Chapter 26 Section 26

My aunt died. No one informed Lu Huihuang. He heard the news of his aunt's death from somewhere, and rushed to the funeral home by himself. Because he participated in the armed struggle during the "Cultural Revolution" and there was a murder case at hand, Lu Huihuang spent seven years in prison after the "Cultural Revolution".After he was released from prison, he lost his public office, and for a time he lived by messing around for food. He became a little supernatural and became more and more wretched.It is said that the best time for him was after the reform and opening up. He worked as a public relations man for a female boss who resigned from a textile factory to open a clothing factory and made a fortune.When the female boss was young, she was fond of literature and art, and had a dream of performing arts, which belongs to the category of pity and borrowing jade.Gu Nian Lu Huihuang once sang seriously in the past. He is a well-known actor in the city. He has a bit of a figure. The female boss asked him to be the foreman among a group of fanboys, leading a group of clothing racks. He can earn a salary of two thousand yuan a month. In addition, if an important guest comes to the company, and if the guest likes to listen to a play or something, invite him to sing a paragraph at the banquet, join in the fun, and eat and drink by the way. If the female boss and the guest are happy, say Maybe you can get two bounties.

Lu Huihuang lived in such days for several years, and gradually learned to drink, and the amount of alcohol was getting bigger and bigger.He never got married again, he was single, and when he was full alone, the whole family was not hungry.Wang Huan, a former Tsing Yi actor from the Peking Opera Theater who was married and divorced several times, came to him. He and Wang Huan went to the bar to drink. Silently drinking, getting drunk, whoever has money in his pocket will pay the bill, and if there is no money, Lu Huanghuang wipes off his diving watch, puts it on the counter, and says, next time, it will be a knot, and then he goes out , waving to stop the taxi, each went home to sleep.The owner of the hotel was familiar with Lu Huihuang, and it wasn't the first time he saw him drinking like this. He smiled and asked the bar to collect Lu Huahuang's watch and put it away until he brought money to redeem it next time.

Once, Lu Huihuang's female boss signed a large bill. She was so happy that she drove her own car, took Lu Huihuang to a nightclub, opened a private room, and ordered some light dishes and a bottle of wine. , to celebrate.After several drinks, the female boss was a little tipsy, half lying on the sofa, and asked Lu Huihuang to sit beside her.Lu Huihuang didn't dare to neglect, he quickly got up from the table and sat down beside the female boss.The female boss was drunk-eyed, reached out and pinched his chin, rubbed against his face, and said, "Unfortunately, if you were twenty years younger, with your skin and flesh, I would wrap you up. On the road?Tell me, what did you do in the early years?

That day Lu Huihuang sent the female boss home, returned to the nightclub, and got drunk.In the next few days, he kept telling people with tears streaming down his face, I didn't meet a good time, I really panicked! No one paid attention to Lu Huihuang who found the funeral home by himself. He greeted everyone very attentively, but others ignored him, and he didn't care much. He looked ashamed.While waiting in line for cremation, he stuck to me, begged me for a cigarette, sighed, and said, do you know that when I married your aunt, I was just a virgin, I Never slept with a woman.Seeing that my face was not right, he immediately changed the subject again, and said to me very intimately, it is a tragedy that your aunt has fallen to where she is today, and she made me a tragedy, even if she was a little flexible and accommodating back then A little bit, how come today?

Ye Lingfeng is the only one I have met among the old people who came here other than our own family. Ye Lingfeng rushed directly from the airport to the funeral home.Our family sent a telegram to Comrade He. He learned the content of the telegram from Comrade He and rushed here at the last moment.According to the registration left when he rented the farewell room, he quickly found us in the funeral home.I went over and shook hands with him.He recognized me immediately, nodded to me, then put his hands in the pockets of the windbreaker, and said nothing with a sullen face. After watching the experimental play in Beijing that time, I didn't call him. I left Beijing the next day and returned to my own city.My girl drove me to the airport on a Honda.She was riding too fast and was detected by the road detector on the road, causing the police to catch up and issue a proxy.The girl didn't want to repent later, and still soared at the speed of chasing stars beyond the moon.After exiting the third ring road, she tightened her goggles, slammed the accelerator, and suddenly said loudly to me, that spirit wind, he is a master!It was too windy, I didn't hear clearly.I said out loud, what?What did you say? !She said, he is very famous in this way, and he is a master of life and death. I only found out last night that my mother was made into a big name by him twenty years ago!As she said that, she leaned over and led me to overtake a Mercedes-Benz, almost forcing the Mercedes-Benz onto the guardrail.

