Sweetened Red Beans - Chapter 2

A sharp, piercing crash rang through the courtyard.

I was doing my homework. It nearly scared me out of my skin.

The bowl I’d left on the wall lay smashed to pieces two meters away. I clenched my pen as though I were squeezing Zhou Maoxiu’s stupid head.

Little bastard!

That was the fourth bowl!

The first had never come back. The second had vanished. The third had shattered in the drainage ditch outside our house.

Wonderful. At least the fourth had returned home before dying.

And the little bastard was long gone.

I set another bowl on the wall, with a sweet beside it. Through its transparent green plastic wrapper, you could see the round candy inside.

Then I found a bamboo switch over a meter long and hid behind a leafy evergreen shrub.

I felt like a naughty child setting a trap for sparrows in the snow. It was thrilling.

The moment he showed up, I would punish evil and uphold justice!

Several mosquito bites later, Zhou Maoxiu finally came limping toward me.

I frowned. Hadn’t he been running perfectly well this morning? How had he developed a limp in the space of an hour or two?

As he came closer, even the grime couldn’t hide the great bruised lump on his forehead, seeping blood.

He saw the sweet and stopped dead. Astonishment left his little face blank. He stood staring for a long time before slowly reaching out.

Carefully. As though it were a treasure.

My chest tightened.

Had the hero’s childhood really been this wretched? Had he never even had a sweet?

When he turned to leave, I hurried out.

“Hey.”

Zhou Maoxiu jumped. He stumbled backward, his wide black eyes filled with terror. His reaction startled me too.

“Don’t smash my bowls. Put them back properly. Remember that.”

Dragging the bamboo switch, I walked past him. He remained utterly still.

After a moment, I took the rest of the sweets from my pocket and held them out.

“Here.”

He stared at them for a long while, then turned and fled, lurching on his bad leg. I was afraid one of those swaying steps would send him sprawling.

Fortunately, it didn’t.

I looked down. Several sweets sat quietly in my palm, their wrappers bright and colorful.

I closed my fingers around them. I’d give him another next time.

Grandpa came home before lunch, talking about something he’d heard out in the fields.

Zhou Maoxiu’s father had beaten him that morning. He’d sobered up and found there was no hot water to drink.

I remembered the bleeding bruise, the limp, and the marks revealed when the boy’s sleeve slid up as he reached for the sweet.

Lunch was hard to swallow.

Sometimes, I felt as though I were feeding a dog.

Like now.

Zhou Maoxiu wasn’t in sight, so I tapped the little aluminum basin with my chopsticks.

Why had I switched to an aluminum basin?

To save our bowls.

Before long, he appeared at the sound. He watched me from a short distance. Against that filthy face, his round black eyes were startlingly bright.

Wary. Guarded. And faintly hopeful.

That little look went straight to the heart.

Without a word, I laid a milk candy on the chopsticks too. I nodded in greeting and went inside.

I’d considered getting to him first while he was still little.

An older woman and a younger man…

An older sister was an older sister. Why couldn’t it be me?

But on second thought, forget it. I didn’t like the obsessive, unstable type. Unstable meant there was something wrong with him.