Although English had already been designated a core subject within compulsory education at that time, the overall teaching standard in China had not yet fully caught up. Not all teachers were proficient in it. Older teachers often spoke Mandarin with heavy accents, and those who could speak English well were usually children from wealthy families who had hired private tutors outside school.
"Well... um... about that..." Song Erya scratched her head, suddenly at a loss for how to explain herself. Sixth-grade English certainly hadn't covered anything near her level.
After thinking for a long while, she said, "I'm a genius. I'm good at everything... ah."
The "genius" head was promptly knocked once.
Shen Mingsong had no interest in probing further. His gaze passed over her, sweeping through the crowd as if he were thinking about something else.
Song Erya had only come to test the waters today and hadn't expected to make much money. But by the end of the day, when she counted the cash in her hands, she was genuinely surprised—there was over a hundred yuan. The largest portion came from the ten-dollar tip.
She couldn't help but sigh, "I'm really amazing."
Shen Mingsong turned his head, as if he could see an invisible tail standing proudly upright behind her.
It was his first time seeing a child so swollen with confidence. The shell necklace around her neck shimmered with soft, multicolored light, and she looked like a tabby cat that had just won a battle—brimming with pride.
Song Erya split the money in half and handed it to Shen Mingsong, asking him to take it back for Mingzhu. Shen Mingsong folded the ten-dollar bill neatly and returned it to her, saying that portion belonged to her alone.
She still felt she'd made a profit. Although shells and stones cost nothing—Shen Mingsong could pick them up by the sea anytime—they were still Ming Ayi's craftsmanship and design. And Shen Mingsong had served as her driver for an entire day, even if the vehicle was only a tricycle.
She felt a little embarrassed. "Brother, I'll treat you to a meal?"
"Add a popsicle," Shen Mingsong said.
He didn't stand on ceremony. After eating noodles at a small shop, they each had a popsicle in their mouths. It tasted of artificial flavoring, but it was cold enough to dispel most of the summer heat.
They headed home together. Part of the road passed by a construction site, and the wheels stirred up clouds of dust. Shen Mingsong usually hurried along this route, but today, with an extra person along, there was constant chatter in his ears.
"Brother, take me again next time."
"Get lost."
"Wasn't I good enough today? I didn't wander off even once."
"You're too noisy. Shut up."
"How am I noisy?" Song Erya licked the melted sugar water dripping onto her hand from the popsicle, feeling slightly guilty. She could tell Shen Mingsong genuinely disliked the commotion, but keeping her from talking felt worse than death.
"Then I'll try to talk less."
That resolution didn't last long. Before long, she couldn't hold it in anymore. Seeing Shen Mingsong's back soaked with sweat, her mouth started up again. "Brother, aren't you hot?"
She'd picked up a piece of cardboard and was vigorously fanning both of them.
Shen Mingsong chewed through the last bits of green-bean-flavored ice in his mouth, steering the tricycle with one hand. He glanced up at the clear sky, where clouds drifted like shredded cotton.
The blazing sun had somehow softened—astonishingly so.
It took a full week to sell all the lychees, and Song Erya clung to him for that entire week. The heat turned people into dried salted fish; she drank enormous amounts of water every day and often had the urge to jump into the sea for a swim.
When Song Fang learned that Song Erya had been going out with Shen Mingsong, she felt reassured. She gave her a box of milky-white cream to apply on her face to prevent sunburn. Song Erya didn't notice much effect.
Still, her family's genes ran fair-skinned—even Song Guoliang was pale and plump. After several days, she hadn't tanned at all. Only her face hurt from the sun, flushed red as if scorched by heat.
Worth noting was that the more she exerted herself in this body, the healthier she became. When she'd first arrived, she'd been sickly; now she could run and jump with ease.
Perhaps because she ate so much at every meal, she was visibly growing taller.
She hadn't felt this healthy in many years and wished she could expend all her surplus energy. Even late at night, Mingzhu next door could hear her singing and dancing.
Soon after, Song Erya got her first period. The pain was intense—her lower back ached, her whole body sore, her face pale as paper. Shen Mingsong thought he'd exhausted her into illness and refused to take her out again no matter what.
Her money-making plans were halted. As summer vacation progressed, the number of tourists also dwindled, leaving little opportunity to earn anyway.
Poor people really did have it hard when it came to making money.
Shen Mingsong, on the other hand, was remarkably good at it. He worked like an old ox plowing fields—after selling lychees, he returned to fishing, and even when fishermen rested, he was constantly out and about.
Song Erya didn't know just how wide his income streams were, nor how many trials he still had to endure before becoming the respected "Mr. Shen" of later years.
Despite being so busy, Shen Mingsong still found time to cut bamboo, carry it home, split it into strips, and hammer together a chicken coop, placing it in the corner of her courtyard.
Song Erya squatted nearby with a cardboard box, naming each of her chicks in turn: Big Yellow, Second Yellow, Third Yellow...
When Shen Mingsong walked over, all the "Yellows" panicked, chirping wildly inside the box.
"Song Yao."
"Hm?" Song Erya looked up at him.
Shen Mingsong tossed her a key to his front door. "Stop squeezing through my fence."
The bars were nearly bent out of shape by her.
"Oh, okay." She laughed awkwardly, thinking it was because he locked the gate all the time—if she wanted to visit Ming Ayi, squeezing through was her only option.