After that, I never saw Ye Lingfeng again, but only learned about him through various media.He is like a plant that grows red when it grows old. Now it is extremely popular. There are several new historical dramas and absurd dramas that are being staged in the most popular theaters in Beijing. That is to say, the most famous theater critics, who are proud to write articles of praise and praise for his plays.Once I was waiting for a train at the station, bought a newspaper, and read an article that praised Ye Lingfeng.I don't know anything about opera, and I don't have much ink in my stomach, so I can't say how well the article is written. I only know that the Ye Lingfeng mentioned in the article is not the one I know.

After his aunt was cremated, Ye Lingfeng had to rush to the airport.When he came, he had already booked a round-trip ticket, and he was going to fly back to Beijing that night. Before leaving the funeral home, Ye Lingfeng came over and walked in front of me.I thought he had something to explain. For example, he still kept some of my aunt's relics. After my aunt passed away, he planned to return those relics to us relatives.But I was wrong.He didn't have any relics, and he didn't intend to hand over anything to us. He just raised his chin and asked me a word very seriously.He was white-haired and imposing, which intensified the constant melancholy in him.

He came from Beijing and was going back to Beijing soon. This was the first and only sentence he said to me. Anyway, I have to admit that there is one thing that he is very similar to my aunt. When they are provoked by the outside world, or when they want to show their lack of communication, they both love to raise their chins proudly, like A beautiful sika deer. What he said to me was: Please tell me, are you really Meiqin's child? Jiao Liu did not come, and was paralyzed on a certain bed in a certain hospital in a city thousands of kilometers away. After the Siqing, Jiao Liu came back again, but within a few years, the "Cultural Revolution" began again, and Jiao Liu fell into the abyss again. It was not until the end of the "Cultural Revolution" that Jiao Liu and all the people who were imprisoned in the cowshed together After being liberated, another group of people replaced them and went to prison or cowshed. Those people were punished during the "Cultural Revolution", and many of them were their comrades in arms earlier.

Jiao Liu returned to work after liberation, but he took a break after not working for a long time. It is said that this time he took the initiative to ask for a break. Based on the age at which the cadres left for a break, he was considered to be the one who left the leadership position relatively early. After resting, Jiao Liu began to learn how to grow flowers, birds and fish.He made the yard where he lived and his home look like a garden, made his life very leisurely, and became a real apartment.He also participated in the Senior Calligraphy and Painting University, learning to draw bamboo and copybooks. In addition to painting bamboo and copybooks, he also learned Taijiquan from others. In short, he was fascinated by the way of health.

According to Jiao Jianguo, Jiao Liu was always afraid of being hungry, so he ate non-stop all day long. He lived alone, but he bought two refrigerators for himself. The two refrigerators were full of fish and meat. He went to the vegetable market to buy food when there was a gap, filling the vacancy, so that the two refrigerators were full of food all year round. As soon as the refrigerators were opened, the room immediately filled with a strong smell of decaying animal corpses.Jiao Liu is very afraid of hunger. Apart from planting flowers and grass, painting bamboo and drawing posts all day long, she just makes food, and she is not sure when she eats. Bowl of wontons.After eating like this, I finally broke my stomach, because I was alone at home and no one cared, and I was discovered by the correspondent who delivered the newspaper by Xiugan the next day.I dragged him to the hospital and treated him conservatively for a period of time, but there was no effect. He kept vomiting blood. Later, he had a gastrectomy. After the operation, he shrank immediately. He still wanted to eat, but he couldn’t eat anything. , the delicacies of mountains and seas are placed in front of you, and you can only watch helplessly and vomit, and the person is quickly thinned to only a piece of skin.Later, he was recommended by someone, followed a master, and practiced some kind of kung fu. Earlier, the master praised him for his understanding and improved quickly, saying that if he continued to practice like this, he would definitely be able to master it.After listening to his master's words, he became more and more focused on training. Who knew that he had trained himself to lie on the bed within two years of training, unable to move anymore.

