Chapter 83 first quarter

Tufo Temple is not a temple. Tufo Temple is a reform-through-labour farm closest to Ping’an County. It is part of Hongguang Farm, where criminals who were popular crimes at the time, such as thieves, hooligans, opportunists, and socialist underdogs, were detained. The young Luo Yang didn't know why a reform-through-labor farm was named "Temple". Does it contain the Zen meaning of "put down the butcher's knife and become a Buddha immediately" and "the sea of ​​suffering is boundless, and the shore is reconciled"?Or is it unknown that there was originally a temple site there?

It was the autumn of 1970, and it had been three years since his father was taken away from home. Luo Yang saw his father for the first time, and also knew about Tufo Temple for the first time.In the small Ping'an County, his father Luo Xinyu's crimes are very scary-theft and hiding of national cultural relics.The crime was proved by Mai San, the new director of the Cultural Center and ruled by the County Revolutionary Committee, but he was still escorted to the Tufo Temple to receive supervision and reform with those petty thefts on the street. That autumn was at the end of the farm's apple harvest.The best-quality big red apples have already been picked, carefully packaged, sent to the train station by a car dedicated to the farm, and then sent to some unknown places by trains one by one.At this time, there are only green and white immature fruits left on the apple tree, hanging sparsely on the branches.They may never have a chance to mature, because winter is coming.

Luo Yang followed his father to stop and go in the apple orchard without speaking. There are many taciturn people like my father in the apple orchard.They line up to walk, line up to work, and line up to receive meals. They all have bald heads and all wear blue cloth jackets with numbers written on the back.Among the shadows of the trees, the guards with guns can be seen faintly.In addition, Luo Yang felt that his father's life here was pretty good, at least much better than the life outside with his mother. He didn't have to worry about three meals a day, and all activities were very regular, and he would never There are needless extra worries.Luo Yang and his mother almost lost the most basic living security, the house was occupied by the Revolutionary Committee, and the mother and son temporarily lived in the hut where the sundries were piled up, relying on the mother to do needlework for others to make ends meet.My mother is good at needlework, and she can sew all kinds of clothes, shoes and hats.It is said that these crafts all benefited from the family traditions of the Luo family's female family members-the great-grandmother passed it on to the grandmother, and the grandmother passed it on to the mother.But there are very few people in the county who can buy new clothes, and their mothers often have no work to do, so their lives are precarious.It has been three years since my father was taken away. For the first time, the Revolutionary Committee allowed family members to visit Tufo Temple.On the day she received the notice from the Revolutionary Committee, my mother rushed to make a cotton hat overnight. She remade it from a woolen blue cotton waistcoat left by her grandmother, and asked Luo Yang to bring it to her father.It is late autumn and winter is not far away.Tufo Temple is located at the mountain pass, the wind in winter can cut people like a knife, much colder than the winter in the county.

Luo Yang walked into an adobe house with his father.The house is connected, with a large kang built against the wall, and a row of mats are spread on the kang, which is tightly packed and can sleep about 30 people.Father pointed to a mattress and said, "I live here." Luo Yang stretched out his hand and touched it. The mattress was thin and stiff, but he didn't know what was stuffed inside.He opened the bundle that he carried with him, took out a pack of shredded tobacco and the cotton hat that his mother had rushed to make overnight, and handed it to his father.Father put the hat on his head, and a smile spread across his face.

"Lao Luo, I heard that your son came to see you?" A tall man in uniform walked into the adobe house.It can be seen at a glance that he is the discipline cadre of the farm. "Yes, yes." Father agreed, quickly took off his hat, and stuffed it under the mat. "I have some good things here, entertain your son." The discipline cadre put a canvas bag on the kang, and took out a porcelain jar and a handful of dried noodles.The porcelain vat contained the boiled lard, which had solidified and was milky white, and could smell a faint fishy aroma. Father opened the shredded tobacco and gave half of it to the guards.The two sat on the kang and chatted for a while, and the guard said, "You don't have to work these two days, and you can stay with your son." After speaking, he took the shredded tobacco and left.

At dinner, my father lined up to get the meal—the usual two steamed buns, a bowl of boiled potato chips, and then took Luo Yang to a warehouse where various farm tools were piled up, where he cooked a bowl of vermicelli on a kerosene stove. Mixed with lard and salt, it is so fragrant! Luo Yang hadn't eaten oily rice for a long time, and the strong smell of lard made him sick to his stomach and made him uncomfortable.But his father touched his bony shoulders and thin jacket and said affectionately: "Eat, don't take the kindness of the political commissar away." "Is the person who brought us the noodles a political commissar? Is he the political commissar in charge of the farm?" Luo Yang asked curiously.

