Chapter 41 Chapter One

Fan Fulin paced the market. He is very leisurely, holding a palm-sized sand pot in his hand, uncovering the lid from time to time, blowing on the tea leaves floating on the water, and solemnly taking a couple of sips.Two symmetrically curved thin legs are moving slowly, holding his small head high, and straightening his thin chest wrapped in cotton-padded clothes and leather jackets as much as possible, in order to remind people to pay attention to a certain dignity in him .However, the ragged leather jacket is a bit of a sight. Even though it is wrapped in a cold-proof overcoat, it still "occasionally reveals itself", and the black and shiny animal skin that has lost all its hair is put under the pointed buttocks.

Many people greeted him.In Danwan Town, how many people don't know him?He handles it all.This deal was very measured, he nodded in general, and greeted him better for tea-but he never handed the beloved sand pot to anyone's face.For those dearest and dearest, there was some good-natured banter and, now and then, some not-too-nasty jokes, with small-town vulgar wit counteracting each other's vulgarity of wit.Then, a burst of laughter.They grinned at each other, went their own way, and were busy with their own affairs. Everyone is busy.Everyone in this small town has some small dreams that are not extravagant: a house, a better house; the son marries a wife, longing to be able to set up ten tables and eight tables of wine; the daughter gets married Those who do not have a job hope to have a job soon; those who have a job hope to get a job as an official... In order to make these "little dreams" come true, everyone is working hard. Use scheming and might.Fan Fulin felt that the minds of everyone on this street were not so clean!

The warm sun was shining in the sky, and wisps of steam rose from the wet ground beside the road.It is not cold.With a sip of hot tea in his mouth, Fan Fulin felt a little excited.He felt that he should hum something. The head was shaking on his shoulders, with a sense of rhythm.It's not authentic, but it's also interesting.Fan Fulin continued to move his thin legs, and began to casually inspect the gray town.The small town is the whole world to him. He inspects the world. It is a gray world to be inspected.To the west of the town is a power plant, and several tall chimneys invade the clear sky of the town with billowing smoke day and night.The most famous industry in the town is coal mining. The original site of the town was a coal kiln in the late Qing Dynasty, and people used to call it an old mine.Old mines are relative to new mines.The new mine is located on a loess slope two or three miles east of the town. Down the slope is the coal train track. The siren and the train roar all day long, completely submerging the town in the surrounding noise.The two gangue hills of the new mine can be regarded as majestic, but they lack a little beauty.Now, in order to resettle unemployed youths, a brick factory has been opened under Gangue Mountain, using gangue to burn bricks.Standing on the street market of the town, you can see the tall chimneys of the brick factory.

Most of the citizens in the town are more or less, directly or indirectly, related to the coal mine.On rainy days, the streets are full of long rubber boots issued by the mine.In spring and autumn, the same style of work clothes is everywhere, and almost everyone, regardless of adults or children, wears one.It is winter now, and most of the winter coats on the street are of the same color and style, which are also issued by the mine. Fan Fulin has never worked as a miner, and he is wearing one now, which belongs to his son. The town has become much more lively in recent years.Meiyuan Road, the main street, has two intersections. In addition to the original two department stores, several collectively operated stores have been added. Some stores have neon lights installed at the entrances, which are quite modern and civilized.The catering service industry is more prosperous. There are pancake shops and food stalls on both sides of the road, some street-run and some self-employed, steaming and bustling.This small town is located at the junction of the three provinces of Jiangsu, Shandong and Anhui, and its living habits are most heavily influenced by Shandong.People in the town have the habit of eating pancakes. In the past, almost every household had chaizi, which is the utensil for making pancakes.

Fan Fulin loves pancakes.He often promotes his "Pancake Doctrine" to people: "Pancakes are delicious, chewy and chewy, and they are solid to fill in the stomach. Just three or five of them in a bowl of salty soup can last a day! Rice, hey What is rice? Take three bowls of it, and a few farts will be gone!" The listener laughed, but he didn't. All the way around, he paid special attention to the pancake shop.When he turned to the first intersection, he noticed that two more individual pancake shops had opened, so he bought two pure white flour pancakes at the first pancake shop.

