Chapter 24

What Yue Chuan had wanted kept quiet, thanks to Zhao Qinhua, everyone knew at once.

Li Yue'e hurried over to hold her mother-in-law up.

Yue Chuan could do nothing about it. "He's only missing. They haven't found him. There's still every hope." It was all the comfort he could offer, but the driver was missing too, and none of it looked good.

Yao Shangqing forced herself to be calm. Missing, not found, meant hope. She told herself she had to hold this up.

Chen Yuanyuan could feel how hard the feeling was running in the hand that held hers. It was the same as the dream she had had a few days ago. But she could feel it. Her dad was all right. He would come home.

Li Yue'e hurried over to hold her mother-in-law up.

The Chen house came apart entirely.

Li Yue'e got old Mrs. Chen onto the bed.

Yao Shangqing saw Yue Chuan out and then shut the gate.

Chen Shaoyuan was seven. He knew what had happened, and he sat quietly to one side with his two brothers and didn't move.

Chen Youliang squatted in the main-room doorway with his hands tucked in. Zhao Qinhua sat on a stool in the main room with her arms round her son.

Yao Shangqing sat in the chair by the bed with Chen Yuanyuan against her.

Li Yue'e sat on the edge of the bed. Chen Yougang sat beside her and said nothing.

Chen Dayu and Chen Xiaoyu waited in silence too.

Zhao Qinhua looked round the room, then at her mother-in-law with the wet towel over her forehead.

"Ma, how are you feeling? Any better?" She spoke first. The thing had happened, so there had to be a way of dealing with it.

Old Mrs. Chen opened her eyes and made a sign to Li Yue'e to take the towel off.

"What is it you want to say?"

Zhao Qinhua swallowed. "Ma, if the third brother isn't coming back, shouldn't this household be split?"

Chen Youliang came up off his heels in the doorway. "You mad woman. What are you saying?"

Zhao Qinhua's heart was going hard. If the third brother was gone there was nobody earning. If they split, her two girls could bring in work points, and there would be one son in the house, easy enough to raise. If they didn't split, how many more mouths was that, all of them boys, and a stray girl from nobody knew where on top.

"I'm only saying what's true. What are you going to feed the third family on? Three boys and a stray girl. You tell me you can keep them."

Chen Youliang was slow with words. His eyes went red with anger and nothing came out.

Li Yue'e had her own sums running, then turned and looked at the three sons and the daughter the third brother had left, and thought about the money the third family had pulled out of their pockets when Chengcai was ill, and she couldn't do it. She had wanted her two to get their share once, but all that pushing and pulling had come to nothing, and besides, the third brother and his wife were straight with people.

Hearing Zhao Qinhua, Yao Shangqing covered Chen Yuanyuan's ears without thinking.

Chen Yuanyuan had heard her aunt. She knew she wasn't a Chen by blood. But her mum and her dad and her brothers were all good to her, so she was a Chen.

"Mum. Dad. Fine." Chen Yuanyuan put her small hands over the big ones covering her ears and looked up to say it.

Yao Shangqing hadn't shed a tear at the news. That was what made her cry.

The others took it for a sensible child saying a sensible thing. But to old Mrs. Chen on the bed it was like finding the main post of the house. If her Yuanyuan said it was fine, then it was fine. Thinking it over, she had panicked, that was all, and now the strength came back into her. She pushed off the second son's wife and started getting her shoes on to come off the bed.

Li Yue'e tried to stop her. "Ma, your health."

Old Mrs. Chen slapped her hand away. "I'm perfectly well. You needn't mind me." She got her shoes on and walked from the inner room out into the main room.

The sight of her mother-in-law coming gave Zhao Qinhua a fright, though she put on a calm face.

Old Mrs. Chen walked past Zhao Qinhua without so much as a glance, straight to the head seat of the main room, and sat down, entirely composed.

"Eldest's wife. You want the household split, do you?"

Zhao Qinhua jumped at her name. "Yes. I want it split."

Old Mrs. Chen nodded. "Second son's family. Do you want to split?"

Chen Yougang was always after some novelty or other, and these days there was no room for it, so he had given it up. The village thought him idle. On the matter of his third brother he had a position of his own.

"No, Ma. The third brother's been good to us."

