Chapter 15.4| Confession

Coming out of the hot pot restaurant, they took a walk along the next street to promote digestion.

They had eaten a little too much.

Unlike the street where the hot pot restaurant is located, this is a small street full of night snacks and a lot of people.

"Why are we walking to the food street to eat?" Xipei took Yin's forearm and bulged her mouth, "Isn't this a temptation to commit a crime?!"

Who could resist the deliciousness of a late-night food stall?

"I got hungry just walking to the end, just in time to pick up the late-night snack." Xiuze pocketed his hands in his pants pockets.

"Xing Xiuze, are you a pig?"

"I'm still growing."

Xipei had only finished squeezing Xiuze when several people stopped with Yin.

Looking along her line of sight, it was a family workshop selling soup and rice.

There were also a few short tables set up in front of the small store, and a grandmother with a head full of silver hair, dragging a snakeskin bag, was sitting on one of the short tables, which had remnants of the previous table's customers left on it.

The old woman stared at the remaining egg fried rice on the table for a while, picked up the spoon on the plate, dug a mouthful of fried rice, a few trembling into the mouth.

This process happened to be pocketed in Yin's retinas, followed by the sight of the crowd.

Yin squatted in front of her, her hand that wanted to stop it clenched into a fist in mid-air, and opened his mouth with a voice that was a bit muffled, "Granny, why are you eating all this?"

The old woman's line of sight lifted with a few moments of trepidation, gathering the nylon bag that was on the side before speaking, "They've already left this table, this is what they don't want, I'm really hungry."

The trembling between the teeth, seems to be really hungry, but also as if revealing the nakedness of the lowest level of this society.

Several people stood behind Yin, Hai asked, "Granny, your family?"

"I ...," she held a spoon hand a beat and gathered in the side of the nylon bag.

The boss came out of the store with a plastic bag in his hand.

"Granny Yu," the boss slapped his head, put the bag into the granny's hand, cleverly took away the granny's hands of the spoon, "just a busy and forgot, this is today's extra meal, you take it back to eat."

Said, turned around and shouted "Xiao Yu".

"Eh--" a chubby girl answered and walked out of the store, not surprised to see the scene in front of her. She was holding a piece of complete rice cake, speaking the dialect of A City. The granny loosened her grip on the nylon bag, and the complete piece of rice cake was stuffed into her hand, the girl smiled and said, "Granny Yu, I've made rice cake today, how about you try my handiwork?"

The owner of the soup restaurant is called Ah Wei, and the first time he met Granny Yu was three months ago.

In the hot summer of A City, the soup restaurant also sells homemade fruit iced drinks and chilled watermelon in the summer.

The guest who had been outside the previous table went inside to pay and left, and he took the dining bowl and rag and came out to clean up.

When he pushed the door, I saw an old woman sitting on a low stool that had just left the table, holding one of the leftover fruit drinks and pouring it into her mouth.

Ah Wei has not been rich since he was a child, but he has never lacked food and clothing, and he eats what strangers have left over, except for beggars, he is also the first time to see.

It's still in front of his store.

Seeing Ah Wei coming over, the old woman became cramped, "I see that the people at this table are gone, this is what they don't want, I haven't drunk water for a day, so she took a sip." 

With a high temperature close to 40 degrees, what it is like to not get a drop of water for a day, Ah Wei has also experienced it, not to mention the old man in front of him who looks like she is in her 60s.

Saying this, Granny didn't think much of it and took out a small cloth bag from her trouser pocket, took out a neatly folded red plastic bag from the cloth bag, carefully opened the plastic bag, and took out two one-yuan coins from it. She handed over the two coins, "Young man, I want to buy a bowl of mung bean soup and go back to my grandson to drink." "

The old man was reluctant to buy herself a bottle of water, but she remembered buying a bowl of mung bean soup for his grandson.

At the end of the street, two more alleys are turned, and there is a decayed residential area.

Granny Yu and her grandson live here.

Eight years ago, Granny Yu's son Li Bing got married. The second year after the marriage, her grandson Li Yong was born.

In the same year, Bing was diagnosed with liver cancer. In the next two years, they sold their wedding house and waited for a liver source, but Bing failed to survive the rejection after surgery.

One day six months after Bing left, his wife went to work and never came back. Granny Yu took her grandson to her daughter-in-law's workplace. An acquaintance of her colleagues told her that life was too difficult. She went to a city in the north and had no plans to come back in her life.

After hearing this, Granny Yu's limbs were trembling. She is a farmer with little education, and her husband has passed away. The family has indeed been in trouble in the past few years, but she understands that blood is thicker than water. The daughter-in-law can ignore her, an old woman who will close the coffin board in a few years, but how can the biological mother dare to abandon her biological son?

In the past few years, Granny Yu and her grandson have been renting in this residential area alone. After understanding the situation, the social worker helped apply for a subsistence allowance subsidy. Granny Yu was old and could not live in the field, so she could only help with odd jobs, collecting plastic bottles and selling them to support the family.

These are all things Ah Wei learned about later. There are many unknown stories after that, probably only Granny Yu herself knows.

Facing these half-grown children, Ah Wei suddenly wanted to talk about Granny Yu, so he had nothing to hide.

"Li Yong has just entered primary school. Although it is compulsory education, other tuition and miscellaneous fees are also a big expense for Granny Yu. Grandma is old and has limited labour, so she saves a lot. She only eats steamed buns every day and does not accept gifts. I just told her that this is what is left every day, and Granny still has to give her money. I have no choice but to charge her one yuan every day." Ah Wei sighed softly and wanted to smoke a cigarette, but held it back, "I may not have great abilities and can offer limited assistance, but providing a meal is a small gesture. Granny Yu typically takes these meals home for her grandson to enjoy."

Xiaoyu gave Granny Yu another bowl of black rice porridge, saying she would pour it out if she couldn't finish it. After Grandma Yu finished eating, she thanked her again and walked home with the snakeskin bag and the plastic bag given by Ah Wei.

Granny Yu was not among the crowd. 

Hai asked, "Does GrannyYu have any other brothers, sisters, relatives or anything like that?"

"In the years when Li Bing was ill, Granny Yu had already asked all her relatives to borrow money. They were all farmers, so what they could do to help was limited. I heard that most of the relatives had lost contact with Granny Yu. Some of them thought she was really pitiful and gave my grandma some home-grown vegetables."

Back then, Li Bing was admitted to the junior high school in A City, and Granny Yu moved her family from a town on the outskirts of A City to A City. The old houses in the town had long been uninhabitable.

The small low table where Granny Yu sat had been cleared. Xiaoyu brought out a few cups of red bean soup and invited them to drink, "Please give it to you."

"Thank you." They sat down in response.

It was a cold night, Ah Wei and Xiaoyu were busy going in and out. Yin was holding red bean soup and looking at the lively scene in the shop. She thought of Ah Wei and his wife's warm-heartedness and caught the thoughts that flashed through his mind.

Without disturbing their business, they finished drinking the red bean soup, put money on the table, and left.