Yesterday morning, after staying up all night, I felt dizzy, my whole body ached, my eyelids were heavy, my vision was blurry, and I just wanted to fall on the bed and have a good sleep. At about eight o'clock, my grandma asked me to take a bowl and scoop out the cooked quick-frozen dumplings from the kitchen pot. I have little appetite and no habit of eating breakfast. Due to staying up all night continuously during this period, I couldn't eat well and couldn't sleep well. My physical condition plummeted. I was plagued by colds and had runny nose.
After simply eating a few quick-frozen dumplings, the daughter-in-law of my neighbor, my uncle and aunt, who used to live with my grandpa and grandma on the hillside, came to visit my grandpa who was lying in the hospital bed with a bag of milk. There was also a four-year-old little girl, wearing a white short-sleeved upper body and two braids. She was tall and looked like a six-year-old girl. The aunt walked into the room where grandpa lived, briefly comforted him, and then asked me: "Song Erwa, do you still recognize me?"
I looked her over. , pretty sure I don’t know her.
Mom said in the main room outside: "She is Meimei's mother, don't you recognize her?" When it comes to Meimei, I know her, because there are only so many families living on the hillside. , any person in any house can tell it clearly with just a finger. But I have almost no impression of Meimei’s mother, probably because she rarely comes home from work all year round!
From the conversation between Meimei’s mother and mother, I probably heard that my aunt is currently divorced, and the man is eating, drinking, prostitution, gambling, and is not successful, so he takes out loans, buys horses, and gambles. He once brought a wild woman home in front of his two daughters and aunt. The younger daughter was really angry and felt worthless for her mother, so she advised her father and said some harsh words. The man said, "Do you need to take care of my affairs?" Since then, the younger daughter has never contacted her father, never called him to greet him during holidays, and has never visited him once. Probably in the younger daughter's mind, she is extremely disappointed with her father, and she is probably blaming him for not fulfilling his responsibilities as a father since childhood.
I heard it in my heart and sighed in my heart: "Every family has sutras that are difficult to recite!" Last night at dinner, the second grandfather and the second grandmother were making a lot of noise because of some trivial family matters. Awesome, blaming each other and finding fault with each other. The conflict between them is very deep. I heard that it started when they were young, probably in their twenties and thirties!
The second grandma said that the second grandpa often visited a certain widow’s house, and the widow even gave the second grandpa some vegetables. This incident slowly spread among the people, and they felt that the relationship between the second grandpa and the widow was ambiguous and that they were having an affair. The second grandpa tried his best to argue that we others didn’t know the inside story and couldn’t speak.
The second grandpa is nearly seventy years old, and the second grandma is probably over sixty too! I have heard my grandmother and mother talk occasionally, and I am not interested in these trivial matters at my second grandpa's house. They left me with a question: Why don't we get divorced even though our personalities are incompatible and we are incompatible with each other? I thought about it, probably because that era was not tolerant of divorced people. Divorce was a shame. It was difficult for men to remarry after divorce, and it was difficult for women to remarry after divorce. This stalemate continued until now. Of course, there is another important reason, especially for the woman, which is that she is reluctant to let go of the child and feels that the child will suffer after the divorce.
The children of the second grandpa and the second grandma took sides one after another. Some supported their father and some supported their mother. I heard that their eldest son, according to his seniority, should be called uncle. Now he is not successful either. One woman after another has not been home all year round and is still wandering outside. During the Chinese New Year last year, my uncle asked his mother to borrow 1,000 yuan through WeChat and phone calls, saying he wanted to celebrate the Chinese New Year. His mother knew that he had a bad urine habit and was a bad debt in the eyes of the neighbors. Lending him money was like beating a dog with a meat bun, and there was no return. His mother rejected him on the grounds that she had recently been short of money and had a hard time.
