Chapter 10 chapter Ten

Yue'er lost money. The moon is full. yellow leaves... Red sorghum... The sun and the moon shuttled back and forth on the ground, and the Dharma wheel in the sky was constantly turning. In the blink of an eye, it was the end of 1963. Snow patterns and freezing rain fell one after another in Dadong, a high mountain in northwest Shanxi. As soon as Suo Hong drove the ox cart out of the cave, the snow and water droplets swirling in the sky fell on his face, and he felt that winter in Yin Yang Valley had arrived.Looking up at the gray-brown sky, his heart was churning like snow and rain in the sky: Ever since the drinking got out of control, the kiln workers have praised him like a god, especially that Shandong Han Qin Mingli, who almost every night He drank two cups together, and the bitter and spicy thing quickly shortened the distance between him and him.The man said: "Brother Suo! I don't want to know your background, anyway, you are not an idiot like us. If you like my big ears, come with me back to Caozhou, Shandong! There have been heroes since ancient times, which means martial arts. ;Speaking of Wen, there are the largest and most beautiful peonies in the world! If there is something I eat in the house, you will eat it; Cheng, eating white noodles in Shandong is a hundred times better than eating coal noodles in this coal kiln!"

Suo Hong repeatedly declined: "Thank you Brother Qin, I'm used to it in Yin Yang Valley!" "Why on earth did you come to this corner of the mountain?" Ma Xiaotian asked after three cups of wine, "Tell us kiln buddies, there is no Stove Lord who went to heaven to play the book!" "Blind flow! Just like you!" Suo Hongyi kept his mouth shut. He clearly saw that the fiery eyes of the kiln workers dimmed suddenly, but he still insisted that he was a private school teacher in the barren mountains and wild mountains, who came to Yinyang Valley to solve his hunger.Those disappointed gazes made him deeply guilty, but out of the instinct of self-defense—the scene of the old eagle catching the cunning rabbit was still fresh in his memory, he sharpened his heart like iron.However, when he walked out of the cave entrance and saw the snow and rain flying all over the sky, he couldn't restrain the sadness in his heart: he had read the letters from the homes of the kiln workers, some daughters wrote to their fathers, and some wives wrote to them. From the husband, from the mother to the son, from the younger brother to the older brother... Every letter from home can arouse his inner pain, reminding him that he is a homeless prisoner on the run.The cold snow and rain in front of him aggravated the misery of the wanderer. He drove the ox cart to the entrance of the coal chute, and without unloading the cart first, he sat on a feldspar beside the coal chute, staring blankly at the white The vast snow and rain.

When Hu Shuan came back from hunting, Lan Wawa held a pair of long-tailed pheasants in his shotgun. When he spotted Suo Hongyi who was sitting still, he walked over and asked: "What's on your mind!" "Have a rest." Suo Hongyi replied weakly. "Is it true that those blind people are going home, you..." "I won't return." "A barracks made of iron, soldiers of flowing water." Hu Shuan took out a cigarette and stuffed it into the corner of his mouth, and two streams of smoke flew out of his nostrils, and said, "Once they leave, there will be many people who want to dig coal in every corner of the mountain, so you don't have to worry about it." mate!"

"Yes! And this old cow!" Suo Hong expressed his anger quietly. "If you don't want to use this ox, I will exchange it for a donkey!" Hu Shuan said. "Captain Hu, you don't need to change it. The pillars and ventilation equipment in the kiln must be replaced when the kiln workers are replaced!" Shuan made an opinion, "The kiln workers approached you for this half a year ago. I also reported to you at this place. A few days ago, two blind laborers were fumigated at the coal digging face, and the bullock cart knocked them down. The two of them pulled out of the cave and lay down on the hillside for a long time before they could catch their breath!"

Hu Shuan casually shook the bell on the cow's neck: "You bought this for it?" "yes "He has a kind heart, just like your cousin!" Suo Hongyi didn't want to talk to him about Cai Guifeng anymore, so he untied the cow's girth and started to unload coal at the mouth of the coal mine.Hu Shuan did not help Suo Hongyi to lift the handlebar of the small cart as he did when he was unloading coal here last time, but shook the bell on the cow's neck and said to himself: "What a pity. Chicken mouth and watermelon rind, just follow that old man who is half buried in the loess!"

