September 13, 1982—a day before I was born. Yet I hold an exceptionally vivid memory of this date, for it is from this day that the stories of my eldest sister, my second sister, and even my father begin. It is as if my birth two days later were directly connected to this very day.
It was nearly noon, and the sunlight was particularly splendid.
There is a folk song from Sichuan that begins: "When the sun rises, oh ho, joy fills the air." The farmers in the mountainous regions of Guizhou share the same affection and love for the sun. September is the most beautiful season in my hometown, Shenxianding. During this time, people finally get to see another color besides green—golden yellow. Speaking of green, the world holds much fondness for it, but if for most of the year, your eyes can hardly see any color other than green, then green can indeed become a kind of oppressive hue, making one feel as if imprisoned within it. It is much like how people living on a tiny reef island might feel despair at the endless blue of the surrounding sea.
Shenxianding is both a place name and the name of a small village with only a few dozen households. No one can say for sure whether the village name came first or the place name.
As the name suggests, Shenxianding is located on a mountain. It is not the highest mountain, as it is surrounded on all sides by peaks taller than itself. Shenxianding is a flat mountaintop, about the size of a football field. Because of this flat land, households gradually settled there. As more people came, it became a village. Since the implementation of the "commune system," it has been referred to as the Second Production Team. So, when people say "Shenxianding," they mean that place, and when they say "Second Team," they also mean that place. The mountaintops surrounding it have no flat land and thus no households. It is the village closest to the county border, and beyond it lies uninhabited wilderness. After walking more than twenty li, you would reach the territory of another county.
"Walking" is just a figure of speech, as there are no roads, and no one has ever walked that way, let alone climbed the surrounding mountaintops.
Starting in August, the rice paddies on the flat land, known as the "bazi," gradually turned from green to yellow. After September 10th, the entire bazi transformed into a flat, golden carpet, filling the people of Shenxianding with immense joy. Their homes were all situated on the higher ground surrounding the bazi, small in size, with the lower half built of stone and the upper half mostly constructed from whole bamboo poles. From today's perspective, they might be more appropriately called "shacks." However, the mountain dwellers of that time did not care much about their living conditions, nor did they have many demands. What mattered more to them was having enough to eat. No one dared to build a proper home on the bazi, as the only piece of farmland was absolutely not to be occupied. This was a shared understanding among everyone, not merely a matter of courage.
Fortunately, September is a season with fewer rainy days and abundant sunshine, allowing the people of Shenxianding to fully enjoy the clear, bright days with a sense of gratitude. Indeed, most days in September in Shenxianding are blessed with good weather. And indeed, the people of Shenxianding know how to be grateful—grateful for the sun, grateful for the harvest, grateful for the golden yellow that blankets the bazi.In the eyes of the people of Shenxianding, all flowers were highly ornamental, yet no one planted them. Flower cultivation was seen as frivolous behavior, and regardless of gender, those who grew flowers were considered unreliable. Due to the scarcity of land and the large population, even in broken pots and jars, families planted vegetable seedlings—people cherished the land almost to a pathological degree, and this mindset was highly contagious, passed down from adults to children generation after generation. Flowering trees had long vanished from people’s sight. There had been some long ago, but they belonged to the public—if not to the production team, then to the commune, the township, or the state. Although flowering trees were also trees, they had only ornamental value and were not usable timber, so they were gradually cut down, sawed into logs, and distributed as firewood to households in winter. Families with children, the elderly, or the sick would naturally receive a little more, reflecting the warmth of the production team as a collective, like a big family. Because no one grew flowers, people took special care of wildflowers. If a particularly beautiful wildflower bloomed somewhere, it would become news in casual conversations. Those who discovered it would tell those who hadn’t seen it, and those who hadn’t would often find time to go and look, often bringing children along so they could also witness the rarity. This fondness for the beauty of wildflowers also made people feel genuine gratitude toward nature, while proving how deeply rooted the desire for beauty was in their hearts.
Adults often admonished their children: "Don’t you dare sneak off to pick them—you’ll be scolded. It’s better for everyone to see them than to take them home where others can’t."
