1
As usual, Mei Juan passed through the street where old women often congregate in the middle of the day, her sack on her back and a pair of tongs in her left hand.
The sun was strong. Mei Juan’s face was red with the sun and the tip of her nose was covered with sweat. She was wearing a short purple flowery sleeve over a wide pair of black trousers. Her ankles were sticking out. Her army green sneakers were wet and muddy, and she wore a rag-picker’s shabby look.
Waiting for Mei Juan to appear is one of the daily chores for women, a group of mostly retired middle-aged and elderly women who spend their days doing laundry, cooking, taking care of their children’s children, knitting sweaters, visiting and chatting, and matchmaking.
“Meijuan, what did you pick up today?” The woman was sitting in front of the grocery store, eating the seeds and spitting out half a piece of the shell.
Mei Juan grinned, shook her head and said “HMMM” several times. She hesitated and hesitated for a long time without saying a complete word.
“Meijuan, give me a piece of music. Come to your famous’ sister Lin ‘!” Some in the crowd laughed, all gray-haired aunts who liked to make fun of Mei.
Mei looked at them and said to herself with a smile, “Sister Lin is here. I have seen this sister before…”
“Meijuan, sing us a song!” “The women urged.” They’re all waiting.”
“Sing, sing, we clap for you.” The women’s heckling applause began.
Suddenly excited, Mei Juan threw the sack and tongs to the ground and pretended to shake up her sleeve.
“A younger sister Lin fell from the sky, as a young cloud would bring out the glaze, but the young people inside him were frivolous. However, as a matter of fact, the purity of mind was not vulgar, but was quiet as a flower shining on water…”
Her eyes moved with the movements of her arms, her expression in place, her expression in order, and she turned and shuffled her thick waist and big feet under her black trousers.
Mei Juan has a pleasant and melodious voice, and can write down a long paragraph of yueju opera lyrics and sing a song in its entirety. If only listen to the voice do not look at people, no one will think this is a silly woman.
2
Mei Juan is nearly 40 years old, but her mind is only a few years old. She often pratters and sings yue opera, talking to herself and chattering endlessly.
She basically collects garbage for a living. Whenever she sees a trash can, she goes forward and rummages for cans and soft drink bottles. Sometimes she will ask the sweeper for bottles, and the sacks on her back are always bulging every day. She exchanged them for money for steamed buns and drinks. She ate badly, but she was tall, fat and dark.
Mei Juan lives in Suzhou. Before her elder sister went abroad, when she talked to people about her life experience, her eyes became red.
Mei’s grandparents preferred sons over daughters. When the second child was born, the two old men slapped the table loudly, saying they would abandon her.
One night, Xiao Meijuan had a bad fever and no one in her family wanted to send her for treatment. Her mother, still in confinement, stayed up all night before taking Mei Juan to the hospital in the town the next morning. High fever still did not return in time, Mei Juan’s brain burned out, became a fool.
From then on, the child seemed to understand nothing except eating and drinking. But miraculously, the old man of the family listened to the Shaoxing opera, and she just stood beside it, motionless as if fascinated by it.
Two years later, after her mother gave birth to a younger brother, she dared to ask her in-laws not to send Her away again. The old man took his grandson in his arms and said, “Forget it. It’s not bad for her.”
When the three brothers and sisters grew up, the elder sister married well, and the children also had a promising life. The younger brother idled all day and married a wife, who was bitter and bitter.
Mei Juan has been picking up garbage and singing Yue Opera for more than a decade since she was in her twenties.
After her parents died, Silly Mei Juan was always taken care of by her elder sister. A few years ago, wayan went abroad with her children. When she left, with tears in her eyes, she entrusted her silly sister to her brother and his wife, and promised to supplement her money every year and buy her as much food and clothes as possible when she came back to visit her. Even so, her younger brother once said after drinking that Mei Juan would take whoever she wanted.
