Xiaoqing and Chrysanthemum

On the Dragon Boat Festival, the zongzi sent by Xiaoqing's hometown broke.

The refrigerator is not cold, although it has been vacuum-packed, it is still moldy and sour. As soon as I opened the package, I could smell the sour smell! Xiaoqing shouted: "Why didn't you put the zongzi in the freezer? 』I am reading "Wencheng", the novel is wonderful, the bandits are fighting, bloody. I like novels like this, but Xiaoqing said, Yu Hua is outdated a long time ago! She doesn't like it.

I didn't quarrel with her, put down the book, took out the dumplings and threw them all in the trash.

"Why did you lose everything? ' asked Xiaoqing.

"Didn't you say it smells bad? "I say.

"Maybe there are one or two that are good, why don't you try it before making a decision? Every time I do things like this. ' Xiaoqing accused me.

I was angry but didn't show it. Take back the dumped dumplings from the trash can and peel them off one by one in front of Xiaoqing. She watched without stopping. While smelling the sour zongzi, I could smell the indescribable smell similar to fermented wine, and I also smelled the rotten meat, like a rat that died in a ditch on the side of the box due to some accident. Or the stench of the rotting dead bodies of other wild animals, and the smell of chestnuts and beans mixed with glutinous rice, the stench of fermented sauces, and the smell of incense.

Very complex taste.

Xiaoqing's face was not complicated, she said lightly: "If it really stinks, throw it all away! 』

We didn't eat zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival.

This Dragon Boat Festival, like overcooked zongzi leaves, boiled until the water is dry, and no one found that the leaves should be salvaged.

I did this as a kid. He was punished by his mother to kneel before the landowner's throne.

I forgot it was that year. It's like the fifth grade of elementary school, right? But it could also be smaller, something in third or fourth grade. It was after grandma passed away.

Because my grandmother passed away, all the family affairs, big and small, fell on my mother's shoulders. Every Dragon Boat Festival after that, I always have to squat in front of the fire, watching the fire of the burning charcoal stove, and also take care of the zongzi leaves being boiled in the pot. It's not hard work, but it takes a very long time. Almost the whole afternoon was wasted waiting for the zongzi leaves to be cooked in turn. I looked at the dark green leaves that had been washed and soaked in cold water. The water was gradually heated. During the boiling process of the hot water, the leaves slowly changed their colors.

I still remember the distinctive fragrance of the leaves when they were still brown. It is a slightly sweet smell. When the leaves of the zongzi are completely boiled, the smell still lingers, until they are wrapped into a zongzi and boiled again in hot water, which is suspended in the air. The aroma that belongs to the leaves evokes my memory of the taste of that leaf.

Except for that time, because I fell asleep and didn't take good care of it, a whole pot of zongzi leaves burned like that. I was woken up by the smell of smoke, and my mother was so angry that it was like a pot about to explode. Later, I was beaten by her with rattan. The next day, my mother picked new zongzi leaves from the garden and boiled a pot of water again. She and I both repeated what happened yesterday as if nothing had happened, but this time I didn't fall asleep. .

When I smelled the stinky smell of the dumplings that Xiaoqing let me smell, I also smelled the deep memory, the past that belongs to this memory.

The father is the eldest son. It is also a three-generation single pass. My eldest daughter is not an auspicious sign for my father. Both he and his mother longed to have a son, but after giving birth to three daughters in a row, they finally welcomed the only son in the family, my brother Zhang Facai, when he was 15 years old and was caught by the sea when he went to play at the beach. drowned.

The corpse was still on the second day. When the mage did it, he cast a spell in the sea and lost the watermelon in exchange for the corpse that was pulled down by the water ghost and floated. The people in the village passed it on like a legend. I was already a middle school student at that time, and the year my brother died was also around the Dragon Boat Festival. My classmates came to me for confirmation, and I lied that I had witnessed all this at the scene.

Since then, I've been obsessed with lying. Especially lying about my brother's death.

After all, the dead can't justify their own living and dying to any facts distorted by the living.

Is Xiaoqing angry because he didn't eat zongzi?

Chrysanthemum played with her little toys to herself. It is the orange cat that Xiaoqing picked up from the trash can. That was three years ago, not long after Malaysia changed government. Xiaoqing, a social activist, is busier than before, running around for the welfare of women, children and children born to foreign workers.

Xiaoqing's good friend from college also became a state legislator. Xiaoqing said that Seuss actually did not expect to be elected.

Seuss has been to our house a few times. We took her in several times. Because her parents did not approve of her engaging in politics, they hoped that Seuss, who had just turned 30, could open a dental clinic, and it would not be too late to practice political ideals when the clinic's business was on track before entering politics. But Seuss is not that kind of person.

In my eyes, Xiaoqing and Seuss are the kind of people who would be indignant for a little injustice in society.

