“So this is the bread from my new brother-in-law’s shop?”
Yu Luan, who Taotao had been thinking about, was squatting in his grandmother’s farmyard, watching ants move house. He heard his aunt Yu Meilan’s voice coming from the living room and quietly turned his head to look.
His aunt stood up, leaned over, and stuck her hand into the plastic bag on the coffee table. Inside were the basket cakes, pies, canned fruit, and some wrapped bread that Yu Meizhen had brought.
She picked through them, fished out a cream bun, broke off a piece, and put it in her mouth.
“So gross…” Yu Luan heard his aunt mutter.
She pursed her lips, tossed the bag back, and plopped back down onto the imitation rosewood sofa. Hugging a small round mirror, she pouted as she examined her newly tattooed thin, curved eyebrows.
Thin willow-leaf eyebrows in the Hong Kong starlet style were all the rage at the time—almost every auntie Yu Luan saw had them, including his mom.
His mom… A sudden unease crept over him, and his gaze instinctively searched deeper into the living room. Fortunately, he spotted her quickly.
Yu Meizhen was coming out of their grandmother’s room. She turned and gently closed the first-floor bedroom door, then walked over to the coffee table in the middle of the living room.
Phew—Mom’s still here.
Yu Luan let out a breath of relief and turned back to watch the ants.
In the living room, Yu Meizhen was long used to her younger sister’s attitude. She didn’t pay her any mind, instead looking at their eldest brother Yu Guoqiang, who was sitting in the corner smoking in silence. “Brother, how did Mom suddenly hurt her hand?”
Their father had passed away early. Yu Guoqiang had dropped out of school in his teens to work. Now thirty-seven, he looked much older and wearier than his age—sun-darkened, rough-skinned, with a deep furrow between his brows.
He didn’t say a word, just kept smoking.
Yu Meilan, on the other hand, slapped her mirror down on her thigh and scoffed, “Sis, just look at who’s hiding out of the house—that’ll tell you everything.”
Yu Meizhen rubbed her forehead. “Did you and Mom fight with sister-in-law again?”
“Don’t listen to Meilan’s nonsense. There was no fight,” Yu Guoqiang replied stiffly.
“Hmph. Sure, no ‘fight’—I saw it with my own eyes. Zhang Xinghong was arguing and pushed Mom, and that’s how Mom fell down the stairs. Lucky it was just a sprained wrist—what if she’d hit her head?” Yu Meilan hugged her arms, giving her brother a cold sidelong glance. “Brother, you’re not going to cover for that home-wrecker, are you? You owe Mom an explanation for this.”
Yu Guoqiang couldn’t take it anymore and looked up. “Meilan! How can you talk about your sister-in-law like that?”
Yu Meilan was taken aback. “What did I say?”
“If you weren’t always nitpicking every little thing about Xinghong, if you weren’t constantly tattling to Mom and badmouthing her, would she have such a grudge against this family? Would she be fighting with Mom all the time?” Yu Guoqiang stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. “Who’s the real troublemaker here? You know perfectly well!”
Yu Meilan shot back, slapping her mirror onto the coffee table and standing up as well. “What do you mean ‘nitpicking’? I tattle and badmouth her? Are you kidding me? You always take her side! Oh, so she married into this family to be treated like an ancestor—does she not have to do any housework?”
Yu Guoqiang braced his hands on the table edge and let out a bitter laugh. “Haven’t you? Xinghong had only been married in for a year. I was still driving trucks back then and couldn’t make it home for New Year’s Eve dinner. You egged Mom on to make her single-handedly prepare the whole reunion feast. She worked from dawn till dusk, cut her hands several times, and you still complained her cooking wasn’t good enough. During the holiday, you all went out to set off firecrackers and play cards, leaving her to wash a whole sink full of dishes. Afterwards, she hid in the kitchen crying. I came home just in time and saw her. She told me not to make a fuss and just let it go.”
Yu Meilan rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you start from the beginning of time while you’re at it? That was years ago—ancient history. Why bring it up now?”
“Fine. What about later? Why do you keep asking her to buy you lipstick and face cream, saying your classmates all have such-and-such brands, stuff from Hong Kong, and you want it too? She couldn’t say no, so she spent her whole salary buying them for you…”
“Wow, like I forced her to buy them! She could’ve said no!”
