Chapter 12: Dabao We Should Join the Army, Too

After the morning’s commotion, they received a larger portion of cornmeal porridge at dinner.

Normally, they would have been happy, but tonight, they had little appetite.

The others hoped they wouldn’t eat; Su Yuanyuan saw their expressions and finished her porridge.

Even if the children didn’t eat, she wouldn’t let the Lu’s benefit.

Li Hua glared at her, but Su Yuanyuan ignored her.

After dinner, Su Yuanyuan went to her room and saw her children’s tearful eyes.

She hadn’t seen the incident with Gou Wa.

Seeing their tears, she was alarmed.  “What’s wrong? Did someone hit you?”

She regretted her carelessness; she should have watched them more closely.

Li Hua might have secretly beaten them.

She had noticed their lack of appetite at dinner.

Because of the space, she could feed them separately at night, so she hadn’t asked at the table.

The children hesitated, then shook their heads.

Su Yuanyuan was puzzled.  She checked them for bruises; there were none.

She decided to wait until they were full to ask.

Su Yuanyuan took them to the space and made them a bowl of plain noodles with an egg each.

Their appetites were low, but the sight of the hot noodles made them salivate.

Even during the New Year, they hadn’t eaten such delicious noodles. They had only seen them at a restaurant during a market trip.

“Mom, you can make noodles! You’re amazing.” Lu Siyuan was already drooling.

The egg smelled delicious.

Lu Mingzhu’s eyes lit up.  They usually ate fern root powder or buckwheat noodles; they’d never tasted these noodles.

“You didn’t eat much tonight.  Eat slowly, then tell Mom what happened, okay?”

Su Yuanyuan spoke gently.  The children had reasons for their reluctance.

She shouldn’t pressure them but let them relax and speak when ready.

The children ate their noodles slowly.

Their mother had told them to chew slowly to avoid choking, so even when hungry, they ate carefully.

After they finished, Su Yuanyuan put the dishes in the dishwasher and cut an apple in half for them.

“Now, tell me what happened.  Mom will always be with you. If you did something wrong, Mom will help you solve it and learn from it, okay?”

Su Yuanyuan knelt to be at their eye level.

Lu Mingzhu and Lu Siyuan exchanged glances, their eyes reddening.

“Mom, Dad doesn’t want us, right?” Lu Mingzhu whispered.

“I asked. Soldiers bring their families to the army; they wouldn’t leave for years. Dad is bad for making Mom work so hard and saying he doesn’t want us.”

Lu Siyuan believed their father was bad for neglecting them for years.

Children didn’t understand that the monthly allowance was Lu Zhengan’s way of showing concern.

There was another, more important issue.

Su Yuanyuan was speechless.  She didn’t know how to explain that their father didn’t know they existed!

The eighty yuan was sent assuming only his wife was at home.

Eighty yuan would have allowed Su Yuanyuan to live comfortably.  Even if the Lus took half, she could manage, but the Lus were cruel.

After a moment of silence, Lu Siyuan suddenly looked at Su Yuanyuan and Lu Mingzhu, his face serious.

“I’ve decided. We’re going to join the army! I’m taking you both with me!”

He spoke firmly, his eyes shining with unprecedented determination.

Su Yuanyuan was startled, looking at him in disbelief.

Join the army?

She had planned to escape with her children, not to join the army.

Lu Mingzhu’s eyes lit up. She nodded. “Brother’s right. We need to join the army. Dad can’t leave us! I want to ask him why he doesn’t want us!”

The children spoke confidently.

Lu Siyuan smiled at his sister; she thought the same.

“Other military families join the army, so they can see each other often. We should too.”

They looked at Su Yuanyuan expectantly, asking in unison, “Mom, what do you think?”

Their anticipation was overwhelming; Su Yuanyuan shielded her eyes. How could she refuse?

Thinking of her unseen husband, Su Yuanyuan felt awkward, but she couldn’t refuse their hopeful faces.

“Okay, but joining the army requires planning. Eat your apples first.”

Su Yuanyuan sat on the sofa, feeling a headache coming on.

In her time, traveling was easy.

But in this era, it wasn’t.

Packing and traveling required walking long distances before finding an ox-cart to the train station, which was also a long journey.

Even alone, Su Yuanyuan could imagine the arduous journey; with two children, it would be much harder.

They were going to Beijing, not the neighboring county a long distance.

The children finished their apples, disposing of the cores before washing their hands.

They knew how to wash their hands now.

“Brother, how do we join the army?” Lu Mingzhu frowned. “I don’t really understand what it means.”

She giggled nervously.

She found her cousin’s words hurtful and wanted to find her father and ask if he didn’t want them.

If not, she, her brother, and their mother would leave.

If he wanted them, they would go with him; they just didn’t want to stay here.

“Um… joining the army means going with Dad, right?  We need to find Dad, but where is he?”

Lu Mingzhu shook her head.

She didn’t know where her father was.  When she asked her mother, she got upset, so she stopped asking.

Her mother was meek; she didn’t fight back when scolded or beaten, only recently showing some defiance.

Once, during the rain, her aunt made her mother cut pigweed, even though it was raining.

Lu Mingzhu sighed. She wanted to learn many skills, earn a lot of money, buy an ox-cart, and take her mother anywhere, so no one could bully her.

Lu Mingzhu had only seen ox-carts in the village; buying one seemed amazing to her.

Lu Siyuan washed his sister’s face and whispered mysteriously, “Don’t worry; I overheard Grandpa and Grandma talking.”

He sat down on the sofa and continued.

“When they asked Uncle to write to Dad, they said Dad was in the Beijing army.  The village teacher said you can go many places by train.  We can take a train to Beijing!”

Children don’t consider the complexities of travel.

“Once in Beijing, we’ll ask people where Dad is.”