For this reason, Xiaoqing often tries to use her enthusiasm for social movements to convince me, a petty middle-aged young man, to step out of her comfort zone and serve and contribute to women's rights, single-parent families, and the general public. Or at least donate more to their organizations and let them help me achieve my dreams.

I am not the ideal person like Xiaoqing. I just want to have a good cat and love someone I love.

I know Xiaoqing because I participated in the clean election parade.

Of course, we connected on a dating app.

At that time, Xiaoqing was still very "skinny", with neat short hair, like a boy. I wanted someone to sleep with me at the time, and Xiaoqing also needed someone to hug her body that was about to be hollowed out. After chatting a few words on the software, I think she and I are a good fit and we started our connection like that.

When I was 25, I came out with my mother and said I would never marry a man in my life.

Later, when I told Xiaoqing about this, she quite admired me. Because, no matter how strong she is on the outside, when she returns home and sees her mother who raised her and her two younger sisters alone, Xiaoqing has become a kind little girl who is unwilling to hurt her mother.

After we met, Xiaoqing was just that dress. short hair. Wearing a peaked cap. The thin black T-shirt that was washed showed her breasts through the vest. And those jeans that are never washed in 10,000 years. Before I gave her a new bag, she was using a college-age bag stitched from worn-out denim denim gifted by a few roommates.

The biggest difference between my bags and hers is that I use a handmade leather bag from a niche brand, and she uses the roughest denim bag. Xiaoqing is very unhappy with a little woman like me who lives in a world of capital and material desires, but she doesn't talk about this very often. Unless we quarrel, Xiaoqing will come up with it because the quarrel can't help me.

That's what she said the day she left home.

I was dissatisfied, and replied: "If you have the ability, you come out of the closet like me! 』

I know Xiaoqing doesn't dare, she doesn't want to hurt her mother. Even though I know that Xiaoqing's mother actually knows that she is a lesbian. I don't know how her conflict and courage to face her relatives came about and was weak, but after she went out, only me and Jumao were left in this room of mine.

My parents didn't care much about me after I came out.

After living with Xiaoqing, I took her home once. Within half a day, I took Xiaoqing and hurried back to Kuala Lumpur from Malacca.

My revolution is different from Xiaoqing's revolution. What I want to change is my own life, and what Xiaoqing wants to change is the development of society. Sometimes I don't understand, how can she not be like me and live the life a normal woman can have? In those days like those of heterosexual couples, drinking tea, shopping and shopping together, I even thought about going abroad to find suitable sperm to get pregnant. We each have a child and have two children. We can do it without a man. Had a great time.

Xiaoqing blames me for being irresponsible!

I'm speechless. Furious, Chrysanthemum was frightened by our roar, and hurried to its nest shivering. It is especially afraid of Xiaoqing. There were times when the two of us were halfway through arguing, and Xiaoqing threw the chrysanthemum hair at me ruthlessly. The terrifying chrysanthemum often avoided Xiaoqing after that, but he was thrown a few times later.

Now, Jumao, like me, is looking forward to Xiaoqing's return.

Later, I put Chrysanthemum's body in the freezer.

Xiaoqing did not come back.

I put her denim bag, her jeans, her t-shirt, those cheap everyday items in a big black garbage bag, put it in the trunk, and took it to the dump to be thrown away. When I lost it, I seemed to remember that Xiaoqing seemed to be helping a drunken Seuss back from outside one late night.

They vomited together in the toilet of my guest room for a long time.

The smell of vomit seemed to drift into my master bedroom with the sound of vomit.

I didn't go out of the living room to meet them back. Instead, I put on headphones, listened to Lo-Fi music, and kept reciting: "Go to sleep...go to sleep...go to sleep..." Just like when I was a child, because when I did something wrong, I meditated in my heart. : "Mom doesn't know... Mom doesn't know... Mom doesn't know..." Like that.

But how could my mother not know?

She is the woman I know who can know everything in the world, including my telling my brother that if the weather is hot, you can jump into the sea in exchange for cooling. After my brother's body was recovered, none of us recognized him. Because every inch of his skin was swollen. If you've ever seen a puffer fish puff up, that's what my brother's corpse looked like. Or, like a balloon that has been infused with too much nitrogen, it inflates so much that it is in danger of bursting at any time.

Maybe the smell of corpse is the same as the smell of rotting meat in zongzi? When Xiaoqing let me smell the stinky zongzi, this thought flashed through my mind. At this time, Xiaoqing's body probably has this kind of smell, right?

I opened the curtains and it was already evening. The morning light in this apartment has not been very good, but the sunset light in the evening is quite selfless and warm. Standing in front of the window, one month has passed since the Dragon Boat Festival. Chrysanthemum hair stained with blood-colored hair on the living room wall decorated the milky white wall like a print. I watched the blood color change from bright red to rust-like color, and finally it is now faint and indescribable. The turbid color, in the environment where the light gradually blurred in the evening, the shadow of chrysanthemum hair jumped past.