Chapter 6 The blood-red rhododendron

They found Wang Xiong on a deserted beach near Keelung.His body was washed by the tide to the crevices of the rocks, and stuck there, it never floated away.When my aunt asked me to identify the body, Wang Xiong's body had been soaked in sea water for several days.Wang Xiong's whole body was black and blue, his stomach was swollen, and his clothes were torn; his head and face were battered by fish bites, red and black, full of small holes, his eyebrows and eyes were eaten away. Lost.A few feet away, there was a stench of rotting corpses, which made people feel nauseous.If it weren't for his surprisingly large palms, with ten round fingers that were still intact, I couldn't imagine that the huge monster lying on the ground would be Wang Xiong, the male worker of my aunt's house.

The death of Wang Xiong caused a commotion in my aunt's house.My aunt burned a large stack of money papers in the garden that night. While burning them, she squatted on the ground and muttered a lot of requiem words.She said that if someone dies like Wang Xiong, it is difficult to keep the house clean.I told my aunt that Wang Xiong's body was rotten and stinking, and my next girl, Ximei, screamed in horror. No matter how my aunt tried to persuade her to stay, she refused to stop. She packed her luggage on the spot and fled back She went to Yilan home.Only our cousin Lier, we kept it from her and never let her know because we were afraid that she would be afraid.My aunt and I went to Wang Xiong's room to collect his relics. She swore to me that after this lesson, she would never hire male workers again in her life.

The first time I met Wang Xiong was in a spring two years ago.I served junior college military service on Kinmen Island, and I was just transferred back to Taipei to work as an administrator at the Joint Logistics Command.My family lives in Taichung, and the only relatives in Taipei are my aunt's family. As soon as the registration is over, I will go to my aunt's house to visit them.My uncle was in big business before he was alive, so he passed away early and only gave birth to his cousin Lier.My uncle left a considerable fortune, so my aunt and cousin have always lived a very prosperous life.At that time, my aunt had just moved and lived in a large garden house of more than 300 square meters in the fourth section of Ren'ai Road.On the day I arrived at my aunt's house, she was playing cards in the living room, she asked me a few words absent-mindedly, and then told me to go to the garden to find my cousin Lier.My mother told me that Lier was raised by her aunt in her mouth. When she was six years old, her aunt had to feed her herself. Lier was so used to her sixth grade that she refused to tie her shoelaces by herself.But Lier's appearance is really cute and pitiful. I have never seen a child born as white and round as her: round face, round eyes, even the nose and mouth are so round. Especially when she is shaking her short hair and giggling, her unique naivety of a baby girl is the most fascinating, just like a jade doll.However, her spoiled and self-willed temper is rare among other children, and she didn't do what she wanted in the slightest. When she got something valuable, she would throw it in her hand, then she would sit on the ground, rub her round legs, and cry. Her throat was broken and she refused to rest for a while, no one, including her aunt, could hold her back.

The garden of my aunt’s house is very spacious, and the newly planted plants and flowers are neatly arranged. In the middle is a lush green Korean lawn, but the surrounding flower beds are full of bright red rhododendrons, many of which have begun to bud. .As soon as I entered the garden, I heard a series of crisp and slippery laughter from Li'er.When I walked around the banana tree, I suddenly saw Li'er riding on a big man. That man was prostrate on the lawn, learning how to behave like a beast, but Li'er was straddling his back. She was fat and white. Holding a rhododendron seed in her little hand, she waved it in the air like a horsewhip. Lier was wearing a bright red corduroy skirt, her two snow-white round legs were exposed and kept kicking, and her short hair was flicking. Moved, shrieking with joy.

"Cousin, watch me ride a horse--" Lier dropped the branch in her hand when she noticed me, and yelled at me with both hands, then she jumped over the man's head and ran to I will come.The man hurriedly got up, smiled at me and yelled: "Master Cousin—" I realized that he was surprisingly tall, probably more than six feet tall, with a huge head, shaved green, black head and black face, and his whole body was so black that it shone like black steel. He grinned at me. , bared his white teeth, seemed a little shy, and kept rubbing his giant palms, but his ten fingers were ridiculously bald.He was wearing a pair of military trousers that had been washed white, and the knees were covered with mud and grass.

