Chapter 25 Dog Road.3

The old man squatted up from the pile of goods and said kindly: "Hey, brother, don't be jealous, I snatched it out of the fire without fear of life and death!" "Come down, I'll fuck you to death!" Grandpa scolded angrily. "You are so unreasonable. I didn't recruit you, and I didn't provoke you. Why do you curse?" The old man tolerantly condemned my grandfather. "Calling you? I'm going to kill you! I fought against the Japanese to save the country and worked desperately with the Japanese, but you took advantage of the fire to rob me! Beast, old beast! Douguan, where's your gun?"

"Throw it under the belly of the Yanma!" said the father. Grandpa shrugged and jumped onto the pile of goods, kicked the old man under the pile of goods with a flying kick. The old man knelt on the ground and begged: "Master Balu, please forgive me, Master Balu, please forgive me..." Grandpa said: "I'm neither the Eighth Route nor the Nineth Route. I'm the bandit Yu Zhan'ao!" "Commander Yu, please forgive me, Commander Yu, these things will be burned in vain if they are put in the fire... I am not the only one who came to "dump sweet potatoes" from my village, all the valuable things have been robbed by those thieves, my old man is slow, Tidy up a little tattered..."

Grandpa picked up a wooden table and threw it down on the old man's bald forehead.The old man screamed, hugged his bleeding head, and spun around on the ground.Grandpa grabbed his collar, lifted him up, and said to the painful old face, "You're a good guy from 'Dumping Sweet Potatoes'!" , fell to the ground on his back.Grandpa stepped forward again, and kicked the old man hard in the face. My mother and my three-year-old uncle have been squatting in the dry well for a day and a night.Yesterday morning, she was carrying two small earthen pots to fetch water from the well platform. Just as she bent down and saw her face on the calm water, she heard a gong on the fence, and the watchmen in the village, old man Sheng Wu, shouted. Shouting loudly: "The ghosts are besieging the village——the devils are besieging the village——" Mother was taken aback, and the crock and pole fell into the well.She turned around and ran home, and before she got home, she met my grandfather who was holding a cannon and my grandmother who was holding my little uncle and holding a small bundle.Ever since Grandpa's team fought at the Mo River Bridge, the people in the village had a premonition that a catastrophe was coming, only three or five families shot out, and the rest, in fear and uneasiness, were still attached to poor families and dilapidated houses. Nostalgic for bitter water wells and fresh water wells, cold quilts and hot quilts.During these seven days, grandpa took his father to the county town to buy bullets. At that time, grandpa couldn't forget to buy enough bullets to settle accounts with Leng Mazi who had tortured him. He never thought that the Japanese would come to wash the village with blood.On the night of the ninth day of August, the old Mr. Zhang Ruolu who played a central role in cleaning up the battlefield and burying the corpses of martyrs—he had one big eye and the other was small, and he was a high-ranking intellectual who had studied in a private school—called a At the village meeting, everyone was mobilized to strengthen the fence, repair the broken gate at the entrance of the village, and send people on duty at night. When the gong sounded, the whole village, men, women, old and young, went to the fence together.Mother said that Mr. Ruolu had a loud voice with a buzzing copper tone.The old man said: Folks, the hearts of the people are united, as long as everyone is united, the devils will not be able to enter the village.

At this time, there was a "crack" gunshot in the crop field outside the village, and the old watchman's head blossomed, shook twice, and fell under the fence.The people on the street turned their backs and turned into a mess.Old Mr. Ruolu, who was in tight pants and tight shirt, shouted in the center of the street: "Folks, don't mess up! Follow the original designated land, and quickly get on the fence! Folks, don't be afraid of death, if you are afraid of death, you will die, if you are not afraid of death, you will not die!" You can't let devils into the village even if you die!"

My mother saw the men crawling up to the fence with their waists bent, lying on their stomachs among the dense ash bushes on the slope of the fence. Grandmother's legs were shaking and her feet were shaking on the spot but she couldn't move. She cried and shouted: "Her father, Qian'er her father, what about the child?" Grandpa ran back with a gun in his hand, and severely reprimanded his grandmother: "Why are you crying? In this field, life and death are the same!" Grandmother dared not speak out, with tears in her eyes Roll around.My grandfather looked back at the soil fence that hadn't been connected to the fire, grabbed my mother with one hand, and my mother's mother with the other, and ran to the vegetable garden with radishes and Chinese cabbage behind my house.There is an abandoned dry well in the middle of the vegetable garden, and an old potter's wheel is still supported on the well platform.The grandfather looked into the well, and said to the grandmother: "There is no water in the well, first hide the children in it, and come to them after the devils have withdrawn." The grandmother was like a wooden figure, and everything obeyed the arrangement of the grandfather.

