By the time they finished shopping for the New Year and came out of the supply and marketing cooperative, it was almost noon. Both of them were drenched in sweat from the crush.
Chen Haichao carried a huge pile of cloth and cotton, and Mother Chen's bamboo basket was piled high as well. A layer of tattered cloth covered it, so no one could see what they had bought.
Both of them let out a long, heavy sigh.
Mother Chen couldn't help complaining. "Good heavens, there were so many people! It was maddening. You even had to shout louder than everyone else to buy anything, and everyone was scrambling for it. There are never that many people on ordinary days."
Chen Haichao was sweating from the heat too. "Who has time to shop on ordinary days? Apart from the people in town, doesn't everyone have to work? The brigade distributed money and ration coupons for the New Year, so now people have both to spend."
"I thought we'd finish shopping this morning, but it's noon already. We'd better hurry home. If I cut out all this cloth today, I can take it to Party Secretary Lin's house tomorrow and borrow the sewing machine. We'll have to hurry. It's already the twenty-sixth, and New Year's Eve falls on the twenty-ninth this year. There are only three days to make everyone's new clothes."
"Mm, let's hurry home. If I'd known we'd buy so much, I'd have brought a handcart."
Mother Chen's heart ached at the expense too. Apart from preparing dowries when her daughters married, when had she ever spent so much at once?
"The cloth and cotton alone cost more than a hundred yuan. That's half a year's income for our whole family. In the past, how would we have dared splurge on new clothes for everyone at once?"
"Only when your sisters got married would we use the coupons we'd saved to make them new clothes and quilts. The rest of us just kept mending and patching our things for three years, then another three."
"You've never worn new clothes in all your years either. You wore your older male cousins' hand-me-downs, passed from one to the next. When you get married, the family will have saved enough coupons again to make you new clothes."
"All of you have to wait your turn. Otherwise, with the limited coupons the village issues each year, even a year's savings wouldn't be enough to clothe one person."
"It's the same for the twins. The clothes they wear are your old hand-me-downs, altered over and over. One piece of clothing gets passed down to seven or eight people. They were so excited yesterday because they've never worn new clothes for the New Year either. They were lucky if we could unravel an old sweater and knit them a new one."
Chen Haichao fell silent as he listened. It was all because supplies were scarce and they had no money, an effect of the times.
His parents loved his sisters too. Though they favored boys, they didn't neglect girls. When his two older sisters married, his parents hadn't kept any of the bride price. They had used it to prepare their dowries and let them take the rest as private savings tucked away at the bottom of their trunks.
Rural families needed labor, and they needed sons to establish and carry on the household. That was a fact. His parents had loved their children as best they could.
Though people always said women could hold up half the sky, there were still differences in labor. Men did the exhausting work at sea.
The village was already relatively humane: it assigned work at sea only to men who were married and had children. Unmarried men weren't assigned to fishing crews going out to sea.
The risks at sea were simply too great. Every year, some people never came back.
After saying all this, Mother Chen grew excited again. She leaned over to him and said, "If you hadn't picked up that big gold bracelet yesterday, how would I have dared be so extravagant and make new clothes for the whole family?"
"I showed it to your father last night. He was so excited he tossed and turned all night and couldn't sleep. He said it was worth several hundred yuan."
"The coupons we'd saved were originally meant for making clothes and quilts for your third sister when she married after the New Year. Now we'll make everyone an outfit first and have a good New Year."
"When it's time to arrange her marriage, I'll find someone to trade coupons with. For now, she can dress a little prettier for the New Year, and we'll see if we can find her another good family to marry into."
"Now that I have money in hand, I can spend it freely and make the whole family happy too. It's rare to have so many good things happen one after another."
Mother Chen spoke with a cheerful smile, her eyes full of anticipation for life.
Chen Haichao looked at her and said earnestly, "Mom, our family's life will definitely get better and better, more and more prosperous. When the time comes, we'll have everything."
"Hehe, if I can see all of you safely married and settled, I'll have finished my task."
"Wait for me here by the road. I'll leave the things here for now. Keep an eye on them."
"Where are you going?"
"Find somewhere to pee."
Actually, he wanted to visit the purchasing station to check the prices it paid for different kinds of seafood, so he would have an idea. Getting to town wasn't easy when they had to rely on their own two legs. If he didn't stop by this time, who knew when he'd come again? And if he had to work after the New Year, he'd have even less time.