When my mother told me this, I was a little surprised. A person can’t even come up with a thousand yuan during the Chinese New Year. What a miserable life it is! I heard that all the money my uncle found was spent on those bewitching women. When I was a child, I was lucky enough to see one. She was dressed up in a gorgeous way, with three layers of powder on her face. She looked like she was from "Journey to the West" The female enchantress who escaped. If you want to say how good-looking that woman is, it's really not that good, but she's more than enough to match my uncle. I heard adults say: "That woman is a prostitute, and she is in the flesh business." To be honest, no matter where she goes, this kind of woman will be criticized, mainly because she has a bad reputation.
It was past nine o'clock in the morning. I was lying on a folding bed tossing and turning but couldn't fall asleep. The sound of my mother and aunt chatting could be heard. It was obvious that I was very sleepy and couldn't sleep. This feeling was too uncomfortable. After that, I slept lightly intermittently for about half an hour. When my brother saw me playing with my phone, he said, "Go to bed quickly. We will go to have disaster rice over there at ten o'clock later." "Disaster rice" is something we have in Sichuan. In the dialect of some places, it is the meal that everyone eats to say goodbye to someone after he or she dies. My first reaction was not to go, "What are you going to eat? It's rare to run away."
My brother said, "Go!" After saying this several times, I gave in. At ten o'clock, after my mother said hello to the aunt who was chatting with my second grandmother in the main room, we set off. I walked in front, and the sun became a little bit harsh.
The house we went to for dinner this time was not far from my home. We were members of our team, and the place we started from was my second grandpa’s house. This time when grandpa came back, the old house on the hillside could no longer be inhabited, so he had to temporarily stay at his second grandpa's house. Living temporarily in other people's homes actually doesn't matter to us young people. The key lies in my grandfather. He is a person with the traditional idea of ??settling down and relocating and returning fallen leaves to their roots. My grandfather told his mother at the beginning of this year: "He regretted following his uncle to Luzhou." My grandfather still couldn't bear to part with his old house.
Climbing up the steep hill, the shallow stone steps were slippery because few people walked all year round. It rained again last night. Fortunately, I grew up in a rural area and followed my grandfather when I was a child. Grandma has walked there countless times and is familiar with the road. After climbing up the hillside, there was another scene above. Weeds were growing everywhere, and the original road was no longer traceable. Suddenly I remembered what Mr. Lu Xun said - There is no road in this world, but when there are more people walking, it becomes a road. Nowadays, there are fewer people walking, and the land on the hillside is basically deserted, so the road has completely disappeared.
I walked in front and was considered a pathfinder. The water near the roots of the weeds was not completely dry, and my shoes soon became a little wet. On weekdays, I walk extremely fast, and I can probably take two steps while others take one step. It didn’t take long before I left my mother and brother far behind.
While passing by a bamboo forest, I accidentally saw a bamboo shoot insect lying on a tall bamboo shoot. Out of childhood fun and childlike innocence that I had not played for a long time, I caught it. Come down. The bamboo shoot insect is called a weevil because its long mouth resembles an elephant's trunk, hence its name. It mainly lives by sucking the liquid from bamboo shoots. Bamboo shoot insects are very harmful to bamboo shoots. Any bamboo shoots that have been sucked by the bamboo shoot bug will basically die and will be difficult to grow into bamboo.
After walking a short distance further, we arrived at the boundary of our team, which is also the junction of the boundaries of Neijiang and Longchang. When we arrived at our team's territory, the crazy weeds stopped here, and the previous sense of desolation was instantly dispelled by a few fields planted with crops.
Not far away, there is a collapsed mud-tile house. I am very impressed here because when I was only five or six years old, I remembered this place and I was very impressed. I still have a vague impression of a thatched house in the pine forest, although the thatched house has long since disappeared.
I deliberately slowed down and found a few bamboo shoot bugs in a clump of bamboo on the roadside. There were three bamboo shoot bugs on a small bamboo shoot. How could I miss such a good opportunity? Catch it directly and hold it in your hand. I guess it's because there have been fewer children in my hometown in the past two years, and the number of bamboo shoot bugs has increased. Before and after, I just caught them casually when passing through the bamboo forest. I caught ten of them in one shot, three males, which were much larger, and seven females.