My grandfather untied the rope from the pulley shaft and tied it around my mother's waist—a sharp and piercing scream sounded above my head, and a black thing landed in the pigsty next door with a strange scream. Everything was torn apart, a thin smoke tree rose from the pigsty, shrapnel, dung, and pig limbs splashed out, and a pig leg fell in front of the mother, and the white veins on the pig leg were like leeches. huddled—the first gunshot a fifteen-year-old mother had ever heard in her life.The pigs that survived the explosion screamed frantically and flew out from the high pen wall.Mother and little uncle were frightened and cried.The grandfather said: "The devil is firing! Qian'er, you are fifteen years old and know everything. You watch your brother well in the well. When the devil has withdrawn, dad will come to pick you up." The devil's shell exploded in the village again. , my grandfather twisted the pulley and took my mother down the well.Mother's feet stepped on broken bricks and slumped soil at the bottom of the well, and the walls were pitch black, only far above her head, there was a light the size of a millstone, in which grandfather's face appeared.Mother heard grandfather shout: "Untie the rope." Mother untied the rope at her waist and watched the rope rise to the entrance with a twitch.She heard her parents arguing at the mouth of the well, heard the roar of devil shells, and heard her mother crying.She saw her grandfather's face appearing in the light again, and her grandfather was shouting: "Qian'er, keep going, your brother is going down."

My mother saw my three-year-old uncle who was chained around the waist waving his limbs and hanging him down, crying loudly.The rotten rope trembled nervously.The shaft of the pulley squeaked.Grandmother leaned most of her upper body into the well, calling out the name of my little uncle who was struggling and crying: "Anzi, my little Anzi..." Mother saw the glistening teardrops on my grandmother's face, falling one drop after another. In the dry well, the rope came to the end, and the little uncle landed on the ground, rubbing his arms and crying, calling for the face of the grandmother who came into the well: "Mother, I want to go up, I won't come down, I want to go up, mother, mother..."

The mother saw the grandmother pulling up the well rope vigorously, and the mother heard the grandmother crying and saying: "Anzi...my heart...my dear son..." The mother saw that the grandfather's big hand pulled the grandmother up, and the grandmother's hand held the well rope tightly.Grandpa gave Grandma a hard push.The mother saw the grandmother leaning to one side, the well rope fell vertically, and the little uncle fell into her arms. Mother heard grandfather yelling: "Bastard women! You let them come up to die? Hurry up to the fence, the devils have entered the village, and no one will survive?"

"Qian'er——Anzi——Qian'er——Anzi——" Mother heard her grandmother shouting from far away.There was another cannon fire, and the soil on the well wall rustled down.After the cannon was fired, grandma's voice could not be heard, only the sky as big as a millstone, and the old pulley in the sky, were pressed on the heads of mother and little uncle. The little uncle was still crying, and the mother untied the rope tied around his waist, and coaxed him: "Good Anzi, good brother, don't cry, if you cry again, the devil will cry. The devil has red eyes and green nails. Babies come out when they cry..."

The little uncle stopped crying, and stared at my mother's face with his two black eyes wide open.He was still hiccupping "hook beans" "hook beans" in his throat, and two hot chubby hands wrapped around his sister's neck.The cannons in the sky were buzzing, and the machine guns and rifles were also ringing together, scratching and scratching, scratching and scratching again.Mother looked up at the sky and listened hard to the movement on the well. She vaguely heard the roar of the old man Ruolu and the clamor of the villagers.The bottom of the well was damp and cold, and a piece of the well wall collapsed, exposing the white soil wall and some tree roots.A layer of dark green moss grew on the brick surface of the well wall that had not collapsed.The little uncle moved a few times in her arms, and began to cry again. The little uncle said: "Sister... I want a mother... I want to go up..."

