This year’s Qingming Festival, I accompanied her mother back home to sweep the graves. It was the rainy season, raining continuously, and the road conditions worsened on our return. We drove for nearly two hours until we finally reached the village late at night. Stepping onto the muddy graves, my mother cut out some paper money and inserted it into the weed-covered mound while I used a spade to add some fresh soil to the old grave. After some tidying up, the lonely graves gained a slightly more dignified appearance.
Xiao Qing, a mute girl from our village, is someone I still remember fondly. My mother often took me along when she visited Xiao Qing's family. Once, her mother jokingly said that they believed in letting Xiao Qing go out into the world and make her own way. However, halfway through their journey, her brother stopped them and held her back. Her indescribable elasticity and tears that circled around her eyes were heart-wrenching.
Afterwards, my mother packed up and went to Xiao Qing's house. The scene of the funeral was vivid in my imagination, with everything inside draped in white, and piercing cries coming from within the house.
We were invited into the main room while one side of the house remained dark. The room was dimly lit, with a rotting wooden smell. I sat down as the villagers handed out cigarettes, each person taking one. Though I usually don’t smoke, I puffed away in the oppressive atmosphere.
A villager inhaled deeply and said, "The first day without food or drink, eating only on the last day makes you foolish and fat, even if you have to walk the road." Until yesterday evening, the brain overflowed suddenly. You say 'ye ye,' how foolish, students gain others, but how could she then be good? Even though the cover had worn away by more than half, it hadn't broken at all, showing how extremely careful Xiao Qing was. Just as we wanted to open it, a note fell from the house. Picking it up under the faint light through the door, the words appeared vividly before us: "Waiting for me."
Out the window, the rain grew heavier and harder, splashing down on the tile roof and into the ditch in front of the house, turning over the pages of a not too thick book, the total precipitation forming a lake-like pool. Writing became vague, feelings cutting through dialogue, so I thought of the childhood days with that pony-tailed mute girl.
Though Xiao Qing was mute, she was very intelligent. Stopping by her house, I saw walls covered with awards. Xiao Qing spoke, not mentioning the cub who lived next door to her. The two would speak loudly to see if the other could hear. So, they played well every day and didn't shine unless you heard the cub crying - which meant it was time to go to school.
During holidays, they became even closer, like red bean paste and dough sticking together. Every corner of the village bore their footprints. Under cool acacia trees, sitting on straw mats, they chatted; by the evening pond, carrying water, their figures were often seen; on field paths, clear laughter echoed in the breeze. Xiao Qing and Gained became the village favorites, often sitting on the North Bridge feeding ducks, listening to the sound of trickling water under the bridge. Until - sheep looped, chickens roosted in trees, shouting the family name, they unhappily left.
One afternoon, the skies were blue, the water crystal clear, and the two sat on the bridge, feet dangling in the river despite its erosion.
I heard the sound of the sea in the electric box.
Gained lost his mother early, and his father was lazy, so the state of their home can be imagined. Besides empty houses, there was a transistor radio from an unknown year, and only a wooden bed. Due to malnutrition, Gained was frail, with thin arms like hemp straw, often bullied in school.
Once, the squad leader forced Gained to steal test answers. He was afraid of offending the squad leader and dared not go. In Moon Lane, he turned to the teacher from the office window, unaware that the same day he wouldn't go home after being caught red-handed by the teacher, who scolded him without involving his parents.
Gained didn't go to school the next day, nor did he dare tell his parents. At noon, the teacher came to the house. He climbed under the scared and twisted for a long time before climbing out. The teacher said, "I have your papers, and I know you were coerced." However, the change of position hung like a turtle, saying nothing back yet, not behaving like a girl. Gained was puzzled, wondering why the girl would help him busy explaining.
The last time they met, Gained understood trouble only because she wrote to the teacher explaining why. Since then, their relationship improved. Don't believe me? Look at this book, and then we'll understand: "I have to thank you, or I've been wronged to know Shashi Hou miles; polite Han; ye that I thank you for miles; hey; you eat sponge cake; do not like; you catch a kingfisher; Do not; that way, and I ask you to listen to the radio!"
