Old Enkun took a deep breath, sat down shakily, pulled Yu Meiren onto his lap, and chuckled, "Grandpa isn't crying, Grandpa is happy!"
The little girl was skeptical, but she used her small hands to wipe away the tears from the corners of Enkun's eyes.
Old Enkun pointed at Shi Dazhuang and said, "That's your eldest uncle, your father's good brother. He's here to take you to the city!"
The little girl glanced at Shi Dazhuang, then lowered her head and remained silent.
Shi Dazhuang said, "Yes, how about Uncle takes you to the city?"
"I'm not going!" The little girl turned her head away, leaned against Old Enkun Old Enkun, and hugged his neck tightly.
After that, no matter what Old Enkun and Shi Dazhuang said, she remained silent.
Shi Dazhuang helplessly spread his hands and looked at Qingmu with pleading eyes.
Qingmu gently shook his head at him, indicating that he shouldn't rush.
This child is clearly very averse to outsiders; apart from Old Enkun, he is not close to anyone. At this age, the more stubborn and obstinate a person is, the more likely they are to develop depression.
Children who lose their parents at a young age experience a childhood unlike that of ordinary people. If the long-term repression, helplessness, and loss are not released and channeled in a timely manner, it can easily lead to psychological and personality distortions.
Old Enkun sighed and said, "The girl is suffering!"
At this time, a number of people gradually arrived at Enkun's yard and began to prepare lunch.
" Grandpa Enkun, I've slaughtered the chickens in the house!"
" Grandpa Enkun, I cast my net last night, and when I pulled it up just now, guess what? Three big blue-tailed tuna!"
" Grandpa Enkun, I've brought two jars of wine. If Shayazi doesn't have enough, we'll finish mine."
Old Enkun sat up, greeting the visitors while stuffing tobacco into his pipe. Shi Dazhuang pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and offered it to him, but Old Enkun stubbornly lit his own pipe and said, "I can't stand that."
From the moment the first person brought in a chicken, Yu Meiren got off Old Enkun's lap and stood silently to the side for a while. Seeing that more and more people were coming, she lowered her head and went into the house alone.
Qingmu greeted Old Enkun, patted Shi Dazhuang on the shoulder, and said, "I'll go take a look."
The inner room was dark and damp, with many old magazines from the last century pasted on the walls, and an award certificate in an inconspicuous spot.
Yu Meiren entered the house, leaned on the old-fashioned octagonal table with a missing corner, rested her chin in the crook of her arm, and stared at the wood grain on the tabletop, lost in thought.
She suddenly heard a clattering sound.
The sound was a bit strange, like the sound of someone's heel not being lifted up, the sole of the shoe slapping against the ground.
But the sound of cloth shoes was more muffled, and the sound of straw sandals was more rustling. She had also heard the sound of leather shoes worn back by Shayazi, who worked in other places; that sound was crisp and clear.
It was a sound of footsteps she had never heard before, with a musical rhythm that pounded against her ears like drumbeats.
She was a little curious, so she turned around and saw the man who had come with her uncle walk in.
She disliked her eldest uncle because he was her father's brother, and her father was a bad person, so her eldest uncle was also a bad person, and everyone who came with him was a bad person.
She didn't know why her father was a bad person; everyone said so. Her classmates said so, and her teachers said so too. When she misbehaved, her teachers and classmates would beat her because she was the offspring of a bad person, and they said that the offspring of bad people deserved to be beaten.
Sometimes, even when she's perfectly well-behaved, they'll still complain to the teacher that she's naughty. The teacher then assumes she's naughty and punishes her by hitting her.
She hates going to school.
The tap-tap tap-tap sound stopped. The man stood by the wall, looking at the certificate on it. It was the only certificate she had ever received, and next to it was the essay she had written that won the award.
The title of the essay is "My Bad Dad".
That was the last time she mentioned her father in front of others.
She thought that if she admitted she had a bad father, others would stop bullying her.
But it didn't!
From then on, she never mentioned her father again, except in her diary.
She pulled a brand-new notebook with a pretty cover from her worn-out yellow schoolbag.
This little notebook was a gift from her mother on her first day of school. Every time she takes it out, it's as if she sees her mother; the beautiful cover is just like her mother's face.
She gently stroked the cover of the notebook and carefully opened it—this world that belonged to her.
The man with the messy, unkempt hair is coming over. What does he want?
Want to peek at my diary?
snort!
Yu Meiren tightly protected her diary with her arms, preventing him from seeing it.
She glanced at him furtively out of the corner of her eye, only to find that the man was gone, nowhere to be found.
Perhaps, he's gone out!
She breathed a sigh of relief, her tense nerves just relaxing, when she suddenly noticed someone sitting next to her on a long bench.
She was startled and instinctively clutched her diary tightly, watching the man beside her warily.
"Your name is Yu Meiren?" the man asked.
Yu Meiren pursed her lips and remained silent, clutching her diary even tighter.
Do you know that there's a flower also called the Yu Meiren?
Yu Meiren) certainly knows that her name is the name of a flower, but they all say that it looks like a poppy and is a poisonous flower.
She had seen poppies, but she had never seen Yu Meiren.
"Do you know a poem also called 'Yu Meiren'?" the man asked again.
I don't know what the lyrics to Yu Meiren" are.
The man began to chant:
When will the spring flowers and autumn moon end? How much of the past do we know?
The east wind blew again last night in my little building; I can't bear to look back at my homeland in the bright moonlight.
The carved railings and jade steps should still be there, only the rosy cheeks have faded.
How much sorrow can one have? It's like a river of spring water flowing eastward!
Yu Meiren remained silent.
She couldn't understand the meaning of the poem, but every word uttered by the man was like a pebble falling into a lake, creating ripples in her heart.
A faint melancholy rose from the depths of her heart, like the mist on a lake, drifting and elusive, yet growing thicker and thicker until it was impossible to dispel.
Those past days—the days spent with my mother, the days I occasionally saw my father...flipped through my mind like scenes from a comic book.
She misses her mother.
She gently placed the diary she was holding on the table and stroked the cover of the book with her hand.
Suddenly, ripples appeared on the cover, like waves on water.
In a hazy glow, she saw her mother's face.
Her mother was smiling at her; her face was young and beautiful. She remembered that when she was clinging to her mother's back, begging to go to the Mangdian Tobacco and Hemp Street to buy candy, her mother looked just as young.
Later, my mother got sick and grew old.
The light and shadow on the cover continued to change, the mother's smile gradually disappeared, her plump cheeks began to thin, and slowly, only wrinkled, sallow skin remained, like an old yellowed paper covering a skull.
A crystal-clear drop of water fell from the sky and landed on the cover.
She gently opened the diary; on the first page were a few lines of crooked, illegible writing in pencil. It was written the night after her mother's death, while she lay on her mother's coffin—
Mom died
I want to die too.
If I die, I can be with my mother forever.
But even in death I will see my father.
I hate my dad
So I can only live.