Through the words and actions of adults, the children of Shenxianding learned from a young age that although wildflowers were just wildflowers, picking them to bring home was definitely wrong.
On September 13, 1982, around noon, my eldest sister and my second sister were harvesting rice in their family’s field. My eldest sister was named He Xiaoqin, then over seventeen years old, and was said to be the most beautiful girl in Shenxianding. My second sister was named He Xiaoju, then fifteen years old, with an ordinary appearance that couldn’t compare to my eldest sister’s looks, nor was she as clever and quick-witted as my eldest sister. To put it bluntly, she was actually quite dull, even a bit simple-minded. Later, I heard her say that she resembled our mother in many ways.
My second sister was getting a bit tired.
She put down her sickle, placed her hands on her knees, and gazed at the expanse of golden yellow before her. "I really can’t bear to cut them down anymore. I haven’t had my fill of looking at them."
My eldest sister scolded her: "What’s so nice about them? Isn’t it like this every year? Hurry up and cut! Finish this small patch and we’ll go home to eat. I’m already hungry."
My eldest sister’s words were closer to the truth.
Whether it was wheat or rice, only in the brief early stage of turning yellow did they appear delightfully golden, and only under the dazzling sunlight did they give the impression of being "radiantly golden." By the time they were ready for harvest, that yellow had lost much of its beauty, resembling the color of water-soaked cardboard.
My second sister didn’t listen to my eldest sister.
She simply placed her hands on her hips, straightened her back, and tilted her head back to look at the sky.
Her back was sore, and her neck was stiff.
As she did so, she saw something in the sky she had never seen before—a parachute with a person hanging from it, slowly descending.
"Sister, look!" she exclaimed in surprise.
My eldest sister also straightened up and looked. "It’s a paratrooper."
My second sister said, "I really wish I could marry a soldier someday!"My eldest sister retorted, "Stop dreaming! No wonder people say you're foolish behind your back. Could a soldier marry a girl from Shenxianding? Have all the girls elsewhere in China gotten married?"
As they were arguing, the parachute descended toward our He family's rice paddy. Both sisters could tell the paratrooper didn't want to land in a farmer's field; he struggled to change direction, but the parachute was clearly out of control and landed precisely in our He family's paddy. Moreover, the parachute enveloped both my sisters and the paratrooper together. The paratrooper freed himself from the parachute first and, despite severely twisting his ankle upon landing, helped both my sisters crawl out from under the canopy.
Twenty-six years later, my second sister told me, "Actually, I wished the parachute had covered us a little longer."
That was the first time my second sister and I sat face-to-face, the first time we had a sisterly chat—about that day, September 13, 1982, mostly recounted by my second sister.
I asked why.
She said, "It felt like being in a sedan chair."
I asked what kind of sedan chair.
She said, "Of course, the flower sedan a bride rides in."
What followed was inevitable—my second sister ran to get help, while the paratrooper, no, "Paratrooper brother," sat on the ground, instructing my eldest sister step by step on how to properly gather and roll up the parachute.
My second sister also said Paratrooper brother was very handsome.
He descended "like Lin Daiyu falling from the sky," dropping right in front of my two sisters, leaving my second sister excited whenever she mentioned it for a long time afterward. In her own words: "I've never experienced anything so joyful in my life since."
But for my eldest sister, it was an unfortunate event—though Paratrooper brother bore no responsibility, as he was completely unaware.
My second sister returned with Old Party Secretary He Guangtai and several men, who carried Paratrooper brother on a door plank to our house.
My father, He Yongwang, was a farmer from Shenxianding, and my mother, He Hua, was too. The He surname was most common in Shenxianding, with many parents being relatives within five degrees of mourning, marriages strengthening family ties. After children were born, whether taking the father's or mother's surname, they all ended up with the He surname. The advantage was relatively harmonious marital relationships; the downside was the next generation often lacked sharpness, like my second sister.
My eldest sister was an exception.
According to elders, during the late Qing Dynasty, a wealthy He family in the provincial capital produced a "rebel" leader. Fearing extermination, the head of the household fled overnight with family members and a group of male and female servants into the deep mountains, settling in Shenxianding. The other surnames in Shenxianding were largely descendants of those servants who followed their masters there.
