Note: This article is a fictional novel, and the names of people and places are all apocryphal
On that winter night in '83, our small village seemed to be frozen, and all life was obscured by ice and snow.
I was only 8 years old at the time, and I was following my mother, her little hands being held tightly in her hands, but I didn't know that the purpose of this trip was to discard me.
"Mom, it's so cold outside today, where are we going?" I shivered, and my tone was sullen.
"Shut up!" My mother suddenly turned around and glared at me viciously, so frightened that I hurriedly lowered my head.
After coming out of the house, my mother's face has always been ugly, as if she was holding back something, and even exuded an indescribable strange aura.
We didn't say a word, but soon we came to a small wooded edge at the entrance of the village, where my mother stopped and threw me off my back with such a violent movement that I fell in pain.
"Mom... You, you're ......" I asked as she shuddered, frightened.
"Shut up!" My mother stopped me, and suddenly leaned over and grabbed me by the neck with her hand!
"Mom...... You... What's wrong...... Ah......h
My mother's face suddenly distorted completely, and she scolded me with red eyes: "You listen to me Lin Chuan!" I'll ignore you in the future, and you're not my biological ...... anyway."
"What...... I ...... "I was so pinched that I couldn't speak, and as soon as it was dark, I fell into a coma, but I could still hear my mother's words clearly before I fell unconscious."
By the time I woke up, it was dawn the next day, and I was still lying in the woods, and my mother and my father were long gone.
I looked around helplessly, and suddenly I noticed a strange figure, a short, thin old woman, staring at me with piercing eyes.
"You... Who are you? I shuddered and subconsciously shrank back.
"Hmph, look at your miserable image!" The old woman sneered, speaking a little meanly.
I said helplessly, "I... My mom threw me down ......".
"Bah, that conscienceless guy is so bad at abusing his own flesh and blood!" The old woman said, and suddenly strode towards me.
"You... What are you doing? I was frightened by her fierce appearance and quickly moved to escape.
"Where are you hiding for me! If you stay here, you'll only freeze to death! "The old woman suddenly scolded me viciously, and grabbed me again.
"But... My mother said she didn't want me anymore......" I said helplessly with tears in my eyes, and before I could finish my sentence, the old woman said again.
"If you want to live, from today onwards, you have to listen to me!" The old woman unceremoniously announced, and just like that, she grabbed me.
From this moment on, the trajectory of my life hovered around this mysterious old woman......
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02
The old woman took me back to her shabby home, and after a brief grooming of me, she began her style of saying one thing and doing another, and did not forget to ask me to call her "Mommy" in addition to her words!
The next morning, my mother dragged me out of the bed and shoved a worn-out sickle into my hand.
"Get out and mow the grass for me! If you don't cut enough 20 catties of grass at noon today, don't want to eat! She yelled viciously and shoved me outside.
"But Mom, I'm only 8 years old, how can I have the strength to mow the grass..."I was terrified, and shivered with the rusty scythe.
"Shut up! From today onwards, I will treat your little hairy head as a son, and you will be obedient to me! My mother scolded me unceremoniously, with a hint of resentment in her words.
So from that day on, I had to look at the sun every day to come out and mow the grass, and the half of the old steamed bun at noon could only get a piece of the pie if I had cut enough 20 catties of grass.
Occasionally, when I was mowing the grass, I would catch a glimpse of the children in the distant village playing in groups, and I could only work here silently and alone. I would squat on the edge of the ridge and feel sorry for myself: "Why am I so ill-fated? Even my mother doesn't want me anymore..."
But whenever I wanted to be careful, my mother would pick up a branch next to me and hit me hard.
Gradually, I began to develop a fear of this stern old mother who had taken me in, and I shuddered every time I thought of her piercing eyes.
But I have a faint sense of gratitude in my heart, after all, she still left me as an "orphan" by her side.
I grew up through my mother's beating and scolding, and I grew taller, and finally had enough strength to pick up the heavy scythe.
One day, I was resting on the edge of the ditch when I heard a cry from the village, and I followed the sound and saw several people clustered around a black coffin.
"What's wrong?" I was very curious, and I didn't bother to wipe the mud on my hands, so I ran over and asked a passer-by.
"Oh, it's the widow from the next village who died, her husband died the year before, and now she's alone with two children, and she can't survive," the man explained earnestly.
"Widow... Widow? "I heard this novel word.
When I heard this, I couldn't help but think of my mother, who I hadn't seen since she was abandoned in the countryside, and I don't know what happened to her now.
Turning around and seeing my mother staring at me not far away, I was a little uneasy, and hurried through the crowd to return to the ridge, and everything just now suddenly disappeared in my mind.
After a few more years, I had grown into an honest young man, and I had nothing to do every day except to work at my mother's house.
My mother's attitude towards me is still so strict, but I always have a subtle gratitude in my heart. Because my mother didn't completely abandon me like my biological parents after all, at least she kept me by her side and gave me a "home".
