bayedsolid Chapter 291 Obedient and Clingy Younger Brother (2)
Chapter 291 Obedient and Clingy Younger Brother (2)
"The perpetrators were extremely cruel and skilled at lock picking."
Back then, ordinary households rarely used B-level locks, which had a higher level of security. Most used C-level locks, which could be opened from the outside without damaging the lock cylinder.
Not to mention those living in self-built houses in the urban-rural fringe areas.
Jin Shuhe's home at the time even had a flimsy wooden door that could be easily kicked open by a man's strength, even without picking the lock.
The area is densely populated, and you can hear people's voices almost anytime. Children who are left at home during the day go out to play in groups, with keys hanging around their necks and two yuan in their hands.
People get off work at all hours in the evening, and occasionally, in the middle of the night, drunk men can be seen shouting and cursing outside, with bottles smashing all over the ground...
Almost no one considers the possibility of being robbed; most people here are poor, and thieves have to leave empty-handed when they enter.
Newspaper reports of serial home invasion murderers have instilled fear in city dwellers, who are now hesitant to even look back every few steps on their way home from get off work as darkness falls.
But here, there was no ripple of excitement. Almost no one read the newspapers, and no one cared about what had happened recently. Everyone was only thinking about how much they could earn today and what they could eat tomorrow...
Jin Shuhe and his mother didn't know either.
One afternoon in late July, the sky was overcast, there was not a breath of wind, and it was so hot that it was hard to breathe.
It rained a little at noon, but instead of feeling cooler, it made my clothes feel damp and sticky against my skin.
After doing a few pages of math homework, Jin Shuhe couldn't sit still any longer. He carried a stool, climbed onto the windowsill, and clung to the screen, watching the neighbor's aunt lead her child away down the path below.
Oh, yesterday DouDou was bragging to them that his mom is taking him to the zoo today as a reward for passing both his Chinese and math final exams.
In the city, many elementary school children can score 100 points on tests, but here, parents are overjoyed if their children score 60 points.
Jin Shuhe scored 90 points in both math and Chinese this time, and his mother promised to take him to buy a new schoolbag before the start of the new semester.
So he wasn't envious of Dou Dou going to the zoo at all. He watched Dou Dou and her mother disappear around the corner before looking away, feeling rather bored.
"Xiao He, what do you want to eat for lunch?"
My mother's voice came through the tap, and she came in carrying two pieces of washed and wrung-out clothes.
As I passed by Jin Shuhe, I smoothed out the wrinkles on my wet clothes and hung them on the already deformed clothes hanger.
"Hmm? What should we eat? It seems like we're out of food."
"casual."
Jin Shuhe smelled the fresh scent of lemon laundry detergent, which was especially refreshing on the gloomy day. He couldn't help but take a few deep breaths and casually replied.
The mother wiped her hands on her apron, touched the child's head, and her hands, cold from being soaked in cold water, brushed against his ears, making Jin Shuhe involuntarily shrink his neck.
"Mom, it's cold!"
The woman, with her hair styled in a low bun and a few stray strands at her temples, smiled and withdrew her hand: "That'll teach you to answer your mother's questions seriously."
Her Mandarin wasn't very good; it had a gentle, local accent.
"I don't know what to eat." Jin Shuhe pouted. In this hot weather, she couldn't eat anything, and her family only ate a few different dishes.
The woman could clearly tell he was in a bad mood: "Then how about we have cold noodles for lunch? Xiao He can go down and buy some later."
Behind the self-built house, on the two small paths, there is a small supermarket. There is a stall selling cold noodles at the entrance. It costs three yuan a serving. It is sweet and sour, refreshing, and comes with cucumber and onion shreds. It sells very well in the summer, and it is often sold out by the afternoon.
The children love it, but since three yuan a serving isn't very cheap for the locals, the children often beg their parents to buy it for them.
Jin Shuhe liked it too. He looked up at his mother, then hesitated a little, "Mom, I can eat anything..."
The woman hummed a soft tune as she reached the door and reached into her pocket for money. Hearing the child's words, a hint of guilt flashed across her face.
"It's so hot today, Mom doesn't want to cook. Go buy some later, and also buy a bottle of pear soda!"
As he spoke, he handed over two crumpled five-yuan bills.
"Oh." Upon hearing the words "pear soda machine," Jin Shuhe could almost taste the bubbly bubbles and refreshing flavor in his mind. He couldn't help but swallow and took the money.