My second sister once said, "Our family name is He, proving us three sisters have noble blood."When my second sister said this, she was washing chicken intestines. Back then, the vast majority of rural households in China couldn't bear to throw away the intestines after slaughtering a chicken, and would prepare them in various ways to eat. But washing chicken intestines was a troublesome task—they were so thin, and you had to slit them open segment by segment to clean them properly. Meanwhile, her son, my little nephew Zhao Kai, was washing a piece of tofu. The tofu had been bought the day before from the market at the foot of the mountain to entertain me. The weather was hot, and fearing it would spoil overnight, it had been buried in stove ash after being brought home. Fresh ash from the stove pit was considered absolutely clean by rural people and had preservative properties. Usually, if anyone suffered a bleeding wound and had no medicine on hand, they would quickly grab a handful of stove ash and press it on the wound to stop the bleeding.
It was already 2008 by then. My second sister was forty-one years old and the mother of a son and a daughter. Zhao Kai's elder sister, Zhao Jun, had already become someone else's daughter-in-law. My second sister and Zhao Jun had been working away from home for many years. They had returned from other places specifically to reunite with me because I had come back from Shenzhen to visit my father at Shenxianding.
I hadn't expected my second sister to suddenly say such a thing, and neither had Zhao Jun, who was washing vegetables nearby. She looked up, staring blankly at her mother just like I did. She gazed at her mother's face for a few seconds, then slowly turned her head toward me, her eyes seeming to ask—Auntie, what does my mother mean by that?
How would I know what my second sister meant by that? No, it wasn't that I didn't understand—her words were quite clear. Essentially, she meant that the He family's bloodline was still quite good. There was a hint of self-consolation in her words, but there also seemed to be some underlying implication.
What Zhao Jun didn't understand was the underlying implication of those words.
As for me, because I had long held the belief that my second sister's intelligence had always been somewhat below average, I concluded that her way of speaking couldn't possibly reach a level where there were hidden meanings. So, I thought it was just a self-consoling inner monologue that had suddenly slipped out.
After saying this, my second sister continued meticulously scrubbing the chicken intestines, as if she hadn't said anything at all.
In 2008, at twenty-six years old, I already had a Shenzhen household registration and was undeniably a city dweller. Moreover, my monthly salary had exceeded seven thousand yuan, making me the only successful one among us three sisters and the only one capable of providing financial support to three generations of our He family. Including my father, all my relatives—even my two brothers-in-law—regarded me with newfound respect. Without this premise, my second sister wouldn't have been repeatedly scrubbing chicken intestines in front of me. In my view, she had already washed them clean enough.
I didn't respond to my second sister's remark.
Because she had uttered such a baffling statement, I felt even more pity for her intelligence. At the same time, I thought of another word similar to "bloodline"—"destiny." So, I also thought of my eldest sister's "destiny" and my own "destiny," and couldn't help but feel a surge of sorrow.
But my expression remained unchanged.
I had grown accustomed to and skilled at hiding all kinds of inner sorrows and worries in front of my relatives. I had to do so because, in their eyes, I was the savior of their lives. If my relatives saw sorrow or worry on my face, they would become anxious and uneasy.
I also didn't say anything to Zhao Jun or Zhao Kai.
What could I possibly say to two younger relatives?I just smiled without saying a word, nursing my own sorrows in silence.
Zhao Jun's phone suddenly rang. She stepped away from the vegetable-washing basin and went outside to answer it...
In 1982, Shenxianding had no electricity and no telephone service. Such villages were not uncommon in China back then, especially in mountainous areas.
A paratrooper landed in Shenxianding, an unprecedented event for the locals. That day, our He family home was unusually lively, with adults and children bustling in and out, all eager to catch a glimpse of what a paratrooper looked like.
The paratrooper was highly disciplined, explaining his presence only to Old Party Secretary He Guangtai. A reconnaissance plane carrying several scouts had taken off from a military airfield in Kunming, originally bound for the border between Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. At the command, the scouts had jumped from the plane one after another. Meanwhile, on the ground—or more precisely, in the forests—a search team composed of Guizhou-based army troops was tasked with hunting them down...
