Qingye did indeed take a nap, sleeping until dark. Due to the conjunctivitis, she couldn’t look at her phone or computer. This wretched place didn’t have a single normal person to talk to. She had never experienced such a miserable summer vacation in her life, and oddly enough, she found herself wanting school to start soon so she wouldn’t have to face these bizarre people all day.
Qingye lay in bed a while longer, only getting up when Li Lanfang called her down for dinner.
As soon as she reached the backyard, she heard Li Lanfang complaining to Xing Wu: “Has your brain stopped working? Locks aren’t free, you know! The Wu family is one thing, but Old Zhang’s family definitely won’t pay for it. Why should we install door locks for them?”
Qingye paused, suddenly remembering the plastic bag Xing Wu had brought back that afternoon. She hadn’t paid attention earlier, but now she recalled it might have been a new door lock. She turned to look at Xing Wu.
He was feeding his grandmother dinner and cast a sidelong glance at Qingye. Under the yellowish light bulb, his profile was illuminated, revealing sharp, handsome features.
Qingye remembered the scene from last night’s shower, how she had been anxious for ages because of the hole in the door, feeling completely unsafe and imagining a pair of eyes suddenly appearing through the hole. She had rushed through her shower and run out sweating from both anxiety and heat.
Xing Wu had complained about her being troublesome then, showing all kinds of impatience, but today he had installed a door lock. For some unknown reason, Qingye felt something strange stirring in her heart. Looking at Xing Wu now, he didn’t seem quite so detestable anymore, and even his cold face appeared somewhat more handsome.
Xing Wu seemed unwilling to let Li Lanfang continue this topic and said: “Enough, I’m not asking you to pay for it. It’s installed now, so why bother asking Uncle Zhang’s family for money?”
Qingye sat down to eat without joining their argument, but Li Lanfang was provoked by Xing Wu’s words. She put down her chopsticks and scolded: “I don’t understand what you’re saying. What do you mean you’re not asking me to pay? How did you grow up? If I hadn’t raised you, would you be this tall? Isn’t your money my money? Isn’t it the Xing family’s money? Everyone uses the bathroom, and when the lock breaks they all play dead, hoping someone else will install it. And here you are, playing the fool. Today it’s a door lock, what’s next? Planning to build houses for others tomorrow?”
Honestly, Qingye thought Li Lanfang was being too petty. The neighbors saw each other every day; there was no need to be so calculative. Although she generally found Xing Wu unpleasant, objectively speaking, she sided with him on this matter, and she felt Li Lanfang’s words were too harsh.
She looked up at Xing Wu and, sure enough, he was clenching his jaw, clearly suppressing his anger and looking ready to flip the table.
However, he still held back and patiently continued feeding his grandmother. Seeing him not respond, Li Lanfang became even more agitated, going on and on about money.
Qingye had never worried about money since childhood, and her parents had never fought over it, so she couldn’t understand why people here talked about nothing but money, and how neighbors could treat each other like thieves over a few dozen yuan. It seemed completely absurd to her.
Finally, she couldn’t bear it anymore and looked up to ask: “How much?”
Li Lanfang’s voice cut off abruptly as she looked at her, and even Xing Wu frowned and turned his head.
Qingye repeated: “How much was the door lock? I’ll pay for it. Is five hundred enough?”
She pulled out five crisp bills from her shoulder bag and slapped them on the table: “Can we stop arguing now?”
Li Lanfang fell silent, staring intently at the money. However, what Qingye didn’t expect was Xing Wu suddenly slamming down the nearly empty bowl he’d been using to feed his grandmother, standing up to say viciously: “If you’ve got money, why don’t you donate it all to help build the county? You think you’re the only one with money, huh?”
With that, Xing Wu suddenly kicked the wooden stool and left without finishing his dinner. Qingye was bewildered by his outburst. The wooden stool he kicked went rolling across the floor and fell apart. Qingye sat frozen at the table, her heart racing wildly, a mixture of anger, fear, and hurt overwhelming her until she could barely breathe, her small face turning pale.
Li Lanfang stopped her endless chatter then, muttering to herself, “What a mess!”
Then she turned to comfort Qingye: “Let’s ignore him and eat. If you take him seriously, you’ll die of anger every day.”
As she spoke, she pocketed Qingye’s five hundred yuan, then continued eating as if nothing had happened.
Qingye looked at her, having lost her appetite completely. Whatever tiny bit of goodwill she had just developed toward Xing Wu had completely vanished. Once again, she thought this whole family was mentally unsound.
But today Qingye didn’t act willfully. Xing Wu was right – only idiots would deny their stomachs, but today she wanted to modify that saying: only idiots would let jerks keep them from eating.
Qingye forced the tasteless rice into her stomach. Whether she was full or not was hard to say, but at least she ate.
That night Xing Wu didn’t come home. Qingye didn’t know where he went, nor did she want to know. When she went downstairs to shower, she noticed the newly installed door lock, which Xing Wu had presumably installed himself. It was quite neat, and the large spider behind the door was gone – she wasn’t sure if it had left on its own or if Xing Wu had removed it.
The next day, Yellow Hair did come to see her with big apples. He didn’t dare go up to her room, just leaving the fruit on the second-floor landing and calling out to Qingye in her room: “Cousin! That cow-something fruit you wanted, I went to two fruit shops but couldn’t find it. I found some cherries though, so eat these first.”
