Micro-Fiction — Three Rounds, One Short 微小说——《三回少一回》
Third Deaf wasn‘t completely deaf. As a child, he had a fever that burned for three days and three nights. His parents were busy in the fields and didn’t take him to the clinic until he was already delirious. He survived, but his ears were damaged. Half deaf. You had to shout close to his face for him to catch about half of it.
Because of this, he never touched a woman his whole life. It wasn‘t that he didn’t want to. No one was willing.
The villagers called him Third Deaf. After a while, no one remembered his real name. He didn‘t care either. What was a deaf man supposed to care about?
At forty, he went to work in another city with some villagers. On the noisy construction site, he couldn’t hear instructions and nearly caused an accident. The foreman cursed him. The other workers laughed. He crouched by the shed entrance, thinking for half the night. The next day, he went to the county town and bought a hearing aid.
The moment he put on the hearing aid, he froze.
He heard car horns in the street. He heard vendors shouting. He heard his own footsteps on the pavement. He walked out of the shop and stood by the road. He heard birds in the trees. The wind carried the bird calls into his ears, crisp and clear. He stood there for a long time, tears falling to the ground. Forty years old. The first time in his life he knew the world wasn‘t silent.
Back in the village, everything felt different. Not because the village had changed, but because he had. He heard things he’d never heard before — like the business between Wu Yanghua and Sanjun.
Sanjun had been an honest young man, but after becoming a minor village official, he changed. He got involved with Wu Yanghua, who hoped to get some favors out of him. Everyone else knew about them. Only Third Deaf had been in the dark. Now that he could hear, it gnawed at him like a cat scratching inside his chest.
Forty years old, never looked at properly by anyone. With the hearing aid on, he felt like a normal person for the first time. He wanted to taste what it was like to be acknowledged, to be cared about.
He went to find Wu Yanghua. She was sitting at her doorstep cracking sunflower seeds between her teeth. She glanced at him when he arrived. “Oh, Third Deaf. What do you want?”
Third Deaf swallowed hard and said straight out, “I have money. If I pay, can we… be together?”
Wu Yanghua stared for a moment, then burst out laughing. “You? A deaf man like you wants that?”
Third Deaf‘s face turned crimson. “I have money. Five hundred.”
Wu Yanghua stopped laughing and thought for a moment. “Five hundred. Twice, max.”
Third Deaf grew anxious. “Three times. Five hundred, three times.”
Wu Yanghua looked at him like he was a joke. After a long pause, she nodded. “Fine. Five hundred, three times. Pay up front.”
Third Deaf pulled out the money and counted it out bill by bill. His fingers trembled a little, but he counted carefully.
The first two times, Wu Yanghua went through the motions. When he came back for the third, her eyes darted away. She glimpsed Sanjun in the distance, then hardened her heart. She wouldn’t even open the door. “Not doing it anymore. Go away.”
Third Deaf stood at her doorstep. The sky was overcast, the wind cold on his face. “We agreed on three times. I paid.”
Wu Yanghua said impatiently, “Two times is plenty. Don‘t be ungrateful.”
Third Deaf couldn’t understand. It wasn‘t the money. It was the principle — how could someone break a promise? He’d been cheated before, laughed at, treated like a fool. But he thought a deal was a deal.
He was wrong.
He saw Sanjun slip out the back door of Wu Yanghua‘s house, the mud still fresh on his trouser legs. Suddenly he understood — it wasn’t that Wu Yanghua didn‘t want to. Someone had told her not to.
Third Deaf cornered Sanjun.
Sanjun looked guilty. “Wh-what do you want?”
Third Deaf didn’t answer. Forty years of pent‑up rage clenched into his fists. His knuckles turned white. He threw punch after punch, no technique, just the suffocation of a lifetime. He heard Sanjun begging for mercy. He heard people shouting “Stop!” He heard his own ragged breathing — like an animal caged for forty years that had finally broken through the fence.
After beating Sanjun, Third Deaf went to the town government office to find his older male cousin.
Third Deaf had never gone to his cousin before. He knew his cousin was ashamed of him. But this time, he had nowhere else to go. He stood at the office door and told him everything. His cousin‘s face turned as dark as a cast‑iron pan. He pulled Third Deaf to the end of the hallway and lowered his voice. “Get the hell out of here! You have the nerve to come to me with this? How fucking embarrassing!”
Third Deaf opened his mouth to say something, then swallowed the words.
He turned and walked out. The hallway was long. The fluorescent lights hummed. The hearing aid buzzed with the hum of the lights, the distant murmur of voices, his cousin’s scolding — all of it jumbled and piercing, worse than being deaf.
