Chapter 9 Persimmon Episode

  "Xiao Ye, eat well and look at what? Mom will buy you persimmons to eat." Qiu's mother coaxed the girl into eating more.

  This old girl and her son are two extremes. Her son is drinking cold water and growing taller, he's only 12 years old this year, in the second half of the year he'll be in grade 5, and he's already over 1 meter 60 tall, the tallest in his class, always wandering around in the back row of the classroom, silly big. This old girl has been a picky eater since she was young, but her family conditions are not good, how can they afford to let her eat whatever she wants? So she's never grown tall, this year at 8 years old she's only over 1 meter 40. Although the neighbors all say that Qiu Ye is not short for her age and height, but compared to her older brother, Qiu's mom always feels that her daughter's nutrition has not kept up, and she's shorter than him.

  In fact, Qiu Ye didn't grow taller in her previous life. She had already grown to 158 cm when she was in elementary school and only grew 2 cm during junior high and high school, barely reaching 160 cm.

  Qiu Ye loved to eat fresh vegetables, especially persimmons. As soon as summer arrived and the persimmons were ripe, she would clamor to eat them. Her mother would use this to coax her into eating more rice.

  Qiu Ye felt embarrassed, after all, she was a grown woman in her thirties, and hearing her mother talk to her like a child was really speechless.

  But also remembered the scene of buying persimmons with mother in summer when I was a child.

  Every summer when the persimmons are first picked, Mrs. Qiu wouldn't buy them because they were too expensive. She would wait until the production team sold the leftovers in the evening, and then she would go to buy some. By that time, the persimmons would be either crushed or soft from being squeezed by people. If they couldn't be sold out on the same day, they would spoil. So in the evening, the persimmons that cost 25 cents per catty in the daytime would be sold for 5 cents, and Mrs. Qiu would go to pick some of the crushed ones, wash them clean and give them to her children as a snack.

  Actually, Qiu Ye's family also has land, which is a welfare provided by the Normal University to its employees. It is located on the south side of the university and covers a large area of black soil. Each employee of the university was allocated two ridges, each over 100 meters long, so it's not bad to have two ridges. Moreover, the couple living downstairs in Qiu Ye's building are both teachers at the Normal University, one is an English teacher and the other is an art teacher, both of whom have studied abroad.

  They got along well with the Qiu couple, so when the unit was just allocated land, they allocated two ridges of their own family's land to the Qiu couple for farming. The Qiu couple saw that they wouldn't be able to farm it themselves and thought it would be a waste if left unused, so they took over. However, every summer when the vegetables were ready, whenever Mrs. Qiu went to pick them, she would always pick two portions, come back and have the children send one portion downstairs, which was also a way of repaying kindness.

  Qiu's family has four ridges of land, but somehow, the ones they planted themselves are always slower to mature than those grown in the big fields. Other people's vegetables have been harvested for over half a month now, while theirs at home can only be picked sporadically.

  So every year before the vegetables from their own land are harvested, Qiu's mother wouldn't buy any vegetables to eat and would only occasionally buy some persimmons for the kids.

  Qiu Ye was reminded by her mother of the scene when she went to buy persimmons as a child, feeling a bit heartbroken, and even more determined to make money quickly.

  After finishing lunch, Qiu Ye thought of helping her mother wash the dishes. As a result, her mother stuffed a broom into her hands and told her to play outside, shooing her out of the kitchen.

  Qiu Yexin thought, didn't I already finish sweeping the floor for mom today? Why is mom asking her to sweep again? Won't it be because mom is worried that she doesn't have a good grasp of it and wants her to practice more? But does sweeping need practice?

  Qiu Ye held the broom like a gun, standing in the dining hall in a daze. (In the old three-generation household, there was a small hall in the middle where meals were eaten.) Qiu Feng had just come out of the toilet and saw his younger sister holding the broom with a sad expression, standing stupidly. He thought his sister was forced by their mother to do chores and didn't want to sweep the floor, so he felt sorry for her. His father had said that as an older brother, he should take care of his sister, so he showed some rare sibling love, snatched the broom from Qiu Ye's arms and started sweeping the floor, saying: "Little sister, I'll help you sweep."

  Qiu Ye looked at the dusty dining hall and hastily took the broom from her brother's hand, "Brother, let me sweep instead." How could this child be so big and still not know how to sweep the floor? The education in kindergarten was really a failure. She should go back and get re-educated, but now she had to behave well in front of mom.

