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墨書 Inktalez
"Drink up, this Brown Sugar was left over by my deceased Wife," Chen Shuisheng handed me a bowl of Ginger Soup with Brown Sugar.
I took it, casting a curious glance at him.
"Take your time, don't burn yourself," Chen Ming said gently, sitting on the opposite sofa.
I sipped the ginger soup slowly, feeling my body gradually warm up. "Thank you... for saving me," I whispered.
"Are you no longer thinking about ending it all?" he chuckled. "By the way, what's your name?"
"Lin Wanqiu."
"Can you tell me what happened? Why were you feeling this way?"
I fell silent for a moment, tears streaming down my face uncontrollably. "I feel like I've wasted my life. My husband doesn't love me, my daughter is distant, and I have no money."
I began to confide in Chen Ming about my experiences over the years, explaining how I was 'sold' to Shen Mingyuan by my parents for a Two Hundred Thousand Dowry, detailing how Shen Mingyuan was a jerk who didn't trust me. I spoke of how my Elder Sister-in-law sowed discord between me and my daughter.
Chen Shuisheng listened quietly, not saying a word for a long while. Only after I finished did he say, "Actually, I was bought too." Then he fell silent again.
I was puzzled and gestured for him to continue.
"You at least grew up with your Biological Parents; I've never seen mine."
"I got into college back then, but my Adoptive Parents were afraid that if I went to university, I'd get ambitious and not come back. They traded me for a marriage with my sister."
"Everyone around said it was a sin; if I had been born to them, going to college would have meant so much success. I wouldn't have had to marry this rough and uneducated Wife."
"Actually, my Wife is quite capable. She handled all the household chores and farm work while I taught. But less than a year after we married, she died in childbirth, and the baby didn't survive the month."
"My sister didn't want that marriage, but she had to marry, so she hates this place. A few years ago, she divorced her husband and went to work in Guangzhou. Now, there's no news from her."
Chen Shuisheng's voice was like a rope soaked in ice water, tightening around my throat.
"Your wife..." I heard my own dry voice, "What number child did she lose?"
The glow of the kerosene lamp flickered on Chen Shuisheng's glasses as he wiped the broken frames.
"Firstborn." He exhaled slowly, then carefully polished the lenses with a small cloth.
"That day I was out in the field harvesting corn." He twisted the leg of his glasses with fine wire. "The midwife came running out with blood on her hands, asking whether to save the mother or the child."
Outside the glass window, the old locust tree rustled, as if someone were tearing a calendar.
"I said of course to save the mother, but she said... she said she hadn't been educated and wasn't worthy of a cultured person."
I felt a chipped edge on the ceramic bowl, identical to the crack on the dowry vase that Shen Mingyuan broke last year.
Chen Shuisheng suddenly stood up and opened a camphor wood box, pulling out a stiff floral jacket. "She sewed this for the unborn child before she left. There’s also a layer of padding I made for her."
"Your sister..." I began to speak but was interrupted.
"Last Winter Solstice, I received a letter." He pulled out a yellowed envelope from beneath an enamel basin, the postmark blurred as if soaked in tears. "It contained just one sentence: Brother, I'm working at Guangzhou Electronics Factory putting screen protectors on phones. It's better than being a pig."
The old-fashioned clock on the stove suddenly chimed ten times, startling a house sparrow that had been eavesdropping on the windowsill.
Chen Shuisheng added some wheat straw to the hearth, and the firelight illuminated the scar on the back of his neck, resembling a centipede winding into the collar of his faded shirt.
"What is this?"
"When I was sixteen, my adoptive father burned me with a pipe." He poked at the charcoal fire. "He said I was eavesdropping on English lectures from the radio at midnight."
Compelled by some unseen force, I reached out to touch the scar. The moment my fingertips made contact, his back tensed up, the uneven skin pulsing beneath my touch as if it harbored a living creature trapped for twenty years.
Chen Shuisheng suddenly turned around, knocking over a coarse pottery jar filled with brown sugar. The dark red crystals scattered across the edge of the kang, and the jar shattered into pieces.
The gust of wind from his turn extinguished two oil lamps, plunging us into a half-lit chaos. The dark red grains rolled off the edge of the kang.
"Be careful of the shards." I crouched down to pick up a sharp piece of pottery. The moment our fingers brushed, he jerked his hand back sharply, and a drop of blood from the jagged edge fell onto my wrist.
"I'm sorry." He knelt to gather the fragments, the white hair at the back of his head glaringly bright in the shadows. "This jar of brown sugar... I bought it when she was pregnant because she always complained that I didn't know how to care for others. Later, I learned how to care for others, but she was gone."
"Why didn't you remarry afterward?"
"My parents have already passed away. I thought... if Sister ever comes back, I should leave her a way out."
At dawn, the first ray of light pierced through the old newspapers covering the window, landing perfectly on his slightly reddened earlobe.
"Just stay alive." His gentle sigh reached my ears.
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