Chapter 10 — A Pigsty Cleaner Than the Ancestral Home

Debts do not vanish simply because one refuses to acknowledge them. I clutched the red cloth bundle tightly against my chest.

Uncle, grandmother owed you nothing.

Neither did my mother.

His lips twitched, but no further words escaped. Qin Huaifang was waiting for me by the pigpen. The village committee had re-measured the boundaries, driving fresh wooden stakes around the perimeter of the enclosure. The path used by third uncle’s fish transport carts had been diverted to the far side, forcing him to take a detour of over a hundred meters. Though deeply resentful, he no longer dared to cross the demarcated line. Once thoroughly cleaned out, the pigpen was actually not very large. Its eastern wall had been reconstructed with brand-new bricks, and the gaping space beneath the feeding trough was now completely sealed. Shen Yan asked if I wanted to tear the structure down and rebuild entirely. I shook my head.

No demolition.

We will simply repair it and let it remain.

In time, the former pigpen was transformed into a modest, quiet room. It was not used for commerce, nor did it ever receive guests. Inside rested a wooden comb, a pair of reading glasses, a sewing kit, and grandmother’s cherished gold bracelet. The remaining gold ingots had been deposited into the bank. After exchanging two of them for hard currency, I funded the complete restoration of the tombs belonging to both my grandmother and my mother. Upon the headstone, directly beside grandmother’s engraved name, a delicate line of text was added.

Erected with utmost devotion by her beloved daughter Qin Yuanhe and granddaughter Qin Li.

On the day the headstone was erected, a great many members of the wider Qin clan gathered to pay their respects. Great-uncle leaned heavily upon his walking stick, burning ceremonial paper money before the graves.

Respected elder, the status you fought so fiercely to secure throughout your entire lifetime has finally been firmly established today.

The eldest uncle came as well. He lingered far in the distance, not daring to approach the gravesite. Qin Manman was absent. Word had it that she had already departed for distant parts to seek manual labor. Before leaving, she had entrusted my aunt with a letter of apology meant for me. The handwriting upon the paper was crooked and unsteady, brimming with a stubborn unwillingness to yield. Yet in the very final sentence, she had written:

I should never have touched grandmother’s bracelet, nor should I have vented my fury upon your mother’s grave.

I chose not to reply to the letter. Certain apologies exist solely to lighten the moral burden of those still living. Refusing to accept them is, in itself, an answer. On the eve of the Qingming Festival, I dreamed of grandmother once more. This time, the setting was not the pigpen. She was sitting beneath the ancient scholar tree outside the ancestral threshold, clad in a tunic of muted grey-blue, a needle and thread held gently in her hands.

Li Li, are you cold?

I shook my head. A faint, gentle smile touched her lips as she smoothed a quilt of faded blue floral fabric across her knees.

Then all is well.