My Suffering My College – Chapter 1: Growing Up Is Painful, and Life Doesn't Stop Growing 8

"What I never expected was that I was adopted by my adoptive parents as a child bride. They decided to raise me until I was 18 and then marry one of his two sons, and that was what they had agreed with my mother."

Desperate, Meihua and I had to return to Hongying's cousin's house, and my cousin took us in without hesitation. It was a dark day, because I was afraid that Yang Dongqi would hear the wind and follow me, and Meihua and I usually never went out. We were like two little mice who didn't dare to see the light of day, hiding in the three rooms of my cousin's house, waiting for news from our distant mother.

The news about Yang Dongqi was also brought back little by little by his cousin-in-law, who often worked outside: Yang Dongqi was greatly annoyed by our "farewell", and the fat pigs of my family that had grown fat unfortunately became his sacrifices under the knife. Perhaps he felt that our escape was a humiliation for him, and he carried a pig-killing knife and frantically looked around for our traces.

He visited almost all of my relatives' homes in the middle of the night, and everywhere he went, he made a terrible statement: if he found out who had taken us in, he would absolutely burn the house. Fortunately, my relatives have said that we may have all arrived in other places, plus Hongying's cousin's family lives in a remote area, and there is almost no contact with each other, and Hongying's cousin's home is a safe area for the time being.

The moments of avoidance and panic suffocated me. Every day, I lay by the window of my cousin's house, looking at the floating clouds in the sky, fantasizing about getting the news of my mother's return. Dreaming.

The news about my mother finally came two months later: my mother had found a mine worker on the outskirts of Wuhu City, Anhui Province, and was married, and would soon be back to pick me up and Meihua to the land of fish and rice.

What exciting news! It's bleak to leave home, but with rice to eat every day and my mother by my mother's side, there's nothing happier for me.

Finally, the mother returned. It's quiet. We were pleasantly surprised to find that our mother's appearance was much better, her clothes were brand new, and her mother had returned with some candy, and the air seemed to be sweet for both days.

Two days later, however, the days were soaked with bitterness again.

My mother was leaving, and she only took Meihua alone, while leaving me behind to give to a family surnamed Zhou in my cousin's village. In other words, I was adopted by someone, and my mother really didn't want me this time.

The mother had difficulties, and the stepfather was only willing to let the mother take one child with her. My mother said that Meihua was small, and she was not at ease with sending people, so she could only grievance me. My mother also said that when I was on summer and winter vacations, my adoptive father would take me to Anhui to reunite with my mother.

I didn't cry and cry out to go with my mother. I understand my mother's feelings. As she said, the palms of her hands and the backs of her hands were all flesh, and she hurt to cut any piece. My mother was reluctant to give me. My mother cried and swollen her eyes as she left, and asked me over and over again not to hate her. How could I hate my mother? To hate, I only hate Yang Dongqi!

I stood behind the window of Hongying's cousin's house and watched my mother and sister walk away, and at this moment I could not cry and burst into tears. My mother also turned back step by step, and the look in my mother's eyes made me unforgettable. It was a kind of pain, helplessness, desolation, and a complex look of beging for forgiveness.

Since then, at the age of 12, I have learned what is called life and death, and what is sent to the fence.

I went to my adoptive father's house. My adoptive father had two sons and a daughter, eight, six, and four years older than me. I have never read a book, and my only luck in this family is that I can read again. This is what the adoptive parents promised the mother. In this way, I transferred to ZhouYao Primary School for the second half of the fourth grade.

I thought that the days of the adoptive parents' family would be much calmer and warmer if they were less displaced. Not really. While I was studying, I became a small laborer in my adoptive father's family.

Cutting pig grass and sheep grass is a small matter, breaking corn ears, peeling corn kernels, cutting corn stalks, hoeing taro, peeling cotton, cooking, washing clothes, washing dishes, playing fields... Except for picking up burdens, I have done almost all the farm work and housework.

