Yu Shu caught up with the angry and aggrieved Yu Yang, hooking his neck and stuffing him into the passenger seat: "Let's go, sister will take you out for skewers."
Yu Shu took him to an old shop in the county town and ordered a dozen beers and many meat skewers.
Yu Yang was still sulking with a black face at first, but after half a bottle of beer, he started crying and complaining to Yu Shu.
"Mom these past few years, her temper has become more and more eccentric, irritable, flying into a rage over the slightest thing, raising her hand to hit, lifting her foot to kick..."
"Uh-huh, have a lamb skewer." While agreeing, Yu Shu handed him a skewer.
"Last time I broke a bowl, she kicked my shin and left a bruise that took a month to fade."
"Don't be angry, have another bottle, are you drunk? Do you want Coke instead?"
Yu Yang was about to flip the table: "Are you even listening to me! Can't you... comfort me a little..."
Yu Shu sighed, rubbing the top of his head: "I don't know how to comfort you. Or I could double your New Year's money?"
"You don't understand... she doesn't hit you..." Yu Yang drooped his head dejectedly like a lame stray dog, head down, full of sorrow.
Yu Shu smiled bitterly and said softly: "How could I not understand?"
She pulled open her collar to show him the scar on her left shoulder, the burn scar almost covered half of her shoulder, with a lot of fibrous tissue hyperplasia, forming a hard, irregularly shaped scar. It was as if there was a twisted centipede under the thin skin.
Ugly and hideous.
Yu Shu never wore sleeveless tops, let alone bare her shoulders in front of Yu Yang. This was the first time Yu Yang saw the scar.
"How...did you get it?"
Yu Shu shrugged: "Scalded by porridge."
Ye Ping always had a bad temper. In the first few years after Yu Yang was born, she was extremely irritable.
The family had an extra child, expenses were increasing day by day. Yu Feng was working out of town at that time, and Ye Ping was raising two children alone. Her mental state fluctuated between depression and irritability. Yu Shu was only seven or eight years old at that time, at an age that was lively and playful, she had to walk on eggshells at home, the slightest heavier breath was wrong.
Once, Ye Ping sent her to buy salt from the convenience store and gave her five yuan. The boss's daughter was sitting at the door blowing pink bubbles happily. A bag of salt cost two yuan, bubble gum cost five mao for two. She couldn't resist the temptation of bubble gum and spent five mao to buy two. Afraid of getting beaten when she got home, she dawdled for a long time before going back.
She still remembered Ye Ping's expression when she handed over the remaining two yuan and fifty cents —— as if looking at a festering stray dog, full of disgust.
She pinned Yu Shu to the ground, strangling her neck, stuffing the two pieces of bubble gum into her mouth, cursing her with the most vicious words against her own daughter.
Yu Shu struggled desperately, overwhelmed by tremendous fear. The boiling porridge on the stove spilled onto her.
“Just a little bit more,” Yu Shu showed Yu Yang the distance between her thumb and forefinger, about two centimeters, “and I would have been disfigured.”
Yu Yang's expression was complicated, his brows furrowed tightly.
Yu Shu rubbed her nose, “Afterwards, she felt very regretful for a long time, hugging me and crying, apologizing, applying medicine, buying me ten yuan worth of bubble gum, and promising never to hit me again.”
"You didn't... go to the hospital?"
Yu Shu shook her head: "Otherwise, how do you think the scar remained?"
If treated properly, she could have avoided scarring, or at least not such an ugly scar.
"There was no money to go to the hospital. Dad had already not sent money home for two months."
It took Yu Shu a long time to realize that Ye Ping must have been sick at that time.
Yu Shu rubbed her shoulder uncomfortably: “A few years ago in the summer, she bought me a strapless dress online and had it delivered to my school dorm. She told me that I should be confident and open, so what if there are scars on my body? People with birthmarks on their faces live well enough without hiding them, I should reveal them boldly and generously.”
“At the time I was quite angry and retorted, if people ask about my scar and thus find out my mom has violent tendencies, who should I blame?”
Ye Ping was taken aback, then raised her voice to scold: “It was you who carelessly spilled the porridge and then blame me! I was raising you two by myself at that time, how hard was it for me?! While changing your brother's diaper, you scalded yourself...”
Yu Shu hung up her phone and buried herself in bedding. She thought she would cry, but her eyes remained dry despite the soreness.
“She seemed so certain at that time that I even started to doubt my own memory.” Yu Shu's gaze fell on a neatly cut piece of green onion topping on the skewer, it was cut more neatly than the other pieces.
“I don’t know if she really misremembered or was trying to convince herself. I'm too lazy to figure it out.”
When young she was obsessed with determining right and wrong. Later she became fixated on guessing truth and lies. Upon growing up, it turned into numbness. Truth and lies, right and wrong were not the final questions of a math exam, racking your brains to find the right answer would not give you extra points or change your score. The answer has no substantive meaning for reality, if you say it’s right then it’s right, if you say it’s true then it’s true.
Being casual and muddled makes things much easier.
Parents make mistakes in their first time parenting, just as children make mistakes in their first time being children.
“Many times, I wished Mrs. Ye was a villain. A son preference discriminator who would even sell her children, so I could leave home without hesitation, never to return. But she gave us two everything she could. "
"Although lacking due to her education and experience, it was still the best she could offer."
I’ve hated her, resented her, been disgusted by her, but I’ve always loved her.
We can’t choose our relatives; we can only keep compromising.
Tears rolled down Yu Yang's flushed face after downing another cup.
"Yo, which handsome boy is crying so sadly?" Yu Shu liked to tease him when he cried. She pinched his chin in a not so serious manner. "So pitiful, it hurts Big Sis so much to see you like this!"
"Get lost! Or I'll punch you!" Yu Yang's voice still carried a sob. His threat lacked any deterrence.
After teasing him for a while, Yu Shu waited for Yu Yang to settle down before imparting her wisdom on dealing with Mrs. Ye.
When to coax, when to whine, when not to disturb her...
One after another, all hard-earned lessons summarized from bloody experiences.