Next to it, there is a breakfast stall selling soybean juice and fried dough sticks. It is eight or nine o'clock, and there are still many people patronizing here.Most of these people are the same as Fan Fulin, they are retired old men and women, and Fan Fulin knows a few of them. "Hey, Brother Fan, sit down: sit here!" A fat man with a pig's head and a pig's brain greeted him. While moving his glossy lips up and down, his broad buttocks moved symbolically amidst the creaking of the bench. "Oh, you sit! You sit!" Fan Fulin pulled the shriveled flesh on his face, making an unqualified smile.

"Brother Fan, how are you doing these days?" Zhu Tou chewed on pancakes, staring at Fan Fulin with malicious eyes. "Fucking! Fooling! Hehe!" The two "hehe" were forced out of the throat, and there was contempt in the accommodating. "Hey, Brother Fan, I heard that there is a new construction team in the town, all unemployed educated youths, and I want to invite some old bricklayers to help, haven't you signed up?" Fan Fulin rolled his eyelids: "Report—" "You report it and I report it, our old brothers..." "I'll give him a seat!"

Fan Fulin felt that his good mood was ruined, so he decided not to talk to Zhu Tou anymore.After ordering a bowl of steaming bean juice and two crispy fried dough sticks, his teeth began to work meticulously.He put the sand pot on the table, and wanted to put the felt hat on his head and the sand pot side by side, but the table was dark and there was too much sludge, he hesitated, and finally put the felt hat on his lap superior. Something fleshy was rubbing against his knee. He looked down and saw a small red apple-like face protruding from the belly of the table: "Grandpa Fan is good!"

"Uh, uh", the mixture of pancakes and fritters stuck in his mouth, and under the pressure of a sip of soybean juice, it slid down the suddenly thickened throat into his stomach, "Whose boy? You're so good!" "Grandpa Fan is good!" There was a burst of laughter at the stall.Fan Fulin also laughed.The pig's head had a special smile, and its two golden teeth gleamed yellow in the sunlight. Laughter is a call, a kind of indulgence.The little guy became a little unscrupulous, leaning on Fan Fulin's lap, tilted his head, and asked: "Grandpa Fan, are you still anti-revolutionary?"

"Ah-ah sneeze!" Fan Fulin's nose and tears came out together, "This...you little dog, who taught you? Oh?" ​​He pushed the little guy away, looked up and looked maliciously. The crowd stuffed the thick pancake roll deep into their mouths in a demonstration, and bit it off with a single bite... Fan Fulin felt very uncomfortable.He has been nicknamed "counter-revolutionary" for more than ten years, and he has never felt that there is anything unreasonable, but today he feels that it is too unreasonable——after all, he has reached the age where people need to respect him.

