Half-asleep, Fu Ying heard someone talking. It sounded like her older sister, who had returned to their hometown.
"She's been lying outside for a while. Dad, try waking her up. If that doesn't work, we need to rush her to the hospital."
Then someone began shaking her shoulders.
"Xiao Ying, Xiao Ying, wake up."
It sounded like Dad.
She blinked her hazy eyes open, and it really was Dad Fu.
Yet, why was Dad Fu's face patched with white and black? The white areas looked like newly grown flesh—soft and tender. The last time she had seen Dad Fu's face look like that was many years ago, back after the burn injury he and Mom Fu sustained when they started doing business.
Seeing relatives make money in business and finding their factory wages too low, Dad Fu and Mom Fu had decided to try their hand at business by selling cold dishes. After a month, they realized household expenses were too high and income too unstable, so they decided Mom Fu would go back to work while Dad Fu handled the prep and ran the stall alone.
One day, while singeing the hair off pig trotters with fire, Dad Fu made a careless move and started a blaze. He hurriedly threw a quilt over the flames, but because he hadn't dampened it, the trapped fire flared up wildly from the compressed air, catching on his clothes. Fortunately, the family was accustomed to keeping bottled water on hand; Dad Fu quickly poured a barrel of water over himself and used a garden hose to douse the fire under the quilt before finally heading to the hospital for treatment.
Back then, Fu Ying and her younger brother rode the school bus every day, only learning that their father had gone to the hospital when they got home from school. When Dad came back that evening, the ointment made the burns less obvious, but later the stark contrast between the large patches of new flesh and the old skin became clearly visible in black and white.
After that, Dad Fu gave up on the idea of business. Though he ran the stall for one more month, he ultimately went back to finding a job at a factory.
Seeing his daughter stare blankly without answering, Dad Fu assumed she hadn't fully recovered her senses yet. He quickly spoke up, asking if she felt uncomfortable anywhere and if she was dizzy.
Only then did Fu Ying snap out of her memories. She looked at her visibly younger father and the skin on his face, then glanced at the large tree by the doorway and her sister's house next to it.
This looked like her sister's house from many years ago, which later became her own family's home. Her sister had lived here until moving back to their hometown, and then her family had moved in, staying for maybe a year or two—it was too long ago to remember clearly.
Her sister was also asking from the doorway, "Xiao Ying, are you dizzy? If you feel like throwing up, we should go get it checked out at the hospital."
Fu Ying instinctively wanted to reply, but before the words could leave her mouth, she let out a few coughs. Then she shook her head—she was indeed a bit dizzy, but she would manage.Fu Ying still had not figured out what was going on.
Was she dreaming? Was she dreaming about her junior high school days?
She had a vague memory of this event. Actually, she had suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning, though fortunately a mild case.
It seemed to be shortly before her high school entrance exams. She had gone over to visit her older sister, who was doing some handicraft work while Fu Ying helped look after a few of her nephews and nieces. Her sister had three children, and the youngest was barely two months old. After the baby fell asleep, Fu Ying had fallen asleep too.
During the humid "returning south" weather season in Guangdong Province, it was terribly hard to get laundry dry, so her sister had kept a honeycomb briquette stove burning to dry the clothes. With the air not circulating, as she learned later, it was very easy to suffer from carbon monoxide poisoning under those conditions. She must have passed out from inhaling too much gas.
That day she had slept for a very long time; even after the children woke up, she still had not stirred. Dad Fu, on his way home from work, had been called over by her sister, who mentioned that Fu Ying was sleeping inside. Dad Fu went in, intending to wake his daughter up and take her home, but he noticed a heavy smell of gas. He hurriedly opened the windows to air out the room, then carried Fu Ying outside to a long bench, where she slowly regained consciousness.
Seeing that Fu Ying seemed to be fine, Dad Fu told her to sit on the bench and rest for a bit while he went back to cook. Mom Fu would be getting off work soon and needed to eat, and since the factory might have overtime, meal times were tight.
Her sister anxiously walked over to her with the youngest nephew in her arms, felt her forehead, and told her to rest a little longer.
The oldest nephew, who had gone to buy some small ice cream pops, came back with his younger sister and crowded around his mother and his aunt.
The little ice cream pops came in bags of five for fifty cents each. First he gave one to his mother, then one to his aunt, took one for himself, and gave one to his sister. There was still one left over, and the oldest nephew asked his mother, "Mom, there's one more. Can I have another one?"
"You can eat it. I'll give mine to your sister, so each of you gets two," his mother said, handing her own to his younger sister.
The two children said to Fu Ying, "Auntie, look, we have blue and pink ones."
Fu Ying squeezed the tiny ice cream pop—the kind you could finish in one bite, or maybe call a tiny ice pop. This was the kind of ice cream she used to want so badly during junior high school but couldn't often have. Her sister used to buy these all the time; one bag could be shared among everyone, so basically everyone got some.
She never bought them again afterward, nor did she ever see them sold in supermarkets again.
Her niece, who was very close to Fu Ying, hugged her leg and urged her to hurry up and eat, while taking a lick of her own ice pop.
Fu Ying put the ice cream into her mouth. It was ice-cold, sweet, with the taste of saccharin—a very authentic taste.