You are the april day of the world

Chapter 13 Fiction (8)
"Okay, didn't Wen Huan jump into the well, who is still beating people now?" She answered like this, then threw the sweet-scented osmanthus in her hand over a wall, thought about it, and laughed.I am completely baffled.

"Now that I'm an adult, it's my turn to gossip," she said and laughed, "Let them talk, she's a girl anyway, I'm not afraid! I'll run as soon as I want, with the cloth seller, the sugar cake seller, Those who sell wontons, those who carry stinky tofu pickers shout along the street, and leave as soon as they leave the door!

Who can control me? "She laughed loudly and played with my forehead braid with both hands.

I saw her happy and felt relieved.Ordinary girls can't talk about marriage by themselves, and she actually said that she would run away with the stinky tofu seller. I secretly felt that she had the courage to speak, and I also said crazy things:
"Wenzhen, you ran away with the wonton seller, will you have a child and also sell wonton?"

Wen Zhen's face suddenly turned pale, and she remained silent.

The account manager of the ×× bank came to worship the festival, and someone led him to the main courtyard, and all the children saw him.This man was wearing a blue gown and a blue mandarin jacket, his face was black, he looked like he was in his 40s, his back was a little hunchback, his nails were long, his hands were old in the sleeves, and he was naughty. The children looked at him with staring eyes and called him the groom softly.

I knew that Wenzhen was in the room and I could see him through the panes of the window, so I ran in to look for her, but she turned to get things from the old lady's bed, and I followed, but she kept silent.Suddenly she turned her head and gave me an affectionate smile, whispered behind my ear and said:
"I'll go with the wonton seller, have a baby, and sell you small wontons." After speaking, he laughed a little louder.I was so happy that I ran out.But the so-called "groom" has already left. I only heard that people are still drinking tea next to the outer living room, discussing the tea ceremony for marriage, and I didn't go out to see it.

In the next few days, I often found Wenzhen going to the garden, but several times, I couldn't find her, only once I saw her coming back from the path behind the rockery.

"Wenzhen, where are you going?"

She didn't agree to me, she just put a lot of mixed flowers in her hand to her mouth and sniffed, then dragged me to the pool and said to dress me up as a bride, but when I refused, she went back.

A few days later, someone from my family came to pick me up, and at night Wenzhen came to my room to help Sister Huang pack my things.Seeing that there was no one in the room, she lowered the kerosene lamp a little, came to the bed and said to me:

"I thought I was leaving soon, but now you go first, do you remember Wen Zhen when you get home?"

Tears were streaming down my face, I was sobbing and unable to speak.

"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter," she said, "I'll come to your house to see you."

"Really?" I asked, leaning on her shoulder.

"Who knows then!"

"Are you going to marry the bank manager?"

"I do not know."

"If you want to marry him, you must become a rich man. Can you really come to my house?"

"I do not know either."

I cried again.Wenzhen shook me and said, "It's no use crying. May I write to you?" I nodded and lay down to sleep.

When I got home, I often looked forward to Wenzhen's letter, but she didn't write to me.There was a real revolution, and many people went to live in Shanghai. Sister Huang came to our house and said that Wenzhen had run away after the Mid-Autumn Festival and before she was about to get married, and she was never found.This news was like thunder in my ears, I couldn't express my concern and worried about her.I mustered up the courage to ask Wenzhen if she ran away with the same wonton seller. Sister Huang asked me in surprise:
"Does she often talk to the wonton seller?"

I shook my head and said no.

"I think," Sister Huang said, "it's still running with that revolutionary party!"

A year later, I was still trying to find Wenzhen's lover in every revolutionary album.Wenzhen never wrote me a letter.

published in
September 1936, 6 "Ta Kung Pao Literary Supplement" No. 14

Molded Shadow Parts＼Embroidery

Because of the current situation, my family has temporarily moved to ××.Xiuxiu lived downstairs in Zhang's foreign-style house on the opposite floor.That year Xiuxiu was 11 years old and I was thirteen.At first we felt that each other was unnatural, and when we met, we blushed one after another, preparing to avoid each other.But every time they always looked at each other at the same time, and realized that the other party had a kind of attraction, which made it difficult for them to take the action of escaping immediately.So one afternoon, we intentionally stood not far from each other in front of Zhangjialou, watching many people busily exchanging old clothes and shoes for bowls.

