Leaving Home
“Mom, what’s wrong? Did someone upset you?” Li Lanlan immediately grew anxious. A flood of thoughts rushed through her mind: had the neighbors bullied her, or had her parents’ adopted son and daughter-in-law mistreated her?
But none of these seemed sufficient to explain why her mother’s voice was choked with emotion. She really didn’t want to consider the final possibility—that her father had hit her.
Yet Li Lanlan knew that might be the real answer. Her mother had always been a proud woman—apart from her father, who else could truly bully her?
“Did Dad hit you?”
“……Your father gave away our family belongings. I said a few words, and he just started beating me all over.” Jia Fanghua’s voice choked with tears, filled with grievance.
Li Lanlan didn’t know what to say for a moment; the conflict between her parents had been going on for years.
In a place where the saying “a wife is like dough—you have to beat it to shape it” held sway, many people didn’t see this as a problem at all.
Her mother’s grievance was that her father had given things away to others, while her father’s justification for hitting her was that she had touched on a sore spot.
She had once considered urging her mother to divorce, but back then she could barely support herself, let alone take care of her mother. All she could do was bring her mother to her place for a peaceful break, and the cycle repeated itself.
Now that she had a little more means, she wanted to give her mother a helping hand.
“So, do you want to come to Beijing and spend the New Year with us?” Li Lanlan didn’t know what to say. She actually wanted to tell them to divorce if they couldn’t get along, but her parents certainly wouldn’t see it that way!
She could only think that maybe she should separate them for a while. If they spent more time apart, her mother’s mindset might change.
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line.
“I’ll cover your round-trip fare. Most people are heading home right now, so you should be able to get a ticket from Ningzhou to Beijing.”
Today was already the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth lunar month. Tomorrow would be the twenty-eighth, and in two days it would be New Year’s Eve. Jia Fanghua felt as though her whole life had been spent wallowing in misery. At her age, still being beaten—she steeled herself.
She had always been a woman with a fierce streak. All her past silence and compromise had stemmed from the fear of being homeless and having nowhere to go.
Once she found even the slightest foothold, she wasn’t afraid to take that step. “Lanan, I’ll buy a ticket to go there tomorrow. Don’t tell your dad and the others just yet.”
“Mom, I definitely won’t say a word. First, buy a ticket to An City Station. Once you leave the bus station, the train station is right across the street. I’ll book you an 8:00 PM ticket. Tomorrow, just go to the county ticket agency with your ID to pick it up. Buy your bus ticket yourself for now—I’ll reimburse you when you get here.”
“Alright, Lanlan.”
After hanging up, Li Lanlan rushed to the ticket agency and bought Jia Fanghua a train ticket for tomorrow from An City to Beijing. Sure enough, the train wasn’t very crowded, so she booked a lower-berth hard sleeper.
Her mother had bad feet. Back in the old days, she’d been forced to bind her feet, but liberation came soon after, so she was able to free them. By then, however, shards of broken porcelain had already cut her feet. The family never thought to seek proper treatment—they just patched it up as best they could. Since she still had to work in the fields, her feet remained injured.
She limped slightly, though not very noticeably. Even so, she still did her farm work as usual and was a capable hand both inside and outside the home.
Over there, Jia Fanghua hadn’t said much after returning. After she and Li Tianci had argued that afternoon, she hadn’t cooked dinner. However, by this time, all the New Year’s provisions had already been bought, and the two little rascals at home couldn’t wait to snack.
She didn’t say anything else when she got back. Every time they fought, they’d have a cold war for a few days, but she still cooked when she was supposed to. Sometimes she wondered when this life would ever end—was she some kind of masochist?
Her life had never gone smoothly. From the age of five, she’d been standing on a small stool, cooking for the whole family.
When she reached school age—back when the country had just been liberated—the commune launched a literacy campaign, but her family blocked her from attending.
