AOI 8

The moment Xu Yong said this, Li Yandong flared up even hotter.

“What’s the big deal?! Listen to the tone of that. Anyone who didn’t know better would think I married a ten-thousand-yuan household! Xu, you stay the hell out of this. I’m telling you, I’m disciplining my son here—don’t you go stirring the pot!”

Li Yandong wasn’t exaggerating the gravity of the matter. At the time, most working-class people took home a monthly salary of around a hundred yuan. A “single sheet” — ten yuan — could buy at least five or six jin of meat.

Xu Yong had many brothers, which naturally meant many younger generations on his side, while Li Yandong, inside and out, had only the one, Xu Minghai. So every time the New Year rolled around, giving out “lucky money” became a transaction that only lost money, never earned it. Although the money was meant for the children, everyone understood that the kids merely served as a “money laundering” front. Once this symbolic ritual was over, the money went right back into the respective parents’ hands. It was like this every year — Xu Minghai had barely gotten the money warm against his skin before Li Yandong confiscated it the moment he stepped through the door, under the virtuous pretext of “I’ll save it for you.”

Although things had visibly loosened up over the past few years, the hardscrabble days had left people too terrified. The sense of crisis — of eating this meal without knowing where the next would come from — clung to everyone like an invisible tail.

And this time, Li Yandong counted and recounted by head, and no matter how she tallied it, she was ten yuan short. She asked Xu Minghai, who immediately and flatly denied it, looking very much like he’d prepared for exactly this. Li Yandong knew the older the child got, the more he understood the significance of the word “money.” She couldn’t brush him off anymore like before with a simple “a kid doesn’t know how to spend money.” Money was hard to earn and shit was hard to swallow — he might not know how to earn it, but did she really think he didn’t know how to spend it?

But no matter what, if he wanted something, he should tell the adults. He couldn’t just secretly “pocket” his New Year’s money. Steal a needle as a child, steal gold as an adult. If he was already skimming off the top now, what would become of him later? So Li Yandong straight-up classified Xu Minghai’s behavior as “embezzlement” and was determined to give him a proper lesson.

This time, she deliberately avoided Xu Minghai’s head and aimed the broom only at his backside. But no matter how thick the flesh on your rear, a beating still hurts. And that’s how Xu Minghai ended up running wild across the courtyard, yowling and shrieking, with her in hot pursuit.

Over by the house, Qiu Shi saw this chaotic spectacle through the window glass and tried to run outside, only to be pressed firmly back into his chair by his mother.

Zhou Yingying thought that when it came to disciplining children, every family had its own principles; outsiders had no business interfering. But looking into her son’s clear, bright eyes, she simply couldn’t bring herself to utter the words “mind your own business.” The fact that mother and son had been able to settle peacefully in this courtyard, that she was watching Qiu Shi’s heart thaw like an ice ball, growing happier day by day — wasn’t every bit of it because others had “meddled in other people’s business”?

By now, Xu Minghai had practically run Li Yandong out of steam and was feeling rather smug. Who knew that carelessness would cost him dear — his foot caught, he stumbled, executed a perfect “Wild Goose Descending on the Sand” flat-fall, and plopped right onto the ground.

“You money-wasting brat! Your clothes are filthy now!” Li Yandong shrieked. “Get up this instant!”

Xu Minghai dug his heels into the ground and tried to push himself up. But his new shoes weren’t broken in yet, and that navy-blue padded cotton shoe flopped right off. And with that, the people’s representatives that Xu Minghai had been treading underfoot finally saw the light of day again.

The atmosphere suddenly grew tense.

Li Yandong, originally panting and oxygen-deprived from exhaustion, had been on the verge of letting it go. Maybe Xu Minghai really had lost it, or maybe she’d miscalculated. She never expected that suddenly the stolen goods and the culprit would be caught together, no effort required at all.

