There were still three days left until the payment deadline.
During those days, Bian Shoutan was so worried that he couldn’t even eat.
He limped around, borrowing money from house to house.
He ran through most of the village but didn’t manage to borrow a single cent.
No one was in a position to lend money to a cripple or a mute.
Who would be at ease lending money to such a person?
At night, Feifei heard her father sighing in the main room: “One hundred and eighty-seven yuan…
I sold that sheep and only got half of that.”
Mother didn’t make a sound.
She had never spoken before.
The next morning, Feifei got up and saw a bowl of porridge warming on the stove.
Mother was sitting on the threshold, embroidering the soles of her shoes by the light of the morning sun.
But her expression was somewhat off – there was nothing on her wrist.
Feifei remembered that her mother’s left wrist had a silver bracelet.
It was a gift from her grandmother.
It was thick, with a plain ring, and engraved with scrolling lotus flowers.
It was polished to a shine.
Mother always rubbed it up but never took it off.
It was the only decent thing in this family.
“Mother, where’s the bracelet?” she asked.
Zhao Guiying raised her head and smiled at her, pointing to her wrist and waving her hand as if saying “It’s okay”.
Her hand was gesturing: not wearing it, it’s convenient for work.
Feifei didn’t think much and carried her schoolbag to school.
The money was paid.
On Monday, she counted a stack of crumpled coins – one, two, five, and a few coins – and put them together to make one hundred and eighty-seven. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Teacher Qian checked it twice and put a red mark behind her name in the notebook.
“It’s done.
” He said, his tone softer than before.
Feifei let out a sigh of relief.
The relief was gone, and she felt a bit dazed.
She always felt something was wrong.
On the weekend, when she returned home, she passed by the small store at the village entrance and saw the sisters chatting.
One said: “Guiying’s mute brother is very brave.
He even sold the silver bracelet given as a dowry to the town for it.”
The other snorted: “What a sin.
For the sake of the child’s education, he emptied his old savings.
”
“Exactly.
Thirty yuan.
Enough to buy a lot of things.”
Feifei’s feet felt as if they were nailed to the ground.
The silver bracelet.
Thirty yuan.
She ran home all the way, out of breath.
She pushed open the gate of the courtyard and saw her mother drying the sheets in the yard.
She rushed over and grabbed her mother’s left wrist – there was indeed nothing on it.
There was a shallow white mark left on the skin, the result of wearing the silver for years.
She lifted the pillow, turned the cabinet, and finally touched a receipt at the bottom of the old wooden box.
It was a thin piece of paper, with characters she couldn’t recognize, but she recognized the “silver” character. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“Mother -” she opened her mouth, her voice hoarse, “The bracelet…
you sold it?”
Zhao Guiying looked at her daughter’s excited face, “Ah ah” and hurriedly waved her hand, pointing at her schoolbag and the direction of the school, meaning: Education is more important, the bracelet is nothing.
Her eyes were smiling, but her eyes were red.
Feifei held the receipt and “Wow” cried out.
She cried until she couldn’t get up and buried her face in her mother’s knees.
Her mother stroked her hair with her rough palm, warm.
That bracelet was given to her by her grandmother.
Her grandmother had never worn anything nice in her life, just a bracelet.
Now it was gone.
“I’ll go and get it back.” She sobbed, “When I grow up, I’ll earn money and do this first thing – to get it back.”
Mother didn’t understand but hugged her.
That night, Feifei put the receipt in her diary and pressed it under the pillow.
In her diary, she wrote:
“I must read it out.
Not for myself.”
Outside the window, the wind blew, making the old jujube tree in the courtyard rustle.
She stared at the roof for the first time and felt that this matter was no longer just hers.
Later, she learned that in order to gather the one hundred and eighty-seven yuan, her father sold the sheep at the town and was pressured by the scale seller; while the thirty yuan her mother got from selling the bracelet was the only “idle money” for their family that winter.
The bracelet was gone.
But in her heart, she had a heavier thing than the bracelet from then on.
It was pressing against my mother’s ticket, pressing against my father’s leg.
It was pressing against this entire family.