When Liu Guozhi saw that a chunk of flesh had been sliced off his finger, his face turned grim. A moment later, he patted Liu Jinbao's shoulder, pulled ten yuan from his pocket, and handed it to him. "Don't go wasting this. Go to the clinic and have Little Fang bandage that for you."
'So that's how it is! That little widow, thinking she can get away with anything just because she's halfway decent-looking. How dare she take a knife to the Liu family's only male heir! That conniving, lazy, greedy, slippery good-for-nothing. If she wants to dodge work, fine, she never has to show up again. I'd like to see how she'll feed her son then!'
"Oh!" Liu Jinbao took the money and obediently headed out, a triumphant smirk on his face. 'That bitch. We'll see if she dares to cross me again!'
Xu Chunyan frowned at Liu Guozhi. "You know, you really should have a talk with Jinbao. He's so young and already on the wrong path..."
BANG~ Liu Guozhi slammed his palm on the table. "Cut the passive-aggressive crap. If you're so capable, why don't you pop out a son for me?"
"You..." Xu Chunyan's face went pale. She turned and walked away.
Liu Guozhi leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh. 'The biggest regret of my life is not having a son of my own. Otherwise, who would want to spoil his brother's kid?'
****
Lin Lan hurried home to find the courtyard gate ajar. She pushed it open and saw that the broken door panel had been put back in place. Behind the door lay a piece of rebar, about four inches thick and over a yard long.
She closed the gate, planning to go to her great-aunt's house to pick up Little Douzi, when the woman from next door walked over, glaring at her irritably. "Lin Lan, isn't it about time you returned the eggs you borrowed from me!"
Lin Lan was completely dumbfounded. She only remembered that the woman was named Zhang Yazhen and lived next door, but she couldn't recall how many eggs she had borrowed.
She forced a smile. "Sister-in-law Zhang, I've had a cold the last few days and my head's all fuzzy. I forgot how many eggs I borrowed from you."
Zhang Yazhen looked at her with utter contempt. "Five eggs. You borrowed them last year. You said it yourself: borrow five, return six. You're not thinking of backing out of it, are you? If you can't afford to eat, you should just slap your own mouth a few times!"
Lin Lan was speechless. 'Original owner, just how gluttonous were you?'
"Six eggs, right? I don't have any eggs to give you right now. Can I pay you in cash instead?"
Zhang Yazhen nodded, her face expressionless. "Sixty cents!"
A memory surfaced in Lin Lan's mind: even a large egg only cost eight cents. 'Whatever,' she thought. 'A debt is a debt.'
She glanced at Zhang Yazhen, fished out sixty cents from her pocket, and handed it over with a polite smile. "Sister-in-law Zhang, sorry for making you wait so long."
Zhang Yazhen took the money and looked at her. "You also owe me one yuan. You said it was to buy cough syrup for Little Douzi."
Lin Lan felt like she'd been struck by lightning. 'Original owner, just how much debt did you rack up?!' Blushing, she counted out another yuan and handed it to Sister-in-law Zhang. "Sorry, I've owed you for a long time."
"Don't come to me to borrow anything again. Even if you do, I won't lend you a thing!" Zhang Yazhen stuck her chin up, and with a twist of her hips, she turned and walked away, her basket-sized butt swaying.
Back in her own yard, she grinned at the money in her hand, feeling smug. "Heh, good thing I'm quick-witted. I made twenty cents off those five eggs."
Zhang Yazhen thought of her sister-in-law and their other friend. She had to tell them to collect their debts from Lin Lan while she still had cash. Closing her courtyard gate, she headed around to the back of her house.
Lin Lan closed her gate and walked along the tractor path until she reached a wide ditch, about six feet across, spanned by Shiqiao. Stone slab steps led down the bank, making it convenient for the local villagers to wash clothes and vegetables.
Across the bridge, the paddy fields were full of rice seedlings. Their leaves were a bit yellow, a sign they had been recently transplanted and hadn't turned green again yet.
After walking along a ridge between the paddies, about two feet wide, she reached the back door of her great-aunt's house in four or five minutes. To the left of the back door was a bush of fragrant gardenias, and to the right was a clump of evergreens.