In the afternoon, while no one was at home, Gained went to Xiao Qing's house. Turning on the radio, it was to put Gained to replace, stopping to let him change, Gained said what's nice, I'll give you fun comic books, Xiao Qing refused shaking her head. So the two sat on the board, quietly enjoying the singing.
On summer afternoons, the sun shone fiercely in the yard, and the entire village seemed to sleep in the sun. However, the house was filled with vitality. Gained took out his dad's unfinished wine, gently poured two bowls, gave it to Xiao Qing, and both smiled relatively, then drank that hemp, Susu's wine.
You'll feel after two glasses of wine, Xiaoqing blushed like an apple. Cub asked, "Do I interest you?" Trance blew the wide surface, leaving layers of ripples in the river, and then gradually calmed.
Gained and Xiaoqing went to school, although they were no longer as inseparable as children, his love was everyone's known fact. Village partners always teased Gained for giving up.
In the blink of an eye, the test arrived. Coming out from the examination room, village partners had a drink to relax, but Gained didn't go. On the day the notice came down, Xiao Qing received a notice in the county, happily going to Gained's home. But she didn't see the cub, eventually finding him in the woods of the village.
Xiao Qing went to Gained's side, happy to show him her admission notice. Gained sat on a stake, dejected, his head not lifting. Xiaoqing discovered that his feet were torn admission notices.
Gained frowned, saying Zou, looking at the clear river. They sat for a long time, Gained struggling to pick up a stone and threw it into the river. A few stones jumped in the water and then sank to the bottom. He didn't know whether his own destiny was like the stones - always wanting to jump out of a small lake, and eventually all efforts were just for the river, leaving ripples.
That night, Xiao Qing's mother came to Gained's home, saying the school wasn't the case Xiao Qing hoped for, learning that it couldn't find work. "I know you do," she said. "I’ll give you enough money for tuition fees, but don't forget Xiao Qing after graduation." Gained's dad said quickly, "That's right, so we'll arrange their marriage after Gained graduates. Get it, Tiger doesn't knock your mother give you ten feet." Gained knelt down, tears dripping down patter.
In the end, Gained got his wish to attend high school. The day he left, Xiao Qing and Gained stood on the stone bridge north of the village. Xiao Qing took out the red notebook - their decade-long medium of communication: "Huge, you have a good idea;" "Well, I will;" "Don't forget to tell me interesting places in town;" "Well, I can forget it." I don't know how long they talked, but I saw page after page of the book reduce, leaving behind a thick blessing. Until the last page, the word Gained left: "Waiting for me," and then gradually disappeared in the wet Xiao Qing's sight.
Thus, Xiao Qing stayed home doing housework, while Gained journeyed far away. When he graduated from high school, until he went to college until last year when he got married. Listening to the village, they said during Xiao Qing's period, many people proposed marriage, some with good conditions, but she rejected them all.
In a notebook, there were so many words: "Why do all warm happy memories last long, long ago, like in the corner covered with dust, they have forgotten us, or we forgot them." Then I remembered that summer afternoon when the cub said something great to me, "Because there is no one good enough, pure of heart."
It was clear. But he hasn't come in, buying something Xiao Qing's mother threw into the pigpen, her face also a two-hand Kota. From that point on, I never went again.
I think this kind of love shouldn't be so fragile - seemingly solid ice melts into troubled waters with a slight change in outside temperature. Maybe life's only witness is hard to understand; there are always some factors obstructing force majeure that we can't get rid of. Because of this, I can't blame the cub for not qualifying. However, seeing the faint eyes where Xiao Qing's funeral took place, it made me feel sad.
With Xiao Qing was the last time with the notebook resting on the ground. My mother and I left the village when the rain was still pattering under the lead-gray sky. After crossing the stone bridge north of the village, through the misty water vapor, it seemed we saw a girl holding a red book, sitting on the bridge, journeying waiting for - something. Like Related articles:
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