Her older and younger brothers were both allowed to go to school, yet those two idiots went for years without learning a single character. Their family was actually quite well-off, but no matter what she said, they refused to let her learn even a little reading and writing.
She secretly followed the village’s barefoot doctor to learn a bit of medicine; the doctor even praised her natural talent, but her family wouldn’t let her continue. Instead, they immediately sent those two good-for-nothing fools to a carpenter to learn a trade.
She thought things would get better after she got married, but they didn’t. It was just like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire—the slightest misstep would earn her beatings and verbal abuse.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought about getting a divorce, but she had nowhere to go. So she just endured it—but she wasn’t the type to keep quiet. Whenever she saw something she didn’t like, she had to speak up, which only earned her another round of beatings and insults.
She’d have to keep working through her tears. Sometimes she wondered why heaven was being so cruel to her!
Now that Lanlan has asked her to come to Beijing, she had nowhere to go before. She didn’t dare mention running away from home; even if she went back to her parents’ house after an argument, she’d eventually have to slink back here.
Her parents are long gone now. Her sisters-in-law and younger siblings are in charge at her parents’ house, and her brothers just go through the motions. Their idea of standing up for her is just coming over here to yell at Li Tianci.
Once they left, she’d still have to endure the same suffering as before.
Going to Lanlan’s place for a while would at least give her a brief respite from this environment; at least she wouldn’t have to hide in the kitchen anymore.
Jia Fanghua slept soundly. Early the next morning, she opened the cupboard in the main hall and took out a fresh set of clothes to put on.
She did have some nice clothes, but years of frugality meant she only wore them when visiting relatives or guests.
She put on new shoes and clothes, and threw on a black wool coat.
She took a thousand yuan, tucked it into the lining of her coat along with her ID card, grabbed a small bag containing a pack of tissues, locked the cupboard, and headed out.
In the courtyard, Li Tianci was already up. Seeing Jia Fanghua dressed like this, he assumed she was heading into town to shop. They’d had a fight just yesterday, so he figured she was probably going to the credit union to exchange some new bills to give the children red envelopes for the New Year.
He didn’t say anything to her. With the New Year approaching, unlike usual, people wouldn’t invite her to stay the night, and Jia Fanghua had nowhere else to go, so he wasn’t worried about that.
Jia Fanghua didn’t acknowledge Li Tianci either. She walked toward the city, her steps uneven. Her feet actually hurt quite a bit from walking too much; usually, she’d have Li Tianci give her a ride into town, but today she’d just walk there slowly.
It was a three-mile journey. She’d stop to rest every now and then, and after walking for over half an hour, she finally arrived in Ningzhou City.
Jia Fanghua bought five hard-boiled eggs for two yuan fifty, and two vegetable-stuffed fried buns for one yuan—that was her meal for the day.
First, she picked up her train ticket. Since she couldn’t read, she asked a staff member to show her what was written on it: the train was scheduled to depart at 8:00 p.m., traveling from An City to Beijing.
The county bus station was packed with people at the moment. She squeezed her way in to buy a ticket. The bus was about to leave, and there really weren’t many people heading out at this hour!
The bus was nearly empty. She boarded at 8:00 and waited. It wasn’t until 10:00 that they had gathered half the passengers, and only then did the bus set off. The journey was stop-and-go, with people getting on and off all the way, and they didn’t arrive in An City until 4:00 in the afternoon.
By now she had finished the vegetable buns, and only three eggs remained. When she left the station, she checked the time again—it was almost 4:30. Not wanting to venture too far to find food, she bought two packs of instant noodles at the shop right outside the entrance.
The shopkeeper gave her two pairs of disposable chopsticks. The two packs of noodles cost two yuan, which still stung a bit for Jia Fanghua. She asked the shopkeeper for some hot water, opened the packets, sprinkled the seasoning inside, and let the noodles soak right in the bag while she ate them with the eggs.
