Chapter 13 first quarter

In the summer of that year, there were vague clouds floating in the sky, and the cicadas began to sing tirelessly from 8 o'clock in the morning on time, and the noise would not stop until sunset.Although I come from the basin, I don't feel very uncomfortable with the summer in the southeast coastal area, except for the strong wind that blows here from time to time, so I can always distinguish the sweet and fishy sea water from it. In fact, there is a certain distance from the sea here, which makes me always confused about my sense of smell, wondering if I am different from ordinary people.

The problem that confuses me more is, I don’t know why, at that time I was afraid of looking in the mirror, I was afraid of seeing my own face, I seemed to say goodbye to my baby fat, the contours of my face became more and more clear, which made me I think of some past events that have been sealed in my memory for a long time, some people who have already left me.I don't want to walk with my chest up, and I don't want to hear my voice suddenly become sweet and sour.I don't want to see the sunshine or flowers in that season.It’s funny to say that growing up that I’ve been looking forward to makes me feel uneasy. I seem to have a lot to say, but I don’t know how to say it.So I chose to read.I read foreign literature, and the long and lengthy narratives make my heart a little quieter, forget the past, and know how to endure.

At noon that day, when I was curled up on the sofa reading a large pile of old books borrowed from the county library, I heard the sound of a motorcycle outside the door.Then, Anan almost ran into the door, holding a piece of paper in his hand, panting and said to me: "Ma Zhuo, you got the first place in the exam, and you were admitted by Tianzhong!" My ears suddenly rang softly. After so many days of hard work, it was finally not in vain.Tianzhong, Tianyi Middle School, you know, in our county, in this city and the surrounding areas, how many children dream of stepping into its school gate.

Anan held the thin notice, turned it over to read it, and turned it over again.Maybe it was an illusion, but I actually saw so many tears in his eyes.He approached me, patted my forehead with that thin piece of paper, and said, "Ma Zhuo, I really belong to you." I pinch my hands and smile. "Oh." He poured himself a cup of herbal tea, sat down on the old sofa in the living room and sighed: "It would be great if your mother could see this day." Her picture hangs in the living room.That photo was a photocopy of the negative she left when she re-photographed her ID card when she was twenty-five years old. It looks young and is black and white.There are many photos of her in Anan's place, but for some reason, he chose this one.In the photo, she is beautiful, pure, with long hair, a white shirt, and a pair of big eyes, which makes people feel pity.Everyone here believes that she is Anan's wife and I am Anan's daughter.We've kept this a secret from day one in this small county.I grew up like all favored daughters, and Anan gave me everything other girls could have.

I still remember that when I was admitted to the county's key junior high school in the sixth grade of elementary school, I was the third in the county. Anan went to the school to attend the graduation ceremony. He held the certificate awarded by the school and stood with the principal. When taking a group photo, he held up the certificate like a child, and smiled desperately while pulling the corners of his mouth.I seldom see him laughing like that, acting silly and serious, which makes me feel a little funny, but more emotional.God knows, over the years, the worst thing I've ever feared is letting him down.

I want to be his greatest pride.This is the wish I made in front of the starry sky on the first night when I was ten years old and he came to this small town in the south of the Yangtze River. Of course, this ideal that I vow to die to realize is just my secret, and Anan has never been able to know it.Many years later, I read a sentence in a book: "Only those who know how to be grateful can live a magnanimous life." I drew a heavy red line under that sentence, and warned myself that I must never forget to live a magnanimous life. Getting admitted to Tianzhong is also an indispensable part of this oath.

"I'm going to live in the city." Anan said, "I'm a little bit worried about you as a girl." "I can do it." I said. "I know you can do it." Anan said longingly, "Maybe I can open the supermarket to the city, and it's okay if the place is a little smaller, so you have a home to go back to every weekend." Anan's "Guoguo Supermarket" is already well-known here. When we came back, it was just a small shop. Later, it became bigger and bigger, and the business became more and more prosperous.Of course, this is also a matter of course. Anan is a hardworking person, he does business with integrity, and he has a good heart, so there will be good rewards.

Anan's father died of illness when I was twelve years old.Anan's mother, my current grandma, is very kind to me.She is capable and doesn't look old, in fact, it's not that she doesn't look old, it's because she doesn't allow herself to grow old at all.Every time she had only one or two gray hairs, she insisted on dyeing it back to black.She looks completely different from my Ya'an grandma. She has many hobbies, sings Yue opera, and goes to college for the elderly. She is very busy every day.However, the love she gave me was the same, even worse.She loves to clean, and always cleans the house. She wipes Lin Guoguo's photos every day, meticulously every time, and sometimes sighs slightly.Every time I hear her sigh, my heart trembles like being stabbed by a needle.I feel guilty and blame myself.Because we lied to her.The kind-hearted woman always thought that I was Anan's biological daughter, a "debt" left by Anan when he was ignorant. I really can't imagine, if one day she knows the truth, will she kill our hearts? Both.

