pjbooks Chapter 113 Who is the Donkey?
Chapter 113 Who is the Donkey?
"Anything else?" Lin Dachun asked, gently patting her shoulder as if coaxing a child.
"Have you heard about what happened to He Xiulan's family?"
What happened to her family?
Li Ruoxue's voice lowered even further, almost whispering in his ear: "Her brother-in-law, didn't he go to Shanxi to mine coal the year before last? He came back this year with a woman—he said he bought her."
"Bought?" Lin Dachun frowned.
"Yeah, it cost two hundred yuan. That woman was only nineteen, from Sichuan, and she spoke in a gibberish that I couldn't understand. He Xiulan said she cried all the time and wanted to run away."
The cave dwelling fell silent.
Two hundred yuan is an astronomical sum for the people living on the loess slope.
The wife bought was treated like livestock, tethered, watched, and guarded against.
"What a terrible thing to do." These were the only two words Lin Dachun uttered at the end.
"Sister Xiulan is worried too," Li Ruoxue sighed. "She said the girl was pitiful and she secretly gave her steamed buns. But what can she do? The money's been spent, so the girl is now theirs."
Neither of them spoke.
Those lighthearted stories of adultery, buying wives, and playful squabbles suddenly became heavy.
Behind these absurdities lies the bitterness of life, the despair of having no hope, and the madness that comes when people are driven to the brink by life.
"Go to sleep," Lin Dachun said.
"Mmm," Li Ruoxue responded, but didn't move.
Her face was pressed against his chest, and she could hear his steady heartbeat.
One beat after another, like the most reassuring sound on this loess slope.
"Um, you, me?"
"Um?"
"We... aren't being ridiculous, are we?" she asked softly and cautiously.
Lin Dachun tightened his grip, holding her even closer: "We're keeping each other warm, and... we're different from those people."
"And what?" Li Ruoxue asked coquettishly.
"And we like each other," Lin Dachun replied.
"Hmm. But, in other people's eyes, it might not be like that. At least at my great-aunt's house, they all talk about me behind my back." Li Ruoxue blushed.
"What did I say to you? I didn't hear you."
"Behind your back, that early morning outside the cave, they were secretly talking about me, and I overheard them." Li Ruoxue still felt embarrassed when she recalled those words.
"What did they say to you? Let me hear it," Lin Dachun asked curiously.
"I'm sorry to say."
"Speak softly in my ear. The lights are off, don't be embarrassed," Lin Dachun reassured him.
Li Ruoxue whispered in Lin Dachun's ear, "They say I'm really good in that area, I even went after you."
After Li Ruoxue finished speaking, her face turned bright red, and she wished she could disappear into a crack in the ground.
"It's normal. At your age, aren't widow Su and He Xiulan all like that? I'm afraid of them. They look like they're going to eat me alive," Lin Dachun replied.
"Haha, it's not that exaggerated," Li Ruoxue laughed.
Li Ruoxue nodded in his arms.
She trusted him, and she also trusted the pure and innocent dependence in her heart.
The wind outside the window picked up, howling across the loess slope and making the window paper rattle.
But with the warmth of the bed and the solid presence of the people around me, the cold winds and rain outside didn't seem so scary anymore.
"Oh, right," Li Ruoxue suddenly remembered something, her voice tinged with amusement, "there's another funny thing—Old Zhao's male donkey at the village entrance bullied Accountant Wang's female donkey. Accountant Wang went to Old Zhao with his abacus to settle accounts, and the two old men squatted on the edge of the field, calculating for half an afternoon, and in the end, he lost 50 cents."
Lin Dachun laughed too: "Haha, this old Zhao, he can't even keep a donkey at peace."
"you do not say……"
"So, are you that female donkey? Haha," Lin Dachun joked.
"No, I'm not, I'm not," Li Ruoxue said coquettishly.
The two encouraged each other in the warm bed.