"Anzi, good brother... Mother went to fight the devils with my father, and after beating the devils, she came to pick us up..." The mother comforted the little uncle, and she couldn't help sobbing. The two siblings hugged each other tightly. Then, weeping into a ball. From the round sky that gradually lit up, my mother knew that the sky was bright again, and the long dark night had finally passed.The well was so quiet that it frightened her.She saw a red light shining on the wall of the well very high from her, and the sun came out.She listened hard, and the village was almost as quiet as the bottom of the well, except that sometimes, like a hallucination, there was a thunderous rumble rolling from the sky.Mother didn't know if her father and mother would come to the well one day and lift her and her brother up to the world of sunshine and air.Mention a world without sullen gargoyles and black, skinny toads.What happened yesterday morning seemed to have happened for a long time, and my mother felt that she had been at the bottom of the well for half her life.She thought, father, mother, if you don't come, my sister and I will die in the well.The mother hated her parents very much, and threw her daughter and son into the well, and then disappeared, regardless of whether the child was dead or alive.The mother thought that when she saw her parents, she would cry and make a fuss to vent all her grievances.How did my mother know that when she was thinking about hating her parents, her mother, my grandmother, had already been torn apart by the Japanese copper mortar shells; her father, my grandfather, was exposed too much on the fence , was shot off by the Japanese accurately (my mother told me that the Japanese soldiers 40 years ago were all sharpshooters). Mother prayed silently: Dad!mother!Come quickly!I'm hungry and thirsty, my brother is sick, if I don't come, I will ruin the child! Mother heard a faint sound of a gong sounding on the fence, or not on the fence. After the gong sounded, someone shouted: "Is there anyone else—is there anyone—the devils have withdrawn—Commander Yu is here—" The mother stood up with her little uncle in her arms, and howled desperately in her already hoarse voice: "There is—someone—we are in the well—come and save them—" the mother shouted, freeing up a hand Shaking the pulley rope, after tossing for a long time, she unknowingly let go of her arm holding her brother, who fell to the ground, groaned weakly a few times, and then fell silent.Mother leaned against the wall of the well, slid to the bottom, and sat on the cold broken bricks as if dead.She is desperate. The little uncle climbed onto her lap and moaned emotionlessly: "Sister... I want a mother..." The mother felt sad, stretched out her hands to hold the little uncle in her arms, and said, "Anzi... Father and mother don't want us... Our sister died in the well..." The little uncle was hot all over, and his mother hugged him like a charcoal stove. "Sister... I'm thirsty..." Mother saw a small green pool of dirty water in a corner at the bottom of the well. It was sunken there and darker than where she was sitting. A skinny toad was squatting in the water. The dark tumor, the pale yellow skin under Toad's mouth groaned uncomfortably, and Toad's protruding eyes glared at my mother angrily.Muscles twitched all over her body, and her eyes were closed tightly.She was also thirsty, but she thought that even if she died of thirst, she would not drink the dirty water soaked in toads. My uncle's fever started yesterday afternoon.He had hardly stopped crying since he went down to the bottom of the well, until he lost his voice, sha, sha, like a dead kitten meowing. Yesterday morning, my mother was in panic and panic. The panic came from the roar of guns in and outside the village, and the panic came from her brother's desperate toss.When my mother was fifteen years old, her body was still very thin, and it was a bit difficult to hold her little brother Roudanzi, not to mention that he kept pushing himself up.My mother slapped him on the ass once, and my goddam little uncle bit my mother with no mercy. After the little uncle had a fever, he fell into a coma and became limp. His mother hugged him and sat on a brick with sharp edges, his buttocks were numb and sore, and his legs lost feeling.Gunshots came and went, but never stopped.The sunlight slowly rotated from the west wall of the well to the east wall of the well, and the well became dark.Mother knew that she had been sitting in the well all day, so it was time for father and mother to come, right?She touched her little uncle's hot face with her hands, and felt the breath from her brother's nose like a flame. She felt her brother's beating heart, and heard the hissing in his chest.For a moment, she thought that her brother might die, and she trembled all over, so she tried her best to suppress the thought.She comforted herself: Come on, come on, it's getting dark, even the sparrows and swallows have returned to their nests to rest, and father and mother are coming. The sunlight on the wall of the well turned orange and then dark red. A cricket hiding in the crack of the brick chirped, and a group of mosquitoes crouched in the crack of the brick also started the machine and began