Chapter 1
◎In that moment, all the locust flowers in the tree became mere foils.◎
Summer, 2012.
The sky had yet to lighten when Qiao Xiaoxiao’s eyes opened.
She lay quietly on the small bed sectioned off in the woodshed, listening to her uncle’s snores and the grinding of his teeth from the next room. The bed planks were hard, making her shoulder blades ache, but she was used to it. For five years, this bed, fashioned from a door panel, had been her entire world.
The first crow of a rooster sounded from outside the window. As if wound by a spring, she sat up without making a sound.
The water vat in the kitchen was nearly empty. Qiao Xiaoxiao picked up the iron bucket and crossed the frost-covered courtyard. The well rope dug deep red marks into her palm, but she didn’t even frown. One winter when she was twelve, her aunt had beaten her with a rolling pin and forced her to kneel in the snow for spilling half a bucket of water. Now, she could carry a full bucket without spilling a single drop.
“What’s taking you so long?” Her aunt, Huang Sulan, who had gotten up to use the toilet, appeared at the door shuffling in her slippers, her sleepy face filled with impatience.
Qiao Xiaoxiao silently set down the bucket and began to light the stove. As the flames leaped up in the firebox, she stared, mesmerized, at the dancing orange light. Flames are so free, she thought. They can burn wherever they please. Unlike her, who had to measure every breath she took.
The porridge bubbled in the pot. She mechanically sliced pickled vegetables, the blade tapping out a rhythmic beat against the cutting board.
As dawn broke, the clouds looked like shredded cotton. Sunlight poured through the gaps, gently blanketing half the small courtyard. The morning, which should have been serene and peaceful, was shattered by sharp, piercing shouts.
“Keep your voice down! Don’t let Xiaoxiao hear you!”
“You think I’m afraid of her hearing me?!”
“What ‘top high school’?! Do you have any idea how much the tuition, fees, and all the other expenses add up to in a year?”
“She’s your own niece, are you just going to abandon her?!”
“I’ve scrimped and saved to provide for her until now, and that’s good enough! Go out and look around our village! Which girl isn’t working in the fields or getting married to help her family? Who goes to study at such an expensive school?”
The woman’s voice, shrill to the point of distortion, shrieked and cursed, interspersed with the hoarse, timid bass of a man.
“But isn’t this because Xiaoxiao is promising? She’s the only child from our village in years to get into the county’s top high school. Even the village chief praised her.”
“If she gets good grades in the future, won’t it bring us honor too?”
“Honor? Whose honor?”
“I haven’t enjoyed a single day of peace since I married you, bearing and raising children for you Qiaos! Do you have a conscience?!”
“Never mind that she needs so much money for school. If she leaves, are you going to feed the pigs? The chickens and ducks? Are you going to take care of Nuonuo?! If it weren’t for her back then, Nuonuo wouldn’t have—”
“Enough! Shut your mouth!!!”
“Bang—”
A loud crash exploded in the small house. Pots and pans were violently thrown to the ground. The door slammed with a deafening bang, making even the window frames tremble.
Qiao Xiaoxiao stood frozen for a long time, her eyes slightly moist. Shaking her head, she was about to get back to her chores when she turned and saw Qiao Nuoyun cowering in the corner. The little girl’s body was pressed so tightly against the wall it seemed she wanted to merge with it. Her hands were clamped over her ears, her large eyes brimming with terrified tears.
Her heart clenched painfully.
“Nuonuo…” She hurried forward, squatted down, and gently took her sister’s small, cold hands. They were still trembling slightly, like a frightened fledgling, the fingertips pale. Qiao Xiaoxiao rubbed the back of her hand with her thumb, her voice extremely soft. “It’s okay. Sister’s here.”
Qiao Nuoyun was as exquisitely beautiful as a porcelain doll. She tilted her little face up, her large, wet eyes filled with panic as she signed with her hands.
—Sister, you don’t want Nuonuo anymore?
A muffled “wu wu” sound, not forming any words, came from Nuonuo’s mouth. She had suffered a high fever when she was three that had damaged her throat, and she had been this way ever since.
Qiao Xiaoxiao shook her head. Looking at her sister, she crouched down and hugged her, saying softly, “It’s not that Sister doesn’t want you. I got into high school and have to go to the county to study. I’ll come back to see you every week, okay?”
The small figure in her arms suddenly stiffened. Although Qiao Nuoyun was still young, she vaguely understood what “high school” meant. She abruptly lifted her face. The tears in her eyes had not yet faded, but they were already shining with a starlight brilliance.
—I saw on TV that if you go to high school, you can go to university and live a good life! Sister, you should go quickly!