Mei Juan picks up garbage and often doesn’t go home at noon. Her brother doesn’t care about his family, so she buys some food for lunch with the money she sells. During the day she wandered about the streets, and at night she went to her room to sleep. It was a small room built next to the kitchen of my brother’s house. There was a small bed, a simple cupboard, and the garbage collected was piled under the bed. There were a lot of mosquitoes. There is also a small tape-recorder in the room, beside a lot of shaoxing opera tapes. Wayan bought the tapes for her and she liked to listen to them over and over again.
3
Mei Juan is ugly and, if not stupid, she is by no means an attractive woman. Her mouth was very wide, her eyes were small, her nose was flat, and her face was surprisingly large. No one would worry about a girl like that outside.
Until four years ago, that tragic thing happened.
In the early morning of that day, Mei Juan was found naked, lying in a garbage heap covered with smelly fruit peels and stale rice. She crouched, shivering, her torn clothes thrown aside. One old lady just went out to take out the garbage. Seeing this scene, she was so shocked that she cried out: “Isn’t this Mei Juan? What are you doing here? Why don’t you get dressed?”
Mei Juan looked up and suddenly burst into tears and a burst of laughter. The bruises on her chest were clearly visible. There were also wounds on her legs and blood on her lower body.
The old woman understood at once.
Gradually, more and more passers-by gathered around mei Juan to look at her naked body. Some men’s malicious smiling faces pointed at mei Juan and stared at her breasts greedily.
In front of the crowd, Mei Juan stood up from the garbage and the peel fell off.
Some people shouted and heckled. A few of the old men nearby, drinking their morning tea, had furrows of smiles on their faces, full of cunning.
“Damn it!”
“Who gives this silly girl cover up ugly!”
One dignified sentence after another of condemnation from the crowd, but no one came forward. Finally, a girl who looked like a high school student took off her school uniform and went over to put it on Mei Juan’s body. Unexpectedly, the frightened Mei Juan let out a scream, threw off the dress and began to run for the road.
Several passers-by stopped Mei Juan, and the young girl helped her put on her clothes, but her breasts were not covered, as laughter rose and fell in the crowd behind her.
Someone notified the street to do, the residents with Mei Juan’s brother, brother and daughter-in-law together rushed over. Mei Juan’s younger brother has a shaved head and a cigarette in his mouth. His daughter-in-law has long flowing wavy hair. The sound of high-heeled shoes can be heard far away.
“It’s humiliating, it’s insulting! My crazy sister ah, the original last night you did not come back all night, no wonder you have dinner but also do not see you ah, who called you here?” “Shouted the daughter-in-law.
The woman who found Mei Juan said, “It seems that they have been ruined.”
Taking a thin blanket in her hand, her younger brother and daughter-in-law went to put it on Mei Juan. Frowning, she squeezed a few tears out of her eyes. “Crazy sister, how worried I am about you!”
The girl student said, “Call the police!”
Mei Juan’s younger brother frowned in opposition. “My crazy sister, I don’t know what to say. It’s no use calling the police. Tell her to go home and stop making a fool of herself here.”
Just then a tricycle passed by and the driver stopped. “Tricycle, come here quickly!” The couple bundled Mei Juan into the car immediately.
The crowd of onlookers soon dispersed, leaving behind a heap of torn clothes, which, along with the peel, smouldered in the rubbish.
4
In summer, under a tree, the woman sweeper sat down to rest. Mei Juan did not come to her for a bottle for some time.
The man who raped Mei Juan was never seen again. Some said he was a homeless man, others said he was a drunk migrant worker working the night shift nearby. No one could produce conclusive evidence.
After about half a month of heated discussion in the town, the women who often waited in the street for Mei Juan to sing yueju opera changed the subject and continued to talk about the daughter-in-law and the son and son-in-law of the family.
A Yue Opera troupe came to the town to perform, and after lunch the group of women gathered to watch. Suddenly someone said, “If Meijuan was there, I would be so happy to know that I sang with her!”
Some people in the crowd sneered, “This dead Meijuan has not been seen so far. Is she addicted to sleeping with a man?”
“Ha ha ha, once there may be a second ah, analysis is reasonable!”
