Chapter 2 second quarter

Qinwa was at his uncle's house, and his uncle gave him to the old gentleman in the village school.The old man beat the board so hard that all the words he could recognize flew away.He didn't go to school, so his uncle and aunt coaxed him, no way; dragged him, went and ran; "Born crops!" After listening to his cousin's narration, Kang Tiansheng sighed, "It's really hard for you." Qinwa started to do crop work with her father.Two or three acres of thin sandy land was not enough for the young and vigorous father to do it. Once the busy farming was over, he was free.He was a carpenter, but he couldn't remember the converted size of beams and roof trusses.It seems that it is not he who chooses his career, but his career chooses him. He learned how to play adobe, but it is a matter of convenience.

Among the seventy-two craftsmen in the countryside, adobe-making is done by the most clumsy people. Although it can't be said that they don't have any skills, they mainly rely on hard work.Qinwa used her father's smooth persimmon tree mold to build a pile of adobe (about five hundred) to build a hut and a pigsty. The base has been knocked down.In this way, Qinwa became a teacher by playing adobe. When there are many ways to live, the father and son each go out to do work with a stone ram and a pair of wooden models.When there were few ways to live, Qinwa asked her father to stay in the house to rest and went alone.

His adobe hits well.Within a radius of ten miles, as soon as people heard that he was the son of the old adobe man, they led him into the moat with complete trust. On this day, Qinwa finished building a pile of adobes for Wu San’s family in Wuzhuang, and the sun had just set on Yuanpo in April of the lunar calendar.He ate dinner after a while, took the string of hemp money that Wu San handed him, put it in his waist, carried the stone ram and wooden model on his back, and said goodbye.As soon as she walked out of the gate, Wu San's woman came towards her with a dark look on her face: "The adobes are stacked upside down!"

"Ah?" Wu San's eyes widened immediately, and he grabbed his ram, "I wasted the money, and you ate the food for nothing? You don't want to go!" "Think of yourself as unlucky!" Qin Wa shook off Wu San's tugging hand and said.According to the unwritten but customary rules in the countryside, when a pile of adobe is finished, as long as the person who made the pile of adobe walks out of the trench and the pile falls over, the wages must be paid accordingly.When Qinwa played the adobe for Wu San's family today, she found that the soil was too soft. Later, she thought that the adobe would harden quickly in the hot weather in April, so she didn't mind.When he first heard Mrs. Wu report this unfortunate incident, he smacked his lips, feeling uncomfortable.But when he saw Wu San turned his face and opened his eyes to deny anyone, he also came up hard, "Didn't the adobe be poured on my wooden form..."

Wu San and his wife began to scold each other.The surrounding men and women of Wuzhuang pushed him away.Cursing is cursing, feeling bad is not feeling good, but the township regulations and civil agreements cannot be violated.He came home. "Dogs are unreasonable!" Sitting on the wooden bench in the small building, Qinwa narrated what happened today to her father who was sitting on the threshold, "If he is easy on me, let's make another stack for him, free of charge! Hmph! He's talking nonsense, I don't want to eat his tricks!" After Kang Tiansheng listened to it, he didn't say a word. He took the hemp money that his son handed him to him and earned it for Wu San's adobe, and held it in his hand. After a while, he stood up and put it in the rectangular wooden box. It was a dressing box given by the late wife's natal family.He did not speak, and lay down to sleep.

Qinwa also lay down and fell asleep.Father seems to be such a person, no matter what you say, he doesn't speak much.If you are happy, smile; if you are angry, cough.He neither smiled nor sighed today, that's all he is. When Qinwa heard her father's cry, she opened her eyes. It was dark, and under the soybean oil lamp, her father had already lifted the stone ram onto his shoulders.He hurriedly got up, put on his clothes and trousers, and went to get his own set of tools, probably his father had promised a job in some distant village. "You don't have to take any furniture," said the father. "You carry the ram, and I'll offer the soil."

After all, the father carried the stone ram out of the door, and Qinwa followed behind and locked the door.The village is quiet and quiet, a crescent crescent like a hook and sickle is suspended over the western plateau, and the river beach is filled with the sound of frogs. "Dad, which village are you going to?" "Don't ask, just follow me." Qinwa stopped talking, passed Majia Village, Xibao, Zhujiazhai... Tian Maming, walked into the alley of Wuzhuang Village.Father still didn't stop and didn't look back. He turned around the big cross in Wuzhuang and stood at the gate of Wu San.Qinwa was taken aback, and was about to get angry at her father when Wu San came out from the door.

