Lingzi is not too cold today

Chapter 57 Grandma
On the way home, Gongsun Jin held Zhuang Xiaoyu's little hand and carried her pink schoolbag.

"elder brother……"

Zhuang Xiaoyu stopped and tugged at Gongsun Jin's sleeve.

"what happened?"

Gongsun Jin looked down at her.

Zhuang Xiaoyu licked the corner of his mouth, looked at the roadside stall selling mutton skewers, and then at Gongsun Jin.

"Mom won't let you eat this."

"It's fine if brother doesn't tell mom."

Zhuang Xiaoyu is crisp and authentic.

Listening to the conversation between the two, Zhong Shu'er, who was walking aside, looked a little sad, while Zhong Lingzi looked as usual, but only held her sister's hand tightly.

"Okay, I know you want to eat."

Gongsun Jin pinched the girl's little face.

"whee."

Zhuang Xiaoyu narrowed her eyes and smiled coquettishly.

Watching Gongsun Jin go to the barbecue stand to buy mutton skewers.

Zhong Shu'er swallowed quietly, looked over there, and was afraid of being discovered by her sister, so she hurriedly looked away.

Children couldn't hide their thoughts, Zhong Lingzi saw his younger sister walking more and more slowly, and asked softly, "Do you want to eat too?"

Zhong Shu'er shook her head like a rattle, but her eyes glanced at the stall from time to time.

"It's okay, my sister is rich."

Zhong Lingzi stroked her sister's hair.

"But, my sister works very hard to make money."

Zhong Shu'er pouted, a little shy.

"No, it's not hard."

There was a slight smile on Zhong Lingzi's indifferent face.

The clothes on the younger sister's body were very old, and there was still some dust on the back, so she reached out and dusted them off.

"Did you get into a fight at school?"

"No, it's a cockfight."

Zhong Shu'er smiled, showing her tiny canine teeth.

"Do you still play cockfights?"

Zhong Lingzi couldn't help laughing.

"Shu'er, I sent money to my grandparents and asked them to buy clothes for you. Didn't grandma buy clothes for you?"

Zhong Shuer shook her head.

"do not have it?"

Zhong Lingzi was a little surprised.

She can earn several thousand yuan a month by writing online articles, and occasionally tip a little more, and she can earn tens of thousands a month.

Otherwise, she would not be able to support her younger sister on her own and afford the tuition fees for the two of them.

After being a resident singer in a bar, the income is not bad.

There is still some spare money sent back, so it shouldn't be so tight.

"I'll go back and ask her."

Zhong Lingzi's voice turned cold, a little disappointed.

Gongsun Jin came back from buying mutton skewers and handed them to Zhuang Xiaoyu.

"Brother, can I share half with Shu'er?"

Before Gongsun Jin could speak, she continued: "Zhong Shu'er is very loyal. Some boys in school are particularly annoying. She will help me run away."

"of course."

Gongsun Jin patted her on the head lightly.

"it is good!"

Zhuang Xiaoyu trotted to Zhong Shuer, counted carefully, and handed half of the mutton skewers to Zhong Shuer.

"Here! Shu'er."

Zhong Shu'er hesitated, looked at her sister, then at the mutton skewers in front of her, pursed her lips.

"Take it, and thank her quickly."

Zhong Lingzi smiled.

"Thank you, little fish."

"You're welcome, we're good friends."

Zhuang Xiaoyu leaned over and put his face close to hers.

Zhong Lingzi walked up to Gongsun Jin and looked at him very seriously.

"How much money, I will transfer it to you."

"The friendship between children doesn't have to be so serious."

After Gongsun Jin finished speaking, Zhong Lingzi still looked at her, his eyes full of persistent light.

"alright."

Gongsun Jin couldn't resist her, so he had to accept the transfer.

"Sister, you eat too."

Zhong Shu'er handed the skewers to Zhong Lingzi's mouth.

"No, my sister has blisters in her mouth, so you can't eat spicy food."

Zhong Lingzi shook her head and stretched out her hand to straighten her hair.

When passing through a fork in the road, the two children waved goodbye.

Gongsun Jin also said goodbye to Zhong Lingzi.

When saying goodbye, there was no word, only one look.

Zhong Lingzi's home is in a tube building in a village in the city, and the rent is 400 yuan a month.

At a glance, there are rows of dilapidated tube buildings everywhere, and there are even open-air dry toilets.

The stinking garbage heap was full of flies and mosquitoes.

