Feifei was very young when she began to remember things.
She remembered the winter of her fourth year.
In the hall of her grandmother’s house, there was a fire burning in a stove.
The flames illuminated several faces, making them all glow red.
Second and third uncles sat around the stove, their feet resting on warm straw shoes.
None of them looked at her.
She huddled outside the door frame, her nose turning red from the cold.
She heard her grandmother tap the edge of the table with her pipe.
“Don’t just calculate the share for Shou Tian’s land.” Her grandmother’s voice was dry.
“With his body condition, can he farm it?
Giving it to him is just leaving it to waste.”
Shou Tian crouched at the corner, his injured leg curled under him, like a piece of wood without a place to rest.
He opened his mouth: “Mother, those few acres in Dongwa are good land.
It was given to me by my father before he died…”
“Your father died early.
I’m the one who has the say in this family.” Her grandmother didn’t even lift her eyelids.
“Dongwa belongs to your elder brother.
The thin land on the south slope is yours.
If you think it’s too little, the old, dilapidated house on the west side will also be yours.
In any case, it’s still empty.”
Second aunt was cracking nuts beside her.
Each time she cracked a nut, she laughed.
“Big嫂 is deaf and mute, and the baby is young.
With you alone, Shou Tian, how much can you farm?”
Guiying was standing behind Feifei.
She couldn’t hear, but she understood – she saw the man’s bent shoulders, saw those lips moving, saw the little bit of pride that couldn’t be hidden on the faces of the sisters-in-law.
Her hands were twisting on the apron, her knuckles turning white.
A very soft “ah” rolled out of her throat.
The land on the south slope was yellow and rough, making the feet sink into it.
When plowed, all that came up was stones.
The land on the east slope was black soil, and a handful could yield oil.
Feifei didn’t understand what “taking advantage” meant then.
All she remembered was that on the way home, her father said nothing, and his injured leg left a long, crooked mark on the frozen soil.
From that day on, the family was “separated”.
The meaning of division of the family was: rice was each family’s, oil was each family’s, even the firewood had to be picked by themselves on the south slope.
Grandma lived with the second uncle, the third uncle started his own household, and only Feifei’s family remained, guarding the thin land on the south slope and the thatched house that leaked in rainy days.
Feifei was five years old when she began to learn to cook.
The stove was higher than her.
She placed a small wooden stool under her feet to reach the edge of the pot.
Guiying couldn’t hear or speak, so she gestured with her hands: one handful of rice, two ladles of water; the fire should be strong, but not burn the edge of the firewood.
Feifei didn’t understand those gestures, so she looked at her eyes – where her mother looked, she looked there too.
The first time she cooked rice, she put in too much water, and the result was a pot of mushy rice.
The second time the fire was too strong, a black crust formed on the bottom of the pot.
Her father picked up the bowl of half-cooked rice, took a few bites, and raised his head, smiling and opening his mouth at her: “It’s good.
It’s better than what I cooked.”
Feifei knew that wasn’t true.
But she “meh”ed and placed the bowl on the stove, then went to fetch the small wooden stool.
Feeding the pigs was also her job.
The pigpen was at the west wall, and the two skinny pigs were gnawing at the bars.
She carried a bucket higher than herself, moving step by step, and spilled the pig feed on the old shoes – those were the shoes that her brother had grown too small and that her mother had mended.
The two pigs grunted and buried their heads in the trough.
She leaned outside the pen to watch, lost in thought.
She thought that if the pigs grew up, they could be sold at the market, and the money could make the lights in the house shine longer.
That year, she was five years old, and her hands hadn’t yet developed calluses.
But later, she always remembered that it was from that winter that she learned to speak by reading people’s expressions, learned to give up the mouthful of bread she wanted, and also learned to shrink into a small ball in front of the stove fire in someone else’s house.
At night, Guiying sewed the wet shoes with an oil lamp.
The needle tip moved up and down under the lamp.
Feifei lay on the bed and watched, seeing her mother’s hand and the light in her eyes – the light was dim, but steady.
She didn’t know how long that light would last.
She also didn’t know that this “division of the family” account would continue to be calculated in the village.
It would be calculated for many years later, when she stood on a high place and looked back, and it was still being calculated.