It was a routine reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance exercise between the air and ground forces of the two provinces, with no significant military objective. After all, soldiers needed regular drills, didn’t they? The reconnaissance plane encountered unfavorable air currents and winds at high altitude, forcing it to cross the provincial border into Guizhou. All the scouts ended up landing on the Guizhou side. He was the last to jump and never expected to land in a place like Shenxianding...
Old Party Secretary wasted no time, immediately sending someone on the village’s communal bicycle to report the incident to the township. By then, land had been allocated to households, and production teams were no longer called production teams but villages again. Communes were no longer communes but township governments. Fortunately, the wave of migrant labor hadn’t yet surged, so there were plenty of young men in the village vying for the task of delivering the report. It also helped that Shenxianding wasn’t too far from the township government—just about seven or eight kilometers downhill.
My second sister told me that not only she and my eldest sister thought the "paratrooper brother" was handsome and dashing, but the entire village shared the same opinion.
She also said, "If your eldest sister and that 'paratrooper brother' had become a couple, it would’ve been a match made in heaven, a perfect pair. Their children would’ve been unbelievably beautiful!"
She was already forty-one when she told me this, soon to become a young grandmother, yet she still spoke of those days with fondness, referring to him as "paratrooper brother" this and "paratrooper brother" that. Listening to her, my heart ached for her.
More than two hours later, the township government sent a stretcher team to carry the "paratrooper brother" away. During those two hours in our home, Old Party Secretary only allowed my eldest sister to keep the paratrooper company, forbidding anyone else from entering the room. He didn’t stay with them either, sitting on the threshold and puffing on his foot-long pipe. Even my father and my second sister stayed outside with the others, as did everyone else. Only my mother remained lying in another room of our house, as she was nearing her due date and could hardly move.
No one knew what my eldest sister and the paratrooper talked about, but many people heard her singing for him that day—several Guizhou folk songs in a row. My eldest sister was not only beautiful but also had a lovely singing voice. Everyone gathered outside, including my father, my second sister, and my mother lying inside, could hear the paratrooper’s applause and his praise for how beautifully she sang.The township government had an armed forces department, which sent a person to follow them to Immortal Peak, bringing along a military uniform. Perhaps they assumed the paratrooper's clothes must be in tatters. In fact, his clothes were perfectly fine, but he still changed into the military jacket brought by the armed forces department member, giving the air force jacket he took off to my eldest sister—it was a jacket made of thin black leather, with yellow brass buttons even on the cuffs. Every part of it felt incredibly soft.
As the paratrooper waved goodbye to the crowd from the stretcher, my eldest sister, He Xiaoqin, stood by the window, tears streaming down her face as she watched the stretcher move away.
In the evening, Old Party Secretary came to our house.
My father was cooking, and my second sister was helping him tend the fire; my eldest sister was in my parents' room, wiping my mother's face and washing her hands and feet.
In the cracks of our worn-out square dining table, a row of bamboo skewers was stuck, each skewer threaded with strange-looking things that had been smoked and roasted over fire.
He Guangtai stared and asked what they were.
My father said they were frog meat sent by Zhang Jiagui. Zhang Jiagui was a "senior high school graduate" from that year who had returned to the countryside as an educated youth. In 1982, he remained the most educated person on Immortal Peak. He had once been determined to take the college entrance exam, and both his teachers and classmates believed he would definitely get in. He himself was full of confidence. But the "Cultural Revolution" completely shattered his dreams. After returning to the countryside, he never recovered his spirits and never pursued romance. After the college entrance exams were reinstated, his elderly mother, who had relied on him for support, became bedridden. By the time he fulfilled his final filial duties and sent off his mother, it was already 1981. By then, my eldest sister, He Xiaoqin, had suddenly blossomed into a graceful young woman, her beauty as striking as a newly bloomed peony. Old Party Secretary personally acted as a matchmaker for my eldest sister, and surprisingly, the proposal succeeded. People on Immortal Peak generally believed he was willing to give up his long-held dream of taking the college entrance exam for three reasons—first, the dream itself had lost its luster through the wear and tear of life, like a rusted lock on the gate of a dilapidated estate, where the keyholder no longer cared to try whether the lock could still be opened; second, he had just been elected village chief, and people placed great expectations on him, while he also wanted to prove his abilities in another way; and the last reason was that my eldest sister's beauty had captivated him greatly.
