They Say I Can Curse People (8)

Chapter 39

Chang Fang and Huanhuan were taken away by the police.

Chang Fang’s mother was in a daze. How could the police just take children away? Especially Huanhuan, who was only six years old…

Where were they taking them? Would they bring them back? Would they… would they never return them? But she couldn’t admit the two children were hers. When the time came, could her Eldest Aunt go and claim them? Would that work?

When her husband returned, she told him what had happened.

“What should we do? Should I ask my Eldest Aunt to go to Tonglin Town to find the police and claim the two children?” she asked, desperate for her husband to ease her mind and share her current distress and anxiety.

“With that temper of your Eldest Aunt’s, you think she’d go?”

“My Eldest Aunt just has a bad temper, but she’s a good person. Think about it, she helped us raise the children for so long. Even if there’s no glory in it, there’s the merit of her hard work. Don’t talk about her like that behind her back.” She didn’t want to argue with her husband, so she continued: “Do you think the police might not give the children back to us?”

“You’re just overthinking things. They’re police, not bandits or human traffickers. Could they really sell them? If they don’t give the kids back to us, are they going to raise them themselves?” The man didn’t take it seriously at all. He knew all too well that this was nothing more than a scare tactic, and only this woman in his house would be foolish enough to fall for it.

Chang Fang’s mother felt a surge of resentment at her husband’s impatient words, but she also felt it was her own fault. After all, her husband wasn’t wrong, so she fell silent.

That night, her husband was already asleep, but Chang Fang’s mother couldn’t rest. she couldn’t help but think of her two daughters.

Chang Fang was her first child. Although she had suffered a lot giving birth to her, being despised by her mother-in-law and her own husband, back then, looking at Chang Fang, there were moments when she truly wanted to kiss her little face.

Sometimes, when she was angry, she would look at this daughter who had caused her such grief. Seeing the girl’s innocent, oblivious face, she would occasionally pinch her hard. When the girl pouted and started to cry, she would pick her up and comfort her. The crying would stop instantly. She was so easy to soothe.

Back then, baby Chang Fang was the most well-behaved child.

Even after all these years, she still remembered the first time Chang Fang called her “Mama.” It was a wonderful feeling. She also remembered a busy harvest season when she had to work in the fields. She had placed Chang Fang on the ground nearby. When she turned around, Chang Fang had stood up, clutching a water bottle with sweat dripping down her forehead, calling out for her mother to drink water.

For some reason, even at two years old, she already knew how to care for her mother.

Yes, a two-year-old Chang Fang knew how to care for her, but now that she was grown, how had she become like this?

She thought of the current Chang Fang, remembering her last visit when the girl had been stubborn and refused to see her.

She thought of how Chang Fang treated her words as wind past her ears, and how she had returned just when she was pregnant. Wasn’t that a deliberate attempt to harm her?

Was this eldest daughter here to collect a debt! Her chest ached at the thought. Other people’s daughters grew more sensible and kinder to their mothers as they got older. Why did hers have to be a debt-collecting ghost¹!

Giving birth to a son wasn’t just for the Zhang family; it would benefit Chang Fang too. Once Chang Fang had a younger brother, she would have someone to rely on even after she got married!

At this thought, and the thought of her eldest daughter’s disobedience, the resulting anger slowly diluted the sadness in her heart.

With Chang Fang’s temper, it might be a good thing to let her stay with the police for a while.

Chang Fang’s mother stopped thinking about these things. Regardless, her primary task was to give birth to her son first.

Evening self-study² for junior high students ended after nine o’clock. By then, little Huanhuan was already asleep.

As the session ended, the bustle of the entire school slowly shifted from the classrooms to the student dormitories.

Chang Fang sat up, craning her neck to watch the girls returning from the classrooms.

This was the girls’ dormitory, so naturally, those passing by were all female students.

Chang Fang watched them longingly. These were all girls who had made it into junior high.

Her home in Laoma Village was relatively close to Yulan Town, so they usually went there for the market. Yulan Town had a junior high school too, but it had only been built two years ago, so parents in Yulan Town still preferred the old habit of sending their children to the junior high in Tonglin Town.

Back in the village, Chang Fang had heard stories about whose daughter had gone to study at the Tonglin Town junior high. She was ten years old when she first heard it; at that time, she hadn’t even attended primary school.

That girl, who was only two or three years older than her, had gone to study in Tonglin Town. Back then, she was very envious, thinking the girl was born under a lucky star.

Although that girl was also from Laoma Village, she lived in Group Three, which was closer to the riverbank.

Once, Chang Fang went to gather firewood across the river. On her way back, she passed by that family’s house.

She saw the door was closed. The firewood on her back was too heavy and her shoulders were aching, so she set her basket down on the stone steps not far from their door to rest.

The family happened to return just then and insisted she come over for a drink of water.

They were exhausted too, their faces covered in sweat, yet they still cheerfully called her over for water.

Chang Fang had gone to drink water that time, and in her heart, she felt the water was exceptionally sweet.

