Chapter 37 first quarter

Outside the wall of the inpatient department of the Second People's Hospital is a wide tree-lined road. Cypress trees are planted on the side facing the street, and a row of tall broad-leaved poplars is on the side of the wall.In summer and autumn, the trees grow luxuriantly and are green.In winter, the leaves of the poplar trees fall, and the concrete pavement is sprinkled with colorful gold; the cypress trees in winter do not shed their leaves, but are covered with a layer of gray, struggling in the cold wind to produce a pale dark green, which seems to leave people a ray of light. A faint vitality.

Most of the people walking on this boulevard are hospitalized patients, and there are also passers-by in a hurry.Often some people, especially those who have been tortured to death by illness for a long time, stop in front of a small stall without any signboard beside the boulevard.It is said to be a small stall, but in fact there is only a stump of a poplar tree left on the side of the road for some reason. The stump was sawn flat, like a small round table, with two bamboo tubes twice as tall as the pen holder placed on it.One of the bamboo tubes was covered with a red cloth, and the other was covered with a white cloth. Those two pieces of cloth had been covered on the bamboo tube for an unknown amount of time. They looked a bit dirty, and one could vaguely discern mysterious patterns painted on them.Few people can understand such a pattern, which makes the two bamboo tubes appear mysterious, and the mystery hidden inside makes people puzzled and fascinated.

A blind old lady was sitting by the tree stump guarding two bamboo tubes.She leaned against a poplar tree and sat cross-legged on a dark red square blanket spread on the ground.The old lady's gray hair was tied in a bun on the top of her head, and a large black gauze scarf with hollow patterns was tied on top of the bun.After the veil was lifted to cover the entire top of her head, it hung down from her forehead along her cheeks, covering most of her face, like an Islamic woman's veil.No one could see what the old lady looked like.When she raised her head, a deep sunken eye socket was exposed from the slit of the veil. The folded and drooping eyelids were turned up from time to time, and the empty and dim eyeballs turned a few times frequently, and an inexplicable cold air hit, making people feel I wonder if she really can't see anything.

The blind old lady is very famous in Shacheng, but people don't know anything about her origin or herself, and everyone calls her blind woman. If the weather is fine, the blind woman will sit cross-legged by the boulevard outside the hospital every day, giving advice to those who want to know whether they are alive, dead or rich.At night, the blind woman does not go out, but there are always some people who are inconvenient to show their faces in public to find her home to inquire about her future or fortune.As a result, cars of various colors were often parked in front of the dilapidated hut of the blind woman, and most of the cars could be seen from other places by their license plates.

The blind woman also has a rule that she does not charge money for fortune-telling, but the victim must leave a token, and when her fortune-telling comes true, she will take two red roosters to her home to thank her, and she will return the token to the victim.But these are just rumors.However, there are always clusters of poultry feathers with dark red blood stains outside the blind woman's hut, which makes people suspicious and fearful, but this is true. Li Chenguang passed by the gate of the inpatient department every day, and often couldn't help but glance at the fortune-telling booth of the blind woman, but he had never really approached her.

Li Chenguang is a thorough materialist. For a long time, he has been very disapproving of fortune-telling.But there must be some reason for the blind woman to be famous in Sand City.In other words, there is a certain degree of credibility in the hexagrams made by the blind woman.This made the materialist Li Chenguang curious. In fact, only Li Chenguang knows that his curiosity about the blind woman stems from his own chaotic emotional world. For a while, Li Chenguang, who had nothing to say with his wife Lu Xia, was very depressed. He originally asked Maizi to come out to talk with him and tell his troubles, but unexpectedly Maizi refused indifferently.

