to "second uncle's house" . Jian Xia has been here since she was born until she went to elementary school.The house is very big, the layout is not good, the entrance is the corridor, the bedroom doors are on both sides of the corridor, and the bathroom, kitchen and small balcony are at the end.The four bedrooms live in the grandparents, the eldest aunt's family, the second uncle's family and Jianxia's family.Jian Xia's father was the fourth child, and the third brother above died in his teens. In terms of age, he was more than ten years behind his eldest aunt and second uncle. Because there is no living room, the table is placed in the room of the grandparents when the reunion dinner is held during the holidays, and the twelve people are crowded around the same round table and are lively.Of course, this excitement only exists in the childlike imagination of seeing Xia Xia. In fact, every big family in China will have secret battles between sisters-in-law and sister-in-law to some extent at the New Year’s Eve dinner table, but at that time she was young, can not read it.After her family moved out, she learned about some of the disputes while doing her homework and listening to her parents discussing housework. The deadlock in these disputes is this old house. Jian Xia looked up at the wide balcony on the seventh floor.When I was young, I had clay-plastic-steel windows, but now the house has been renovated by my second uncle’s family, and replaced with bright silver aluminum alloy windows, which are brand new and inlaid in this gray building that has faded over the years. She remembered that a year and a half ago when her grandfather was at the funeral, her parents and her second uncle's family pointed at each other's noses and yelled at the door of the building. Looking at them from the balcony, it seemed that they were trying to shout something, but no one could hear them clearly. "What are you thinking! Sister!" Chen Jianxia came back to his senses, and strode towards the opening of the building. When Second Aunt opened the door, the first thing she saw was Chen Jianxia who was standing closest to the door, her cold expression eased slightly. "Xiao Xia is back?" Second Aunt pulled the corner of her mouth with difficulty to let them in. Two of the four bedrooms were opened up and used as the living room. Chen Jianxia's grandma was watching TV on the sofa in the living room.The sofa was covered with quilts and cushions, and it was almost transformed into a bed for the hemiplegic old man to lie on.The room was filled with the old man's body odor and the smell of medicine, and Chen Jianxia felt that he was also declining with this unpleasant smell. Grandma is sometimes sober and sometimes confused. In recent times, she has recognized Chen Jianxia as several completely different old neighbors. This time, she took her hand again and asked her if Gui Fen was okay. Jian Xia's mother coaxed grandma with a loud voice—you're confused again?Don't you know your granddaughter?Do you want a granddaughter?Do you want grandchildren?Miss us?Your son misses you every day, and he will say anything delicious, I have to buy this for my mother next time.Do you think your youngest son is the best for you? The second aunt hummed unabashedly, but the grandma just salivated, looked at Xia's mother with cloudy eyes, sometimes nodded, sometimes shook her head. Jian Xia withdrew his hand in embarrassment and shrank in a corner of the sofa. The younger brother had already entered the room of the big brother with ease to turn on the computer to play. Seeing Xia's mother asking endlessly, the second aunt couldn't bear it any longer, and shouted to her younger brother from a distance: "Your brother Dahui said that you deleted all the important things he put in the computer last time, don't move around!" Seeing Xia's mother sneer: "Xiaowei, it's not that our family doesn't have a computer, why are you tampering with hers? It's all because of you that you can't find a job for Brother Dahui!" Second Aunt blushed.When the man in the family is not present, the two sisters-in-law can always easily fight in the ugliest posture. Seeing Xia Mo stood up, pretended to go to the bathroom, then looked at the ceiling of the bathroom, and sighed in his heart. Just for this house.Just because "the house is to be left to the grandson". Grandparents don't like Chen Jianxia because she is a girl.But after all, Second Uncle's son, Chen Zhihui, was seven years old, and the old Chen family had a son. Jian Xia didn't need to bear too many responsibilities, and this house should logically belong to Second Uncle's family. Jian Xia didn't think deeply about why the house should be left to his grandson as a matter of course. At least she is not rare.The life here is not as warm and comfortable as my own four-person family. When my grandfather was alive, he liked to play mahjong. However, most of the disputes in this world originate from superficial righteousness. The house should be given to the grandson, so what if there