Chapter 38 Section five

In the sunset at dusk, I arrived at Yinji.It is already autumn, and the leaves on the trees are all yellow.It is densely populated, but the town is dilapidated.There are slogans painted in red paint on every wall, and people wearing armbands can be seen walking on the street from time to time.They looked at me strangely. Although no one came to ask me yet, they seemed to be very puzzled about my origin.I couldn't help being suspicious, so I didn't dare to set foot in the town. About three or four miles to the east of the town, there is a large reservoir.This reservoir is much larger than the unfinished Puji Reservoir.Looking at the vastness of the blue waves at a glance, it seems that you can't see its edge.I spent the night in a culvert on the side of the floodgate of the reservoir dam.There is a bush of wild roses at the entrance of the cave.I still have 80 cents left on me, and this 80 cents was exchanged for the adobe I moved in a brick kiln factory the day before yesterday.Probably due to sweating too much, I have a little fever and a headache all over my body.I feel cool only when I press my face against the mossy cave wall.If the dam suddenly releases water, I will be swept away like an ant in an instant.It would be all right.

It is easy for people to become very weak when they are sick. Sometimes when you think about it, you might as well give yourself up.Such struggles make no sense to me.But I always feel a little reconciled in my heart, but I don't know why I am not reconciled.Maybe it's to live to see you again, so what if I can see you?It's a very stupid idea, but I can't get rid of it.Lying in the culvert, I would foolishly think, how wonderful it would be if you were by my side at this moment!Even if you don't say anything. I am an orphan with no relatives in this world.My father was arrested in 1950 for counter-revolutionary crimes and shot.My mother hanged herself from a beam with a rope the very day she got the news, and that night, you know, I was alone that night.Mother's body was taken away.But there was an embroidered shoe and a puddle of urine on the ground.The embroidered shoe embroidered with butterflies was also wet.I hugged the shoe, embarrassed to think that my mother was still peeing before she died.I didn't even dare to cry for fear of being scolded by my vicious neighbors.Fortunately, it rained heavily in the second half of the night, no matter how loud I cried, no one would hear me.

It is very quiet here. Looking out from the entrance of the culvert, you can see the starry night sky and the large tidal flats under the dam.Many locals are catching crabs with crab lanterns.That night, I fell asleep crying, as if I woke up and embarked on a journey to Meicheng.My aunt hired an ox cart and set off before dawn.In the car, I secretly and non-stop looked at her face.But for a whole day, my aunt kept a livid face and didn't say a word to me.When the car arrived at Qishu, I suddenly remembered a warning from my aunt.Out of gratitude to others for adopting you, I decided to call her mother instead.I wished so shamelessly to please her that I was going to betray my poor mother!I tugged on my aunt's sleeve, and with the courage accumulated by all the shame, I called her mother.My aunt was dozing off and woke up when I called out.She turned towards me, first looked at me in surprise, then slapped me, her face became very ferocious: "You unwanted bastard, what did you call me just now, who is your mother? That shameless rotten bitch, the dancing girl bitch who was raped by everyone in Shanghai! Why don't you hang yourself, little bitch? Stay in this world to harm people! What kind of bad luck have I been in in my life? Use your thing, call me mother, bah! You deserve it too!"

Later, from my uncle's mouth, I learned that it was not without reason that my aunt hated me so much.When she rushed to Shanghai to divide up the household belongings, she was one step too late, and all the valuables in the house had already been snatched up by my relatives from all walks of life.Even my little uncle, who is in middle school, is said to have snatched some boxes of Cuban cigars left by my father.My aunt took nothing but a burden, and that burden was me.In fact, my aunt is not bad, except for being greedy for money, narrow-minded, and short-tempered, she is not very bad.In fact, she could just walk away like my relatives and leave me to fend for myself.But anyway, I will never forget what my aunt said to me in the car, and I will never forgive her.When I arrived at my aunt's house, my only thought was to escape as soon as possible.If you hadn't gone to the bathroom in Meicheng to take a shower that night, or rescued me from the woolen shop in Xijindu, I would have already fled.

