Chapter 21 Chapter Twenty

On the second day of his birthday, Xu Sanguan counted with his fingers. The family had been drinking corn porridge for fifty-seven days, so he said to himself: I'm going to sell blood. Have a good meal.Thinking: The faces of all the people in the city are gray, only Li Xuetou's face is still rosy: the flesh on the faces of all the people in the city is less, only the bloody face is as much as before; With a bitter face, only Li Xuetou was grinning. Li Xuetou said to Xu Sanguan with a smile: "I know you. You have come to sell blood before. You used to carry things in your hands when you came here. Why are you empty-handed today?"

Xu Sanguan said: "Our family of five drank rice porridge for fifty-six days, and now I have nothing but the blood on my body. I came empty-handed, but I beg you to buy two bowls of blood from my body. If you go home with the money, you can feed your family a good meal. If you help me, I will repay you tons.” Li Xuetou asked: "How do you repay me?" Xu Sanguan said: "I don't have anything now. I gave you eggs, meat, and even a catty of sugar. You didn't want sugar. You didn't want it, and you scolded me. You said you were The Communist Party is gone, why don’t you take the people’s stitches and stitches. I don’t know that you are a thing again now, I am not prepared at all, and I don’t know how to repay you..."

Li Xuetou said: "Now I have no choice. In this famine year, if I don't charge for food or drink, Li Xuetou, who is famous in this city, will starve to death. When life gets better , I will still take the masses one stitch at a time. Now you treat me as a Communist Party member, report. I don’t want you to report with springs, you can report with drops of water, and you will give me a few yuan for the money you sold , give me the fraction, you take the whole number..." After Xu Sanguan sold his blood, he gave Li Xuetou five yuan and brought thirty yuan with him.He put the money in Xu Yulan's hands and told her that it was earned by selling blood, and that he had five yuan to give to Xuetou Li. In the future, he will not be able to drink king rice porridge every day, and will have to eat something else every now and then. He will get money if he sells his blood, and he will sell blood again when he has no money. Blood is like the water in a well, it doesn't need to be so much, it can be used every day.Finally he said:

"I won't eat corn porridge at night. Let's have a delicious meal at the Victory Hotel." He said: "I don't have the strength now, I speak in a low voice, are you? Listen to me, after I sold my blood today, I didn't drink two taels of rice wine, nor did I eat a plate of fried pork liver, so I have no strength now …It’s not that I’m reluctant to eat it. I went to the Victory Hotel. There’s nothing in the restaurant, only Yangchun noodles, and the restaurant is also suffering from a famine. In the past, the Yangchun noodles used broth, but now it’s just a bowl of water with a little soy sauce. I don’t even have scallions, that’s it. I still need a bowl of one yuan and seventy cents. In the past, a bowl of noodles only cost nine cents. Now I have no strength at all. I sold my blood and didn’t eat fried pork liver. I’m empty now. Stomach, as the saying goes, if you don’t eat enough, you can make up for it by sleeping, and I’m going to sleep now.”

As Xu Sanguan lay down on the bed, he stretched out his hands and feet, closed his eyes and continued to say to Xu Yulan: "Now my eyes are black for a while, my heart is beating like I have no strength, and my stomach is twitching. I want to vomit something. I want to go to bed and lie down for a while. If I sleep for three to five hours without Wake up, don’t worry about me; if I haven’t woken up after seven or eight hours of sleep, go and call some people and take me to the hospital.” After Xu Sanguan fell asleep, Xu Yulan sat on the threshold with thirty yuan in her hand. She looked at the empty street outside the door, the wind blowing the sand, and the gray wall opposite. Say to yourself:

"Yi Le smashed the head of Blacksmith Fang's son, and he sold his blood once; that fat man Lin broke his leg, and he also sold his blood once, for such a fat wild woman, he was willing to sell it Blood, the blood on his body is not sweat from the heat; now the family has been drinking corn porridge for fifty-six days, and he is going to sell blood again. He said that he will continue to sell blood in the future, otherwise he will not be able to survive this hard life Go down. When will this hard life end?" As she spoke, Xu Yulan shed tears. She folded the money and put it in the pocket of her clothes, then raised her hand to wipe the tears. She first wiped the tears from her cheeks with the palm of her hand, and then wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with her fingers .