Chapter 3 Chapter two

A few years ago, Jiazhen was still a female student.At that time there was a night school in the city, Jiazhen wore a moon-white cheongsam, carried a small kerosene lamp, and went to school with a few female companions.I saw her at the corner, she walked over with twists and turns, her high-heeled shoes knocked on the stone road, tick-tock like it was raining, I couldn't even move my eyes, Jiazhen looked really good at that time She was pretty, with her hair neatly hanging to her ears, and the cheongsam was wrinkled around her waist when she walked. I thought to myself at that time, I want her to be my woman.

After Jiazhen and the others walked over while chatting, I asked a shoemaker sitting on the ground: "Whose daughter is that?" The shoemaker said: "It is the daughter of Chen Ji Mihang." Immediately after I got home, I said to my mother: "Hurry up and find a matchmaker. I want to marry the daughter of the boss of Mihang Chen in the city." After Jiazhen was dragged away that night, I started to be unlucky. I lost several times in a row, and saw the money piled up on the table like a hillside poured out like footwashing water. Long Er couldn't stop laughing, his face almost died of laughter.That time I gambled until dawn, which made me dizzy, and the stench from my stomach came to my mouth.In the last hand, I placed the biggest bet in my life, washed my hands with saliva, and thought that all my career achievements would be thrown away.I was about to grab the dice, but Long Er stretched out his hand to block it and said:

"Wait." Long Er waved to a waiter and said: "Bring a hot towel to the young master of the Xu family." At that time, all the people who watched the game went back to sleep, only us were left to play, and the other two were brought by Long Er.It was only later that I found out that Long Er had bribed the waiter, and the waiter handed me a hot towel, and while I was wiping my face with it, Long Er secretly changed a pair of dice, and Long Er tampered with the pair of dice he got.I didn't notice it at all. After wiping my face, I threw the towel into the plate, picked up the dice and shook it three times desperately, and I rolled it out. Fortunately, the number was quite high.

When it was Long Er's turn, Long Er put the dice on seven, and the boy stretched out his palm and slapped it hard, shouting ** "Seven o'clock." The dice was hollowed out and filled with mercury. When Long Er slapped it like this, the mercury sank. When he grabbed it and rolled it a few times, it would stop at seven o'clock. I saw that the dice was indeed seven, and my head buzzed. This time I lost badly.Then he thought that he could get credit anyway, and there would always be a chance to win it back in the future, so he felt relieved, stood up and said to Long Er:

"Remember it first." Long Er waved his hand to let me sit down, he said: "I can't let you pay on credit anymore. You have lost all of your family's more than 100 acres of land. If you pay on credit again, what will you use to pay it back?" After hearing this, I yawned and withdrew abruptly, saying repeatedly: "No, no." Long Er and the other two creditors took out the account book and calculated it for me. Long Er patted my head and said to me: "Master, do you see clearly? This is all signed by you." I just found out that I owed them half a year ago, and after half a year, I lost all the family property left by my grandparents.Halfway through the calculation, I said to Long Er:

"Forget it." I stood up again, and walked out of the brothel like a plague chicken. At that time, it was completely dawn, and I was standing on the street, not knowing where to go.An acquaintance with a basket of tofu saw me and shouted loudly: "Morning, Master Xu." His cry startled me, and I stared at him blankly.He said with a smile: "Look at you like this, you've become medicine dregs." He thought I was being tortured by those women, he didn't know that I was broke, that I was as poor as a hired worker.I watched him walk away with a wry smile, and thought it better not to stand here, so I started to walk.

When I walked to my husband's rice shop, two guys were unloading the door panel. They smiled when they saw me, thinking that I would go over to greet my husband again. How could I have the guts?I shrank my head and hurried past the house on the other end.I heard my father-in-law coughing inside, and then spit out a mouthful of phlegm on the ground with a bah. I walked out of the city in a daze like this. For a while, I actually forgot that I had lost all my property, and my head was empty, like a stabbed hornet's nest.When I got outside the city, I saw the small road stretching diagonally, and I was afraid again. I thought what should I do next?I walked a few steps on that road, but I couldn't move anymore, and I couldn't see anyone around me. I wanted to hang myself with a belt.Thinking of this, I started to walk again and walked past an elm tree. I just took a look and didn't intend to untie my trouser belt at all.In fact, I don't want to die, I just find a way to get angry with myself.I thought that my ass debt would not be hanged with me, so I said to myself:

