The heavy snow drove down recklessly, falling continuously for four days and four nights.
By the dawn of the fifth day, the snow fury subsided, and the sun finally showed its face.
Sunshine had not visited this place for a long time. This was a ridge of hills in the central region of Anhui Province, where a village sprawled like an open-armed figure. The village was called Baijia Village, a place forgotten by the world for many years.
Beneath the blanket of pristine snow, the village's crisscrossing thatched cottages were no longer visible, leaving only distant and nearby heaps of snow, high and low mounds of white. The mountain forests, fields, ponds, and small streams were all rendered in a smooth, thick, pure white. Heaven and earth were seamlessly connected by this whiteness, stretching infinitely without end.
The morning sun shone brilliantly. The morning village lay profoundly quiet.
Many villagers, accustomed to rising early, had actually been awake for a while, but no one wanted to be the first to get up. Just linger a little longer, just linger a little longer. Though a tattered, worn-out quilt could hardly create a sufficiently warm nest, huddling together for mutual warmth was still much better than shivering in thin, single layers of clothing.
Alas! Such a captivating snowy scene, yet such a ruthless winter...
The roosters were too lazy to crow, managing only a few hoarse cries before falling silent, flapping their wings to bully a few hens nearby. A wild boar with two long tusks grunted inside its pen; it had been wanting to get up since nightfall to find something to eat, yet it hadn't budged half an inch by daybreak.
Suddenly, a child's loud wail rang out from a thatched cottage, shattering the peaceful tranquility of the village.
"Who is it—this early in the morning!" A woman opened her drowsy eyes and murmured.
"Who else could it be? Little Xiao Jiu'er from the Fang family, of course! He must have wet the bed again last night, and Uncle Fang gave him a hard kick first thing this morning," a man said with a smile, immediately pulling over the blanket that the woman had hogged most of, and burrowing back into it forcefully.
Xiao Jiu'er of the Fang family had wet the bed again last night. When Uncle Fang stretched his leg out this morning, he found the bedsheet ice-cold. Instantly flying into a rage, he delivered a harsh kick to Jiu'er's little bottom.
All night long, the sound of heavy snow snapping tree branches behind the house echoed with sharp cracks, keeping Auntie Li tossing and turning, unable to sleep. With snow this deep, when would it ever melt? Her eldest son was fifteen, a young man who understood the value of pride; of course, his clothes had to look decent. "New for the eldest, hand-me-downs for the second," that was only natural, of course. But then there were the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth... Thinking of this, she used the glowing reflection of the snow outside the window to glance at Xiao Jiu'er sleeping beside her. Among her nine children, only the youngest had a pair of sparkling big eyes and long, drooping eyelashes that made him look all the more handsome. Jiu'er was still little; as long as he didn't freeze, that was enough, she thought gloomily.
Not knowing what watch of the night it had reached, Auntie Li grew extremely drowsy and drifted off into a hazy sleep.
The sudden wail startled Auntie Li awake, chasing away her pleasant dream in the process. She immediately realized in her heart that Jiu'er must have wet the bed again, angering her husband who slept at the other end. Her husband had a straightforward temper; if he bottled up his anger without venting it, he would set this broken thatched cottage on fire. Rather than letting him burn down the house, it was better to let him kick Jiu'er's bottom a few times to blow off steam and be done with it.
Feeling the bedsheet soaked by Jiu'er, Auntie Li felt a wave of worry. She blamed herself for not being careful enough, letting her mind wander with idle thoughts all night and forgetting to help Jiu'er relieve himself. In this freezing weather, a wet bedsheet was the biggest trouble of all! Should she... dry it over the charcoal brazier? Thinking of this, she hurriedly scrambled out of bed, put on her clothes, gave her hair a quick sweep, and rushed out of the room to the kitchen to start a fire for cooking and prepare the wooden charcoal braziers.
Golden sunlight crept in through the sole small wooden window on the east side, shining ray by ray, warmly illuminating the freezing stove top.
There were two pots on the stove: a large one near the window, and a small one right next to it. Their two black wooden lids had fallen apart time and time again, until a few days ago when Uncle Fang hammered some old screws into them, finally settling them down. Piled beside the stove were withered yellow pine needles as high as a wall and neatly stacked firewood. In front of the house stood a huge stack of firewood and straw. Taking all the miscellaneous chores of the household into account, the firewood was the only thing that gave Auntie Li complete peace of mind.
A vat in the kitchen was filled with water, hauled back from the small stream by her eldest son before the snow started. Right now, the only pond in the village was frozen three feet deep, and the small stream outside the village had become a place for ice skating and play.
Auntie Li boiled half a pot of hot water, thoroughly scrubbed the stove top, and cleaned away the footprints and food scraps left behind by mice and cockroaches during the night. Most hateful of all were the mouse droppings, which were everywhere.
