Hawk... ptui...
A wad of phlegm landed beside Chen Haichao. He looked at the bowl of shredded sweet potato congee in his hands and felt he couldn't eat another bite.
If he'd known, he wouldn't have sat by the door to eat.
"Dad, could you have a little consideration for others...?"
"What are you talking about?" His father looked at him in confusion.
"I'm eating, and you spat right next to me..."
"So what? Where did you get all these stupid hang-ups?"
After saying that, his father lowered his head slightly and patted his hair twice. Chen Haichao hurriedly shielded his bowl and scooted aside, lest he get an extra helping of something.
Chen Haichao quickly scraped the rest of the congee into his mouth, carried the bowl inside, and set it on the stove.
Catching sight of the new calendar on the wall, he couldn't help but stare again. When he woke up that morning, he had been reborn back into the year he turned twenty.
When he woke that morning and saw the old-fashioned solid-wood bed frame, he had stared blankly at it for a full five minutes before coming to his senses.
In his previous life, his ambitions had been high but his abilities low. He could go through more than ten factory jobs in a year, and in the end he had settled down as a gatekeeper until old age. If he'd known, he would have gone straight into gatekeeping.
Then he had fallen asleep on the night shift and woken up here.
Even now, looking at the calendar again, it still felt a little unreal.
February 10, 1980. Extremely auspicious!
The kind of auspicious day suitable for burial, placing the dead in a coffin, offering sacrifices, moving a coffin, and relocating graves.
Pah, pah, pah... Today was Little New Year's Eve. Good fortune and great prosperity! May the stove god and his wife sweep away bad luck, and may wealth roll in and everything go smoothly!
Today counted as a new birth too. He had turned back the clock and become young again. Wonderful! This time around, he absolutely couldn't end up guarding a gate again!
Full of ambition and satisfaction, Chen Haichao crossed his index and middle fingers and flicked the calendar.
Several drying mats that had been brought inside lay on the family's rice bin, covered with golden dried shrimp. He grabbed a handful and shook them gently beside his ear. After hearing a crisp rustle, he tossed a few into his mouth and chewed. Lightly dried, firm, fresh and fragrant-delicious.
They had probably been dried to share with his married sisters. These little shrimp were something hardly anyone wanted nowadays; even as a gift, people would complain they were too small.
He had four older sisters. The eldest was twenty-six, and the youngest was twenty-one, only a year older than him.
He didn't know whether it was because his parents had been hoping for a son, but his mother's belly had never been empty. She had given birth too often, too close together, and damaged her health. It wasn't until the ripe old age of forty-one that his mother, Su Hongmei, gave him a younger brother and sister, a pair of twins. They were only five by traditional age now, and his father had been overjoyed at the time.
For a whole year, he had gone out with his head held high, his back straight, and his face glowing like the spring breeze.
If her health hadn't been damaged and she'd kept giving birth, he really couldn't imagine how many brothers and sisters he would have had!
It was all because there were no cell phones or entertainment these days.
Chen Haichao had only been inside a short while when he suddenly heard a commotion at the door. He hurried out to find a circle of people already gathered there.
"...Picked them yourselves?" Zhang Cuihua sneered, reaching out to stir the dried shrimp on the rack and deliberately scattering a large patch of them.
"The village only did away with communal dining less than two years ago. The land and tidal flats still belong to the collective. What gives your family the right to haul back so many red shrimp to dry?"
"The whole stretch of sea and tidal flats belongs to the collective. Everyone has a share, and everything is divided equally. Aren't you taking advantage of the collective by hauling in and drying so much?"
At that, some of the people nearby nodded and chimed in.
"That's right. The sea belongs to everyone collectively."
"Aiguo, your family's being a bit unfair, hauling in and drying so much."
"They might not be worth much, but they still belong to the collective..."
Chen Haichao's father, Chen Aiguo, glared sternly at Zhang Cuihua. "What the hell are you talking about? Our family went down to the sea after work and gathered a little in the dark to bring back and dry. The village has always turned a blind eye to that, and they aren't worth anything anyway..."
Before he had finished, Chen Haichao's expression changed. He squeezed out of the crowd and rushed toward the sea.
He remembered now. At this point in his previous life, he and his father had argued with the neighbors while his mother, Su Hongmei, fought with Li Lanxiang, the production brigade leader's wife, by the sea. During the fight, Li Lanxiang's little grandson had fallen into the water and been swept away by a wave.
Because of that, his family had owed the production team leader's family a life. They had emptied their savings to pay compensation and sacrificed his fourth sister's marriage as well.
His youthful, beautiful fourth sister had been made to marry their dwarf son, sacrificing a lifetime of happiness.
Too much time had passed. In his previous life, this had been forty or fifty years ago, and his memories had grown hazy. He had only just been reborn and hadn't yet recovered his bearings, but seeing the familiar argument at the door had jolted his brain awake, and he remembered.
