Chapter 24 Chapter Twenty-Four

Cao Ershun was blind in his left eye, and half of the bridge of his nose became a gloomy landscape hanging under his right eye forever.He still doesn't want to tell others that Xiao Taiping was blinded by a punch, and he doesn't tell his wife Dani and younger sister Cao Yue'e.On the day she came back from the accident, Dani was so anxious that she screamed strangely, but Cao Ershun just kept silent.His younger sister Cao Yue'e came to ask him, but he didn't make a sound, but kept wiping away the tears from his right eye with his sleeve, feeling ashamed and hated in his heart.

Cao Ershun thought that he had foolishly carried Mr. Zhang to the kiln, let Mr. Zhang escape, and almost killed Xiao Taiping and more than two hundred brothers from Changzipo, so he felt that he deserved this punch.But this punch was not punched by others, but by Xiao Taiping, so he hated it.Who is Xiao Taiping?It's my own brother-in-law, it's the head of the second regiment that my father likes.In his father's last days, he and Xiao Taiping were the ones pushing the cart and the other pulling the fiber, taking care of the injured father all the way to the kiln area by the Damo River.Father also told them along the way that he was afraid that he would die, and he wanted them to help each other like brothers in the future.Today Xiao Taiping was able to play such a cruel hand.

This punch completely destroyed the family relationship between Cao and Xiao. Cao Yue'e didn't know the details, so she said to Xiao Taiping when she got home: "...my second brother was blinded in one eye, do you know?" Xiao Taiping had already forgotten about the beating of Cao Ershun. Hearing Cao Yuee's words, he was stunned: "Wh... what? Second brother's... was beaten blind in one eye? Really?" Cao Yuee said, "Isn't that right? No matter how I asked, he didn't say who beat him." Xiao Taiping was taken aback for another moment, then sighed: "Blame me, blame me."

Cao Yuee said: "Isn't it your fault? You are the shopkeeper of the kiln, and the second brother was beaten like this by others. You can't let go!" Xiao Taiping sighed again, and after he sighed, he gave Cao Yuee ten taels of silver, and asked Cao Yuee to send it to Cao Ershun immediately, so that Cao Ershun could go and see the injury, and told him that if the silver was not enough, he had to go to the shopkeeper's house to pay for his eyes. "...Also, I told my second brother not to go to the kiln this month. You can make it clear to him that if you don't go to the kiln, it will be counted as his salary for sixty workers. I will accept it here. I will ask Dani to remember to go every five and ten. The kiln called sorghum to get the money." Xiao Taiping said.

It was rare for Cao Yue'e to see Xiao Taiping being so generous to her brother, so she happily took the money to see Cao Ershun, and told Cao Ershun all about Xiao Taiping's generous promise.As soon as Cao Ershun heard his sister mention Xiao Taiping, he became angry. Not only did he not want the ten taels of silver, but he also drove his sister away, saying that he and the surnamed Xiao had made a clean break, and from then on the two sides would never owe each other. This surprised Cao Yue'e and Dani, and both thought Cao Ershun was too unreasonable. Regardless of what Cao Ershun thought, Dani took the ten taels of silver that Cao Yuee had brought, knelt down on the ground with her big belly and kowtowed to Cao Yuee.Seeing her second brother who was blind in one eye and Chunwang and Qiuwang who were crying on the kang, Cao Yue'e felt really uncomfortable, so she hugged Dani and cried out loudly.

After weeping, Cao Yue'e pointed at Cao Ershun's forehead and scolded: "...Second brother, don't be ignorant! I'm not for you, but for my sister-in-law and children! If you want to be really tough, you have to be like Xiao Taiping and be a good person. Come and show me how, don't let me, as a younger sister, worry about you all day long..." At this point, Cao Ershun still didn't tell the truth, but just yelled at his sister sullenly: "I...I didn't want you to worry about me, you...you go, you go..." Cao Yuee left crying and never came back for a long time.

Because of the injury to his left eye, Cao Ershun really couldn't go to the kiln anymore, which gave him a rare 22 days of free time in his life.It was twenty-two days, and Cao Ershun remembered it clearly until his death.During these 22 days, Cao Ershun stayed with Dani except for going to Jurentang in Qiaotou Town and James' foreign clinic for eye treatment. With Dani, Cao Ershun's heart is much more peaceful. Seeing Dani's constant tears, Cao Ershun said: "...Why are you crying? It's okay to be blind in one eye, and it's not completely blind. Besides, being blind is better than breaking a leg. We have arms and legs. Every day You can still go to the kiln to earn that five liters of sorghum."