A bowl of rice, seven or eight large sweet potatoes, and several big ladles of river water came together to make a large pot of thin porridge. Hearing the porridge bubble away and seeing thick steam rising from the pot lid, Auntie Li stopped adding firewood to the stove belly. Using a pair of large iron tongs, she picked out glowing red-hot pieces of charcoal one by one, carefully placing them into the charcoal brazier, and also warmed up two yellow clay hand warmers in the process.
"Mom, I'm back!"
The two wooden doors creaked open as the eldest son slipped into the house with a smile. Plumes of white steam continuously puffed from his mouth and nose. Despite the bitter cold, the smile on his face was warmer than that long-overdue sunlight.
"Just you back by yourself? Where are the second, third, fourth, and fifth?" Auntie Li asked as she walked over, handing one of the hand warmers to Fang Yi.
"I called them, but they said it's too freezing outside and none of them want to get up." As Fang Yi took the hand warmer, a quick idea flashed through his mind. He quietly sneaked into Uncle Fang's bedroom and stole a handful of peanuts from a torn spot in the corner of a woven plastic sack.
The Fang family had the largest household in Baijia Village, with nine children in total: five boys and four daughters. Their eldest son, Fang Yi, would turn sixteen after the Chinese New Year. The second son, Fang Rong, the third son, Fang Hua, the fourth son, Fang Fu, and the youngest son, Fang Gui, all went to school. Their eldest daughter, Fang Mei, had dropped out after attending for only half a year; although she longed to study, there was endless work to be done at home, forcing her to leave school. The second daughter, Fang Lan, had never set foot inside a school gate at all because she was so capable and formed an indispensable labor force for the family. The third daughter, Fang Ju, was naturally bright, and with two older sisters shielding her, she successfully entered school to learn to read and write. Only the five-year-old youngest daughter, Fang Lian, was growing up carefree at home.
The Fang house faced south and was situated at the southern end of the village. Four earth-walled thatched rooms stood connected in a shape resembling a carpenter's folding square. Each room was so small it could barely hold a bed and a pile of miscellaneous items. Aside from the main hall and the kitchen, there were two bedrooms. The slightly larger one on the east side was given to the four daughters, while the smaller one on the west side served as the bedroom for Uncle Fang and Auntie Li.
When the children were small, they made no distinctions, all sleeping crosswise on one big bed. As they grew older, that bed could now fit at most four girls lying sideways. Left with no choice, the five boys had to sleep in other people's homes around the village. Each of them had good friends in the village, and whichever house had extra space on their bed, that was where they slept, squeezing in for the night whenever they could.
Although the families in Baijia Village had different surnames, neighbors lived in harmony with few quarrels. The villagers had weathered the hardest times together, and by now they shared everything without distinction, to the point where they didn't even need to latch their doors at night. This proved genuinely convenient for the five boys of the Fang family; even in the dead of night, they only needed to gently push open a door to slip smoothly into a friend's bed and enjoy a sound, dreamless sleep.
After finishing the breakfast, Auntie Li called the daughters to get up and wash. She changed Xiao Jiu'er into dry clothes, spreading out the damp clothes and wet bedsheet over the charcoal brazier to bake. Soon, billows of hot steam rose above the brazier, and a pungent, unpleasant urine odor assaulted the nostrils.
Fang Yi helped his mother clean the house, then cajoled and coaxed Xiao Jiu'er—who still had his eyes closed—into washing his face and rinsing his mouth. The moment Jiu'er opened his eyes, he began demanding food. Using two small twigs like a magician, Fang Yi fished out several roasted peanuts from the hand warmer, shelled them, and popped them into Jiu'er's mouth.
Fearing Auntie Li's scolding, the second, third, fourth, and fifth sons slipped back into the house through the back door without a sound.
Breakfast began. In the exact center of the main hall's table sat a small dish of peanuts, a bowl of pickled radishes, a bowl of pickled chives, and a bowl of pickled shepherd's purse. The nine children sat huddled around the table, each with a large, steaming bowl of sweet potato porridge. The slurping sounds of them drinking the porridge sounded from afar like raindrops falling under the eaves of a thatched cottage on a drizzly plum rain day.
Except for the peanuts, which remained completely untouched, the other three bowls of side dishes were emptied in no time. Auntie Li hurriedly turned and went back to the kitchen, emerging shortly after with another bowl of dried salted radishes.
That small dish of peanuts was saved exclusively for Uncle Fang. He was the head of the household, holding supreme authority, and also the family's primary laborer who needed to eat the best food to have the strength for work. At that moment, he was in the outhouse. The very first thing he did every morning was light a cigarette, then squat down slowly in the outhouse for a long relief, staying until he finished smoking that cigarette.