Chapter 3 2. Longer Than Cloth, Shorter Than Cloth
Of all the damned luck, when they went downstairs, they actually ran into Wang Futian and He Meiyu.
Zhang Luo froze.
Speak of the devil, and the devil appeared.
“Oh my!” He immediately heard his mother’s sarcastic voice. “Where are you two coming back from together?”
Zhang Luo understood why his mother was being so snide.
It had nothing to do with Wang Futian. His mother and He Meiyu downstairs had never gotten along.
When Zhang Luo was little, he had been active and always ran around at home. He Meiyu would often come upstairs to knock on their door, blaming them for not keeping their child under control and making so much noise she couldn’t sleep.
Later, He Meiyu bought a bicycle and left it in the stairwell every day, making it inconvenient for people upstairs and downstairs to pass. The neighborhood committee went to talk to her about it, but He Meiyu decided Liang Fengying was holding a grudge over the past and had deliberately complained to the committee, so she came over and caused a huge scene.
From then on, Liang Fengying and He Meiyu had formed a feud.
Whenever the two met, they had to trade a few jabs. You could say there was a small spat every other day and a big one every three days, from drying quilts in the courtyard downstairs to the upstairs wall-mounted air conditioner dripping water—
They could argue about anything.
His mother had heard from him about the scandal between He Meiyu and Wang Futian. If she didn’t seize the chance to jab at them a few times, she wouldn’t be his mother.
It was just that even he had not expected the timing to be so perfect, running into them the moment they went downstairs.
“What coming back together? Fengying, don’t talk nonsense.” Wang Futian hurriedly explained with a solemn expression. “We just happened to meet downstairs and came up together. We live upstairs and downstairs, that’s all.”
“Oh my.” Liang Fengying’s eyes shifted. “Then what was wrong with what I said just now? Why are you so worked up? What were you thinking?”
He Meiyu gave a cold snort, twisted her hips, and rolled her eyes at Wang Futian.
“Old Wang, don’t bicker with her. That’s just how she is. Her tongue stretches longer than a bolt of cloth, and at the drop of a hat she runs to the neighborhood committee to gossip. That’s exactly how rumors get spread.”
Zhang Luo looked at this adulterous pair in surprise—
In his memory, they had not been this brazen, had they?
It was one thing not to act guilty, but to turn around and accuse others?
And with words this nasty?
Zhang Luo turned his head and saw that his mother’s expression was ugly, yet she seemed somewhat hesitant—
She wasn’t thinking of exposing them to their faces, was she?
There was no solid evidence. She absolutely couldn’t expose them now.
If she did, his mother really would become a rumor-monger whose tongue was longer than a bolt of cloth.
Zhang Luo opened his mouth, stared at He Meiyu, and asked, “Auntie He, did you just get your hair done? You went today, right? It looks pretty. I’ll take my mom to get hers done one of these days too.”
He Meiyu’s expression changed instantly.
A year later, when Wang Futian’s wife came to make trouble for He Meiyu, she cried and complained about many things in public. One of them was that Wang Futian had paid for He Meiyu to wash, perm, and cut her hair at Meimei Hair Salon. Over the years, he had spent nearly thirty thousand yuan and even demanded that He Meiyu pay it back.
That incident later became widely circulated throughout the neighborhood.
Everyone knew about it.
Even Meimei Hair Salon’s reputation soured quite a bit because of it, and its business suffered for no reason.
“Ah, I remember now. It was Meimei Hair Salon on Yudong Street, right? I saw you and Uncle Wang getting your hair cut there before, Auntie He.” Zhang Luo continued adding fuel to the fire.
Wang Futian and He Meiyu’s faces both changed drastically.
Zhang Luo wore an innocent, harmless expression, as if he had never thought in any other direction at all.
“Mom, next time you should get your hair cut there too. Maybe then my dad will be willing to go fishing a little less and stay home with you more.”
Liang Fengying let out an “ah,” looking as if she had not understood.
Of course, Zhang Luo didn’t need his mother to understand.