I don't like nosy people.When Qian Dajun found me in the wool shop and took me to the county, I was not grateful to you at all, on the contrary, I just hated you!This is even more so when I know that you are still a county magistrate.I think that officials in this world are all bad people, without exception.My parents died at the hands of you officials.More than half of the bad things in this world are done by you officials. However, one day, I think it was probably the third day after I officially went to work in the county... At noon, I went to the bathroom to wash my handkerchief, and as I washed it, I remembered what was on my mind.Everyone in the county office had obvious sarcasm on their faces.I didn't understand anything, I couldn't do anything right, and then, a person began to cry silently.The handkerchief had already been fully exposed by the fibers of my washing.In fact, I didn't want to wash my handkerchief, I just wanted to find a place where no one was there to cry.But you walked in without saying a word and stood behind me.I didn't notice it at the time, you put your hands on my shoulders, you put both hands on my shoulders, and you didn't say a word.I knew it was you, so I couldn't help turning my head to look at your hand.What a big hand!I have never seen such a big hand!You left without saying a word.But at night, when I was lying on the bed at Qian Dajun's house, I remembered it again.It really is like my dad's hand.

You know, the day before Dad was arrested, he took my hand and went to eat ice cream at the Megio restaurant across the road.For years, it was his hands that I remembered.Maybe he already knew his fate at that time, his hand squeezed me very painful, I said Dad, you squeezed my hand too tightly!But Dad turned around suddenly, tears all over his face.He knelt down and looked at me without moving.Even squatting down, he is still much taller than me.I saw that his shiny black leather shoes hadn't been polished for a long time, and the lace of one shoe was loose, but he didn't notice it.

Sitting in the bakery of the Megio restaurant, under the huge arches of beautiful pine branches and ribbons, I finished my ice cream in no time, and my father stared at me blankly, smiled, and said : "Xiaoju, do you want to have another serving?" I nodded quickly.Dad hooked the waiter in the bakery and bought two more.Finish one portion at the bakery and one portion to take home.I have long forgotten what ice cream is like, but I still remember my father's hand.It's so big and so warm! I'm afraid you can't remember either. On the first weekend I went to work in the county, I happened to have a dinner with my work unit.After Qian Dajun drank a few more glasses of wine, he booed and asked me to call you godfather.I thought you were going to get angry, but you didn't.I remember that you didn't nod your head or express any objection, you just looked at me with a glass of wine and smiled.I thought at the time, if I really called this man Dad, he probably wouldn't be very angry.This little secret was hidden by me, and I didn't say it out for many years. Gradually, it really became a secret.Until one day, this secret was replaced by another even crazier one...

Oh, what a fantasy!At first, I didn't notice it.But when I realized its existence, I was taken aback. This secret is like a piece of candy, which will melt in my mouth after a long time.Do you remember that rainy afternoon two years ago?The rain didn't stop when we got off work, we didn't bring an umbrella, we were trapped in the office by the heavy rain, the water on the window glass was like a crying face, we couldn't talk for a while.Later, you suddenly asked me, what ideals and plans do you have in the future, and I jokingly replied, I want to escape to a deserted island to live in seclusion, and you are smoking—that pack of cigarettes is still left over from my smoking, Ermao Five cents a pack of big production, you smoked a cigarette, and asked me with a smile: "You haven't committed a crime, why are you running away?" I didn't even think about it at the time, so I asked, "How do you know that I didn't commit a crime?" ? How do you know that I will not commit crimes in the future?" Thinking about it now, this sentence is really a prophecy!I often wake up and dream of this evening, dreaming that I will say to you in a prophetic tone, "How do you know that I will not commit crimes in the future?".Then it got dark.There was no one in the office.At that time, I really hoped that the rain would not stop, never stop!It has been going underground all the time.What would you do if it rained all the time?Will we spend the night at the office?

When I close my eyes now, I can remember the smell of the rain, the smell of dust when it first rained, the burnt smell of cigarettes, and the lingering aroma of the pot of molan on the table... I still remember what you told me ?Before you let me go to the island to live in seclusion, let me tell you, you said you would go with me.You still say... Hey, why are you still mentioning these things?Of course you can argue that you were joking and just joking around.You probably looked at me stupidly, and suddenly came up with an idea to tease me, and then secretly laughed, isn't that so?Those words, every sentence, every word, now glowed in the dark like crab lanterns under a reservoir, flickering.After you said those words, they were thrown out of the sky. Only a fool like me would take it seriously, and look for some kind of trust in those words that disappeared without a trace after leaving the mouth...

October seventeenth. The above part was written more than half a month ago.Yesterday, I was taken to Linze more than 100 kilometers away by a Jiefang truck loaded with rocks.This place is building a road.The construction site was full of road-building troops like ants, and they rushed over from all directions, making it a mess.The truck driver who brought me introduced me to a superintendent at the site, and I was easily mingled with the road builders and offered a job.It is said that this road will be used as an alternate runway for aircraft during wars in the future, so the roadbed is wide and thick.My job is to smash rocks.The big stones transported from the quarry are smashed with a big iron hammer, and we, the old, the weak, the sick and the disabled, knock these stones into paving stones.At night, more than 20 of our workers crowded into one shack, except for three or four women, the rest were all men.They don't know each other.I just knocked on the rock for a day, and the jaws of both hands were cracked. When the autumn wind blew, the rustling hurt, and I couldn't even hold the pen.