People also generally believed—the last reason was the fundamental one. According to my second sister, Zhang Jiagui hadn't paid much attention to my eldest sister before, but once he began to be attracted by her beauty, he also felt somewhat inferior. After all, he was just a thirty-two-year-old bachelor on Immortal Peak, with an ordinary appearance. As for having been a "senior high school graduate," that chapter had been completely turned by history and could no longer serve as a superior advantage over others. Moreover, when the proposal was made, my eldest sister was just over sixteen, while he was a full twelve years older than her.He's already thirty-two, so what if he gets into university? Four years later, he'll be thirty-six when he graduates. Whether in school or after, could he ever find a wife as beautiful as He Xiaoqin? For a man, whether he lives well or not in life is ultimately determined by four things: financial luck, official luck, culinary luck, and romantic luck. Among these four, romantic luck ranks first. Any man blessed with abundant romantic fortune is envied even by officials and wealthy tycoons. For a man like Zhang Jiagui, an old bachelor from Shenxianding, to be engaged to He Xiaoqin—he should stop dreaming about anything else and be content for the rest of his life! —This was essentially how the men in the village, especially the bachelors, discussed my eldest sister's marriage to Zhang Jiagui.
As for what my eldest sister truly thought, whether she was satisfied or reluctant about her marriage, I never asked my second sister, and she never volunteered to tell me. I believed that was also the last question I should ask my father, and he never brought it up either, so to this day, I remain completely in the dark.
My father did tell me something like this—the He family of Shenxianding were secretly delighted that Zhang Jiagui ultimately failed to become the village's first-ever college student, because he wasn't surnamed He, but Zhang. If the first college student came from a family with a different surname, most of the He families in Shenxianding would feel disgraced, experiencing a collective sense of loss. Even He Guangtai thought this way, despite being the Party Secretary. On one hand, people didn't want to see Zhang Jiagui become Shenxianding's first-ever college student; on the other hand, they collectively supported him as village chief, collectively placing high hopes on him.
Human hearts can be truly peculiar at times, as peculiar as the things skewered on those bamboo sticks wedged into the cracks of our broken table. After being smoked and roasted, if no one told you, you'd never guess what they were.
Old Party Secretary walked up to the table, clasped his hands behind his back, bent down to examine the row of bamboo sticks closely, and asked, "It's not all frog meat, is it?"
My father said a few skewers had snake meat on them. Zhang Jiagui had killed a one-and-a-half-meter-long grass snake, roasted it, and offered it to his future father-in-law.
But according to my second sister's later account—Zhang Jiagui had sent it specifically to please my eldest sister.
Old Party Secretary sat on the tall-legged stool beside the table, saying he hadn't tasted meat in a long time. Snake meat was still meat, after all, and something only those with good fortune could occasionally enjoy. As he spoke, he pulled off one of the skewers and began eating what he believed was snake meat. He also asked my second sister for some salt, saying dipping it in salt would give it a unique flavor; otherwise, such good food would be wasted.
My father said the family had run out of salt. Originally, they were supposed to buy some in town that day, but unexpectedly, a paratrooper had descended from the sky, and they hadn't gotten around to it. He instructed my second sister to scoop a small dish of pickled vegetable brine from the jar for Old Party Secretary to dip the meat in.
Old Party Secretary wasn't actually that old—only fifty-three—but he had been Party Secretary for a very long time. People called him "Old Party Secretary" as a sign of respect for the Party's representative.
He had come to our house because of that air force jacket.
He said our family shouldn't keep the jacket all to ourselves. Such a fully leather jacket, if taken to the county town to sell, could probably fetch fifty or sixty yuan easily. With our family keeping it, many people in the village were unhappy.
My second sister flared up at this. She threw down the poker, sprang to her feet, planted her hands on her hips, and said, "That was given to my sister by the paratrooper brother. How can you say our family is keeping it all to ourselves? Whoever wants to have their damn opinions can have them! There's no need for you, Party Secretary, to come to our house spouting this nonsense!"
