Tiêu đề Four O'Clock Flower Chapters 6 - 8 ✅

Introduction / Chapters 1 - 5 Chapter 6 (1/2) Twenty-nine years ago, Qiao Fengtian was born in Langxi Village. Qiao Sishan’s ancestors belonged to the landlord class, an undesirable social status1 , and by the time it was his generation, he was beset by rain and wind. At that time, the Qiao family home consisted only of one main room made of red bricks and one side room made of mud walls. When Qiao Fengtian was born, he was fair and adorable, a ball of white jade tinged with pink, so lovely he didn’t resemble a coarse village kid. Lin Shuangyu adored him to the ends of the world, saying that he was a treasure granted by Heaven to the Qiao family. The amount of words the couple could read barely filled a basket; after sitting up for an entire night, the name they picked for him was “Fengtian,” taken from a book. Qiao Liang was five years older than him and favoured his snowman-like baby brother more than anyone else. He brought him to climb high and crawl low, to catch fish and net prawns. He let Qiao Fengtian enjoy the good things while he shouldered all the blame himself. He watched him shoot up like bamboo shoots after a rain, saw his features unfurl and become distinct like a flower blossoming. At that time, Qiao Fengtian was gentle and hardworking, a bright and good child that the older generation in the village gave thumbs-up to while saying that he would make something of himself in the future. At that time, he was still very dependent on Lin Shuangyu. His likes and dislikes and the depth of those feelings were all in accordance with his mother’s thinking. 1 Land Reform Movement in the 1940s-1950s, where landlords were murdered and the land redistributed to the peasant class.
Lin Shuangyi worked at an oil mill in Langxi where the shifts were divided into day shifts and night shifts. Qiao Fengtian would rather she worked the day shifts than the night shifts. To quietly wait for his mother to return before dark was more comforting than watching her leave into the dim light of the night. It was when he was attending Year 1 of junior high in Langxi that he realised that he was different from others. Qiao Fengtian liked staring at the boys’ supple and tanned calves that were covered in newly-grown fine, soft hair. He wanted to rub the prominent finger joints on the boys’ hands between his own fingers. He liked the prickly stubble of hair on the shaved backs of their necks. He wanted to touch, wanted to go closer, wanted to break through that common and appropriate safe distance. He couldn’t help staring dazedly at his male schoolmates gathered in groups and chatting in bright voices. When a subtle noise from the outside world startled him out of his reverie and he came back to his senses, his heart would pound wildly, his mind floundering. Welling up unbidden were the anxiety and palpitations that he did not know how to resolve. “Liu Susu likes you. She says that you’re good-looking and she’s always leaning against the window to look at you, didja know?” They were at the age when romantic feelings were starting to sprout yet could not be said plainly due to shyness. The boy wiped away the beads of sweat on this forehead and nudged Qiao Fengtian with his elbow. “I-I didn’t know.” Qiao Fengtian felt ticklish and recoiled. His eyes crinkled in a smile at the other boy. “Aiyo, you’re so dim. She’s the class beauty. You don’t like her?”