If that person had never come, if she had never seen those memories, then by now she would probably be happily preparing to graduate, after which she would return home to help with the work and wait for her parents to arrange a marriage for her. She would marry a man who did not hit her, have a few children, and spend the rest of her life that way.
Like all the women in the village, she would not have thought there was anything wrong with that. But as luck would have it, she had met him and seen those things!
The tears still fell helplessly. She cried without making a sound. From the room next door, the faint sound of her Sister-in-law coaxing the children drifted over. She could not let anyone hear her.
Early the next morning, before Zhao Shuhe had even gotten out of bed, the rooster in the courtyard had only just crowed for the first time when someone tapped on her window.
“Little He, are you up?” It was Zhao Shoutian.
Zhao Shuhe rubbed her eyes and sat up. “Father? I’m up.”
“Come outside for a moment. Father wants to talk to you about something.”
Zhao Shuhe pulled on her padded jacket and went outside. Zhao Shoutian was standing in the courtyard, his expression troubled. He looked as though he wanted to say something but could not bring himself to. Zhao Shuhe already knew what it was.
“Girl, Father can’t afford to keep you in school. Your mother and I went over the accounts last night. Fifty yuan and two hundred and thirty jin[1]In modern China, one jin is 500 grams, so 230 jin equals 115 kilograms. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3733451_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3733451_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); of corn… If you go to school, everyone at home will have to go hungry. No matter how good I am at reckoning, I can’t turn an empty account into a full one.”
Zhao Shuhe knew he was telling the truth. She forced a smile. “It’s all right, Father. I was only thinking about it for the moment. I’ll be fine after a few days.”
Zhao Shoutian sighed, but in the end he said nothing. He stood up, brushed the dirt from his trouser legs, and turned to walk out through the courtyard gate.
Zhao Shuhe watched his back, her nose aching terribly. She went back inside, folded her quilt, and washed her face. She did the work she was supposed to do and went to school as usual. Life still had to go on.
Two days later, the sound of children crying and fussing came from outside the courtyard gate. Zhao Shuhe went out to look and saw Third Sister-in-law Ding Feng striding into the courtyard, holding her eldest son by the hand and carrying the younger one on her back.
“Mom! I’m back!” Ding Feng had a loud voice; she announced herself before she even entered the house.
Li Qiongxian came out of the main room. “Oh, so you do remember to come back? I thought you’d put down roots at your parents’ home.”
Ding Feng hurriedly put on a smiling face. “Mom, don’t be angry. I only took the children home to stay for a couple of days. My mother missed her grandsons.”
Li Qiongxian snorted and said no more.
Zhao Manzhu came out of the side room. “Wife, you’re finally back! If you hadn’t come back soon, I wouldn’t have known who was supposed to wash the pots.”
Ding Feng took the child off her back, glanced around, and quietly asked Zhao Manzhu, “I heard Sister-in-law sent someone to tell us that the family is going to split up. What’s going on? Is it because of Little Sister’s schooling?”
Zhao Manzhu immediately looked displeased. “Splitting up was something we decided long ago. It has nothing to do with Little Sister.”
Ding Feng did not believe him. “She’s still going to keep studying?”
Zhao Manzhu said, “No. Father said we can’t afford to support her.”
Only then did Ding Feng let out a sigh of relief. At dinner, the whole family sat together. Ding Feng fed gruel to her younger son while talking, and somehow the conversation turned to Zhao Shuhe.
“Little Sister, let Sister-in-law tell you something from the heart. Being able to study through junior middle school is already an exceptional achievement in our village.”
Zhao Shuhe said nothing and kept her head down as she shoveled rice into her mouth.
Ding Feng continued, “Eldest Sister Shulan went home to work after graduating from primary school. You’ve studied several years longer than she did! The whole family has pinched and scraped to support you until now, so you’ve already enjoyed two extra years of good fortune!”