It was still quite cold outside. Just then, someone else walked in and struck up a conversation right away: “Sis, are you visiting relatives all by yourself?”
“……” Jia Fanghua ignored him. After finishing her instant noodles, she tossed the bag aside and hurried out of the shop.
It was well-known that train stations were rife with thieves in those days, so she didn’t dare linger. She decided to head inside the station instead, tucking the remaining packet of noodles and two eggs into the small bag she was carrying.
Once in the waiting hall, she found a station attendant to ask where exactly her train was located, then waited there to board. The train’s final destination was Beijing, and it would stop at many stations along the way.
It was truly inconvenient to be illiterate while traveling like this. She didn’t know if she’d ever have the chance to learn to read in this lifetime!
Just as Jia Fanghua was about to board the train, Li Tianci belatedly realized that she had gone into town earlier that day and hadn’t returned.
Jia Fanghua hadn’t returned all day, so Li Tianci assumed she was just throwing a tantrum and didn’t think much of it. With no woman in the house to cook, the three of them had eaten at their adopted son’s place today.
His granddaughter, Li Yuzhu, grew anxious seeing her grandmother hadn’t returned so late. “Grandpa, where did Grandma go?”
With their biological mother gone and their father having remarried, their grandparents were now the only family they had left.
“I don’t know either. I’ll go check on her at your uncle’s house tomorrow.”
Who knows whose house Jia Fanghua had gone to? Could she have gone back to her parents’ home? But her parents had passed away long ago, and her siblings wouldn’t let her stay there that long.
Although they didn’t have the custom of not letting married daughters return to their parents’ home during the New Year, it still wasn’t appropriate to visit other people’s homes during the holiday. In this day and age, while people no longer went hungry,
they weren’t wealthy enough to have the habit of supporting an aunt who’d been married for years.
“Sis, I don’t know where Grandma went either. We went over for dinner today, and I could tell they weren’t happy.” Li Yuzhu nudged her sister.
“Of course they are! No one’s grain just blows in on the wind!” Li Yuzhen didn’t know what to say. Ever since they could remember, they’d lived with their grandparents; their memories of their biological mother were almost nonexistent.
Their father had remarried, bringing two children with him, and then had another child of his own. They didn’t understand adult matters, but since they were well-fed and warmly clothed living with their grandparents, she didn’t think about it too much.
It was 7:30. The train began boarding, and Jia Fanghua followed the crowd forward. At these An City train stations, you had to go up to the second floor first, then down to the first floor to board the train. Luckily, she hadn’t brought much luggage; otherwise, it would have been a real hassle.
Once on board, the conductor collected her ticket and handed her a sleeper compartment card. Jia Fanghua was feeling a bit hungry again, so she ate the remaining instant noodles and egg.
She’d been on her feet all day. She slipped on the slippers provided by the sleeper car attendant and hung her coat on the coat rack by the wall. After a full day of travel, her feet were already a bit swollen.
Lying on the bunk, she didn’t think much about it and fell asleep almost immediately. She was startled awake when someone boarded the train partway through the journey, and after that, she couldn’t sleep soundly again. Being far from home and carrying a large sum of money, she simply couldn’t afford to be that carefree.
It wasn’t until the next morning, when the sky was just beginning to lighten, that she managed to doze off for a short while.
After arriving at the station, she followed the crowd forward. She remembered her daughter telling her to exit through the North Exit, so she simply followed the flow of people all the way out. She could recognize the characters for “North” and “South” by their shapes, so she didn’t bother asking anyone for help.
Outside, Wang Dashan was already waiting. When Jia Fanghua saw her son-in-law standing there, she immediately felt at ease. “Dashan, I’m here!”
“Mom, I’m here to pick you up.”
Wang Dashan noticed his mother-in-law wasn’t carrying much with her. Lanlan had told him she must have left in a hurry. Knowing her legs weren’t very steady, the couple had brought their family small truck—it had two front seats, so she’d fit perfectly.