Old Mrs. Chen nodded. "Right. In that case the eldest's family goes."

Chen Youliang nearly went down on his knees. "Ma, I don't want to split. Don't worry. I'm the head of my house."

Zhao Qinhua was thinking she would have her own life at last, and brightened. "Ma, we agree, we agree." Then she turned on Chen Youliang. "Not split? Who are the work points you earn out there supposed to feed? Doesn't your son need a wife one day? Doesn't he need a house? Think it through."

Chen Youliang looked at his son, the son he had waited all those years for.

One glance and old Mrs. Chen understood the whole of it. She simply waved a hand. "Eldest, you're not young. Three children. It's time you stood on your own. I don't need you to keep the third family, that goes to the second. We agree now. Good or bad, each household's life is its own, and there's to be no complaining about it. And you, see to your own house. Don't go about all day with your hands empty."

Chen Youliang felt the injustice of it, but he said nothing more.

"Yougang, go and fetch your uncle Qin to witness it. We're splitting with your brother." Old Mrs. Chen felt she had misjudged him before. The second son had his points. No malice in him, however idle he looked.

Chen Yougang said yes and got up and went.

Old Mrs. Chen looked at Yao Shangqing, teeth set, saying nothing, and sighed. "Yuanyuan, take your mum back to the room and make her rest."

Yuanyuan nodded and made to lead her away.

Yao Shangqing shook her head. She could hold up. She had got through her parents being sent down.

Old Mrs. Chen looked round this household. Trouble showed you what each of them was really made of.

Before long Qin Shan had been fetched over.

"Sister, I've heard. Don't lose heart, though. He's missing. The chances of finding him are still good." Qin Shan was a blunt man who said what he thought. He knew everything that happened in the village, and he thought well of the third Chen son, a young man he had hopes of. Let it be all right.

Old Mrs. Chen was easy about that. Her third son was fine. Before he came back, the eldest's family would be out.

"Don't worry, uncle. There's no storm I haven't seen."

Qin Shan was moved by the belief in her. It was something to admire.

"Yougang tells me you're splitting the household."

Old Mrs. Chen set it out.

"Shaoyuan, fetch the paper and pen from your room."

Chen Shaoyuan was miserable, but he ran and fetched them quickly when his granny said so.

Chen Yuanyuan picked at her fingers. She hated her aunt. She really did hate her. Her dad was fine, and she had said he wasn't coming back.

Zhao Qinhua was sitting on her stool swinging her legs, pleased with herself, when a leg of the stool snapped for no reason and down she went, and wrenched her back.

Chen Yuanyuan was delighted.

Chen Dayu helped her up, and Zhao Qinhua rubbed her back and said over and over what rotten luck she had.

Yao Shangqing looked at Chen Yuanyuan. It was a good thing to be a child. If only she never had to understand what the grown-ups worried about.

Chen Shaoyuan brought the paper and pen.

Old Mrs. Chen handed them to Qin Shan.

"You say it and I'll write."

Old Mrs. Chen set out what the house would give Chen Youliang's family.

"The east room they're living in goes to them. One chicken, one duck, fifty jin of cornmeal, half a sack of sweet potato, a sack of potatoes. That's all." When she had finished, everyone there stared.

Zhao Qinhua was still rubbing her back. Hearing the division gave her a jolt. "No, wait, Ma. You can't divide it like that. What about the money? And the coupons? Aren't those being divided?"

Old Mrs. Chen's eyes went across Chen Youliang's face and Zhao Qinhua's. "What have those to do with you? Coupons, money, which of them has anything to do with your household? You tell me."

Zhao Qinhua opened her mouth to answer and only then realized there truly was nothing.

Chen Youliang had his head down, thinking about something.

"What you're getting will last you until the grain's shared out at the autumn harvest."

Qin Shan looked at the declaration written on the paper. He was the one witnessing it. From the next grain share-out they would be counted separately, and the work points kept apart too. He brought out the ink paste, both sides pressed their thumbprints, and it was done.

Qin Shan finished the business, said a few more comforting words to old Mrs. Chen, and left.

Old Mrs. Chen saw him to the gate with a smile on her face, and the smile vanished the moment she turned round.