It didn’t take long for me to lose interest in the bamboo shoot bugs, and I couldn’t bear to kill them. I was worried that killing them would bring bad luck to me, so I just threw them into an open space with both hands, and the bamboo shoot bugs were full of them. All over the ground, some began to turn over, and some climbed onto the weeds. After a while, they spread their wings and flew away like a small airplane.
When I arrived at my house, I was sweating profusely. My father and a strange uncle were chatting. The uncle was similar in age to my father. They were chatting. My father said, "Do you recognize which one this is?" I took a glance and didn't recognize it at all! I casually called "uncle". My father quickly corrected me and said, "No, he is the fourth master." I wondered when a fourth master appeared in me. It was only later that I realized that the people who used to be from the Song family compound must be related by blood in the previous generations, and later came to Yingxiang Town to become the son-in-law who stepped in.
The fourth master pointed at me and asked his father: "What is this?"
"This is my little one, the second baby." The fourth master was a little surprised: "It used to be so small. , Now he has grown into a big boy."
Not long after, my mother arrived. The fourth master saw his mother: "Jiurong, why have you grown so fat?" I felt a little unhappy after hearing this. Yue, thinking: "Why is this person so low in emotional intelligence? He can't speak at all."
These days, I keep meeting some acquaintances. Many people are very surprised to see me and express their complete recognition. Not me anymore. The mother said at the side: "My second child has completely changed from what he looked like when he was a child. Only the older one has not changed at all?"
The father said with a smile: "Your two brothers used to be so good that the fourth master always took care of them. "My parents used to have to go to work and there was no one to look after my brother and me, so they locked us two brothers in a rental house, probably just to let the fourth master take care of us. The fourth master said: "Your father used to save a lot when he was in Anhui, and he was very willing to work to the death." From his tone, it is not difficult to see that the saving is beyond that of ordinary migrant workers.
The fourth master raised his right hand on his knee and said to me: "When you were a child, your nose was swollen and a bit bigger." I counted, and he mentioned it three times, but I just looked at him with a companionable expression. Laughing, don’t know how to answer the call? Regarding my childhood, I did have a runny nose. A dirty child is probably not very lovable.
After sitting for a while, I went to the house where the old man died for dinner. I was afraid there would be no seats if I went there late. There are more than ten tables in the Bazi, as well as in the house, and some people are already sitting around the tables. A large flower tape was placed over the dam to block the sun. The wind blew back and forth, making some crackling sounds.
There were several cars parked outside the dam, and a dozen white ducks stood outside a row of blue nets in the distance, preening their feathers with their beaks. I found a nearby place to sit down and looked at the time. It was after ten o'clock and the first dish, cold chicken, was just being placed on the table. The custom in my hometown is to wait until the dishes are almost ready before starting to distribute chopsticks to each table. Mainly because I am worried that some people will not follow the rules and eat in advance.
The Bazi was noisy, with the sounds of children playing, a few middle-aged women chatting loudly, the shouts of the one-stop service staff, the old man coughing while smoking, and all kinds of sounds. Mixed together, like a swarm of flies buzzing in the ears. I was extremely sleepy and my head hurt. I looked around. Most of the faces, men, women, old and young, were unfamiliar. Suddenly being in such a strange environment made me feel uncomfortable.
I can barely recognize some people. Some old people have become older, and their white hair and wrinkles have become more obvious. Now that the young man has become a father and a mother, his body is seriously out of shape, his face is growing wildly, and the fat on his belly is exaggeratedly squeezed into a pile, like a pregnant woman. I thought to myself: "I don't want to be seriously out of shape like them."