Li Chenguang thought he and Maizi were in love.After being rejected, he realized that he was a bit confused about her.He understands that marriage is the ultimate goal of love, and women who care about love in their hearts care about marriage, because only with the body of marriage can love be attached, be upright, and be complete.He understands Maizi and knows that she doesn't want to let herself float forever in the drunkenness of alcohol or in the illusion of dreams. She longs for a down-to-earth real life, and he also promised to give her a reliable explanation when the time is right. .But since the two couldn't help completing the intimate contact between men and women that day, Maizi's attitude seemed to have changed, and she gradually became indifferent to their relationship.Li Chenguang thought that when two people fell in love, that kind of thing would happen naturally. The fusion of soul and body, he gave himself completely to her (except material), in fact, he wanted her to understand that he would always belong to her from now on.But judging from the current situation, he couldn't figure out what else she needed. He wasn't even sure what the nature of the relationship between him and her was, or if he had to play the role of father, Will she be satisfied with many roles such as brother, lover, friend, etc.?He didn't know if she had seriously thought that if he had so many mixed characters in one body, he would feel tired, the super pressure would make him breathless, and sometimes he would have to cool down their enthusiasm.This is inevitable, no one can maintain a high degree of enthusiasm for the same thing forever.She should understand him too.Isn't love a kind of understanding, a kind of tolerance?But facing her gradual indifference, he felt that he really didn't understand her at all now.

Of course, Maizi's current indifferent attitude does not indicate her dullness and lack of emotion.She used to be such a lovely girl, during the winter of their love, every night they met, he couldn't provide her with a warm, quiet or safe environment, but she never complained.Because he is a very famous surgeon in the hospital and even in Shacheng, he doesn't want his affairs to be passed on to others, so his love affair with Maizi has always been hidden and underground.Countless winter nights, whenever other couples were sitting in warm cafes or bars, she would always hold his hand and walk down the dark and deserted streets, walking from this end of the city to his own in the cold wind. that end.When they were tired from walking, they sat in his car.Cars are of course parked in the most deserted places in the city.Once they even parked the car on the Gobi Desert.Nevertheless, their love affair is full of romance and warmth in the dark winter night.He felt that he could fall in love with her sincerely. Apart from her beauty, the most fundamental reason was that she could accept the current situation that he could not give her anything materially.Her openness touched him so deeply.He knew that he owed her a lot—yes, a father, brother, and lover's commitment to family affection should not only stay at the spiritual level of nothingness, but also include many secular things.But she didn't care.The more she doesn't care about it, the more he feels indebted. This sense of indebtedness makes him compare Lu Xia with her involuntarily. The result of the comparison is that he has a deep love for her.

However, as time passed, she finally faded away from their relationship, and his passion seemed to turn into wishful thinking.He was a little apprehensive about it. So, on this night, Li Chenguang, who was full of worries because of Maizi's refusal, went to the bar and spent half the night alone. After coming out of the bar, he walked into a dirty alley.Soon, he pushed open the door of the blind woman's house. The blind woman's hut was steaming.Li Chenguang stood for a long time before he saw everything inside. The hut is about ten square meters, and there are some colorful bird tail feathers stuck to the wall.There was an earthen kang near the corner of the wall, and on the kang were stacked quilts and sheepskin mattresses that were not neatly folded, all of which were shiny black and oily.In the center of the earth kang is a small kang table, on which are placed the two bamboo tubes covered with red cloth and white cloth that people have seen in the daytime.In the middle of the room is a small charcoal stove that burns vigorously. A large cast iron pot is placed on the stove. The pot is boiling, and some lumps are churning in it. I don’t know what it is cooking.At this time, the blind woman was squatting next to a plastic basin filled with hot water, and she was moulting a dead chicken.She held the chicken's two paws upside down, and the wet feathers were stuck together, so she couldn't tell what color it was.The chicken's head drooped stiffly, dripping blood from its beak.A fishy smell permeated the room with the steam from the iron pan and plastic basin.