There was a black, foul-smelling stream of water on the ground, and the sewer must have been clogged again.

The street lamps on both sides of the road have also been in disrepair for a long time, and they are covered with thick dust.

She walked into the dark and narrow alley, found the building where her home was located, and entered the stairs on the sixth floor.

The walls were filled with various sales phone numbers and small advertisements with markers.

There is no elevator in the old stair room, so it is not convenient to go up and down.

The house is on the top floor, because the rent on the top floor is cheaper.

After arriving home, Zhong Lingzi opened the old refrigerator, only to find some dried water spinach leaves.

"Why don't you even have an egg, you eat this every day?"

Zhong Shu'er drooped her head and said nothing.

"Shu'er, my sister sent a lot of money to my family, why do you just eat this?"

Zhong Shu'er was still silent. When she was at home, she didn't have the slightest aura and vitality in school.

dull, dull.

"Sister, drink milk."

Zhong Shu'er took out two boxes of milk and handed them over.

Zhong Lingzi looked at the date of production and frowned.

"It's all expired, so you can't drink it."

"Where did you buy this milk?"

"Grandma brought it back."

Zhong Shu'er said weakly.

"Don't drink it, throw it away."

Zhong Lingzi threw all the remaining milk into the garbage passage in the corridor.

"Where are grandparents?"

"Grandpa's legs and feet are bad, he can't climb the stairs, so he went back to the countryside."

"Grandma should be playing cards."

Zhong Shu'er muttered softly.

Hearing this, Zhong Lingzi took a deep breath, picked up the kitchen knife from the kitchen, and went straight downstairs.

After a while, there were bursts of screaming and cursing in a mahjong parlor in the old community.

"Is this how you ruined the money I sent back?"

Zhong Lingzi overturned the card table, and the mahjong was scattered all over the floor.

"What do you feed Shu'er every day?"

"The money I earned from working hard, you either posted it to your youngest son, or used it to play mahjong."

"Are you still human? How can you be so patriarchal?"

Zhong Lingzi's eyes were red, holding a kitchen knife, pointing at the old woman's nose and yelling.

"Do you know how much wronged I have suffered as a teenage girl working outside? Others bully me, and no one supports me."

"Aren't you cheap? You gave him everything for food and clothing. Does he care about you?"

"You like your little son so much, so go to his place! Do you think he wants you as a mother?"

The crowd of onlookers gradually increased, and like this, she started a scolding battle with the old man amidst a group of people who were either curious, puzzled, ridiculed, or sympathetic.

Using the way she looked down on the most in the past, the shrew swearing, hysterical here.

Those upstairs who heard the commotion opened their windows one after another.

Their own home is not lively, so they can only watch the excitement of other people's homes.

The old couple are rural people, and there is a deep-rooted patriarchal thought in their bones.

I always feel that my daughter is a loser, and she is going to marry someone else's family.

The names of Zhong Shu'er and Zhong Lingzi entrusted their expectations.

A considerable part of the reason for Zhong Lingzi's mother's derailment in marriage was that her parents-in-law disliked her two daughters.

They always feel that the daughter-in-law's stomach is not up to date, and they cannot give birth to the grandson they want.

"Look at your dress, just like the lady on the platform in the night market outside."

"Be the same as your mother who is a three-year-old mother."

"The devil knows how you got the money you did out there?"

The old woman blushed and began to accuse Zhong Lingzi.

"Let me tell you! Every penny I earn is absolutely clean! It's clean!"

"First, I didn't steal; second, I didn't rob! Third, I didn't rely on men! All the money I earned with my own hands, I didn't do anything wrong to anyone!"

In front of so many people, she was accused of being an indiscreet girl, and this person happened to be her grandma who was related by blood.

Zhong Lingzi was trembling with anger, his eyes were red, and the hand holding the knife kept shaking.

The mother who was the third child was the pain point she was least willing to bring up.

Because of her, Zhong Lingzi's entire youth was spent in ridicule and ridicule by others.

It was a scar that couldn't heal, and it was bleeding every moment.

Every time she thinks she can forget her mother and live a good life, someone will come to remind her.

"Your mother is a third party who destroys other people's families."

It was something she tried to forget, to hide.

Like hiding a disability.

In other words, it was the tattoos engraved on the face that the ancient prisoners tried hard to erase.

That tattoo made her feel humiliated and became the root of all her inferiority complex.

What made her feel inferior was not her humble birth.

It's something more terrifying than poverty, which clings to her body like a maggot attached to a bone.

Her mother was a junior for others.

