In a small courtyard in the Northeast County, a thousand miles away, not far off men and women, old and young, sat around cooling off in the evening air: a palm fan, a pot of tea, a long pipe in hand, gossiping away in little groups of three or five.
Talking and talking, someone asked, "Brother Old Zhang, is your Xiao Wu coming back this year?"
"Yeah, if he comes back, can he bring some things for us?"
"He didn't come back last year because they had the baby. Now it's summer vacation, they should almost be coming back, right, Brother Da You?"
For days Mr. Zhang had been pressing his wife not to go around bragging before anyone asked, in case people got jealous. Of course, if someone brought it up, then it was fine to mention a few words.