"Third brother, are you still building adobe in that trench?" Wu San was taken aback, and said angrily, "Am I still beating?" "You're only right, isn't it the trench?" "I've found another adobe builder." Qin Wa couldn't bear it anymore (so humble and degrading), he suddenly turned around and left.Just a few steps away, the clothes on the shoulders were grabbed by the father who rushed forward.Without saying a word, the father and son came to the big trench where Qinwa had built adobe yesterday. "Tamp up!" Kang Tiansheng filled the wooden form with soil and ordered.

Qin Wa sighed loudly, picked up the ram, and jumped onto the bluestone platform where the adobe was built.On the rural fields that had just woken up from the silence of the night, there was the rhythmic sound of bluestone rammers beating adobe. The sun came out from the top of Dongyuan, and Qinwa was so thirsty.In the past, when the sun was red, the host would send tea and crispy and soft dough pot helmets to the trench.What kind of useless thing did you do today! It was time for the rural people to have breakfast. On the dirt road outside the moat, the peasants who had returned from their work on the slopes and rivers walked on to the densely tree-shaded village of Wuzhuang.The father and son stopped their hands, and the father took out the dry bun from his pocket and gnawed it.Qinwa's throat was dry and astringent, she looked at the dried black-faced bun, but she didn't move, she turned her head aside, avoiding his father's eyes, he was afraid of seeing his pitiful eyes.For the first time, he strongly felt the humiliation and despicableness of a stupid person, and hated his father who was willing to do despicable behavior.

The very hot sun in April of the lunar calendar runs from east to west along the flat top of the plateau. When it is next to the top of the slope of the west plateau, 500 piles of adobe are neatly piled up on the site that collapsed yesterday. Beside a pile of remnants.The father and son packed up their tools and took off the clothes thrown on the ground, and walked out of the trench. "Tell the third child to cover the adobe, and be careful that it will rain in the dark today." The father sent a message to an old man at the entrance of the village, "I think it will rain tonight. Look at the cloud platform at the mouth of the West River..."