"Yes, I hit it off with him, and he never felt sorry for me. If it wasn't for his help this time, how could I see you, my child!" The father's lips trembled because of excitement.He asked about his mother's situation again, and while talking, he stuffed the noodle bowl and chopsticks into Luo Yang's hands.He himself ate the steamed buns and potato chips he had just brought. Luo Yang endured his discomfort with lard and finished a big bowl of noodles.However, because of the bumpy bus on the way here, he still felt a faint pain in his stomach.At night, he huddled with his father on the bunk, and before he fell asleep, he vomited out all the noodles he ate, causing a commotion among nearly thirty men in the house.

Early the next morning, all the prisoners in the farm were assembled, and a young correctional cadre gave them a lecture to investigate Luo Xinyu's hidden food and cooking utensils.Luo Yang was immediately put on the bus to the county seat.It is said that Luo Xinyu was locked up from that day on. Until many years later, whenever Luo Yang thought of the noodles mixed with lard in the farm, he would feel a faint discomfort in his stomach, and even feared the strong smell of lard wafting from small restaurants along the street.He hardly eats pork. Winter is really here.On a snowy day, a street female cadre came home to inform her mother that Luo Xinyu had escaped from Tufo Temple.

Luo Yang didn't understand why his father wanted to run away.In fact, the life outside was much more chaotic than that of the reform-through-labor farm. There were several violent fights in the county town. Since my father fled from Tufo Temple, people from the Revolutionary Committee often asked my mother for questioning.In fact, my father didn’t come home during that time. He knew that the most dangerous place was also the safest place—he hid in an abandoned exhibition hall of the cultural center, and his mother delivered him meals every night.The members of the Revolutionary Committee couldn't find their father, nor could they find the stolen goods they were looking for. They were extremely angry, and their mother naturally became the target of their criticism.Such a situation forced his father to stop hiding. He had to go to the light and find the person he was looking for. It was said that that person could save his father and even the Luo family from danger.But the father was soon caught by patrolling militiamen.Next, the house of the Luo family was classified as part of the Cultural Center.Luo Yang and his mother were kicked out of the yard together, and they were not even allowed to live in the hut where the sundries were piled up.

The curator of the cultural center, Mai San's family, naturally owns the house of Luo's family. Mai San, who took up the leadership position, was full of spirits. He broke through the old customs of the county and soon married his third wife.She is a Qin opera performer of the county cultural troupe. She is in her forties. She is not very beautiful, but she is good at dressing up, and she is a brother and sister with the director of the county revolutionary committee.Mai San was very concerned about his third wife and the relationship she brought him with the director of the County Revolutionary Committee.

After escaping, Luo Xinyu was caught by the patrolling militia. His crime was more serious. The County Revolutionary Committee made a verdict. He was sent to a remote grassland on the edge of the Tengger Desert to reform through labor.It is under the jurisdiction of Meng County.Liu Xu, the former curator of the cultural center who had great respect for Luo Chongwen, was also implicated because of this. He could only send his niece Liu Xu, who was accused of being of "unknown origin", back to his hometown - Shahu Village in Meng County, and made him homeless. Luo Yang's mother and son also went to avoid it. Shahu Village is not far from the grassland where my father worked, and it can be reached by walking in one day.Luo Yang went to visit his father in the pasture, and learned that the mountain next to the pasture was called Su Wu Mountain, and this pasture used to be the place where Su Wu herded sheep.In addition to herding sheep on the pasture, my father also went to a wasteland beside the pasture to engage in agricultural production work that he was not good at.At that time, my father became more and more decadent, and his hair was all white. Many years later, when Luo Yang grew up, whenever he recalled his father's dejected look, he couldn't help but think that Meng County was originally a place where criminals were dispatched in the past dynasties. At this time, the Luo family was just ordinary people who were sent there to work. It's not a grievance either.But his father couldn't think about it back then. After arriving at the pasture, Luo Xinyu ran away again.That escape was also unsuccessful.Because he was not familiar with the terrain, he strayed into the Tengger Desert.Fortunately, he was captured by the patrol militia in Shahu Village, otherwise he would be buried in the sea of ​​sand. Luo Xinyu was escorted back to the pasture by the militia, was whipped, and was immediately sent to the reservoir construction site in the lower reaches of the Shiyang River.Large and small reservoirs are being built there.There are many reeducation through labor detainees from various places on the construction site, and military control is implemented, surrounded by soldiers and militiamen with live ammunition. Luo Xinyu can no longer escape.