Chapter 94 first quarter

The last time the "Ming Xuande blue and white" vases handed down by the Mai family appeared in Ping'an County was in autumn.Liu Xu couldn't forget that in the autumn when she was eleven years old, her uncle Curator Liu left the county town and sent the pair of blue and white vases to the Provincial Museum.In just one week, Mai San, the owner of the blue and white vase, replaced his uncle in the cultural center under the arrangement of the County Revolutionary Committee and became the new curator of the cultural center.A curator of a cultural center is not such a great position, but when the vigorous "Great Revolution" came, he occupied an absolute active position in the power-seizure movement of various factions in the county, and actually changed the people in the county. Many people's lives have also changed Liu Xu's life.

In fact, Liu Xu's ups and downs in life can't be blamed on Mai San, who has nothing to do with an eleven-year-old child like her.Back then, her mother irresponsibly sent her to her uncle's house in Ping'an County for foster care, and her fate had become her destiny. The mother gave the catkins to the uncle out of desperation.Liu Xu's father died that year, and died in a geological survey.At that time, my mother was working as a technician in the geological team and had to work in the field all year round. She had to find a way to give Liu Xu a stable life.This is how she explained it to her daughter before sending Liu Xu to the county seat.

Later, Liu Xu thought that maybe this was just an excuse for her mother. The mother was born in a bourgeois family in the old days.At the beginning of the establishment of the new regime, her family vaguely felt the precariousness of their class, and pinned the fate of the family on her.At that time, my mother graduated from a prestigious institution of higher learning in Beijing. With her excellent grades, she could have stayed in a scientific research institution in Beijing or taught at the school. However, inspired by the times, she chose to go to the university with passion. Northwest came to a military base engaged in satellite launches and married his father who was serving there.The mother chose to marry a soldier who was born in a peasant family and participated in the revolution since childhood. This was the fashion for young female students in their era, and it was also the noble character of obeying the organization.Of course, her marriage also contains the bargaining chip that the family expects to change the destiny.Soon, his father changed jobs due to physical reasons, and they returned to his father's hometown together and were assigned to work in the geological department.But mothers and fathers are not from the same class after all. Their growth experiences are completely different. The huge differences inevitably become obstacles to their thinking and permeate into their trivial lives.At the beginning, the two of them could endure it calmly, thinking that after three to five years of running-in period, they would adapt to each other.Then came the era of the "Great Revolution" that attracted worldwide attention. Mother and father fell into endless debates and quarrels for the theories they believed in, and then a long cold war.No one told Liu Xu what happened to her mother and father during the more than ten years of living together. During this special period, they all chose to work in the field to escape the burden and responsibility brought by their families.Soon after his father died, he fell into the valley and was smashed to pieces. Liu Xu was sent to his uncle's house in Ping'an County for foster care.Then Liu Xu came to Shahu Village to live with her elderly grandmother.Then my mother left the geological survey team working in the field and transferred back to the Shacheng Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources.Then came the mother's remarriage.Everything is like a well-written program—a program about the joys and sorrows of the mother and the fate of Liu Xu's life.

In the chaotic era shrouded by the "Great Revolution", Liu Xu was abandoned by her mother in a small strange town. As a young girl, she didn't know what was waiting for her in the future. She was just a little sad.However, one evening, alone, she witnessed an eight-year-old boy crying helplessly in the empty yard where he had lost his loved ones. She shed tears of sadness with him, and had an inexplicable fear of the world in front of her. . The little boy's grandfather and aunt had just died in a chaos, and his father was taken away by a screaming police car, and was formally arrested with the approval of the County Revolutionary Committee.