She signed eagerly, her chubby little hands tracing a determined arc in the air.
—Nuonuo will be good and wait for Sister to come back!
Looking at that baby-fat face and those sincere, wide eyes, Qiao Xiaoxiao’s heart felt as if it were being sliced by a knife. She hugged her sister tightly, her voice choked with emotion. “I’m sorry…”
As expected, Huang Sulan did not come out for breakfast.
The three of them sat around the table in a stifling atmosphere.
In the past, Qiao Xiaoxiao would have always given in and compromised, no matter the demand. But this time, she swallowed all her words back down her throat.
In the morning, she had to go to work as usual. The mountain road to town was long. Qiao Xiaoxiao sat in the back of a tractor, watching the cliffs on either side slowly recede. The wind messed up the hair she had tied back with an old rubber band, and a few strands tickled her face.
As they passed the small village store, a few girls her age pointed at the tractor. Qiao Xiaoxiao recognized them; they had been in elementary school with her. Now they wore cheap lipstick and tight jeans, already preparing for marriage.
“I heard she got first place in the whole town?”
“What’s the use? As if her aunt would let her go to school.”
“Didn’t her mom run away because she got an education?”
“Heh heh…”
Qiao Xiaoxiao’s nails dug into her palms, but her face remained calm. She had heard these words too many times; she should have been immune by now.
But her heart still ached, as if being wound tighter and tighter by a thin iron wire.
The construction site where Qiao Wanshan worked was thick with dust. Under the scorching sun, his back was bent into a taut arc. Piles of bricks pressed down on his shoulders, and sweat rolled down his dark skin, hitting the dry ground and leaving small, dark pits. He could earn two hundred yuan a day, a sum exchanged for countless repetitive motions of bending, lifting, and walking.
Meanwhile, Qiao Xiaoxiao helped out in the temporary kitchen in a corner of the site. The cooking oil sizzled in the large iron wok, and the rising steam made her cheeks burn. She had to wash vegetables, chop them, and serve dishes, occasionally getting yelled at by the ill-tempered cook. At the end of the day, all she held in her hand was a crumpled one-hundred-yuan bill.
How many people were on the site? At least a hundred. And all the food—cabbage, potatoes, tofu, with the occasional few thin slices of fatty pork—had to be prepared by her and a few other women helpers. She chopped vegetables all day without stopping. Often, when she got home and did her homework at night, the hand holding the pen would be shaking.
The food from the communal pot was far from good. The vegetable leaves were boiled until they turned yellow, the potatoes had an earthy taste, and the few floating pieces of fatty pork had long been stewed of all their oil. But the workers still wolfed it down. For them, filling their stomachs was the greatest satisfaction; who cared about the taste?
When they ate, they would squat in twos and threes in a corner, holding chipped enamel bowls and silently shoveling rice into their mouths. They looked like old, worn-out machines that had run out of fuel, operating on the last bit of inertia.
Qiao Xiaoxiao was especially quiet today. Her shoulders were hunched as she mechanically put rice into her mouth. Qiao Wanshan stared at her for a long while, then suddenly reached out with his chopsticks and moved the only two pieces of meat from his bowl into hers.
Qiao Xiaoxiao’s head shot up. She was about to instinctively shake her head and refuse, but she heard Qiao Wanshan’s low, hoarse voice. “You eat. You’re still growing.”
She opened her mouth, but in the end, said nothing. She just lowered her head, letting her bangs hide her reddened eyes. The grains of rice, mixed with salty tears, were swallowed down one mouthful at a time.
Qiao Wanshan looked at the small, thin figure before him. A fifteen-year-old girl should be at an age of budding and sprouting, but due to long-term malnutrition, she was as frail as a withered yellow leaf. He looked at her protruding shoulder blades, at her wrists that seemed so thin they would snap, and let out a heavy, deep sigh.
He remembered the first time he brought his niece to this construction site. Seeing him move bricks piece by piece, Qiao Xiaoxiao, who was still childish and a bit lively back then, had said earnestly, “Uncle, I’m going to study hard. When I finish my studies, I’ll give you a good life, and we’ll eat meat every day!”
In the blink of an eye, that bright little girl had grown up. The heavy, somber air about Qiao Xiaoxiao was not something a girl her age should have.
The construction site only provided lunch. After lunch, Qiao Wanshan had to continue moving bricks, while Qiao Xiaoxiao had to move to a new “battlefield.”
On the remote suburban road, the bus that came only once every half hour was nowhere in sight. Qiao Xiaoxiao gritted her teeth, slung her schoolbag over her shoulder, and started running toward the town.