Now she was truly enraged. Holding nothing back, she bent down, raised her hand — and with a sharp smack, a full-force slap landed squarely on Xu Minghai’s face. By this time, Xu Minghai had long forgotten the “seizure” trick Qiu Shi had taught him. He froze on the spot, the searing pain on his face mingled with an overwhelming sense of humiliation.

“That’s for stealing money! That’s for lying! That’s for refusing to be good!” In the heat of her fury, Li Yandong straightened up, raised the broom high, and brought it down on Xu Minghai.

But now, instead of screaming at the top of his lungs, Xu Minghai silently endured Li Yandong’s blows without a single sound.

At some point — who knows which strike it was — a shadow shot over like an arrow and threw itself directly over Xu Minghai. Li Yandong looked down sharply. It was that little bastard Qiu Shi! He glared at her with two wolf-like eyes, neither begging for mercy nor trying to wheedle his way out, his face showing not a trace of fear, simply shielding Xu Minghai, who was a whole size bigger than him, from behind. “Zhou Yingying! Get control of your kid!” Li Yandong couldn’t very well bring the broom down on Qiu Shi, so she turned her head to seek reason from the boy’s mother.

“Can’t control him,” Zhou Yingying said, not even stepping out the door. “In our family, we don’t have any custom that says you beat children in the middle of the first lunar month!”

Now it was Li Yandong who was left hanging, unable to save face. She stood there holding the broom in front of the two children, at a complete loss.

“Alright, alright, Xiaohai knows he was wrong!” Xu Yong seized the opening, quickly bent down to pick up the money, then furiously dragged his wife back toward their house. At this moment, Li Yandong also felt that slapping Xu Minghai out in broad daylight had been a bit too much. A wave of sorrow washed over her. She hurled the broom viciously aside and walked away, sobbing, “What do I do all this for, huh? It’s not just about this ten yuan. You can’t let kids go undisciplined. What’s he going to do when he grows up?”

“Then just talk to the child properly…”

“Does talking properly work?! He’s just like you — lead him and he won’t go, push him and he backs right up!”

Xu Yong had no choice but to take a different tack to console his wife. “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. You think just anyone can be an embezzler? Does a son born from the two of us even have the brains for that?”

“Xu Minghai! You reflect on what happened today! And write me an 800-word self-criticism!” Li Yandong hollered over her shoulder, then lifted the door curtain and went inside with Xu Yong.

Only then did Zhou Yingying come out. She picked the two mud-monkey children up off the ground and led them inside. Finding a towel, she dusted the dirt off both of them. Xu Minghai hung his head, face pale. Getting spanked on the bottom in front of everyone and getting slapped across the face — the two felt completely different.

“Your mother is just angry because she wants the best for you,” Zhou Yingying sighed, seeing the five finger marks blooming on Xu Minghai’s face, and tried to reason with the child. “Don’t hold a grudge against her for this, Xiaohai. If it were me in her shoes, I’d be angry too.”

“Mm…” Xu Minghai murmured, eyes dull. “Anyway, she just bullies me because I’m a kid. There’ll come a day when I grow up, earn my own money, and spend it however I want.”

“Ten yuan is a lot of money,” Zhou Yingying asked. “What exactly did you want the money for, Xiaohai?”

Xu Minghai didn’t answer, only bit his lip, his expression now rather resembling Qiu Shi’s. Seeing that Xu Minghai wouldn’t say, Zhou Yingying stopped asking. He wasn’t her own child, after all, and the right balance was too difficult to strike.

“Mom, I want some paicha,” Qiu Shi said then.

Zhou Yingying glanced at the two of them, then turned and went to the kitchen to fry the dough twists. Qiu Shi tugged at the defeated soldier and led him outside.

“What for?”

“Let’s see Jiuye.”

“Are you crazy?” Xu Minghai grabbed Qiu Shi. “What do you want to see him for?”

Qiu Shi didn’t answer, just pushed the boy to the door of the neighboring room, knocked, and the door opened.

“Oh my,” Guan Jiuye said, looking at Xu Minghai with the large handprint stamped on his face, and laughed. “A rare guest, hey.”

