I am the Odd One Out Chapter 5

This morning, the women in the village were chirping like sparrows in the house, and the men were barking like animals outside. Mia looked at them quietly. Leo Lin came over and said to her, don’t do anything today. , Today you are the bride. After saying this, Leo Lin took the five Tian brothers into the city to drink.

Someone said: "Take the donkey, it can help carry some things back."

Leo Lin shook his head and said: "You can't use the donkey in this season. It will hurt the donkey in this season."

The six of them lined up in a line, all with their necks hunched and their hands in their sleeves. They walked along the village path, turned around an elm tree that was scorched by lightning, and walked onto the main road leading to the city.

After noon, cooked pork and mutton were put on the table, and the characters "囍" were pasted on the doors and windows. The women were still chirping, and the men were still shouting outside the door. They said that the wine bowls had been lined up on the table, in several rows, but the damn drinker hadn't come back yet. They said it was only more than ten miles to the city, and even the turtle should be crawling back, but the damn drinker hadn't come back yet. The women in the room said that it would be fine if the bellhop didn't come back, the groom hadn't come back yet, and the bride wouldn't be anxious if the groom didn't come back.

Mia smiled and said, "I'll be back."

It was almost dusk when Leo Lin and the others appeared on the road. Six people huddled together and staggered forward, like a sheepskin raft swaying in the vast white. They turned around the charred old elm tree and walked onto the road leading to the village. After the trail, there were no longer sheepskin rafts, but people walking in a row, swaying, shouting, and laughing non-stop.

The six drunkards came to the door, each holding two empty wine bottles in their hands. Leo Lin shook his body, spraying the smell of alcohol from his mouth, and raised the empty wine bottles to the people waiting for them and shouted:

"Here comes the wine, here comes the wine."

He staggered to the door, stretched out his hand and touched the door frame for a while, and after confirming that it was the door, he walked in with a smile. He put the empty wine bottle on the table and said to the people in the room:

"Drink, drink, drink."

The men with mouths full of saliva looked at the empty wine bottles on the table and said, "Drink it, they drank it all on the way."

Leo Lin's wedding was held amidst the snoring sounds of six drunkards and the chewing sounds of a group of hungry ghosts. Mia sat quietly by herself. She looked at Leo Lin lying on the kang in the back room, with the hair on his head like a bunch of weeds. The main hall was crowded with people, and there were many people in the courtyard. These hungry people puffed out their cheeks, and the way they lowered their heads and chewed reminded Mia of the far south, on a summer evening. Inside, someone scattered a handful of rice on the ground, and a group of chickens and ducks spread their wings and flew over. The next scene was like people huddled together eating.

Leo Lin spent his wedding in a deep sleep. When he woke up in the dead of night, he felt a headache and a buzzing sound in pain. In the beating light of the kerosene lamp, Leo Lin saw Mia's sitting figure motionless on the wall. His hum made Mia turn around, and he realized that Mia was sitting next to him.

Mia lowered her head to talk about his various drunkennesses, and the breath from her mouth fell on his face. It was colorless and tasteless breath, as clean as the morning breeze, and had an indescribable gentleness when it blew over his face.

Then Mia stood up and said that she had prepared ginger soup for him. As she walked away, she said that she would have a headache after being drunk and that drinking a bowl of ginger soup would make it better. When Mia came back with ginger soup, she also brought a bowl of meat and said that she had secretly hidden the bowl of meat. She said that she had never seen so many hungry ghosts. Mia opened her hands and said that it was just a few Next, all the meat on the table is gone.

She said distressedly: "That's a pig and two sheep."

That night, Mia unpacked her baggage for Leo Lin. After removing her clothes, she took out three blue calico headscarves. Mia said that she had nothing but three headscarves, which were her only preferences. Mia spread three blue calico turbans on the kang. Leo Lin had seen the phoenix wearing peony one before, but he had never seen the other two turbans. Mia pointed at a pattern of a magpie climbing a plum blossom and told Leo Lin that it meant joy; the other pattern was a lion rolling a hydrangea to show auspiciousness and joy.

Mia said to Leo Lin: "This is my dowry."

