tortoise

When I woke up early this morning, my father was in the veranda, operating on the tortoise he and my mother got as a present from our distant relative named Boqing. After failing the entrance tests for high school in his own hometown, my mother helped his later enrollment into the best school in our town thanks to her network, and since then for three years he had been staying at our home most of the time till he continued to a vocational college.

About six years after his graduation he now owns a waterproof fabric factory in Jiangsu province. And two weeks ago it was the grand opening. So my parents was very pleased and honored when receiving the invitation to attend the ceremony, despite the trouble of long journey to get there. They stayed with his family and his workers at his factory for two weeks.

When they returned and dropped by at my place, they proclaimed, ' we'll never believe that boy could become a big boss and entrepreneur one day. It is a big factory with 20-odd workers; he makes over 2 million within three months.'

And he treated them very nicely. 'A nanny took care of us. And we even enjoyed four tortoises there.' And I found in my restroom a new blue net bag on the floor with a tortoise in it, a goodbye present. (A tortoise is a delicacy and good nourishment to most Chinese.) For the next four days with me, my parents remembered taking it out to veranda in the daytime and back to restroom in the night. Oddly they didn't feed any food or water to this die-hard tortoise.

And yesterday on the way back after seeing a doctor for my mother's extremity varicose veins on her right leg, they made up their minds to : feast on it. And this morning while the rice congee was boiling in the oven, my father impatiently started his operation or execuation.
In bed, I could hear it didn't go smoothly. So my father summoned my mother to fetch a knife, then a chopper, another sharper one, even our big dumpling roller stick to the site. It last at least half an hour till my kitchen and rest of the world finally back to normal, I walked past the veranda where my father was still cleaning it.

After breakfast, before I left home for office, very determinedly I said I wouldn't eat a bit at all and they could finish everything in the day. However, when I returned home, I smelt immediately something. My parents had done most of cooking, and now warming it over a slow fire, waiting for me.

' If you don't eat the meat, at least you should drink the soup. It's supposed to nourish your vital energy. Come on, son.' Understanding their love and care for me, I just kept avoiding that and saying no, though.It's not for me but I really hope it brings best health to my two dearest persons in this world.
( As the last worth, isn't it?!)