to fly.At this time, my mother heard the sound of gunfire near the enclosure, as if people were shouting horses in the north of the village, and then there was a gust of machine guns in the south of the village.After the gunshots, the sound of people and horseshoes poured into the village like a tide.The village was in a mess, and there were waves of hoofbeats and human footsteps running around the well platform, and my mother heard the Japanese roaring.The little uncle groaned in pain, and the mother covered his mouth and held her breath.She felt her brother's face turning under her hand, and she heard her heart pounding like a drum.Then the sun faded, and my mother saw a burning sky from the mouth of the well.The sound of fire crackled, and charred dust hung on the wellhead.In the sound of the fire, there were the cries of children and the sharp neighing of women. It was unclear whether it was sheep or cows crying.Although my mother was sitting in the well, she still smelled the stench of burning. The mother didn't know how long she had been trembling under the firelight. The concept of time no longer belonged to her, but she was very keenly aware of what happened in the past.She knew from the darkening point in the sky that the fire was going to die.The walls of the well danced brightly and darkly in the feeble firelight.At first there were sporadic gunshots and loud noises of houses collapsing in the village, but then there was only silence; a few dim stars appeared in the mother's round sky. Mother fell asleep in the cold and woke up in the cold, her eyes adjusted to the darkness at the bottom of the well, and she was dizzy when she looked up at the blue morning sky and the soft streak of sunlight that fell on the well walls.The moisture in the well made her clothes wet, and she was bone-chillingly cold, so she hugged her brother tightly. The brother's high fever subsided slightly from the middle of the night, but he was still much hotter than her.My mother got warmth from my little uncle, and my little uncle got coolness from my mother. My mother and my little uncle really depended on each other during the long life at the bottom of the well.At that time, my mother didn't know that my grandfather and grandmother had already died, and I was still looking forward to the faces of my parents appearing on the well mouth, and I was always looking forward to a series of echoes from the familiar voice shaking the well wall. Otherwise, would my mother still be able to persist in the dry well for three days and three nights? , only the devil knows. Going back to the history of my family, I found that the backbone of my family had an indissoluble bond with the dark caves. My mother was the beginning, my grandfather was the pinnacle, creating a long-term record of cave dwellings for contemporary civilized humans, and my father was the end. —Politically speaking—a very brilliant—measured from a human point of view—the end, when the father will wave the surviving one arm, facing the morning glow, facing the mother, brother, sister, and me, Fly over here. Mother is cold on the outside, but scorched on the inside. She hasn't eaten or drank since yesterday morning.The thirst had started to torment her last night when the fire burned the village.In the middle of the night hunger pangs reached a peak.When dawn was approaching, the stomach and intestines seemed to be congealed, and there was nothing but a constricting pain.Now when she thought about food, she felt sick.Now, what made her most unbearable was thirst. She felt that her lungs were cracking like dried and withered sorghum leaves, and her throat was constricted and straight, which was unbearably painful.The little uncle moved his blistered and cracked lips, and said again: "Sister...I'm thirsty..." The mother didn't dare to look at the little uncle's withered face, and she had no words to comfort him.One day and one night, all the wishes that the mother made to the little uncle came to nothing. The grandparents who did not come for a long time made the mother deceive her brother and herself.The faint sound of gongs on the fence had long since disappeared, and there was not even the sound of dogs barking in the village.My mother thought that my grandparents might be dead, or they might have been captured by the Japanese devils.Her eye sockets were sour, but there were no more tears to shed.The poor appearance of the younger brother made the mother grow up.She briefly forgot the physical pain, put her brother on the bricks, stood up by herself, and looked at the wall of the well.The walls of the well were damp, of course, and the mosses were thriving, but they could neither quench their thirst nor eat them.My mother squatted down, pulled up a brick, and then pulled up another brick. The brick was heavy, as if it was full of water. A bright red centipede with dozens of thin legs came out from the crack of the brick wagging its head. Jumping to the side, watching the centipede stretch its two dazzling rows of legs, climb above the toad, find a crack in the brick, and get in.Mother didn't dare pull the bricks anymore, and she didn't dare to sit down, because the unfortunate incident that happened yesterday morning made her realize that she was already a woman.