Suddenly, the sound of running footsteps—THUMP, THUMP, THUMP—came from outside, accompanied by a series of shrieks: "Mom! Mom! Something terrible has happened!"
Mo Xiaoman and Granny Mo both heard it clearly. It was Mo Xiaofeng's voice.
Liu Fengying cursed, "What are you screaming about? Your mom's right here, perfectly fine!"
Mo Xiaofeng ran closer, gasping for breath as she said, "The egg fried rice... it's gone!"
"What did you say?"
"I said, the egg fried rice you left for Dad is gone!"
Another person ran over; it was Mo Xiao Zhi. "It was definitely Mo Xiaoman! She stole Dad's egg fried rice! And the rice crust from the wok—the piece we were saving for Dad to have with his soup when he got back—it's gone too!"
Liu Fengying erupted in fury. "Mo Xiaoman! Well, look at you! A little thief now, are we? Stealing right from under my nose! No wonder you were acting so strange today. Did you think you could just hide in this room and get away with it? Get out here this instant! I swear, I'll tear you to pieces tonight! This won't be over! You stole from me, so you'd better spit it right back out! I'd feed it to the pigs and dogs before I'd let a wretched thing like you get away with it!"
Inside the room, Granny Mo trembled all over, her face deathly pale as she tightly gripped Mo Xiaoman's hand. She murmured, "Good child, don't be afraid. Grandma's here. Grandma completely believes it now—you're truly not her own flesh and blood!"
A CLANG rang out from the courtyard gate. It was the sound of a hoe striking a large piece of wood. Farmers returning from the fields, if they found mud on their hoes, would often give them a good knock at the gate.
Someone must be home!
Sure enough, Mo Xiaofeng and Mo Xiao Zhi shouted in unison, "Dad! Dad's home!"
Mo Guoqiang's voice followed. "What's going on? Feng Ying, what are you doing just standing here?"
"What am I doing? That worthless wretch is driving me insane!" said Liu Fengying.
"What's going on here?" The question came from another man. As luck would have it, Uncle Mo had come home too.
Mo Xiaosu ran up to greet her father, whining playfully, "Daddy, do you have any money? I want to buy some Seagull shampoo."
"Hey, hey! This kid..."
The father and daughter murmured to one another, their conversation not disturbing the family on the other side. After Mo Guoqiang heard Liu Fengying and his two daughters list Mo Xiaoman's terrible deeds, he flew into a rage and bellowed, "Where is she? Where is she now? See if I don't beat her to death!"
Liu Fengying pointed at Granny Mo's closed door. "In there! Stuffed her face and now she's hiding, thinking we can't touch her!"
"Move! Watch me kick this door in!" Mo Guoqiang strode forward.
Hearing this, Uncle Mo said, "Brother, this side of the courtyard is mine. Everything here belongs to me. You can kick the door if you want, but if you break it, you'll have to pay for it!"
Mo Guoqiang stopped. Liu Fengying said, "Hey, Mo Laoer, you can't talk like that. When the old man and the old lady die, are you going to carry them up the mountain for burial all by yourself, or are the two of you brothers going to do it together? After they're gone, all their things are supposed to be split evenly between you two! This is their room, so if the door gets broken, it's just broken. What's all this talk about paying for it!"
Uncle Mo's tone was full of displeasure. "Sister-in-law, what you're saying is nonsense! I disagree! The family property was split up ages ago. The two old ghosts live with me. I've been supporting them all these years, so on what grounds should their possessions be split with you after they die?"
"Second Brother, are you saying that when they die, you don't want us to help pay for the coffins?"
"Why would I need you to pay for coffins? The old man probably already..."
Before Uncle Mo could finish, Second Aunt Mo's sharp voice cut in. "Mo Laoer! Are you looking for trouble? You're home, so why aren't you inside? What are you doing out here? You itching for a beating?"
Uncle Mo swallowed the rest of his sentence and started walking toward the house, glaring at Second Aunt Mo under the eaves. "Damn shrew, would it kill you to not be so aggressive?"
Second Aunt Mo raised a hand and slapped her husband hard on the back. The two of them went inside, bickering all the way.
In the courtyard, Liu Fengying and Mo Guoqiang stared at each other, at a loss. Mo Xiaofeng asked anxiously, "Dad, Mom, what do we do now? Are we just going to let Mo Xiaoman get away with it? She stole Dad's egg fried rice!"
