Chapter 9 Eight

I am walking... i run... I don't know where the power came from under my feet, I walked across the autumn field, across the wide ditch, and went straight to the shack where Xiao Huangmao lived. I think if someone secretly took a picture of me at this time, it must be like a madman.The autumn wind blows my ragged clothes, and the autumn wind blows away my disheveled hair.I—a weak scholar, I undid the button at some point, and let the bleak autumn wind, curling up the fallen leaves, beat my chest like a washboard... I miss "Iron Cat", and I would like to see yellow hair smaller than "Iron Cat".According to their age, it is the golden age of life. "Iron Cat" should be a little sculptor in the Art Museum of the Children's Palace. Although Xiao Huang Mao is still young, he should have a swing, a slide, a ball, and he should have a deer in his hand. , little bear, little duck... and these things in the children's world, he has nothing, and he may not even appear in his dreams.Because when he just remembered, the wind threw this seed into the abyss of suffering; and "Iron Cat" is like a dandelion, for this seed of suffering, it props up a handful of small flowers on top of its head. Little umbrella, sheltering him from the wind and rain, protecting this seed from sprouting and blooming... As I was walking, I suddenly thought of Xiao Huangmao's mother. She should have supported this umbrella for Xiao Huangmao's head But this two-legged female wolf—no, her behavior is not as good as a female wolf! I once heard an old Korean hunter tell me a story about wolves in the deep mountains and dense forests of the Northeast.He said: Hunters are most taboo to encounter a female wolf with cubs. If you kill one of its cubs with a gun first, it will pounce on you desperately; And died in the revenge of the she-wolf.And Xiao Meimei, whose face is like peach blossoms in March, although she has human limbs and a mathematical brain with calculus, for her prosperity, she is even worse than a wolf, throwing her flesh and blood into this "world" Here comes.

Where is she now? I heard that after she divorced Huang Ding, she used the serious physical defect of her new husband as an excuse to divorce again.Maybe she is at the "Ghost Seeing Sorrow" on the peak of Xishan at the moment, supporting her new husband and admiring the red leaves of Xishan! But does she know what her little yellow hair is doing at this time!? He is wearing an oversized gown, standing Outside the shack, sucking his fingers, staring at the bird's nest on the eaves of the shack in a daze. In the bird's nest, a young sparrow stretched out its bright yellow beak and screamed "chichi"; an old sparrow flew to the nest with a fat worm in its beak, and sent it to the young sparrow's small beak circle.He smiled innocently, and his throat twitched unconsciously. When he lowered his head, he saw me standing in front of him.

"Uncle Ye--" I picked him up and wrapped him tightly in my ragged clothes.At this moment, hot tears welled up from the corners of my eyes, and I pressed my tear-drenched cheeks tightly against Xiao Huangmao's face, unable to say a word. "Uncle, why are you crying?" He asked, wiping the tears on my face with two small palms. "That's the sweat that uncle ran out of." "Do your eyes sweat?" He asked naively again. "It will come out." I lied to the virgin, "Is little uncle 'Iron Cat' here? Yellow hair?" I put him down and said.

"Little uncle is sleeping in the shack!" He put his mouth close to my ear and whispered, "Just now he took 'Heizi' and took me to dig out the field mouse nest, come--uncle- -" Little Huangmao took my hand and walked into the shack.Pointing to the rice grains in a broken ladle on the ground, he said, "This... this is taken out of the field mouse's nest. It's really fun." "yes?" "It's so fun." He hugged one of my legs with two small hands and shook it, "Uncle Ye, let's go! You will take me to dig out the field mouse nest, okay?"

"No, uncle has something to do, I'm here to see your little uncle!" I pushed his little hand away hard and walked to the mosquito net bed.Heizi, who had been lying on the corner of the shed just now, probably had the task of guarding the "Iron Cat", suddenly let out a "Wow--" and rushed towards me.The barking of the dog woke up the "Iron Cat" in his sleep. He jumped up from the bed to the ground like a carp, and only when he saw clearly that it was me, did his frightened eyes smile slightly.He kicked away "Hei Zi" who was holding my trouser leg, and held my hands tightly, "Ye Tao! You..."

