(one)
My name is Qu Ran.
Ancestors have been running a medical clinic in Jiangtang for generations. Jiangtang is a small place, and the medical center is also very small. There is a shop in front of the shop and a dormitory room behind the shop, surrounded by a small courtyard. The wooden cabinets are mixed with the bitter smell of herbs that have accumulated for many years and are trapped in the dust over the years.
Auntie said, the war started not long after I was born. The war raged for several years, extinguished and ignited again. Fortunately, it did not reach the rivers and ponds. During the war, there were many people in the town, and almost all of those who came were refugees. The hospital was noisy for a while that year. After a few months, the patients recovered and left in twos and threes, and the hospital gradually became quiet again.
In the forty-third year of Tianmao, I was seven years old.
It was also that year that I met him.
(two)
He was picked up by his father.
That day, my father saw him when he was collecting medicine. He was lying alone on the road at the end of the village, covered in mud. My father couldn't carry him back alone, so he asked two cows from the next village to carry him back to the hospital.
I had just said goodbye to a few children who were recuperating in the hospital. I felt lonely and boring. When I saw someone coming again, I ran over to join in the fun, but my father stopped me and did not allow me to get close to this person.
I was puzzled and asked: Why?
Dad said he smelled weird, as if he was poisoned.
I saw that the man was dirty and poisonous, so I walked away.
The next day, the man woke up, and his father briefly cleaned his body. In addition to new wounds, there were many old wounds. He didn't say anything, just sat there quietly.
I was a little curious, so I talked to him while no one was in the room. I said, "Hey, what's your name?"
He tilted his head and looked straight at it with his dark eyes that couldn't see any light, like a pool of stagnant water.
I frowned, a little confused, and raised my hand and waved it in front of him: "Can't you see?"
He doesn't answer me.
I suddenly realized: "It turns out he is a blind man."
My dad pushed the door open and saw me, and yelled at me. I made a face at the man and ran away with a smile.
(three)
The blind man recovered quickly and was able to get out of bed and walk within three days.
He is very tall, and I have to look up to see his face and talk to him, but I don't bother to pay attention to him.
While the aunt next door and my mother-in-law were chatting about the house, I was eating melon seeds and listening to what they said about recuperating from illness. The blind man was so handsome. It was the first time I had seen such a handsome person. It was a pity that he was a cripple. Not only was his eyesight broken. , the hand is also useless. I pretended not to hear it, spit out the melon seed shells, and thought: No matter how beautiful it is, it is not as pleasing to the eyes as Li Ergou.
I wanted to ask the blind man when he would leave, but he always ignored me and I couldn't find a chance to speak.
What's the point of ignoring? He can't see it at all!
My father would give the blind man medicine to drive away the poison every night. I sat on the doorstep, gnawing on peaches and eavesdropped. I gnawed some hair on my mouth and went to fetch water to wash the peaches. When I came back, my father had already come out of the house. .
"Dad!" I jumped up to him, raised the peach and said with a smile, "Dad, have a bite!"
Dad rubbed my head: "You eat."
"You, don't keep calling others names blindly. It's rude."
"But he is blind to begin with." I said confidently.
"That won't work either. Do you remember?" Dad said in a serious tone.
I nodded and made a noise.
"He may stay at our house for a long time. Don't do any tricks or bully him."
When I heard this, I gestured angrily: "He is so tall and I am so small, it doesn't matter who bullies whom! Besides, he is penniless, why should he be allowed to live and eat for free?"
Dad knelt down and said, "The war has not yet reached the rivers and ponds, but Aran has seen people fleeing, right?"
"Is he a refugee too?"
"No, he is a man guarding the border. When the soldiers forced them to retreat to the edge of Brown Valley half a year ago, we were the ones they defended."
I was stunned for a long time.
I have not seen fighting on the battlefield, but I have heard my peers who fled from Jiangbei tell me: The Xirong people have fangs and wield big swords, turning everything they go into flattened ground.
"Then he became blind because of the war?" I asked. As I was thinking about it, I grabbed my dad's sleeve and asked again, "Then where is his home?"
"Why doesn't he go back?"
"Can his illness get better?"
Dad smiled: "I asked, but he refused to tell, but Dad won't rush him away. He said his name is Lin Jing. Don't call anyone blind again."
(Four)
I did play tricks on him. I scattered a lot of gravel in the room where he rested. I deliberately raised my legs to trip him when he was walking. I also added Coptis chinensis to his soup and gave it to him.