However, since the day I saw the widow's coffin, I began to pay attention to the gossip of the villagers, and slowly I pieced together the story of the "widow", and even heard gossip about my own background.
03
That day, I was washing clothes by the pond at the entrance of the village, and an aunt's girl also came, and she said to me crookedly, "Why are you still washing the old woman's clothes?" You're 18, do you want to come with me? ”
"How can I go with you, my mother won't let me run around." My face flushed a little, and I hurriedly lowered my head and scrubbed my clothes desperately.
"What are you afraid of her doing? Have you forgotten that she picked it up? "The girl wants to pull on this topic.
"How do you know I was picked up by her?" I was stunned for a moment and stopped what I was doing.
"Yo, you don't know? Back then, your embarrassed appearance was seen by a lot of people in the village. The girl yelled gloatingly.
The figure of the widow flashed in my mind, and the coffin, the crying.... It suddenly occurred to me that there seemed to be some strange connection between this.
"What the hell is going on? You've made it clear to me. I hurriedly asked the girl.
"Ask your mom to go, and she'll know best." The girl said casually, and then walked away with a smile.
I sat silently by the pond, my heart was very entangled, I had been an honest boy for the past few years, and I had not thought about my background at all.
It wasn't until today that I realized that there seemed to be some secret being hidden from my mother.
That night, I decided to ask my mother for clarification. As she sat at the table and drank the bowl of rotten vegetable soup, I mustered up the courage to step forward and ask, "Mom, what happened the day I was picked up by you?"
I saw my mother squirting out a mouthful of vegetable soup, glaring at me with angry eyes and saying, "You thing! Who told you that? ”
Apparently my mother's roar had shocked me, I lowered my head and whispered back, "No... Nobody, that's what I heard. ”
My mother glared at me for a long time, and finally sighed and said, "Forget it, you're already so old, I can't hide it from you."
She stood up, took out an old cloth bag from the cupboard, took out a small old copper coin from it, and placed it in front of me.
"That's what you had with you back then... All that's left is this old thing. Mom said, her eyes a little moist.
"It's... What's going on? "I was confused by this move.
Mom took a few deep breaths and began to talk about her past: "You... You were abandoned on the street by your own parents..."
I was taken aback and asked again and again: "That.... They... What happened? Why did they abandon me? ”
"Then you have to start with me," said my mother, and told me a story of her own experience......
04
It turned out that "Mom" was a full "cold and glamorous widow" when she was young, and when she was young, she was peerless, but unfortunately her husband died early, but her mother's family saw that she had no ability and bluntly said that they wanted to break off the relationship.
It wasn't until that winter night, when she was working hard in the ice and snow, that she suddenly found me abandoned in the snow.
Although the family was hungry and cold at that time, she still saved me from my dying life and took me home for adoption.
"Only later, I found out that you... You look too much like my brother-in-law! At this, my mother suddenly became angry and roared.
It turned out that she had a sister back then, and the two had a quarrel over a man, and then the man finally chose his mother's sister.
Later, my mother married someone else, but just when she was about to give birth, her husband died suddenly of illness.
The mother who was still pregnant with the child became a widow, so she was often disliked by her mother's family, and even the mother's sister and their family ridiculed the mother, and even the mother's children did not survive because of these abuses.
I also learned from my mother's mouth that I was the "son" of my mother's brother-in-law.
And the reason why my mother abandoned me back then was because I was my father's illegitimate child, and because I grew up with my mother, I mistakenly thought that I was my mother's biological son.
"So when I saw you wild seed, I was so angry! I can't wait to throw you away right away! "When I heard this, my heart was cold.
It turned out that I always thought that my mother took me in from the bottom of her heart, but I didn't expect that she had always had such a big mustard in her heart.
"Then why did you leave me in the end?" I asked, choking up.
"Hmph, that's because—" Mom paused, her face flushed with shame, "it was too cold that year. ”
"After all, you're already a helpless outcast, and if I let you freeze to death like that, I'm a little too inhumane, right?"
I looked at my mother with red eyes, and a complicated feeling welled up in my heart, it turned out that my mother did not take me in out of kindness, but was forced to pick me up by the remnants of humanity.
"Later, whenever I saw your face that made me unhappy, I couldn't help but think that you might be the wild seed of my brother-in-law who didn't have long eyes, so I always beat and scolded you to vent this evil breath!"
After the mother finished speaking, she gasped heavily, and her old eyes were full of tears, as if she was saddening her despicable behavior back then.
And I was completely stunned, it turned out that the suffering I had suffered over the years was all due to my mother's selfish thoughts.
As my mother said, if she hadn't calmed down that night and returned to pick me up, I was afraid that I would have died in the ice and snow, and it was not easy for her, as a woman, to raise me alone.
If I say that before listening to this story, I was full of grievances, anger, and disappointment...... But at the same time, looking at my mother's face, there was a trace of sympathy and forgiveness in my heart.
Note: This story is purely fictional, the names and events in the story are fictional, and the purpose of using place names is only for the purpose of describing the plot and making it easy to read and understand
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