Chapter 57 10. Human warmth

My nerves have always been too sensitive and fragile. During the eight and a half years of living in Resources, from the age of twenty-four to thirty-three, which is the prime of youth, this situation has not changed much.I can't watch the tragic scene, and several times I fainted from seeing the dying patient.Once in the Zhongfeng Health Center, a doctor I knew was giving artificial respiration to a young woman. Her eyes were closed, her bare chest was blue-green, blood was spraying from her nostrils and mouth, and her mother-in-law was crying.When I saw this scene at the door, I immediately felt chest tightness, nausea, and dizziness. I hurried to lie down in the doctor's dormitory, and when I went back, the patient was dead.She died of spirochete, a parasitic disease so common in resources that an attack is irreversible.Another time, I went to the county hospital to visit a student who came to the resource in the same year as us. He fell while playing basketball and injured his spinal cord. It deteriorated to paralysis, and he was dying.He used to be a handsome young man, but now he is completely unrecognizable, but his swollen face still smiles at me.Looking at this weird smile, gold stars appeared in front of my eyes.The most serious one, the situation is rather strange.On the way, I met a cadre of the Foreign Trade Bureau. He had been suffering from leukemia for a long time and had been collecting herbs for treatment.He told me about the treatment situation all the way, very optimistic, but I became dizzy.After breaking up with him, I hurried to the house of an acquaintance on the side of the road, and just passed out when I entered the door.Recalling afterwards, I was dreaming at the time and felt very relaxed, but I don’t remember the scene in the dream. It seemed that I had been dreaming for a long time, and then suddenly woke up.The acquaintance told me that when he saw me entering the room, he sat down on a chair. His breathing was short of breath, and he stopped quickly. At the same time, his pulse also stopped, and his face was dead pale. It lasted for about four seconds. With breath.So far I don't know whether this is purely caused by psychological factors, or because there is some hidden disease in the heart.Fortunately, after leaving the resources, a similar situation has not happened again for decades.

My sensitivity also makes me particularly sensitive to loneliness.Living in a small county deep in the mountains, the most unbearable thing is loneliness.A person who can neither do what he likes to do for a long time nor have others who can communicate on the same level will feel a deep loneliness.For me, as long as there are resources for one day, this loneliness cannot be eliminated.However, in addition to this, people also need ordinary human warmth.In such an environment where life is extremely monotonous, I especially long for this kind of warmth, and I am especially grateful to those who once gave me this kind of warmth.

A group of college students landed in a foreign land at the same time, with similar situations and moods, and among them, people with similar temperaments would naturally come and go frequently.I had a lot of contacts with a few people who were teachers in middle schools. Among them, Wang Weida, who graduated from Sun Yat-sen University, got along the most. Although he was a science student, he had a lot of inner feelings.I thought so much about death that I couldn't help bringing it up to him once.After hearing this, he pondered for a long time, finally sighed heavily, and said in his Cantonese Mandarin: "Thinking of this, I can only play poker!" Pan Lilu and Zheng Fukun.Pan is a very typical Shanghainese, smart and practical. He was admitted to graduate school a year later than me, and then went to the United States.His fate can be regarded as strange. He married a typist in the county and had two sons. Just when he was about to go to the United States, his wife took the two sons back to a nearby county to visit relatives. The second son is disabled.Zheng is also from Shanghai, but he is an honest and indifferent person. When we meet, he always talks about the village or school with a strong Shanghai accent, and his attitude is serious but his tone is flat.He didn't care where he lived, and he was transferred to Guilin many years later because his wife was from Guilin.I myself can't completely get rid of the desire for fame and fame, but I feel close to people who have a transcendent mind.There is also an overseas Chinese student, Huang Shengyi, who is very educated in dealing with people and things. He has obviously seen the world, but he is not interested in the outside world at all. A wife with different interests.In the future, our group of college students walked out of the resource one after another, but he remained indifferent and is still a middle school teacher there.

My closest friend in Ziyuan is outside the circle of college students, a woman named Shen Xiaoyu.Not long after I arrived in the resource, I saw her bring a two or three-year-old boy to the compound of the county government several times to visit an acquaintance of hers, and I was curious because she was beautiful in appearance and did not look like a local at all in temperament.Later I learned about her life experience. Her father was a lieutenant in the Kuomintang Air Force on the eve of liberation. He flew directly from Shanghai to Taiwan.Because of family history, it was impossible for Xiaoyu to go to college. After graduating from a technical secondary school in Guilin, she was allocated resources to work as an accountant in a tobacco and alcohol company.She has a cheerful personality, is forthright in dealing with others, capable in doing things, and is very popular in the county.Since we met, I often go to play with her.She cooks delicious dishes, and she will definitely ask me, a scholar, to enjoy them.I loved listening to her chat and I still remember some of the funny things she told me about my childhood.One of them is that she and her younger sister often go swimming in the Li River, and every time her grandmother must pour a bucket of hot water into the river, and let the sisters swim in the place where the hot water was poured.One question she couldn't figure out at the time was: Why is the water still cold after pouring hot water?I am also willing to confide to her some of my thoughts, including the turmoil and conflicts in the marriage.After I got married, she often became a mediator in disputes between me and Toshiko.Our intimacy has caused me some trouble.One of her neighbors is a political teacher in the county middle school. Because my lectures are famous in the county, he is very jealous of me and always keeps a straight face when he sees me.He created a romantic rumor and reported it to my boss, saying that Shen Xiaoyu and I often locked the door and turned off the lights in the room.My superior came to talk to me and warned me to behave properly, and also emphasized that as a political cadre, I must be cautious when dealing with people with important overseas ties.However, I have no regrets in my heart, and I don't want to abandon a good friend for the so-called political future, not to mention that I have long since given up hope for my future in resources, so I still go my own way.After the reform and opening up, Xiaoyu worked as the director of a factory in Guilin, and later started her own business. She has achieved success and demonstrated her ability.

