My mother is a strong-willed and proud person, so she often can't stand the encouragement of others and likes to hear compliments. My father is an honest man, and many people think he is weak and easy to bully, so they often speak ill of him. Over time, my mother felt that her father was not worthy of him.

Due to the family's poverty, my father left home to work, but being illiterate, he was deceived by his peers and lost money, which made my mother even more disappointed, leading her to consider going out to earn money.

My mother is a Christian and often attends Christian gatherings in the village, sometimes taking me along to pray together. The believers in Christianity help each other, and I remember a stranger from the church once brought a bag of food to our home. Although I didn't know that person's name, this incident left a deep impression on me; it was said to be from the neighboring village.

After my mother went out to work, she may have encountered setbacks, which led to her having doubts. Before she left, she had a nightmare.

I remember that morning I hadn't woken up yet when my mother woke our family and began to recount her dream. She said she dreamed of a devil that threatened her to marry it, and for the sake of her family, she pretended to agree to marry the devil. Then she shouted a specific term from the church and prayed. However, my father seemed uninterested in the dream and was not engaged throughout.

One night, only my father was awake, sitting at the door of the house; it seemed to be raining outside that night. Suddenly, my father shouted and started smashing things, but in the end, he didn't hit anything, and then he said he saw a snake slithering in through the door but didn't manage to hit it.

At that time, the floor of the house was not cement, so it is estimated that the snake later found a place to burrow underground. However, we didn't show any signs of fear, as we often encountered various snakes in that era and had become accustomed to it. Nevertheless, having a snake enter the house in the middle of the night was indeed not a good omen.

This house seems to have some kind of memory; it was built with yellow stones, which is rare in rural areas. Even more absurdly, the house was built by the older generation on top of a spring, which would gush out cool spring water every summer. No matter how hot it was outside, entering this room would immediately feel refreshing, and even lying on the ground would feel cool. However, from a feng shui perspective, this might indicate heavy yin energy.

In that era, the local customs were not simple. We often hid the keys under a large stone when going out, so that family members could return home and unlock the door. Once, a friend kept pestering me to go out to play, and reluctantly, after hiding the key, I told him not to tell anyone that the key was hidden there.

Unexpectedly, the next afternoon when my parents returned home, they found the door had been opened by a thief, who had also lit the kerosene lamp inside and stolen some food. Fortunately, my parents returned home in time, and the thief hurriedly fled. So every time I recall this incident, I seriously suspect it was that friend's family who came to steal. Food was the most precious thing in that era, followed by money; I imagine they must have been on lookout and saw my parents coming home and fled without hiding.

Later, after discussing, my parents changed the direction of the door. Previously, it opened to the south, facing the roadside; the house was originally oriented this way, but back then, the main road was part of our yard, and later the village decided to open the road and occupied our yard. After the theft incident, my parents worked hard to open a door in the north wall while sealing the door in the south wall. This change turned the main room into a south room.

After the house was changed to a south room, good fortune did not come to our family; instead, it worsened, and sunlight could not come in at all. At the same time, my younger brother was born out of wedlock, which made our family a target for abuse and plunder.

I remember it was a winter in a certain year when the village team took away the front door of our house, and one of them carried it back to install in their own home. Meanwhile, the village accountant came to our house to steal food, taking sorghum and other grains back to his home, justifying it as a legitimate punishment for having an out-of-wedlock child.

That winter was particularly cold, with biting winds blowing in, and our family shivered from the cold. My father made a door block out of branches to slightly warm up the place. Then we burned a fire inside, and our family huddled closely by the flames.

Later, when they came to check and found the branch door, they unceremoniously took it away, using it as firewood for cooking in someone else's home. However, my uneducated father and my somewhat educated mother were helpless.

At that time, some dried sweet potatoes were also moved to my uncle's house, and the pigs were also transferred there. In a short time, our home was bare, and we had to beg for food to survive. However, when the situation eased a bit, my father went to my uncle's house to ask for the sweet potatoes and pigs, only to be told by my maternal grandfather and uncle that they had already eaten them and had nothing to return. Since it was my mother's family, this matter was left unresolved.

To survive, the whole family, including my grandmother, worked hard from dawn to dusk to beg for food, gradually bringing back a lot of things. As life seemed to improve, a group of uncles, bringing the elderly and children, came to visit, and soon everything was consumed and taken away, even the little food we had left. My grandmother felt very angry about this, as it was food she and her family had worked hard for, sacrificing their dignity, begging and even kneeling to get, yet it was repeatedly consumed by my mother's family, leading to a sharp deterioration in the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

Naturally, my mother defended her family, and my grandmother was unwilling to let others eat for free, so they often quarreled. To reduce the number of mouths to feed at home, I was once sent to my grandmother's house. My grandmother lived in someone else's house, and her usual source of food was also from begging; if she got more, she would help her son’s family. So, I can now understand her feelings back then. However, being caught in the middle of their relationship was not easy for me; when I went to my grandmother's house, I was asked what bad things my mother had said, and when I was with my mother, I was asked what bad things my grandmother had said about her. Naturally, I withheld some information, so my situation was quite awkward. Fortunately, no matter how much grievance I suffered, I never held a grudge, so regardless of right or wrong, what happened in the past is past.

One day, I finally returned home, but this was the last reunion with my family. My mother often told my father that shallow water cannot support fish, complaining that my father was incapable. During this time, my mother was almost bullied by an old man from the same village, but fortunately, my grandmother appeared in time and fought with that man, taking many slaps from him. However, my grandmother also had a sharp tongue, and during the tense relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, she often brought this up, making my mother feel embarrassed.

That morning, my mother got up before dawn, woke my brother, and then left under the pretext of going to my uncle's house. By the time my grandmother woke me up, it was already late in the morning, and my grandmother said, "Your mother has run away." I was incredulous upon hearing this, not knowing if I was too sleepy or fainted, and I fell asleep again.