"Looks like your fever's gone for good. Well, how are you feeling? Anything uncomfortable?"
Ji Ying looked at her daughter's sweet smile, and the tiredness from waking up before dawn to weed was instantly swept away.
"I'm fine, really. All good."
Xu Nianhua took the initiative to help out, which made Ji Ying repeatedly remind her that she'd just recovered, so she should rest.
"Mom, it's because I just got better that I need to do things—sweat a bit and I won't get sick again." Xu Nianhua didn't want to lie in bed anymore. She followed behind Ji Ying, piling up all the weeds in a corner of the yard, asking as she worked, "Where are Dad and Big Brother and Second Brother?"
"They went out to the fields. Even though we split off from the family, we still get a share of the rice this year." Ji Ying quietly sized up Xu Nianhua, and seeing she really looked all right, finally relaxed.
She wasn't sure if it was just her imagination, but after that bout of illness, Xu Nianhua seemed livelier than before—more talkative, not as silent as she used to be.
Mother and daughter worked together, and sure enough, things went much faster. Before long, the once overgrown yard was neat and clean.
Ji Ying wasn't at ease about the fields. After steaming up a few sweet potatoes and bringing along a pot of porridge, she went off to the fields. As she left, she reminded Xu Nianhua over and over to rest more.
Xu Nianhua said agreed, but she couldn't bear to rest. Looking at the old house, if they really wanted to live here, she'd have to clean it from the inside out all over again.
"Xu Nianhua?"
A strange voice called out.
Xu Nianhua had just finished cleaning a room and stepped outside, seeing in the yard someone familiar but whose name she couldn't quite recall: skin a bit dark, two braids. Xu Nianhua kept cool and asked, "What's up?"
"What, just a few days gone and you don't remember me?" Zhong Juan walked up with a smile. "When you were little, you used to follow me around, calling me Sister Juan with every breath."
Sister Juan.
Xu Nianhua remembered now. Wasn't this the daughter from the Zhong Family in the village? She was called Zhong Juan.
"How could I not? I was just curious why you came looking for me." Xu Nianhua smiled, asking in return.
After so many years, apart from the closest folks, it was true that Xu Nianhua couldn't recall many others all that well.
"Everyone knows your family's split up, and it's not even been half a day yet," Zhong Juan was a talker; she hadn't stopped chattering since stepping into the yard.
"If you ask me, Xu Family's grandpa really did you dirty. Split the family up, didn't give you anything."
Talking about the Xu Family splitting up, you wouldn't hear anyone in the village say a good word about Xu Zhong. He and his re-married wife, Liu Sanmei, were famous in the village for playing favorites.
Xu Nianhua just smiled and didn't echo Zhong Juan's words. No matter how wrong Xu Zhong was, he was still her grandpa. If she agreed, by afternoon the whole village would be gossiping, saying Xu Nianhua didn't respect her elders.
Zhong Juan rambled on a bit, then finally asked, "Nianhua, I heard you fell in the lake by the back mountain yesterday?"
Xu Nianhua's expression changed a little, knowing this was the real reason Zhong Juan had come.
She lowered her eyes and said, "Sister Juan, your news is really quick. But how did you know it was the lake by the back mountain?"
"Everyone in the village's talking about it, saying you didn't do well in the exams and couldn't get over it." Zhong Juan looked a little uneasy, saying, "Nianhua, not getting into university isn't a big deal. In our village, it's hard enough to get even a few students in a year."