“Meijuan this silly girl, silly silly, this thing between men and women began to understand, must have someone to sleep.” Passing ah three also echoed the words of the women. He is a bachelor, usually petty theft, rubbing, a little money, to patronize those who do not shampoo the barber shop.
After listening to ah SAN’s words, several women laughed heartily, and some one gave him a slap in the face and said, “Ah SAN, you bum, isn’t Mei Juan ruined by you? I am a big yellow girl!”
Ah three pick his teeth, “how possible, this woman is terribly ugly, I have no interest in it, how can sleep!”
“You just like those voluptuous women washing your hair, don’t you?”
5
Mei Juan appeared on the street two months later in late autumn. She put on a thick coat, still holding a hemp skin bag to pick up trash, to see people will smirk, mouth humming a little song, “the sky fell down a sister Lin…”
Gossiping women, of course, do not pass up anything to amuse them, but every time they tease her, they bring along a line: “Meijuan, do you have a man looking for you?”
Mei Juan blinked her tiny eyes and grinned, her eyes clear.
“Dead Meijuan, pretend to be stupid!”
Winter turned to spring and the weather became hot again. Mei Juan has gained a lot of weight and walks a little wobbly. The women in front of the store tease her as usual. Mei Juan sat on a stone bench in the street, her clothes unbuttoned, revealing a round belly.
Seeing this, the women exclaimed, “Come and see, Mei Juan has a big belly!”
Like six or seven months ago when the humiliation of Mei Juan was found, Mei Juan by the crowd.
Mei Juan looked up at more and more people and recoiled in horror. She wanted to go, but there were so many that she could not get out.
Soon, the people from the street office came again, and so did the younger brother of the inch-board head and the sister-in-law of the flowered skirt.
“Don’t you care a bit about your family? You don’t know how pregnant you are?” “Said the women’s director of the street office.
“Director comrade, sorry, know this crazy elder sister to eat much only, think her appetite is good, became fat, who know to be able to have happy!” Mei Juan’s brother put on a look of grievance.
“Yeah, and she went out early and came back late every day to pick up the garbage, and she didn’t pay much attention to her!” The younger brother daughter-in-law echoed to say.
“Well, you’ll see. What do you do with it?”
‘At your disposal! The two men saw eye to eye.
The director of the women’s Department had a firm, cold look in his eyes. “The boy must be taken away. A fool can’t take care of himself.
“Well, I can’t believe I was last… Unexpectedly open up this matter.” Mei Juan’s brother sighed.
“I’ll take her.” The director of women came forward and took Mei Juan’s arm. “Listen,” he said, “let’s go to the hospital.
Mei Juan broke free and started to run. Pregnant, it was difficult for her to run fast, and she was caught by her brother immediately.
Mei Juan was stuffed into the tricycle again. She screamed, touching her stomach with one hand, refusing to cooperate.
6
A month later, she reappeared on the side of the road, curled up like a deflated ball, the sack flattened on the side of the road, the tongs gone. There was no noise. Mei Juan sat quietly on the street. No matter who teased her, she didn’t look up.
Those retired women are still talking in succession, you speak and I speak, lively as if listening to Mei Juan singing.
“I didn’t expect that Meijuan was so upset.”
“Guess it’s the one from the rape!”
“Yes, yes, we always see, how did not find her stomach before!”
“Who made her so fat? She was so fat when she wasn’t pregnant.”
It was summer again, and the sun was shining brightly on the earth. Mei Juan began to sing again. “A younger sister Lin fell from the sky, as a young cloud would take care of you. Only the sound was as low as a mosquito.
The group of women still talked about Meijuan occasionally. Some people said that they had seen a strange thing. Once, a tricycle driver stopped by Meijuan’s side, he got out of the car and quietly put a bag of food at her feet.
They guessed that the driver might be the one who had raped Mei Juan, but they had no proof. Anyway, it just didn’t work out.
Now, as I walk through the streets, I often come across Mei Juan, who is still the silly girl who can sing, as if nothing had happened.
Under the arrangement of the women’s director of the street office, Mei Juan was put on the contraceptive ring, they said, so that she would not have an accident in the future.
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