"Eldest, get someone to put a wall up through the middle here. The east room and the yard with it are yours now. The kitchen things we'll leave for now, and each household cooks its own." She measured it out with an arm across the yard.

Chen Youliang agreed without a sound. Zhao Qinhua went about sorting the room and the yard in high delight. The chickens and ducks weren't caught up yet, since there was no second coop, but from tomorrow her household would have an egg a day of its own. She knew what those hens laid.

"Ma, I'll tie string on the feet of the chicken and duck I'm having, so there's no mixing them up later." Zhao Qinhua said it beaming.

Old Mrs. Chen couldn't be bothered with her. She nodded and walked off.

Zhao Qinhua was busy the whole day. She had Chen Youliang seeing to the coop and found people to build the wall, and in one morning the whole of Baijia Village knew the Chens had split, and that the eldest had been put out on his own, which was strange.

By the afternoon somebody had put it about, and in the telling it turned into Chen Yougong's lorry crashing and the man dead, and that was why the Chens had split. A good many people sighed over it. Better to scratch holes in the ground at home, which was at least safe. The Chens were finished now.

Li Guilan got a fright when she heard. There was one wall between her and her old friend, so why was she hearing it as village talk? She went straight round.

Old Mrs. Chen was in her inner room sorting out balls of thread when she heard somebody calling. "Come in."

Li Guilan came into the main room and turned straight through.

"What's all this? I hear Yougong's had an accident?"

Old Mrs. Chen nodded. "He's missing. They haven't found him." She said it very calmly.

That struck Li Guilan as odd. "Why aren't you worried? Your third son. Your favourite."

"I'll tell you. Yuanyuan says her dad is coming back, and that he's all right." Old Mrs. Chen raised an eyebrow at her as she said it.

That settled it for Li Guilan. "Then there's nothing in it. But what have you split the household for?"

It made old Mrs. Chen angry to bring it up. "It was time. Grown sons don't take their mother's word. Better out. Life will be easier for everyone after this."

One word and Li Guilan knew there was a good deal in it, but she didn't take the lid off.

"When the third son's home, would you let Yuanyuan spend a bit of time with my Danju again?" She had been on it for a long while. After that first meeting her Danju had changed, there was no denying it. It hadn't gone further since. She had let them meet again, and nothing more had happened, and getting impatient hadn't helped.

Old Mrs. Chen thought it a fair point. "All right. We'll try it again when the time comes."

Li Guilan dreamed of her daughter coming right. If Danju got well, she would burn incense to the gods at every meal of the day. It was only that she didn't know which god it was, and the thought of it worried her.

Yao Shangqing pulled herself together as well, and planned for the worst. She would have to work hard to keep these children fed.

That afternoon every single one of the Chens went out to the fields.

Chen Yuanyuan stayed at home and watched her brothers, and Dayu and Xiaoyu, all unhappy. She knew it was because of her dad. But she had told them. Her dad was coming back. There was nothing for it but to say it again.

"Brother. Dad. Come back." Chen Yuanyuan took Chen Shaoyuan's hand and looked him in the eye, her small face serious.

Chen Shaoyuan looked into his sister's eyes and decided he shouldn't borrow trouble either. He should work, and even if later... he would grow up fast.

"Come on, work. The chickens and ducks probably haven't been fed, and nobody's dug the wild greens at the foot of the hill."

That set them all moving.

Chen Dayu and Chen Xiaoyu cleaned out the chicken and duck pens at home.

Chen Shaoyuan took his two brothers and Chen Yuanyuan to dig wild greens.

Chen Chengcai had slipped off to play long since, and Chen Juanjuan had gone to find her friends.

On the way, none of the three Chen brothers said a word.

Chen Yuanyuan picked at her small fingers. She could feel clearly how unhappy her brothers were, and there was nothing she could do. How did you cheer a brother up? If they could find wild duck eggs, that would do it. She had seen her second brother dreaming about eating them in his sleep. She had never had one and didn't know what they tasted like.

The four of them walked to the foot of the hill, each with something on their mind. To get across there was a small bridge, which wasn't really a bridge. Two thick trees had been felled and laid side by side, and it was solid enough.

Chen Shaoyuan sent Chen Shao'er over first with Chen Shaozhi, and took Chen Yuanyuan himself. The water below wasn't deep, but a fall meant wet trouser legs, and in this weather that meant a cold.