Also that night, Leo Lin removed a brick from the wall of the inner room and took out a wooden box from the compartment of the wall. He unfolded two pieces of yellowed paper, one was the house deed and the other was the land deed. He pointed The land deed told Mia that there were 476 acres of land on it. Then he took out a heavy red cloth bundle from the wooden box. After opening it, Mia saw seventeen large gold bars and three small gold bars. Leo Lin said that the big one is called a big yellow croaker and the small one is called a small yellow croaker. It takes ten small yellow croakers to exchange for it. A big yellow croaker.

Leo Lin laid out the gold bars one by one, and the past came to his mind. He told Mia that these gold bars were accumulated by his ancestors. In his few childhood memories, he still had the image of his father wearing straw sandals, coming back from the dusty city. After his father's death, his mother retired from work. After the wheat harvest every year, Theodore Tian led a donkey and his mother rode on the donkey's back to the Juhe Bank in the city. This scene made him feel sad when he recalled it. When he was young, he watched his mother sitting on the threshold, putting her straw sandals on her cloth shoes, and then walked onto the path with Theodore Tian. When they walked onto the road, she got on the back of a donkey and gradually went away in the morning light. It was not until the afternoon that she met Theodore Tian. Back home, his mother would raise a bunch of candied haws to him every time she came back. At that time, the donkey at home had a red tassel tied on its front fontanel and a small bell hanging around its neck. When the donkey went on the road, the red tassel fluttered and the bell sounded. After the wheat harvest that year when his mother fell ill, he followed his mother's footsteps and walked to the city. When he returned home in the afternoon, his mother had passed away. She died with her eyes open.

Leo Lin sighed and said that children and grandchildren should be waiting by the side when a person dies. If one person is missing, it is like the moon is missing a corner, and the deceased will not close his eyes. Leo Lin said that there was no one around his mother when she died, and the scene was like dark clouds covering the moon.

The past events came one after another in the long dark night of winter. The headache caused by drunkenness made the past events grow like weeds in Leo Lin's mind. It was not until he fell asleep that he entered peace.

In February, Leo Lin and Theodore Tian went to inspect the wheat every day. That day when he came back from the fields, he saw Mia standing in front of the door looking confused. Mia said that spring was coming, but her brother still hadn't arrived.

Leo Lin stood there for a long time. He had forgotten that Mia's brother, this man in a royal blue gown, walked away at dawn last autumn, and there was no news from him since then.

Mia asked Leo Lin if there was a temple here? She wanted to burn incense and ask Bodhisattva to bless her brother.

Leo Lin turned around and pointed to the brilliant sunset in the west. He said that there was a Guandi Temple fifteen miles to the west.

That night, Mia put a small bundle on the kang, then turned off the kerosene lamp and got into the quilt. She rested her head on Leo Lin's arm and whispered:

"The food is on the stove, and the clothes are in the closet. The ones on the left are patched clothes for you to wear when you go to the field. The ones on the right are unpatched clothes for you to wear when you go into the city. There is also a new suit and two I made a new pair of cloth shoes these days and put them in my closet."

After hearing this, Leo Lin said: "You are only going for one day, not for a year and a half."

Mia said nothing, and Leo Lin's snoring started to sound. It was the last night of February. The moonlight shone in through the window and sprinkled on the ground in front of the kang. There was also a slight breeze coming in through the window, bringing the moist smell of the remaining snow.

When Leo Lin woke up in the morning light, Mia was already gone. From the field came the loud braying of animals, the sound of waving branches and the shouts of people. Leo Lin came to the outhouse and saw an old piece of cloth covering the loom. He thought that Mia was so careful that she would cover the loom after leaving for a whole day. When he came to the stove, he saw that the stove was piled with food, which was enough for him to eat for half a month. Before leaving, Mia arranged the interior and exterior of the house neatly, which satisfied Leo Lin. After breakfast, he went to the fields to inspect.

When he went out, he met Simon Tian. Simon Tian told Leo Lin that he saw Mia walking on the road at the entrance of the village before dawn. Mia was carrying a bag on her back and holding another in her hand, as if she was going back to her parents' home. Leo Lin said he would go back to his parents' home, while Mia just went to Guandi Temple to burn incense. Simon Tian was surprised and said, Guandi Temple is in the west, why did she go south? After hearing this, Leo Lin's heart skipped a beat, worried that Mia had gone the wrong way.