At the gate, he took off the hearing aid.
The world went silent.
Suddenly, he felt that being deaf was fine. He couldn‘t hear those words. Couldn’t hear the laughter. Couldn‘t hear his cousin saying “embarrassing.”
He crouched on the steps in front of the town government building, clutching the hearing aid in his hand. He held it for a long time. The evening sun fell on the steps, warm, but it couldn’t warm the hearing aid in his hand.
Later, Third Deaf went deaf again. Not because the hearing aid broke. Because he stopped wearing it. Even when he wore it, he still couldn‘t hear the things he wanted to hear.
When the villagers talked about him afterward, they still called him Third Deaf. They said he beat Sanjun. They said he made a fool of himself at the town government office. They said he spent five hundred yuan — three rounds promised, but one short. Some said, quietly, that Third Deaf had lived a pitiful life. But then they laughed along with everyone else.
No one mentioned that the first time he heard birds sing, he cried.
The wind blew through the village entrance, past the gossip, past the laughter, past Third Deaf’s empty ears.
He sat at his doorstep, soaking in the sun, his eyes closed, the faintest, most hollow smile at the corner of his mouth.
The world was very quiet.
No hope, no disappointment.
It was fine.
三聋子不是全聋。小时候发高烧，烧了三天三夜，爹妈在地里干活顾不上，等抱到卫生院，人已经烧迷糊了。命保住了，耳朵落下了毛病——半聋。你得凑近了大吼，他才能听见个大概。
因为这个，他一辈子没碰过女人。不是不想，是没人肯。
村里人叫他三聋子，叫久了，连他本名叫什么都忘了。他也不在乎。聋子嘛，在乎又能怎样？
四十岁那年，他跟村里人去外地干活。工地上吵，他听不清指令，差点出了事。工头骂他，工友笑他。他蹲在工棚门口，想了半宿，第二天咬牙去县城买了个助听器。
戴上助听器的那一刻，他愣住了。
他听见了街上的车喇叭声，听见了小贩的叫卖声，听见了自己脚踩在马路上的声音。他走出店门，站在路边，听见树上有鸟叫。风把鸟叫声送进耳朵里，清清脆脆的。他站在那儿，半天没动，眼泪砸在地上。活了四十年，头一回知道，世界不是一片死寂的。
回到村里，他发现一切都变了。不是村子变了，是他变了。他听见了以前听不见的话——比如伍扬花和三军的事。
三军年轻时老实，后来当了村里的小干部，人变了，跟伍扬花勾搭上了。伍扬花也想从他身上捞点好处。两人的事，别人早知道了，就三聋子一个人被蒙在鼓里。现在他听见了，心里像猫抓似的。
活了四十年，没被人正眼看过。戴上助听器后，他第一次觉得自己和正常人没两样，也想尝一尝被人搭理、被人在意的滋味。
他去找伍扬花。伍扬花正坐在门口嗑瓜子，看见他来了，斜了一眼：“哟，三聋子，啥事？”
三聋子咽了口唾沫，直通通地说：“我有钱。给钱，亲热一下，行不？”
伍扬花愣了一下，随即笑了，笑得花枝乱颤：“你？你个聋子也想这事？”
三聋子脸涨得通红：“我有钱。五百块。”
伍扬花收了笑，想了想：“五百块，最多两次。”
三聋子急了：“三次。五百块，三次。”
伍扬花看着他，像看一个笑话。半晌，点了点头：“行。五百块，三次。先给钱。”
三聋子把钱掏出来，一张一张数给她。手指头有点抖，但数得认真。
前面两次，伍扬花应付了他。到了第三次，他去找她，伍扬花眼神躲了一下，瞥见远处三军的身影，才硬起心肠，门都没让他进：“不干了，你走吧。”
三聋子站在门口，天阴沉沉的，风刮在脸上冷得慌。“不是说好了三次吗？钱都给了。”
伍扬花不耐烦地说：“给你两次就不错了，别不识好歹。”
三聋子想不通。他想不通的不是那几百块钱，是想不通——说好的事，怎么能不算数呢？他这辈子，被人骗过，被人笑过，被人当傻子一样糊弄过。可他以为，钱货两清的事，总该是公平的。
他错了。
他看见三军从伍扬花家后门出来，裤腿上的泥还没拍干净。他一下子明白了——不是伍扬花不干了，是有人不让他干。
三聋子堵住了三军。
三军看见他，有点心虚：“你、你想干啥？”
三聋子没说话。他憋了四十年的火，全攥在拳头里了。拳头攥得指节发白，一下下砸在三军身上，没有章法，全是憋了半辈子的闷气。他听见三军在求饶，听见旁边有人喊“别打了”，听见自己的喘气声——像一头被关了四十年的牲口，终于撞开了栅栏。
打完三军，三聋子去了镇里，找他堂兄。