He only needed Wang Futian and He Meiyu to understand—
If they kept yapping, then it wouldn’t be just the two of them who understood.
Wang Futian looked stunned, and nervous too. He asked, “…Xiao Luo, when did you see me and your Auntie He getting haircuts there? I—I don’t remember.”
“Then maybe I saw wrong.” Zhang Luo laughed and said to his mother, “Mom, let’s go. I’m hungry. What exactly are you taking me to eat?”
Only then did Liang Fengying come back to herself.
“Eat, eat, eat. The moment it’s time, all you think about is eating. You can’t stand being hungry for even a second!” After scolding Zhang Luo, she seemed to suddenly remember how to retort to He Meiyu. She glared at her. “Even if my tongue stretches longer than a bolt of cloth, that’s still better than your cloth not even being as long as your legs! There are so many children in this neighborhood. Watch your influence!”
“……” Zhang Luo had a very clear understanding of his mother’s combat power.
She shouted fiercely, but her lethality had always been limited.
It could be said that this was a rare outstanding performance from her when she was “fighting” outside.
He Meiyu’s face changed, but perhaps because of the “landmine effect” Zhang Luo had just thrown out, she, unusually, did not talk back either.
Liang Fengying clearly felt that she had won this round against He Meiyu. As she went downstairs, her high heels clacked loudly, like a fighting rooster that had just won a match and was strutting with its head held high.
Looking at his mother like this, Zhang Luo did not know whether to laugh or cry. At the same time, a sadness unconsciously spread through his heart.
Such vigorous vitality could only be seen in this dream.
Later, he was far away in Yuming, and his father passed away from illness. His mother continued living alone in Xuyang, and she seemed never to fight with anyone so fiercely again.
She even sat at the same mahjong table as He Meiyu and played cards.
Life.
When thirty-year-old Zhang Luo occasionally thought of the past, the images that often surfaced were of his mother beaming with joy or speaking in a bright, ringing voice.
“Mom, can you call Dad and ask him to come back?” Zhang Luo said.
Who knew when this dream would end?
He wanted to see his father once more in this dream.
When he was twenty-four, his father was diagnosed with stomach cancer, but it was discovered too late. In less than half a year, he passed away.
After that, he could only see his father in dreams.
He began to treasure every dream he had.
Liang Fengying said, “Your dad only gets to go fishing on weekends once in a while. He’s so tired from work on weekdays. Why are you in such a hurry to call him back for a meal?”
“I—”
I miss Dad. Those were not words the fifteen-year-old Zhang Luo could say aloud.
Fine, forget it.
“It’s nothing,” Zhang Luo said. “Isn’t it because you’re treating? I don’t want Dad to lose out. If you won’t call, then don’t.”
Instead, Liang Fengying took out her phone.
It was still an old-fashioned phone.
Making calls and sending texts were its main functions.
“Fine, I’ll call him.” As soon as the call connected, Liang Fengying said, “Zhang Zhiluo, your son is afraid you’ll lose out, so he’s telling you to come back for dinner.”
Zhang Luo: “……”
“Come back if you want, don’t if you don’t. I’m not the one urging you to come back.” Liang Fengying said this in an especially crisp voice, then hung up the phone. She said to Zhang Luo, “Anyway, I’ve given him the reminder. If he refuses to come back, that’s not my business.”
Zhang Luo noticed that his mother seemed a little unhappy and hurriedly smiled. “It’s fine. If he loses out, then let him. Mom, you still haven’t said it. What are you taking me to eat?”
“Jiang Xiaoyu, of course,” Liang Fengying said. “Don’t you love eating at that place?”
Zhang Luo’s eyes widened.
“Huh?!”
Liang Fengying said, “What are you ‘huh’-ing for? You think I don’t know you like running over to that place?”
Zhang Luo’s long-buried memories awakened.
He loved going to Jiang Xiaoyu’s restaurant not because he loved eating there.
It was because in that restaurant, there was Jiang Xiaoyu.