“How could she say no? If she didn’t buy them, you’d say she didn’t care about her little sister-in-law!” Yu Guoqiang’s voice grew more disappointed. “Meilan, you’re the youngest. Mom spoils you the most, and Meizhen and I have always given in to you. Whatever you wanted, we gave. But how did you turn out like this?”
Yu Guoqiang finally let out all his pent-up frustrations, his voice rising with emotion. Red-eyed and choked up, he roared, “Xinghong is your sister-in-law, not this family’s hired help!”
The thunderous shout startled even Yu Luan, who was focused on the ants outside. He jolted and fell backward into a drainage ditch, getting stuck halfway and unable to climb out for a while.
Yu Meizhen jumped too. Catching sight of Yu Luan’s fall out of the corner of her eye, she hurried outside, helped him up, dusted off his clothes, and whispered, “Xiao Luan, your cousins—Weiqiang, Weijun, and the others—are next door. Mom will take you to play with them.”
Things were escalating—better not let Xiao Luan hear any of this.
Yu Luan hung his head and reluctantly followed his mother across the threshold.
He didn’t want to go play with his cousins.
They’d hit him. He… he wanted to go home and find his sister.
Yu Meizhen didn’t notice Yu Luan’s low mood. She rushed to get him into the neighbor’s house, said a few hurried words to her nephews—who were practically hanging upside down on the sofa watching TV—told Yu Luan to behave, play checkers with his cousins, or watch TV, and hurried back.
When she stepped inside, Yu Meilan was glaring at her brother like a fighting cock, yelling even louder than him: “What are you trying to say? So now it’s all my fault? Whose brother are you anyway? Once you got a wife, you forgot about your sister and your own mother, is that it?”
“Meilan! Stop it!” Yu Meizhen frowned deeply and tried to step between them, when Yu Guoqiang suddenly roared again:
“Yes! I don’t want any of it! None of it!”
Yu Meilan froze.
Yu Meizhen’s heart pounded in her chest.
Yu Guoqiang, furious to the point of laughter, was silent for a moment, then said with finality, “You don’t have to feel so wronged. Xinghong and I have already decided to go work in Hong Kong. Her relatives helped us apply for foreign labor quotas. The labor company’s approval came through, and we’ve already bought our tickets… Even if we have to eat weeds and scraps outside, it doesn’t matter—we’ll have some peace! Mom’s injury isn’t serious—she’ll be fine after a few days of rest. From now on… I’ll send more money home.”
He looked away. “Then this family won’t have to fight anymore.”
“Brother…”
Yu Meizhen quickly walked over and grabbed her brother’s arm, finding it hard to accept. “You never told me about this! Why didn’t you discuss it with us? Even if you wanted to go work somewhere—go to the city, go to Bincheng, even go to Shanghai—but why Hong Kong… it’s not convenient to keep in touch from there.”
Hong Kong was close, but everything was different there.
Yu Guoqiang said, “Discuss what? No matter how much we talk, none of you would agree anyway… Besides, Hong Kong’s already been returned. It’ll be convenient from now on. Don’t worry.”
Just then, Yu Meilan muttered under her breath, “I want to go to Hong Kong too. Hmph, they say the streets there are paved with gold. You two get to go live the good life…”
“Meilan! Shut up!” Even Yu Meizhen had had enough. She shot her a fierce glare, and Yu Meilan’s eyes darted away as she turned her head, finally falling silent.
“I’m leaving today. I’ll call you once I’m settled.” Yu Guoqiang gave a bitter, mocking smile.
With that, he pushed open the door, picked up the snakeskin bag he’d already packed and left by the door, and walked out of the yard.
Yu Meizhen, tears in her eyes, chased after him. “Brother, aren’t you going to say goodbye to Mom…”
“She knows.” Yu Guoqiang strode forward without looking back.
He walked out the gate and had only gone a few steps down the winding path when he saw Yu Luan sitting alone on the doorstep of their uncle’s house, head bowed.
Lipu was a tiny island—windy whether sunny or rainy. The summer breeze was hot and thick with the briny smell of the sea. The sky was a deep blue, and Yu Luan, covered head to toe in dried mud, sat quietly looking up at the huge palm leaves rustling and tilting in the wind.
When someone carrying a snakeskin bag passed by him, he didn’t even turn his head.
But Yu Guoqiang paused. He pulled a wad of crumpled change from his pocket, smoothed each bill out one by one, folded them neatly, bent down, and tucked them into Yu Luan’s hand.
