Chapter 13: Thank the heavens for letting me have a lifetime of fate with this boy.
Xiao Di’s courage was small. As a kid, he was too scared to sleep alone in a room and would definitely run over and squeeze into my bed. Thus, mother bought a bunk bed and put it in my room.
However, even though we were in the same room, he was still scared. When he sleeping on the bottom bunk, he said, “Sis, do you think there would be something under bed ah?” So I swapped places with him. As a result, when he slept on the top bunk, he said, “Sis, I feel like there’s something on the ceiling ah?”
At night when we took him out, he would only dare to walk after holding your hand and you had to talk to him the entire way too.
“Sister, sing a song.”
“Sing what?”
“I’ll teach you!” And then he started to sing, “Two little dolls, phoning each other, h.e.l.lo h.e.l.lo h.e.l.lo, where are you? Ai ai ai, I’m at kindergarten.”
After he taught me, I sang it to him.
This was Xiao Di’s first year in kindergarten.
During our childhood, I went down to the countryside with Xiao Di. In the summer evening, we sat on the corridor of the second floor to enjoy the cool. Xiao Di asked me, “Sis, what is that?”
“Red clouds ah.”*
*[Red clouds at sunset]
“Then what about that long white strip?”
“It’s probably left from a plane that flew past.”
“Sis, the sky turned black ah, do you know where the Big Dipper the teacher was talking about is?”
I chose the brightest star that was a bit to the North and pointed at it. He said, “Oh, Big Dipper Big Dipper!”
At that time, he was only five or six and I was only thirteen. He didn’t understand anything and I only half understood but yet we were always happy.
When he was still small, Xiao Di went to a friend’s hose to play. However, he was chased home crying by his friend’s dog.
The second day, he waited outside our house. When that dog pa.s.sed by or hose, he chased it shouting loudly to demonstrate his strength.
He said, “On his territory, he shouted at me, on my territory, he doesn’t dare shout, hmph hmph!”
Say, what’s the point in haggling with a dog and the main point is, he was using the same technique the dog used to haggle back with.
When this child was ten or so, boys the same age were interested in cartoons and games but at this small age, he was interested in fishing. Whenever he came back to China, he would go fishing with the uncle next door. Once I was reading on the balcony and I could hear him running up the stairs, “Sis, I caught a fish!” He ran towards me whilst his nose bled……I asked why is your nose bleeding?
He wiped it and stupidly smiled, “Too excited.”
The first time this delicate and pretty boy had a nosebleed wasn’t because he saw a beautiful girl but because he had caught a fish the size of a thumb……
Xiao Di was born in the year of the dog. In my mind, although he is a bit naughty, he is mainly kind and obedient, like a loyal dog. However, people around us, including my parents, relatives his own cla.s.smates and my friends, even the people we’ve only met a few times, all say that Xiao Di is arrogant and runs wild.
I didn’t understand, “Perhaps it’s a sister looking at a little brother so it’s different?”
Xu Wei Yu laughed, “Towards you, your little bro is like a Pekingese but to outsiders, he’s definitely a wolfhound! He’ll bite whoever he doesn’t see eye to eye with. When you use that online phrase, ‘whoever he stares becomes pregnant’ on your little brother, it becomes ‘whoever he bites gets rabies‘。“
“……”
I remember last year when he came back for Chinese New Year, I took him to my high school cla.s.smate reunion (in the first few days he was back, he followed me to everything). My friend asked him, “Little brother, is the food overseas expensive?”
He replied: “Guess.”
My friend: “Not expensive?”
He replied: “You guessed wrong.”
……
In my circle of friends, Xiao Di’s popularity was always very high.
Xiao Di had quite a lot of bad habits, for instance before he took a shower, he would always swing his underwear over his shoulder and say, “I’m off to take a shower la!”
I found it funny every time I saw it, “If you’re going to take a shower then go take a shower, why do you have to swing your underwear over your shoulder?”
He said, “This is nothing, I have a friend, a Spaniard, and he always enters the bathroom with his knickers on his head. After he’s finished, he comes out wearing them on the bottom!”
This…what are these people?
Once, I took Xiao Di on a bus. While we were waiting for it, someone beside us took a picture of me. I was surprised and a bit scared because first, I wasn’t a beautiful girl, second, I definitely wasn’t someone different and original! Why would someone take my picture?
Xiao Di reacted first, he rushed over, pointed at the guy and said, “Oi, what are you doing? Taking photos of my sis? Delete the picture!”
It was a young man wearing a suit and leather shoes, he looked pretty upright but his tone wasn’t friendly, “Who took pictures of your sis! I’m taking pictures of the scenery, what’s wrong with that?”
Xiao Di was an easily irritable child, he automatically howled out English and he howled for a while before realizing that the other person didn’t understand! He immediately changed to Chinese and said, “I saw that you take a picture of my sister! Delete that picture! Or else I’ll call my uncle over, my uncle is the director of the city’s police bureau!
Why do these words sound so similar to my dad is Li Gang* ah?
*[After a hit and run accident, the drunk driver, Li Qi Ming shouts “Go ahead, sue me if you dare. My dad is Li Gang!” as his father was the Deputy Director of Baoding’s Public Security Bureau. This is a popular online phrase used for avoiding responsibility.]
“It’s deleted, it’s deleted! Enough already!”
Xiao Di watched that person delete the picture but his temper didn’t diminish and he shouted English the entire time, it was roughly: “At least you’re sensible, or else I’d smash your phone.”
In comparison, my temper is really good.
Later on the bus, I remembered and asked him, “Who’s your uncle?”
Xiao Di: “I randomly made it up la, just scaring him!”
“……”
At the start of 2008, I got into a traffic accident. At the time, my parents both weren’t at my side and by the time I was rushed to hospital, I had already lost consciousness. Afterwards, I stayed in the hospital for nearly half a year. On the day of the accident, as soon as my mother heard the news, she rushed over. Over the period of time, my friends and relatives came to visit, one after the other. Because my leg was seriously hurt, my mood was always quite low and I was indifferent to the people who came.
At the time, Xiao Di also flew back, he said, “Sis, if you really become a limp, then I’ll push you around in a wheelchair, I’ll push you for a lifetime!”
My eyes turned red, I was very touched and grateful because of this little brother that was much younger than me.
In the second half of 2008, I was discharged from the hospital. On the day I was discharged, my mother accidentally said something, she said, “When you were just hospitalized, your little brother would hide at home and cry every day.”
I looked at the fifteen year old teenage in front of us who was hopping around and wouldn’t walk properly and I thanked the heavens inside my heart, I thanked the heavens for letting me have a lifetime of fate with this boy.
One day, I received an overseas call from this child, he said, “Sis, I dreamed of you. I dreamed that you were helping me air the blankets in the sun and then I had a good sleep.”