Mo Xiao Zhi twisted the corner of her shirt, her lips pouted and her eyes welling with tears, looking utterly wronged. "Dad, the egg fried rice smelled so good. We didn't even eat our fill because we saved the rest for you, but then Mo Xiaoman stole it all! *Sob sob sob...*"
Mo Xiaofeng patted Mo Xiao Zhi reassuringly. "Dad will beat her. And when Mo Xiaoqiang gets home tonight, he'll be sure to give her a good thrashing, too!"
'To think I've poured my heart and soul into caring for these younger sisters,' Mo Xiaoman seethed, 'and not one of them has an ounce of conscience! They won't be satisfied until they see me get a beating!'
Outside, Mo Guoqiang bellowed at the door, demanding Mo Xiaoman come out to "confess her crime." Granny Mo had initially planned on taking Xiao Man out, but hearing Mo Guoqiang's menacing fury, she grew afraid that he would hurt Xiao Man in his anger. As an old woman, she didn't have the strength to protect the girl, so she changed her mind. They wouldn't go out. Instead, she told Mo Xiaoman to pull out two wooden posts from under the bed and brace them against the door to stop Mo Guoqiang from kicking it down.
Just as she'd feared, when Mo Xiaoman didn't come out or even make a sound after the couple had been shouting and cursing for ages, they became agitated. Throwing all caution to the wind, Mo Guoqiang raised his foot and kicked the door!
In rural China during the 1970s, even if a house had a proper tiled roof, its walls were made of rammed earth. Red brick walls were practically unheard of. Mud-plastered walls and thatched huts, on the other hand, were commonplace. Grandpa and Grandma's hut was one such structure, built against a single rammed-earth gable wall and enclosed by three other mud-plastered walls. It stood no chance against Mo Guoqiang's kicks. While the braced door held firm, the mud wall next to it gave way, and half of the thatched roof came crashing down!
Granny Mo was blind and didn't realize the danger, but Mo Xiaoman cried out in alarm. She quickly dragged her grandmother into a corner of the room, saving them from being crushed and buried by the falling beams and thatch!
Outside, Mo Guoqiang and Liu Fengying were stunned to see the hut actually collapse.
A generation ago, in Grandpa's father's time, the Mo family had left behind this small, dilapidated courtyard. It was Grandpa who later earned enough money to return and build five tile-roofed rooms of rammed earth. The foundation, however, was indisputably ancestral land.
Grandpa had only one older brother, the father of Mo Guoqiang and Uncle Mo. After having two sons, both the brother and his wife fell ill and passed away. Childless themselves, Grandpa and Grandma raised their two nephews as their own. When Mo Guoqiang and Uncle Mo grew up and started their own families, the brothers each took two of the tile-roofed rooms. The central room served as the incense hall; its front half was used for ancestral worship during holidays and for reunion dinners, as well as for receiving guests. The back half, about a dozen square meters, was traditionally, by rural custom, the living quarters for the family elders. Grandpa and Grandma used to live there. But for some reason, and at some forgotten time, they had moved out of the main house and into this thatched hut, while the room behind the incense hall was given to Mo Xiaoqiang as his bedroom.
And now, even this thatched hut had been kicked to pieces by Mo Guoqiang.
Mo Xiaoman calmed herself and quickly whispered to Granny Mo, describing the scene before them.
A look of terror spread across Granny Mo's face, and Mo Xiaoman couldn't help but feel a pang of regret. 'If only I'd been braver,' she thought, 'if I'd just run out and let Mo Guoqiang and his wife give me a beating, at least Grandma wouldn't have been so terrified.'
Just as she was lost in thought, Granny Mo gave her a gentle push and whispered, "Your grandpa isn't home, and Grandma can't see, so I can't stop your parents. You have to save yourself! While they're distracted, you need to run! Go to any house in the village, it doesn't matter which one. Tell them Grandma sent you and begged them to take you in for a while. When your grandpa comes back, we'll go thank them properly! Don't let Liu Fengying catch you. Don't let them hit you again! If you get beaten too much, you'll become a fool, do you understand?"
Mo Xiaoman hugged Granny Mo tightly, tears instantly streaming down her face.