are two grandchildren in this family? When Chen Jianxia's younger brother was born, his cousin Chen Zhihui was already eleven years old.The house that is firmly established has become a nail in the hearts of the second uncle and father. Apart from male and grandchildren, the only way to determine the ownership of a house is filial piety.This filial piety is sometimes a steelyard in the heart of the elderly, but sometimes it is also a backbone that is allowed to be poked by relatives and neighbors. Her mother brought them to "see grandma" today, just to show off this backbone. The younger brother represents blood, and Chen Jianxia represents Guangzong Yaozu.They're here to demonstrate. Seeing Xia Zheng standing in a daze at the door of the toilet, he suddenly saw the screen of the phone in his belt turn on.It was only then that she remembered that her phone was still on silent, and she missed several calls from Li Ran. When she was feeling uncomfortable, the only person in the world who could make her feel at ease called.She picked them up. "Chen Jianxia, ​​you are sick!" "I muted it and didn't hear it. I fell asleep last night... last night." "Make it up and you do." She pursed her lips and smiled without denying it. She tapped on the wall of the corridor with her free hand and asked, "Why do you want me?" Before hearing Li Ran's answer, there was a sharp roar from the living room. "Zheng Yuqing, are you fucking shameless?!" Zheng Yuqing is the name of Chen Jianxia's mother. "The two of you need face. If you want face, you can drive your own father to death for a house? People who want face don't do such things!" Chen Jianxia heard her mother fight back even louder, and watched the two push and push from the living room to her. Her mind went blank.A living room quarrel doesn't need to heat up to heat up right from the start. "What the hell are you saying again? Why did we force the father-in-law to death? The father-in-law believed in us before he died, and said in front of everyone that the house was renamed Dahui, and our mother-in-law will be taken care of by us in the future. We don't need you when she gets sick or dies." Worry, did you dare to fart at that time? You didn’t dare, your parents-in-law had cancer and dementia, you were afraid that they would not die for a while, dragging you down, and you dare not raise them! You ran back during the funeral and sprayed blood in front of the neighbors. We How did you force him to death? Why did you force him to death?" After the second aunt finished speaking for a long time, without taking a breath, she continued to point to Chen Jianxia who was standing beside him and said, "You said we forced the elderly to death? What about you? You are worthy of your family because you ran to have a second child to build a house." Big girl? What kind of a good child has made you grow up, you stared at her when you ate a few more mouthfuls when you were young, I have never seen you as a mother, Zheng Yuqing, you are shameless!..." Chen Jianxia held the phone in a daze for an unknown amount of time before waking up. Seeing the word "Li Ran" on the screen, he almost couldn't catch his breath, and hung up with trembling fingers. The two women didn't debate each other sentence by sentence. They were talking almost at the same time. When the second aunt screamed, she saw Xia's mother roaring at a louder decibel. Unbearable and rude language roared out. No one is innocent.It's hard to explain the truth, because no one can fully grasp the truth. Indeed, in order to monopolize the house, the second uncle's family and the "foreign surname" aunt drove away Jianxia's family with the reason that Chen Zhihui, the hall brother, had grown up and needed a separate room. Since Jianxia's father divided the house, why? Still squeezed together.But seeing that Xia's mother was short-sighted at the time, she only felt that her in-laws were getting worse and worse, and they were not able to help take care of the children as she had originally planned, so she was happy to move back to her new home. Later, the grandfather was seriously ill, and the second uncle's family urged the grandfather to quickly change the name of the house to the eldest grandson, promising to take care of the mother until the end of her life. The grandfather was always worried, and insisted on changing the name after his wife died in the future, but the second uncle's family was even more worried about seeing Xia's parents. , Threatened again and again, the matter was revealed, and the brothers in the mourning hall turned against each other. Chen Jianxia's mother often came over to hang around, and pretended to be intimate with her grandma, but it was just a gesture of "we also have a part in taking care of the elderly".The war went on for years, getting uglier and cruder. People who want to take advantage will always feel wronged. Jian Xia is not as indignant for her parents as her younger brother. She has always been just sad, why, her life doesn't deserve a bit of decency.