Still Xiuxiu was smart, shyly squeezed through the crowd, pointed out a pair of beautiful small magnetic bowls to me, and told me in a secret and intimate voice that she wanted to go home to ask for a pair of old shoes to exchange.I looked excitedly at her back when she came home, and my heart was full of joyful expectations.In less than a while, I watched with admiration and joy the comedy of Xiuxiu's transaction with the bowl-changing dealer, and became a good friend of Xiuxiu.

That little picture is still hanging tenderly on my chest today.After all these years, I can still see the two braids of Xiuxiu tied with big red velvet ropes, with bright eyes open and mouth tightly shut, jumping over while walking, holding a bag in one hand behind the back. A pair of old shoes.The dealer who picked and sold the porcelain was holding a dry cigarette in his mouth, like a tall black shadow, shrouding the two clusters of porcelains of various colors as beautiful as clouds!Some curious people looked up. "Who wants such a small amount of children's shoes?" the dealer exhaled from the beveled corner of the pipe.

"This is a pair of leather shoes, they are still new!" Xiuxiu looked lovingly at the old leather shoes in her hand.No doubt those shoes had at one time afforded him much proud decency.There are two buckles on the upper.The bowl-changing dealer was finally persuaded by Xiuxiu, took off the dry tobacco in his mouth and buckled it on the gray cloth belt, and put the shoes in his hand to look at.Xiuxiu knew that this opportunity should not be lost.

He quickly took the two small flower bowls that she had longed for for a long time into her hands.But the eagle-claw-like dealer's hand stretched out again, and took back the two dream-like small bowls in Xiuxiu's hands.Xiuxiu said nothing, she raised her blushing face, her eyes were moist with disappointment.

I heard a lot of mocking voices from behind, and felt the oppression of Xiuxiu's isolated situation and some insults around her, and I couldn't feel a kind of injustice. "You can't bully her little girl!" I heard my voice resounding under the dealer's ribs, "Change it if you can, and return the leather shoes to her if you can't!" The dealer ignored me and ignored me. Xiuxiu was busy doing business with others, and the little leather shoes were still in his hand.

"Change it, Lao Li, change it, he's a child." Suddenly, an elderly and caring person in the crowd made a smiling and kind voice. "Relying on the old and selling the old", he picked up the two small bowls in the burden and handed them to Xiuxiu and me: "Hey, you two children, take these two bowls and go!" I was surprised to receive a bowl. Overwhelmed.Xiuxiu met the friendly little face and pulled my sleeve, and smiled happily and motioned for me to squeeze out of the crowd with her.The old man may not know that what he stuffed into our hands was not only two bowls, but also a handful of delicious friendship.

Since then, our correspondence has grown closer day by day.In the morning, I accompanied Xiuxiu to a small shop in Xijiekou to buy some odd things.Xiuxiu has tasks. What she buys in the store are oil, salt, soy sauce and vinegar, which are necessary for her mother’s cooking that day. When I saw her asking for her goods very familiarly in the store, I calmly I always secretly admire her ability and envy her experience when she pays or finds someone to pick up a lot of coins.What surprised me the most was the impression her mother gave me.Yellow and thin, that mother is a very cowardly and incompetent woman, because she is sick, her temper seems to be very violent.She ordered Xiuxiu to do all kinds of things, but she muttered all the time, teaching her children a lesson.

At first I thought that Xiuxiu had no father, but soon I found out that Xiuxiu's father was a very wealthy man.His surname was Xu, and he was called Uncle Xu. Like many fathers at that time, he had other family members living in another place.Xiuxiu, her mother, and her daughter have long lived in the two small rooms downstairs of relatives in this family, like forgotten widows.Xiuxiu told me that she had been to her father's house before her new aunt gave birth to a child. Her mother asked her to ask her father for some money. When Xiuxiu said that, she blushed and lowered her head, struggling All kinds of shame, resentment and injustice in my heart.I didn't dare to speak, and Xiuxiu forgot about the unpleasant aspect as she followed along. She raised her head and told me that her father's family has a very nice big foreign dog, "Daddy told him to sit down, and he sat down." There was another one. As for the foreign clock, Xiu Xiu couldn't forget that "there is a door on the clock", her eyes lit up, "When the hour comes, the door will open, and a bird will jump out of it, and it will call several times at what time." That's—that's what Daddy bought for Auntie." Xiuxiu secretly told me again.