The place where I slept used to be a cornfield.A thin corn plant grew above the bed, surrounded by plastic sheeting.If there were electric lights, I could write to you from the bed.There are no villages or shops behind this place, and there is no post office anywhere.In November, the weather is getting cooler every day.Flocks of wild geese flew south, quacking and screaming, which made people's hearts ache.However, I still kind of like this place.In late autumn, the sky is very blue, the white clouds are thick, and there are ripe corn everywhere.The people working on the construction site don't know each other's origins, and no one inquires about them. This is the first time I feel so at ease on the road to my life.Although the high-pitched speakers in the headquarters are broadcasting every day, saying that it will be opened to traffic before the end of December, I hope that this road will never be completed.In this way, I can legally live here until I die. Just now, the truck driver who brought me to Zeze came again.He said he came to see me, entered the work shed as soon as he was waisted, and went straight to my bed.He handed me a sugarcane with his greasy hand.I smiled and said to him: "I don't have a knife here, how can I eat this sugar cane?" , and then pass it to me.While eating sugarcane, I asked him by the way if there was a post office around here.He said: "Do you want to send a letter? Well, you give it to me, and I will mail it for you on the way to the quarry." He also joked that if the road is not far away, he can even Drive the letter directly there.I dared not hand him the letter after all.His facial features, figure, and tone of voice, no matter how you look at him, he looks a bit like Xiao Wang, a driver in our county. By the way, that night, after I killed someone, I ran to a large sweet potato field near the Ganlu Pavilion, took off my blood-stained clothes, and sat by the ditch for a long time.I instinctively wanted to find a place to hide, or to discuss with someone, and after much deliberation, I thought of Xiao Wang.One New Year's Day, a group of us went to his single dormitory to make dumplings. I know where he lives.I ran all the way, found his home, and knocked on the door tremblingly.He was wearing a red vest and floral shorts. He got up and opened the door, rubbed his eyes, and when he saw me, he suddenly regained his energy. He pulled and pulled at me with a smile on his face, talking crazy.While letting me get under his quilt to keep warm, he asked me what happened, why my hair was disheveled, and I looked like a female ghost.It was almost dawn at that time, and I didn't have time to talk to him, so I told him directly that I killed someone, can I hide with him for a while.He thought I was joking, but when he looked at me from top to bottom again, his smile froze on his lips like cold lard.His little eyeballs wouldn't move either.He was wearing shorts and a vest, sitting on the bed and shaking, as if shaking, the wire bed was rattled by him. After my scare, he started to use idioms indiscriminately again.He was a little fat man, and it was the first time I knew that there was so much fat on his chest, like a woman.The fat man was also trembling, muttering nonsense in his mouth, "It's incomprehensible, it's incomprehensible, it's simply incomprehensible!" Next, he basically acts like a dork.Whatever I say, he repeats, like an echoing wall.I said, you probably won't report the crime, will you?He said, report to the police!report!I said, can you go get a basin of water first and let me wash it?He said, get a basin of water!Get a basin of water!I said, do you have any clean old clothes that you don't usually wear, let me deal with them and wear them, he said, old clothes!Ah, old clothes!I was really pissed at him, and I yelled at him, "Don't you fucking shake!" He said, "Oh, don't shake, don't shake. What did you just say?" I'll stay with him for a few more minutes, and when this kid comes to his senses, I probably won't be able to get away.He will definitely go downstairs and report the crime.I deliberately asked him: "You will not force me to surrender, will you?" Xiao Wang said, "Surrender and surrender, you should surrender. Sangyu has passed away, and it is not too late. Confessions are lenient, and resistance is strict. To resist the United States and aid Korea, Defending the family and defending the country..." It was really dumbfounding. When I came out of Xiaowang's house, I saw the sky above the treetops in the sky, the Shu River had already opened, and the sky was about to dawn.I cried and ran amok on the empty road.Suddenly thought in my heart, if I ran to your house just now, how would you treat me?I can't think about it at all.Until now, I sometimes still can’t help thinking this way, when these letters of mine fall into your hands, will you hand them over to the Public Security Bureau to ask for credit, and let the heavily armed police officers come and arrest me?Will it?You've been fired from your job and just need a chance to make a comeback so you can make a comeback.If this is the case, I also admit it, and I am willing to die in your hands.In a world without any nostalgia, even if I live to be a hundred years old, what is the use?wear.October 31st.