On a vertical day, sunlight shines directly into the window. The support rods on the wooden window divide the sunlight into channels. If you look carefully, you can see the dust in the light rolling in the air. The birds on the mountain were chirping and happily looking for bugs to eat.
It was around eight o'clock in the morning. After a long period of sunshine, the heat on the ground began to rise, and the earth began to slowly heat up under the sunlight.
Zhang Rui, who was drowsily asleep, wanted to get up and turn on the air conditioner to cool down. As soon as he got up, he realized that he would never be able to enjoy the air-conditioned life again in his life.
A burst of loss and depression instantly took over his heart. Although the man bled and did not shed tears, it was just not to the point of being sad.
Suddenly I thought of my family, my friends, and thought that I would never be able to live the same life again. This is not a trip to the countryside or outdoor camping. When you are tired, you can go back to your home haven to rest.
Although work was a bit hard and tiring in the past, it was a thousand or ten thousand times better than it is now. As he thought about it, Zhang Rui realized that he couldn't control his tears and couldn't help but flow out.
There was once a saying that life is like being raped. If you really can't resist, just accept it and do whatever you want! Since Zhang Rui has no way to change the status quo, he can only accept it.
Not feeling sleepy, he just got up and welcomed the next day.
After eating the pheasant meat and wild vegetables cooked last night for breakfast, Zhang Rui found that the first thing he had to do now was how to find food for the afternoon and tomorrow.
There are only some wild vegetables left at home that were picked yesterday, but because they were not put away last night, many of them have begun to rot due to the hot weather.
It is said that if a person has no long-term worries, he must have immediate worries. If I don't get something to eat, I'll probably be hungry again after noon.
Zhang Rui closed his eyes and recalled Zhang Liu's memories, trying to see if he could find anything useful. He was disappointed. Except for his six acres of rice fields with poor yields, there was no place where he could find food in his memory.
The only place left to find food was the wild vegetable patch I accidentally discovered yesterday. But after picking it myself yesterday, I guess I won't be able to recover in three to five days.
As for eating Konoha roots or something, Zhang Rui felt that there was really no way to accept the painful taste based on his understanding of Zhang Liu's memory. He might as well kill himself, and maybe he could wear it back.
"Since there is nothing to eat, let's cut the rice in the fields and eat it. Anyway, it is almost ripe now, so one step at a time." When he couldn't think of other sources of food, Zhang Rui could only mutter at the end, After saying that, he picked up the sickle used to cut crops next to the corner and went out.
There were no shade trees along the way, and the heat wave on the ground began to slowly rise. Under the sunlight, Zhang Rui could clearly feel the sweat starting to form on his body. Fortunately, the rented rice field was not far from home, and Zhang Rui arrived soon.
All I saw along the way were some sloppy rice plants with their heads down. As the saying goes, rice without water can produce many good millets. I really can’t imagine, especially now that this kind of rice is not a hybrid. No chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
Zhang Rui, who was looking out at the edge of the field, suddenly discovered that his next-door neighbor Li Si was also cutting his own rice. So he used Zhang Liu's memory and naturally said to Li Si in the local dialect:
"Uncle Li, hurry up early. You're here to cut the rice. (A kind of Hakka dialect: Uncle Li, it's so early. Are you here to cut the rice?)"
"Oh, my dog, Mofa, it's time to eat. The short dog and my little sister both say it's time to eat, so they come and go around waiting for food. If you eat slowly, you should be able to eat the grain. It’s done! (Yeah, my dog, there’s no other way, there’s nothing to eat. My dog and little sister are both crying for food, so now I’ll cut some and cook it for them, and eat it slowly. If you do, you should be able to eat it until the rice is ripe!)” (For the convenience of conversation, everything that follows is directly translated into Mandarin)
After hearing the sound, Li Si stretched out his bent waist while working in the fields, looked in the direction of the sound source, and looked at Zhang Liu, that is, Zhang Rui explained.
"Are you here to cut rice too?"
"Yes, there is really no food. There is nothing we can do."
Li Si's family and Zhang Liu have the best relationship in the whole village. Not only because the two families live close to each other, but also because both families are rare single-family households in the village.
Zhang Liu's grandfather was a single person, and so was Zhang Liu's father, and so were Zhang Liu, so he didn't have any close relatives anymore. In addition, when people are poor, their relatives don’t like to move around, and households who rent land are inherently mobile.
