Chapter 753 Yu Haitang's Concerns
He stared at the silver butterfly hairpin in Yu Haitang's hair that fluttered in the wind. He didn't even notice the sparks from the charcoal basin splashing on his sleeves. His voice was filled with three parts of anger and seven parts of helplessness:
"What nonsense are you talking about, Haitang,"
His fingertips unconsciously stroked the gap on the rim of the rough porcelain cup.
"Could it be possible that this space can trap you forever? Why don't you want to get out?"
Yu Haitang used a silver hairpin to play with the loose strands of hair on her temples. The firelight shattered into gold foil in her pupils. Suddenly, she sneered and flicked her fingers. The pottery pot on the table poured out hot tea by itself:
"What are you going out for? Do you think the look in the eyes of the village lady who is sewing shoe soles is going to pierce my spine?"
She tilted her head to look at the ice flowers on the window frame, and the silver bell in her hairpin rang softly.
"I was trying out the new mountain tune I had learned at the mill, and Wang the butcher's wife pointed at me and said to the others, 'Girls are not at home making shoe soles, so you are singing something nonsense.'"
The charcoal fire in the copper basin burned more vigorously, causing the tassel of the flute made of red rope on her wrist to flicker.
The girl has loved literature and art since she was young. She learned a few pieces of music from her father who traveled around the country with a troupe of opera singers. But she also loved climbing trees and robbing bird nests to imitate the calls of sparrows. The villagers said that she "didn't look like a girl."
At this moment, she curled up her legs and rested her chin on her knees, the tip of her cotton shoes rubbing against the black ash on the edge of the charcoal basin:
"I wanted to do somersaults in the threshing field, and sing "Mu Guiying Takes Command" with a mulberry stick as a horse whip, but I was washing clothes by the river, and Sister Li and her friends were chatting and talking about 'whose good girl runs around all day'."
In the mist of tea, she suddenly pulled out a piece of shiny birch bark from her bosom, on which she had drawn a stage with charcoal pencil:
"Look, I have designed the backstage. The costumes are on the left and the gongs and drums are on the right. If I could carve a phoenix on the top beam of the stage..."
Before he finished speaking, he stuffed the birch bark into his sleeve and a self-deprecating smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.
"But if I go out, I will hear people say 'a girl learning opera is a bad thing'. Rather than being poked in the back and called an 'outcast', it is better to be quiet in this space."
She suddenly jumped up and opened the curtain of the east wing. Inside was a pile of herbs and dye vats half a person's height, and a bundle of brooms stood in the corner:
"Look, this mint was planted by me in the spring, the gardenia fruits for dyeing the cloth were picked from the back mountain, and the sorghum stalks for making brooms were brought back by you for me—"
His fingertips stroked the wild chrysanthemums drying on the windowsill, and his voice suddenly became softer.
"I can earn what's available out there, and you will give me what's not available out there..."
She pointed to a bird whistle tied with colorful thread hanging from the rafters.
"My bird whistle can produce seven kinds of bird calls. Who would listen to me tinkering with these things when I'm out?"
Wang Jianguo looked at the tears in her eyes and suddenly remembered last year's autumn harvest. This girl squatted by the threshing floor and made grasshoppers with ears of grain. An aunt passing by laughed at her, "You are so old and still playing with this." At that time, she stuffed the grasshopper into his hand, turned around and ran into the mountains.
At this moment, the firelight in the charcoal basin illuminated the sweat on the tip of her nose, and the silver butterfly hairpin trembled slightly in her hair, like a butterfly wanting to flap its wings.
"Silly girl,"
He put the enamel cup on the table, and tea stains splashed onto the table top engraved with a chessboard.
"Have you forgotten what Sister Hong Ling from the opera troupe said at the temple fair last year? She said that your voice is so bright that it can outlast two opera troupes."
Seeing her lowering her head and twirling the hem of her skirt without saying a word, he softened his voice again.
"Tomorrow I'll help you clear out the east wing and use it as your stage. When spring comes, we'll go to town and get a piece of red silk to use as a curtain..."