She had a very good impression of that family. Later, she heard her Eldest Aunt say that the family had two children, both daughters. Although the eldest had gotten into junior high, it was still a pity they weren’t boys.

When her Eldest Aunt said these things, her face was twisted in a bitter scowl. She had just finished cursing her “old bag” of a mother-in-law. Her mouth spewed dissatisfaction with everyone and everything that didn’t go her way. Chang Fang couldn’t understand how her aunt’s scrawny body could hold so much hatred.

At that moment, Chang Fang thought of the family with the two daughters.

That family didn’t seem to harbor hatred for anything. Even for a random person gathering firewood, they would offer water and ask whose daughter she was. They even warned her to be careful on her way back, saying there had been snakes in the pine forest up ahead lately.

She didn’t understand why back then, but she often thought of that moment in her heart.

So, once she knew she was destined for good fortune, and after she returned home to see her mother’s perpetually sorrowful face, she thought of that other family. She began to think that if her family had simply registered her and Huanhuan when they were born, just like that family did, it would have been fine. Since she was a girl and there was a large age gap between her and Huanhuan, they both could have been registered on the Hukou without paying any fines. Then her family could have followed that other family’s example, raising them well and letting them go to school. If they had, her mother certainly wouldn’t be wearing such a bitter expression all the time.

Chang Fang watched the girls coming back from the junior high school. As she watched them go to wash their faces, she thought to herself that this was what life in junior high was like.

Just watching from the sidelines, Chang Fang felt a sudden urge to cry.

That night, Chang Fang tossed and turned, her mind filled with images of the girls at the school.

Tonglin Town Junior High sat beside a river. In the deep of the night, the voices of the students faded, replaced by the sound of the river flowing outside.

Listening to the water, Chang Fang slowly drifted into a dream.

She dreamed she had turned into a cicada larva, living on the pomelo tree in front of Eldest Aunt’s house. Mother Cicada had given birth to her there, along with many, many other larvae.

She heard Mother Cicada saying, “You must go back into the soil first and live well underground. One day, when the time is right, you will crawl out of the earth and shed your shells. Those shells will be left for humans to sell for money, and you can climb back up into the trees.”

They quickly crawled back into the dirt and buried themselves.

At first, while they were in the soil, they could still chat every day.

“How much longer until you emerge?”

“I think my shell has hardened a lot.”

“Help me check, am I about to molt?”

“This shell I’m shedding, I want to leave it for that girl named Chang Fang.”

In the dream, Chang Fang seemed to revert to her old self. Hearing those words made her heart feel incredibly happy.

But then, for some reason, the soil suddenly seemed to grow colder.

Starting from some unknown day, the brothers and sisters around her began to change.

They stopped searching for food, stopped dreaming of returning to the trees, and stopped imagining the sunshine and the breeze. They stopped eating and drinking, staying rooted in place. Their bodies didn’t look injured, and nothing seemed to have changed physically.

“What are you doing? We still have to go out! We still have to go to the trees!”

“Why did you all change so suddenly?”

“Don’t you want to go to the trees anymore?”

Meanwhile, other companions nearby had already begun to break through the soil and shed their shells. They were heading for the trees…

Wait for me! Chang Fang also began to push through the dirt. She wanted to go out too, but as she pushed and pushed, she found she could no longer move.

In her dream, she was alone in the dark, damp earth, crying and crying without end.

She cried until she woke up.

There were still tears on her face, and her younger sister was busy wiping them away for her.

Chang Fang took a moment to recover, realizing she had dreamed about the Golden Cicada Flower. It was strange; why would she have a dream like that and cry so much in it?

She wiped her eyes.

“Sister, did you dream about Mama again?” Huanhuan asked.

When Huanhuan was little, she would often cry when she dreamed of their mother. Huanhuan felt she was grown up now, because she didn’t cry anymore when she dreamed of her.

Chang Fang said, “I didn’t dream of Mama.”

Just then, Chang Fang heard noises coming from outside.

“Sister, they’re so early. They’re already getting up for school.”

Huanhuan hadn’t been woken up by her sister’s crying. They were staying on the first floor of the girls’ dormitory, while the students lived upstairs. In the morning, when the students got up to wash and change, a large crowd of them would come clattering and thumping down the stairs.

Chang Fang hurried outside. The sky was just beginning to brighten, and the students were surging toward the classrooms like a flowing river. Soon, the sound of rhythmic reading³ filled the air.

She suddenly remembered her dream from the night before.

She looked down and saw her rubber shoes, which had a hole that let her little toe peek through.

She was seventeen this year. She had only attended primary school intermittently for a few years…

She understood a little better now why she had that dream.

But… she had such good fortune. Chang Fang thought again of the money she had found, and how she had originally thought the police would arrest her, only for them to say they would find a way to help her solve her Hukou problem.

She thought that even if it was just the “her” in the dream, she could still try to push through the soil one more time!

Translator’s Notes