Only then did Yu Luan look up at him blankly, then quickly look away.
“Xiao Luan, be good. Listen to your mom. Your uncle is leaving.”
“I am good,” Yu Luan glanced at him and looked away again. “Where is Uncle going?”
“Going… to a very faraway place.”
“Very faraway place.” When he didn’t understand something, Yu Luan would unconsciously repeat it in a murmur.
“Come back for New Year and bring you good things to eat, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Mm. Then Uncle is going now.”
By the time Yu Meizhen caught up, Yu Guoqiang had already reached the downhill slope. She called out “Brother” several times, but he never stopped, and his figure soon disappeared around the bend.
Yu Meizhen stood there panting, wiped her face roughly with her hands, then looked down at Yu Luan. That was when she noticed the mud on his face, hair, and clothes, and the scraped skin on his knee.
“How did you get like this? Did you fall?” She sat down next to the child, confused. Strange—hadn’t she told him to play with his cousins next door? Why was he all alone out here?
Yu Luan nodded slowly.
“How did you fall?”
“My cousin threw mud at me. I dodged and fell by accident.”
Yu Meizhen’s temper flared. “He threw mud at you? Why?”
Yu Luan stared at the ground.
“Xiao Luan, you need to speak up. Don’t always stay quiet—if you don’t talk, Mom won’t know what you’re thinking.” Yu Meizhen frowned.
He glanced timidly at his mother, thought for a moment, rehearsed how to say it in his head, then tried to repeat it: “They said… I’m a retard, a mute. Told me to get out… I didn’t talk to them, so they pushed me out and threw mud at me…”
“They cursed you and hit you?”
Yu Meizhen’s voice shot up in anger. Looking at her son, who stared back with bewildered eyes, covered in filth, she couldn’t swallow this. She rolled up her sleeves and marched next door. Without ceremony, she grabbed both nephews by the scruffs of their necks, dragged them into the vegetable patch, and smeared them all over with the freshly manure-fertilized mud.
The two nephews wailed at the stench.
Yu Meizhen then got into a huge fight with the relatives who came running out.
Even after storming back, she was still seething—everything annoyed her, even the dog. When she went inside to wipe Yu Luan’s face, she ended up giving both her younger sister and her mother a thorough scolding too.
Yu Meilan, unable to take it, covered her ears and bolted out the door.
Yu Luan’s grandmother, stung by her eldest daughter’s accusations and hearing that Yu Guoqiang had really left, lay on the bed crying and wouldn’t listen to anything.
In the end, Yu Meizhen still had to make them both dinner, fuming all the while.
What a complete mess. She felt helpless. If only I’d known, couldn’t I have been nicer to my sister-in-law back then?
The meal was done, but Yu Meizhen had no appetite at all. Looking at her empty, crying childhood home, a fresh wave of anger rose from deep inside her. She gave Yu Luan a piece of bread, packed up all the canned goods and bread she’d brought, took Yu Luan by the hand, and headed straight for the ferry back to town.
On the boat, with the sea breeze in her face, Yu Meizhen finally began to calm down. She watched Yu Luan, who was absorbed in watching the waves from the window, and felt a pang of sadness as she patted his sun-warmed head.
Yu Luan turned to look at her.
Yu Meizhen couldn’t help asking, “Xiao Luan, do you like our home now?”
Yu Luan nodded.
“Is Uncle Tao good to you?”
Yu Luan nodded again.
“Is your sister good to you too?”
Yu Luan nodded especially hard, without any hesitation.
“Hm?” Yu Meizhen was a little surprised.
Taotao had reacted quite strongly to their arrival. In the first two months, Yu Luan had ended up in tears almost every single day because of her. It had only gotten better in the last couple of days.
But Yu Meizhen understood.
After Yu Luan had witnessed his father’s accidental death with his own eyes, he’d had nightmares every night for a year or two straight—waking up screaming and thrashing. His already shy and introverted personality had become even more closed off, and sometimes he’d do things that were hard to understand.
Back when they were still living at her former in-laws’ place, the relatives there had all said Yu Luan was slow-witted. Maybe that was why they hadn’t hesitated at all to give him up.
