The sister-in-law standing beside her was at a loss and refused to put down her hand holding the envelope. She really didn't understand that since her sister-in-law married her, she took good care of her brother and her. After her brother was arrested as a strong man, her sister-in-law took on the burden of the family alone, made money by weaving cloth, and spent five years paying off her foreign debt. Now, my brother has finally sent back the news from Taiwan Province, why is my sister-in-law unwilling to even take a look at the letter?
My sister-in-law was much silent and finally became a little more awake: This is not my sister-in-law's fault, it's just that the four words "I am paralyzed" in my brother's letter are really dazzling. Let me ask, who can accept an elderly man who is already paralyzed in bed?
After a long time, Lan Fang broke the silence, and she said to her sister-in-law sadly: "Don't blame my sister-in-law, my sister-in-law has remarried..."
In just one short sentence, she told the endless sadness in the world. So, can my sister-in-law convince her paralyzed brother who is far away in Taiwan go home to reunite with her relatives?
Revealing the last order of his mother and marrying her cousin as his wife
The paralyzed man who sent the letter was named Zhao Daqi, a Taiwanese veteran, born in 1930 in a remote rural village in Anlu, Hubei. Lan Fang was born in the same year as him, 5 months older than him, and is his first wife.
Like most children living in war-torn times, Zhao Daqi experienced ups and downs in childhood, and at the moment of his birth, he was stained with a tragic color.
Zhao Daqi is the fifth in the family. Unfortunately, his three brothers and one sister died shortly after they were born, and the oldest did not live past 5 years old. This hit Zhao Daqi's mother a lot. However, in 1929, she became pregnant again.
This time I was pregnant, the mother carefully protected the fetus in her abdomen, but at the time of fertility, an accident happened again.
It was one morning. My mother had just finished her meal and was about to help with some housework. Suddenly, a severe pain came from her abdomen. Realizing that she might have premature birth , she hurriedly called her husband to go to the neighboring village to invite a midwife. But as soon as her husband stepped out of the house, she called her husband back: "It's too late, go and invite Aunt Li next door!"
In this way, with the assistance of her husband and Aunt Li, the mother finally gave birth to a baby boy named Zhao Daqi. Although he was a premature baby of , Zhao Daqi was in very good health. Seven years later, his mother gave birth to another sister for him.
However, this time, she suffered half of her mother's life. She bleed heavily during the delivery process and never got sick since then. Two years later, her life has come to an end.
When I was dying, my mother called Zhao Daqi to the bed and told him: " I have agreed with your third aunt to marry Lan Fang, the daughter of the third aunt, and you will marry Lan Fang after I die! " After the words, my mother passed away.
Zhao Daqi was still young at that time and didn't understand why he wanted to marry a wife. It was not until 1947 that his father suddenly had bleeding from his nose while working in the fields, and he couldn't stop it. Two months later, his father also passed away.
In just 8 years, Zhao Daqi lost two close relatives one after another, which once made him feel in pain. After the funeral was being processed for his father, grandmother and third aunt took him away. At grandmother's house, the third aunt told him: "Your parents are gone, let Lan Fang marry her. First, this is your mother's wish, and second, Lan Fang can take care of you and your sister."
So, under the arrangement of grandmother and third aunt, Zhao Daqi married his cousin Lan Fang home.
The husband was arrested and the wife took care of her sister-in-law and grew up
After Lan Fang entered the door, Zhao Daqi felt the warmth of the family again. During the Chinese New Year in 1948, the third aunt (also mother-in-law) who had always taken care of him specially prepared a large bag of rubbed tampons for the newlywed couple and asked Lan Fang to take them back to weave them. To this end, Zhao Daqi also took out his only savings and bought an spinning wheel in the town and put it in the inner room at home. He usually does farm work and asks his wife to weave cloth at home, so his life is just like this.
In the next six months, the couple had the male lead and the female lead. Lan Fang also cared about taking care of her 12-year-old sister-in-law. Although she lived a poor life, she was happy.However, at this moment, an accident happened.