I heard an old man say that we don't eat until twelve o'clock at noon. I was a little annoyed. It was still more than an hour before twelve o'clock. If I had known I would come later, I could still sleep for a while. My brother said, "I'm late, and there won't be any seats available later." This is the truth.
I was extremely bored sitting on a green plastic stool. The fourth master, his wife and the fat grandson were all sitting on this table. The chubby child and the thinner child kept bickering, and my ears were filled with their voices. One moment I was talking about Indian curry, and the other moment I was talking about Indians eating all kinds of paste. I don’t know who mentioned online dating later, but the fat kid was the first to say: “The ones on the Internet are unreliable, the photos are beautiful, but the real ones are ugly as hell.” I was a little surprised when I heard that, and lamented that children nowadays know everything, compared to us in the 90s Later, when I was a child, I was considered to be knowledgeable.
While waiting, I used a paper cup to scoop up two cups from a large basin filled with tea behind me, and drank them both in one gulp. In this way, my deep sleepiness was barely relieved. After that, I took out my mobile phone and read the e-book for nearly an hour. In fact, I didn't read much and I couldn't concentrate.
It finally reached twelve o'clock, and someone finally brought a large bundle of chopsticks, throwing one handful at each table, ten pairs each. The chubby child was so excited that he picked up a large bottle of Sprite and unscrewed it while almost humming and shouting: "There is Sprite, there is Sprite..." I looked at the bottle that was nearly half the size of his peers. The figure frowned: "You will worry about being overweight when you grow up."
I thought this fat kid was as selfish as the other kids I'd seen, pouring himself one drink and then the next. After pouring himself a glass, the fat kid couldn't help but take a sip first and then licked his lips. Then, he held the big green Sprite bottle around the table and poured out a drink from the disposable paper cup in front of almost everyone, except for those who wanted to drink beer on the table.
I don’t like Sprite very much. Carbonated drinks are extremely high in sugar and can make you gain weight easily. When I found out, the fat kid had already enthusiastically poured me a glass, just like when you go to visit a relative during the holidays, and in order to entertain you well, the relative takes out what he thinks is the most suitable thing for entertaining guests at home. You are reluctant to eat it, and this kind of food is exactly what you don't like. Yes, that's the feeling, exactly the same. However, I'm sorry for my preconceptions about fat children just now. People really shouldn't be judged based on their appearance, and you shouldn't judge others easily based on your own past experiences.
The dishes on the table are slowly piled up, and some even overlap. This typical rural banquet is not seen in the city. Weddings and weddings in rural areas are basically contracted out to others, which is the so-called one-stop service. They can cook a table of such dishes at very low prices because they have stable suppliers in the county. , the demand is also large, and the prices of various meat dishes should also be wholesale prices. As for the quality and health, no one knows about this?
After the dishes were all served, I subconsciously counted the dishes on the table. There were sixteen meat and vegetable dishes. There were many dishes that I couldn’t eat on weekdays. It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford it, but There are many steps and it is troublesome to do. For example, fatty meat glutinous rice, elbow and other dishes. I looked at all the dishes, and the only one I liked was the plate of sliced ??beef jerky. The other dishes looked unappetizing. I picked it up and said, "This one has a high protein content."
On weekdays, I am not good at other things, but I am good at eating. Maybe it was because I had stayed up for more than ten all-nighters these past few days to keep my grandfather safe, or maybe it was because I had a cold or allergic rhinitis. In short, I couldn’t eat well or sleep well.
When others were using their chopsticks to move between the dishes on the table, I put down the bowl and chopsticks early. The weather was so hot that the fan with a broken neck behind me would not move its head left and right, and my position happened to miss it perfectly. Sweat dripped down my face in large drops, and the heat made me upset.
I stood aside to rest. After a while, I took out my mobile phone to play. I felt that there was nothing to play with, so I put it back in my trouser pocket. After a while, I looked up at the people eating.
I couldn't see any sadness at the death of the old man on the faces of the people eating. For many people, it was just an opportunity to eat and drink. But thinking about it on the other hand, why should outsiders bear the pain of losing a loved one?