"Let's go, let's go, let's go!" Qin Wa stepped out of the distance and yelled at her father, "What the hell are you doing so carelessly?" When Qinwa came home, she threw down the furniture as soon as she entered the door, squatted under the stove, and lit the wheat straw. The wet wood choked her nose and tears, and the bellows flapped loudly.He was hungry and thirsty, and he was on fire.The father didn't say a word, and kneaded the dough silently on the chopping board.If father speaks, he is ready to quarrel!He can't stand being such a wimpy person. "Brother Kang!" With a call, a head poked through the door, and Qinwa looked back, but it was Wu San. He turned his head, ignored it, and continued to pull the bellows.Father went up to meet him. "Brother Kang! Really... Oh! Really..." Wu San and his father sat down at the table, "I'm not in the house today, I went to a relative's house. I only heard when I came back that you laid down another pile..." "It's nothing...hehehe..." The father was obviously not moved by Wu San's expressive expression, and responded lightly, "It's nothing." "Your father and son have been hungry all day, and thirsty all day!" Wu Sanyue said more and more excitedly, "As soon as I tell my mother, I will come to see you immediately. If I don't come, the people in Wuzhuang will scold me for being incomprehensible." human." "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Hitting a bunch of scumbags makes us feel uneasy!" "Don't say it, don't say it." Wu San turned his face, "Brother Qinwa, don't hold grudges...Brother, I made a slip of the tongue..." Strangely enough, all the anger and resentment that had been nestled in her heart for a whole day disappeared all at once. Qin Wa glanced at Wu San with a silly smile on her face, and smiled embarrassedly, expressing that she was also at fault.He lowered his head to burn the pot, it seems that Wu San is a quick-tempered and enthusiastic person, a good farmer!He called his father an elder brother and himself a brother, what kind of class did he settle for!Anyway, he was pushing himself down. "This is two handfuls of dried noodles, and this is wages." Wu San's voice. "No way! No way!" Father hastily pressed Wu San's hand. "Your father and son haven't eaten or drank all day..." "Not so not so..." Qin Wa couldn't keep silent anymore, she jumped up from the stove and helped her father hold down Wu San's hand: "Uncle San..." The next day, a rural woman in her fifties in Wuzhuang walked into the small courtyard of Qinwa's house, and with a mysterious but hidden joy on her face, she told Kang Tiansheng that Wu San asked her to propose marriage to Qinwa. They want to promise their second girl to Qinwa.In order to prove this point, the rural woman especially emphasized what Wu San asked her to say when she was doing things: "Wu San said, we don't want high-rise houses and courtyards, and we don't want cars and horses. We want to make Kang's father and son honest. I won't treat our baby badly..." According to the old and serious engagement method in the country, with the exchange of posts, gifts and other complicated procedures, the marriage was finally successfully matched by the country woman as a matchmaker.Kang Tiansheng bundled the pile of copper coins and hemp money in the wooden box of his dead wife neatly with red paper, and handed it to the matchmaker in his fifties. The marriage has just been decided, and the strong man is sent to Qinwa. "Run!" Kang Tiansheng said, "I've spent my whole life making adobes and paid Lao Jiang a lifetime of money, now it's your turn again!" Qin Wa frowned, uncomfortable and panicked: "I ran away, what do you do?" "If you run, I'll run too!" Kang Tiansheng said, "Where can't I have a meal? Just carry the wooden mold and stone rammer!" Qin Wa escaped.Half a year later, he came back and told the panicked peasants in the village, Liberation!In the past few days, the sound of cannons in the direction of Nanshan has been heard. It was fired by the People's Liberation Army forcing the Kuomintang army.He confirmed to people that the bag of foreign noodles he brought back on his shoulders was picked up in the willow forest by the river, and it was dropped by the national army when they fled in a hurry after failing... Day and night, the day that I have been thinking about in my heart, the third day of the first lunar month, the day of marrying Qinwa, came amidst urgent preparations and anxious anticipation.Tomorrow—the third day of the first lunar month, in Kang Tiansheng's small crop yard, which has been lonely and desolate for eighteen years, there will be a woman in flowered shirts with long hair.Whether he and his son Qinwa came back from working in the fields, or went to other villages to sell adobe for others, they would have a bowl of hot rice at the door.This woman wakes up every morning and sweeps the yard with a long-handled bamboo broom, sweeping the street outside the gate. The yard will never be covered with a thick layer of fallen leaves and weeds and wormwood, and foxes, cats and leopards will never dare to visit again ( Several times, when Kang Tiansheng came back from digging adobe, he found their claw marks and hairy feces in the small courtyard, which is chilling)!It is certain that within a few years, there will be a doll with fur or pigtails in this small courtyard. This is a home!In such a warm family, Kang Tian lives and dies, and he feels calm in his heart, and there is no need to worry about anything! Hello folks!No need to ask, everyone is here to help.Those who planted piles and set up mat sheds in the small courtyard, and those who borrowed tables, chairs and benches, went in and out, busy happily.Usually, he and Qinwa spend more time outside, less time at home, and less contact with fellow countrymen and party members.People say that if a family has a phoenix tree, it will attract a phoenix, and if a family has a bachelor, it will attract a bachelor, but this is not the case.His father and son are bachelors, but very few people come to visit.His father and son can't play cards and roll dice, and they can't drink and hang out.Whoever comes here rarely even has a sip of