In the past, everyone called him a "counter-revolutionary".This appellation is easy to pronounce, easy to remember, and convenient to write. Even a three-year-old child calls it this way.Some people wanted to call his name solemnly, but when they saw his undignified face and his tongue was rolling in his mouth, the boundary between the pronunciation of "Fan Fulin" and "counter-revolutionary" was not very clear. This face is really not dignified, and every time he picks up the mirror, Fan Fulin has to complain about his ancestors.The forehead is narrow and protruding, the chin is pointed, and the silhouette looks like a pear with a crooked neck.The eye sockets are sunken, the small eyeballs are yellow and dry, and lack moisture.Under the eye sockets, protruding a little bit, is a bulbous nose, red and big.The mouth is even more unruly. The upper gum is desperately expanding itself, pushing the lips under the nose in an unfriendly way; the lower lip protests angrily, and it is extra thick. Viewed from the side, it looks like a ball of cotton brim.Wrinkles are irregularly imposed on the thin face, and the gray hair also extinguishes the trend of black hair in one fell swoop.If there had ever been something beautiful in that face, it was gone today. He is old, fifty-six. It is a great tragedy to be old and not respected by people.Fan Fulin endures the pain brought about by this tragedy every day.But he was sloppy about everything, and he was sloppy about pain. The "Reference News" said that it is really good: soybean milk is more nutritious than milk and has more calories.Fan Fulin passed a bowl of soybean juice into his stomach, and a few tiny drops of sweat were pushed out of his pores.He burped comfortably, paid the bill, barely stuffed the last bite of pancake fritters into his mouth, and stood up. The pig's head hadn't finished eating yet, seeing that he was about to leave, he hurriedly put the chews in his mouth into the gills next to his tongue, and whimpered: "Brother Fan, you really don't want to do anything about the construction team?" "Bullshit! I don't have a son or grandson who is unemployed, so why would I do it?!" Neither humble nor overbearing, justified.Fan Fulin turned his disdainful eyes away from the fat face of the pig's head, cleaned the residue in the mouth with his tongue, and continued to shake forward. After crossing the Liukong Bridge, we came to the town committee compound at the end of Meiyuan Road.Fan Fulin is no stranger to this place. On the square of the compound, he bowed his head and hanged himself in a fight. In front of the tall chairman’s portrait, he piously pleaded guilty. He also went here to petition earlier. Now it seems that petitioning is not very fashionable. , he just went rare. The town committee compound is undoubtedly the place of glory, majesty, and solemnity of the town. A national emblem hangs high above the tall and imposing gatehouse, and four or five prominent signs stand side by side on both sides of the gatehouse. There is an old man standing in front of the sign all day long. Smoking dry tobacco there seems to form a solemn concept together with the gatehouse, wooden sign and national emblem.Lanterns and festoons began to be decorated on the gate tower, and the red lanterns had been hung from the beams of the gate tower. Only then did Fan Fulin suddenly realize that the Spring Festival is coming... Behind the town committee is the post office, and there are many poker stands in front of the post office.Most of the people occupying these poker booths are retired workers, almost all of whom are over sixty years old.This is one of the more exciting parts of the town's genre paintings.When you come here, you will feel that everything is vulgar except the sunlight.Some people lean against the wall and catch lice facing the sun, exposing their unfit breasts in broad daylight.To play poker, shoes must be topped. It seems that their pleasure lies in being stepped on by others, and not just one foot. high.These people who have worked hard all their lives, dug out several coal mountains, and become grandpas or great-grandpas are just consuming their extra lives and waiting for death peacefully.No one thought it was unreasonable, and no one thought about changing it, not even themselves. An elegant life with a taste of art is like listening to Dagushu.The storytelling field is in the big hollow across the way.According to an old kiln worker in the late Qing Dynasty, it turned out that this depression had water, and a landowner surnamed Liu lived beside it.In the early years of the Republic of China, this place belonged to Shandong, and the place name marked on the map of Shandong Province was Liu Wa.Now, this depression is completely dry, probably dry up for several decades.I don't know which storyteller discovered this place, and it was officially opened as an art world. This art is a kind of art unique to the small town.Everything has changed here, the storyteller is both an actor and a writer.In the revolutionary era, Li Tiemei and Wang Lianju also talked about the object of the story of the model opera.The other one is different again, and Wang Lianju is arranged as Li Tiemei's cousin, saying that she has arranged a baby marriage since childhood.Both entertainers were later sentenced to prison.The storyteller also has a unique trick. When it comes to a detail that can be understood but cannot be expressed in words, he insists on expressing it in words, and this wording is bound to insult the women's world, so he bows, makes a bow, and says something in his mouth: "Sister-in-law, sister-in-law, please take three steps back for now. The