The exhaust pipe of Lao Li’s fuel-powered tricycle puffed and panted “tu tu”, like a diligent old ox, plowing a path through the morning mist. The back of the tricycle was stacked with seasonal fruits just bought from the wholesale market. Strawberries covered with dew huddled together in bamboo baskets, and their sweet fragrance mixed with the smell of gasoline drifted towards the street corner.
This red tricycle has been with him for eight years. The handlebars are wrapped with a shiny anti-slip rubber sleeve, which was specially replaced on the day his grandson was born; half a steel bar is welded on the back baffle. It was bent when he was transporting Chinese cabbages last winter, and Lao Wang from the repair shop spent half the night hammering it straight; a peace amulet is tied to the fuel tank cap with a red string, which his wife prayed for at the temple in the back mountain.
During last year’s plum rain season, he went to an orchard thirty miles away to collect peaches. On his way back, the heavy rain destroyed the temporarily built stone slab bridge, and the tricycle stalled in knee-deep water. Lao Li stamped his feet anxiously, as the juicy peaches in the back of the tricycle were about to get soaked and rotten. He took off his cloth shoes, jumped into the muddy water, and cried while touching the scalding engine — this was his only means of livelihood.
After an unknown period of time, he tried to turn the key. The exhaust pipe suddenly spurted a cloud of white mist, and surprisingly, it started. The tricycle, like a stubborn animal, carried hundreds of catties of peaches and trudged through the mud for three hours. When he got home, the legs of Lao Li’s trousers were covered with a hard layer of mud, but the area under the seat was well protected, with only the two outermost baskets of peaches rotten.
Now, the red paint on the tricycle has faded to a pinkish white, and the engine always makes a little noise when starting. His son advised him to replace it with an electric one, saying that silent models are popular now. Lao Li touched the uneven scratch on the fuel tank, where the tooth mark left by his grandson when he first rode the tricycle was.
“Just run for another two years,” he murmured to the tricycle, arranging the newly picked grapes neatly, “we’ll rest when the kid enters middle school.”