The thing my parents complained about most was how everything seemed to be getting more expensive.
“Everything’s gone up again!”
Even fertilizer kept rising in price. If they bought fertilizer, the harvest barely covered the cost. If they didn't, there wouldn't be enough grain to harvest in the first place.
Fortunately, the people who remained in the Old Village still had the skill of weaving reed mats.
Whenever the farming season slowed down, they would do what they had always done: put on a straw hat, take a short knife, and walk down to the stream to cut reeds. They would carry the reeds home and put them through a long series of complicated steps before weaving them into mats.
Every so often, middlemen would come around to buy the mats in bulk and transport them to the city to sell.
Even with all that work, however, my parents often couldn't afford the ever-increasing school fees for my younger brother and me.
They spent more and more time weaving reed mats.
For a while, the money they made from selling them, though barely enough, allowed us to keep going.
Then, one day, the middlemen simply stopped coming.
We eventually heard why.
Reed mats had never been worth very much to begin with. Now fuel prices were climbing, and the authorities in the cities were cracking down on overloaded trucks. Transportation costs had suddenly shot up.
“Who wants to run a business at a loss?” the middlemen said.
Our family had always been poor. Even paying for my brother's and my education had been a struggle.
And if I were admitted to university, where would we find the money for my tuition?
That was why, during those months, the better my grades became, the more anxious my parents grew.
Just when we seemed to have run out of options, my second uncle came home from Shanxi.
He had been working in the coal mines there for several years. The year before, he had even managed to build a new house in the New Village.
He told us that a privately owned coal mine was hiring workers in large numbers. Quite a few people from our village were already working there.
This time, my father didn't hesitate.
He left for Datong, Shanxi, together with my uncle and more than a dozen men from the neighboring villages.
We thought that if Father went away to mine coal, perhaps he could finally pull our family out of poverty.
We could never have imagined how wrong we were.
His decision to leave home would become the beginning of our family's tragedy.
Even now, when I think about what happened afterward, a shiver still runs through me.
It was the summer of the year my father died.
I was nineteen years old and had just finished the national college entrance examination.
My father had been working in the coal mines for less than two years.
I was waiting for my university admission letter when one morning, after a night of heavy rain, the sky remained damp and gray.
Weather like that always made my mother's arthritis flare up.
She would lie in bed for an entire day, unable to get up until the sun came out.
In ordinary circumstances, she should have gone to a hospital long ago.
But in those days, people in the countryside believed that hospitals treated patients as little more than sources of money. Medical bills were simply too expensive.
Among poor rural families, there was an old saying:
Put off a minor illness. Tough out a serious one. And when it becomes life-threatening, wait for death.
So Mother endured the pain.
A poor person's life was never considered worth very much.
And if I passed the university entrance exam that year, our family would have to somehow shoulder tuition fees that seemed almost impossibly high.
There was no way she would allow herself to become another burden.
My twelve-year-old brother, Hai'ou, went outside to play after breakfast.
I finished washing the dishes and went over to where Mother lay in bed.
“Mom,” I said, “I'm going to school to see if my admission letter has arrived.”
Mother looked worried.
“Haiyan, what if you didn't pass? My right eyelid has been twitching terribly these past few days.”
I smiled confidently.
“Don't worry. My grades have always been good, and I think I did well on the exam. I'm sure I'll get in.”
But Mother frowned even more deeply.
“Then why has my right eyelid been twitching so badly?”
I teased her.
“Mom, what age are we living in? You still believe in superstitions?”
I had barely finished speaking when someone shouted my name from the courtyard.
I hurried outside.
Several neighbors were standing at the gate, along with the village postman.
The moment they saw me, their faces lit up.
“Haiyan! You got into university!”
Even though I had secretly expected it, the news sent a rush of joy through me.
And when I saw the name of that famous university in northern China printed on the admission letter, I could hardly contain myself.
Mother was delighted when she saw the letter too.
But after the neighbors left, the smile disappeared from her face.
Her brow furrowed deeper and deeper.
I suddenly understood.
My heart sank.
“Mom,” I asked quietly, “the tuition is so expensive. Do we really have enough money?”
Mother calculated silently for a moment.
“Your father and I have been saving for you all these years. But after we pay your brother's tuition for next semester, we'll still be five thousand yuan short.”
I panicked.
“School starts soon. What are we going to do?”
Mother sighed.
“Let's write your father a letter later. He's been working at the mine for more than six months this year. He should have earned at least five thousand yuan by now.”
I shook my head miserably.
“But you know the mine only pays once a year.”
Mother's wrinkles seemed to deepen.
“If we have no other choice, tell him to come home. I've heard that if a worker has an emergency and needs to leave, the mine will settle his wages early.”
I nodded.
There was nothing else we could do.
The next morning, I finished writing the letter.
I was just about to take it to the post office in town when I heard something outside.
At first, it sounded like a faint, distant cry.
Then another voice joined in.
Then another.
The sound grew louder and louder.
Soon it seemed as though people throughout the entire village were crying.
I froze.
“What happened?”
Mother's voice trembled.
“Go and find out. Maybe someone has died.”
Then she added anxiously:
“No wonder my right eyelid has been twitching these past few days.”
Before I could even get to my feet, Hai'ou came stumbling through the door.
He threw himself into Mother's arms and burst into tears.
“Dad! Dad... He... he might be dead!”
Mother and I froze.
Her face turned ashen.
She stared at my brother, opening and closing her mouth several times, but no words came out.
I forced myself to speak.
“Hai'ou, slow down. Tell us what happened. Where is Dad?”
Through his sobs, my brother finally managed to say:
“They said there was a gas explosion in a coal mine in Shanxi. Dad, Uncle, and lots of people from our village and the neighboring villages... they're all buried underground.”
For a long moment, Mother didn't move.
Then suddenly she let out a scream so terrible that it seemed to shake the entire house.
“My husband!”
She instinctively tried to get out of bed.
But her legs had become stiff and weak.
She fell heavily to the floor.
When she lifted her head, blood was already running from her forehead.
Hai'ou and I didn't even notice the blood.
We threw ourselves into her arms and began to sob.
The entire village of Huashuping was swallowed by grief.
There was still no official confirmation that anyone had died.
But almost every able-bodied man from our village worked in the coal mines.
We had grown up knowing what a mine-gas explosion meant.
Once an explosion happened underground, there was almost no chance of survival.
评论
发表评论