While I was doing laundry, it was still raining heavily outside.
After waiting for a while, the rain finally stopped. Jin Shuhe looked down at the small puddle below and saw that there were no more raindrops falling into it and making small ripples. She jumped down from the windowsill and prepared to go out.
The sky did not clear up after the rain stopped; instead, it became even more gloomy, and the little light on the edge of the gray clouds dimmed.
"Xiao He, hurry up! Otherwise it'll start raining again!"
Mother's voice came from the outer room again, accompanied by the sound of water. She busied herself again; there was always endless work to be done in the small house...
There was only one umbrella at home, which Dad took away. I don't know when he'll be back.
The layout of the self-built house was chaotic. In an attempt to create more rooms, the narrow, winding corridors were only wide enough for one person to pass through, with shoulders almost brushing against the walls.
Children can move around more freely, weaving through the trash, occasionally having to step over smelly garbage bags.
In Jin Shuhe's memory, the stench in the corridor was particularly strong that day. He held his breath, trying to get out as quickly as possible. When he reached the stairs, he finally took a deep breath. The long time he held his breath made his vision blurry, like the static on an old television.
It was no cooler outside than inside. Jin Shuhe nimbly slipped through the gap between two self-built houses, stepping on bricks that someone had placed in the puddles.
As Jin Shuhe crossed the first path, he saw a manhole with its cover stolen, wide open.
The second path was muddier and deeper; you could feel yourself sinking into it when you stepped on it.
Like his mother, Jin Shuhe hated dirty places, so he frowned and quickened his pace.
"Two servings of cold noodles, please! Sweet and sour!"
"okay!"
The auntie selling cold noodles, wearing a white apron, readily agreed, took the two five-yuan notes from Jin Shuhe, and took out four greasy coins from the enamel basin to make change.
Jin Shuhe put the three into his pocket, clutching the remaining one, and went into the tiny supermarket where it was difficult to even turn around. He took a bottle of chilled pear soda from the freezer.
The glass bottle felt cool to the touch. Jin Shuhe pressed it against his sweaty forehead and exhaled.
"Do you want shredded cucumber and onion? Do you want it spicy?" the auntie asked in a loud voice.
"I want both, one bowl with chili, one bowl without!"
His mother is not a local of Pucheng and cannot eat spicy food.
"Okay!"
Jin Shuhe was squatting on the ground, looking at the cards with cartoon characters printed on them at the bottom of the shelf. Recently, many students at school had been collecting these, and whoever collected the most would be the envy of everyone else...
Jin Shuhe also watched the cartoon, but he didn't buy any cards.
"Two cents a piece!" The shopkeeper behind the counter, who was looking at pirated books, glanced at them and casually called out.
Jin Shuhe shook his head, feeling embarrassed to look any longer. He quickly stood up, took the two bowls of cold noodles from the aunt, and headed home.
In just a short while, the sky outside became even more overcast, and a wind picked up, blowing heavily. The old power lines swayed in the air as Jin Shuhe walked close to the wall.
My mother has told me countless times to stay away from power lines on rainy days and not to step into the water. She said that in the past, when power lines broke and fell into the water, they could electrocute people!
The return trip took longer than the journey there.
When he arrived at the door, Jin Shuhe rubbed the soles of his shoes on the ground and climbed the stairs two steps at a time, passing through the narrow and dimly lit corridor.
The door was ajar...
Jin Shuhe looked at the crack in the door with a puzzled expression, wondering if he had been in such a hurry to leave that he hadn't closed the door properly.
Dad sometimes forgets when he's home, and Mom has nagged him about it countless times.
“Our family is so poor we’re practically broke. The front door is wide open, and even mice don’t want to come in!” Dad would always retort impatiently.
Jin Shuhe reached out and opened the door.
"Mom, I'm back—"
There was no sound in the room, except for the windows which were being slammed against the wall by the wind.
The air was finally circulating, but the open windows and doors inside gave off a rather unpleasant, fishy smell.
"mom……"
Jin Shuhe's shout abruptly stopped, as if something had been stuffed back into his throat, suddenly as if a hand had seized his heart.
As a young man, he couldn't describe this sudden feeling. He only felt that the familiar house had turned into a man-eating cave on this gloomy afternoon, making him afraid to even step inside...