None of these things happened. He seemed to be much sharper than ordinary people. He couldn't stumble no matter how hard he stumbled. He drank the soup without changing his expression, just like drinking water, without even frowning.
Unable to trick him, and boring, he sat there in silence, with no emotion on his face.
But after my father told me his origin, I didn't find him annoying anymore, I just felt pitiful.
One day, my father came back from collecting herbs. He took me to sit in front of the door to identify the herbs. After identifying them, he asked me to dry the herbs. I saw Lin Jing sitting in the courtyard in a daze, so I grabbed a few herbs and went to play with him.
"Hey, can you recognize the medicine?" I said.
It took him a while before he turned his head and said, "No."
"Then I'll teach you." I took his hand and stuffed all the medicines into him: "This is called Chuanwu, this is called white peony root, this is red peony root, this one is coptis..."
He rubbed it carefully with his fingers and frowned slightly.
"If you can't see it, you can try to smell it..."
"I can't smell it," he said.
I was stunned, recalling the extremely bitter soup a few days ago, and I asked: "Then you can't taste it, right?"
He was silent for a long time: "Yes."
I know that people have five senses, but this is the first time I have seen someone who has lost so many senses.
Out of sight, out of sight, out of sight, out of taste.
"You are so pitiful." I said very sincerely.
He said calmly: "Go and do your homework."
After that day, Lin Jing often asked his father some questions, all related to medical science. My father was very happy. I was the only one who poured cold water on him and said that he wanted to go into medicine, but he couldn’t do even half of it.
My father kicked me away and took Lin Jing as his apprentice.
(five)
The next few years were also ordinary days.
I took Lin Jing to get familiar with every road in the town, and took him to meet the neighbors in the town until he could go out to deliver medicine without getting lost by banging on a bamboo pole.
He would negotiate the price with the drug store and pick me up at the school, then let me carry the medicine back to the medical center and take out a book to teach me how to recite poems.
On the night of my tenth birthday, my father took us to see the lanterns in Jiangtang City. He wished me a happy birthday. I was already a young doctor in the hospital who could treat people.
He can also treat people now, but the misdiagnosis rate is extremely high, and people in the town generally don't dare to see him.
I giggled and bought him a light lantern that he could carry.
(six)
Five years have passed and I have grown into a little girl, but he has changed nothing.
Lin Jing was standing outside the school waiting for me. His hands are getting better and he can pick up some things and do daily chores.
I looked at him and said, "Li Ergou broke a peach blossom and gave it to me today."
He said oh and walked in front.
"Don't you have anything to say?" I frowned and followed.
"without."
"You don't know what sending peach blossoms means?"
"The peach blossoms are blooming, it's beautiful," he said.
I didn't know whether this man was stupid or stupid, so I ran away angrily. After running two steps, I was worried that he would stumble on the road, so I could only wait for him to come closer and go back together.
After returning home, I made up a pretense that I would go up the mountain to collect herbs, and carried the empty basket down the mountain until dark.
He was waiting for me at the door. I gritted my teeth, threw the basket and entered the house.
"What's wrong?" Lin Jing asked me.
"Angry. I had a fight with someone and my hand hurts."
"Why?"
"Those bastards in school, they called you blind!"
"You usually call me that too."
I was furious: "That's different! They called you a blind man!"
Lin Jing found it a bit funny. On normal days, I would also be amused by such lies.
"You didn't tell the truth." Lin Jing paused and said, "If you don't want to say it, just say it."
I grabbed him and said, "I have something to ask you."
He closed his eyes and pursed his lips.
"Where are you from?"
"Jiangbei."
"You have a family, why don't you go back?"
Lin Jing's face seemed to be covered with ice: "It's gone, I can't go back."
"Why hasn't your appearance changed at all?"
"I have told Master all this."
"But I don't know." I shouted at him. He seemed to only treat me as a child, hiding everything from me and not talking to me. "Do you know what the children in the town said about you? They said that your appearance has not changed and that you are a monster! They also laughed at me for living with monsters! When I was collecting medicine, they hit me with stones and deliberately said that I was hunting birds... ..." I said, shaking with anger and crying.
Lin Jing pulled me and his tone changed drastically: "They hit you? Where was the injury?"