This can also make people understand why people have been so persistent in their love for land since ancient times. Without their own fields, they can't even live a stable life, let alone talk about falling leaves returning to their roots.
Zhang Liu's mother was bought from a trafficker by Zhang Liu's grandfather for three loads of rice. She was only eleven years old at the time and was a little sick, so she was so cheap.
Her mother said that she fondly remembered that her family lived in a place called Guamu Village in Hunan. Her maiden name was Zhu, her name was Zhu Caiwei, and her father's name was Zhu Dachang, who was literate and could read.
There is a sycamore tree in her yard that is very beautiful when it blooms. In addition to her parents, she also has a younger brother who is Zhang Liu's uncle. He loves to laugh, and his smile is very beautiful.
Originally, the family lived a happy life, but the younger brother fell ill when he was two years old. The family really had no money for medical treatment, so her father had no choice but to sell her to the young daughter of a local landowner as a maid in tears, in exchange for five dans of rice, two chickens and three ounces of money to treat his brother.
She was abducted by a trafficker when she was helping a young lady go shopping, and then she met Zhang Liu's father.
Zhang Liu’s mother said: She doesn’t resent her father for selling her, nor does she resent her brother’s illness, or even the traffickers who kidnapped her and sold her. Because meeting her husband made her feel that it was God's favor for her. Her husband was really good to her. He never beat or scolded her. He would leave any delicious food to her first and think of her first if he had any good things. .
She only resented the world, why no matter how hard they tried to save, they could only barely survive.
When Zhang Liu's mother was sick and dying, she said that she really wanted to go home to see her parents, her younger brother, and if possible, see the sycamore tree at home in bloom again.
Although her husband promised to accompany her back to realize her dream as long as she had a little spare money. But she knew this was no longer possible. Now she was only worried about what would happen to her husband and son after she left.
In the end, she was resentful of the world, but she persuaded her husband and son to leave this world with a smile. Zhang Liu's father also became ill due to longing and passed away soon after.
The passing away of two close relatives left Zhang Liu, who was only 14 or 15 years old, at a loss and at a loss. It was only Li Si's family who helped organize and provided comfort that made Zhang Liu come over.
I heard from Li Si’s family that the reason why their two families were so good was because Li Si’s family had just moved here. Zhang Liu's father gave them a place to live and helped build the house, so the two families have always had a good relationship.
As he approached and saw Li Si in the field, Zhang Rui felt inexplicably sad. Perhaps it comes from some of Zhang Liu's memories. This man in his thirties was oppressed by life and turned into a fifty-year-old man.
The skin that has been exposed to the sun all day long is dark and shiny, accompanied by dry skin, heavy wrinkles on the face, and even the short rat tail can be seen with white hair. Thick calluses can be seen on the palms, and on the feet without shoes, black mud can be trapped between the soles of the feet and the deeply cracked dead skin on the heels almost all year round. However, it is such a man who supports a family.
The Li family originally had four children: the eldest, Goumao, was a few months younger than Zhang Liu; the second, who got sick soon after birth, died because he was not taken care of well; the third, Agou, was ten years old and had a daughter, Xiao. My sister is only six years old.
Originally, the eldest son was about to grow up, and it would be easier to have an extra labor force in the family. As the saying goes, the children of the poor become the masters of their own families early on, and they can do anything they can for the family, such as carrying water for cooking, carrying manure to fertilize the fields, and so on.
But one day last year, Goumao went to the town to attend the market (dialect: go to the market) and never came back. Later, his body was found hanging on a tree. Zhang Liu put it down and carried it with Li Si. Buried at home.
After learning the bad news, Aunt Li cried and fainted. If she didn't have two young children at home to take care of, I don't know how she would have survived.
Zhang Liu also cried for several days. In this village, Goumao had a close relationship with him, especially when Zhang Liu's parents died, Goumao was with him. Normally, after finishing his own work, he would come over to help him with his work. He was like a real brother. But now that he died so tragically, Zhang Liu couldn't help but feel sad.
Later, after many inquiries, I found out that Goumao took the wild mountain bamboo shoots he dug up to the market that day and exchanged them for a nice trinket with the young man selling the goods. On his way back, he happened to encounter someone who came down from Zhilian Mountain to rob him.