Dani didn't want to hurt Cao Ershun's heart anymore, so she nodded to Cao Ershun with tears in her eyes. Cao Ershun settled the accounts again: "...I can always produce more than forty kilns in a month, and earn more than twenty buckets of sorghum, which is more than twenty loads a year, which is not a small amount. Without my sister and the others, we can also To live, we need some backbone." Dani gestured to Cao Ershun and told Cao Ershun that her younger sister, Cao Yue'e, was different from Xiao Taiping, she was a good person. Cao Ershun said: "No matter how good my sister is, she's from their Xiao family. It's better for us to have as little contact with her as I feel upset when I see her."

Dani couldn't figure out what Cao Ershun was thinking, she just looked at Cao Ershun in a daze. The two sons Chunwang and Qiuwang also became intimate with Cao Ershun during these 22 days, and they didn't want to sleep on the kang all day long, and they always wanted Cao Ershun to hug them.Cao Ershun held a son in one hand, and his heart burst with irrepressible pride.At night, when Chunwang and Qiuwang fell asleep, Cao Ershun caressed Dani's swollen belly, and thought, the one in Dani's belly must be a son!My sister said that he didn't look like a man, he was so wrong - he married Dani and started a family, and he had three sons, so he didn't look like a man? !

These 22 days also brought Cao Ershun faith in God.Cao Ershun met Pastor James because he went to a foreign clinic for eye treatment. This acquaintance was very accidental, it can be said that Dani forced Cao Ershun to meet him.Mr. Wang from Jurentang had already diagnosed that Cao Ershun's left eye would never recover. Dani refused to give up and dragged Cao Ershun into the foreign clinic at the western end of the town.Only then did Cao Ershun meet Pastor James. Pastor James is a kind person. Seeing Cao Ershun and Dani with their two young children, one of them is dumb, and the other was injured in his eye, he was very sad. After asking about the situation, he shed tears.Pastor James carefully examined Cao Ershun's eyes and prescribed medicines, but confiscated a penny. Before leaving, he gave Dani a piece of fine white foreign cloth, and asked Dani to make new cotton coats for Chunwang and Qiuwang who had no cotton coats.Cao Ershun never thought that this middle-aged foreigner with yellow hair and blue eyes would have such a good heart. He pulled Dani to kneel together and thanked Pastor James.