hot water.However, when Qinwa was going to have a wedding, the township party members still enthusiastically came to help with the cooking.After liberation, people became kinder and warmer, and the morals of the world became more humane. Today is the second day of the first lunar month, and my husband's cousin and sister-in-law came over after breakfast.They knew that their brother-in-law was a big man, and since he hadn't been through such a big happy event, he must have been so busy that he couldn't figure it out, and he didn't even know how Qinwa was dressed to welcome her.Qinwa grew up in their house since she was a child, just like a mother and an old man.They came early to arrange the wedding for the bereaved son of their sister who died early. Kang Tiansheng felt that he had nothing to do.He can't get his hands in anywhere, but he is busy with other people's inquiries: where is the ax?Is there any twine?He himself didn't know where the ax was thrown.When the hemp rope was found, it was the hemp silk that was bitten into a pile by mice.The inquirer smiled, and simply didn't ask anything, and went back to his house to get the furniture he needed. Kang Tiansheng couldn't sit still, and couldn't keep his mind steady.The old man walked out of the street gate, instead of taking the main road to the east of the village, he bypassed the beams on the south slope of the village, and quietly came to a belt-shaped field between the east slopes of the village.In the strip of field tightly winding around the hillside, his dead wife is buried forever, poor man! The grave mound lies under the root of the last row of fields, out of the sun, and there is a layer of snow that turns black on the surface. Verbena, cocklebur, achnatherum, wormwood, and dry branches and leaves still protect the mound.The overgrown branches of the accumulated trees have grown thicker than arms, almost twenty years old! Kang Tiansheng sat down on the wheat seedlings beside the field, faced the grave of his dead wife, muttered for a long time, and said, "Let me tell you, our son-in-law is going to get married tomorrow..." He wanted to tell his dear late wife how much he had gone through to bring up their son.The adobe he laid for others can be built around the city wall of Xi'an.The sweat he shed can water a part of the rice field.It was difficult enough for him to raise a two-year-old mother-divorced son into a young man in the turbulent and plague-ridden countryside!He was right with her, so he should be relieved now... He wanted to tell her how sad it was without her.On the way back from digging the adobe, he didn't feel that he was alone, she was walking beside him, staring at him with melancholy and gentle eyes.At night, he dreamed of her and called out loudly in surprise. When he woke up, he was still alone on the kang... The fields are quiet and quiet, the afterglow of the sun still remains in the sky where the source slope meets the blue sky, and the evening mist has gathered from Nanyuan and Beiling towards the river.On the dirt roads along the river, there are men and women who come back from visiting relatives and friends during the Spring Festival. Kang Tiansheng sat down, but didn't say anything else.Like any well-educated person in the world, this farmer has rich inner emotional activities, but he is clumsy all the year round to make adobe, and he is not good at expressing his inner feelings with his tongue. Thinking about it again, Kang Tiansheng had something to say: "Don't worry, things are better now, and you're liberated..." He wanted to tell her that there were many scary things that had never been heard before in Kangjia Village.Officials in gray uniforms came to the village, and they were not called cadres, but comrades, and there were also female cadres with untied buns and loose hair.The real estate, fields, livestock and grain of the wealthy Kang Laojiu family were distributed to the poor in Kangjiazhuang.The three gangsters from the UNPO who beat his butt with willow sticks were tied up and put on the platform, and put in prison.He and Qinwa make money by making adobe, and they don't have to pay the United Nations Insurance Office anymore... He sighed: If you were alive, how wonderful it would be now! Kang Tiansheng felt a strange sour feeling in his nasal cavity, and he couldn't bear to recall it, so he raised his head. Raising his head, Kang Tiansheng saw his son Qinwa standing beside him. He didn't know how long he had been here. "My aunt asked me to come and burn paper for my mother..." Qinwa said, "I have already burned paper for my grandfather and mother-in-law, now come and burn paper for my mother..." Well!It's really fascinating!The day before the younger generation gets married, they burn paper to pray to the deceased ancestors, which is not only to inform the ancestors' spirits in heaven, but also to pray for the protection of the ancestors' gods.He actually forgot to ask Qinwa to burn paper for his biological mother, but he came here quietly. Qinwa knelt down in front of the tomb, lit a pair of small lacquer waxes, and stuck them in the empty soil in front of the tomb; she also lit five purple-red sticks of incense, and the cigarettes curled up among the weeds and accumulated trees. The dead branches are lingering; the negative paper is also ignited, and the flames are flickering. After Qinwa finished all this, she waited quietly for the Yin paper to burn out.He didn't seem obviously uncomfortable, just like doing an ordinary thing, although he was serious, he was not emotional.Kang Tiansheng immediately felt a wave of hatred in his heart.After thinking about it, I forgave my son again.He left his mother when he was two years old, and he couldn't remember what his mother looked like. Mother——is his aunt! Kang Tiansheng looked at the flickering candles, the lingering cigarettes, and the flames that shot up from the shadow paper, and his heart was surging. Regardless of whether his son was emotional or not, he wanted to loudly comfort the souls of the underworld: the world has changed.The Kang family's fireworks will not stop.Kang Tiansheng's real life begins!Ancestral gods, all relax!