Jiao Liu never remarried in her life.Jiao Liu said, women are all unreliable, when they need you, you are a big tree, when you need them, they become a rabbit, no matter how heroic a man falls into the hands of a woman It must be ruined. Jiao Liu said this to his son Jiao Jianguo. After Jiao Jianguo found out that Jiao Liu was paralyzed on the bed, he made a special trip to the city where Jiao Liu lived.Jiao Jianguo had already married at that time. After the resumption of the national college entrance examination, he was admitted to a university. After graduating from university, he stayed in the school. Now he is an associate professor and has a three-bedroom house.Jiao Jianguo said to Jiao Liu that he wanted to take him away to the city where he lived, and let Jiao Liu live with him so that he could take care of Jiao Liu himself. Jiao Liu said to Jiao Jianguo, don't talk about taking care of me. If you tell me straight up, I might believe you. If you say take care of me, do you think I am a three-year-old child?I understand, you are thinking about my passbook because I don't have two days to live, right?Boy, let me tell you the truth. All my life, I was born by my parents and raised by the party. No one cares about me, and no one really cares about me. My parents have long since died. It's too late for me to be filial, the party is still there, and no one will give me my two savings after I die. I will pay all the party dues, so that you people who are pulling your hearts and calculating me will have nothing to love. After Jiao Liu finished speaking, she laughed so loudly that she couldn't catch her breath, almost holding her breath. Without saying a word, Jiao Jianguo slammed the door and left. He bought a ticket and came back that day. Mandu Gule was the first to arrive in our city. The former members of the Advisory Committee are now obviously aging and have many physical problems.After learning the news of his aunt's death, he took an imported heart medicine and survived, and then he didn't say a word for several days.Mandu Gule insisted on coming to see his aunt off.His family objected.He lost his temper, broke a celadon vase, and scolded some children who stopped him.After two days of discussion at home, the family decided to let his wife accompany him, and that was the end of the matter.Unexpectedly, as soon as Mandugule arrived in our city, he fell ill. It was a heart attack. He was admitted to the hospital. The doctor said that he could not participate in any activities in this condition, especially those that might stimulate the patient’s emotions. . That is, when Lu Huihuang told me about the tragedy and then disappeared, I received a pager from Mandugule's wife from the hospital.I went back to the plane. Mandugule's wife panicked on the other end of the phone and said, "Xiao Si, can you come here, your Uncle Man is not good!" I said, what's wrong? She said he was in tears.He's been sitting there crying since he got up in the morning.He's been flowing like that. I said, is it just tears? She said yes. I said, my aunt hasn't left yet, I have to see her off, and I'll come to see him at night. She said, what about Uncle Man? I said, let him flow. After I finished speaking, I hung up the line. Jiao Jianguo always looked impatient, as if someone had disturbed his normal life. When he arrived at the funeral home, he would put on a straight face. Our troubles, in the end, the driver who connected people was scolded by him for no reason. Later, I went up and pushed him away to handle those things by myself, but he didn't say a word, just hid aside and looked up at the sky. went. I'm annoyed too. I'm sick of it. When my aunt was in the hospital, I stayed there. Jiao Jianguo went there twice, and I never saw him again.He excused that the two graduate students he brought were about to defend, and he was asking him to read the thesis, and he had a book waiting to see the proofs, and the publisher was rushing to get the manuscript, and he was too busy. After my aunt passed away, I called him and asked him to come to the hospital as a family member to complete the procedures. He said, are people really dead?The first two times I also said that I was dead, but it turned out that I was not dead. The time wasted and I didn't say it, which made people feel very bad. I said that people left in the early morning.I was so sleepy, I went out to smoke a cigarette, leaned on the chair and fell asleep, and I was not by her side when she left. He said, how about this, you do it first, and I will rush over after I finish dealing with the matter at hand. I