"Forget it, don't die." This debt is for my father to pay off. When I think of my father, I feel numb. Why doesn't he beat me to death now?As I walked, I thought, no matter what I thought, it was a dead end, so let’s go home.It's better to be beaten to death by my father than hanged like a wild dog outside. In just a short while, I lost a whole circle of weight and my eyes were blue. I didn’t know it. When I got home, my mother screamed when she saw me. She looked at my face and asked: "Are you Fugui?" I looked at my mother's face and nodded with a wry smile. I heard my mother startled and said something. I stopped looking at her. I opened the door and walked into my room. Jiazhen, who was combing her hair, was also surprised when she saw me. , she opened her mouth and looked at me.When I thought of her coming to persuade me to go home last night, but I beat and kicked her, I knelt down in front of her with a plop, and said to her:

"Jiazhen, I'm done." After I finished speaking, I burst into tears, and Jiazhen rushed to help me. How could she help me up when she was pregnant with Youqing?She just calls me mother.The two women carried me to the bed together, and I was foaming at the mouth when I lay on the bed, looking like I was going to die, but they were terrified, they beat my shoulders and shook my head, and I stretched out my hand to push them away , and said to them: "I've lost all my property." My mother was taken aback when she heard this, then she looked at me vigorously and said:

"What did you say?" I said, "I've lost all my property." My appearance convinced her, my mother sat down on the ground, wiped her tears and said: "The upper beam is not straight and the lower beam is crooked." My mother still felt sorry for me at that time, she didn't blame me, she blamed my father instead. Jiazhen also cried. While beating my back, she said: "As long as you don't gamble in the future, it will be fine." I lost everything, and I have no capital to gamble in the future.I heard my father swearing in the room over there, he didn't know he was poor, he thought the crying of two women disturbed him.Hearing my father's voice, my mother stopped crying, she stood up and went out, and Jiazhen followed.I knew they had gone to my father's house, and after a while I heard my father shouting from there:

