Chapter Ten Leaving Blood Spirit Village

  Xie Yu sat quietly on the large bluestone at the back mountain, with Xi Yue and Xi Ting sitting separately on either side of her.

  "The day after tomorrow I'm leaving."

  "Where did you go?" Xiyu asked in surprise.

  "When I go to university in Dongquan City, the outside world is always worth a look. People need some motivation after all. You can tell Old Xie about this after I leave."

  "Yu Xiao Ge, take me and my sister with you?" Xiting said.

  Xie Yu Xiao stretched out his finger and lightly tapped on Xi Ting's forehead, smiling: "Silly girl, Brother Yu Xiao is going to college, besides, it's not familiar with the place, how can you bring them along? Wait until Brother Yu Xiao gets familiar with the place then I'll call you over."

  "One word is settled, no deception allowed." Xiting's eyes were red and swollen, wanting to make a vow with Xie Yuxiao by slapping hands together, and Xie Yuxiao loudly slapped her hand.

  "Lingzhu, you're alone outside and we can't help but worry. What's more, your Easy Blood Technique hasn't reached the tenth level yet. If something goes wrong and you start bleeding, what will happen? Who will take care of you?" Xi Yu carefully alleviated Lingzhu's concerns.

  "I'm almost 20 years old now, I can take care of myself, don't worry about me, if anything happens I'll give you a call."

  Xī Yuè was about to say something, but Xiè Yǔxiāo covered her mouth with his hand and said: "Alright, let's not talk about this anymore. Let's get to work. The villagers are used to my presence, and if I leave, they'll definitely be worried. It's not okay to not leave them some holy water." As he spoke, he tilted his head back and let out a few mournful wolf howls.

  After several responses, a few wolves ran out.

  "Let's get wolf blood."

  Xie Yuxiao took out the small glass bottle and began to drip blood into it, Xi Yue struck the wolf, while Xi Ting used a celadon bowl to pass bowl after bowl of wolf's blood to Xie Yuxiao...

  After draining the blood of over ten wolves, Xie Yu Xiao stopped bleeding, looked at the half-bottle of purple blood in her hand, covered it with a lid, sat cross-legged on the large bluestone to meditate for a moment, then opened her eyes and said: "From now on, let's leave the task of treating our fellow villagers to you. Terminal illnesses and acute illnesses can be cured, but minor ailments should be left to them to take medicine and see a doctor."

  The two women nodded.

  When the three returned to Old Xie's home, Old Xie was already asleep. After Xie Yuxiao lay down on the kang, she told the two girls to go to sleep, but they refused, so the three of them chatted through the night on the same kang.

  ……

  The next evening, Xie Yuxiao returned home and walked into his father Xie Zhongshi's room.

  The room was filled with smoke and the smell of wine, Xie Zhongshi was smoking, his hands were on the table, staring blankly at a large piece of xuan paper. Xie Yuxiao called out softly "Dad", Xie Zhongshi didn't respond, he walked forward, took the cigarette butt that had already been smoked to ashes from between his father's fingers and extinguished it in the ashtray.

  "Rainy days, I have a picture that keeps appearing in my mind, the image is clear, but when I pick up my pen, I feel at a loss for where to start, and the image also becomes increasingly blurred in my mind, this is something that rarely happens in decades."

  Xie Yuxiao lit a cigarette for her father and said softly, "Dad, you're too tired. You've been cooped up in this house every day, constantly painting without giving yourself any rest. From what I can remember, you've always been like this. Don't you feel tired?"

  Xie Zhongshi's facial muscles twitched involuntarily, he reached out to stroke his hair that stood upright on his head, didn't say a word, took two steps back, and heavily sat down in the chair, looking up at the ceiling. Xie Yuxiao didn't know what her father was thinking about, but she could see the desolation in his eyes.

  Xie Yuxiao lit a cigarette for himself and paced slowly around the house. There was little space in the house where one could set foot, as it was filled with what his father considered "blemishes" and crumpled up paintings that had been carelessly discarded everywhere.

  Staring at those "defects" for a while, Xie Yu Xiao asked in a low voice: "Dad, I want to know what your true purpose of painting is?" Xie Zhong Shi suddenly turned his head, staring straight at his son, and after a long time, he spat out a few words from his mouth: "For someone!"

  Xie Yu Xiao was taken aback. Xie Zhong Shi added another sentence: "Because she expected me to succeed, but I failed to meet her expectations."

  "Her? My real mother?"

  Xie Zhongshi nodded.

