Chapter 9 Xu Huiying (I)

Early in the morning, I watched my son, daughter-in-law and the couple leave, and then took Yaya to the nursery in the community, and I returned to my home.

Close the door and pack up the bowls and chopsticks for the family's breakfast.

I was not in a hurry to go to school, and there was nothing big about the school this morning.

As the principal, even if I arrive at the school later, no one else in the school will say anything, not to mention that Vice Principal Yan of my in-laws will help me take charge of my work.

I walked into the bathroom and took off my clothes and turned on the shower.

I closed my eyes comfortably as the steaming water was poured down.

I feel like my body is surrounded by warmth, as if I am snuggling in a warm embrace. I like this feeling very much.

Alas, my life is like walking on thin ice, full of ups and downs.

I only stayed in my vague memory of my biological father when I was 3 years old.

It was the worst time of the Cultural Revolution. At that time, I was not as big as Yaya now. At that time, I didn’t know the Red Guards, Cultural Revolution Working Group, and Workers’ Propaganda Team. In her childhood memory, there were only a group of beating people and fighting each other every day, and there were also the scene of my biological father kneeling on the stage and being criticized by a group of people wearing red armbands.

Every time my father was criticized on the stage, he seemed to fall asleep. Only the angry shout of the Red Guards could make his father suddenly wake up, and then recite the confessions that he had said countless times.

The home in Shanghai in my childhood memory was always raided by the Red Guards. In the end, my mother was too lazy to deal with it. Anyway, she was still going to be destroyed by the revolutionary young generals. Why are she doing it?

What's even more terrifying is that my father began to bring the numb emotions he developed on the criticism stage to his home.

He began to sit numbly all day without caring about everything at home, without asking about my mother and I eating and drinking.

Even though my mother woke up in a nightmare in the middle of the night, hugging me and crying bitterly, the man still had no reaction.

In the end, my mother couldn't stand the divorce and took me back to her hometown.

I can actually understand my mother’s decision at that time, but I have imagined selfishly more than once that if my mother had survived and had not divorced, wouldn’t I be the child of a Shanghai cadre family?

I can't blame my mother. She is not the rare woman with political vision. The very few truly smart women choose to continue to be with the spouses of persecuted cadres.

In fact, the latter is correct. The young Red Guards who seized power have no ability to govern. The cadres and intellectuals will eventually return to their ruling positions. After those years of turmoil, these people will eventually return to their lives as superiors.

But how could my mother, a simple woman, have such foresight?

At the end of the year when I was 3 years old, my mother took me, who was already 4 years old, to divorce my biological father. She took advantage of the New Year without disturbing the Red Guards, and left her original family, left Shanghai, and returned to a remote rural village in the countryside of Haidong City, my hometown.

At the beginning, the life of the mother and the mother depended on each other was so difficult.

In such an environment, I am sensible much faster than children of the same age.

I am used to suppressing my needs, a lack of supplies and spirit, accustomed to being hungry every day, accustomed to not making any requests, and accustomed to just living.

When I was ten years old, my mother married a miner who was ten years older than me.

At that time, absenteeism was an enviable occupation, and a stable income could bring food to support a whole family.

My mother and my stepfather absent-working job were the few happy days I had. I could eat enough, and the house I lived in became more spacious and warm. I occasionally had toys, and I had friends to play with. Although my stepfather went down the well every day and often didn’t go home, the short time I went home every day was pretty good for me, and my life seemed to be moving in a good direction.

However, the good times did not last long and my stepfather had no blood relationship with me. After all, the kind worker's love for me was still to be separated from others and my mother's share.

When I was 12 years old, my mother was pregnant and my stepfather was as happy as a child.

I was also happy for my stepfather and mother from the bottom of my heart. At that time, I was so simple that I really hoped that my younger brother and sister would be born, share my life with myself, and accompany myself.

But I don’t know that my mother’s pregnancy has once again come to an end.

When I recalled decades later, I had to understand that my mother's pregnancy made the back of the family really unable to take care of me anymore.

At that time, whenever my stepfather came home from get off work, I could vaguely feel that he and my mother were discussing something quietly.

Finally, when my mother was obviously pregnant, they made a decision to send me to my stepfather’s sister’s house for temporary care.

I still remember the day when I left home with my stepfather's sister, the woman I called my aunt. It was gray. I was carrying the package my mother handed me, which contained two pairs of thick-soled cloth shoes, a few clothes with large patches, and a pile of wrinkled pieces of money.

Before leaving, my mother held my hand with tears in her eyes. At that time, my mother's belly was obviously pregnant, and the man next to me, my stepfather, was squatting there, smoking, without saying a word.

This family is about to usher in the birth of a small life, and my mother is no longer inconvenient to move.

I lowered my head and looked at the cracked dirt road in the drought weather. The potholes seemed to be the weather-beaten faces of my mother, stepfather, and many ancestors.

Or, I'm walking on these numb faces in life.

After spending three years at my aunt's house, when I was 15 years old, my mother and stepfather took me back.

She thought she was finally going to live again with her mother's stepfather and her already born sister.

But my stepfather told me that I would marry Sun Jinsheng, the son of Grandpa Sun's family in the same village.

Because the stepfather's biological daughter was sick, Grandpa Sun's family helped them through the difficulties.

My stepfather asked me to come back to repay my kindness and marry Jin Sheng, the only descendant of their family.

So, in 1986, at the age of 16, I married 19-year-old Sun Jinsheng.

At that time, my body had been fully developed and made Sun Jinsheng very proud. Everyone praised the Sun family's wife as a beautiful woman.

After Sun Jinsheng's father was looking for connections and running around, I went to another township twenty kilometers away to work as a rural primary school teacher.

My husband was assigned to be a suburban teacher in Haidong City.

Although substitute teachers are not a strong job, although we have been separated from each other after marriage, we don’t have much passion, but we can be considered worry-free.

In 1987, my son was born, and Sun Jinsheng named the child Sun Xiaokan.

A warm family of three, a stable life and a rich life.

I feel like I have a sense of home. The only regret is that I have always been separated from my husband and being unable to reunite has always been a heartbreaking problem.

Until 1993, a young man with a professional retired military service came to the town. His name was Han Chuyan. He was a cadre in the town where I taught at that time.