Chen Shaoyuan was very careful with her.

Once all four were across they went on along the little river. There was usually nobody here, but today there were a good many people out digging wild greens, and all of them talking about the Chens. They spotted the Chen children from a distance, and one busybody came over to ask.

"Shaoyuan, is it true they can't find your dad? What did the brigade leader say?"

Chen Shaoyuan said nothing, head down, wretched.

Chen Yuanyuan closed her small fists. Why did they have to ask? If she could only talk properly, she would say it out loud, that her dad was coming home. She took her brother's hand and held it, and looked ahead. "Ah, brother. Eggs. Eggs."

Chen Shaoyuan only took it in when he heard her.

Chen Shao'er looked too. There they were by the river, under the grass, where you wouldn't see them unless you looked. He ran over and picked them up one by one into his basket.

A young wife standing nearest the Chen children watched him put them in his basket with naked envy.

When he had them all, Chen Shao'er came over to Chen Shaoyuan. "Brother, I counted. Ten of them, and big ones."

Chen Yuanyuan's eyes were shining. She pulled at the basket and looked in. Real duck eggs. Was today a good day for wishing, then? She would have to think what her other two brothers wanted, so everyone had something and none of them would be sad.

Chen Shaoyuan looked at the eggs and nodded, smiling. There was no need to take the gloomy view. His dad would come back.

Chen Yuanyuan felt the confidence coming off her eldest brother. That was good.

They carried their baskets on past and found a little slope, put the baskets down and started digging wild greens, a bit at a time.

Li Qiaoqiao happened to be right by them. When she first heard the news it had hurt her. She knew the facts of it, that he was missing and not dead.

She looked over at these children. She had always thought a woman from a family with a background like Yao Shangqing's wasn't fit for Chen Yougong. These last few years things had finally come good for him, and now this. She couldn't have said what she felt.

Chen Yuanyuan paid nobody any attention. She crouched down by the baskets like a good girl and looked at the round duck eggs. She couldn't count yet and couldn't divide them, not even with all ten fingers. When would she be big, as big as her sister Xiaoyu?

Chen Shaozhi was three and a bit. To be safe they wouldn't give him the sickle, but he could run ahead and find the greens, then tell his brothers and they would come and dig.

He came back with a little flower of some kind in his hand. "For you."

Chen Yuanyuan took it. She didn't much want it. The flower was rather ugly, and she had a feeling she had seen better ones. But she didn't want to hurt her third brother, so she took it.

Chen Shaozhi handed it over and went off again.

Chen Yuanyuan stood up with the flower. Something over there seemed to be moving. She threw the flower aside and went off at a trot.

Chen Shaoyuan had gone some way off. He looked back at her out of habit and found her heading in another direction altogether.

He gathered up the greens he had just dug and started over towards the baskets.

"Yuanyuan, slow down."

Chen Yuanyuan might as well not have heard him, so there was nothing for it but to follow.

When he got there, Chen Yuanyuan was eye to eye with a litter of young rabbits, and the strange thing was that they weren't moving at all. Each of them was about the size of a grown man's palm.

"Big brother, look." Chen Yuanyuan pointed at them, grinning.

Chen Shaoyuan looked. Four of them, all young.

"You watch them. I'll get the basket and we'll take them home." And he turned and went for it quickly.

Naturally, other people had seen all this.

"Shaoyuan, what have you found this time?" The one who asked was an older woman, and she was thoroughly envious. She had been out digging greens this morning, and yesterday too, and how was it she never came across anything? The village had never been strict about this. Whoever found a thing had it, because in the bad years people really had eaten dirt and very nearly not survived.

Chen Shaoyuan grinned. "My sister saw some baby rabbits."

Sour as she was, the woman took it in good part. Her own bad luck, that was all. "Well, go on then. Have your sister watch they don't get away."

The others digging greens all stared. What luck the Chens had. They came out and found things, as if somebody were handing the stuff to them.

The earth god, stroking his beard, felt a lurch, and another. Somebody was handing it to them. His heart ached. He was going to claim it back from the Jade Emperor. If this one wasn't reimbursed he would resign, so there.

Chen Shaoyuan and the others dug a while longer and then took their baskets home.