"Cousin," Li'er pointed to the man and said to me, "Wang Xiong said that he can crawl and walk for several miles like that." "That was when we were fighting in the past—" Wang Xiong argued hastily, his accent was thick with Hunan dialect. "Nonsense!" Li'er frowned and interrupted him, "You clearly said that day: You can let me ride to school." Wang Xiong looked at Li'er awkwardly, unable to speak, his dark face flushed, as if Li'er had revealed some secret between him and her. "Cousin, I'll take you to see. Wang Xiong has caught a lot of grasshoppers for me." Lier ran ahead of me as she spoke, leading me into the house. After running a few steps, she seemed to suddenly As if remembering something, she stopped, turned around, stretched out her snow-white round arms to Wang Xiong and shouted:

"Wang Xiong, come." Wang Xiong hesitated for a while, and finally walked forward, Li'er grabbed his thick black arm, held hands with him, jumped up and down, and ran into the house, Wang Xiong dragged his arm The huge body also followed Lier to run slowly. In the evening, after playing cards, my aunt chatted with me, and then told me that Wang Xiong was her newly hired male worker.Originally from the army, he just retired, and he couldn't be more honest. My aunt praised him quite a bit. If he doesn't make a sound all day long, he will work with his head dull. Moreover, he can't see that he is such a rough man. When it comes to flowers and trees, don't have any thoughts.My aunt said that Wang Xiong planted each of the hundreds of rhododendrons in the garden with his own hands.Why plant so many rhododendrons?The aunt explained with a sigh that it was not for Li'er.It's because that little magic star likes azaleas.

"I've never seen it before," my aunt suddenly laughed and covered her mouth with her hands. "A big man of forty years old let a little girl lead him by the nose and obeyed her everything." In the end, my aunt shook her head and exclaimed: It's rare that the two of them are destined! Lier and Wang Xiong are indeed destined.Every time I go to my aunt's house, I always see the two of them playing together.Every morning, Wang Xiong took Li'er to school on a tricycle, and picked her up in the afternoon.The tricycle that Wang Xiong rides on is often polished brightly, and the front of the car is filled with colorful fluffy balls, phoenixes with floral paper hinges, and small windmill wheels, decorated like a wind chariot.Every time he went to pick up Li'er, Wang Xiong always tidied up his head and face, and dressed decently even in the hot weather.When Lier walked into the gate from the outside, she raised her face and shook her short hair, proudly like a little princess. Wang Xiong followed her, carrying her schoolbag for her, straightened her waist, and looked serious. , like Lier's escort.As soon as she got home, Li'er took Wang Xiong to play in the garden.Wang Xiong always thinks of all kinds of tricks to please Lier.Once, I saw Wang Xiong sitting alone under the eaves, with a large pile of red, green and green glass beads on the ground beside his feet. He held a gold thread in his hand and strung those beads attentively.When he stretched out his pair of black, bald giant palms to catch those slippery and rolling glass beads all over the ground, he looked very clumsy and funny.When Li'er came home that day, Wang Xiong covered her with bracelets and necklaces made of glass beads in the garden.Li'er wore two rings on her head, two arms on each arm, and five or six bands on one side. She also kicked off her shoes, put on a pair of bare feet, and picked up her skirt, revealing her snow-white legs, her ankles There are also several multicolored glass foot circles on it.Lier babbling and laughing, holding two balls of bright red rhododendrons in her hands, waving her fat little arms, jumping up and down on the green and fluffy grass that she taught in school. mountain dance.Wang Xiong also surrounded Li'er, jumping up and down, patting his big palms non-stop.His big black face was flushed bright red, and his mouth was wide open, revealing a mouthful of white teeth.The two of them, one big and one small, one black and one white, jumped up and down, singing and dancing in the sea of ​​red flowers.

During the period of serving in the Joint Logistics Command, two or three days a week, I stayed at my aunt's house, and my aunt asked me to help Lier with her homework, because she was about to take the middle school exam in the summer.I got used to going in and out of my aunt's house, and I gradually got to know Wang Xiong, and occasionally he would chat with me about his life experience.He told me that he used to be a farmer in the countryside of Hunan Province, but he got pumped out when he beat the Japanese.He said that he was only eighteen years old at the time, and one day he brought two loads of millet to the city to sell, and when he left the village, someone intercepted them.