In fact, I have eaten many such so-called disaster meals since I was a child. There are at least 20 or 30 families who are not related to me, but some are related to me, including old grandpa, old grandma, and grandpa. At that time, I just felt that there were many people and the food was meat and fish. I didn’t have any real feelings. I didn’t even know what death meant.
In my memory, the face of a dead person I saw with my own eyes was as white as white paper, without any blood. His house is less than 200 meters away from my house. When I was a child, I went to see it with my adults out of curiosity, and it has left a lingering psychological shadow ever since. The man was only in his forties or fifties when he left. I heard he had liver and ascites. At that time, I was still in the third or fourth grade of elementary school. Every time I passed by the bamboo forest behind his house, I could always see a lot of medicine bottles. I didn’t understand it at the time. When adults said this disease was contagious, I naturally avoided it.
It took nearly three months from the time this man got sick to the time he left. The only thing that made me think it was a bit comical was that less than half a year after the man died, the woman in the family started looking after him everywhere. People ask matchmakers to introduce men. At that time, my understanding was also one-sided and extreme. I always felt that a woman in her fifties would marry another person, and she was in a hurry, which was a bit difficult for me to accept. At that time, I thought that marriage should be a matter for young people. It seemed that older people were not worthy of love and happiness. Of course, the more important point is that everyone cannot accept that she started to rush to marry herself off in such a short period of time after her husband died. Such a reputation is not good, and I don't know if the man who died due to illness would feel chilled if he found out about it.
Not long after, she actually found a man, not too far from here. His wife died. He was honest and hard-working, so he was a good match. Time flies and it has been more than ten years since this man married into this family and became the son-in-law. His personality and hard work made everyone gradually get used to him and accept him. Who said scoring twice must be unhappy?
We look back and think about a woman who is nearly fifty years old. Unfortunately, her husband has died, and she still has to manage a family by herself. Let alone the loneliness in the boudoir, the feeling of emptiness in her heart is enough. She drinks a pot. Also, in rural areas, the reputation of a woman whose man has died is not very good, and few people dare to marry her, because they think that the woman's life is hard, her birth date is not good, and she will kill her husband. Only those who are not afraid, who feel that their lives are strong enough to be protected, or those who do not believe it at all, will dare to marry. Her second man was such a man.
When it was almost one o'clock in the afternoon, the people who were eating began to disperse. I saw empty drink bottles on the ground, so I thought to myself: "I can pick up a few empty bottles later and cut off the bottoms." A small piece of it is used to make a small flowerpot." As soon as I proposed this idea, my father, mother and brother stopped me: "Pick up whatever you want, don't make anyone laugh." I thought about it, picking up bottles is not the right thing. It's a shameful thing, and of course they won't listen to it. After that, I walked around more than a dozen tables and only picked up seven empty bottles, four Sprite bottles, three peanut milk bottles, and the other bottles all had drinks. I heard that another family had more than ten tables in their Bazi, but my desire for empty bottles was not strong and I felt that seven empty bottles were enough.
After I took the seven empty bottles back, I was thinking, why do people always set psychological limits for themselves before doing things? Take picking up bottles as an example. Why is it such a shameful thing? That's your preconceived idea. As long as you think like this, you will definitely not do it again? I think that when I picked up my bottle, I didn’t steal it, and I didn’t break the law or touch the bottom line of social morality. As long as I don’t think it is a shameful thing, no one can laugh at me for picking up the empty bottle. I.
The sunshine outside the house is still fierce, and heat waves can be faintly seen in the air. I stood in the shade of a tree, looking at the cedar forest beside the house, thinking about some questions. I asked myself: What is death? Why do people die? Are dying people afraid of death? What is the nature of death?
On August 10, 2020 in Neijiang, Zhuhongchu
Note: The nearly one thousand words that follow were continued on August 11th.