Yu Haitang raised her head suddenly, the silver bell in her hairpin jingled, and the light in her eyes was brighter than the fire in the charcoal basin:
"real?
He squatted down and fiddled with the sparks in the charcoal basin until the red-hot charcoal turned over to gray. Then he raised his eyes to look at the silver butterfly hairpin in Yu Haitang's hair that trembled with her breathing.
The night wind from the Great Northern Wilderness blew snow foam onto the window paper, but he suddenly laughed, his voice warmer than the burning charcoal:
"Haitang, do you think this black soil is the same as the alleys in the old city?"
Yu Haitang loosened her grip on the braid, and the silver hairpin glowed softly in the firelight.
She remembered when she first arrived in the Great Northern Wilderness, she saw women carrying hoes and working in the fields just like men, and heard the team leader say, "Earning work points is the same for both men and women." But the scar in her heart from being stabbed in the back in Beijing had not yet healed.
At this moment, Wang Jianguo used a stick to poke the charcoal ash and drew a crooked human figure:
"Look at Sister Zhang who delivered grain yesterday. She could hold the plow with one hand and whip with the other. Who in the team doesn't say she is an 'iron girl'?"
"There is also Dr. Li from the health center, who carries a medicine box over mountains and hills to deliver babies. The children call her 'living Bodhisattva.'"
The charcoal basin popped, and he suddenly grabbed Yu Haitang's hand that was resting on her knees, and his fingertips ran across the thin calluses on her palms - those were caused by helping the fellow villagers weave baskets a few days ago.
"People here don't care whether you are a girl or a boy, they only care whether you can handle things."
He pointed to the vast snow outside the window.
"Last month, a snowstorm closed the mountain. You and the women boiled ginger soup for three nights. Your hands were burned and blistered. Old Zhou still brags to everyone he meets, 'The girl from the Yu family is warmer than a heated kang.'"
Yu Haitang's eyelashes suddenly trembled, and she remembered the last time she requested to sing "Embroidering the Golden Plaque" for the educated youth. Zhao Xiucai blushed and said, "I have never heard such a clear voice."
Wang Jianguo, however, pulled out a piece of red silk from his bosom like a magic trick, with thread still on the edge:
"This was given to me by Sister Zhang from the supply and marketing cooperative. She said if you want to dance, she will sew a waist drum for you tomorrow."
The red silk looked like a ball of fire under the charcoal light, causing sweat to form on the tip of her nose.
"But...but I want to sing in the threshing floor. Won't they think I'm crazy?"
She finally asked in a low voice, scratching the wood grain of the bench with her fingernails. Wang Jianguo laughed so hard that the corn cobs hanging on the beam shook:
"Crazy? At last year's autumn harvest party, the boy from the Li family played the clown and made everyone laugh so hard that they slapped their thighs. If you sing "Mu Guiying", I will be the first to help you move the table to use as a stage!"
He suddenly stood up, stuffed the red silk into Yu Haitang's hand, and pointed to the haystack in the east wing:
"Tomorrow we will move this pile of grass away and build a half-man-high earthen platform. Do you want to paint a phoenix or carve a peony?"
Yu Haitang's hands were shaking as she held the red silk, and she recalled the constant nagging in the alleys of Beijing's old city that "girls should be quiet and gentle".
Looking at the seriousness in the eyes of the person in front of him, he suddenly burst into laughter, and the bells on the silver hairpin rang like a string.
I don't know when the snow outside the window stopped. The moonlight shone through the window lattice into the charcoal basin, filling the room with red light.
Yu Haitang tied the red silk around her wrist, suddenly jumped up and made a cloud-hand gesture, the tip of her braid swept across the clay pot, raising a cloud of tea mist.
Wang Jianguo looked at her shadow spinning in the light and suddenly felt that this adobe house in the Great Northern Wilderness was more like a home than the theater in the old city.
Because here, girls’ dreams will not be considered “abnormal”, but will grow however they want, just like seeds in the black soil.