Old Party Secretary didn't get angry with my second sister. Probably he felt that, as Party Secretary, it would be beneath him to take issue with a half-grown, half-witted girl like her.
He looked at my father and continued his reasoning—if Shenxianding were still a production team, then anything a paratrooper gave to anyone in the team for helping him should be considered a gift from the People's Liberation Army to everyone, rightfully belonging to the collective...
My father gently retorted, "But that's not how things are now."The old party secretary sighed and argued on reasonable grounds, "Yes, it's not like those days anymore. But you have to admit, the ones who helped the paratrooper the most were still the men running around, putting in effort and sweating, right? They played a role, yet they got none of the benefits. Their dissatisfaction is only human, isn't it?"
My second sister opened her mouth but had nothing to say.
My father was stunned for a moment before forcing out a few words, "Are you saying you want to take that jacket away, have someone sell it in the county, and then split the money?"
At that moment, my eldest sister came out of the room, holding a basin of water, and said angrily, "When Paratrooper Brother handed that jacket to me, he clearly said, 'Keep it as a memento.' He didn't say 'give it to all of you.' You, the party secretary, heard his words too. Since he gave it to me, no one should even think about taking it from our house!"
The old party secretary was embarrassed.
He explained that he hadn’t come to ask for the jacket, much less to sell it and split the money.
He left the table, took a skewer of roasted snake meat, walked over to the stove, squatted down, and said to my father, "Yongwang, when you think about it, our families are somewhat related. How I’ve treated your family, you know in your heart, don’t you? I have no other intentions; I’m just here to give you a heads-up. It’s only human for anyone to feel dissatisfied. We just need to settle their feelings, right? For example, buying a pack of cigarettes to share—that’s only fair, isn’t it? Even though the collective is no longer a collective now, and I don’t have much real power anymore, I still have the responsibility to keep the people of Shenxianding united..."
My eldest sister had nothing to say after hearing his explanation.
His words were not only reasonable, but his attitude was also sincere, and his intentions were good.
My father glanced at my eldest sister, lowered his head in thought for a moment, and then clearly stated, "Alright then. I’ll listen to you, Party Secretary. Buy the cigarettes, and you can distribute them on behalf of our family."
After saying this, my father glanced at my eldest sister again.
My eldest sister silently went out to pour the water.
My father then whispered to the old party secretary that he was short on cash at the moment and couldn’t afford to buy cigarettes. However, he would have Zhang Jiagui buy a pack and give it to the old party secretary.
The old party secretary said it didn’t matter who bought them; Jiagui wasn’t an outsider anyway. Besides, when he and my eldest sister got married during the Spring Festival, wouldn’t my eldest sister bring that jacket with her? Then the jacket would become something shared by the young couple, wouldn’t it?
Before leaving, he took another skewer of snake meat from the table, dipping it in the pickled vegetable brine on one side and then the other. Clearly, he had developed a taste for dipping it.
After dinner, my eldest sister put on that jacket-style leather coat and looked at herself in a mirror with a missing corner, turning left and right. Our family only had two small rooms. My parents lived in one, and my eldest and second sisters shared the other. The medium-sized mirror with a missing corner sat on an old chest. That chest was part of my mother’s dowry, and the mirror, having been damp, had peeling mercury, making reflections unclear. My second sister said my eldest sister rarely looked in that mirror—she knew she was a beauty, and she didn’t need to look to know it. My second sister later said she looked in the mirror more often, and every time she did, she felt like smashing it. My second sister admitted there were times she envied my eldest sister, but ever since my eldest sister’s marriage to Zhang Jiagui was settled, my second sister no longer envied her. What good was being as beautiful as my eldest sister? Didn’t she still have to marry in Shenxianding? Marry a man twelve years older and ordinary?My second sister later said that on the evening of September 13, 1982, in the flickering light of a short candle, my eldest sister, wearing that jacket-style soft leather coat, looked so beautiful that she was utterly mesmerized. In today's internet slang, it would be described as—absolutely stunning.
My eldest sister also seemed quite surprised by her own beauty, though her face showed no expression of self-satisfaction. On the contrary, her expression at that time could almost be described as "completely blank." As my second sister put it, "She looked as if her soul had flown away."