"Evil son." At this time, my daughter Fengxia opened the door and came in, then closed the door unsteadily.Fengxia said to me in a shrill voice: "Father, hide quickly, Grandpa is coming to beat you up." I looked at her without moving, and Fengxia came to hold my hand, and she cried if she couldn't hold me.Seeing Fengxia cry, my heart felt like a knife was piercing me.At such a young age, Fengxia knows how to protect her father, even if I look at this child, I should be cut to death. I heard my father coming in a huff, and he shouted: "Niezi, I'm going to cut you up, castrate you, and chop you up, you bastard." I think Dad, you can come in, you can chop me up.But when my father walked to the door, he fell to the ground and passed out.My mother and Jiazhen yelled and helped him up and put him on his own bed.After a while, I heard my father crying like playing a suona. My father lay on the bed for three days. On the first day he cried, but then he stopped crying and began to sigh, and the sound came to me. I heard him wailing: "Retribution, this is retribution." On the third day, my father was receiving guests in his own room. He coughed loudly, and when he spoke, his voice became low *  bad health * in the evening, my mother came over and said to me, father told me to come over.I got up from the bed, thinking that this was going to be the end of my life, my father had been resting on the bed for three days, and he had the strength to kill me, at least he beat me to death.I said to myself, no matter how my father beats me, I will not fight back.When I walked to Dad's room, I didn't have any strength at all, my body was limp, and my legs looked fake.I entered his room, stood behind my mother, and secretly watched him lying on the bed. He opened his eyes and looked at me, his white beard trembled. He said to my mother: "You go out." My mother walked out beside me. As soon as she left, I felt guilty for a while, maybe he would jump out of bed immediately and fight me desperately.He lay there without moving, the quilt on his chest slipped out and hung on the ground. "Fugui." Dad called me, he patted the edge of the bed and said: "You sit down." I sat down next to him with a pounding heart, he touched my hand, his hand was as cold as ice, and it was so cold to my heart.Dad said softly: "Fugui, gambling debts are also debts. Since ancient times, there has been no reason not to repay the debts. I mortgaged more than a hundred acres of land and this house, and they will send copper coins tomorrow. I am old and can't choose Now that the burden has been lifted, you can pay the debt with your own money.” After Dad finished speaking, he sighed again. After listening to his words, my eyes were sour. I knew he would not fight me desperately, but what he said was like a blunt knife cutting my neck, and my head couldn’t fall off. , but it hurts like hell.Dad patted my hand and said: "You can go to sleep." The next morning, as soon as I woke up, I saw four people entering the yard of my house. A rich man in silk was walking in the lead. He waved to the three porters in coarse cloth behind him and said: "let it go." When the three porters put down their burdens and lifted the corners of their clothes to wipe their faces, the rich man looked at me and called out to my father: "Master Xu, the goods you want are here." My father came out coughing and coughing again and again holding the land deed and the house deed. He handed over the land deed and said to the man with a laugh: "It's hard work." Pointing to three loads of copper coins, the man said to my father: "It's all here, count it." My father has lost all the airs of a rich man. He respectfully said like a poor man: "No, no, let's go inside and have some tea." The man said, "No need." After speaking, he looked at me and asked my father: "This is the young master, right?" My father nodded again and again, he smiled at me and said: "Pick some pumpkin leaves and cover them with deliveries so they don't get snatched." From that day on, I carried copper coins and walked more than ten miles into the city to pay off my debts.The pumpkin leaves covered on the copper coins were picked by my mother and Jiazhen. Fengxia also went to pick them when she saw them. She picked two of the biggest ones and put them on the burden. Knowing that I was going to pay off the debt, I raised my face and asked: "Father, are you going to not go home for several days again?" I had a sore nose when I heard this, and I almost shed tears, and hurried to the city with my burden.When we arrived in the city, Long Er saw me coming with a burden, and called out affectionately: "Come on, young master of the Xu family." I put the burden in front of him, and he frowned when he lifted the melon leaves, and said to me: "You're not asking for trouble. It's easier to exchange some silver dollars." After I picked up the last load of copper coins, he stopped calling me young master, he nodded and said: "Fugui, just put it here." But another creditor was more affectionate. He patted me on the shoulder and said: "Fugui, go drink a pot." After hearing this, Long Er hurriedly said: "Yes, yes, drink a pot, I'll treat you." I shook my head, thinking I should go home.At the end of the day, my silk clothes were worn out, and blood oozed from the flesh on my shoulders.I walked home alone, crying and crying, crying and crying.Thinking about how tired I was when I picked up the money for a day, how many people died of exhaustion when my grandparents earned the money.Only then did I know why my father wanted copper coins instead of silver dollars. He just wanted me to know this truth, and wanted me to know that money is extremely difficult to come by.Thinking about it this way, I couldn't even walk, so I squatted down beside the road and cried until my waist twitched.At that time, the old hired worker in my family was Chang Gen who carried me to the private school when I was a child, and came over with a broken package on his back.He