But if he told his mother, she would only wonder why he wanted to check the purchasing prices for no reason. It was simpler to save himself the trouble of explaining, since it wasn't anything important.
The purchasing station wasn't far from here. The town hadn't been expanded in those days and wasn't very big to begin with. He jogged over in five minutes, took a look to get an idea of the prices, then ran back. It didn't take long at all.
Mother Chen, however, felt as though she had waited a long time. When she saw him run back, she grumbled a few times that lazy people always had more shit and piss.
Chen Haichao didn't argue. Instead, he hoisted the bolts of cloth and cotton. "Shall we take a bus home?"
Rural buses ran between the towns and passed their village, but there was no fixed schedule, and only two buses made the round trip. If they went to the station now, there might not be a bus there.
Mother Chen had originally planned to walk home, but when she saw how much they had, she steeled herself and nodded. "Then let's walk and wait for one along the way. Who knows when a bus will come?"
"Okay."
Chen Haichao prayed a bus would come before they had taken more than a few steps.
Unfortunately, their luck wasn't very good. They walked for over an hour and reached the entrance to the village without seeing a bus pass.
He put down a sack of cotton at the village entrance and caught his breath.
Mother Chen, however, was quite happy. "We just kept walking and made it home, and we saved money. Good thing we didn't waste time waiting there. The bus wasn't even as fast as our own two feet."
His luck was so bad that he had nothing left to say. After resting, he picked up the sack of cotton and carried it the rest of the way home.
It was mealtime by then, and every household had already started eating. There were few people on the road. The villagers' mealtimes were quite regular; after all, they had fixed working hours and had grown accustomed to them.
Seeing that there were hardly any people on the road, Mother Chen urged him to walk faster.
The villagers had sharp eyes. If they saw how much the two had bought, they were sure to ask questions all the way home. They hurried to take a shortcut while few people were around, saving themselves the trouble of dealing with them.
As soon as they got home, Chen Pandi and Chen Sidi came over excitedly to greet them, helping her with the basket and taking the cloth.
Chen Sidi said, "Mom, why did you buy so much? That's a lot of cloth!"
"There are five adults and two children in our family. Don't we need this much cloth? It's been so many years since any of you wore new clothes. This year, I'm making everyone a new outfit."
Chen Pandi said, "That's wonderful! I thought I'd have to wait until I got married to wear new clothes!"
The boy-girl twins circled the pile of cloth, scratching their heads and ears.
"Is there any for me? Is there any for me?"
The other little parrot repeated the same question.
Mother Chen chuckled. "Yes, there is. Everyone gets some."
"Hahahaha~ We're going to have new clothes~"
"Wonderful! I'm going to wear new clothes~"
"Oh, Mom, after we finished drying the shrimp this morning, we had nothing to do, and we didn't know when you'd be back, so Dad took us to the fortune-teller to work out our names first!" Chen Pandi said impatiently. "I chose the name Chen Panpan for myself. The fortune-teller said it was good and suited my birth date and hour."
"And me, I'm Chen Sitian! I also thought of the name Chen Sisi, but the fortune-teller said Chen Sitian was better, because we should remember the bitterness and think of the sweetness!"
Chen Sidi... no, she should be called Chen Sitian now. She was so excited that she hugged the cloth and twirled around the room like a colorful butterfly, sharing her joy with the family.
She had never been so happy. From now on, she had a new name she was happy with too!
Looking at the two delighted girls, Mother Chen caught their excitement and smiled from ear to ear. "You couldn't wait that long? I was going to take you after I got back."
"It was the same having Dad take us!"
Father Chen sat smoking in front of the stove, smiling fondly at them. "The two girls each clung to one of my arms and wheedled me, urging me to take them first. They said there was no telling when you'd be back, so I had no choice but to take them."
"I gave him a red envelope, and we got the eldest's name changed too. She's called Chen Zhaozhao, and the second is Chen Xiaodi. The fortune-teller used their birth dates and hours and their existing names to come up with better ones that weren't completely unrelated to the old ones."
Mother Chen nodded repeatedly as she listened. "Those are good new names. Did you go to the brigade leader for a certificate?"
"Not yet. We only just got back from changing their names and started cooking."
"Then go to the brigade leader for the certificate this afternoon. Let's get their new names entered in the household register before the New Year and celebrate happily."
"All right."
The two sisters were even happier.