Chen Haichao ran toward the sea with all his might. Behind him, his father called out in confusion, "Abao, where are you going?"
He sprinted toward the sea as if running the hundred-meter dash. How could he spare a thought for helping his father argue, let alone look at the village as it had been in those days? His heart burned with anxiety.
When he reached the beach, it was deserted. He stopped to catch his breath, and with his 5.3 eyesight, he spotted several little black dots near the rocks at a glance. They really were fighting.
He rushed over. Two middle-aged women were rolling on the ground, soaked and covered in mud and sand, their hair pulled into bird's nests and their padded jackets torn. Their curses carried to his ears on the sea breeze.
"You old hag, fuck your mother, Li Lanxiang! You don't even know to lie down when you die! That filthy mouth, putting on airs-I'll make you lie down and die..."
"Fucking bitch... fuck your mother... Su Hongmei... how dare you hit me..."
When Chen Haichao drew a little closer, he finally saw his mother's heroic side: she was straddling Li Lanxiang, gripping her hair and slapping her.
His twin brother and sister stood to one side, eyes fixed on the fight and mouths hanging open.
Another child was bawling and shouting, "Stop fighting! Don't hit my grandma..."
Before he could breathe a sigh of relief, the two women, pulling at each other and rolling around, knocked the wailing child over. He fell into the tide, which was slowly coming in.
The waves washed back and forth, and just then one broke over him.
"Watch out!!"
Chen Haichao's pupils contracted sharply, and he shouted. Without the slightest hesitation, he picked up speed and charged forward.
The wet, soft sand dragged at his feet. He watched the wave sweep the child in and the tide draw back. Quick-eyed and quick-handed, he hurried forward and, in the gap between waves, reached out and picked up the child, who was floating on the surface and flailing wildly.
A wave slapped against his backside too. For a child, a small wave like that could be a deadly disaster, but for an adult like him, it was nothing much.
Those few seconds had drained all his strength. Looking at the child in his hands, still bawling, his face a mess of tears and snot, he let out a long breath of relief.
Thank goodness he had made it in time. It had scared him half to death; Chen Haichao's back was drenched in cold sweat.
Hearing the commotion, the two women wrestling on the tidal flat stopped pulling at each other and turned to look at him in shock.
"Big brother..."
The twins were the first to react and ran toward him.
"Don't come over! Stay where you are!" Chen Haichao immediately shouted at them to stop and hurried up the beach with the child in his arms.
"Aqi..." Li Lanxiang called to her little grandson anxiously. She shoved Mother Chen off her, rushed over, and frantically gathered the child into her arms.
"Aqi, what happened? How did you end up in the sea?"
Chen Haichao was furious and cursed at her. "Are you blind? Are your eyes in the back of your head? He was swept into the water by a wave!"
"If you don't want the child, stuff him back in your belly! If I hadn't arrived in time, where would you have gone looking to fish him out?"
Li Lanxiang's face turned white with fright when she heard that. Her child was soaked from head to toe.
"Let Grandma have a look. Were you scared? Are you hurt anywhere?"
The child lay against her and bawled.
"The tide's coming in now, and it's so dangerous, yet you brought a child to the beach? What kind of grandmother are you? If anything had happened, you wouldn't even have had anywhere to cry! Is fighting more important than a child?"
"At your age, you're still copying young people and getting into fights. You don't even care about the child anymore. You brought him out and didn't watch him properly. Were you sacrificing him to boost your fighting power, or would his death have blessed your whole family...?"
Chen Haichao berated her without holding back. In his previous life, because of this little brat, his family had sacrificed his fourth sister's whole life. They had also been made to hold their heads lower than everyone else in the village, owing the brigade leader's family for the rest of their lives. Later came the reforms, and production teams were reorganized around villages; the brigade leader became the village chief.
Now that he had saved the little brat, he could finally hold his head high.
"Remember, I'm the one who saved your grandson. Without me, he would have been swept away by the wave just now."
Disheveled and embarrassed, Li Lanxiang nodded repeatedly. "Yes, yes. Thank you, thank you."
Mother Chen also knew this was serious and was shaken by the thought of what could have happened. "Hurry and take the child home to change his clothes. He's been soaked through in the middle of winter. Don't let him catch cold."
"Right, right, right..."
Li Lanxiang ran off with her grandson, not even stopping for her things.
Mother Chen said to Chen Haichao, "Pick up her bucket and things too. We'll take them over to her later. That old witch won't be so arrogant now. Thank goodness you got here in time, or that child would have been in danger. You hurry home and change your pants and shoes too."
"Why were you fighting with her?"
"I hauled in a lot of shrimp, and she mocked me for even wanting stuff fed to pigs, saying this was all I'd ever get to eat in my life. I say she only deserves to eat sweet potatoes for the rest of hers. Pah."
He was speechless. They could even get into a fight over that. Fortunately, he had arrived in time this once.