"I still remember my father hugged me once," Xiuxiu said, and she often told me about the past. "At that time, I was still very young and ignorant, so I made a fuss about going to the ground. I think my father must have been very upset that time!" Xiuxiu repented and felt that she was not good, regretting that she had experienced it before and then lost it. A little bit of fatherly love. "At that time, of course you were too young to understand." I comforted her. "But... when I went to Dad's house that time, I made him unhappy again!" Xiuxiu probably thought about this incident more than once in her heart, "When I was leaving that day," she recalled Going on, "Daddy opened the drawer and asked my aunt what fun things to play for me. I saw that my aunt didn't agree. I was afraid she would be unhappy, so I said, I don't want anything. When Dad heard that, he was very angry and closed the drawer, saying: Don't forget it." It's gone!"——Xiuxiu's originally crisp voice here is obviously a little hoarse, "When I want to talk again, Dad has already got up and handed me the money for Mom, and said, you tell her, go to the doctor when you are sick, and mess around by yourself." Take the medicine, I don’t care if I die tomorrow!” This time Xiuxiu complained sadly to me about her grievances, sobbing and crying, she sat on the threshold of our backyard to play, and only walked home slowly when it was dark Go, the back disappeared in the gloomy downstairs of the Zhang family.

When it gets hot in summer, we often invite Xiu Xiu to drink soda, eat lotus root and watermelon.

My mother gave me a flowered shirt that was too short for Xiu Xiu to wear. She played lively in our house, helping us pick vegetables, make jelly noodles, peel fruits to make sweet sauce, and listen to Mr. Guowen's lectures and stories.Her mother, on the other hand, was always sitting in her window, shaking a cattail fan, and shouted tremblingly from time to time: "Xiuxiu! Xiuxiu!" Underneath, there were some words complaining about her not coming home, "... just like her father, I can't sit still at home!"

One day, when it was getting dark, Xiuxiu said that she had a stomachache and hurried home.

When it was time for dinner, Zhang's mother came to our kitchen and said, Xiuxiu's child is very sick, and her mother doesn't know how to call a doctor, so she just sat on the bed and cried.When my family members heard about it, they asked old Chen Ma to go over to see Xiuxiu, and brought a dose of first aid powder.I secretly followed old Chen's mother, and also went to the embroidery room to see her.I saw my little friend moaning palely on a wooden bed, and the room looked even more messy in the sweltering heat under the small light at night.Apart from clasping her hands tremblingly on the side of the bed and calling for Xiuxiu from time to time, the yellow-sick mother didn't know how to prepare anything suitable for the child.Big mosquitoes bit the child's legs and arms, and large particles of sweat dripped from the child's forehead to the side of the hair.Old Chen's mother turned back and forth in a panic, patted Xiuxiu's back, and asked Aunt Xu - Xiuxiu's mother - for boiling water and a medicine pot for decocting medicine.I took a chance and sneaked to Xiuxiu's bed to call her. When Xiuxiu heard the voice, she reluctantly opened her eyes to see me and smiled, and said in a low voice with difficulty: "The mosquito coil...in the corner...excuse me." You order one..." She was obviously used to her mother's uselessness.

"People still know!" Old Chen's mother was relieved to make medicine.Here, Mama Xu is grumbling:

"Tell you to drink less soda! The fruit is not good, we don't have the life to eat that... If you are disobedient, it will be a disaster! If you are finished, little enemy, my old life will be gone..." Xiu Xiu was obviously still crying and arguing in the middle of moaning. "Where are those, mother... this morning... I was thirsty and drank a lot of spring water."

The family sent someone to take me back.I remember that I didn't sleep well that night, thinking about Xiuxiu and having all kinds of terrible dreams.Xiuxiu has been sick for almost a month, and I still don’t know what kind of disease I am suffering from. They have consulted different doctors twice and bought a lot of miscellaneous medicines each time.Her mother gave her porridge every day.There is no formal medicine, and nutrition is even zero.

Because of Xiuxiu's illness, her mother blamed us, so no one dared to give her food when she was ill.When she was about to recover from her illness, I only sent some things like children's pictorials to play with her every day.

(End of this chapter)