has worked in my family for decades and is leaving now.His parents died when he was very young, and my grandfather brought him home, and he has never married a woman since then.He was tearful like me, and walked over with bare, torn feet. When he saw me squatting by the side of the road, he called out: "Master." I shouted to him: "Don't call me young master, call me a beast." He shook his head and said, "The emperor who begs for food is also an emperor, and you are still a young master if you have no money." As soon as I heard this, I just wiped my face and tears came down again. He also squatted down beside me, covering his face and crying.After we had cried together for a while, I said to him: "It's getting dark, Changgen, go home." Changgen stood up and walked away step by step. I heard him humming: "Where is my home?" I also killed Changgen, and seeing him walking alone, my heart felt sore.I didn't stand up until the long roots were gone and I couldn't see them. When I got home, it was already dark.The former hired workers and maids at home have all left. My mother and Jiazhen are cooking in the kitchen. My father is still lying on the bed. Only Fengxia is as happy as usual. I'm going to suffer and be poor.She bounced over, threw herself on my lap and asked me: "Why do they say I'm not a lady anymore?" I touched her little face, but I couldn't say a word. Fortunately, she didn't ask any more questions. She scraped the mud on my pants with her nails and said happily: "I'm washing your pants." When it was time to eat, my mother went to the door of Dad's room and asked him: Shall I bring you some food? " My dad said, "I'll come out to eat." My father came out of the room holding a kerosene lamp with three fingers. The light flickered on his face. His face was half-lit and half-dark. He hunched over and coughed repeatedly.Dad sat down and asked me: "Paid off the debt?" I lowered my head and said, "It's paid off." My dad said, "That's good, that's good." He saw my shoulder and said again: "Shoulders are worn out, too." I didn't make a sound, and secretly looked at my mother and Jiazhen, both of them looked at my shoulder tearfully.Dad started to eat slowly, and after taking a few mouthfuls, he put the chopsticks on the table and pushed the bowl away, but he stopped eating.After a while, Dad said: "In the past, the ancestors of our Xu family just raised a chicken. When the chicken was raised, it became a goose. When the goose was raised, it became a sheep. When the sheep was raised, the sheep became a cow. We That’s how the Xu family started.” Father's voice hissed, he paused and said: "In my hands, the Xu family's cattle turned into sheep, and the sheep turned into geese. When passed on to you, the geese turned into chickens, and now there are no chickens." Dad laughed when he said this, and then wept while laughing.He held out two fingers to me: "The Xu family has two prodigal sons." Within two days, Long Er came.Long Er's appearance changed, he had two gold teeth inlaid in his mouth, and he grinned with a big mouth.He bought the house and land that we mortgaged, and he came to see his property.Long Er kicked the base of the wall with his feet, put his ears on the wall, patted his palms, and said repeatedly: "Strong, strong." Long Er went around the field again, and when he came back, he bowed to my father and said: "Looking at the lush green land, I feel at ease." As soon as Long Er arrives, we will move out of the house we have lived in for several generations and move to live in thatched huts.On the day we moved out, my father paced up and down several rooms with his hands behind his back, and finally said to my mother: "I thought I was going to die in this house." After finishing speaking, my father patted the dust on the silk clothes, stretched his neck and stepped out of the threshold.As usual, my father walked slowly towards the dung tank at the entrance of the village with his hands behind his back.It was getting dark at that time, and a few tenants were still working in the fields. They all knew that my father was no longer the owner, so they still held the hoe and yelled: "master." My father smiled lightly, waved to them and said: "Don't call it that." My father was no longer walking on his own property. He walked to the entrance of the village with trembling legs, stopped in front of the dung tank, looked around, then untied his belt and squatted on it. That evening my dad stopped screaming when he was shitting. He squinted his eyes and looked into the distance, watching the small road leading to the city gradually become unclear.A tenant was leaning over to cut vegetables nearby. When he straightened up, my father couldn't see the path. My father fell off the dung tank, and the tenant turned around hastily when he heard the sound, and saw my father lying on the ground, his head resting against the dung tank, motionless.The tenant ran up to my father with a sickle and asked him: "Master, are you alright?" My father moved his eyelids, looked at the tenant and asked hoarsely: "Whose family do you belong to?" The tenant leaned down and said: "Master, I am Wang Xi." My dad thought about it and said: "Oh, it's Wang Xi. Wang Xi, there's a rock underneath, and it hurts me." Wang Xi turned my father's body over, took out a fist-sized stone and threw it aside. My father lay there again and said softly: "It's comfortable now." Wang Xi asked, "Shall I help you up?" My father shook his head, gasped and said: "No." Then my dad asked him: "Did you see me fall before?" Wang Xi shook his head and said: "No, sir." My father seemed a little happy, and asked again: "The first time it fell?" Wang Xi said, "Yes, sir." My father laughed a few times, closed his eyes after laughing, tilted his neck, and slid his head down the dung tank to the ground. That day we had just moved into the thatched hut, and my mother and I were cleaning up in the house, and Fengxia happily followed suit, not knowing that she would suffer