Xu Minghai was very tense. He stared at Guan Jiuye’s eyes for a long moment before daring to lift his foot and follow Qiu Shi inside.

“What’s all this ruckus you and your mother kick up every single day? Whenever I see you, it’s a fight to the death.”

Xu Minghai had no words to respond.

“Jiuye.” Qiu Shi pointed at the left side of Xu Minghai’s face toward the old man.

“Little Guozi, you sure know who to come to. Sit.”

Jiuye went into the kitchen, took out an egg, boiled it in a small pot of water, peeled it, wrapped it in a piece of clean gauze, and instructed, “Roll this on your face. It’ll reduce swelling and clear the bruising.”

Qiu Shi took the egg and began gently rolling it over Xu Minghai’s cheek.

“What did you want to buy with that money, anyway? As far as I can see, out on the streets these days, there’s not a single proper thing to buy.” Jiuye sat back down in his chair, picked up his cup, and took a slow sip of hot tea. The distinctive fragrance of jasmine unfurled, fresh and heady.

Xu Minghai looked at the old man and the child before him. Finally, he muttered, “I wanted to buy Guozi a birthday cake.”

The hand Qiu Shi was using to hold the egg stopped abruptly. He looked up close at Xu Minghai, a head full of question marks.

“Didn’t you say the day you arrived? After the second day of the New Year, you’d be eight—so isn’t your birthday tomorrow?” Xu Minghai started to crack a grin, but it pulled at his facial nerves, and he immediately let out a yelp of pain.

“Mm. Loyal and true—a real stand-up fellow.” Jiuye listened with narrowed eyes, looking rather pleased. “If the opera were sung like this, it would be a fine show indeed.”

“But it still failed,” Xu Minghai lamented. “The whole thing’s a complete fiasco, a cornbread flip—total collapse.”

Qiu Shi had never eaten a birthday cake and didn’t quite understand the significance behind it. He looked at Xu Minghai and asked, puzzled, “Why eat cake?”

“Everyone eats it for birthdays! It’s even better than Maltesers!” Xu Minghai took over the egg and rolled it across his own face, finding it quite soothing. “But if I have to wait until my birthday to eat it, that’s donkey’s years away.”

Donkey’s years, monkey’s month—to a small child, it was practically longer than a lifetime. Absolutely impossible to wait that long.

Qiu Shi looked at Xu Minghai. Xu Minghai kept his head down, focused only on rolling the egg. Neither spoke.

“Alright, forget about that thing,” Jiuye said, producing a radio from who knows where. Then he brought out two new cups and, treating the two little ones like adults, poured tea for them as well. “Let’s listen to a monologue storytelling. Take our minds off it.”

After a rustle of electrical static, a voice gradually emerged: “Hey, the monologue comic story I’m telling today—this isn’t a current event. From when, you ask? Well, it’s not too far from now, only about six hundred years ago…”

The two of them loved reading comic books, so naturally they loved listening to stories too. They promptly tossed the word “cake” to the back of their minds. Putting on grown-up airs, they crossed their legs and held their teacups just as Jiuye did, sipping tea, listening intently to the voice from the radio—slightly nasal, somehow exuding an effortless comedic charm.

And when Xu Minghai heard the line, “The county magistrate knelt there—good heavens—kowtowing like a chicken pecking at broken rice, trembling like a gecko who’s just eaten pipe-tobacco tar,” he burst out into loud, open laughter, and the pain on his face eased a little.

An entire afternoon slipped by just like that. Whether he liked it or not, Xu Minghai had to go home before dinner. He shuffled through the door, head hanging low. Xu Yong saw him and quickly said, “Son, come eat!”

“And he still has the face to eat?” Li Yandong said sourly. “Let him drink the pot-scrubbing water!”

“No culture,” Xu Minghai muttered quietly to himself. “That’s called ‘Pearl, Jadeite, and White Jade Soup!'”