The wind whistled past her ears, carrying the scent of dry dust. Her canvas shoes pounded on the uneven road, startling a few sparrows. It was a three-kilometer journey. She ran until her chest hurt, sweat dripping from her ponytail and soaking a dark patch on her back.
When the red and blue sign of the fast-food restaurant finally came into view, Qiao Xiaoxiao’s legs felt like they were filled with lead. She leaned on her knees, gasping for breath, a metallic, bloody taste rising in her throat. But time was short. She hastily wiped the sweat from her face and pushed open the heavy glass door.
The cool air, mixed with the aroma of fried chicken, hit her, making her dizzy for a moment. In the changing room, Qiao Xiaoxiao’s trembling fingers fumbled with the buttons of her uniform. The person in the mirror had a flushed face, her hair stuck messily to her forehead. She took a deep breath, tucked her exhaustion into her straightened back, and turned to walk to the front counter.
“I’m sorry, I’m two minutes late,” she said, her voice still breathless, but she already wore a standard smile.
The shift leader frowned and glanced at his watch. “You only work four hours, and you’re still late? Have you no discipline? Don’t you know to call ahead?”
Qiao Xiaoxiao wanted to say she would, but a mobile phone was too much of a luxury for her.
…
The day’s work was over.
Dusk was like a basin of cooling embers, burning the horizon a dark red. The sputtering engine of the three-wheeled motorcycle was especially jarring on the country road. Qiao Xiaoxiao curled up in a corner of the cart, swaying gently with every bump. She was so tired that even her eyelashes felt heavy. Qiao Wanshan’s rough, large hand gripped the corner of her shirt tightly, afraid she would fall out during the bumpy ride.
Qiao Xiaoxiao managed to open her eyes and saw her uncle’s profile, bronzed by the setting sun. Sweat formed little streams in his deep wrinkles, and he smelled of the unpleasant odor of a long day’s labor.
As the vehicle turned past the grain-sunning ground, Qiao Wanshan lowered his voice. “Xiaoxiao, don’t worry. You are definitely going to school. I’ll talk to your aunt slowly. As for the fees, I’ve asked around. We can apply for a student loan first. For accommodation, I’ll go to the village chief and see if he can figure something out.”
The engine suddenly grew loud, so loud it drowned out the chirping of insects in the fields and brushed away the tear at the corner of Qiao Xiaoxiao’s eye.
Qiao Wanshan was a man of his word. When they got home that night, he had a quick bite to eat and then went to find the village chief. But that night was destined to be anything but peaceful.
Bathing her younger sister every day was a rare moment of relaxation for Qiao Xiaoxiao.
The steam in the bathroom had not yet dissipated. Qiao Xiaoxiao wrapped Nuonuo’s wet hair in a towel and gently rubbed it. The little girl’s face, flushed pink from the steam, nuzzled against her hand like a contented kitten.
—Sister smells nice.
Nuonuo signed, lifting her small arm to smell the jasmine scent of the body wash, her eyes curving into crescents.
When Qiao Xiaoxiao finally coaxed her sister to sleep and tiptoed back to her own room, the wooden door suddenly shuddered with a loud bang. Huang Sulan stumbled in, a feather duster whistling through the air. The strong stench of alcohol instantly overwhelmed the lingering jasmine scent in the room.
“It’s all your fault—”
Huang Sulan’s hoarse voice was like a dull knife scraping against her eardrums. “If it weren’t for you, you jinx…”
The feather duster whipped through the air and struck the desk with a sharp crack that exploded in the small room. Qiao Xiaoxiao’s spine instantly went rigid, her muscles reacting before her brain. Her right shoulder instinctively flinched inward, and her left hand was already shielding her vulnerable ribs.
It began to rain outside. The sound of raindrops drumming on the tin roof, Huang Sulan’s hysterical curses, and Nuonuo’s startled cries from afar all blended together.
From age ten to fifteen, the most brilliant years of youth.
This was how Qiao Xiaoxiao had spent them.
***
At the crack of dawn, Qiao Wanshan was waiting at the courtyard gate, holding a bulging woven bag. Inside were homemade pickled vegetables and dried mushrooms—the most presentable gifts they could offer. Qiao Xiaoxiao wore a faded navy-blue windbreaker, the knees of her jeans still bearing the stitches from a patch last year. She kept smoothing out non-existent wrinkles on her hem.
As the village chief’s second-hand Santana rolled over the dew-covered field path, Song Qiu glanced in the rearview mirror at the tense girl in the back seat.
