Twenty Yuan

Riding a broom was much faster than an electric scooter. She had never driven home from the city before, but she had ridden an electric scooter.

Later, once the asphalt road was finished, it only took forty minutes to ride an electric scooter home. Now she was flying through the air on a broom, and even though the road wasn't as good as it would be later, she made it home in under half an hour.

She didn't run into anyone on the way, either. These days, a rural family was considered well-off if they owned a motorcycle, and after dark, there were hardly any travelers on the main road.

She had barely landed on the hillside when she heard her grandma calling her from the top of the hill. Lin Er hurriedly put away her broom and went over carrying the net bag.

"Grandma, keep your voice down. Let's go back quietly!"

What was the quickest way to make a woman nicknamed the Human Abacus shut up?

Tell her you'd picked up a huge bargain that outsiders couldn't be allowed to know about.

"Look, here, take it for me. Let's go back through the bamboo grove behind the house. I waited until dark to come home on purpose!"

Grandma Lin's hand, raised to hit her, swerved and took the big silver carp, which looked to weigh over a dozen jin.

"Where did you get this?"

Happy to have the weight off her hands, Lin Er let her take it. With her schoolbag on her back, she shook out the fishing net in her hand and said with a carefree, cheerful expression, "I picked it up by the reservoir in the next village!"

She really did feel carefree and happy today. The energy in her voice was impossible to fake, and after a few glances at her, Grandma Lin seemed to believe her.

"I was going to take a shortcut home that way, but then I saw a fish flopping on the bank. I pulled it up and saw how huge it was. Someone must have been stealing fish and didn't get back in time to pull up the net. I brought back a newer-looking net too."

The fish in a reservoir were generally raised jointly by one or several villages, never by a private individual. If there was a fishing net in one now, it could only mean someone was stealing fish.

That made it unsurprising that Lin Er had secretly brought it home, even waiting until dark before she dared return.

And she had picked up a new fishing net too. Those weren't cheap. If someone had lost one, there was no way they'd have stayed quiet about it.

Only someone who'd lost a net while stealing fish wouldn't dare speak up. Grandma Lin only had to wait a few days to find out whether Lin Er was lying.

As for now, the fish was already home. How could they possibly put it back in the reservoir?

It wasn't as though Lin Er had stolen the fish herself. She had only picked up a fish someone else had stolen, so Grandma Lin could eat it with a clear conscience.

By the time they got home and cleaned the fish, Lin Huihui had already finished eating. Watching Lin Er shovel down her meal, she didn't remember a word she'd said before leaving that morning, and her lips stuck out far enough to hang an oil jug on.

Not until Grandma Lin used bathwater to wash away the fish blood spilled by the well did Lin Er secretly pull a packet of spicy strips from her pocket and hand it to her.

"Hide it. I'll get you a little cake tomorrow too. Remember our deal: don't follow me or play near the water. You have to stay home!"

She had to warn her. Water seemed to have an endless attraction for children that age; take your eyes off them for a moment and they'd run right to it.

She just didn't want to take a child along. She didn't want her sister dead.

Lin Huihui glanced at her sister, her eyes darted around, and she grabbed the spicy strips and ran out.

"Grandma, my sister has money to buy spicy strips, and she's buying cake tomorrow too!"

"Damn!"

Lin Er immediately sprang up from the bed. "Lin Huihui, have you no sense of loyalty?"

Grandma Lin came in and gave them two sharp smacks, one each, so neither got the worse of it. She had always settled disputes without judging them.

Never mind who was right or wrong in this farce. The one eating spicy strips needed a smack, and so did the one who'd bought them.

"How much money do you have, buying this and that? You think they're any good? They'll rot your guts!"

Lin Er glared fiercely at Lin Huihui but didn't argue. Fine, forget the little cake. She wasn't even getting the spicy strips today.

She immediately rushed over, snatched them back, tore the packet open and ate them in two bites.

Ignoring Lin Huihui's heartbroken wails, she ran into her grandpa's room and shut the door. She was sleeping with him tonight!

"Cry, cry, cry! What are you crying for? Lin Er, come out and share a few with her!"

Lin Er braced the door shut. Her grandpa was on the bed shaking out the quilt. Seeing her puffed-up cheeks and empty hands, he sighed helplessly.

Lin Er swallowed the spicy strips and coughed twice before calling outside, "They're gone. I ate them. I saved my own spending money to buy them for her, and she still went and tattled to you, so she doesn't get any!"

Ignoring Lin Huihui's even louder wailing, Lin Er turned around and climbed onto her grandpa's bed. The freshly laid rice straw was soft, even more comfortable than the Simmons mattress she and her sister slept on.

"Grandpa, I'm sleeping with you tonight. Give me the flat pillow!"

There were two pillows on Grandpa Lin's bed. One was an old-fashioned rectangular pillow stuffed with rice husks.

The other was made from an old homemade cotton-padded jacket tied into a bundle.

Lin Er wasn't used to sleeping on a high pillow. The flat one was just right.

Whenever the sisters quarreled, one of them would always end up unwilling to sleep with the other and come sleep with Grandpa instead. The pillows on the bed were there for them.

Once she had settled down on the bed and Lin Huihui's cries outside had quieted, Grandpa Lin used his foot to pull the quilt over her.

"You need spending money at school during the week too. Don't keep saving it to buy her food. She's in elementary school, and your grandma gives her spending money too."

Lin Er tugged at the thin quilt. The earthen house in the countryside really was cool inside, especially now that the hottest part of summer had passed. They still needed a thin quilt at night.

"I didn't bring extra money either. Five yuan isn't even enough to buy drinking water, so I bring well water from home. I saved fifty fen to buy her spicy strips, and she still tattled to Grandma!"

Lin Er really did feel wronged. She had money on her now, but she had done this before too, and back then she really hadn't had any money. How had she forgotten? Lin Huihui had been disloyal since she was little!

Grandpa Lin said no more. He was always like that at home, hardly ever speaking. The time his emotions had been most stirred up was when she was little.

Her dad hadn't known how to raise his first child. He'd taught her pinyin when she was five, but she hadn't learned it quickly, and teaching her had driven him to the breaking point.

He'd grabbed her by the hand and kicked her, and in the end her grandpa had chased him out with a carrying pole. By the time Lin Er started school at six, she was no longer sleeping with her parents.

The next day, Lin Er was pushed awake by her grandpa. She looked at the little window. There wasn't a glimmer of light outside; it probably wasn't even six yet.

"Take this and spend it as you need it. Don't tell your grandma or Huihui."

It was a very old twenty-yuan note. In the yellow lamplight, she could barely make out the design on it.

Lin Er felt a sting in her nose, and her throat tightened.

"Grandpa, where did you get this?"

Her grandpa had never been in charge of the household finances. He didn't smoke, drink or play cards, and he didn't even have an excuse to ask for spending money.

Once, her grandma had gone to visit relatives for half a month, and the household had run out of toothpaste while she was away. Her grandpa hadn't even had the money to buy more. He had brushed his teeth with salt for several days before Lin Er noticed, and in the end she had asked her mother for money to buy some.

"I found it on the road yesterday when I was bringing the cow back. I haven't told your grandma yet. Take it and use it."