Seeing that he was so worried and anxious, I wasn't so angry anymore. Instead, I felt a little happy inside. I rolled up my sleeves to reveal my fair arms and said in plain words: "Here, look, they are all purple."
He said: "I will take you to apply medicine."
I felt guilty and said, "It's okay. I went back and beat them up. I'm not someone to be bullied."
He took out ointment from the counter and applied it to me. I held his hand tightly and said, "You can't hide your affairs from me."
He was silent for a long time and nodded.
(seven)
Lin Jing is from Jiangbei.
He fought for many years.
He said that he belonged to a small sect belonging to the Hu Clan and was a Taoist. He could use guns, swords, and spells, but now, his cultivation was useless.
He was not poisoned, but was turned into a human voodoo by the people of the West Desert, a humanoid voodoo that specializes in killing people. In order to suppress the voodoo mother, he lost his three senses and lost his martial arts.
He wanted to find someone, his sweetheart, who was also his unmarried wife.
I asked him how old he was.
He said he didn't remember, obviously trying to fool me.
Lin Jing looked to be in his early twenties, very young. Every year a matchmaker comes to my house to propose marriage. Thanks to his good looks, he doesn't mind even being blind and handicapped.
He refused them all, saying that he just wanted to study medicine in peace and that he would find his sweetheart after he graduated.
After knowing that Lin Jing had a fiancée, all thoughts of my cardamom girl were wiped out. I still want to go up the mountains with him to collect medicine, and travel to small towns together to diagnose and treat patients. I want to live the long days in this small medical clinic over and over again like decoction, and it will be as long as the fragrance of medicine. .
Li Ergou and I said: It’s really boring to like her.
He said indeed.
I sighed and saw him standing up straight.
He said he was leaving.
I asked where to go.
He said he wanted to be a hero.
I told him to get out of here.
(eight)
Later, an epidemic broke out from nowhere and spread to the rivers and ponds.
Someone in the town was infected with the disease, and word spread quickly. Those who were not infected wanted to escape, but the Yize clan protectors ordered the rivers and ponds to be sealed.
There are many more people in the small medical clinic. The sound of vomiting blood and coughing surrounded me. I was so busy that when I felt dizzy, I was afraid that I might also catch the disease and die.
Lin Jing said that if someone comes, he will save them. Although the existing methods cannot cure the disease, they can at least help them live a few more days.
He is truly naive, not my cold-blooded pessimism. Just let those who can't be saved be left alone. If you can't protect yourself, you won't have any extra time to worry about others.
My father searched through his ancestral medicine genealogy and finally found a method to cure the disease in an isolated book.
Everyone wants to live, and some patients fought for medicine. I couldn't control the situation and my leg was broken. Lin Jing knocked the two rough guys to the ground and dragged me out, who was lying on the ground unconscious.
He went to save him without saying he was a patient.
In my words, people are divided into good and evil, and some people are not worthy.
(Nine)
The epidemic gradually disappeared, and patients in the small medical clinic came and went. We saved many people. I can't remember how many people there were.
Lin Jing has also become a capable doctor. Dad said that he has nothing more to teach him.
He is ready to leave, that is to say, he is leaving.
I do not want.
My mother-in-law told me that I was already in my prime years and a matchmaker came to propose marriage to me. He was Mr. Zhang from the city. He was a man of good conduct and showed his talent. Mr. Zhang asked a matchmaker to tell him that I treated him during the plague two years ago, and he was like a god descending to earth. He has loved me since then.
I smiled and said goodbye, I still want to serve my parents for a few more years. The person on my mind was Lin Jing.
Lin Jing cooked medicine in the pharmacy, and then went to the shop in front of the store to treat people. He was very busy, and I didn't let my mother-in-law tell him.
After all, what can I do if I say it?
It was dark at night, the wind was strong, and there was a little snow blowing. Lin Jing was sitting alone in the yard, and I held up the lamp to look for him.
This has been his habit for many years. A few days before a heavy snowfall, he would sit and drink in the yard. He couldn't taste the taste, so he drank bowl after bowl until he vomited it out.
I couldn't see him tormenting himself. I always wanted to drag him back to the room when he was drunk, but he would let me go as soon as I got close.
Today, I thought that if he lectured me and asked me to leave, I would not even look back. When you get closer and see the person you like, who cares what you said.
"Let's go," he said.
Instead of leaving, I put the lamp on the table and sat down next to him.
"You go back." He said.
I still didn't speak, just looked at him silently.