It is still a grand event to alert the police cars to arrest people in a small county town.Many people went to watch, and the eleven-year-old Liu Xu was also crowded among the crowd of onlookers. The little boy's grandfather, Luo Chongwen, was well-known in the county and even in the provincial capital, so his accidental death cannot be left unconfirmed.Soon, Mai San, the new curator of the cultural center, announced several charges against Luo Chongwen at a mass meeting, the three most important of which were: traitor (he avoided participating in the National Salvation Movement after the "September 18th" Incident); The soldiers of the West Route Army who hid in the farms of Luofu were captured by Ma’s army and died under the enemy’s butcher’s knife);The boy's father, Luo Xinyu, was arrested for stealing national cultural relics. The evidence was a clay pot said to be from the Zhou Dynasty that the curator Mai Sandai found in the courtyard of Luo's house. Luo Xinyu, who is a staff member of the cultural center, can't tell the origin of the clay pot.According to the logic of the Revolutionary Committee, such a treasure should belong to the country, and Luo Xinyu took it as his own, of course he is guilty of the people.

The one fighting with Luo Xinyu was Liu Xu's uncle. This evening, it was time to have dinner, and the uncle who was dragged out to criticize hadn't come back yet.Liu Xu and her aunt sat at the dining table waiting for him.The iron pot on the coal stove was bubbling and steaming, and the new potatoes were cooking in it.I don't know how long it took, it was already pitch black outside the window, and the charcoal fire in the stove had long been extinguished, and my uncle walked into the house with heavy and dull steps.There were several bluish-purple bruises on his face, and his eyes were swollen badly, as if he had been punched in the head.Neither uncle nor aunt spoke, and the three of them sat down to eat cold boiled potatoes.Although their stomachs were very hungry, they all felt that the dinner was hard to swallow.

At this time, the cry of a little boy came from the courtyard of Luo's house opposite. Uncle looked at aunt.My aunt got up and went to the stove to pick up some potatoes, put them in a wicker basket, and motioned for Liuxu to deliver to the opposite door.Since the Luo family's accident, no adults have dared to step into their yard, not to mention that uncle has been implicated, even if they want to take care of the boy, they can only let Liu Xu, who is also a child, come forward.Indeed, no one will do anything to a child who does not understand politics. Liu Xu came to the boy, and she understood his cry—the cry was full of fear of being abandoned.He may have just experienced the chaos of his home in the dark of night and the fear of missing loved ones.Liu Xu, who has experienced several family accidents, has overcome this fear. Standing in the dark courtyard of Luo's house, she wants to comfort the crying boy and give him a little courage and strength with her weak body.So she wiped the tears from the boy's face with her young fingers in the dark, and handed him the wicker basket.

The boy didn't pick up the basket.Looking at the hazy figure of a girl who was a head taller than him standing in front of him, he seemed to find a certain sense of security.He gradually calmed down and stopped crying. Liu Xu said, "This is a freshly boiled potato, are you hungry?" "I'm not hungry, I'm afraid," said the boy. Liu Xu said, "What are you afraid of? I heard that Shacheng is even more noisy than here. Not only adults want to fight, but children also want to fight with them." The boy said: "I am afraid they will never come back, I am afraid of being alone at home in the dark night."

Liu Xu said, "Don't be afraid, I'll stay here with you. Where's the light in your house? Why don't you turn on the light?" The boy said: "Last night the light went out. They were taken away before they could replace the broken light bulb." The "they" the boy refers to are the parents who have not returned home at this moment. For many years, catkins often immersed themselves in that autumn night.It was late at night, and the boy's parents didn't come back. Eleven-year-old Liu Xu kept her promise and stayed with the boy in the dark yard.They hugged each other and sat under a cold pagoda tree and fell asleep until the sun rose.Then she watched him wake up.He called her sister.Perhaps, the hazy love for him in her heart sprouted at the moment he opened his eyes and called her sister.

When the boy's mother returned, his father, Luo Xinyu, was sent to a nearby labor camp.Her uncle, curator Liu, stayed in the county town to continue to receive supervision and reform. One day, my aunt, who had been silent since my uncle was criticized, suddenly disappeared, and Liu Xu, who was left unattended, had to go back to her grandmother’s house in the countryside—a place called Meng County, more than 100 kilometers away from Shacheng, where there is a A remote village called Shahu Village.The Luo family boy and the "pardoned" boy's mother also went there, and they learned a new thing described by a verb—decentralization.In other words, the mother and son of the Luo family have changed from city people to country people.This is the third year of the "Great Revolution".