Those were the type of people that Zhong Lingzi despised and hated the most.

In her eyes, cheating women are as despicable as prostitutes.

She will never allow herself to be such a person.

What made her feel sad the most was not the grandma's indifference to her.

It's that she actually questioned the creed she had always adhered to as a girl.

Facing those strange eyes around her, tears welled up in her eyes, but she stubbornly refused to let them fall.

don't cry...don't cry...don't cry...

Zhong Lingzi recited it silently in his heart over and over again.

Tears are the most precious thing, reserved only for the deepest sorrow and the fullest happiness.

She will never shed tears when others trample on her dignity.

Absolutely not.

"Go away and go find your son."

With a hoarse voice, Zhong Lingzi returned to the rented room.

Throwing the old woman's luggage and clothes out the door one after another.

Zhong Shu'er looked at her from the side, wiping her eyes lightly.

"I'll come to you later, I'll take your surname."

The old woman packed her things and scolded outside the door for more than two hours, all kinds of ugly words were unbearable.

It's hard to believe that this turned out to be a conversation between grandma and granddaughter.

Zhong Lingzi sat on the bed, her whole body trembling when she breathed, her lungs were like old bellows, whistling out the wind.

In the evening, she specially called someone from the lock company to come here to change a new lock.

"Sister, doesn't grandma want us too?"

Zhong Shu'er sat beside her, holding her arm with her small hand.

"Ah."

Zhong Lingzi responded softly, lowered his eyes, and felt pain in his throat and lung cavity.

"Will there be a day when you don't want me anymore?"

Zhong Shu'er looked at her with timid eyes, like a lost deer.

"No, I told you, I won't want you."

Zhong Lingzi hugged her younger sister, patted her back lightly, and rested her chin on her forehead.

On the day her parents divorced, she watched the man resolutely dragging his suitcase and leaving the long alley.

She called Dad behind his back, telling him not to go.

The man didn't even look back.

From then on, she knew that no one in this world could be trusted.

If you rely on the mountain to fall, you rely on everyone to fall, and in the end you can only rely on yourself.

None of them want a sister, if she doesn't either.

How will the younger sister survive?
Early the next morning, Zhong Lingzi and Zhong Shu'er took a ride to the countryside.

"Sister, where are we going?"

"Go to the countryside, grandma's house."

"But grandma is so fierce, shall we not go to grandma's house?"

Zhong Shu'er was a little scared.

"Let's go and see, if grandma doesn't welcome, we'll leave."

Zhong Lingzi comforted.

The grandmother in her impression was lukewarm and always expressionless towards the two sisters.

In other words, grandma treats everyone like this.

In Zhong Lingzi's memory, that old lady rarely smiled, and Zhong Shu'er was also very afraid of her.

Wutongchuan, an unknown rural town in the south.

The road into the village is a path stepped out of the fields, and it is always muddy after it rains.

Cars can't go in all the time, the wheels will sink into the ground, and pedestrians will get a catty of mud on their shoes every time they walk.

The low bungalows are situated in rows on the bank of the river, a little smoke rises from the chimneys, and the clouds in the sky are wandering in the wind.

Today, two strange travelers came to this isolated village.

Zhong Lingzi walked at the intersection of the village, looking around.

Some people in the village have built two-story buildings on homesteads.

Looking from afar, one can see that the endless fields are full of farmlands that are divided into neat squares and planted with wheat and rapeseed.

"It's been years."

She was quite moved, and took her sister's hand and walked along the path on the ridge of the field.

Occasionally, you can see an old man carrying a hoe and wearing a straw hat farming, walking barefoot on the path with his back bent.

After crossing the path, the eyes suddenly opened up, and the two sisters entered a small village with dozens of families.

In front of a building, there was an old woman sitting in front of the door, sharpening a horse's hoof.

Zhong Shu'er watched from a distance, then shrank behind Zhong Lingzi.

"nothing."

Zhong Lingzi patted her head, and walked over with her younger sister.

"grandmother."

Zhong Lingzi dressed very well today, without earrings or colored contact lenses, she showed up without makeup, and her clothes were plain.

Because grandma didn't like those outfits.

The old man looked up at her, seemed a little surprised, and was speechless for a long time.

"Call grandma."

Zhong Lingzi shook Zhong Shu'er's arm.

"grandmother!"

Zhong Shu'er said timidly.

Grandma didn't speak, just nodded, lowered her head and shaved the horse's hoof.

