Chuntao was so frightened that her small body curled into a ball, her teeth chattering incessantly.
"No, what do you want to do?"
The man leaned down, the hot, sweaty scent of his breath hitting the back of her ear, his coarse voice tinged with urgency: "Don't be afraid..."
His breathing was heavy. A rough, large hand clumsily went to undo the buttons of her coarse cloth jacket.
The hot breath from his mouth drifted down her neck, making every hair on Chuntao's body stand on end.
(500 words deleted here)
"Please let me go, Xiaohong will be here soon..." Chuntao's voice held a sob, her body trembling even more violently.
Her grandma often said, "If you eat someone's food, your mouth softens; if you take someone's gifts, your hands shorten."
Zhou Zhijun had bought her brown sugar, pastries, and even toilet paper. She hadn't wanted any of it, but in the end, she had kept it all.
For him to treat her like this filled Chuntao with deep conflict. She didn't even have the courage to completely turn against him, much less harshly curse him out. All she could do was beg him pitifully to let her go.
It wasn't until Wang Xiaohong's footsteps sounded from the distant field ridge that Zhou Zhijun abruptly stood up, hurriedly helping her fasten her buttons and tighten her belt.
Tears glistened in Chuntao's eyes. She turned her face away, not daring to look at him. The tears welling in her eyes finally overflowed, streaming down her cheeks.
"Xiaohong's here, you should go!" Her voice was as low as a mosquito's hum, her whole body shaking like a leaf in the autumn wind.
Zhou Zhijun stretched out his rough, large hand and gently stroked her small face. His voice was pressed extremely low, the hard tone oddly wrapped in a thin layer of softness:
"I'll go sell watermelons with Xiaohong tomorrow! You rest well at home!"
With that, before Wang Xiaohong could get close, he turned and left the melon shed.
Wang Xiaohong held a flashlight in one hand and a liquor bottle filled with warm water in the other.
"Uncle Zhijun, it's getting late, you should hurry home and sleep!"
"Alright! We'll get up before dawn, we'll go sell melons together!" Zhou Zhijun replied, his footsteps not stopping.
Lying in bed, Zhou Zhijun's mind was filled with Chuntao's pitiful yet adorable little face.
It felt like he had hundreds of frantic beasts trapped in his heart, roaring and stampeding, churning him up with a restless heat, making it impossible to find any peace.
That night, he indeed dreamed again.
In the dream, she was right beside him, her warm presence within reach.
That sensation, that longing, was enough to drive a starving man mad, enough to make a man tightly bound by desire sink into depravity.
When he jolted awake from the dream, he was drenched in sweat, his clothes sticking to him unpleasantly.
He had thought about going out to fetch half a basin of cold water to rinse off, but suddenly remembering something, he flipped over sharply, lifted his pillow, and pulled out a bloodstained piece of coarse cloth.
That night, when he helped Chuntao change her sanitary pad, he had used this cloth to wipe her body, afterwards secretly slipping it into his own pocket.
This was something she had left behind, and Zhou Zhijun treasured it like a precious jewel. Whenever he couldn't sleep in the dead of night, whenever he missed her so much he thought he'd go mad, he would take it out and look at it.
Looking at this cloth was like seeing her; stroking the bloodstains on it was like caressing her body.
The scene from that night when he helped her change her sanitary pad would then clearly float into his mind.
Her delicate, soft appearance, her fair and smooth skin, her curvy, exquisite figure, and her warm, sweet breath...
Even a single hair on her body could stir him, making him restless and unable to extricate himself.
The more he thought, the less he could sleep. Zhou Zhijun simply got up and went to the kitchen.
He fished out a dozen or so eggs from a jar, put them in a large pot to boil, placed a steamer rack over the pot, and arranged several large white steamed buns to warm up.
After the water boiled for a while, estimating the eggs were done, he fished them out and plunged them into cold water.
Then he stirred a bowl of cornmeal and simmered half a pot of corn porridge.
The meals at home were always made by Aunt Zhou; Zhou Zhijun had never touched them before.
But he was clever. Whether it was rough work or fine work, he'd remember it after watching a few times.
He ladled the corn porridge into a small plastic bucket, found a clean cloth bag, and packed the eggs, steamed buns, and two sets of bowls and chopsticks inside.
He also filled a small glass jar with some pickled vegetables, added a few drops of sesame oil, screwed the lid on tight, and placed it in the cloth bag as well.
After preparing the food to be delivered to the fields, he finally served himself a bowl of corn porridge and picked up a freshly warmed large white steamed bun to eat. The freshly made porridge was so hot it made him suck in his breath.
In those days, farming families got up early. Aunt Zhou and Old Man Zhou were also up before dawn.
Old Man Zhou, carrying a basket and shouldering a shovel, went out to collect manure.
Aunt Zhou walked into the kitchen and, seeing Zhou Zhijun actually eating, stuffing a large white steamed bun into his mouth, her face was full of surprise: "You cooked for yourself?"
"Yeah!" Zhou Zhijun swallowed the bun in his mouth and said, "The watermelons in the east gully are ripe. I'm helping Chuntao and them sell them for a day today!"
Aunt Zhou was immediately displeased, her brows knitting tightly together: "You blockhead! Haven't you had enough of being taken advantage of?
That Liu Cuilan is no good thing. Our family has helped her a lot over the years, what good has come of it?
It's bad enough she doesn't know what's good for her, she even twists right and wrong to slander you, tries to weasel out of the money she borrowed... How can you have such a short memory? You can't go!"
"Mom, I'm not going for Liu Cuilan's sake!" Zhou Zhijun hurriedly explained. "That girl Chuntao, how pitiful she is! Xiaohong is also someone who knows right from wrong.
In this sweltering heat, I heard from Xiaohong that yesterday when they went to sell melons, Chuntao even fainted. It was the oilfield workers who took her to the workers' hospital.
People who didn't even know her could make her chicken soup and buy her buns to look after her. We're next-door neighbors. How can we bear to stand by and watch the two girls struggle?"
Aunt Zhou was also a kind person and sympathized with Chuntao's plight in her heart, but the thought of Liu Cuilan's face made her feel disgusted.
"That girl Chuntao is pitiful, but her mother-in-law is truly awful.
If you go help her sell melons, won't the money from the sales still end up in Liu Cuilan's pocket? Isn't that still helping her?"
Aunt Zhou had a point. With Liu Cuilan's personality, the melon money would definitely be taken by her.
Only if Chuntao and Liu Cuilan separated their households could the money end up in Chuntao's own hands. But he was an outsider, what say did he have in that matter?
"Mom, you're right. Once Chuntao's health is better, I won't help anymore!" Zhou Zhijun said evasively.
"Oh, right, there's something else I forgot to tell you!" Aunt Zhou suddenly remembered something. "Yesterday, when I was tending the vegetable garden, I ran into your Aunt Wang.
She said you saved their Zhaodi, the whole family is grateful to you... I could tell, she meant she'd like you and Zhaodi to get to know each other."
"What?" Zhou Zhijun nearly spat out the porridge in his mouth. "Get to know her for what?"
"Zhaodi's husband died two years ago. You two are about the right age.
After getting married, have a child, then you'll have someone to rely on when you're old.
You living alone like this, helping this one, helping that one, in the end it'll all come to nothing..."
"Mom, I should get going!" Before Aunt Zhou could finish, Zhou Zhijun picked up the cloth bag, grabbed the small plastic bucket, and headed out.
His heart held only Li Chuntao. Besides her, even a heavenly beauty couldn't catch his eye!