The meal that night was very rich, and Anan specially asked grandma to boil chicken soup, and after passing a large bowl of soup to me, grandma said, "I think I should change my name back before entering high school. I always follow my mother's surname, Ma Zhuo. Ma Zhuo. Her mother is gone again, and the teachers and classmates in the school can't figure out what's going on." Anan's surname is Zhang.My name is Grandma's heart disease, and she has mentioned it more than once over the years. "Let's eat, Mom." Anan said, "The child is old, don't force her."

"My father's surname is Qianqiang?" Grandma said, "I haven't heard of it." "Okay, okay. Let's talk, let's talk." Anan put the chicken legs into grandma's bowl.Grandma gave it to me again, and asked me, "What do you think, Ma Zhuo?" I bit my chopsticks in silence. That meal, because of this topic, seemed a little unhappy.When I was reading in my small room at night, Anan knocked on the door.He brought me a glass of iced watermelon juice, and whispered to me: "Just pretend you didn't hear what grandma said, and don't take it to heart."

"It can be changed." I looked at him and said sincerely. He looked at me somewhat puzzled. "I can take your last name," I said. "Zhang Zhuo, Zhang Zhuo..." He rubbed his hands and said it several times, and said with a bitter face, "Why do I think it's not easy to pronounce? It's not good?" I smile. "It's better to be Ma Zhuo." He said with determination, "I won't change it, I think the name Ma Zhuo has momentum!" He is such a person, so kind to the point of outrageous. "What are you reading?" He looked curiously at the books on my desk and said, "A novel borrowed from the library?" It was a book, the two words were written big on the cover, and the author had a long foreign name.In fact, I haven't opened it at all.But I blocked the title of the book with my arm to prevent him from reading it.Maybe he had seen it a long time ago, but instead of exposing me, he went out with a haha. When the door was closed, I opened the book that was so old and yellowed.The book has been borrowed by many people, and on its title page, someone wrote this sentence with a ballpoint pen: I love you until the last moment of my life. I suddenly remembered a sentence that Anan once said to me many, many years ago: "I am the one who loves your mother the most." This sentence is engraved in my heart like a tattoo, and I even remember Anan's expression when he said it, and the pitch of each byte.I think I will never forget it until I die. I still haven't finished the book after all.I couldn't get used to the length and complexity of translating novels, so I just turned a few pages and put it aside. On that long summer night, it suddenly rained heavily.I put the acceptance letter from Tianzhong next to my pillow, and finally bravely recalled some past events. I remembered the day when I was sent home after my mother died. At that time, there was an unprecedented torrential rain in Ya’an, and the sound of the rain made me almost I am deaf in both ears, and I think of the way my uncle told me to get out of here in a rage, I think of the lonely feeling of being locked up at home and not being allowed to go to school, I think of the gloomy morning when my grandma died, and the clouds gathered on the roof of my house. As if ready to collapse together. It was a nightmare for half a year. My life was completely disorientated, and I almost became an idiot. Even the pain was dull and numb.That time, after I was kicked out of the house, my neighbor sent me home. My uncle refused to adopt me again. I stayed at the neighbor's house for three days until Anan came and decided to take me away immediately. The adoption process only took half a day.The uncle bit his toothpick, took away the last more than 1,000 yuan in cash in Anan's pocket, and said to me in a vague but extremely firm tone: "Get out, get out as far away as possible!" When I was in the fifth grade of elementary school, I learned an idiom called "unbearable to look back".When I copied it over and over in my new vocabulary book, I felt that this word was tailor-made for me.I use it to make a sentence like this: My life is unbearable to look back on.Such old-fashioned words were written down by me so solemnly that my tears almost fell down. But in any case, over the years, I have almost gotten used to packing up the past, tidying it up, stuffing it into a corner and never touching it again.Even the occasional memory is enough to break my heart to the point of suffocation. I often imagine, what would I be like today without Anan?Maybe I have been serving dishes and washing dishes in a small restaurant in Ya'an, and being called around by customers.Maybe it's the current season, digging the land on the mountain, and tidying up the crops quickly.In a few years, they will marry indiscriminately, and even have children soon. But now, what I have is an admission letter from "Tianyi Middle School", which is enough to make the whole county's middle school students vomit blood with envy. How should I thank Anan and fate? In the diary of that day, I used a pen to write down a line of big characters: "Ma Zhuo, a new day has begun. Come on, work hard!"