His eyes were closed, his brows were furrowed, and he was pouring wine into the bowl.
I don't know how long I sat there and how long I was silent, so long that he seemed to have forgotten that I was still here.
"Ah Kyung."
I rarely call him that.
He was startled and seemed to be looking towards me. I bit my lip and said softly, "Do you want to know what I look like?"
He didn't answer.
I took his hand and gently pressed it against my cheek.
I don't know whether it was the blush on his face caused by the cold or the alcohol, but I heard his deep voice: "I want to..."
I hold his hand so that he can remember my face through touch, remember what I look like.
He put down the wine bowl and gently rubbed my face. His hands were slender and rough, with scars on the backs and calluses on the palms. He had walked in the Gobi desert and danced with swords before he had these hands.
He touched her very lightly, as if he was holding something precious, and he said something vaguely, and I heard it.
"...I want to see you..." he said.
"...I really want to see you..."
"...Qiong Yi, I miss you so much..."
He hugged me, buried his head deeply on my shoulder, and kept talking in a muffled voice.
"...Qiong Yi..."
"……I miss you so much……"
"...I really want to see you..."
"...I really want to see you again..."
He was drunk and had the wrong person.
I smiled to myself, the person he wanted to see would not be me.
It turns out that Lin Jing can be so fragile, it turns out that he can also cry.
He hugged me and cried, without crying, just shrugging his shoulders. He kept calling that person's name over and over again. He really missed her.
I couldn't help it anymore, I hugged him and cried loudly, with runny nose and tears: "Lin Jing, you have no intention of holding me and calling other people's names! If you have the ability, let me go and call him! Go find him!" Wuwuwu, don't let me go. You should still hold me. I just like you and want to hold you! Wuwuwu, stop shouting! It's me you're hugging! I don't want to marry anyone else... I just want to marry you!……"
(ten)
After that night, I secretly asked many people if they knew a girl named Qiong Yi.
Nobody knows.
Later, I read about a person named "Lu Xiyan" in a storybook, and there seemed to be a similar small character. The storybook said that she betrayed the path and died in the desert. I tried to find the first volume, but couldn't find it. People in the restaurant said this was a gossip about the clan, but I thought it must be the same name.
In the past two years, Lin Jing often went out for medical treatment. He went to far away places and only came back once every six months.
Later, according to the orders of my parents and the words of the matchmaker, I made an engagement with Mr. Zhang, and we agreed to get married.
The last time Lin Jing came back was to eat my wedding wine. He said that I was the little girl he watched grow up and he should come back to see me.
Friends and relatives laughed at him because he had never met me. He just smiled.
He said that my father had taken him in for ten years. When he first met me, I was only a child half a man tall. Now I am married.
What could I say to him? I just bit my lip and smiled under the hijab.
I was carried out of the town on a sedan chair, into the city, and entered the Zhang family's door amidst the beating of gongs and drums.
The next day, Lin Jing left the division and left the hospital.
After receiving the news, I rushed back to my parents' home and intercepted him on the way.
His reaction was as sharp as ever, and he recognized me immediately.
"Blind man, are you going to find her?"
He nodded.
"Her... name is Qiong Yi. What kind of girl is she?"
Lin Jing's expression was a little surprised. He didn't know that I knew her name, and he didn't remember the night when the two of them held her and cried.
"She... is very good, she is the girl in my heart." He said, and then added: "Xiao Qu, you are also a good girl."
I shouldn't have asked that.
I was stubborn and proud, but I was vulnerable in front of him. I could only grit my teeth and put on a show to show him my success.
"When you find her, let's go back to the hospital to have a look, to see mom and dad, and me." I said with a smile.
He said: "Okay."
(end)
How long is life.
It has been so long that I have forgotten the joy of my youth and a certain person I once had. Only when I am free and can no longer be free, I stay by the medicine stove and boil medicine, wandering in the strong smell of medicine, and remember that I was by your side decades ago. that person.
I stayed in a trance for a long time, guarding a piece of land, stopping in the small town of Jiangtang. Here is my father's small medical clinic, my husband's painting workshop, and my little granddaughter, in Xiaoqiao Running around the street corner.
I heard a clear song and woke up from a deep sleep. I couldn’t even remember the appearance of my old friend. He was not a blind man in front of me. There was light in his eyes. There was a little girl standing next to him, just like in the painting. .
Well, I saw it.