In August 1948, the Kuomintang was defeated and arrested strong men everywhere, and added to the front-line battlefield as "cannon fodder". The Kuomintang does everything he wants to search door to door, and even forcibly break into the door and capture all the young people of appropriate age.
Although Zhao Daqi escaped the search, once he went to the street to sell cloth, he met a team of soldiers from the National Army. A platoon leader led by pulled him over and pulled him into the truck without saying a word. Before Zhao Daqi could explain to his wife and sister, he was taken to Xuzhou to participate in Huaihai Campaign .
On the battlefield of Huaihai, the Kuomintang and the Communist armies fought to the darkness, and Zhao Daqi survived many times. After the defeat of the National Army, he followed the troops all the way and went to Fujian.
In August 1949, the People's Liberation Army liberated Fuzhou and continued to pursue the remaining enemies. Zhao Daqi's troops were unable to make a comeback and collectively took a boat to Taiwan.
On the other side, Lan Fang and her sister-in-law have not had a good life. After her husband disappeared, Lan Fang could not hear any news at all, so she had to take care of her sister-in-law while weaving. Her life was very difficult. What’s even more sad is that before her husband disappeared, she borrowed seven stones of rice from his neighbor’s house, and the heavy responsibility of returning the rice was all on her.
When the neighbor came to ask for rice, Lan Fang protected her sister-in-law and asked her family to make a guarantee, ensuring that she would pay off the debt and drove the neighbor away. In the next five years, Lan Fang has to do both farm work and weave cloth, and has tasted all the sadness. Fortunately, my sister-in-law grew up and could help plant rice, harvest wheat, wash clothes and cook, reduce the burden on her family, and finally get enough of her neighbor’s seven-stone rice.
In a blink of an eye, my sister-in-law grew up to 18 years old, and she is a big girl. Under the arrangement of his sister-in-law Lan Fang, the sister-in-law married Xiao Zhengjiawan, Lan Fang's mother's home.
Five or six years later, Lan Fang still didn't receive any news from her husband. The villagers were rumoring: "If the National Army was arrested, they would have died in battle long ago." Lan Fang, who had not been able to wait for her husband to return for a long time, thought her husband had passed away and no longer waited. After being matched by the matchmaker, Zhao Zhiqiang, the young master who married her husband, moved out of the village.
However, Zhao Daqi, who is far away in Taiwan, has no idea what happened at home, and he doesn't know that his wife has remarried. Not long after, due to an accident, he was paralyzed in bed and was even more unlikely to go home.
Letter from Taiwan, his wife: Don’t show it to me, I’m sorry for your brother
After Zhao Daqi went to Taiwan, he continued to stay in the National Army to serve. He was eager to go back to the mainland as soon as possible to reunite with his family. However, he soon realized that the slogan "One year preparation, two years of counterattack, five years of success" promoted by Chiang Kai-shek was just a dream. When the beautiful dream woke up, Zhao Daqi also realized that he could not go back.
In 1961, when Zhao Daqi was participating in a combat skills performance in Hsinchu, Taiwan, he unfortunately fell from a high place, causing a cervical vertebrae fracture and fell into a coma on the spot. was too serious for injuries, so he was carried onto the plane and sent to Taipei Air Force General Hospital.
When he woke up again, he found himself lying on the hospital bed, unable to move all over. The doctor told him regretfully: "Although you were rescued, central nerve was severely damaged, and he was paraplegic at a high position, and he would never get up again."
Zhao Daqi was distraught when he learned that he was paralyzed and thought of death at the first time. He asked the nurse for sleeping pills on the grounds of insomnia, and he saved up pieces of sleeping pills and tried to commit suicide by taking them. Fortunately, his actions were discovered by his comrades who were hospitalized with him and stopped him. His comrades advised him: "Have you died so hard than to live. Even if you don't care about yourself, you should think about your relatives in the mainland. Don't you want to see them again?"
