Chapter 17 Section 17

In the first year in Qingping Bay, we ate 45 catties of treasury food per person per month, including corn, wheat, grain, and a few taels of green oil.The fellow villagers said that we are all "officials". Villagers often want to eat bran, bran, and something called "leaf" (I still don't know what the word is, and I checked Cihai to no avail, anyway, it's harder to swallow than bran); Yibajing dry corn food is as festive as a festival.The villagers said to us: "There is a way in these kilns." "These old men are all cadres of the central government!" Everyone nodded, confirming that it is only natural for us to be children of the public, and there is nothing wrong with eating more than forty catties of good food every month. .

The mothers-in-law and aunts often gathered in front of our kitchen with their shoe soles, admiring and saying, "These are good dry food", "Potato dishes and radish dishes often have floating oil on the surface", and then gave us advice one after another.The Beijing-style Wotou made them laugh, saying, "This seems to be a waste of time", and the correct way is to steam the cornmeal "Yellow".The dishes have to be boiled, otherwise wouldn't they be eaten raw?It is better to mix white noodles with bean noodles and roll them into mixed noodles, cut them into thin slices, add sauce and chili, how many times can you eat white noodles?There are twenty of us, and each of us takes turns to cook for one day, and we all complain to the sky.At this time, there were brave men who rolled up the hemp thread on the soles of the shoes and started to help us cook; cooking a good meal is certainly more fun than not cooking a thousand good meals.Another aunt helped to light the fire again, saying that the stove should be rectified, otherwise the firewood would be expensive, and she would rectify it when the shopkeeper came back from Shanli. Her shopkeeper had a way to rectify the stove.They all praised the fans brought by Beijing, the powder was whiter and finer than theirs.When the rice was cooked, we dared to ask them to try it too, but they all retreated and began to scold the children under their legs for being disobedient; they still took the soles of their shoes to accept.We broke off some white molds for a few babies to eat, and the baby's mother's eyes lit up, and then she remembered to ask the baby to call us uncles again.Girls can't call it, there is no equivalent of auntie there.

Twenty people would rather go up the mountain and suffer than cook.The stove fire was really difficult to handle, and they often got up before dawn to start a fire, until the sun was very high, but the kiln was still full of smoke and no one could be seen, and the only thing I could hear was the sound of the bellows being pulled like crazy.The sound of the bellows suddenly stopped, and two people staggered out of the thick smoke, wiped their tears, panted heavily, sat on the millstone, squatted in the yard to be careful, and thought for a while in the morning sun and the sound of cocks. , Drilling back into the smoke.

If you want to burn coal vigorously, you must have good firewood.For example, wolf tooth thorns are oily, and the fire is fierce and durable when burned.However, it took a lot of effort to cut the firewood.Let's borrow some from fellow villagers first. If we borrow too many times, we feel that it is unreasonable, so we have to steal some.After stealing more times, I felt that it was against the teaching of "educated young people go to the countryside", so I finally found the doors, windows and thresholds of the small temple on the hill. I don't know how many years the small temple has experienced wind and rain, the ruins are ruined, and weeds are growing everywhere. Several small halls also express their desire to be toppled at any time.The rotten thresholds, cracked window lattices, and door frames are just good firewood.Jin Tao and I went there once and discovered this energy first. The energy is limited, so it is not appropriate to tell others.When it was our turn to cook, we took an ax to chop a good piece of firewood.First use up the window lattice, and then cut the threshold.Jin Tao said, I don't know if this threshold is the one donated by Mrs. Lin.

There are several clay Buddhas in the small temple, mottled and decorated with some colors on their bodies, and the one in the middle looks like Avalokitesvara.It is said that every Buddha has a heart, or gold, or silver, or copper. The two of us cut a hole in the back of the mud tire, and sure enough, we pulled out a heart, which was made of wood. Jin Tao weighed the wooden heart and said that it was enough to make a meal, and there was no need to cut the threshold, as there was not much left.There is a lot of wheat straw laid out in front of the Buddha statue, and some foreigners often come here to spend the night.

Two performers came from Yulin and lived in this temple for a few days.A cripple, a teenager.The child is very thin, and there are many sores on his head that are bleeding yellow water.When the two came to the open space in the center of the village, the lame man beat a small drum and shouted, "Perform Yulin's tough style!" The child took off his shirt, revealing a series of vertebrae and two distinct ribs. He also shouted: "Take a look at it, and play a tough Yulin scene." The lame wrapped a wire around the child's chest, and then put the drum Knock for a while.The child took a deep breath, bent over and stamped his feet and turned around on the spot, trying to break the wire.The wire was not broken, and the child straightened up and looked at the cripple in panic.

The cripple was very clever, and said to everyone: "This baby hasn't eaten dry food for a few days, and only drank a full stomach of thin rice soup." Everyone who looked around laughed.The child bent down and stomped his feet again, and the wire finally broke.Then another child beat the drum, and the lame man waved his fist and waved his hand for a while, yelled hysterically, and nearly fell down. I don't know how many wandering blowers, stonemasons, storytellers, and performers have been received by that small temple. There are always fresh ashes in front of the statue.

One year, the small temple resumed a burst of incense.In that year, there were rumors everywhere that gods and gods came from the Yellow River, and the temples within a few hundred miles were prosperous for a while, and the gods in the temples were all revived.People go to the temple to worship, make wishes, and burn incense.At that time, there were no incense sellers, so they had to use cigarettes instead, and those who ordered the "Yan'an brand" said that it was a brand that the gods had seen, so that the "Yan'an brand" cigarettes were out of stock for a long time.The doorframes and thresholds of the small temple on Naohoushan were patched up, the windows were covered with mats, and the hole in Avalokitesvara's back was filled with mud and whitewashed.The hall was dimly lit, smoky, and humming.Those who are sick ask God to give some medicine, those who are childless ask God to give them a son, those who are short of food and in debt ask God to bless the weather every year and not to collect too much public food.The blind old man lit a pack of cigarettes and asked God to help Sui Sui marry his mother-in-law; Sui Sui was still single at that time.Mingwa was still alive, and Mingwa's mother sold a can of green oil, and sent Scar to kowtow to a big temple a hundred miles away.It is said that the gods of that temple are big and will respond to every request.People from the county and the commune were mobilized to disperse the worshiping crowd and kidnap a few who were not pleasing to the eye.The gods from the Yellow River East have just returned to the Yellow River East.Scar came back in a daze, saying that he had spent more than ten yuan, "Cough——, I told him to catch him."After Mingwa's death, Mingwa's mother still had hope in that god, thinking that Mingwa's reincarnation would have a good time.