Her hands are very sharp, the knife is very fast, and the peeled off skin is very beautiful.

The basin full of clear water is full of snow-white horseshoes.

"I haven't seen you for several years, and I brought you some presents."

Zhong Lingzi broke the silence first, and put some fruits and canned food in front of her.

Grandma glanced at it calmly, and paused for a moment with the knife in her hand.

"Is there anything you can do with my old lady?"

"Yes, Shu'er needs your care."

Zhong Lingzi sighed and spoke with difficulty.

Grandma glanced at Zhong Shu'er.

Zhong Shu'er quickly hugged her sister's arm tightly.

The old man took a pony and put it in front of her, motioning for Zhong Lingzi to sit first.

Zhong Lingzi sat down and explained the situation at home in detail.

When she spoke, her tone was always calm.

Grandma also listened calmly, without any reaction, as if she was numb.

Zhong Shu'er squatted down, looked at the horseshoe in the basin, blinked her eyes curiously, and licked the corner of her mouth.

Seeing that grandma didn't seem to notice this, she reached out and grabbed one, put it in her mouth and chewed.

Crunchy and extra sweet.

The little girl covered her mouth, rested her chin, and quickly turned her head, her cheeks were bulging.

As the old man watched, the wrinkles on his brows moved indiscernibly, and he couldn't tell whether he was laughing or crying.

"The current process is like this. My parents have a new family, and no one wants to care about her."

"I have to go to school and work part-time to earn living expenses."

"Grandpa and grandma are patriarchal in their bones, and never treat us as family members."

"I really, don't know who to turn to for help."

As Zhong Lingzi spoke, his eyes were a little perplexed.

She talked a lot, as if she had told this old man everything she wanted to say to her parents and the world since she was 17 years old.

She really needs someone to talk to, and she doesn't know if the old man is listening.

Grandma just peeled the horseshoes on her own.

From time to time, Zhong Shu'er picked up one and ate it, covered her mouth, and carefully observed her grandmother's reaction.

Seeing that grandma didn't seem to notice, she also became bold.

After a long time, Zhong Lingzi stopped.

Grandma never said a word.

Just when she thought she couldn't wait for grandma's answer, grandma said, "Let's go."

Very decisive two words, not sloppy at all.

Zhong Lingzi froze for a moment, then smiled self-deprecatingly.

Sure enough, there was still no one she could rely on.

"Let's go, what are you still doing?"

"Sorry to bother you, I'm leaving now."

Zhong Lingzi got up right away, ready to take Zhong Shu'er away.

Zhong Shu'er's mouth was still secretly chewing, her cheeks were bulging like a puffer fish.

She looked at the horseshoe in the basin, feeling a little bit reluctant.

"Oh, I mean, let you take me away."

Grandma sighed and said leisurely.

"what did you say?"

Zhong Lingzi stared at her blankly.

"As long as my old bones can still move, I should be able to last until this little glutton grows up."

Grandma glanced at Zhong Shu'er's puffed cheeks, and said calmly.

"Thank you, Granny."

Zhong Lingzi was overjoyed.

Grandma waved her hand.

"Wait while I pack my things."

"People, life is suffering. After raising a son and daughter, you have to help raise your grandchildren."

Grandma didn't pack much, only a few clothes and a purse.

On the car into the city, Zhong Shu'er ate the horseshoe happily and smiled very happily.

Zhong Lingzi chatted with the taciturn grandmother.

"What about uncle and uncle? Didn't they go back to see you?"

Grandpa left early, and grandma has always lived alone in the countryside.

"I haven't been back for several years."

"Our village is full of old guys, young people who want to come back."

As Grandma said, she gave Zhong Lingzi a pouch.

"They give me money every month. I do a good job of needlework, accept some embroidery, and save some money."

"You take it."

"The girl's family has no money outside, so it's easy to go astray."

Zhong Lingzi took the purse and pursed her lips lightly.

After entering the city, looking at the stairs on the sixth floor, Zhong Lingzi hurriedly said, "I'll live in another place, your legs are inconvenient."

"It's okay, I walk a few miles every day to go to the market, and my bones are still strong."

Grandma shook her head nonchalantly.

At noon that day, Zhong Shu'er ate the most sumptuous meal this year.

Grandma made her delicious steamed pork ribs, which are very fragrant.

"It's delicious, grandma's cooking is delicious!"

Zhong Shu'er ate, rice grains still sticking to her mouth.

The old man didn't speak, just shaved the horse's hoof and looked at her tenderly.

(End of this chapter)