's words inspired Zhao Daqi. Yes, he died like this, and he had no friends. His wife and sister knew how sad they should be! So he cheered up and stayed in the hospital for rest. Because he was a disabled soldier, he was taken care of by all parties and survived strongly.
In 1982, cross-strait relations eased, and many Taiwanese veterans wrote letters to their relatives in the mainland to report their safety.Zhao Daqi also called his comrades in the first time and asked him to write a letter to his sister as a writer, mentioning his 20-year-old paralysis and asking about his wife Lan Fang's current situation. At the end of the letter, Zhao Daqi wrote blamingly: Sister, I have been away for so many years, I am sorry for you and Lan Fang .
A few months later, Zhao Daqi received a reply from his sister, but what surprised him was that his sister only introduced her situation but did not mention any words about her sister-in-law's affairs.
Zhao Daqi suddenly panicked. Does her sister have any hidden secrets? Or is Lan Fang no longer alive, and her sister is afraid that he will be sad and can't bear to mention it? He was upset and asked his comrades to write a letter from his family on his behalf, focusing on asking about his wife's situation.
But on the other side, the sister was in trouble after receiving the second letter. She deliberately did not mention her sister-in-law's recent situation and did not want her brother to know that her sister-in-law had remarried someone else, and that person was his childhood friend. But my sister also understands my sister-in-law. Whose daughter-in-law can tolerate her husband's disappearance for more than ten years? How uncomfortable is it to be pointed at by someone behind her back!
But now, my sister knew that she could not hide it anymore, so she found her sister-in-law Lan Fang and asked her for her opinion. Lan Fang almost cried excitedly, but when she thought that she had remarried, her eyes dimmed instantly. She did not dare to take the letter and refused, "Don't show it to me, I'm sorry for your brother!"
Forgive his wife, and Taiwan
The sister no longer makes things difficult for her sister-in-law. After thinking for a long time, she wrote a reply to Zhao Daqi, telling her brother that her sister-in-law had married and was well recuperated and she didn't have to worry about it. Fearing that my brother couldn't get over it, she also wrote in the letter: brother, don't blame my sister-in-law. I saw all the hardships she suffered in those years. It was the one that our old Zhao family owed my sister-in-law...
Soon, my sister received the third letter from my brother. Unlike the previous two times, this time the envelope contained the four words "Lan Fang's Kissing" on it. My sister specially asked my sister-in-law to read the letter with her. Lan Fang finally put down her concerns and read the contents of the letter:
Lan Fang: Forgive me for leaving without saying goodbye back then, and leave you and your sister behind. I am very pleased to learn that you have remarried. I wish you and Zhiqiang happiness forever, and thank you for taking care of your sister for growing up. I won't disturb your life, let me disappear from your world, just pretend I am really dead...
The fate of the two has ended, and Lan Fang doesn't say much. In the next few years, she completely broke off contact with Zhao Daqi, and only her sister was still in contact with her brother. My sister encouraged my brother in letters many times to live strongly, and repeatedly reminded her brother: If possible, we will be reunited with our brother and sister back to the mainland!
1987, Taiwan opened the island people to return to the mainland to visit relatives, and a group of Taiwanese veterans embarked on the way home. But due to physical reasons, Zhao Daqi couldn't even get out of bed. His comrades sympathized with his experience and joined forces to donate a sum to him, preparing to take his sister to Taiwan to reunite.
However, just as Zhao Daqi was waiting for his sister's arrival with joy, he was told by the person who had completed the procedures to go to Taiwan: only parents, wives, children and other immediate relatives can go to Taiwan. is like this, and my sister failed to meet the conditions for the last time because she did not meet the conditions.
In 1994, after 33 years of paralysis, Zhao Daqi died of illness in Taiwan and was unable to see his relatives in the mainland until his death. Before his death, he kept muttering: I want to go home and see Lan Fang and her sister...