  Qiu Feng looked at Qiu Ye's defensive little appearance and thought, "This helps you sweep the floor, but you're still not happy. This kid is just too spoiled."

  "Go on, sweep the floor clean, I'm going to listen to a storytelling session." He turned around and went into his room to fiddle with the only household electrical appliance, a radio.

  The layout of the building in the 1980s was roughly the same. As soon as you enter, there is a room directly opposite, which is Qiu Feng's bedroom. To the right are the toilet and kitchen, and to the left are Qiu Ye's bedroom and Qiu Baba and Mama's bedroom.

  When Qiu's father and mother came out of the kitchen after washing the dishes and putting away the cooking utensils, they saw that Qiu Ye had swept the whole house clean. This time, Qiu's father personally witnessed his beloved daughter sweeping so cleanly, he was overjoyed and immediately picked her up in his arms, kissed her little face, and praised: "My old girl is really capable, no matter how much money others offer, Dad won't exchange."

  When I was a kid, adults would always scare me by saying things like "If you're not good, we'll give you away to another family" and my dad would often jokingly say this to scare us kids.

  Qiu Ye felt a bit embarrassed to be hugged and kissed by her father at such an old age, but she couldn't bear to give up this hard-won opportunity for closeness. In her previous life, she had never remembered being so close to her father, thinking he was a simple, wooden, unsmiling, inarticulate, and inflexible person. Now it seemed that wasn't the case after all. Perhaps it was the pressure of life, the hardships, and the frustrations of his job over the past twenty years that had changed him into such a person.

  This life, she must work hard to earn money, not letting her parents worry about their tuition every day. If there's an opportunity, she also wants to see if she can find other things for her parents to do and develop her own career. Looking at her parents' current state, if guided properly, it's possible that in the future she might become a rich second-generation heir or something like that.

  "Old Qiu, you're back! Didn't you see that your daughter is exhausted? Hurry up and take her inside, the child needs to sleep." Qiu's mom looked at the girl in Qiu's dad's arms, who had a dazed expression on her face, thinking she was tired, so she quickly told her husband to take the child inside to sleep.

  Qiu Ye buried her face in her father's shoulder and pouted, what kind of eyes did this old mom have? She was thinking about it herself, how come it became sleepy and tired in her mom's eyes? Besides, sleeping right after eating wasn't good for the body either.

  But for the sake of one's own lucrative business, these are all tolerable.

  "Dad, I want to sleep with you guys at noon today. I miss you all." Qiu Ye deliberately said to her dad in a spoiled tone, that sweet and soft voice made herself tremble with excitement, don't doubt it, it was the sound of her own voice that moved her.

  However, Qiu's father obviously had more patience than Qiu Ye himself. Upon hearing the old girl's request, he happily said: "Oh my, why is this old girl so lovable? Alright, sleep with Dad today and let your mom go sleep in that room."

  Qiu Ye panicked, her main purpose was to get up with her mother and go to her mother's workplace. If her mother slept in, how would she get there?

  "No, I miss mom too, and mom sleeps with us."

  Originally, Mrs. Qiu had just heard her husband say that he was going to take their daughter for a nap and had driven herself out of the house, so she was a bit unhappy. But after hearing what her mother-in-law said, she smiled again and said: "My mother-in-law is still good, unlike your father who has no heart or lungs. Let's go inside and sleep, Mom will hug you this afternoon."

  Qiu's father was somewhat perplexed by what Qiu's mother said. How did he become so heartless?

  "What are you still standing there for? If you don't want to sleep, then go to that room yourself." Qiu's mother was furious seeing Qiu's father still standing outside the door. This dead man had just tried to drive her out of bed, he really had a lot of nerve.

  "Sleep, sleep, sleep, let's hurry up and sleep." Qiu Dad reacted and quickly hugged the girl into the house, putting her on the bed.

  He hadn't even taken off his shoes and gotten into bed when he was driven out again by his wife.

  "Go get your son to bed first and stop him from messing with that broken radio."

  Qiu's father obediently accepted his fate and left.

  As a result, at noon on the same day, the four of them were squeezed together on a one-and-a-half-meter-wide bed to take a nap.

  Qiu Ye was squeezed between the wall and her mother, holding onto the hem of her mother's clothes, drowsily thinking that on the first day of rebirth, she had already failed so miserably. All for the sake of getting up with her mother, she didn't sleep in her own 1-meter-wide single bed, but instead ran over to pile up like a human pyramid, what a miscalculation!