Suo Hong was furious, raised the handle of the handle with both hands, and a cart of coal cluttered down the slope of the coal chute and rolled towards the coal storage yard.A puff of thick black dust flew up, Hu Shuan hurriedly put the shotgun on his shoulder, bypassed the black coal dust in the air, and walked towards the bottom of the valley. Suo Hong vented his anger on the old cow, and gave it a whip with his hand. The old cow didn't move, and the whip seemed to be beating against the cotton basket. As soon as Suo Hong raised his whip again, in this thousandth of a second, he suddenly saw the old cow's bald half tail - that was the mark left by the old cow due to the ghosts caused by the local gas in the working face.He couldn't bear to drop the whip in his hand again, so he closed his hand tremblingly.

"Drive—" he called to it, coaxing it into the entrance of the small cave. The old cow still didn't move. "drive--" The old cow actually stepped back two steps from the entrance of the cave. While Suo Hongyi was puzzled, there was the sound of continuous artillery fire at the coal digging face.One shot, two shots, and when the third shot sounded, a powerful hurricane-like air wave suddenly rolled out from the entrance of the cave. Cinders and wood chips stirred the water in the roadway, and they all rushed towards the bullock cart and Suo Hongyi.In a trance, he felt that the bullock cart was blown into the air by the air current, like a flying car in a fairy tale, flying obliquely to the hillside opposite the valley, and he was blown ten times on the spot by the strong whirlwind gushing out of the cave. Ba rolled, his head hit heavily on the steel plate at the mouth of the coal chute, he yelled in pain, and then lost consciousness.

When he woke up, it was dusk.The outside of the cave is full of folks from the Yin Yang Valley, looking at the hole sealed by the collapsed coal stones in a daze, crying the names of their relatives.The kiln was still burning, and a pungent burnt breath wafted out from the gap at the entrance of the cave.No need to ask, Suo Hong immediately understood everything: this was the last cannon fire on the working face yesterday, igniting the gas that had already exceeded its saturation state, and the gas explosion caused a strong typhoon-like shock wave, destroying those rickety rotten people at once. As a result, there was a catastrophe in the cellar, and the instantaneous punishment of nature scrapped this cornucopia of Yin-Yang Valley.

"Where's Qin Mingli?" Suo Hongyi suddenly called out. "I couldn't come out." It was unclear who was answering. "Where's Ma Xiaotian?" "It's buried in there too." At this moment, he sadly remembered that the ox cart was flying into the air, so he got up and looked for the ox.The slender man told him that the old cow and the small flat cart were blown to the opposite hillside by the airflow gushing out from the hole. The wheel was not broken, and rolled into the small river fork at the bottom of the ravine. Even though Suo Hongyi was still wearing a willow hat, he still had a blue bump on his head. If there hadn't been a coal chute made of steel plates to block him, he would have fallen to the bottom of the valley to listen to the grasshopper.Thinking of those blind kiln workers who got along with him day and night, they were all buried in the small collapsed kiln, Suo Hong's eyes became wet once or twice, because the letters reminding him to return home, every word of love, voice of hope, once stirred The melancholy heart of his prodigal son; but all this is gone, with the flash of light when the gas exploded, Qin Mingli, who had a pair of happy and big ears like Liu Bei, and dozens of local and blind kiln workers, It was instantly reduced to ashes underground.

Hu Shuan went to the commune overnight to report the funeral.The short man took Suo Hongyi by his arms and went to his family's kang to recuperate.He looked at himself in the mirror, the bruise on his head was easy to get rid of the swelling; but the long gash on his face, which was cut by the coal stones flying out of the hole, could not be filled.He remembered watching a Soviet movie (Niuhong) in the 1950s. The protagonist in the movie had such a deep scar on his face... The small coal mine he relied on to escape the wind and rain has become a stone house where his bones are buried. Two days later, Suo Hongyi left the Yinyang Valley in the corner of the mountain.No one stayed, and no one saw him off. This small mountain village was as silent as if it had been burned to death by an earth fire, and its soul had been deterred by those wronged ghosts.There is no rooster crowing, no dog barking, no more the ding-dong sound of pack bells.

God, it's gray. Mountains, gray. The winding mountain road is like a crouching snake. where to go have no idea. Who to go to? have no idea. Walk.I'm leaving anyway.Go far, far, to no end. His eyes that were weeping in the wind, tears rolled down in the mountain wind. Tears flowed down his cheeks, and the deep groove left by the coal stone on his face became a watery river. He wiped it carelessly with his cuffs, took off the dirty black wicker hat, stood on the top of the mountain, stared silently at the valley of Yin-Yang that became blurred under his vision for a long time... Then he threw his wicker hat into the valley of the mountains. February 20, 1988 (the fourth day of the first lunar month) Finished in Beijing