“Don’t be scared, girl,” he said, turning the steering wheel onto the county road. “You know the old rule in our Wuliu Village, right? The children who leave are like scattered seeds. Wherever they take root, they have to provide some shade for the folks who come after.”
He patted a cardboard box full of local produce on the passenger seat. “You’re the first girl from our village to get into the top high school. They’ll surely be eager to help!”
The scenery outside the window gradually changed from golden rice paddies to gray storefronts. Qiao Xiaoxiao pressed her hot forehead against the cool glass, her fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of her clothes, her knuckles white from the force. This was the first time in her fifteen years that she had been so close to hope, so close she could almost hear the heartbeat of freedom.
However, fate always had a way of playing tricks.
Song Qiu took them all over the county, visiting seven households of people who had left the village. Behind every opened door was the same awkward smile, the same evasive eyes. It wasn’t that they were unwilling to help, but that the idle gossip Huang Sulan had spread over the years had already taken root in everyone’s hearts like weeds.
“That girl, she was born with bad luck.”
“Her father’s death was suspicious, and her mother left without a second thought.”
“Even her cousin… if she hadn’t been around her, she might not have gotten a fever and become mute…”
Qiao Xiaoxiao had heard these whispers since she was a child. She remembered the looks of pity and fear from the villagers after the mining accident when she was ten; she remembered the neighbors secretly sprinkling salt at their door to ward off evil spirits after she moved in with her uncle; and she especially remembered the night her sister’s fever wouldn’t break, when Huang Sulan had screamed hysterically, “It’s all your fault, you jinx!”
At that time, a young Qiao Xiaoxiao didn’t understand how she had become a “jinx.” But later, the suddenly lowered voices, the averted gazes, the sighs that followed her as she walked away, and the neighbor who said, “Don’t let that girl eat in our house, give her water in a disposable cup,” forced her to understand.
The midday sun beat down mercilessly on the asphalt road. A large patch on the back of Song Qiu’s shirt was soaked with sweat. He stood before the eighth house, his hand pausing as he reached for a cigarette. In the end, he just sighed heavily.
Finally, Song Qiu squatted in the shade of a parasol tree, the ember of his cigarette glowing and fading between his fingers. He took a deep drag, exhaling the smoke along with a sigh. “We’ve tried everyone we can. Now, there’s only… that person left.”
“Her…” Qiao Wanshan’s rough fingers unconsciously rubbed the corner of his shirt, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Will… will that work?”
Ash fell from the cigarette. Song Qiu squinted at the tall buildings in the distance. “Back then, our village basically saved her life. Over the years, she’s helped quite a few poor children. She’s highly educated, so she can’t be superstitious like these people. Let’s go see. It’s a long shot, but we might as well try.”
Qiao Wanshan turned his head to look.
Under the dappled shade of the tree, Qiao Xiaoxiao stood with her face tilted up, tiny specks of light dancing on her eyelashes. She stood so straight, as if the weight on her shoulders was not prejudice and hardship, but the entire sky.
Qiao Wanshan decisively stubbed out his cigarette. “Alright.”
Qiao Xiaoxiao would never forget the first time she saw Chu Xinrou.
Her heart, already riddled with a thousand holes, had long been shattered beyond any hope.
But in the end, God had left her a sliver of a chance, had given her hope.
The leaves of the old locust tree rustled in the wind, sifting down a shower of broken gold.
Chu Xinrou sat amidst that flowing light and shadow, her simple white cotton-linen dress draping over the stone bench, its hem dotted with a few fallen locust blossoms. She held the teacup with an elegant grace, her left hand lightly supporting the sky-blue Yue ware teacup, her right hand holding the lid with three fingers. Sunlight passed through the loose strands of hair by her ear, casting a soft glow on her pearl-like earlobe.
After a morning of cold shoulders and rejections, Qiao Xiaoxiao’s spirit had shriveled into a crumpled ball. She stood behind Qiao Wanshan, terrified and uneasy.
No matter what Song Qiu, her uncle, and the person before them said, she kept her head down, her long eyelashes fluttering. She was withdrawn and full of self-loathing.
It wasn’t until she heard a gentle “Okay” that Qiao Xiaoxiao jerked her head up, her gaze falling straight into a scene of tender spring.
The wind swept through the locust tree, sending snow-white petals fluttering down. Chu Xinrou was raising a hand to brush a fallen blossom from her shoulder. A white jade bracelet slid down her slender wrist, glowing like solidified cream in the sunlight.
When those smiling eyes looked over, Qiao Xiaoxiao saw that they held not pity, but a clear, bottomless tenderness.
In that moment, all the locust flowers in the tree became mere foils.
