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墨書 Inktalez
I had no idea how long I had been asleep when Chen Shuisheng gently nudged me awake. "The snow has stopped. You stay here at home, and I'll go into the mountains to pick some mushrooms. The mushrooms after the snow are fresh and tender."
"I want to go too." I hurriedly got out of bed and started getting ready.
"You're not fully dressed yet; be careful not to get cold."
"I don't want to lie around. Going out with you will be good for me to stretch my legs."
"Alright, suit yourself." Chen Shuisheng sounded a bit helpless.
As we walked, the forest was shrouded in mist, with ice crystals forming on the branches of the pines and cypresses. Both of us were already soaked from the snow falling on our heads.
He occasionally swung his hatchet, slicing through the thorny vines that obstructed my path, and at times he would grasp the stems of weeds with his bare hands to clear a way for me.
But who would have thought that the snow would start falling again, and it would come down heavier than before? In no time, we were surrounded by a vast expanse of white.
"It's so cold." I felt a bit panicked.
Chen Shuisheng calmly reassured me, "Don't worry; there's a small cabin up ahead. Let's go there to take shelter."
We trudged through the snow, one foot sinking deep while the other barely touched the surface. By the time we reached the cabin, we were both covered in snow, looking like two snowmen.
Chen Shuisheng pushed the door open with force. A musty smell wafted out, but there were plenty of seasonings and cooking utensils inside.
He found some dry firewood in a corner and skillfully started a fire, setting up a stove. The warm glow of the flames instantly chased away the chill in the cabin.
"Drink some hot water. I'll make mushroom soup soon, and we can eat it with our dry rations."
"Okay."
In the dead of night, the wind and snow outside seemed to have calmed, but the fire in the stove had gone out.
I shivered from the cold, and in a daze, I dreamt of white snow falling through the roof onto her, gently, gently, and irresistibly.
I felt increasingly cold, as if the heavy snow was pressing down on me, threatening to turn me into snow as well.
"I will be buried alive by the snow," I thought, and woke up in pain.
I wanted to speak, but no words came out. I cleared my throat.
"Chen Shuisheng," I said in a peculiar tone, "it's too cold."
He immediately sat up, surprised, and replied in a deep voice that echoed around the room.
"Do you want me to warm you up?"
"Yes."
He pulled me into his embrace. I wanted to shout, but my lips were frozen shut. I straightened my body, but I was completely stiff with cold.
He was warm, yet the terrifying heat radiating from him felt as if it could consume me.
He breathed heavily like a lion, and I surrendered.
I had never, ever thought this would happen; I had never imagined being treated this way or being subjected to such torment. I wanted to maintain my integrity.
But this happened.
At dawn, while he was still asleep, I struggled to sit up. He woke up as well.
"I want a fire," I said.
"Do you want to leave me?" he asked in a peculiar tone.
"I want you to make a fire."
"Alright, I'll make a fire," he replied with a smile that held an elusive tenderness and comfort.
I buried my face, unwilling to look at him, unwilling to see the pride and contentment shining in his eyes.
...
"Mom!"
Nian Nian suddenly sat up on the kang, her damp hair sticking to her neck. The image of her mother coughing up blood lingered vividly in her mind.
Has Mom passed away?
Moonlight streamed through the window, fragmenting the hushed argument between her father and aunt: "...Gui Zhi can work in the fields and raise pigs, a hundred times better than that Sickly Child."
As she stepped barefoot onto the frosty ground, Nian Nian peeked through the crack in the door and saw her aunt arranging items on the Eight Immortals Table: two new quilt covers wrapped in red cloth, a thermos bottle adorned with the character "Happiness," and a yellowed copy of the Parenting Encyclopedia.
Shen Mingyuan rubbed the cuff of his new cotton jacket and suddenly noticed a loose thread revealing a piece of indigo fabric—his wife Wanqiu had taken apart her wedding dress to patch it for him.
"Gui Zhi is a proper farmer," his aunt said, cracking a walnut on the table. "Once he steps through the door, he can take over the Pig Farm. That crazy woman has been..."
“Dad, are you going to marry a new mom?” Shen Nian had gotten up at some point and stood behind Shen Mingyuan, her eyes vacant as she asked blankly.
"Whoa, Nian Nian, you startled me! No way, I need to find your mother first. Don't listen to your aunt's nonsense."
"You think I have nothing better to do?" Shen Mingyu interjected, displeased.
"Gui Zhi's family is willing to provide a car and a house as dowry! Isn’t that better than your wife who owes twenty thousand?"
"Dad, you said Mom's blue shirt was the warmest." Nian Nian suddenly tugged at her father's jacket, revealing crooked stitches on the lining. "Now it has become the lining of your cotton jacket."
Shen Mingyu grabbed the Parenting Encyclopedia and threw it into the brazier. "A crazy woman with a burden..." Sparks suddenly flew up, igniting a photograph tucked between the pages—it was a family picture taken at the Pig Farm on Nian Nian's first birthday.
"Auntie is the burden!" Nian Nian stomped out the flames with her bare feet, crying and shouting, her soles smeared with soot. "After Mom fell ill, you took five pigs from our home!"
Shen Mingyuan abruptly snatched the Parenting Encyclopedia from the brazier and wiped it across his child's cheek. Twenty years ago, when dyeing this fabric, his wife had said, "Indigo must go through seven immersions, just like a person must endure seven tribulations..."
"Dad's new cotton jacket looks really nice." Nian Nian suddenly smiled sweetly, poking her finger at her father's chest. "It has Aunt Gui Zhi's zodiac embroidered here." Shen Mingyuan hurriedly pulled back the lining—there was no embroidery at all, just a hole burned through by a cigarette butt.
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