He left after saying that. Qingye walked to the landing and saw a large bag of fruit, which even included a dragon fruit. Although the cherries didn’t look great – they were quite dry – it was already quite luxurious to get cherries in this place.
Over the next few days, just as Li Lanfang had said, Xing Wu rarely came home to sleep and was barely seen at all. He only came back briefly for dinner each day and sometimes made a quick stop at noon, but he rarely ate at home. He would come back to feed his grandmother and then leave.
One day when he was home, he did fix the wooden chair he had kicked apart, even sanding the edges smooth, making it look like it was professionally done. Probably because if he didn’t fix it, his family wouldn’t have had enough chairs.
Qingye no longer tried to initiate conversations with him or pick fights, and Xing Wu seemed equally uninterested in acknowledging her, acting as if she were invisible.
One day during dinner, Qingye heard Li Lanfang and Xing Wu arguing about something in the barbershop again, though Xing Wu left after just a few words. Afterward, Li Lanfang returned the five hundred yuan to Qingye, who hadn’t expected to get it back. Li Lanfang grumbled: “Take it back, or Wuzi will argue with me again if I keep your money.”
Qingye said nothing and put the money away.
A week later, Qingye’s eyes had recovered, and her leg had scabbed over. During the day, she would sometimes help Li Lanfang collect money after reading her books. This wasn’t out of kindness – she was just incredibly bored. Since arriving, she had nowhere to go except to stay in her room reading.
Beyond this tiny barbershop, she couldn’t take a single step out. First, she didn’t know any other places, and second, after Xing Wu warned that night, she worried about the county’s safety and didn’t dare wander around alone.
Those days when Yellow Hair and Fatty passed by Xuandian, they would stop to check on her. Seeing her eyes had recovered, Yellow Hair grinned and said: “Finally, you don’t look scary anymore.”
Qingye casually asked: “What does Xing Wu usually do?”
Yellow Hair replied matter-of-factly: “Making hard money.”
“Summer job?”
Fatty stuttered: “N-no, not a summer job, it’s a l-long-term job.”
Yellow Hair smiled: “You don’t know? Our Brother Wu is known as Young Master Wu to others. He’s something – there’s no one else in Zazazting who can match him.”
Qingye couldn’t help but show that disdainful look again, thinking “idiots” to herself. Had these people never seen what truly impressive people were like? Physicists, meteorologists, astronomers, special forces, engineers, pilots – weren’t they all impressive? How amazing could Xing Wu be? Could he fly?
Seeing Qingye’s disbelief, Yellow Hair grew agitated: “Really, our Brother Wu…”
Fatty tugged at him: “Didn’t Brother Wu say not to, not to talk about his business everywhere?”
Yellow Hair shut up, and Qingye asked: “Are you still in school?”
Yellow Hair replied: “Yeah, we and Brother Wu are all at An Middle School. We’ll be seniors when school starts.”
Qingye raised an eyebrow. A Middle School? That was the school she was transferring to. She hadn’t expected Xing Wu to be in her year – he didn’t look like a high school student at all. She had thought he’d dropped out long ago.
Yellow Hair and Fatty didn’t stay long before leaving.
Since her eyes had recovered, Qingye had started previewing the senior year curriculum on her computer. Her former classmates had already returned to school early, but this school showed no signs of activity. Yellow Hair and Fatty were still wandering the streets every day, not looking at all like people about to take the college entrance exam. It was quite strange.
But the stranger it seemed, the more Qingye felt an invisible pressure. She was completely out of place here, and the only way to leave was to achieve exceptional results in the college entrance exam. According to her original plan, she had been aiming for Columbia or the University of Toronto. Good Canadian universities now require Chinese college entrance exam scores. She wasn’t just looking for admission – she needed a scholarship. In the worst case, if her father couldn’t get out temporarily, she would have to live abroad alone, and finances were the top priority. Although she felt countless sorrows, helplessness, and discomfort, she had to plan for her future path.
During the day, she would sometimes sit at the cashier counter collecting money while watching educational videos on her laptop and taking notes.
But her behavior seemed bizarre to the locals. One of Li Lanfang’s mahjong friends even said: “Why does a girl need to study so much? Won’t she just get married and have children anyway?” And some people agreed.
Qingye couldn’t believe that in the 21st century, people still thought women should be uneducated.
She couldn’t help but retort: “Do you earn enough money for your wives and children to live worry-free at home and achieve financial freedom? If not, why shouldn’t women use knowledge to change their fate? Is it mandated by law?”
“Oh my, this child…” The mahjong friends hadn’t expected this usually quiet and gentle girl to talk back.
This was also Li Lanfang’s first time seeing Qingye argue seriously in front of so many people. She tried to smooth things over: “Say less. If she likes studying, let her study. It’s not like she’s doing anything wrong.”
Seeing Second Sister Li speak up, the friends fell silent. Although Li Lanfang was quite old-fashioned most of the time, when it came to studies, she thought Qingye’s dedication was good. At least her good-for-nothing son couldn’t manage it – asking him to sit quietly at home and study for half a day would be like asking for his life.
Who would have thought that the next afternoon, in the brief time it took Qingye to use the bathroom, trouble would strike when she came out?