Healthy wine, three meals must be drunk. It became my task to give my adoptive father a drinking trip to a dealership a kilometer away. Often at dinner in the evening, the adoptive father found the wine jug empty. Even if I was eating, I had to drop the bowl and go to the wine first.

On the way to the dealership, pass an overgrown cemetery and a cold, slender river. The road runs through the middle of the cemetery, and it gets dark early in the winter and it's already dark at six o'clock in the afternoon. The adoptive father's family usually eats at seven o'clock, and it is often this time to play alcohol.

Rural roads have always been sparsely populated, let alone at night. The cold wind in the winter cemetery is miserable, and the whimpering sound of the wind blowing through the treetops is eerie. But no matter how dark the night, no matter how cold the day, I always have to walk this terrible road alone.

In the summer, the riverside path is often crossed by cool water snakes, I am most afraid of snakes, always worried about stepping on them, always walking very carefully, but once a snake swam past the instep of my feet, the feeling of cold, slippery, fear shot straight to the bottom of my heart. I cried in my heart and cried out to my mother: a motherless child is like a weed! Mother, do you know the sorrow and desolation of your daughter under the fence?

After returning from drinking, the adoptive father and the family had said that there was laughter around the table to peel peanuts to eat. I handed the wine jug to my adoptive father. No one told me to eat peanuts.

I had never sat at a table and eaten, and every time I had squatted with a bowl on the small stone pier in front of the door to drink. When I drink it, it is because when I eat porridge, the only bit of rice that is deposited at the bottom of the pot or floating on the edge of the pot has long been fished out by the three sons and daughters of the adoptive father, even if they have not fished out, I dare not fish, just like when I drink noodle soup, I never dare to dig up the lard like them. In this home, which is not my home, I am self-disciplined and inferior.

I wore the old clothes of my adoptive parents' daughters, who made new clothes for their daughters and replaced the old ragged ones with me, even though I was taller than their daughters, even though their daughters' clothes were always hanging from me.

Every night, when I hold a bowl and sit on the small stone pier in front of the door and drink thin porridge or noodle soup, I think of my mother to the rising moon in the east, and I will have a very nihilistic dream in the mist of tears: Mother is coming! Pick me up! I intuitively believe that although my mother and I are separated by thousands of rivers and mountains, one day our mother and daughter will finally be reunited!

(xiii)

"I was speechless, and the bone-chilling cold from outside my body to my body made me shiver. I thought desperately: Will I freeze to death in this cold winter?"

Later, I learned that I was adopted as a "child bride", saying that when I reached the age of eighteen, I would "marry" one of the sons of my adoptive father's family. The secret to me as a "child bridesmaid" was Hongying's cousin, who was not accustomed to the meanness of my adoptive parents and encouraged me to write a letter to my mother, asking her to find a way to take me to Anhui.

I was at a loss for the concept of a child bride. But I understand what "marrying" means.

I immediately wrote a letter to my mother, the first letter I had ever written in my life, and I tore a piece of paper from the workbook and took advantage of the recess to lie on my desk and write a letter to my mother who was far away.

"Mom, I miss you." I wrote the first sentence, and as soon as I wrote it, tears swirled in my eyes. I thought about it and then wrote, "Mom, do you want me?" The tears had fallen uncontrollably. I peeked around, my classmates were playing on the playground, and the classroom was quiet. I boldly sucked my nose and seized the time to write: "Mom, I am very unhappy, they let me do a lot of work, very tired." I want to go to you, even if I follow you to beg for food and drink porridge, I am willing. Come on, Mom! The phrase "begging for food" was instructed by Hongying's cousin.

After thinking about it, I drew a small child with tears on his face in the corner of the letter. I folded the letter and then wrote it in a letter envelope. The envelope was pasted by Hongying's cousin for me with the cover of the waste practice book, and I neatly wrote on it the address of my mother copied from Hongying's cousin's house: Zhou Xikang turned Sha Yufang to Sha Yufang in Jingshan Stone Mine, Matang Township, Wuhu City, Anhui Province. Zhou Xikang is my stepfather, and Hongying's cousin said that no one knew me to write my mother's name.