She stood up and put the key into her pocket, only to hear a clink as it fell to the ground—the pocket had a hole.
She was wearing altered hand-me-downs from Song Guoliang that day, nowhere near as nice as her red pinafore dress. But she only had those few presentable dresses and wore them exclusively when going out to "do business."
She didn't want to look shabby while selling things—people would avoid her at first glance.
Shen Mingsong frowned slightly, picked up the key, and handed it back to her. "I'm heading out to sea tonight with Uncle Tao and the others. We'll probably be gone for half a month. Let Sister Fang know."
Whenever he went far away on business, Song Fang helped look after Mingzhu.
Song Erya nodded, then added after a moment's thought, "Be careful, okay?"
He looked at her for a moment longer, then nodded.
When Song Fang returned home, Song Erya told her about it, and Song Fang went next door to talk for a while.
A few days later, after getting paid, Song Fang bought fabric and made new clothes for Song Erya.
A finished garment cost dozens of yuan, which the family simply couldn't afford. Song Fang did her best to follow current fashions, the sewing machine clattering furiously under her feet.
Watching her silhouette under the lamplight, Song Erya felt as though she'd returned to childhood—when her mother asked whether she liked pink dresses or green ones. While she hesitated, Song Fang simply bought both.
She had never been a particularly well-behaved child—noisy, clingy, troublesome. After falling ill, she cried even more, sobbing that she didn't want her head shaved, didn't want bone marrow or lumbar punctures, didn't want to die. Even taking medicine required coaxing.
Yet when her body endured pain, her mother bore it doubly. She had never imagined that Song Fang would pass away before her.
She was so grief-stricken that she cried every night, unable to sleep, unwilling to face reality with open eyes. No one knew she was pretending to sleep, feeling someone wipe her tears in the dead of night, rough fingertips chafing the corners of her eyes.
Rougher even than Song Fang's hands.
~
Without computers or mobile phones, days stretched long. Song Erya wasn't truly fourteen. After playing with Jiang Ling and the others a few times, she quickly lost interest.
After what happened before, Shen Xiaonian kept targeting her and didn't want her around, so she stopped going.
Stupid kid—who needed to play with them anyway?
Tao Dongdong, meanwhile, had been locked at home by her mother because her summer homework was completely blank.
With Shen Mingsong away, Song Erya took on the task of decocting medicine for Mingzhu every day. Having lived with Grandma Ming for years, she could distinguish the various herbs in Mingzhu's prescriptions and knew exactly how to prepare them and how long to boil them.
Afterward, she'd sit with Mingzhu in front of the fan, massaging her legs.
At first, Mingzhu was reluctant to let her see the gruesome scars at the amputation sites. After being pestered several times, she finally gave in.
After the massages, Song Erya would nap with Mingzhu. The young Mingzhu carried the scent of herbal medicine.
Life was comfortable and peaceful. When Song Fang had days off at home, Song Erya would start tormenting her.
She remembered that her mother worked as a sales manager at a foreign trade company, managing a district and earning a high salary. If not for the burdens of her father and Song Guoliang, she might well have been the only child of a solidly middle-class family.
Because Song Fang had suffered greatly doing low-paying odd jobs before learning a foreign language, she placed extraordinary importance on Song Erya's education—endless tutoring classes, planning to send her abroad to study someday.
Now, time reversed, and in 1995, Song Fang's efforts came back around as Song Erya took her "revenge," forcing Song Fang to learn English with relentless energy and strategy.
Song Fang's foundation was weak, so Song Erya designed a tailored learning plan, starting with pronunciation and gradually teaching vocabulary, clinging to her at every spare moment.
Song Fang was miserable. She'd rather deal with difficult customers than listen to her sister spouting gibberish.
"Please, have mercy on your sister," she begged, not knowing what had possessed her sibling to greet her with babbling English every morning and whisper nonstop by her ear every night, urging her to study.
Song Erya was deeply aggrieved. "Sister, do you really want to sell clothes here for the rest of your life?"
Of course Song Fang didn't—but what did that have to do with learning English?
"More and more foreigners are coming here to travel. If one day someone comes to buy clothes from you, are you going to pretend to be mute?"
Song Fang froze.
Song Erya pressed on. "Remember the ten dollars I gave you that day? If I hadn't chosen to talk to that foreigner, I never would've gotten it." Not every foreigner tipped, of course.
At the mention of money, Song Fang wavered hard. She'd been genuinely shocked when her sister produced that ten-dollar bill, thinking she'd been tricked. But the bank really did exchange it—worth more than she'd earn selling clothes in a long time.
Song Erya doubled down. "Foreign companies pay really well."
The Song family aunt now worked at a foreign enterprise in a big city, sending money home every year. Grandma boasted about her endlessly.
Mentioning this, Song Fang stopped resisting.
She wasn't one to hesitate excessively. At just twenty years old, vitality shone on her face, and no one turned down money.
Song Erya successfully persuaded her to study. She didn't know how much of her mother's fate she could change, but if Song Fang followed her original path into a foreign company, learning a foreign language would undoubtedly help.
With Mingzhu—once a university graduate and high school teacher—joining them, the three of them did housework and handicrafts together. Days slipped by quietly, uneventfully, as though hardship might never come.
***
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