from this from now on. Jiazhen came up from the pond carrying a large basin of clothes, and met Wang Xi who was running over. Wang Xi said: "Young mistress, the master seems to be familiar." We were inside the house and heard Jiazhen shouting loudly outside: "Mother, Fugui, mother..." After not shouting a few times, Jiazhen burst into tears right there.At that time, I thought that something happened to my father. I ran out of the house and saw Jiazhen standing there, with a large basin of clothes falling on the floor.Jiazhen saw me and called: "Fugui, it's dad..." My head buzzed, and I ran desperately towards the entrance of the village. When I ran to the dung tank, my father had already died. I pushed and shouted, but my father just ignored me. I didn’t know what to do. I stood up and looked back. When my mother came running, crying and shouting, twisting her little feet, Jiazhen followed behind with Fengxia in her arms. After my father died, I felt powerless as if I had contracted the plague. I sat on the ground in front of the hut all day, with tears in my eyes and sighs in moments.Fengxia often sits with me, playing with my hand and asking me: "Grandpa fell." Seeing me nodding, she asked again: "Is it the wind?" My mother and Jiazhen didn't dare to cry too loudly, they were afraid that I would be overwhelmed, so they went with my father.Sometimes when I accidentally bump into something, the two of them will be startled. Seeing that I didn't fall to the ground like my father did, they asked me in peace: "It's okay." In those days my mother often said to me: "As long as people live happily, they are not afraid of being poor." She was reassuring me, she thought that I was tortured by poverty, but in fact, what I was thinking about was my dead father.My father died at my hands, but my mother, Jiazhen, and Fengxia will suffer with me. Ten days after my father's death, my father-in-law came. He walked into the village with a long gown in his right hand with a livid face. Behind him was a sedan chair in red and green, surrounded by a dozen young people beating gongs and drums.When the villagers saw it, they crowded up to see it, thinking that it was someone who married a married woman, and they all said why they hadn't heard of it before. One person asked my father-in-law: "Whose family's happy event?" My husband said loudly with a straight face: "A happy event for my family." At that time, I was in front of my father's grave, I heard the sound of gongs and drums and raised my head, and saw my husband walking to the front of our hut, he waved his hand back, the sedan chair was put on the ground, and the gongs and drums stopped.I knew at that time that he was going to take Jiazhen home, and my heart was beating wildly, I didn't know what to do? My mother and Jiazhen heard the noise coming out of the house, and Jiazhen called out: "father." My father-in-law looked at her daughter and said to my mother: "What about the beast?" My mother said with a smile: "You mean Fugui?" "Who else is it?" My father-in-law turned his face and saw me, he took two steps towards me and shouted to me: "Bastard, come here." I stood still and didn't move, how dare I go over.My husband waved his hand and shouted to me: "Come here, you bastard, why didn't you come to pay my respects to me? You bastard, how did you marry Jiazhen back then, and how I will take her back today. Look, this is a sedan chair, here are gongs and drums, It's only a lot more than when you got married." After shouting, my father-in-law turned around and said to Jiazhen: "Go into the house and tidy up." Jiazhen stood still and called out: "father." My husband stomped his feet vigorously and said: "Not yet." Jiazhen looked at me standing in the distance, turned around and entered the house.My mother said to him with tears in her eyes: "Please, let Jiazhen stay." My father-in-law waved at my mother, then turned around and shouted at me: "Bastard, from now on, Jiazhen will be separated from you, and our Chen family will never communicate with your Xu family." My mother bent down and begged him: "For Fugui's father's sake, let Jiazhen stay." My husband yelled at my mother: "His father pissed him off." After calling my father-in-law, he felt that it was too much, so he took a breath and said: "Don't blame me for being cruel, it's because of that bastard that I'm here today." After speaking, my father-in-law turned to me again and shouted: "Fengxia will leave it to your Xu family, and the child in Jiazhen's belly is from our Chen family." My mother stood aside and cried, she wiped her tears and said: "This makes me how to explain to the ancestors of the Xu family." Jiazhen came out with a package, and my husband said to her: "Get on the sedan chair." Jiazhen turned her head to look at me, walked to the side of the sedan chair, looked back at me, then at my mother, and got into the sedan chair.At this time, Fengxia ran out from nowhere, and when she saw her mother getting into the sedan chair, she wanted to get in too, but she got halfway into the sedan chair when she was pushed out by Jiazhen's hand. My father-in-law waved to the bearer, and the sedan chair was lifted up. Jiazhen cried loudly inside, and my husband-in-law shouted, "Knock on the ring for me." A dozen young people beat the gongs and drums desperately, and I couldn't hear Jiazhen's crying.The sedan chair was on the road, and my father-in-law walked as fast as the sedan chair with his long gown in his hand.My mother twisted her little feet, and followed pitifully, until she stopped at the entrance of the village. At this time Fengxia came running over, she opened her eyes wide and said to me: "Father, mother is sitting in the sedan chair." Fengxia's happy look made me feel uncomfortable, so I said to her: "Fengxia, come here." Fengxia walked up to me, and I touched her face and said: "Fengxia, don't forget that I am your father." Fengxia giggled when she heard this, and said: "Don't forget that I am Fengxia."