The Moon is Coming to Me

Chapter 2

After attending class for 10 days after the final exam, the school had finally ended. Because Taoxi Bay was far away from the county’s No. 1 High School, Tao Xi usually lived at school’s dorm and returned home once a month.

He put the study materials and clothes into a big plastic luggage bag1 and took the county bus twice to go back to Taoxi Bay.

Taoxi Bay was the furthest village in Qingshui County. The scenery was beautiful but the land was poor. The green tea trees in the terraced fields reflected on each other. When the spring rain came, hundreds of peach blossoms on the banks of the Qingshui River in the mountains were full of mists, and the flowers bloom on the stream.

However, most local villagers didn’t have much leisure to admire the scenery and flowers. In recent years, the Internet had attracted some idlers who came to sketch and took pictures. Several wealthy farmers had opened farmhouses. With the completion of roads in the county, more and more guests came here.

Tao Xi’s family was on the mountain side by the Qingshui River. There was a small brick house with white walls and grey roof. His mother, Guo Ping and father, Tao Jian were both native villagers in Taoxi Bay. Tao Jian worked in other places all year round, and Guo Ping occasionally went to the village’s farmhouse and tea factory to do odd jobs during her free time. His younger sister Tao Le was thirteen years old and had just had the first day of summer vacation in middle school.

With sharp ears, Tao Le quickly ran out to meet Tao Xi when she heard the movement in the hallway, almost tripping over the fertilizer bag on the ground because of excitement.

When Tao Xi saw Tao Le coming out, he grabbed her by the arm and hurried to the room.

“Don’t come out, the sun is too hot today.” He put down his bag, closed the wooden door, turned and looked down at Tao Le’s face.

The little girl was a little fat and she wore a tight trousers. She had a shiny natural curly hair, and a pair of almond eyes that were smart and lively, but there was a large erythema like a butterfly on her face, spreading from the bridge of the nose to the left face.

Tao Le suffered from Systemic Lupus Erythematosus2 and had been taking medicine to maintain it.

“Ge, I heard from my classmates that you are the number one in the county this time! You are going to Wenhua City to study when school starts!” Tao Le was on vacation early, helping Guo Ping with some farm work at home and looking forward to Tao Xi’s return every day.

The news spread quickly, and it was estimated that Guo Ping knew about it too. It saved the effort to talk to her.

Tao Xi nodded, but there was no excitement on his face like when he first knew it. If it weren’t for Tao Le, he wouldn’t want to return to this house.

After sunset, the siblings took the dried tea leaves on the dojo. Later, when Guo Ping returned from the tea factory, Tao Xi was cooking in the kitchen.

She picked up the enamel cup on the chopping board, drank a few sips of herbal tea and walked to the kitchen. When she was young, Guo Ping was famous for her aggressive personality in Taoxi Bay. After ten or twenty years of wasteful time and years of hard work, her skin was dark and yellow and wrinkled, her once-beautiful apricot eyes were yellow and drooping, and her personality became reticent and silent.