Three days before the start of school, the tuition fee still lacked thirty yuan.
Thirty yuan was a large sum in that era of Bian Jiawa.
Everything that could be sold was sold: a stack of wheat, two chickens, and Guiying’s half-year’s savings from making shoe insoles.
All added up, it still fell short by thirty yuan.
Those thirty yuan were pressed onto two baskets of eggs.
The eggs were collected one by one by the old lady.
There were only three hens in the family, and laying eggs was a precious thing.
Feifei and her brother had accumulated from the beginning of the year to the end of the year without even sparing a single egg.
Once, Feifei was tempted and secretly took an egg to cook, but was caught by Guiying.
Guiying didn’t hit her but just led her over and counted on her fingers: one egg, two cents; thirty eggs, one semester.
From then on, Feifei never touched eggs again.
The day for paying the tuition fee was drawing nearer.
Father said, “When we sell the eggs at the market, the money will be enough.”
That day, it happened to rain.
The rain was not heavy, but it rained continuously for half the night.
It didn’t stop until dawn.
Guiying stopped them from going out, gesturing and saying: The road is slippery.
Wait until it clears.
Bian Shou Tian looked out of the window, took a drag of his dry tobacco, and knocked the ash off his shoe sole: “The tuition fee is only for these two days.
It won’t rain then.”
He tied the two baskets of eggs to the two ends of the pole.
He put dry grass in the middle of the baskets and covered them with a plastic sheet.
He limped, carrying one basket on one shoulder and the empty one on the other.
The pole trembled on his shoulder.
Feifei wanted to go with them.
Father turned and glared at her: “Go back!
Why walk in the rain?
”
She stood at the door, watching her father’s back, limping and walking into the rain, getting smaller and smaller.
From Bian Jiawa to the town, it was a ten-mile dirt road.
On a sunny day, the dirt road was hard; on a rainy day, it turned into a muddy puddle.
There was still someone else selling eggs beside Liang Shu, but Liang Shu’s back was injured at that time, and Father didn’t wait.
He carried it himself.
The rain kept falling.
Father walked slowly.
That bad leg sank deep in the mud, one step pulled it out, and then another step fell.
The grass in the baskets got wet, and the eggs pressed against the wet grass, shaking one after another.
At the small bridge at the town entrance, the road was downhill, and a ditch had been formed by the water from the previous days.
Father slipped.
The pole “clang” fell off his shoulder.
The two baskets of eggs fell into the ditch, and the plastic sheet was lifted.
The eggs were all smeared with white and yellow, flowing away with the water in the ditch.
Father fell into the mud.
That bad leg first hit the stone by the ditch edge, and then rolled with his body, pressing under his body.
The rain kept falling.
He lay there for a long time before he could stand up with the pole.
His leg was no longer in the painful way it was before – it was just limping, but it was piercingly painful, from the knee all the way to the hip.
He looked down and saw a tear in his pant leg, mixed with mud, making it impossible to see the depth of the wound.
He picked up the empty basket and put the pole on his shoulder, moving step by step back.
When he got home, it was almost dark.
The door creaked, and Guiying ran out.
She saw the blood on his pant leg and her face’s color “suddenly” vanished.
She opened her mouth but couldn’t make a sound.
Tears came first.
“It’s gone.” Bian Shou Tian placed the pole against the wall and his voice was very soft, “The eggs, they all broke.
The tuition fee…” He didn’t continue.
He sat on the threshold, supporting his knees with his hands, and his shoulders heaved up and down.
Feifei had never seen her father like this.
She stood behind the stove, looking at him, not daring to move.
That night, Guiying boiled hot water to apply to his leg.
Under the oil lamp, the wound was deeper than she had imagined, the skin was peeled back, and the edges were swollen.
Father’s leg, from then on, limped even more severely.
When walking, it felt as if he was carrying an invisible crutch on his shoulder.
The tuition fee was later paid by piecing together money.
But Father’s injury left a lasting problem.
In rainy days, it hurt so much that he couldn’t sleep all night.
Feifei kept this incident in mind.
She didn’t tell anyone – she just never let Father carry anything else.