I didn't answer him, my eyes focused on his thin and dark face.The usually handsome cheeks now had shallow and vertical cuts.Without asking him, I can also guess that it was cut by the sharp reed leaves when he was drilling the reed pond.I really wanted to say some words of comfort and blame, but it was nearly dusk, and "Iron Cat" had to rush back to the team headquarters to report for duty immediately, so as to calm down the disturbance as soon as possible.I told the situation hastily, and conveyed Director Kou's hope for him, and then dragged him out of the shack.Before leaving, "Iron Cat" handed the two pieces of sweet potatoes given to him by Director Kou to Xiao Huangmao, and said:

"Eat it, I'll come back when I'm free, huh?" Little Huang Mao's eyes rolled with tears: "Little Uncle..." "Heizi will play with you first. After a while, Grandpa Kou will bring you birds. There are red indigo and blue indigo! Wait obediently, do you hear me?" Obviously, this bitter little Miao Miao was used to living in solitude; he bit his lower lip and nodded like a little adult.When we walked tens of meters away and looked back at this little yellow hair, he held a piece of sweet potato in one hand and was still staring at us blankly.The red sun that was setting in the west shone a ray of afterglow on his little face, and the crystal tears glistened in his eyes like water drops...

On the way back to the team headquarters, my heart seemed to be piled with countless thorns; I stopped several times and looked back, looking at the little yellow fur standing in front of the shack until the bushes cut off my sight. The expression of "Iron Cat" is not as relaxed as before. Obviously, he is aware of the unpredictable fate.Although he didn't escape, he just performed a "hide-and-seek" game in the reed pond with those who were looking for him, but he disrupted the criticism meeting and seriously violated the team rules and discipline.He took the initiative to report to the team headquarters, can Captain "Hunchback" spare him?!

After we had walked a long and melancholy way, I said: "What do you want?" He looked up, stared at me and asked, "What do you think I should do?" "an examination." "I can do it, just touch my upper and lower lips." "No, you have to deeply check your violation of discipline!" "It's not difficult. I even put on the hat of 'habitual thief' long ago, and I don't know how to check it?" He said angrily as he walked, "But, Ye Tao, you said calmly, I Why did we run into Weitang? Wasn’t it caused by the villain ‘Second Lieutenant’? We sat on the mound to watch the Yinzhong River, the white sails, talk about our ideals, talk about our future, which law did we break? Being criticized?"

My friend! I can't deny that "Iron Cat" is right.However, I still advise "Iron Cat" to do a good inspection, and ask him to promise the captain that he will never make any mistakes in the future, so as to calm the uproar. "Okay." "Iron Cat" promised, "However, Ye Tao, I want to tell you that after the matter subsides, I am determined to take revenge on the 'Second Lieutenant'!" "Don't talk about children, even if you tie ten of you together, you still can't beat that old wolf!" "I'd pull out his wolf teeth!"

