Chapter 3 The ugly duckling by the Haihe River has a grievance

In May 1936, in a dilapidated official house by the Haihe River, a baby was crying.Since then, there has been another daughter beside the endlessly flowing Haihe River. Li Yaolin, the father who makes a living by teaching and educating people, saw that he was a daughter again. He couldn't be said to be happy or unhappy. He wiped his mouth and said to the wife lying on the bed that you should raise it for a few days first, and then left without expression. house door.Wanruo saw his father as such a person after he was sensible, especially in front of his mother, there was no smile at all, only a few cold words that had to be said dripping from his lips were considered communication.

Later, Wanruo also knew that her father was always dissatisfied with the marriage arranged by her grandfather. Out of filial piety, her father did not refuse the family to marry a woman with small feet for him, but he was not satisfied with the marriage arranged by his family from the bottom of his heart. .So within a few days of getting married, he left Tianjin and went to Baoding to continue his studies. He went there for six years. By the time his father met Wanruo's sister, who was his first daughter, the child was already six years old.Although the mother has bound feet, she still maintains a healthy body and a simple and kind character.She served several members of the Li family with all her thoughts and strength, but she didn't get the rewards she deserved, but she had no complaints or regrets.

The mother in the Li family is almost no different from a nanny except that she can bear children.In the second year after Wan Ruo was born, when another daughter came to the Li family, the father was even more speechless in front of his wife, or even more unreasonably angry. Wanruo never understood why her father was so indifferent to her mother.Is it because his ancestors have cut off the incense all the way to Wan Ruo and the others?Not like!In Wanruo's eyes and feelings, her father was very kind to the three sisters.Her favorite father took her to Quanyechang to watch the distorting mirror on Sundays. The joyful laughter between the father and daughter in the changes in the shape of sometimes tall, sometimes short, sometimes as thin as a stick, and sometimes as fat as a cow, isn't it true? Is it overflowing with harmonious family affection?My father loves to watch Peking Opera, and knowing that the only thing Wanruo is interested in is eating a piece of pancake or something, so he buys a few pieces and takes her into the theater, and they start to enjoy themselves.But Wan Ruo couldn't forgive his father's violence in front of his mother, which ripped the teacher's gentle face.

The father often set the unknown fire on the mother, and regardless of the extremely fragile nerves of the young Wanruo sisters, the whole table of meals and dishes would always shatter on the ground when the father was angry.But the father was still relentless, and even grabbed his mother's hair even more violently, and slapped his mother's face left and right... This is the most painful place in Wan Ruo's life. Therefore, the mother will always be the most remarkable person in her daughter's spiritual world, the most worthy of love, closeness and protection.However, in Wanruo's memory, her mother's greatness is not only based on her family and her husband's respect, Li also led her on a path of creating self-esteem and independent personality.

Among the three Li family sisters, Wan Ruo, who is in the middle, was not favored by others when she was young.Her elder sister, Wanru, who is 12 years older than her, is the most outstanding among the three sisters of the Li family. Her classical beauty can often arouse her father's poetic chants.The little girl Wan looks sweet and cute, and everyone likes it.Only Wanruo is often suspected and regretted by many guests of the Li family.Listen, it was another old aunt who spoke to her father: Hey, Yao Lin, what a pity, your eldest is so beautiful, and your third is like a fairy, but the second is much worse...

When she was young, Wan Ruo didn't know what inferiority complex was, but when she heard such words, she felt embarrassed.But every time at this time, the mother's hand will hold her little hand tightly, and say to the guests in a rounded manner: Don't think that our second child is not as beautiful as her sisters, she is pretty, and she can wear whatever clothes she wants She is good-looking, and she has her own opinions in doing things. She is the son of our family! I am the son of the Li family!The mother's words were deeply imprinted in Wanruo's heart.So in the future, when guests come to her house to talk about who is beautiful or not, she won't care what those uncles and uncles say about her, because what she thinks in her heart is that I am the son of the Li family, and I will be with my sister and sister. no the same.

The son should do the work of the son, right?So one day Wan Ruo ran to the bituminous coal heating boiler in the basement to add coal to the boiler that was about to go out, but before the coal was added, suddenly the fire dragon sprang up and fell on her face.After a burst of heat pain, Wanruo didn't dare to say anything, and ran upstairs to take a look in the mirror, and now it was really miserable: her eyebrows and eyelashes were all gone, and she was just an ugly duckling! Ruoer, come quickly and meet your uncles and aunts!Then her mother called her from another room. Wanruo is unwilling to come out this time.In the end, it was her mother who forced her to have a face-to-face meeting with the guests.But the mother still didn't seem to care that the ugly duckling in her family had no eyebrows and eyelashes, and kept boasting in front of the guests: "Look, this is our son."She is the most amazing one in our family.Not only did the homework do well, but he also delivered a speech to the graduating class on behalf of the whole school!The guests naturally boasted accordingly, so Li Ruo felt that her ugly duckling son was actually very proud!

One day, she was playing games with her classmates on the playground of Tianjin Yaohua Primary School. The old principal was sitting in front of the window watching. At this time, a strong ray of sunlight shone on the old principal's bald head, which was very eye-catching.Wanruo didn't know where she got the courage to reach out to touch the old headmaster's bald head, while still yelling about your bald head... Before she could finish speaking, the old headmaster was so angry that he couldn't laugh or cry. Laughing on the sidelines. That night, when my father found out about this, instead of blaming her, he said to her: You are extroverted, and you are suitable to be a diplomat when you grow up.