That's probably a person's instinctive reaction when they're near danger.
Jin Shuhe didn't know how long he had been standing at the door. Then, he held his breath, his eyes aching from staring, and walked in step by step.
"Mom..." he called out in a faint voice that only he could hear.
Then he saw a pair of legs.
A body wrapped in an apron...
Finally, there's the mother's face.
At that moment, Jin Shuhe had no thoughts at all; he just stood there blankly, his feet rooted to the ground as if they had grown twisted roots.
The bright red almost soaked through my mother's clothes, and the dark red was so glaring that I couldn't even blink...
Jin Shuhe didn't know how long she had been standing there, staring fixedly at her mother's face, which had turned ashen and was clearly no longer recognizable as a living person.
Then, in the cramped corridor, came the slow, dragging sound of footsteps.
Like a resonant drumbeat, the frequency of the pulse beats in unison, making that fragile organ feel as if it's about to leap out of the cavity...
Ten years later, Jin Shuhe still couldn't remember how he rushed from beside his mother's body into the bedroom with roses on the windowsill.
I don't know where the strength came from, but I lifted the creaking old bed board and curled up in the storage compartment underneath, which contained winter bedding and smelled of mothballs.
Footsteps were a common sound in the corridor, but these footsteps filled Jin Shuhe with immense fear and made him tremble. He knew perfectly well that the person had returned!
The wooden plank he slept on every day now sheltered him helplessly beneath it.
Because the footsteps were under the bed, they weren't very clear; perhaps they had already stopped?
Do not!
The footsteps sounded again...
We're inside!
The winter quilt was thick and heavy, and having not seen the light for a long time, it had a faint damp smell. It was hot and stuffy, and the sweat stung his eyes, but Jin Shuhe's eyes still hurt as he stared into the darkness.
"Thump, thump, thump, rustle—"
Following the footsteps echoing inside the room came the sound of friction.
"rustle--"
The friction sound grew louder and louder, and Jin Shuhe's hair stood on end. His eyes couldn't see, but in his mind, he had already discerned what those faint, colliding sounds were:
It was the sound of Mom's hands and feet hitting the walls of the cramped little house as she was being dragged.
"Boom-"
The sound of an impact came from above.
Jin Shuhe's fingernails were dizzy as he gripped the web between his thumb and forefinger. The heat and fear caused him to dehydrate rapidly. His hand grasped something sticky and cold—the cold noodles he had been holding tightly.
"Pat, pat, pat—" Footsteps echoed around the bed.
footprint!
The sudden panic almost caused Jin Shuhe's limbs to spasm and twitch. Had he left muddy footprints at the doorway?
When he came in, he took off his shoes and left them on the shoe rack... Did his feet get muddy? Did they get... blood on them?
Did the person with those eerie footsteps follow my footprints into the bedroom?
Is he... right now staring intently at me through the creaking bed frame, through my mother's body?
Time is like maltose melted and softened by the summer sun, stretched out for who knows how long.
Jin Shuhe couldn't breathe and nearly fainted.
The bed creaked as the person sat down, and Jin Shuhe could feel the tremor.
With his neck arched into a sharp angle, Jin Shuhe vaguely sensed something, but what was it?
He wrapped the quilt tightly around himself, and Jin Shuhe thought it was for the best, so that the other person couldn't smell his sweat...
The heat and the throbbing pain in his calves burned him like fire, and just before he could no longer help but cry out and struggle, a sound came from outside the window.
"Damn this weather! I'm covered in mud!"
"Damn it! You splattered mud all over my leg!"
……
Several noisy men.
"Boom, boom, boom."
The footsteps resumed, still unhurried. When the person stood up from the bedside, Jin Shuhe felt that her neck, which had been about to break, could move again.
The footsteps faded away as they had come, but Jin Shuhe remained motionless. The men downstairs had entered the self-built building in front after hearing the sounds.
Jin Shuhe's mind conjured up the image of the cramped corridor. Was that person lurking around some corner, watching them intently, waiting for him to walk right into their trap?
My body gradually lost sensation; I could no longer feel the heat. Instead, my jaw was chattering. Finally, a voice came from the hallway: "Mom, if I do well on my next test, will you take me to the amusement park?"
……
Jin Shuhe tried to lift the bed board that was pressing down on his head like a coffin lid, but he couldn't.
Because my mother's body was lying on it...