Chapter 6

Bai Rui was so frightened that she fled through the door in a panic.

Lu Tinglan watched her retreating figure with a dark gaze, then turned and stared straight at a low stretch of her family's courtyard wall.

"Second Brother," she called.

At her voice, a dark head furtively poked up. Her second brother braced himself against the wall and vaulted neatly into the courtyard.

From the other side came a chorus of "Ow, ow!" and, faintly, Father Lu and Mother Lu's laughing scolds.

"That second son of ours got himself over and left his parents behind. Crouching there so long has worn my back out."

"Lu Jiancheng," Father Lu called at once, "get over here and help your mother inside!"

"Coming."

Lu Jiancheng still hadn't caught up with himself. The moment his sister called, he had gone to her like a mouse spotting a cat. Now the voices outside felt like a reprieve, and he hurried out to help Mother Lu in.

Left standing there, Lu Tinglan was the most embarrassed of them all. It was no better than being caught red-handed by her parents.

Cough, cough. Well, Mom, Dad, hear me out while I make excuses...

Father Lu and Mother Lu actually looked ready to listen.

Lu Tinglan drafted an explanation in her head for ages but came up with nothing. She wilted on the spot.

There's nothing to explain. That vicious woman just now really was me.

Father Lu and Mother Lu were honest country folk. Lu Tinglan was afraid that, after seeing her so aggressive, they would think their youngest daughter had been raised wrong and be disappointed in her.

They saw it, so they saw it. It's not as if I was any good to begin with.

Lu Tinglan muttered to herself in defeat, then cautiously raised her head. What greeted her was a rare look of tenderness on Mother Lu's face and Father Lu's old face creased like a chrysanthemum with his smile.

"Well done, daughter!"

"You Lu Family men are such cowards, three blows wouldn't knock a fart out of you. Only my daughter takes after me. That's how she'll keep people from walking all over her." Mother Lu gave Lu Tinglan's shoulder a firm pat. "That's my good girl!"

Lu Jiancheng copied what his sister had done earlier and gave her a thumbs-up.

With the Lu Family accepting it so easily, the great stone weighing on Lu Tinglan's heart lifted all at once. Her lips curved into a bright smile.

Lu Jiancheng felt dazed again. His little sister grew prettier by the day. No wonder so many people her age in the village had been quietly asking him about her.

"Hungry? I'll make dinner." Mother Lu changed the subject at just the right moment. They'd had their quarrel and their touching moment; now it was time to make an offering to the temple of their stomachs.

At the mention of food, Lu Tinglan's eyes shone even brighter. "Mom, I want pancakes," she asked meekly.

"What food don't you want?" Mother Lu snapped at her as usual, though her hands honestly went straight to the flour bin.

Cornmeal porridge bubbled in the pot. Mother Lu hauled over a coal stove, fed a few sticks of firewood into it, and began making pancakes on a griddle.

The eldest had bought the stove the year before. Coal was hard to buy in the countryside, but feeding it a little firewood now and then worked well enough for cooking a small meal.

The stove burned warm, and the whole Lu Family gathered around it, warming their hands as they waited to eat.

Good pancakes needed oil, eggs, and plenty of white flour mixed in. Otherwise, they wouldn't taste right. Mother Lu hated using up good ingredients, but she put the first pancake, the one with the most white flour, straight into Lu Tinglan's bowl.

Then she turned back, scooped in a few spoonfuls of coarse flour, stirred the batter, and kept cooking. Lu Tinglan had never been one to eat something good all by herself. She immediately divided the pancake into four pieces with her chopsticks, put one in each of her parents' bowls, and reached to give the third to her second brother.

Mother Lu snorted and tapped the dazed Lu Jiancheng on the head with her brush, neither hard nor gently.

"Look at him sitting there like a block of wood. Why should he eat? He can drink some pot-rinsing water later. He's more stubborn than a donkey every day he refuses to listen to me, and he still wants dinner? Let him go hungry for two days and learn his lesson!"

For all her words, Mother Lu made no move to take the pancake from his bowl. She was annoyed with him, and one remark had led to another. He was flesh of her flesh, after all. She couldn't really do that to him.

Children were debts a parent owed. Mother Lu shook her head and sighed.

Eating the pancakes his mother had made with her own hands, Lu Jiancheng couldn't help reflecting again on what a rotten person he'd been. He secretly wiped away the tears spilling from his eyes and promised, "From now on, I'll listen to you and Dad."

"Then you'd be even more muddleheaded." Father Lu spoke to his son in earnest. "Your mother and I can guide you for a while, but can we guide you for the rest of your life? You need a mind of your own. You need to make your own decisions."

"If nothing else, learn a little from your sister!" Father Lu added, settling the matter.

Lu Tinglan jerked her head up from the pancake she had been wolfing down.