"I thought I'd go back in a few days," he said with a smile, "how could I know that I've been out for so many years, and I still haven't been able to go home." "Master Biao, can you see the mainland from Jinmen Island?" Wang Xiong once asked me thoughtfully.I told him that through the binoculars I could see people moving over there. "Is it that close?" He looked at me in surprise, in disbelief. When I was in Jinmen, there were a few old soldiers in the camp. They had been in the army for more than ten years, but I always felt that they still maintained a kind of innocence. The scorching sun and sea breeze on Kinmen Island are so primitive and direct.Sometimes, when I saw a group of them fighting naked in the sea, childish smiles suddenly appeared on their faces covered with gray lines. It cannot be found on other adult faces.One night while watching the night, I was on the rocks outside the barracks, and found an old soldier sitting there alone playing the erhu.That night, the moonlight was clear and there was no sea breeze. I don't know whether it was his posture of bowing his head in deep thought or the very resentful sound of the huqin, which suddenly reminded me that his nostalgic sadness must also be similar to that of the ancient border guards. As deep as those soldiers.that far.

"Wang Xiong, who else is there in your family?" One night, Wang Xiong and I were enjoying the shade in the garden. When Wang Xiong and I were talking about his hometown in Xiangyin, Hunan, I asked him. "There's an old lady, I don't know if she's still here," Wang Xiong said, "And—" Suddenly, he became a little coy, and stammered to tell me that before he came out, he had made a kiss a long time ago.It was a little girl his mother bought from the next village. "She was only ten years old at that time, only this tall—" Wang Xiong said and compared her hands. His little sister is lazy, and his old lady often spanks her butt with a broom, and when she hits her, she hides behind him. "Little sister is fat and white, she is a very silly girl." Wang Xiong said, and he grinned. "Here's a piece of squid for you to eat." Xia Nuximei suddenly walked up to Wang Xiong and stretched out her hand, and lifted a piece of grilled squid to Wang Xiong's face.She had just washed her hair and came to the garden to enjoy the shade.Ximei is a very fat woman, but she also likes to wear tight clothes, her whole body is always shivering, her face is painted white with oil, and she has a pair of thick false eyebrows. Mie squinted a pair of small eyes and curled her mouth recalcitrantly, thinking she was very charming.My aunt said that Wang Xiong and Ximei must have clashed. Wang Xiong and her became rivals as soon as he came. Wang Xiong avoided her every time he saw her, but Ximei liked to tease him. Whenever she made him blush, she was very happy. Wang Xiong recklessly pushed Ximei's hand away, roared twice, turned his head away, frowned, and refused to make a sound.Ximei burst out laughing, she raised her head, put the hanging grilled squid into her mouth, shook her wet long hair, walked to a wicker armchair under the banana tree, and lay down Going down, a big yellow moon in the garden has just climbed over the wall, and the plump plantain leaves are shining brightly.While Ximei was shaking a big cattail fan, flapping her thighs to repel mosquitos, she was humming the Taiwanese crying tune "Five Watches" in a very thin voice.Wang Xiong suddenly stood up, without turning his head, he dragged his huge body, and walked into the house. After all, Lier is a very smart child. During the summer vacation, I only tutored her for a few weeks, and she was easily admitted to the Provincial No. 2 Girls High School.My aunt laughed from ear to ear, and as soon as the list was released, she took Lier out to sew uniforms and buy schoolbags and stationery.On the first day of school, everyone in the house was busy, and my aunt helped Lier organize her schoolbag and iron her uniform. When Lier was wearing her scout uniform and hanging accessories, she wore it playfully on one side. Wearing a scout cap and carrying a new black leather schoolbag, when she swayed out of the gate with great vigor, she seemed to have grown up a lot in an instant, as if she was a middle school student.Wang Xiong had been waiting at the door with his tricycle for a long time, as soon as Lier walked out, Wang Xiong seemed to be taken aback, staring blankly at Lier, unable to speak for a while, Lier put his schoolbag away Throwing it on the tricycle, he quickly jumped into the car, waved at us, then pushed Wang Xiong violently and shouted: "Let's go, Wang Xiong." Lier was very fascinated by her middle school life. For the first few days, when she came back from school, she refused to take off