Su Muge looked at the yard and frowned.
As the night approached, it’s so dark in the yard, quiet and weird, which was incompatible with the ascending smoke in the surroundings.
Su Muge opened the fence gate. There was nothing but three old adobe houses in the yard.
An gave Zhao and Muge silver worth three liang a month just for effect. Zhao kept one liang for her use and the rest would be saved secretly. She had been sending at least ten liang to Zhang every year.
Su Muge knew that Zhang had three sons and two daughters and they were all married. They had more than ten acres of land. Zhao told Muge that her uncles were not useless. Her third uncle was a farmer, and the other two uncles worked at the town and had monthly income. Moreover, Zhao sent money to them every year. It’s not difficult for them to build several good houses.
Puzzled by this, Su Muge pushed the door of the main room and smelled an acrid stink that made her frown.
The room was so quiet that she could hear the weak breath clearly.
There was someone inside!
She took out the Huozhezi and lit the straw on the ground. Then she saw a person lying on the adobe kang, a traditional heatable bed.
The person lying in the bed was gray-headed and thin with sunken cheeks. Her head was like a skeleton without skin and flesh. Her quilt was worn-out with faded color, and it stank heavily.
Since Zhao married Su Lun, she had never gone back to see Zhang. So Su Muge was not sure if the person in the bed was Zhang.
Su Muge stepped forward. The person in the bed noticed and opened her eyes slowly with her dull look.
“You bastards. To get the money that your sister sends here every year, you let me consume my life by myself. Bastards, bastards!” The voice as hollow as that produced by a broken bellow haunted in the empty room.
Su Muge was not cold-blooded, so she felt so sad for the old woman.
“Is Zhao Xiaocui your youngest daughter?”
Hearing Su Muge’s voice, Zhang opened her turbid eyes widely. At last, she saw her. But the room was too dark, she could only see a thin figure vaguely.
“You, you…”
“Grandma, I’m Muge, your granddaughter.”
“Muge, you are Muge…”
Zhao wrote letters to Zhang so she knew something about Zhao and Muge.
“Really? You are Muge?” Zhang became excited and held Mugu with her skinny hand.
Su Muge held her hand softly. “It’s me, grandma. My mother sent me to see you. She just gave birth to my brother, so she couldn’t come back. Grandma, wait for a moment, and I’ll be back soon.”
Su Muge released Zhang’s hand and walked out of the yard.
It’s completely dark and there was no one outside. She went to a yard at the end of the village.
This was where the little girl who sent her to the village lived.
“Lady, you, why are you here…” The teenager who pushed the cart was named Hutou, the eldest son of this family and he was shy and awkward when seeing Su Muge.
“I want to buy something here.” Su Muge told him.
After a while, Su Muge went back to Zhang’s home with an oil lamp and a basket.
The oil lamp was not so bright but it could light up.
“Grandma, here’s something to eat.” She bought two boiled eggs and an oil lamp and that little girl Erya gave her two steamed buns and a bowl of porridge.
Zhang couldn’t wait to eat the porridge. Seeing that, Su Muge felt uncomfortable.
If Zhang had been taken good care of, she shouldn’t have been so miserable!
Zhang had eaten up a bowl of porridge and half of a steamed bun so Su Muge stopped feeding her.
Being full, Zhang was more energetic.
“Grandma, let me feel the pulse for you. My daddy hired a teacher for me and he knew something about medicine, so I learned a little secretly.”
Zhang doted on Su Muge so much that she didn’t doubt what she said.
Su Muge felt pulse for Zhang. The pulse was weak, but it didn’t mean she was dying. It was more likely that Zhang’s illness was caused by maltreatment.
She uncovered the quilt and saw Zhang’s leg with rotten flesh. Zhang was even clenching the quilt with all her efforts.
When Muge approached, she could even see some wriggling maggots!
“Damn it!”
At this moment, there came the sound of footsteps outside the room.