Xiao Luan wasn’t easy to like—especially when he was younger, he was even harder to handle. He spoke very late, would cry and fuss constantly for no reason, and it had taken forever—countless tries—to teach him to say “Mom” and to use chopsticks and spoons. Sometimes even she, his own mother, felt like she couldn’t breathe. But thinking that way only made her feel ashamed and sad—how could she resent her own child?
Putting herself in others’ shoes… Yu Meizhen had no complaints at all about Taotao’s initial dislike for her and Xiao Luan.
On the contrary, she always wanted to be better to her.
She still believed that only sincerity could win sincerity.
But Yu Meizhen was still a little curious. “Was Taotao… your sister… good to you before too? Didn’t she also used to call you a dummy?”
Yu Luan looked out at the sea, his hair flying in the wind. “Yeah.”
“And you still think she’s good?”
“Mm. Sister is good.” Yu Luan gazed calmly at the water.
Sister had been strange before.
She’d break his puzzles, hide his homework in Baiqieji’s dog bed, swat his neatly lined-up pencils all out of order, put dead cicadas in his clothes, lock him out of rooms, tie his shoelaces in impossible knots, deliberately hide to scare him, and tell him over and over that she hated him.
But when it thundered and rained, she’d take him in. When bad kids hit him, she’d protect him without a second thought.
Thinking of this, he nodded again and repeated firmly, “Sister is very good.”
“Why?”
Yu Luan thought for a moment, then said slowly, “Sister never pushes me or hits me. When other people throw rocks at me, sister stands up really fierce and says, ‘You bunch of punks, try throwing one more time and see what happens? I’ll smash your heads in!’ Then they all run away.”
Yu Meizhen: “…”
That was definitely Taotao—super brave.
Then she processed what he’d said and frowned. “Sister helped you yell at the bad kids who bullied you? Are they… the kids from South Street?”
“Mm.”
Yu Meizhen fell silent, heartbroken.
She hadn’t even known that kids in the alley were also picking on and excluding Xiao Luan. But the difference was, because of Taotao, he hadn’t had to go through the same kind of bullying that happened all the time in Lipu.
Still, he remembered everything—the good and the bad.
He just wasn’t good at expressing it. But he actually knew everything.
Yu Meizhen’s heart ached for him, but she was also incredibly grateful. Thank goodness for Taotao—otherwise, how much more would Yu Luan have suffered? And she’d never expected…
That Taotao—with her sharp tongue—actually had a tender heart.
**
When Yu Luan and his mother came back by boat, Taotao had already finished all her summer homework for Chinese characters and pinyin in one go. She flipped through it with a real sense of accomplishment—this was all her hard work for the day.
Then she quickly drew up a sign.
After running her own shop in her previous life, she’d often hand-lettered signs for herself, so she was pretty skilled at it now.
The only thing was, she had to make sure to write the ad lettering deliberately ugly.
Rao Lili and Zhang Jiaming had gotten into another fight over which radio station to listen to—though calling it a fight was giving Zhang Jiaming too much credit. The moment Rao Lili raised her hand, he immediately surrendered.
Zhang Jiaming wanted to listen to the Warm Wishes Request Hour. He liked the host Fei Song’s banter, and there were lots of great pop songs he loved. Rao Lili refused—she wanted to listen to Animal World: “Spring is here, all things revive, and it’s mating season for the animals…”
They each did some homework for a while in between, but since Rao Lili quickly lost patience, they inexplicably made up and abandoned the radio. Now they were lying on the floor reading comic books together.
When Taotao stood up and stretched, Rao Lili rolled around on the ground and wailed, “Grape, you’ve been way too hardworking today—it’s making me anxious!”
Taotao sighed honestly. “I can’t slack off. I haven’t even touched my summer workbook, and I haven’t done my handwritten poster either. At least you’ve already started writing.”
Rao Lili complained, “It’s all my mom and Teacher Le’s fault—why assign so much homework over summer break?”
Before she’d even finished, the electronic clock on the wall chimed the time: “The current time is—Beijing time—twelve o’clock—noon.”
Zhang Jiaming yelped and jumped up.
“Oh no! It’s twelve!” Zhang Jiaming looked at the clock and frantically shoved his workbook and markers into his backpack, scrambling to leave. “I gotta go home!”
“Hurry up, run fast.” Rao Lili pitifully stuffed a few chocolates into his bag. Poor kid—even if he was just playing at a neighbor’s house in the alley, coming home even five or ten minutes late would get him a scolding.