her uniform. Complacently read English aloud.One day, she was standing on the stone steps leading to the garden, holding her English reader in her hand, while Wang Xiong stood under the stone steps, with his head up, watching Lier attentively listening to her reading English. "I am a girl." Li'er pointed to her chest and said, then pointed to Wang Xiong. "You are a boy." Wang Xiong opened his mouth slightly, his face full of reverence. "I am a student." Li'er read again, she glanced at Wang Xiong, then suddenly pointed at him and shouted: "Yor are a dog." Lier giggled, leaning forward and backward, shaking her short hair.Wang Xiong blinked his eyes a few times in bewilderment, looking a little at a loss, then he followed Lier and grinned happily. Three weeks after school started, at noon on a Saturday, when Lier came back from school, we were all waiting for her to have lunch in the living room.When Li'er came in, she slammed the living room door open, her face full of anger, and Wang Xiong followed her, carrying her schoolbag in his hand. "From next week, I don't want Wang Xiong to send me to school." Lier said to her aunt as soon as she sat down.We were all very surprised, and my aunt hurriedly asked Lier why. "People are laughing at me." Li'er suddenly raised her head, her face flushed. "What's so ridiculous about this?" Aunt walked over, wiped the sweat from Li'er's forehead with a handkerchief, and comforted her softly, "There are some people who go to school by tricycle." Li'er pushed away her aunt's hand, suddenly pointed to Wang Xiong and said: "Students are saying - he looks like a gorilla!" Li'er squinted at Wang Xiong, a contemptuous look appeared on her face.My aunt sized Wang Xiong up and couldn't help laughing.Ximei picked up the corner of her skirt and bent over laughing.Wang Xiong was holding Lier's schoolbag, standing there, as if he was very ashamed, his dark face turned purple all of a sudden, he secretly glanced at Lier, his lips were trembling all the time, as if he wanted to give her a smile, But I can't laugh. Since Li'er changed to riding a bicycle to school, she seldom got together with Wang Xiong.She is very active in school and often brings a large group of classmates home to play.One Sunday afternoon, Lier brought seven or eight classmates—all girls aged twelve or thirteen—to the garden of their home to kick shuttlecocks. Lier was an expert at kicking shuttlecocks. Come on.I was standing on the stone steps, looking at the group of little girls, all picking up their skirts, happily kicking the shuttlecock, when I suddenly saw Wang Xiong coming out from behind the banana tree, beckoning to Li'er, quietly cried: "Li'er—" "What are you doing here?" Li'er walked over and asked impatiently. "Look, what did I find for you?" Wang Xiong took out a delicate glass water tank from a kraft paper bag, and there were two goldfish swimming in it.I once bought a tank of goldfish for Li'er. Li'er liked it very much. She hung it on her window sill and asked Wang Xiong to feed the red worms to the fish every day. Later, a cat next door came and smashed it and ate it.Li'er cried very sadly, I coaxed her into agreeing to buy another tank for her, but I forgot about it later. "Who wants to play with that thing?" Li'er raised her face and said disdainfully. "It took me a long time to find these two." Wang Xiong said eagerly. "I'm going to kick the shuttlecock." Li'er turned her head and wanted to run away. "This is the one with two phoenix tails—" Wang Xiong grabbed Lier by one arm, and lifted the goldfish in the bowl to Lier's face for her to see. "Let go of my hand." Lier called. "Take a look, Li'er—" Wang Xiong begged, he held Li'er tightly, and refused to let her go.Lier struggled twice, but couldn't break free. She suddenly raised her other hand and slammed the glass water tank, and the goldfish tank fell to the ground with a clang, smashing to pieces.Li'er threw Wang Xiong's hand away and ran away without looking back.The water in the tank splashed all over the ground, and the two bright red goldfish jumped up desperately on the ground.Wang Xiong screamed, squatted down, clenched his fists with both hands, facing the two struggling goldfishes, not knowing how to save them.The two delicate goldfish finally jumped a few times, then fell to the ground and could not move.Wang Xiong lowered his head and stared blankly at the two dying goldfish. After a while, he picked up the tails of the two goldfish with his hands, put the fish in his palm, held them, and walked out of the garden. Since that time, Wang Xiong has become extraordinarily silent.Whenever he was free, he avoided watering the flowers in the garden.Every day, he would water the hundreds of rhododendrons several times. In the morning and