Li Chenguang covered his nose with his hands. The blind woman heard someone open the door and came in. She threw the dead chicken into the plastic basin, dried her hands on a dirty towel, and groped to sit cross-legged on the kang. She motioned Li Chenguang to sit on the kang as well. Li Chenguang hesitated for a moment, and sat cross-legged across from her like a blind woman. The blind woman's veil covered most of her face, and one eyeball exposed outside the veil was dull, but she looked at Li Chenguang for a long time, which made him feel that she couldn't see everything.After a while, her dead fish-like eye came alive, and asked his name and birth date in a vague and ridiculous tone.Then she said, "Are you here to ask about the future?"

"No, I want to ask about marriage." Li Chenguang replied very positively. The blind woman smiled, and the way she smiled was more terrifying than when she didn't smile.She just said with a terrified half of her face: "You originally wanted to ask about your future. However, it's okay to tell you about marriage, it's related to your future." The blind woman opened the bamboo tube covered in red cloth and said, "Make a fist with your right hand and put it inside." Li Chenguang looked at his pair of big hands, he hesitated for a moment, but stretched out his hands clenched into fists.It seemed that there was some magical power, his fist was neither too big nor too small, and it just fit into the bamboo tube.After a few minutes, the blind woman asked him to take out his hand and stretch it out.He stretched out his right hand and passed it over. She held his palm with a pair of dry hands like chicken feet, and rubbed against his palm. The sunken eye socket hidden in the veil seemed to flip quickly. "You are lucky." The blind woman said, "You have fallen in love with that girl." "how do you know?" "I deduced it from your palm prints." "Will we have a result?" "The marriage between you and your wife was a mistake. Later you divorced, but you didn't marry the one you love." The blind woman said again. "why?" "Because she left you, for your future." "Will she come back?" "When the overall situation is settled, she will come back to you." "The big picture? What big picture?" "Your marriage and career, of course." "One day I will marry her!" Li Chenguang said firmly. The blind woman laughed again, revealing her pink gums.Her eyelids suddenly rolled up, and the dead fish-like eyeball twitched, and suddenly there seemed to be a gray-blue light flashing.But just for a moment, her eyes quickly closed again. Li Chenguang couldn't help shivering.He thought of the legendary witch. The blind woman seemed to have just trekked through thousands of rivers and mountains. After panting for a while, she said in an unquestionable tone: "No, you will never get married, because when that girl comes back to you , you are no longer in love with each other, all that is left is each other's needs. Just needs, understand?" "We don't love each other anymore?! How is that possible!" "Believe it or not, I've finished my words, leave your employee card behind." "Employee card... I didn't bring it." "You don't have to lie, it's in the right pocket of your overcoat." Li Chenguang was secretly startled.He looked at his right palm that was pinched by the blind woman just now, and quickly covered the pocket of his coat tightly. "You still want something else. I have to wear the employee card when I go to work." He said guiltily. "I'm not allowed to talk about any conditions here. I believe that you can reapply for a new employee card tomorrow, and you will never come to redeem this card." "Are you so sure? Then, your reward is not without guarantee?" Li Chenguang said this, but he was struggling hard in his heart. "Do you think I'm really a fortune teller for two chickens or thirty or fifty yuan?" The blind woman laughed, trembling all over.Her veil slipped down.Li Chenguang finally saw her face clearly: wrinkled, dark and yellow, like any old western woman who has endured the wind and sand for a long time, more like a patient with severe anemia or liver disease that cannot be cured for a long time.Moreover, there is a long dark purple scar on her right cheek, extending from the nose wing to the temple, twisted like a piece of hemp rope, making her face very hideous and terrifying. It is said that there is a folk prescription that uses chicken blood and duck blood to treat anemia or liver disease. No wonder the blind woman wants to slaughter poultry.Since she is afraid of disease, she is not a supernatural person.The materialist Li Chenguang thought to himself restlessly, he used reason to force himself not to believe the nonsense of the blind woman.But Li Chenguang finally left the employee card according to the blind woman's request, and then quickly left the dirty and dim hut, deciding never to see the blind woman face to face again.