In fact, most of the time I go to Xiaoyu's place is to play with her children.I have always liked to play with children, and I am also very popular with children. The reason may be that I can treat children equally.Toshiko once talked about her husband to people during a trip, and showed them photos.A young girl saw it and immediately said that she was changing trains with her father in Zhengzhou at a certain time and saw me at the station, and I was talking to a child in the tone of talking to an adult.She also described my figure and clothing.I admire this girl's observation ability very much. I did change trains in Zhengzhou at that time, but I can't remember the plot, but it is very similar to what I did.In the early days of the resource, my close partner was a five-year-old boy, and I often bribed him with candy to trick him into my room and enjoy the joy of talking to him.Once, I told him that I could do magic and turn a man into a fly.He was very surprised and asked me if I could turn him into a fly, and I said yes.He fell into deep thought, and then asked me if I could change back after turning into a fly, I said no, he decided not to let me change.After I met Xiaoyu, her three-year-old son became my main playmate.In the year I got married, she gave birth to another daughter, so I spent many happy times playing with Xiao Yunchuan again.After being transferred to the party school, I moved away from the county seat and went to Xiaoyu’s house less often. Yun Chuan, who was one and a half years old at the time, really missed me. He would often go to the stairs by himself and call Uncle Zhou over and over again, expecting me to appear on the stairs.Many cute performances of Yunchuan are recorded in my notebook.Once, when her parents were quarreling, a guest asked her whether she was on the side of her father or her mother. She replied, "I am neither on my side nor on my mother's side. I am standing on the bed." She was indeed standing on the bed at that time.Another time, watching a movie, it was a scene of a volcanic eruption. She covered her face with her hands and said, "My sister is so scared!" Sister is her nickname.Mom said: "What do you know, shit doesn't work!" She immediately retorted: "Sister, shit, shit!" When I left Guangxi, Yunchuan was five years old, and wrote a letter of guarantee in crooked fonts: "I promise to go to Beijing to give Zhou Uncle to be a daughter." I still have this little piece of paper.There are always surprises when you are with children.I myself became a father very late, and in the end I discovered that the so-called fatherly love is the ability to appreciate and understand children equally, which is actually transformed from childlike innocence.

In the third year of the resource, once, I gave a tutoring class to the cadres of the county government.After class, a short, middle-aged man stayed in class, waiting to say a word to me: "I never thought that there are such talents in resources. It's a pity that they are buried." He told me, His name is Lai Zhaoen, and he has just transferred resources to serve as the deputy director of the Foreign Trade Bureau.His own experience was also very rough. He participated in the revolution when he was in middle school, became the secretary of the county party committee at the age of 28, was demoted because of pride and life style problems, was fought during the Cultural Revolution, and his wife divorced.After talking, I think he is smart, assertive, and has a sense of justice.He said angrily about one thing: the Bureau of Foreign Trade purchased a pair of golden pheasants for export, which could be sold for several hundred yuan. The secretary of the prefectural party committee came to the county and bought them for six yuan.After he finished speaking, he sighed again and again: "You're lost!" Obviously, his integrity was incompatible with the system at that time, no wonder he was about to be eliminated.We cherish each other and have had close contacts since then.Through me, he also became Xiaoyu's friend.Soon, Lao Lai was transferred to the deputy director of the Agricultural Bureau and often went to the countryside.Every time he returns to the county, he will come to my residence to sit for a while.However, I found that he was getting more and more depressed, and he often sat silently and smoked non-stop.Once, I met him in Zhongfeng, and he had a severe dry cough. I advised him to go to the hospital for a checkup. He said he would check it out when he went to Guilin in a few days.A few days later, he went to Guilin, was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, and never came back.During those days when he was dying, his whole body was swollen and smelly, and the kind Xiao Yu often went to change his clothes and quilt and take a bath.

Now, when I think about the place of Ziyuan, I still feel kind because there is a man named Zou Lianzheng living there.He is a staff member of the film screening station, and all the goodwill of the local people seems to be concentrated in him.In the late period, Minzi and I had no place to live in the county, and Xiaoyu had been transferred back to Guilin. Every time we went to the county, we stayed and ate at his home, and his family really regarded us as their own.He told me that he admired me a long time ago, but he was afraid that I would look down on him and didn't dare to disturb him. Later, he saw that I was very approachable, so he was not afraid.He is a naive and simple person. He doesn't talk much when he is with me, but he always smiles happily. The reason why he is happy is because he is with me.After leaving the resources, I presented him with a poem: "Ten years of poverty, people are familiar with the state of the world. Opening up to speak out has aroused hatred, and reading behind closed doors has also attracted slander. Foolish people help poisonous disasters, and friendship in adversity makes you sweeter. Where can I put my sorrows away, and the Jun family will have a good meal.” It is said that he was later transferred to the county government as a secretary, then promoted to deputy county magistrate, and finally became chairman of the county CPPCC.Such an honest and respectful person like him can have official luck, which shows that resources have indeed changed.When he was the chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, he saw me on TV and knew my work unit, so he wrote to invite me to go back to the resource.Because I'm busy, I can't make the trip for the time being, but I know I will definitely go.