elder sister said: It doesn't matter, it doesn't get in the way, storyteller, you say it! We are women in New China, but it's okay to say it! Okay! Let me tell you. Don't scold me if you say it. Scolding, I can’t hear you, a gust of wind blows away your house!” After speaking, the vulgar essence blurted out, and in the blink of an eye, there was laughter in the small depression. Fan Fulin likes listening to books.He thinks he has a few artistic cells.Here, he finished listening to "Water Margin" one after another, and now he is listening to "Three Kingdoms". The storyteller is Pocky Liu, a famous artist in the town.At this moment, Guan Yu, Guan Gong, and Guan Erye are passing five levels in the splashing saliva. With his two short and thick hands, he is beating the small flat drum in the center of the depression. His blue veins were protruding high, and the audience around him was no less than a hundred people.Fan Fulin looked around and saw his neighbor Liu Fushou, who lived in the same building, sitting on the edge of the southern slope in the morning sun with an old cigarette pipe in his hand, so he walked over with his thin legs shaking. Liu Fushou is like a thin, curled dry fish, holding a two-foot-long bong in his hands like chicken feet. If you compare him with each other, you will feel that his weight must not be much heavier than the bong. You may even wonder: whether he can carry this gun. Seeing Fan Fulin approaching him, Liu Fushou hurriedly moved his thin buttocks that were on the ground. "Sit down! Sit down!" "Hey, sit down! How long have you been driving?" "Just sang a few lines, it's not too late!" Greeting, Liu Fushou handed over the bong, and Fan Fulin took it bluntly, and took a few puffs: "Drink! Taste! Taste! Did you just buy the tobacco leaves?" "Sent by someone, authentic Kanto leaves!" "Good! Good!" Seemingly feeling a little sorry, Fan Fulin handed the small sand pot to Liu Fushou's hand: "Come on, come and taste my tea, first-class Longjing tea!" Liu Fushou held the sand pot, first warmed his hands, then solemnly lifted the lid, sniffed the imaginary tea aroma with his ineffective nose that could not even distinguish gasoline and alcohol, and then drank it with a "gulp" Take a sip: "Oh, not bad! Go home and make a pot for me." "All right!" Liu Fushou is not as addicted to listening to books as Fan Fulin is. When he comes to this chaotic storytelling hall, he is not so much listening to books as he is here to join in the fun.He is most afraid of loneliness in his life, and he can't bear it the most. When he grows old, when the heavy twilight envelops everything around him, he doesn't want to stay there alone. "Hey, Fulin, have you heard? Our town has a new secretary, who took office the day before yesterday, and Sun Datou is gone!" "Oh? What's the new secretary's last name?" "The surname is Zhao! His name is... his name is Zhao Shuang!" Liu Fushou's flat and withered face showed a trace of satisfaction, "I know this person. He used to stay in the coal mine earlier and was the porter's secretary!" "Is it him? I know him too!" After I finished speaking, I felt a little regretful.When he met Zhao Shuang, he still wore a counter-revolutionary hat on his head. What is there to brag about? ! The complacency on Liu Fushou's face was a little bit lost because of these words, and he murmured: "Wow! It's even better if you know him well. Secretary Zhao is not bad, he is much better than Datou Sun. Maybe, maybe your house problem can be solved!" "Hey! Brother Fushou, I still say the same thing. We don't believe in anyone but ourselves! We count on him? There is no shadow! We have to rise up and save ourselves like the Internationale! Just wait and see, and I will do it later Go to the town committee to pester him, damn it, if he..." "Oh... listen to the book! Listen to the book! Why are you talking about those unlucky things? I can still talk to Secretary Zhao, and I will come to help you when the time comes!" Fan Fulin sighed and said nothing. The two were thinking about each other, listening to the book in a daze. Pockmarked Liu sang vigorously, his face flushed, the drums were beating loudly, and his voice became a little hoarse. Rather than singing, it was more like screaming. This screaming was quite primitive, and it could be considered strong and intense. up.Guan Yu, Guan Gong, and Guan Erye did not covet the wealth and glory of the Cao camp, and they had passed four passes in a row with all their heart in returning to Han.Some cunning audience members wanted to slip away. Pockmarked Liu cursed around the bush, kept saluting, and every time he received a corner ticket, he enthusiastically praised the owner of the corner ticket. At the moment when the drum stopped, Fan Fulin ran wild horses in his mind.The conversation with Liu Fushou brought back many unforgettable memories about himself and this small town.He felt that the world was sorry for him.In the past, he didn't dare to think like this even in his dreams, but now, he not only dared to think like this, he also dared to say like this.It's not simple. I don't know when he became bold.This boldness and greatness are about the same.He felt that he already had a taste of greatness.He wants to be a human being, and he wants to be a human being with integrity. He wants to regain everything that was lost in the past with the rights of a human being.He wants to be respected by others, and he feels that when others respect him, he will respect them too.In the same way, only when the society respects him can he respect the society, but did the society really respect him in the past? he thinks. he thought seriously.