Pastor James pulled Cao Ershun and Dani together and said, "...don't thank me, but thank God, our Lord in heaven." From this, Cao Ershun knew God and the Lord of the sky. Three days later, according to the instructions of Pastor James, he went to change the eye drops, and Pastor James gave Cao Ershun a religious enlightenment.Pastor James and Cao Ershun talked about Adam and Eve in Genesis, the great flood and Noah’s Ark when God punished mankind, and the principle that human beings are God’s people and lambs, and they should love and help each other... Cao Ershun was fascinated by this unheard-of story of being kind and the principles of being kind.By the way, Cao Er told Pastor James what he didn’t want to talk to others, and asked Pastor James very puzzled, the Cao and Xiao families have such a family relationship, and the relationship was so in the past, how did Xiao Taiping become like this today? ? Pastor James took Cao Ershun's hand and said, "...My brother, it's not surprising. The first human vendetta happened between brothers with the deepest kinship. Our common ancestors, Adam and Eve, were eating the forbidden fruit After walking out of the Garden of Eden, he gave birth to two sons, one named Cain and the other named Abel. Cain was tempted by the devil Satan, and because of jealousy of Abel, Cain developed hatred and killed Abel. The war between humans and demons began from then on. It continues to this day." Cao Ershun asked: "Did Xiao Taiping also be tempted by Satan?" Pastor James said: "Yes, Satan's evil is pervasive. Human viciousness, greed, indulgence, arrogance, jealousy and other sinful evil deeds are all manifestations of Satan's will. Therefore, we must often talk to God and pray , let God help us resist the will of Satan." At that time, Cao Ershun was not as broad-minded as Pastor James, and he didn’t know how to pray. He still only thought about himself and Xiao Taiping, and thought that God would punish the bad guys, so he asked, “… Cain was tempted by the devil and killed him. My brother, does God not care?" Pastor James said, "How could God tolerate brotherly vendettas? God punished Cain." Cao Ershun asked, "How did God punish Jiayin?" Pastor James said: "God made Cain useless. Although he is the head of a family, everything he does is in vain..." Cao Ershun thought to himself, yes, isn't this Jiayin the Xiao Taiping of today?Xiao Taiping works as the shopkeeper of the kiln, he is a leader, but he doesn't have a son, it's just hard work without success, and it will be nothing in the future. Pastor James said kindly: "...My brother, you must know that our life is given by God, our daily meals are also given by God, our happiness and strength are given by God. God allows us to use honesty We are not allowed to seek happiness by treading on the blood and tears of others." Cao Ershun thought again, isn't Xiao Taiping just stepping on other people's blood and tears to seek his own happiness? ——Including his blood and tears. In the end, Pastor James stroked Cao Ershun's shoulder and concluded: "...Brother, you are right, God is already in your heart. So don't hate, and don't seek revenge, God left a mark on Cain's forehead The imprint of punishment is given, but people are not allowed to take revenge. God sees everything in the world, and will eventually punish those devils who are full of evil..." Cao Ershun believed in what Pastor James said, and felt that the God James said belonged to him.The almighty and omnipresent God has nothing to do with Xiao Taiping, the dead Mr. Zhang, Mr. Bai Er in Mohe City, and the gang of male and female demons on the big and small flower boats who are madly fighting for money. When Cao Ershun saw demons dancing in Qiaotou Town, Pastor James also saw the specter of Satan in Qiaotou Town. In Qiaotou Town during the Tongzhi period, Pastor James was worried about the destruction of the land and the loss of people's spirituality and morality.Pastor James once stood on the field ridge outside the clinic, pointing to the wilderness and the small kiln in the setting sun and said to Cao Ershun: "... What a wonderful field God has given you. The vast land is surrounded by clear rivers, and you can harvest every year. The flowers are blooming in the spring breeze, and the birds are flying in the blue sky. You should be content and thank God for your grace. But you are not satisfied. For money, you are destroying the fields and land that God has given you. If it goes on for a long time, God's punishment will come, and you will be forced to find a new home in pain and helplessness because you cannot get the harvest on the land..." More than a hundred years later, Pastor James' words really came true—in 1995, all the coal reserves around Qiaotou town were exhausted, and nearly 50,000 miners left this completely subsided land in an organized way.Those who remained were forced to carry out difficult reclamation on hundreds of square kilometers of subsidence filled with gangue and black water, and repaid the historical debts they owed for more than a hundred years with redoubled hard work and sweat... Pointing to the large and small flower boats under the Three-Arch Bridge, Pastor James also said to Cao Ershun: "...the sins brought about by greed and madness are serious. The prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases has warned people in Qiaotou Town, but people still don't know Enlightenment. They are huddled in the filthy depravity like pigs and dogs. They don’t distinguish between good and evil, and don’t understand black and white. To be wiped away, the judgment of the end will surely come..." At that time, Cao Ershun was the only one who listened to Pastor James' sermon with a sincere heart.However, although Cao Ershun was full of awe, he couldn't talk to Pastor James. Most of the time, Pastor James was talking to himself alone.Several times, as Pastor James was talking to himself, tears would flow silently from his eyes. Eleven years before Tongzhi, Pastor James was in a painful and glorious loneliness. In the loneliness of Pastor James, Cao Ershun became a sincere lamb of God.Pastor James has since become the most convinced person in Cao Ershun's life.After the eye injury healed, Cao Ershun would always go to Pastor James to listen to the sermon whenever he went to town, and pray with Pastor James in front of the icon... In "The Far Gospel", James recorded it like this—— ... This short and thin miner surnamed Cao and his helpless family left a deep memory on me.The first time I saw him and his dumb wife, I knew that his heart full of suffering was praying for the gospel of God.He converted to God in March of the eleventh year of Tongzhi (that is, 1872), and became the first true Christian among the many miners in Qiaotou Town.Five years later, when Jackson's Gospel School opened in Shanghai, I persuaded the father of many children to send one of his sons to Shanghai to receive a systematic Western education.Out of his incomparable trust in me and the church, he sent his second son to the Shanghai Gospel School amid the ignorant and shameless slander of our church’s charitable work by the Chinese authorities, which made the SPRO China Coal Mine Company of the British Empire have a name Excellent comprador by Jack Cao.As a result, the fate of the Cao family in the next few decades has changed miraculously.This is the will of Almighty God... In the eleventh year of Tongzhi, Cao Ershun didn't know that Qiu Wang, who was learning to speak, would become Cao Jieke, the chief comprador of SPRO China Coal Mine Company in the UK, and would leave a prominent mark in the history of Qiaotou Town and even China's coal industry.At that time, Cao Ershun only feared God and was grateful to Pastor James, but he didn't have any extravagant expectations for life. After 22 days, he went to the kiln before his blindness healed. Within a few days of going to the kiln, the truth about Cao Ershun's blindness came out.It was the Xiaojiayao Ding who was present that night who inadvertently spread the news.This truth shocked everyone with the Cao and Xiao surnames on Kuazipo. The kiln workers with the Cao and Xiao surnames never imagined that Xiao Taiping, who made a fortune and became the kiln shopkeeper, was so cruel to his wife and brother...