In 1950, Zhao Huaijin got married and became a rural teacher in Liugou Village. Over the next thirty years, he and his wife Zhou Suzhen had five daughters and one son, and they established a family tradition of farming and reading in the barren northern mountain village.
In 1977, the college entrance examination was resumed. The four daughters of the Zhao family were admitted to college in the same year, causing a sensation in the countryside. This was the most glorious moment for the family and the beginning of the rift - Zhao Jianguo, the only son in the family, was left on the land at the age of eleven. He would later become a violent peasant, a man burned by the light of his sisters.
In 1988, Zhao Jianguo's son Zhao Xiaohe was born. This child inherited his grandfather's acrobatic talent, but in a way that no one understands - he has amazing acrobatic talent, his body is his language, and backflips are his poetry. But in the rural value system that only recognizes "reading" and "farming", this talent is of no use.
Mother left. Grandpa passed away. My father remarried.
Zhao Xiaohe stopped doing backflips.
He learned a trade in Teruoma City, relied on his aunts' connections to enter a government agency, got married and had children, and lived out his life as an ordinary person.
He returned to Zhaojin and ordinary. The square inkstone lay quietly in the corner of his bookshelf, covered with dust.