The letter was sent out for me by Hongying's cousin. My heart was anxious and joyful as this letter flew over thousands of rivers and mountains, and waiting for my mother's reply became my daily thought.

The mother's letter came late a month later. It was sent to Hongying's cousin. The mother's letter is not long, and I don't know who to write. My mother's reply was like this: "In the future, when I receive your letter, my heart is broken, and I blame my mother for being useless and making you suffer." Mom will come back to see you after a while, really. You study well, and your mother will definitely bring you a new school bag the next time she comes back. Mom misses you too. "I read my mother's letter over and over again, counting even the punctuation marks, for a total of 73 words. At this time, I didn't have the slightest urge to cry, and my heart was just disappointed. My mother didn't say she was going to take me away.

I never wrote to my mother again, and I vaguely resented her.

During the summer vacation, I became a long-term worker in my adoptive parents' house, cooking and laundry every day became my compulsory homework, and I also wrapped three meals of grass a day for two pigs and three sheep. I was as hard and weak as the "reed stick" in the text "Bondage Worker". No matter how heavy the burden is, I have to carry it myself, and no one will help me.

My perseverance and perseverance may have been accumulated little by little. Since I was a child, I have never developed the habit of complaining about others, but I have developed the tenacity and perseverance to face suffering alone.

After the hot summer passed, I moved to the fifth grade, and my academic performance delighted the class teacher in my class, who left his beloved students and gave me a green eye. I was flattered and studied harder. In the midterm exam, I did take the first place in the whole commune grade.

After the exams, it is winter vacation. It's my heavy housework time again. I think this winter is particularly cold, because I only wear a thin set of autumn clothes and autumn pants, or the daughter of my adoptive parents does not wear them.

There is no cotton jacket, no sweater, no pair of socks with holes, shoes are reed woven "hair nests", strong is strong, but because there are no socks to wear, the feet are empty inside, and the hard reed stalks will grind the feet to blister. The children of the adoptive parents were luckier than I was, they had warm cotton clothes and pants and cotton shoes made by the adoptive mothers.

Once I carefully told my adoptive mother that I was cold, and my adoptive father said lightly on the side: "Three fires in a child's ass, what is cold?" I was speechless, and the bone-chilling cold from outside my body to my body made me shiver. I thought desperately: Will I freeze to death in this cold winter?

It was also this winter that I heard the news that excited me: Yang Dongqi was arrested on suspicion of rape and murder in Nanjing! It turned out that Yang Dongqi couldn't find my mother everywhere, so he went to Nanjing to find his ex-wife, and his ex-wife also hid around and couldn't see him. One day, he found out about his ex-wife's factory, found her dormitory, and sneaked into the dormitory to wait for her to return. Who knows, a female college student who lived in the same dormitory as his ex-wife came back at night, was raped by Yang Dongqi, who was full of animal hair, and strangled the girl with his ex-wife's towel...

About half a month after hearing this news, two policemen came to Hongying's cousin's house to look for me. The police came to investigate what bad Yang Dongqi had done in my house. Under questioning by two policemen, I reminisced about the nightmarish days that I could not look back on. The policeman brushed his notebook and wrote it down. I wanted to hold back from crying in front of the living, but I didn't hold back, and I was embarrassed that I shed tears. The policeman said: "Don't be afraid, you say, Yang Dongqi has been arrested by us, don't be afraid." After about two hours of questioning and answering, the back of my hand was already covered with snot and tears, and when the police finished asking, they handed me a notebook and asked me to sign my name, and I carefully wrote the three words "Zhao Meiping" on the policeman's book. The police asked for the mother's detailed address and said that they would go to Anhui to investigate and collect evidence from the mother.