said, you have to hurry up and change clothes for auntie. He said, what clothes to change? I said, when she is gone, you have to wash her and let her go clean. He said, it wasn't born, so why bother?I study philosophy, and I don't talk about that.If it doesn't work, you can hire a part-time job for me. After he finished speaking, he put down the phone. After my mother and aunt rushed to the hospital, they heard my reply and sighed, if my aunt’s son doesn’t want to do it, then let’s do it. I said to my mother and aunt, no, I will do it.I said to my mother and aunt, you all call me Xiaosi, only my aunt calls me Sier, Sier Sier, anyway, I am also considered a son, so I will be that son. When I was my aunt's son, my aunt was very quiet, lying there without saying a word.I remembered the words my uncles said when I was a child.When I was young, I asked my uncles, who is the most beautiful among the women of the Shamutengli family?The uncles said, if the women of the Shamutengli family are quiet, sitting or standing there, the most beautiful is your aunt; if they move, for example, they are like the wind or like a horse, needless to say, That must be your aunt.Now the beautiful little aunt is not moving, she is lying there, no longer like the wind, no longer like a horse, I can't tell why she is like this.I covered my eyes with the towel I used to wash my aunt's face, and tears flowed down my face. Originally, the matter was over. After my aunt was cremated, the ashes came out. The funeral home put them in the box we had chosen in advance and handed them over to our relatives. We stood in the yard of the funeral home, ready to break up. The aunt held the urn and walked over to Jiao Jianguo. Jiao Jianguo refused to answer and said, why do you give it to me? The aunt was stunned for a moment, and said, Jianguo, is this your mother?If you don't give it to who? Jiao Jianguo said, Who wants this stuff?It's clean and worry-free to pay a few dollars to store in the cemetery. What's the use of asking me to take it back? The aunt said tremblingly, your mother has just left, at least let her stay with her relatives, or you can bear it? Jiao Jianguo said, theoretically speaking, she is my mother, but how much has she cared about me? The aunt said, "Jianguo, you shouldn't say such things. Your mother has been paying for your schooling. She sent you to college and went abroad for further study. When you got married, she gave you all her savings. Why didn't she care about you?" ? Jiao Jianguo shouted, you only see this, why don't you tell me, what kind of deformed environment did she let me grow up in? !What sense of responsibility did she have as a mother? ! I rushed over and grabbed Jiao Jianguo by the collar.I gritted my teeth and said, you boy deserves a beating! Jiao Jianguo said, dare you! I slapped him across the face and knocked him to the ground. Jiao Jianguo got up, wiped the blood from his nose, rushed to me, and said, "Fuck your mother, you, a laid-off worker, dare to hit a professor of philosophy!" I said, I just created a feature for you to see!After I finished speaking, I punched him hard on the chin again, knocked him down to the ground again, and then rushed over and kicked him to death. Young people from several families came up to stop them, while the old people stood aside and did not move. When the funeral home passed by, they just glanced at this side lightly, and then walked over as if nothing happened. This is a funeral home, and fighting here is too normal. When my aunt was dying, I once washed her face.I dampened a washcloth with warm water and wiped her forehead.As I wiped, I carefully picked up a lock of hair on her forehead and smoothed it down the middle of her hair.I suddenly had a hallucination at that time.I saw that my aunt's hair was not the flowery white that I was used to, but the green of the green grass. They were luxuriant, and they had grown like a grassland. In the middle, there were all kinds of flowers blooming, with seven colors. The butterflies flew up, fluttering, and then there was the chirping of birds, the kind of larks that abound in the grasslands, they passed through the butterflies, chirped, and inserted into the clouds... My aunt woke up at that time. The aunt who woke up smiled at me with difficulty, and said a word softly. What my aunt said was: Si'er, I had a dream just now. I dreamed of the grassland. Drafted in Huaqiao, Hankou on August 8, 1999 On November 29, 1999, it was changed to Hankou Huaqiao (This article has been slightly abridged) (This article was originally published in "Baihuazhou" Issue 2, 2000)