"'Iron Cat'..." "I've thought about it a long time ago," he said, and he took out the Indian silk shirt that he didn't know when he was in his arms, and said with a trembling in front of my eyes, "Use it to cut clothes for Xiao Huangmao, It's a bit overkill; I'm going to use it to pull out the fangs of the 'Old Hat', and I beg you to cooperate with me." I looked at his blushing face in confusion: "Me? What can I do?" "When the time is right, take this silk shirt to the captain and tell him that you found it under his mattress. He is afraid that the world will not be chaotic, and he keeps framing others..." I laughed before I finished listening to him: "Why should I report to the captain?" "Because you don't have a thief's hat on your head." "Captain 'Humpback' doesn't think you stole it and sent it back?" "Won't." "why?" "First, there are no such good-hearted thieves." He said to me with his fingers, "Second, you tell the captain that there is no need for 'Iron Cat' to steal a ragged sweater, because it cannot be eaten as cornbread. Total confusion on purpose by the 'Ensign'." "Go on!" "Then connect to his history as an executioner, consistently good at framing people." I responded with an "um", carefully chewing every word of "Iron Cat".I did not expect such a strong desire for revenge from a "little youth" who cannot yet be called a youth.After thinking about it for a while, it seems not surprising that a kind swan descended into the world and was attacked by clods and rocks, wouldn’t it also arouse a strong desire for revenge? Let alone humans! But "Iron Cat" asked me to do this errand, I really hesitated a bit.I was silent on the long stretch of the road, good and evil were fighting in my heart, I really didn't know whether to nod in agreement or shake my head in opposition. "What's the matter? Don't you feel that this move is a bit wicked?" "That's it." "Iron Cat" asked me back: "Is the 'Second Lieutenant' a 'virtuous'? Let's not talk about his suffering. He sent the honest nerd Huang Ding to the confinement room so that the 'Little Huang Mao' could not see him." Dad...if he doesn't knock out his wolf teeth, he might bite someone else. Ye Tao! Should we just wait for him to bite?" My friend! It seems that the dam of ethics and morality in my heart has been pierced by the "iron cat".You know me, although I don't believe in God, and I'm not the kind of devout lamb that says in the Bible, "If someone hits you on the left cheek, you give him the right cheek", but I always feel that "return evil for evil" , is a blasphemy against morality.But right now, what the "iron cat" requires of me, no, to be precise, what the environment drives me to do is to get out of this rut ​​and do something that I never thought of before. The holy, religious slave morality is broken. "Ye Tao! Do you still remember the story you told me?" "Which story?" "The Story of 'Booker'!" I remembered that "Booker" was the name of a dog in a Jack London novella I had told "Iron Cat". "Isn't 'Booker' a very tame dog?" "Iron Cat" said to me enthusiastically, "But later, this dog was transported to a new place, and the owner beat it with sticks every day. A group of vicious dogs bit it every day, forcing 'Booker' to defend itself. Later, it ran to the wilderness and became the leader of the wolf pack. Living with a 'human wolf' like 'Second Lieutenant', I should learn from this 'Booker' !Are you right?" "Iron Cat" said it in one breath, and when he got excited, he held my hand and shook it vigorously, "Are you right? Ye Tao! Talk!" I was overwhelmed by his envious spirit, I shook his palm hard and said, "'Iron Cat', I promise..." "I know you'll say yes." He smiled slightly. "why?" "Those who don't know how to hate don't know how to love." "Where do these mottos come from?" "Did you forget?" He glanced at me slyly, "I wrote down these two lines when you recited a poem for me. If you love people, you must hate villains!" My friend! Our negotiation is thus over.I silently looked at the child walking beside me. Although he was half a head shorter than me, he had already matured early.This can't help but remind me of Balzac's words: Suffering is a teacher. Under the edification of this "teacher", "Iron Cat" stepped into the threshold of young people prematurely. In order to test the insight of this young man's eyes, when we walked to the iron cage where the swan was held, I slowed down and asked him the question I couldn't understand: "'Iron Cat'! You said Director Kou is a bit weird?" "The temper is not weird at all." "Iron Cat" raised his thumb, "He is like this." "But how did this old man imprison this pair of swans in a cage so cruelly?" He pondered for a while, grinned at the corner of his mouth, and said to me with a slight smile: "Ye Tao! You can't even figure this out?" "I figured it out, why do I still ask you?" "Iron Cat" restrained the smile on his face, and said seriously: "Only by keeping them in a cage for a few days and making them feel that the cage is narrow, will they yearn for the joy of flying in the blue sky and have the chance to break free from the cage and fly to the sky." The desire of the blue sky! Think about it, Ye Tao! If this couple is always asked to live on the ground under the grape trellis and wander freely, the swan will become a ground goose, forgetting that only the blue sky and the grassland belong to them Is it home?" "Hey! Where do you get those words?" He smiled: "That's what the old director said." "The wings are cut short, can I still go to the sky?" I asked. "Yes! The iron cage is put here because the swans' wings need to be restored. The old man who raises chickens in the chicken house feeds the swans fresh grass, live food and egg skins every day, so that the pair of swans will have a long skeleton. Wings... look! The old man comes with a bowl to feed the swans." Seeing the shadow of the hunched chicken farmer, my thoughts flew back to the indifferent land from the blue sky.The issues I discussed with "Iron Cat" just now came to an abrupt end.In front of us, there was a wall of thorns surrounded by barbed wire, and a circle of stagnant water surrounding the thorns wall-we have returned to "home". "Iron Cat" gave me the silk shirt of "Second Lieutenant" and said, "I will report to the team headquarters." I worriedly told him: "Pay attention to your attitude..." He smiled frankly: "Ye Tao! Don't worry, I'm not a little sparrow, I've become a 'family thief'. I know how to pass this level!" He brushed the dust off his clothes, and walked towards the row of small buildings made of red bricks—there was the headquarters of the labor camp.