Look what one trip brought other people. Better get on with digging the greens.

As soon as he was home Chen Shaoyuan found a basket and put the rabbits in it. They couldn't go straight into the chicken pen, which had an earth floor. Rabbits dig, and they would be gone.

Chen Yuanyuan crouched on the ground watching them, delighted, and Chen Dayu and Chen Xiaoyu came over too.

Chen Chengzhuang came back from playing somewhere, filthy from head to foot, with mud on his face.

"Rabbits, let me see." He shoved in among them, knocking into Chen Yuanyuan, and if Chen Dayu hadn't been quick and caught her she would have gone down on her backside.

Chen Yuanyuan pointed at him, furious. They were her rabbits. He could look, but why did he have to shove her?

"Brother. He. Shoved." Chen Yuanyuan was no match for him herself, so she went off thoroughly cross to report it.

Chen Shaoyuan was in the junk room looking for something, but Chen Shao'er heard, and came straight over.

"Did you shove Yuanyuan?" Chen Shao'er pulled a hard face at him.

Chen Chengzhuang bullied the soft and feared the hard, and his mother wasn't beside him now. He knew there was nobody to shield him.

"I didn't. I only wanted to see the rabbits." It came out with no force in it.

Chen Shao'er didn't like his aunt's family and didn't like this cousin, but the boy was older than him and hitting him wouldn't do. He picked the basket up and set it in his own doorway instead of out in the yard.

"You can watch them here, Yuanyuan."

Chen Yuanyuan stuck out her lip and looked at Chen Chengzhuang in triumph. "You. Not look."

Chen Chengzhuang burst out crying and ran off.

Chen Dayu hurried after him. Somebody had to keep an eye on him, in case he knocked into something.

Chen Xiaoyu felt it was hard on her. She didn't know why. If her third uncle didn't come back she couldn't go to school, and if he did come back she still couldn't, because the household had split. She looked up at Chen Yuanyuan, crouched there happily. How lucky she was, to be her third uncle's daughter. Why hadn't he taken her in instead?

Chen Yuanyuan felt a flicker of ill will and let it go without thinking about it.

Chen Shaoyuan found an iron cage in the junk room, one his dad had made.

He moved the rabbits into it carefully, and put some spoiled cabbage leaves in beside them.

The bell went early that day. There wasn't much work about at this time and there were plenty of hands.

Old Mrs. Chen and Yao Shangqing were given the same patch and walked home together.

"Listen to me. Yougong will come back. He's my son, and there's iron in him. Learning carpentry was bitter work, with his master cursing him, and he stuck it out. There are children in this house. He's run into some difficulty, and when it's settled he'll come home."

Having comforted her daughter-in-law, old Mrs. Chen wiped her face with her towel.

Yao Shangqing was not a weak woman.

"Ma, I'll take my lesson from you. I'll keep this house and wait for him."

Old Mrs. Chen was stuck for an answer. She wasn't the one to take a lesson from. She believed Yuanyuan. She would have liked to say so and couldn't, because this daughter-in-law was educated, and if she were called superstitious that would be that. Better to believe it quietly on her own.

The two of them walked home side by side. Tomorrow was a rest day, with no work.

Wang Fen had just finished work too, and the news she had heard put her in a wonderful mood.

"Well now. Heaven can only look on so long. Something always happens. There you are, didn't I say so." Wang Fen was walking back with her neighbour, and the pair of them talked very loudly, as though afraid old Mrs. Chen wouldn't hear.

There were a good many people on the road, before and behind, and nobody took it up. The Chens had a far better name than the Zhaos, and this was a matter of a man's life. You don't press on a sore place in front of people.

Old Mrs. Chen was no meeker than she had to be. She stopped dead and looked at Wang Fen. "You old wretch, keep your mouth clean. If you can't speak properly, shut it."

Wang Fen was pleased with herself and not in the least afraid of her. "I'll say it again, the same. Do enough rotten things and the reckoning comes."

Old Mrs. Chen knew her son was coming back, and she was still furious. She went straight at her and got a fistful of her hair. "I'll teach you to say it again. Mind you don't fall in the river, mind the lightning, mind the tree you walk into."

Wang Fen was quick too, and neither of them would let go.

Yao Shangqing had never seen anything like