Lost Treasure

Chapter 7 – Her Parents’ Secrets

There was something fishy going on, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Shen Yu could only say that there was a weird atmosphere right now and it was making it hard for her to breathe. The more she thought about it, the more anxiety she felt.

Her life had gotten more and more complicated ever since she met Tang Can and his crew. Now it culminated with Uncle Li passing away in a freak accident. The villagers would say that Tang Can was the unlucky star in her life. As long as he had an influence on her, bad luck would continue to come.

Shen Yu had been on ‘vacation’ for more than twenty days at this point, and yet Tang Can never came back to find her. Her workplace, the newspaper office, also never called her back into work.

In this day and age, it was rare for anyone who worked for a living to have a vacation this long for no particular reason. Other people may consider this a blessing, but, to her, the situation was starting to smell a little bit sour.

She had a sneaking feeling that she might need to look for a new job at this point. Since her father had mostly recovered from his health scare, she really didn’t have a reason to stay here any longer. Shen Yu wanted to go back to the office to find out if she was going to be fired, and to collect her salary from last month!

After giving herself a pep talk, Shen Yu told her parents her plans to stop by the newspaper office. She had only walked down one street before she could hear sounds of a scuffle in her parent’s residence. Alarmed, Shen Yu turned around and sprinted back home. When she reached the front gate, her first instinct was to rush in and find out what was going on, but something inside her hesitated. After thinking quickly, Shen Yu decided to go to the back of the house.

There was nothing but empty space behind the house, and most farmsteads only had one large window in the back. In the summer, most residences, including hers, kept the back window wide open to let the breeze through. The window was about a meter and a half above ground. Shen Yu measured about one hundred and sixty centimeters tall, so it wasn’t difficult for her to have a clear view through that window.

Shen Yu carefully hid herself behind the back wall as she peeked through the window. Inside she saw a scene that astounded her. Her father was pulling her mother’s hair with his hand as he whipped her with a towel! Shen Yu fought down the desire to rush in and stop what was happening. She wanted to know what secrets her parents were hiding, especially since there were some unanswered questions about Uncle Li’s death.

As the fight continued, Shen Yu’s father ended up pulling out a couple strands of hair from Shen Yu’s mother. Her mother screamed in pain and pushed her father away. Mr. Shen stumbled back a couple of steps after being pushed, his eyes widening such that the whites of his eyes could be seen. He stood there, breathing heavily as he glared at Mrs. Shen.

After an indeterminate amount of time passed, he resumed whipping the towel in his hand at his wife. “You piece of shit!” he snarled, his voice trembling. “How dare you fight back?”

Mrs. Shen started to cry piteously. “Stop hitting me, Shen Bai! We’ve been together for so many years, can you forgive me? Those people are already at our doorstep, if you make a fuss now, wouldn’t they find out everything? If they figure out exactly what happened all of those years ago, who knows what they’ll do to us!”

After hearing those words, Shen Yu’s father immediately stopped what he was doing and staggered back a couple of steps, his eyes staring into space. The room became oppressively quiet as he stood there like a statue. Then, he glared at Mrs. Shen with murderous intent, and quickly walked over to her and slapped her face forcefully. ShenYu’s mother did not try to dodge the blow, and a trickle of blood appeared at the corner of her math, her eyes were full of tears. Despite what happened, her eyes were gentle as she looked at Mr. Shen.

Shen Yu could not watch anymore and moved toward the window. She quickly scrambled up the window sill and jumped into the room. The sudden movement frightened both of her parents, her mother’s face was half red and half white.

“Dad, why did you hit mom?” Shen Yu asked plaintively as tears streamed down her face. This was the loudest tone of voice she had ever used towards her dad.

Shen Yu’s father’s complexion turned gray and his lips curled a bit as if he wanted to say something. However, not a sound came out. His yellowing eyes lifelessly met Shen Yu’s as he used his right hand to take a hand-rolled cigarette from the inside of his shirt pocket. His hand trembled as he lit the tobacco. He inhaled the smoke sharply, the spicy hot smell causing him to cough several times.

Shen Yu’s towering fury melted away when she saw that her father was still using old homework papers to roll his tobacco. The familiar sight caused her tears to fall down faster.

Very few people nowadays rolled their own tobacco leaves to smoke. Even people who lived in the rural countryside had mostly abandoned that habit, but her father was different. When Shen Yu was a child, her father often used her graded homework papers to roll his tobacco. In her memory, she could still clearly see the red marks that her teacher left behind on the paper being twisted around the joint. Sometimes, her father would end up putting his mouth on the part that had ink on it and the red ink would dye her father’s lips. When he licked his lips, he would swallow the red ink.

When she first started working, the first thing she bought with her first check were two packs of factory rolled cigarettes. Her father had smiled in delight when she gave them to him, his whole face lit up in pleasure. But she found out later that he never used them. He sold them at the village thrift store for money and continued to roll his own tobacco. The paper he used now was from the next door neighbor’s kid’s finished homework.

This type of father, did she have any qualifications to treat him poorly?

Shen Yu glanced at her father, her heart aching, as she supported her mother to go to another room. She quietly inspected her mother’s wounds and saw that her scalp had an angry red patch where the hair had been ripped off. They didn’t have any rubbing alcohol at home so she had to find the liquor that her father drank. She carefully poured a little on her mother’s scalp and used it to disinfect the area. The smell of cheap liquor filled the air as Mrs. Shen yelped quietly in pain.

“Don’t worry, sweetie, your dad is just in a bad mood. He feels very bad about the whole Uncle Li situation. Letting him vent his anger is good for him, otherwise he’ll just fall sick again from the stress...this is all my fault too. If it wasn’t for me, your Uncle Li wouldn’t have escaped and fell down the well. Don’t blame your father…” Her mother chattered on, trying to reassure Shen Yu.

Shen Yu remained silent, her mind flipping through the scenes she had just saw. She couldn’t help thinking about what her mother said to her father during the fight.

“Those people are already at our doorstep, if you make a fuss now, wouldn’t they find out everything? If they figure out exactly what happened all of those years ago, who knows what they’ll do to us!”

Just what secrets were her parents hiding?