Page 149 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

“Auntie, how did you know?” Lu-er blushed.
“You left footprints in front of my door. I knew you weren’t looking for Ji.

You were looking for me!” She pulled Lu-er up and looked him up and down.
“Auntie?”
“Shhhh!”
She motioned him to follow her. They came to the side of a well. Pointing to
the mouth of the well, Auntie Hua asked Lu-er if he dared jump in. Lu-er said
no, and Auntie Hua smiled.
“You’re a good kid. I’ll tell your father. I checked you out just now. You’re
free of any burden. Your father shouldn’t worry about you. Go home, okay? Go
home. There’s something nice waiting for you!”
Puzzled, Lu-er went home. But nothing nice was waiting for him. Maybe it
would appear at night? He continued making straw sandals. After a while, Ji
showed up.

“Lu-er, I’m confused.” He bowed his head and said despondently, “Has my
mother been here?”
“Huh? What’s wrong?”
“My mother has high hopes for me. Too high. The pressure’s going to kill
me.”
“I don’t get it. I thought your mother was fair and reasonable.”
“She is, but people who are fair and reasonable also have their bad side. She
makes you feel pressure. Our cattle were slaughtered a long time ago, and yet
she sends me up the mountain. And then I saw something I shouldn’t have seen.
You know what that was. I don’t want to talk of it. But my mama: I even think
of leaving her. I think, Is it because I’m not her biological son that she tells me
to go up the mountain and see that kind of thing? I think and think, and the more
I think about this, the more I come up with hateful ideas.”
“Your-ma-ma-is-very-kind,” Lu-er said, one word at a time.
“Of course. Sure. And your dad and mama are, too. We shouldn’t leave these
grown-ups. Do you agree?”

Lu-er was uneasy when Ji looked him in the eye and asked him this. He
answered reluctantly, “Yes.” Lu-er thought, Actually Ji is talking about that
matter. He went up the mountain often and knew the topography well. He had
seen it. Why did he say “something I shouldn’t have seen”?
“Ji, did you come to find me just now in order to speak ill of your mama?”
“At first, yes. But then I realized she’s good to me. Lu-er, can you come out
tonight?”
“My mother won’t agree. But I can slip out the window. Just wait for me
outside the courtyard.”
Looking at Ji’s back, Lu-er thought to himself, Is this what Auntie Hua meant