I’m Zhou Xiaoxi, an abandoned baby my dad picked up when he was eighteen.
My grandmother, who came from a landlord family, runs a wonton shop by the ferry crossing. For over forty years, she’s supported her son and raised me all by herself.
One day, my manager asked, “When someone touches your thigh, can’t you move away?” I said, “I did. I moved into the bathroom.”
Grandma said, “Xiaoxi, I’m entrusting my son to you.”
Was Grandma entrusting him to me as if she were Liu Bei handing A Dou over to Zhuge Liang?
Chen Wang laughed. “I suppose so, but Liu Bei also entrusted him with a kingdom.”
My grandma has a kingdom too. Her kingdom is our wonton shop!
Hmph! They look down on my job!
I’m free, aren’t I? Apart from Grandma, I’m the biggest boss around here!
Uncle Li told me, “There’s feng shui in planting trees, too. You need the right time, the right place, and the right people. Life and work will go well only when heaven, earth, and humanity are in harmony.”
When I was in my final year of high school, Grandma couldn’t stand seeing me study so hard.
She said, “A woman’s virtue lies in having no talent.”
She also said, “If you study, you’ll just end up working anyway. We sell wontons. You don’t need that much education, and there’s no need to kill yourself studying. Staying up all night and making yourself sick is no good.”
But back then, I was like a woman possessed. I worked harder than I ever had before.
I took over the wonton shop, and I took over Grandma’s wait, too. I sold wontons from the ferry crossing to the county town, then to Ganzhou, and finally at my university. I kept the promise I’d made back then and gave a stinging slap to everyone who had ever bullied me.
Waiting for someone to return, waiting for a plum tree to bloom.
The ancient Meiguan post road, a thousand years old; the Zhou family’s ancestral hall, a century old; the old airport where grass grows and orioles fly; Yan’an to the north, and the former residence of Chen Yi in Chijiang to the south…
