"Mom! I'm back," Li Jing took me to her house like a puppy.
Although Li Jing's mother is only in her forties, her hair is a lot whiter and she has many wrinkles on her forehead. She looks like she has experienced many vicissitudes of life.
"Xiao Jing...Who is this? Is it your classmate?"
"No, Mom," Li Jing grabbed my arm and said, "Mom, I just caught this guy by the moat. He looks so sneaky that he is not a good person. I suspect he is electro-fishing."
"Electric fish?" Li Jing's mother asked me doubtfully: "Young man, are you an electric fish?"
I quickly explained that this was all a misunderstanding and that I was not an electric fish at all.
Li Jing's mother looked at me kindly, shook her head and said with a smile: "My little classmate, you don't look like an electric fish, Xiao Jing, you made a mistake this time, you girl even caught someone here,
Please apologize quickly."
I later figured out the situation and understood why Li Jing wanted to catch electric fish.
This is because the Shunde Forestry Bureau offered a reward. At that time, the water ecology of the Yangtze River was severely damaged, and the Chinese sturgeon and the Yangtze white-tip dolphin were on the verge of extinction. The superiors were determined to protect the inland water environment, and this wave of actions also affected Shunde.
Anyone who catches an electric fish fryer can go to the Forestry Bureau to receive a reward. If you catch someone, you will be rewarded with a heavy reward of 500 yuan!
That's why the girl Li Jing held on to me because he thought I was an electric fisher and wanted to send me to the Forestry Bureau in exchange for reward money...
Because her family is short of money.
Under her mother's compulsion, Li Jing reluctantly apologized to me. She said, "Classmate, I'm sorry."
Mother Li was very hospitable. To express her apology, she asked me to stay together for lunch.
It was almost two o'clock now, and I happened to be very hungry, so I agreed.
For lunch, Mrs. Li prepared three dishes for the rice, a scrambled egg with leeks, a zucchini and beans, and a salad of lotus root slices. The home-cooked side dishes were authentic and delicious.
Li Jing looked at me coldly as I picked up the bowl of stew and ate. She would hit the porcelain bowl hard with her chopsticks from time to time, deliberately making a lot of noise, which made Li's mother frown frequently.
She disliked me for eating her eggs.
Mother Li scolded her: "Xiao Jing, why are you so ignorant of the rules? How did this little classmate offend you?"
Li Jing bit the tip of her chopsticks and curled her lips and said, "You didn't offend me, but I just don't like this guy."
I was also angry at that time.
Although I was not born as humble as my parents, and my family was in a state of poverty and no one cared about me, but one thing is that I have a strong self-esteem.
I put down the bowl and chopsticks at that time, stood up and said goodbye to Mother Li.
"You girl, who cares about eating your eggs?" I thought angrily.
As a result, as soon as I reached the door, I was pushed back by a group of people.
There were seven people, all young adults in their twenties and thirties. They were carrying paint buckets, and some were carrying sticks.
"Where is Li Dequan? Li Dequan, get out!"
"If you don't come out, I'll beat your wife and children to death!"
They all looked fierce. I had never seen such a battle before, so I was immediately frightened. Li Jing and her mother were not much better, their faces were pale.
The man walked into the house carrying the paint bucket. After seeing the food on the table, the man sneered.
"Fuck, you still have the fucking money to eat eggs! If you have the money to eat eggs, why don't you pay me back?"
"I'll let you eat!" The man directly lifted the paint bucket and poured a table full of red paint.
The smell of paint was pungent and unpleasant, and the dishes on the table were immediately covered in red paint. Mother Li's eyes were filled with fear, and Li Jing lowered her head and said nothing.
"Hehe..." the man said with a smile: "Eat eggs, right? You have no money, right?"
He used a stick to poke the paint-covered scrambled eggs with leeks in front of Li Jing.
"Eat, eggs are delicious, right? As long as you finish this plate, we'll leave, haha." Several other people also laughed in agreement.
"What are you doing!" I couldn't stand it anymore. Isn't this bullying?
"Hey," the man looked at me and said with a smile, "Brother, which onion are you?"
I took a deep breath and said, "I am classmate Li Jing. If you dare to act nonsense, I will call the police!"
"Ah? Call the police?"
Suddenly, everyone was laughing.
"It's natural to pay back debts! How dare you call the police, you little brat!"
He hit me hard on the head with the stick in his hand.
I subconsciously raised my arms to block it, but my reaction was too slow and I failed to block it. I received a solid blow to my head.
My head was sticky. I stretched out my hand and touched it. My head was broken by a stick and it was bleeding.
I just felt like the world was spinning in front of my eyes.
"stop fighting!"
"I eat! I eat!" Li Jing, who had been lowering her head, suddenly raised her head and shouted loudly with red eyes.
Mother Li kept wiping her tears.
Li Jing grabbed the eggs on the plate with her hands, opened her mouth and stuffed it into her mouth...
There was paint everywhere on those eggs, and the smell was pungent. Li Jing retched after taking one bite.
"Haha, you can't do this, eat it all! I mean eat it all! Are you deaf?"
Li Jing grabbed another egg and stuffed it into her mouth.
Five minutes later, the plate of eggs was gone.
"Haha, it's interesting. It's not in vain. You guys watched a good show. Also, remember to tell Li Dequan that if we don't have money when we come over, it won't be that simple."
This group of people left a few words, cursed and left.
My head was broken and I bled a lot. I was lying on the ground very uncomfortable.
"How are you?" Li Jing wiped the paint around her mouth and carefully helped me up.
Mother Li found gauze and simply wrapped my head. I lay on their bed and rested for more than an hour before I recovered.
"Little classmate, I'm sorry for hurting you," Mother Li said to me with a guilty look on her face.
"Auntie, what do those people do?" My head still hurt, so I couldn't bear to ask her.
"My dad's business failed and he owed them a lot of money," Li Jing said.
"The business failed? How much money do you owe?"
"Hey..." Mother Li couldn't help but shook her head and said, "Fifty thousand yuan..."
"Fifty thousand yuan! That's a lot!" I was shocked when I heard this amount. Even if I don't eat or drink this much money, I won't be able to pay it back in two or three years.
"Little friend, do you want to stay at school or go to the hospital? Let's take you back. I'm really sorry for you," Mother Li apologized to me again.
"No, no, I don't have to go to school. I can just walk by myself. I can walk by myself now."
After leaving the door, Li Jing came out to see me off.
"Hey, I'm sorry just now," she apologized to me with her head lowered as she walked side by side with me.
"It's okay, it's all over," I waved my hand generously and said with a smile.
"You're not from our school, are you? When did you go to school? I'll go visit you later," Li Jing suddenly asked me.
"Ah? This, this..."
I lied: "I am in the first and second grade of high school."
"Ah, then you should be good at studying," Li Jing said with a smile.
I blushed and didn't dare to answer. My academic performance has always been in the bottom three, which is quite stable.
PHS had just become popular at that time, and ordinary students couldn't afford mobile phones at all, so they naturally didn't leave a phone number. However, Li Jing asked me to come visit him when I had time, and also asked me to help her with her homework.
Back at the hotel, Wang Baotou was drinking tea.
When he saw that I had wrapped my head in gauze, he almost spit out the tea.
Wang raised his head and asked me loudly: "Yunfeng, what happened to you? Did you fall into the pit when you were loose?"
I said with some embarrassment: "I'll have my head beaten."