Jiang Yue (1)
Rain was pouring.
Jiang Yue sat inside the hut, fanning Jiang Xing. She used one hand to fan the leaf fan, but it soon became sore. She had no choice but to use both her hands to expel heat from her younger brother.
The weather was very hot, and Jiang Xing had a lot of red rashes on his body. He was always crying and scratching in the middle of the night. Children didn’t know how to scratch gently, so his body was covered with red line marks.
Jiang Yue felt sorry for him and thought of a way to expel the heat from him.
Not long after, Jiang Xiumei came back. She was plowing the field today, but halfway through it started raining hard. She cursed and said, “Fine, looks like a change of plans for today. No need to water the fields, instead it has to be grouted and drained.”
When growing crops, your lives depend on the sky, and the harvest you reap depends on Heaven’s blessings. When the weather was bad, then your heart would also be like a leaf shaken by wind and rain.
“Mom!” Jiang Yue ran out and looked up at her, asking, “Where’s Dad?”
“Your dad, today it’s his turn to go to Da’ao Mountain to check the saplings. I don’t know if he’s there now, or if he’s already coming back.” Jiang Xiumei was worried and upset.
Da’ao mountain was a large valley nearby; it was surrounded by mountains and had fertile land. Their production team1 planted some saplings there. It was convenient for the villagers to build a house, make repairs and so on because if they need wood, they can just go up and chop a tree down. But they can’t just cut the trees down and not replant them. Once the trees were cut, new saplings had to be planted later to ensure that when their descendants grow up, they too would be able to build a new house and get married.
Now, it was her man’s turn.
Jiang Xiumei went to the kitchen to make a fire and cook dinner for the children. It wasn’t that late yet, still in the afternoon, but because of the heavy rain, the sky was dark as if night was approaching.
Jiang Yue was lying by the window, looking at the smoke rising from the kitchen. She also felt extremely irritable for some reason.
At this moment, Jiang Xing woke up. His chubby little hands rubbed his eyes, and he said in a milky voice, “Sister, I’m hungry.”
“Mom is cooking, don’t cry. We’ll have something to eat soon.”
“Um.”
Jiang Xing nodded, looking like a cute tiger doll. It was raining and the weather was cold, so the red rashes on his body felt less itchy, and he finally felt a little more relaxed.
The rice they ate at home was a mixture of sorghum and white rice. The vegetables were just a handful of green wild vegetables that Jiang Xiumei found on the ridges of the field on the way back and quickly picked up. There wasn’t a single drop of oil in it, but it was considered a good meal for the Jiang family.
It was because Jiang Xing was ill that Jiang Xiumei felt sorry for him, so she mixed some white rice into the sorghum rice. Otherwise, they wouldn’t normally get to eat white rice.
The three of them, mother and children, were still waiting for the head of the family to come back and didn’t move their chopsticks.
“Forget it, just eat first.” Jiang Xiumei set aside a portion of food for her man, then let the children start eating.
The meal was filled with anxiety. Jiang Xing was still young and didn’t know what was going on, but Jiang Yue was older and usually very sensible. Seeing her mother’s frown, she felt that something was not right.
Dad didn’t come back even until evening.
Right now, the rain still had not stopped.
Jiang Xiumei couldn’t hold back anymore. She put on her straw raincoat, then turned around and said to Jiang Yue, “You watch Xingxing at home, wait for me to come back.”
“Okay.” Jiang Yue responded, and then she watched her back disappear into the rain.
The thunder was still rumbling, as if it was about to poke a hole in the sky. Raindrops hit the roof, making pitter patter sounds. Jiang Yue was a little scared. She didn’t light the kerosene lamp; she just hugged her brother tightly in the dark and said nothing.
“Sister, where did Mom go?” Jiang Yue hugged him so tightly that Jiang Xing had long since woken up.
“She went… went to find Dad.”
“But the rain is so heavy, how would she find him?”
“There is always a way to find him.”
Jiang Yue was annoyed, pinched him, and pretended to be angry, “Okay, why are you being annoying? Go to bed. When you wake up tomorrow morning, Mom will definitely have brought Dad back.”
Jiang Xing felt aggrieved and did not dare to say a word, so he could only sleep silently.
The two siblings slept hugging each other on this rainy night. Jiang Yue was still a child after all, and she fell asleep after holding out till midnight.
The next day, when day broke, Jiang Yue woke up from the crow of the big rooster at home. She suddenly opened her eyes and found that the rain that had been falling all night had stopped.
The sky was still gray, and there was no bright light. She looked through the window and found that her mother’s room was still closed, and there was no smoke coming from the kitchen.
Usually, her mother would’ve gone out to work at this time.
Jiang Yue frowned, feeling that something bad had happened, but she was too young to do anything.
After Jiang Xing woke up, he was clamoring for something to eat, saying that he was hungry. Jiang Yue rummaged through the box and found pancakes that Jiang Xiumei had baked before. She poured some cold water from the well, and soaked it until it was soft before eating them.
After barely dealing with breakfast, the two children moved chairs and sat under the eaves, waiting for their parents to come home.
They waited until the sun almost went down.
There was no more food at home. The rice was in their mother’s room, locked. Jiang Yue had no key and could not open it. Jiang Xing had been crying from hunger; Jiang Yue had no choice but to give him bowl after bowl of well water, making him go to the toilet again and again.
Footnote:
1 They’re in a communal farming production team.
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