Yu Haitang lowered her gaze and twisted the corner of her shirt. Long after Wang Jianguo's voice trailed off, the stray hairs at her temples were still trembling slightly with her fingertips.
As a spark crackled and popped in the hearth, she suddenly thought of the old locust tree at the entrance of the alley in Sìjiǔ City.
On the Laba festival, she had been carrying an empty clay pot to get porridge when she ran into Sister-in-law Li being grabbed by the hair and slammed against the wall by her husband. The neighborhood old women, cracking melon seeds between their teeth, muttered, "A woman's lot is just like rapeseed," their spittle splashing onto the bluestone slabs and mingling with the melting snow to leave dark, damp stains.
Chapter 752