What? How did this become my business again? But—

At that one but in Lu Tinglan's mind, the whole family nervously put down their chopsticks and looked at her.

Could Second Brother get rid of that pile of banned books first? Otherwise, once Bai Rui writes a letter reporting him, none of us will escape it.

"Lu Jiancheng!" Father Lu slammed his chopsticks onto the table. The wooden table shuddered so badly it looked ready to fall apart, and Mother Lu hurried to steady it.

"Tell us yourself. What else have you been hiding?"

When his daughter's inner voice had said Bai Rui would report the second son, Father Lu had assumed his son would go astray sometime in the future. He hadn't expected the seeds of disaster to have been planted already.

Lu Jiancheng jolted along with the table. "Just some books—"

Father Lu glared. Lu Jiancheng surrendered at once.

"I'll deal with them tomorrow—no, right now." Lu Jiancheng abandoned his meal, ran to his room, rummaged around for a while, and came out holding several books wrapped in textbook covers. Father Lu snatched a few at random and flipped them open, then tossed them back after barely a glance.

Tongues of flame curled around the torn books as they burned quietly in the stove, becoming heat for the pancakes. As the books burned, Lu Jiancheng felt some inexplicable shackle around him dissolve all at once, leaving him lighter from head to toe.

"All right, all right. Let's eat."

Another pancake came off the griddle. Everything was a new beginning.

Partway through the meal, Father Lu suddenly remembered something. "Jiancheng, about the university place I said I'd give you—I may have to go back on that. I've decided to give it to Jiaojiao. What do you think?"

Lu Jiancheng's large hands clenched on his knees. It would have been a lie to say it didn't hurt. This was a university place in the seventies. Lu Family Village had waited year after year for one to be allocated. If he went to university, he wouldn't have to keep teaching at a shabby county junior high school. He could truly rise above his station and soar to success.

But—

Lu Jiancheng let out a long breath. "Dad, give the place to Little Sister. It was meant for her in the first place."

I don't want it.

Lu Tinglan immediately added that in her mind without a second thought.

The whole Lu Family was startled. Why had the girl suddenly changed her tune? She had raised heaven and earth over that university place and had even jumped into the river. Now she was handing it over?

There were actually three people of the right age in the Lu Family. The second son, Lu Jiancheng, studied hard and loved reading; the third, Lu Jianming, spent every day fooling around outside and was never home; and the fourth, Lu Tinglan, had no taste for studying. Thinking of the family's future, Father Lu had decided to give it to the second son.

Mother Lu had never expected her daughter to refuse such a heaven-sent opportunity. Anger surged through her.

How many young girls in the village longed to go to school? And Lu Tinglan—

Back then, to make her go to high school and stay there, Mother Lu had coaxed and scolded until she finally kept the girl in a classroom for three years. The result was a little tyrant who skipped class every day and ranked near the bottom.

Thinking her daughter had fallen back into her old ways, Mother Lu's fingers closed around the brush she had just used on her second son.

The moment Lu Tinglan saw the brush, she ducked on instinct. "Dad, Mom, when I say I don't need it, I mean it. When Dad took that place back, how much gossip did the villagers spread behind our backs? If you ask me, we should return it. Then our family can have some peace."

Lu Tinglan added casually in her mind.

Besides, it's already nineteen seventy-

six. The Gaokao will be reinstated next winter. How could the value of a place in the last class of worker-peasant-soldier university students compare with being admitted fair and square through the Gaokao? If I'm going to university, I want to pass the exam myself. Then I'll have earned my place!

The Gaokao would be reinstated!

Father Lu and Lu Jiancheng exchanged a stunned look. Out of the torrent of information in her thoughts, they had both seized on the crucial point. After what had happened with Bai Rui, none of them thought Lu Tinglan's inner voice was spinning fantasies anymore.

The Gaokao really would be reinstated. What wonderful news for all those who yearned to study!

Father Lu quickly made up his mind. He asked his son, "Your sister doesn't want this place. What about you?"

Lu Jiancheng held back the joy in his heart, but he couldn't keep the smile from his lips. "Then I'll wait a little longer too."

"Good!" Father Lu rested a hand on each of his children's shoulders, his face full of spirit. "Since no one in our family wants it, I'll return the place. After half a month, your father can finally stand up straight in front of those people again."

The next day, Lu Tinglan slept until the sun was high. After eating the steamed egg custard Mother Lu had left in the pot, she slipped into the kitchen.

Mother Lu finished work early and came home, but after looking all over, she couldn't find her daughter. She raised her voice and called, "We're going to Educated Youth Jiang's place today. What are you doing in the kitchen? You can cook when we get back!"

"Got it, Mom! Just a moment!" Lu Tinglan called back hurriedly from inside.

Mother Lu looked curiously at the kitchen. The door was shut tight, and she had no idea what her youngest daughter was doing in there to make all that clanging and banging.