Dad, what is a diplomat?Wan Ruo was a little proud. Father paused, and said: It's about dealing with people outside. Wanruo remembered her father's words deeply, and she was really waiting to do business with outsiders, but Tianjin had already been occupied by the Japanese invaders.The iron hooves of the foreign devils brutally trampled every inch of land by the Haihe River. Since then, Wanruo's family has entered into an uneasy period of white terror.My father was an anti-Japanese underground worker for the government. During the day, he covered himself as a teacher, and at night he collected enemy intelligence for the government, and tried to send the information away in the morning.

At that time, Wan Ruo was most worried about two things: one was that when she woke up in the morning, she could not see the house she used to live in, and was surrounded by unfamiliar environments.During Wanruo's more than ten years of living by the Haihe River, the most indifferent impression is that she can't remember where her home is.Later, her father told her that during the years when the Japanese occupied Tianjin, their Li family had moved at least six or seven places.Everywhere she went, her father and mother told her that the three sisters were not allowed to have much contact with their neighbors, nor could they tell them their father's real name.The second thing is that Wanruo is most afraid of someone knocking on the door in the middle of the night and the sound of trampling on the wooden stairs.That was the search and arrest of the Japanese military police, the search and arrest again and again.Wanruo didn't understand why her family still couldn't escape the pursuit of the Japanese devils after they moved.How many times had she been suddenly picked up from the bed in the middle of the night and rushed to her mother and sister.She and her sister were always so frightened that they cried loudly. At this time, the Japanese devils with guns would angrily order their mother or sister who were also trembling beside them not to make a sound, but Wanruo and her sister still groaned anyway. The whining sound continued.

Whoever cries again will die!Once, because the cries of Wanruo and her sister angered the Japanese military police, an officer drew out a long saber and pointed it at the tip of her and her sister's noses and threatened loudly. Who knew that this could not stop Xiao Wanruo and her sister from crying. Voice.The Japanese gendarmes who failed to arrest them shook their heads angrily, and walked away with a bang. This trick seemed to give mother a hint, so when someone came to search or question father later, mother would wink, and Wanruo, her elder sister and younger sister burst into tears, especially Wanruo, who was called a son. While crying, I hugged the legs of the Japanese military police who came to arrest me, and clamored to return my father, return my father.Such a yell made the Japanese military police who wanted to arrest her father half-believe that Wan Ruo's father was indeed at home, so they had to return empty-handed. I don't know how long such frightening days have passed, and Wan Ruo can't remember clearly.Once she was suddenly awakened by a sound that was not too loud in the middle of the night.She got up secretly and saw the father she missed day and night through the crack of the door, so she couldn't help but rushed over and threw herself into her father's arms.Dad, are you home tonight?Tomorrow is my birthday, can you take me to the Haihe River to buy pancakes and fruits?Wan Ruo remembered an important thing. Father nodded, and then let Wan Ruo go to sleep in the room, and started burning papers again... Wanruo woke up early the next day, and when she woke up with a happy face, she found her mother and wanted to tell her about the important things her father promised her last night, but she saw her mother standing at the door with teary eyes and crying silently. Mom, where's Dad?Wan Ruo seemed to have a premonition of something, so she asked. The mother hurriedly wiped away her tears and said: Dad...he has gone on a long journey.Then never said a second word. It was later that Wanruo found out that this time her father was in trouble.Just as he was about to leave home after burning the documents, he was caught by Japanese soldiers guarding the alley.After his father was imprisoned, the Japanese Gendarmerie exhausted all kinds of torture, but there was still nothing to gain.So they put a few extra-large light bulbs in front of Wan Ruo's father day and night, trying to get him to confess information about the underground anti-Japanese forces in Tianjin.However, Wan Ruo's father, who would rather die than be a traitor, regarded death as home and kept silent.The enemy had nothing to do, so they decided to shoot Wan Ruo's father, Li Yaolin.Just the night before the execution, Li Yaolin, who was a teacher, was seen by a student working in the Japanese Gendarmerie.Maybe it was the heart that discovered that this young man who had sold his life to the Japanese for many years made a risky move and secretly released Mr. Li Yaolin from prison in troubled waters. After he was released from prison, his father did not return home, but the housekeeper's mother and the three Guiruo sisters started a more frightening life.In order to hunt down the escaped death row inmates, the Japanese devils sometimes went to Wan Ruo's house to search several times a week, and they never distinguished between day and night.As time went by, Wanruo's mother would shake her head nervously when she heard the gendarmes wearing iron-nailed leather boots banging on the wooden stairs. Mom, Mom—the Japanese finally surrendered.The joy and laughter of the Chinese people once again appeared along the Haihe River.But in Wanruo's eyes, not only did her mother not get any respect from her father for all the sacrifices she made for her father and the family under the white terror of the eight-year war of resistance.On the contrary, she seems to be suffering from unfair treatment and violence.That year, Wanruo, as a representative of the U.S. State Department’s World Youth Leaders Training Program, just stepped into the house a few days after returning from a visit. The kind and hardworking mother left forever with no regrets for her husband and expectations for her daughters. the world.Wanruo cried so sadly that when she talked about her mother after she passed the age at which her mother was alive, she still cried undisguisedly in front of me: I regret that I couldn't let my mother die with my own eyes. Me and Mei's family and successful career have seen the respect and harvest she deserves... Mom, mom—Yi Wanruo woke up from a coma again. This is a hospital in a small town on Route 98.The pastor and the nurse beside her stood beside her hospital bed smiling. Miss, you can rest assured that the doctors and nurses will take good care of you.But now you can't see your boyfriend... Wanruo can finally know where she is.When she heard what the pastor who rescued her and Baohe said, she couldn't help asking anxiously: Where is my boyfriend and how is he?Let me go and meet him, quick! You can't go now, he is still being rescued. When Wanruo heard it, her whole body seemed to sink to the bottom of a valley.