Before going to bed, my parents closed the door to their room, which was an unusual move. Their room was so small that closing the door would cut off ventilation and make it feel stuffy. Except in winter, my parents rarely slept with the door closed.
This unusual behavior caught my second sister's attention. She quietly crept over to eavesdrop on what my parents were saying.
My father, He Yongwang, was an only child, as was my grandfather—two generations of single heirs. Although both my parents shared the surname He and already had two daughters, no number of daughters could compare to having a son. Daughters would eventually marry and leave the family.
This was a deep-seated worry for my father.
My mother also felt a sense of guilt.
And so, I came into the picture. I was still in my mother's womb, about to be born.
At that time, the rural family planning policy allowed for a second child, taking into account the issue of whether a family had a son or not, or whether the family line was at risk of dying out. Regardless of how things were elsewhere, that was the policy in our county. But if a family still had no son after having a second child, they could only swallow their disappointment—the policy offered no sympathy.
My father, desperate for a son, made a "strategic arrangement" for my birth. My mother considered it nothing short of "brilliant"—my eldest sister was just over sixteen when she got engaged, and by September 1982, a year later, she was over seventeen. She was to marry during the Spring Festival, just over two months before turning eighteen. In Shenxianding, it was acceptable to marry first and register the marriage over two months later.
That way, my family would only have my second sister as a daughter. My birth might not be considered an over-quota birth but rather counted as having two children.
Old Party Secretary He Guangtai was indeed related to our family and naturally shared our concerns. "There are three ways to be unfilial, and having no heir is the greatest." In ancient times, "heir" might not have specifically meant a son, but in Shenxianding, "having no son" was equivalent to "having no heir," and this was a serious matter. Thanks to his mediation, the township authorities largely turned a blind eye to my mother's pregnancy with me.
The remaining question was simply—was I a boy or a girl?
My parents reached a consensus that it was best to find out as soon as possible, even a day earlier if possible. They noticed something off about my eldest sister's state of mind and feared that her marriage plans might fall through. In that case, my birth, whether I was a boy or a girl, would become a tricky situation.
So my parents decided to go to the county town early the next morning. There was a "half-immortal" in the county who was said to be particularly skilled at predicting the gender of unborn children, and he didn't charge much. As long as people sought his help discreetly, he never turned them away. My father wasn't completely broke—he had over ten yuan, which he planned to take to the county town the next day.
If I were predicted to be a girl, they would follow the "established plan"—to give me away.Two families at the foot of the mountain had been contacted in advance. One was willing to offer two bags of sweet potatoes as a token of gratitude; the other was willing to give thirty or forty fish-scale tiles. Our roof was already leaking in many places, and replacing the tiles was absolutely necessary.
After discussing it, my parents concluded that giving me to the family offering two bags of sweet potatoes was more cost-effective. Eating those two bags of sweet potatoes would save a lot of grain, and selling the saved grain could buy more than just thirty or forty tiles.
Several months had passed without further communication with those two families, and my parents were worried they might change their minds.
My mother asked anxiously, "What if they really do?"
My father sighed, remaining silent for a long time before saying, "Then we’ll just give him away for free to whoever is willing to take him."
My mother said, "I’ve had such a hard time carrying this pregnancy. Wouldn’t that be a huge loss?"
My father replied, "Even if it’s a loss, there’s no other way! I’ve had enough of raising a daughter-in-law for someone else. Haven’t you had enough too?"
My mother began to cry softly.
My father tried to console her, "Why cry? Your thinking is just going in circles! Maybe this time, you really are carrying a son!"
Twenty-six years later, when I was twenty-six, on the night my second sister sat knee-to-knee with me for a heart-to-heart talk, she recounted my parents’ "secret plan" from back then as an amusing story, smiling brightly as she spoke.
But I didn’t smile.
I wanted to laugh, but I just couldn’t.
My heart twitched several times in a row, as if struck by a low-voltage current.
Once again, I felt heartache. Heartache for myself. Heartache for the fate that had been sealed for me even before I was born; and heartache for the poverty of the families at Shenxian Peak back then…
OpenNovel