  Xie Yuxiao had heard villagers mention her mother, saying she was a beautiful and passionate person. Every time someone mentioned it, Xie Yuxiao would get furious. A mother is a mother, and shouldn't have abandoned him without reason when he was only one year old...

  Xie Yu Xiao looked at his father, who was filled with painful emotions, and couldn't help but feel a mix of sympathy and anger. He crushed the cigarette butt in the ashtray and said angrily: "Dad, you don't deserve to be like this for her, she's already abandoned us father and son."

  "Shut up! Don't talk about her like that, no one can talk about her like that!" Xie Zhongshi suddenly roared, his voice very loud, his face bright red, the veins on his face bulging.

  Xie Yuxiao's whole body trembled and she was startled.

  "You can't say that about her, she's your mother, a good woman, it was your father who disappointed her! You know, when a woman is disappointed by a man, her heart dies." Xie Zhongshi's voice dropped again, dropping to the point where his eyes floated up, recalling those days.

  "Son, come and take a look at something!"

  Xie Zhongshi stopped imagining, walked to the wooden bed in the house, bent down and pulled out a wooden box from under the bed, then took out a key from the head of the bed and opened it lightly.

  There was nothing mysterious in the box, it was a stack of paintings that Xie Yu Xiao didn't want to look at anymore. But Xie Zhong Shi treated them like treasures, slowly lifting them out with both hands and placing them on the bed.

  The painting is facing upwards, and from the density of the ink and the lines, it can be discerned that the outline is a woman with long hair flowing. Xie Yu Xiao became interested, was this painted by Father? But it doesn't look like Father's style at all, could the woman in the painting be Mother?

  Xie Zhongshi turned the painting over: "Take a look, everyone, this is your mother!"

  Xie Yuxiao glanced at her father a few times and slowly picked up one of them.

  The woman in the painting is really beautiful, with long hair, big eyes, and a slender figure. She is dressed in city attire, looking elegant and refined. Xie Yu Xiao looked at each painting one by one, each with different expressions, some joyful, some sorrowful. After flipping through them once, he spread all the paintings on the bed, then carefully rearranged them for a while before saying to his father: "This is mother's transformation, from satisfaction to sadness, to disappointment, until she left!"

  What Xie Yuxiao said is right, Xie Zhongshi painted these changes, but he put the most beautiful memories on top and the most heart-wrenching ones at the bottom, he was afraid of seeing that kind of gaze from his wife.

  "Yes, it's like that. I don't know where your mother is now or how she's doing. You don't know, at that time she was the most beautiful in our art school." Xie Zhongshi picked up a photo with the brightest smile, with a hint of a smile on his mouth, and said while looking at it.

  Xie Yuxiao looked at the mother in the painting, and although a wave of warmth surged up inside him, even longing to see his own mother with his own eyes, he knew that he could never forgive his mother. How could she abandon her husband and child like this?

  "Why did mother have to leave us?"

  Xie Zhongshi was touched on his sore spot and said that he would talk about it later. He carefully put the painting away again.

  Xie Yuxiao knew his father's temper, if he asked further, his father would definitely get angry, so he didn't ask again. Although he didn't know the real reason why his mother left that year, it wasn't important to him, knowing or not knowing made no difference.

  The next morning, taking advantage of her father Xie Zhongshi going out to paint from life, Xie Yuxiao pulled her sister Xie Xuening into her own room and said somewhat awkwardly: "Sister, I need some money."

  "How much?"

  "Five hundred is enough."

  "What is it used for?"

  "I went to college and was admitted to Dongquan University."

  Xie Xueni was overjoyed and said: "I knew my brother was smart and capable, wait, I'll get it for you."

  Before long, Xie Xueni brought over a small cloth package and opened it to say: "It's probably more than 2,000 yuan, that's all we have at home." Xie Yuxiao's nose turned sour, took out 500 yuan and put it in her pocket, then wrapped up the remaining money and firmly pushed it back to her sister.

  Xie Xueni pushed it over and said: "The city is not our small mountain village, you see on TV, nothing is free, even going to the toilet costs 50 cents. And university tuition fees are so expensive, how can you afford it if you go? You take this money and still owe your sister some, let your sister think of a way for you."

  "Sister, don't worry, I have a way, with holy water, what's there to worry about money?"

  "You."

  ……

  Xie Yuxiao started packing, putting some essentials in her canvas backpack, changed into clean clothes, washed her hair, slung the bag over her shoulder, and bid farewell to her sister. As she walked out of the courtyard, she hugged Hei Bao's head affectionately for a while before slowly walking out of the walled compound, leaving behind the Blood Spirit Village where she had lived for eighteen years.