evening, he always saw his huge body wandering alone among the flowers.He lowered his head, bent his waist slightly, and held a long bamboo pole water ladle in his hand. He was irrigating the rhododendrons he had planted with his own hands.He ignored anyone who spoke to him.Sometimes when my aunt was in a hurry, he would answer in a hoarse voice: "Yes, ma'am." Immediately afterwards, he kept silent and hid in the garden.Until the day before the accident, Ximei was washing sheets at the faucet in the garden, and Wang Xiong had long hung a bucket on the faucet to water the flowers.Ximei took down Wang Xiong's half-filled bucket, and put her laundry tub under the faucet.Wang Xiong came over suddenly, without making a sound, kicked the basin over with one kick, and the water in the basin splashed all over Ximei.Ximei immediately blushed with anger, pulled back her long hair, stood in front of Wang Xiong in a flash, blocked the faucet with her body, and shouted to Wang Xiong: "Nobody wants to use water today!" Ximei raised her face, her waist was crossed, her chest was high, her face was covered with water beads, and the corners of her skirt were also dripping with water. She kicked Mu Zhan off, and her feet were bare, which was very disrespectful. Di and Wang Xiong confronted each other.Wang Xiong closed his mouth and looked at her fixedly.Ximei looked at Wang Xiong for a while, and suddenly, she laughed indulgently, her whole body trembled, and she screamed while laughing: "Gorilla—gorilla—" Before Ximei's words fell, Wang Xiong stretched out his giant hands to grab Ximei's fat arms, and shook them back and forth desperately. While shaking, his throat couldn't stop whimpering and roaring. , like a seriously injured beast, roaring in grief and indignation.Ximei's face contorted in pain, she was probably stunned, and couldn't make a sound for a while.Just when I rushed over to stop Wang Xiong, Ximei screamed, and as soon as Wang Xiong let go, Ximei quickly grabbed the skirt and ran away.Rubbing her arm while running, she turned around after running far away, spit at Wang Xiong and cursed: "Exam back!" Wang Xiong was still standing there, motionless, he was panting heavily, beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, his eyes were so red that they were about to spit fire.I suddenly realized that Wang Xiong's appearance was out of shape.He has a beard all over his face, his hair hasn't been shaved when it grows an inch, and the whole head stands upright, like a hedgehog, and his eyes are completely sunken, black and black, as if many nights It's like I haven't slept.I didn't expect that Wang Xiong would become so emaciated and violent in just a few days. When something happened, my aunt refused to believe it for several days. She said that she never dreamed that an honest person like Wang Xiong would do such a thing. "That dead ghost——" As soon as Ximei mentioned Wang Xiong, she took up her skirt and covered her face and wept bitterly, while stroking her neck, as if she still had lingering fear. When we found Ximei that morning, we thought she was really dead.She was lying in the garden, unconscious under a rhododendron bush, her dress was torn to shreds, her upper body was completely exposed, her breasts were bruised and bruised, and her neck was covered with bruises. Every turn is nail prints.On the same day, Wang Xiong disappeared.My aunt asked me to take the clothes he left behind and distribute them to the old soldiers in our company.In his box, he found a large bag of colorful glass beads, left over from the time he strung bracelets for Lier. After retiring from the military, I went back to my home in Taichung. I didn't go to my aunt's until the spring of the following year when I went to Taipei to look for work.My aunt has been ill for a long time and has been lying on the bed. She looks very pale and lifeless.My aunt said that since the unlucky incident happened in her family, her health has not been better and she suffers from insomnia every night.She struggled to get up, held my hand tightly, and whispered: "Every night, I hear the sound of someone watering the garden." My mother said that my aunt was a very nervous woman who loved telling nonsense all her life.When I walked into the garden, I suddenly saw more than a hundred rhododendrons, piled up one by one, rolled up one by one, and burst open.It was as if an uncontrollable flow of blood spurted out, and the whole garden was stained red with blood. I have never seen rhododendrons bloom so presumptuously and so angry.Lier was playing hide-and-seek with a group of girls in the garden, and they were weaving back and forth among the blood-red rhododendron bushes.The sharp and clear laughter of the girls was rippling in the clear spring sky.