三聋子这辈子从没找过当干部的堂兄，知道人家嫌他丢人。可这回，他实在没处去了。他站在办公室门口，把事情的来龙去脉说了一遍。堂兄听完，脸黑得像锅底，把他拉到走廊尽头，压低声音：“你赶紧给我滚蛋！这种事你也好意思来说？太他妈丢人了！”
三聋子张了张嘴，想说什么，又咽回去了。
他转身往外走。走廊很长，日光灯嗡嗡响。助听器里混着灯管的嗡鸣、远处人的议论、堂兄的呵斥，乱哄哄地扎进耳朵里，比耳聋的时候更难受。
他走到大门口，摘下助听器。
世界一下子安静了。
他忽然觉得，聋了也挺好。听不见那些话，听不见那些笑声，听不见堂兄那句“丢人”。
他蹲在镇里门口的台阶上，把助听器攥在手里，攥了很久。夕阳落在台阶上，暖乎乎的，却焐不热手里的助听器。
后来，三聋子又聋了回去。不是助听器坏了，是他不戴了。反正戴上也听不清想听的话。
村里人再说起他，还是叫他三聋子。说他打了三军，说他去镇里闹了笑话，说他花了五百块，说好的三回，结果少了一回。也有人私下说，三聋子这辈子够可怜的，可转头就跟着别人一起笑。
没人说他这辈子，第一次听见鸟叫的时候，哭了。
风从村口吹过来，吹过那些闲话，吹过那些笑声，吹过三聋子空荡荡的耳朵。
他坐在门口，晒着太阳，闭着眼，嘴角扯出一点浅浅的、没了念想的笑。
世界很安静。
再也没有希望，也就没有失望了。
挺好的。
#三回少一回 #乡土故事 #人性 #微小说 #底层人生 #ThreeRoundsOneShort #RuralStory #HumanNature #MicroFiction #Underclass #Deafness #Loneliness #Desperation #CountryLife #Tragedy #FashionTextile #knitwarp #knitweft #textile #victory #knitfabric #fabric #victorytex #victorytextile #suzhouvictorytextile #suzhouvictorytextilecoltd #维特瑞纺织 #苏州维特瑞纺织 #苏州维特瑞纺织有限公司
Suzhou Victory Textile Co., Ltd. （苏州维特瑞纺织有限公司）is located in Changshu city(belongs to Suzhou District) Jiangsu,China. 80 Kilometers away from Shanghai Port.
Our team has been working in textile over 18 years.Our mainly products are Tie dyed Fabric,Velour/Velvet,Quilt Fabric,Jacquard Fabric,Single Jersey, Pique,Rib Fabric,Bird Eyes/Mesh Fabric, Interlock, French Terry/Fleece, Polar Fleece, Coral Fleece, Flannel Fleece, PV Plush, Sherpa Fleece,Coarse Needle Fabric etc Fabrics.
Compositions include Polyester,Cotton,Spandex/Lycra,Nylon/Polyamide,Rayon/Viscose,Modal/Tencel,Bamboo,Arcylic,Soybean,Wool,Flax/Linen,etc.
Functional Fabric:Sportswear Fabric(Coolmax,Coolpass,Coolplus,X-dry,Cooldry,Feelcool Ice,Topcool,Sorona,Supplex etc.),Waterproof,Fireproof(Aramid,Polyimide),Heat(Thermolite),Antibiosis(Sanitized),Uvioresistant,Radiation-proof,Recycle,BCI,Organic,Pima/Supima etc Fabrics.
We also have invested a home textiles & garments factory where we move our fabrics to sew many kinds of Garments, blankets etc.
Our marketing team and QC department are checking all the day in every process and keep close contact with customers to make sure customer knows every stage of the production. All the fabrics and blankets are inspected by our QC before packaging and shipping. Also we can provide some certifications Such as Oeko-Tex standard 100, SGS, Intertek etc.
We have production capability 5000 tons of various type of fabrics annually.Our products are mainly transported to China, southeast Asia, Middle East, Europe and America etc.
Welcome to our company. We will highly appreciate any inquiry and question from you and respond asap.We believe you will enjoy one-stop service from us if you work together with us.