That day, when the sun set in the west and darkness fell, Mia did not come back. Two more days passed and Mia still didn't come back.

Mia is gone and never returns. Leo Lin found that Mia's clothes were no longer in the closet, Mia's cloth shoes were no longer under the kang, and Mia's clogs and Feng Chuan Peony's headscarf were also gone. The wooden clogs and the phoenix wearing peony scarf are the southern atmosphere that came with Mia, and now Mia has taken them away. Mia left behind the scarves of the magpie climbing the plum blossoms and the lion rolling the hydrangeas. These two scarves were pressed on top of Leo Lin's clothes in the closet, leaving behind Mia's voice and smile like a flying goose leaving a sound.

Leo Lin was restless for the next few days. His sleep was as light as a floating object. The crowing of dogs and the sound of wind and grass would wake him up from his sleep. The occasional footsteps in the distance made his heart beat faster.

He knew that Mia did not go to the Guandi Temple in the west, but went south. He felt that Mia might have left, but he didn't know why Mia left. Leo Lin felt confused in his heart, as lonely as a field in winter. He vaguely imagined that Mia suddenly appeared in front of him one evening with a baggage in her arms. Such thoughts are like the sunrise and sunset every day, they come and go, go and come again.

Until one day, Leo Lin was convinced that Mia would not come back. That night, Leo Lin finished eating the food Mia left on the stove, turned off the kerosene lamp and lay on the kang. The moonlight coming in from the window kept him unable to sleep for a long time. Mia had prepared food for him for almost half a month before leaving. Now that he had finished eating, he thought that Mia might be coming back. He felt that Mia must have calculated her schedule well, so she prepared so much for him. The food, the fire of hope burned in his heart, and he became excited and excited.

At this moment, a strange thought came to him. He suddenly remembered the wooden box in the partition wall, and connected the wooden box with Mia's departure. He recalled that night he took out the wooden box from the partition wall, opened it and showed Mia the gold bars, as well as the land deed and house deed. At that time, the look on Mia's face was frozen, and he felt that she was not listening to him. As he spoke, he reached out and pushed her, and she shivered.

He jumped up on the kang, lit the kerosene lamp, removed the wall tiles and took out the wooden box. After he opened it, he saw that the red cloth bundle was still there, as well as the land deed and house deed. He felt relieved, but when he picked up the red cloth bundle Feeling that the weight had become lighter, I hurriedly opened the baggage, only ten of the seventeen large gold bars were left, and one of the three small gold bars was missing. There was an explosion in his head, and he knew why Mia never came back.

Late at night, many people in the village heard a terrible sound in their sleep, sometimes sharp and sometimes deep, whizzing past in the night sky, making everyone who woke up from their dreams terrified. The next day, they all said that the village was haunted last night. .

This was the voice of Leo Lin. He found that Mia had taken away almost half of the gold bars that his family had accumulated since his ancestors. He was trembling all over and started to cry. His cry was longer than the cry of a baby, and then like It was like a bullied child looking for his parents. He walked to his parents' graves in the cold moonlight, knelt on the ground, sometimes shouted loudly, and sometimes choked up and was speechless. When he shouted, he said:

"Father! Mom! I'm sorry for you and my ancestors. Dad! Mom! I'm your unfilial son, and I'm the prodigal son of the Lin family. Dad! Mom! I'm blind and I've been deceived! I'm stupid and our family property has been stolen." La. Dad! Mom! Mia is not a good woman..."

After that, Leo Lin became taciturn and his smile disappeared from his face. He was worried and often looked at the road at the entrance of the village in a daze. He sometimes thinks of Mia and the man named Alex, wondering if they are brother and sister. The time Mia stays in his mind is getting shorter and shorter, and Mia's sweet smile is like late autumn in his memory. The leaves are withering, and Mia's crisp voice is also drifting away in the wind. When Mia goes away in his memory, his anger towards Mia is also dissipating.