One of the bandits took a fancy to the dog hair trinket and asked him to hand it over. Gou Mao hesitated for a moment and was chopped down by him with a knife. Gou Mao, who was bleeding and unable to move, was hung on a tree and bled to death. A fifteen-year-old child died unwillingly.
Li Si knew about the bandits on the direct mountain. There are about twenty or thirty ruthless characters who moved here just a few years ago. All of them are armed with fine steel knives. They often go down the mountain to rob, and when they don't get what they want, they kill people and steal goods.
Don't be afraid that the bandits are evil people, just be afraid that the bandits have ideas. They knew who could and could not be moved, so they only robbed civilians and passing businessmen and never robbed the local gentry. The government knew that this group of bandits turned a blind eye and allowed them to indulge even more.
After knowing the cause and effect of the whole incident, Li Si and Zhang Liu went home and picked up kitchen knives to avenge Gou Mao. However, Aunt Li hugged Li Si tightly and refused to let them go.
Because there is no place where two ordinary people can deal with a bandit's den of twenty or thirty people. If they go there, they will surely die. If Li Si, the mainstay of the family, dies, how can the three of them live?
The helpless world made Li Si have to stop thinking about revenge. After thinking quietly for a whole night, Li Si still felt that he could not swallow his breath, so he decided to go to the county government to file a complaint.
As an ordinary citizen, if he encounters such a thing, he can only pray that the county government can be like the parents and officials in the opera. Making decisions for the people, he sent people to suppress the bandits on Zhilian Mountain to avenge Goumao.
The yamen door opens to the south. If you have no money, don't come in. Everyone in this era understood this. Taking the only dozen copper coins at home, Li Si and Zhang Liu went to the gate of the county government office, thinking that they would beat the drum and complain about the injustice when they arrived at the county government office.
As a result, I just saw the drum in front of the county government office, and before I could walk over, I was stopped by the government officials at the door. After Zhang Liu and Li Si continued to kneel down and explain, and handed five copper coins to one of the yamen servants, they decided to make an exception and report to the county master for them.
As a result, the yamen officer had a dark look on his face as soon as he came out and told them to leave quickly and stop causing trouble here.
Zhang Liu and Li Si had never encountered such a thing. They didn't know what to do, so they could only continue to kneel in front of the county government office.
The number of people watching the excitement gradually increased, and the government servant at the door used a stick to chase them away, but he could not drive them away. Moreover, more and more people were talking at the door, so I had to go in again to report.
This time the yamen came out and let them in, saying that the master next to the county master agreed to see them. Then he took them in and dispersed the crowd of onlookers.
When they saw the master who was standing with his hands behind his back, the master scolded him as soon as he knelt down and said, "Don't make trouble, you troublemakers. This county is in peace under the diligent management of the county master. How could there be bandits, killing people and stealing goods?" ? "
Then, the master asked the government officials to hit each of them ten pieces of copper plate as a warning, and even the dozen or so copper plates they had on them were not spared. They were told to pay the price for causing trouble, and they were warned that if they continued to be stubborn and make trouble, they would be imprisoned. As for whether there would be two more graves in any mass grave, it was hard to say.
Zhang Liu and Li Si, who were severely hit physically and mentally, limped out of the county government office supporting each other.
After some kind reminders from some understanding people who had seen through it, they finally understood. It’s not that the county government didn’t know that there were bandits, it’s just that these bandits were very smart and didn’t touch the interests of the local gentry. Sometimes they even gave gifts to the government, so the county government just turned a blind eye. river water.
You must know that suppressing bandits costs money. A literary star like the county master wants to do big things, and he will not do thankless things for a few untouchables. The most important thing is that he does not use money to make money.
It doesn't matter how many untouchables die, after all, untouchables grow fast, just like leeks, if you cut a batch, another one will grow quickly. Especially under the prosperous times led by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, the population will only increase but not decrease. There is really no need to worry about the life and death of a few untouchables.
After listening to the kind reminder from a caring person, Li Si went home and was silent for a long time. When he went out again, white hair appeared on the rat tail on his head.
Li Si told Zhang Liu that he should forget about Gou Mao's grudge! He would not blame Zhang Liu, nor would Gou Mao blame Zhang Liu, and let Zhang Liu live a good life. He only blames himself for not having the ability, and only blames this evil world.