Zhao Manzhu glanced at his wife. “Enough. Shut up and eat your food!”
Ding Feng was unhappy. “What’s wrong with saying a few words? Am I wrong? There are around ten people in this family, and we all rely on those few work points to get by. Our family isn’t well-off to begin with. Can’t I even say something practical?”
Zhao Shuhe finished the last bite in her bowl, stood up, and said, “I’m finished.” She carried her bowl to the kitchen to wash it. While she was there, Ding Feng continued muttering something to Zhao Manzhu outside, her voice rising and falling.
Li Qiongxian came in to get something. When she saw Zhao Shuhe standing alone by the stove, she walked over and patted her on the shoulder without saying a word.
Zhao Shuhe said nothing either.
There were some things she did not need to say; her mother understood them all. From that day onward, Zhao Shuhe never mentioned going to school again. Every day, she continued attending Commune Middle School as usual. When she came home, she helped with the work—feeding the pigs, carrying water, washing clothes. She did whatever needed to be done.
Sometimes, when Li Qiongxian looked at her, she felt that the girl had grown much quieter than before. Yet she was more capable at everything she did. Her hands and feet moved faster, and she was stronger than she had been. Li Qiongxian did not know whether she had simply grown up or what.
Every night after Zhao Shuhe fell asleep, she studied those lessons, starting with the junior-middle-school material and going through mathematics, Chinese, physics, and chemistry, one subject at a time.
Whenever she came across something she did not understand, she went over it again and again until she had memorized it. She also listened attentively in class during the day. She could answer most of the questions Teacher Wu explained, and sometimes she already knew the answer before the teacher had finished explaining.
Once, Teacher Wu called on her to answer a question. After Zhao Shuhe finished, Teacher Wu looked at her and sighed. She said nothing, only told her to sit down.
The days passed one after another. When spring began, the fields grew busy, and whenever Zhao Shuhe returned home on the weekends, she went out to work in the fields as well.
She worked much faster than before. Even Ding Feng remarked, “Little Sister’s getting stronger by the day.”
Zhao Shuhe only said, “You have strength when you’ve had enough to eat.”
The weather grew hotter day by day. The apricot blossoms faded and the peach blossoms opened; when the peach blossoms faded, the wheat began to send up ears… On June 18, it was Zhao Shuhe’s birthday. She turned seventeen.
Before dawn, Li Qiongxian got up and boiled two eggs for her. She wrapped them in red cloth and pressed them into Zhao Shuhe’s hands. “Little He, you’re another year older.”
Zhao Shuhe took them. The eggs were still hot. “Thank you, Mom.” At seventeen, she had grown another year older.
At the end of the month, she graduated from junior middle school. On the last day she went to school, Zhao Shuhe gathered up her textbooks and tied them into a stack with string.
Several girls from her class stood together, chatting and laughing. One said she was going home to help with the farming. Another said her parents were already looking into a match for her. Yet another said that someone from the neighboring village had sent people to ask about the Zhang family’s son… The girls chattered away, lively and animated.
Someone asked Zhao Shuhe, “Shuhe, what are you going to do now that you’ve graduated?”
Zhao Shuhe smiled. “Go home, of course. What else can I do?”
“Your grades are so good. You’re not going to continue studying?”
Zhao Shuhe shook her head. “No.”
The girl did not ask anything else, and before long the conversation had turned to which young man from whose family was handsome.
When Zhao Shuhe walked out through the school gate with her schoolbag on her back, she looked back at the school enclosed by its earthen walls. She would never have to walk this road again. Step by step, Zhao Shuhe headed into the mountains.
She was seventeen. She had graduated from junior middle school, and what awaited her next was going home to work, having a match arranged for her, and then being married off.
The lessons remained in her mind, and she continued studying them every night. But what difference could it make? No school would accept her, and no one would give her a chance. Those bits of knowledge were stored in her head, like grain in a textbook. If she could not eat it, then she could not eat it.
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