"WOOF WOOF~ WOOF WOOF~"
A dog with glossy black fur, triangular eyes, and two small tufts of white fur above them—a "four-eyed" dog—dashed out from behind the evergreens and barked ferociously at Lin Lan.
Lin Lan quickly picked up a clod of dirt to scare it. "Blackie, you're going to bite someone you know? I'll smack you!"
But she lacked conviction, and the black dog bared its teeth and barked even more fiercely at her.
Looking at its ferocious expression, Lin Lan recalled the folklore that black dogs could see evil spirits. She also remembered scenes from TV shows where exorcists used black dog blood to drive away evil. She stared at the four-eyed black dog, her heart pounding with fear.
'It can't have recognized me as a lonely ghost possessing the original owner's body, can it? If people find out and lock me up as a monster, I'll be in big trouble!'
At that thought, Lin Lan shouted, "Great-Aunt, are you there? It's Lin Lan! I'm here to take Little Douzi home."
"I'm here!" Before the words even faded, Yang Dingbang opened the door and scolded the barking "four-eyes." "Blackie, quiet!"
"Woof woof!" Blackie gave two friendly barks and squeezed past Yang Dingbang's legs, wagging its tail.
Yang Dingbang glanced at the clod of dirt Lin Lan had dropped. "Little Douzi ate and is now asleep with Dandan. How did things go at the police station?"
Lin Lan gave an awkward laugh. "..., I'll come back to get him in a little while."
Hearing this, Yang Dingbang warned her, "Liu Jinbao came out on the losing end. He definitely won't let this go. You should be careful."
Lin Lan nodded. "Thank you! I will be."
Yang Dingbang watched her leave, then closed the door and returned to the courtyard. An old woman doing needlework in the yard looked at him and asked, "How did it go?"
"The police station made Liu Jinbao pay her ten yuan."
"Sigh!" The old woman sighed. "A woman suffers if she marries the wrong man, and a man suffers if he marries the wrong woman."
Yang Dingbang went over and helped her thread the needle. He smiled, "You used to say she was greedy and lazy and didn't fulfill her duties as a woman. Why are you speaking up for her today?"
The old woman glanced at her grandson. "Who said I'm helping her? I'm helping that child, Little Douzi. He's already lost his father at such a young age; he can't lose his mother too. Besides, she was an innocent young woman when she married into the Yang family, only to be given away by that short-lived youngest Yang son to pay off his gambling debts. It's the Yang family that wronged her."
Yang Dingbang nodded. "Grandma, my cousin was spoiled rotten by my uncle and aunt."
The old woman sighed. "That's right. Raising a son without teaching him is worse than raising a pig. They're the ones who ruined the youngest Yang son. He himself was no good, so how can you blame the girl for being lazy and gluttonous!
"Sigh... Without your uncle and aunt, I couldn't have raised your father on my own, and later, I couldn't have raised you either. We have to repay their kindness. We need to help them raise Little Douzi right."
Yang Dingbang looked at the little old lady with a wide grin. "Whatever you say. It's because my grandma is so reasonable and understanding that she could raise such an outstanding grandson like me."
The old woman gave him a cheerful eye-roll. "There you go again, finding a roundabout way to praise yourself."
Yang Dingbang chuckled.
*****
As Lin Lan walked along the field ridge, she could see two women of about the same age standing at the gate to her home in the distance.
Zhang Yazhen was standing at her own courtyard gate, craning her neck to peek in the direction of the Yang house.
As she got closer, Lin Lan could see the two women clearly and searched the original owner's memories for information about them.
They both lived near the Yang family home. The round-faced woman's surname was He, and her name was Cuicui; she and Zhang Yazhen were sisters-in-law. The delicate-looking one with a face full of freckles had the surname Li and was named Guizhi.
One of the two lived behind the Yang house, and the other lived next to the bamboo forest to its west. The three of them had all married into the village from the same hometown and were very close.
The original owner had borrowed four yuan from these two. They had asked for it back several times, but she never repaid them. It had been almost a year.