Chapter 16 after the disaster

If my family had been a weak family, a low-spirited family, a complaining family, it would not be possible for me to be where I am today. —— Zhou Ming Zhou Ming clearly remembered that night in the summer of 1974 and everything that happened after that.in a sudden In the ensuing storm, both sisters died on the way home from school.The mother's spiritual world nearly collapsed, and Zhou Ming was less than 10 years old at the time.The growth of others is a long process, but this boy grew up overnight. Walking on that small road to school every day, he was eager to find some traces that could prove that the two sisters were still alive.The high wall on the side of the road stood up again, and that day, it was this wall that collapsed, pressing my sister under it.Now, it faced him, silent and lifeless.He also looked at it, praying that a miracle would happen, that his sister could float out from the depths of the high wall.Year after year, the little boy grew up, and his own child was as tall as the elder sister in memory, but the elder sister still did not come back, and they became the eternal pain of the family.

Zhou's family lived in Chengde that year.The city is located among the mountains outside the Great Wall, and the transportation is inconvenient, but it is quite famous in China because it was the summer resort of the royal family in the old days.After the Communist Party established a new regime, some powerful people in Beijing always like to go to two places every summer, one is Beidaihe and the other is Chengde.But the Zhou family is a commoner, living in a dilapidated one-story house at the junction of urban and rural areas. His father came here from Hunan after graduating from university, not to escape the summer heat, but to find mineral deposits for the country.

Zhou Ming was born in the years after the end of the "Great Depression", China began a short period of recuperation.In the past three years, the famine caused tens of millions of deaths and 100 million children were malnourished. Now, the situation of material scarcity has changed slightly, but the spiritual scarcity has become more serious.Then, the "Cultural Revolution" began, as we described earlier, all schools were closed, and those who had some knowledge were driven out of the city and into the countryside.At that time, driving a city person to the countryside was the most severe punishment other than imprisonment and beheading.But public opinion calls this "education."One of the instructions issued by the party leader Mao Zedong at that time was, "Young intellectuals go to the countryside to receive re-education from the poor and lower-middle peasants."

For the Zhou family, the boundaries between the countryside and the city are not so clear.My father was born in a peasant family in Shaoyang, Hunan. He graduated from the Central South Institute of Minerals (now called the Central South University of Geosciences) in the 1950s. This was big news in the local countryside.All the folks within a hundred miles came to congratulate, but according to the saying at that time, this was called "Stinky Old Nine".Fortunately, he desperately wanted to be a geological engineer, and he was considered half of the working class, so he was not subject to political impact.But he paid a price for it. From the south to the north, he went in and out of the wild mountains with the geological team, slept in the open, lived in no fixed place, got married in the wild, and then ran around in the wild with his whole family.My wife has not worked for a long time, but lives in the geological team. My two daughters and three sons were also born in the field camp.It wasn't until Zhou Ming went to school that the family settled on the edge of the city.

My father has been looking for treasures all his life. He is a bit like those heroes in martial arts legends, but his stories are not so romantic. He found a lot of mines, including gold mines, silver mines, and all kinds of colored treasures that Zhou Ming could not name. Metal mines belong to the state.He himself had always been poor and honest, and so had Mama.This couple has only one belief, which is to let the children study hard. The two sisters are the smartest and hardest studying among the five children. They are the most proud students of the teacher and the pride of their parents.That year, my elder sister was in the first grade of junior high school, and my younger sister was in the fifth grade of elementary school.One afternoon, my sister was left by the teacher to check the students' homework after school, and she didn't come home very late.My mother was worried and asked my sister to find it.

When the two sisters went home hand in hand, it was dark.That road is not far away, you can walk home in 30 minutes, and this road is also walked every day, so no one thought that accidents would happen.But at this moment, it began to rain, at first it was a light rain, and soon it became a torrential rain.The two sisters continued to move forward despite the heavy rain, passing under the earthen wall.The wall collapsed, burying the sisters underneath. The rain is still falling and the wind is still blowing.The mother waited and waited, but when her daughter did not come back, she was very anxious.The husband was looking for ore in the wild and did not return home for many years.There is no phone at home, so I cannot report.She had no choice but to run out alone, along the way her daughter went to school, ran to school, and ran back again. She ran all night in the wind and rain, walked through the collapsed earth wall several times, and found nothing unusual.

At dawn, she saw her daughter's umbrella next to the ruined wall, and suddenly understood what had happened. She yelled and rushed over, waving her hands into the earthen wall, like crazy.The earthen wall was torn apart, but it was too late. The two sisters had suffocated to death two hours ago. This kind of change in the family is really a big blow.The mother was in a trance, her body suddenly collapsed, and her nerves were abnormal.The whole family was full of sadness and despair, full of complaints.Complaining about the road, complaining about the wall, complaining about the rain, complaining about government officials, complaining about school teachers, complaining about myself, complaining about my father, I know how to find gold and silver mountains for the country, regardless of my family.All three younger brothers were restless and no longer naughty.Sister is an idol in their hearts, but now they are both afraid to say how much they miss her.

It took my mother more than a year to calm down.After she was convinced that her two daughters really couldn't come back, she stopped looking for them on that path.She also has three sons, and hope. "Don't complain, rely on yourself." The mother always repeated this sentence to her son: "Only your own ability is the most reliable." When the mother said this for the first time, it meant that she had calmly accepted what had happened, that she had come out of despair, and that the family had begun a new life. Zhou Ming was originally the younger brother favored by his two older sisters, but now he feels that he has a responsibility in the family.He has learned a lot from this accident, and plans to make himself as good as his sister and as strong as his mother.

Many years later, when the members of this family sit together, my mother will repeat what she said back then: "Don't complain, rely on yourself." Zhou Ming would also say: "If my family had been a weak family, a low-spirited family, and a family that blamed everyone, it would be impossible for me to be where I am today."