Chapter 17 green space

On an ordinary Saturday afternoon in spring, Hou Zhifeng, deputy party secretary of the Hekou Commune, rode a bicycle back home. As soon as they entered the gate, the two children probably heard the sound of the car, and they ran over from the backyard together, grabbing the black bag that he hung on the front of the car. "One for each person." Hou Zhifeng took out the bread and stuffed it into the children's hands with a smile.Although the salary is not high, I always buy some candy or something when I go home every Saturday, so that the children who are looking forward to Dad's return will not be disappointed, and I am used to it.

Wazi and daughter's cheeks bulged.It is natural for children who eat rough food in the countryside to be greedy for soft bread.He patted this one on the back and touched that one's head, which was a happy feeling of being a father.As he approached the age of forty, he felt that he was closer to the child. "I'm back, Secretary Hou." Stepping into the back room, a strange elderly farmer awkwardly stood up from his chair and greeted him earnestly. "This is the uncle of my sister's family in Wangshui Village." His wife Xiurong introduced him, "I've been waiting for you for a long time."

It must be begging him to do something, many people begged him to do something, instead of going to the commune office, they rushed to the house on Sunday, which made him restless.The family has their own land and raises pigs, so they have to do a lot of work during the holidays! "What's the matter?" he asked, wanting to send him away as soon as possible. The visitor began to talk, long-winded and repeated, and finally made one thing clear: his son has been a private teacher in this brigade primary school, with four or five years of teaching experience.The branch secretary is now conspiring with the principal to fire his son and fill it with his own daughter (who just graduated high school last fall).

"It's such an abominable thing!" The visitor was very annoyed, "I'm an ordinary person, there's really nothing I can do..." this is possible.Cadres use their powers to do messy things, which happen from time to time in dozens of brigades in their communes.He replied bluntly, "If what you said is true, I will be responsible for solving it. After I go to work next week, I will find out more about it." "You rest." The visitor stood up and said goodbye, "You worked hard in the commune..." He untied the knots of his yellow canvas bag and put a box of pastries on the table.

"Don't do such a thing!" Hou Zhifeng grabbed his hand firmly, trying to stuff the snack box into the canvas bag, "What is this?" "We are relatives, and it's my first visit." He said, "It's a custom here, 'Don't enter relatives with empty hands'..." "Stay as long as you stay," the wife said, "It's not an outsider!" Hou Zhifeng let go, and turned his face away in shame.His women are beautiful, low-educated, and physically strong, often showing that they can endure hardships better than him, earning the first-class work points for the women in the team, and raising pigs and chickens.There is one bad thing, always taking in the things brought by others, which often casts a carious shadow on his respect and love for her.The eye hole is too small!

After seeing off the guests, the two of them went back to the house and were stunned almost at the same time: Wazi was holding a snack in one hand and a handful of ten-yuan bills in the other. " "Put it down." Hou Zhifeng understood, and his expression changed. "Give it to me." Xiurong grabbed the money from her son, her face changed, and she warned her son in a low voice, "Go out and don't talk nonsense. Go play!" The son probably sensed the serious mystery of this matter, so he went out quietly. "How much?" Hou Zhifeng asked. "One hundred." Xiu Rong replied.

"Give me." "Do what?" "Give it back to others!" "I can keep up." She put the money into her underwear pocket, and when she turned to go out, she turned her head, "I'm going to borrow a cart to pull two carts of soil for the pigsty when it gets dark. You rest indoors." He was panicked.This unexpected event spoiled his pleasant mood at home.He turned around in the house, unable to sit or lie down, and heard the bang of a car passing by in the street. He wanted to go to the ditches and talk thoroughly with his wife Xiurong. As soon as I went out, I ran into my second uncle with a hunchback.On the arm of the second uncle with protruding veins, there is a big cage, which is filled with rice roots and water plants that were picked up when the rice fields were overhauled.

"Feng, uncle wants to ask you something." The second uncle looked mysterious, "I heard...the land will be divided?" "Well, it is the implementation of the responsibility system." He said lightly, feeling a little uneasy in his heart, "I believe the commune is also planning to implement it!" "You are a person who understands policy." The second uncle said, "Is this true?" "Really." He said, absent-mindedly, "I'm going to... pull the soil." There seems to be a hidden feeling of being ashamed of Jiang Dong's elders...

The loess pogen on the west side of the village is the loess moat built by the residents of the whole village.Facing the dirt cliff, Xiurong waved her head. After she entered middle age, her waist and legs became stronger, and her posture of swinging the hammer looked like a strong man. He went to the ditch, picked up the shovel, shoveled up the loess dug by Xiurong, and loaded it into the wooden compartment of the frame truck.Here, far away from the village, there are no outsiders and no children, so the couple can't talk about anything! "Xiurong, that money...we can't take it."

She dug a shovel and let out a groan. "This is bribery, violation of discipline, I will suffer!" She dug another shovel, groaned, and said nothing. Hou Zhifeng thought, he should tell her the truth that she can understand: "You love to go to theatre, in many plays, there is a treacherous minister with a white face and a white nose, a corrupt official, who is scolded by others!" She still didn't turn her head, kept her hands, and continued to dig. "I'm a party member, and I'm a responsible cadre. I can't whitewash my nose and face. I'm working locally..."

"Hmph!" Xiurong finally stopped digging, turned around, leaned on the handle of the shovel, and said sarcastically, "Grandpa of Yuling in our village is the manager of a department store in Xi'an, you go to see his house, what do you eat? What do you wear? Thirty cents a meter of material is not the same as taking it for nothing. Xianhui man works in the county, pulls a cart of wood, and only spends one meal... You are such a big official, it’s scary died!" "Everyone is their own business!" He patiently explained to the woman, "Society is complicated, and there are all kinds of people. What about the money? It should be returned to others." "It's late!" Xiurong said as if she had been prepared, "I'll hand it over to the cashier." "You..." He was anxious, and his eyes widened. "I owe money to the team, and the harvested wheat is not delivered in full, and no rations will be given." Xiurong teased, "It doesn't matter whether your face is red or white, I don't care! I want food with the baby, You earn thirty-nine and fifty yuan, a lot of money! You are a revolutionary, you are an upright official, you are a red-faced loyal minister—you shame your ancestors!" "You—" Hou Zhifeng's face turned pale with anger, he stabbed the shovel on the ground, his lips trembled, and he was speechless. "Put it here!" She pushed her chest out, "I've had enough of this poor life with you!" He stared fiercely at that desperate face, turned around sharply in disgust, threw off the shovel, and walked out of the ditch. Hou Zhifeng lay down and slept without eating.A pair of sons and daughters have already made a well-proportioned venting sound.Xiurong was sitting on the small stool at her feet, holding the soles of her shoes, the hissing sound of the hemp rope passing through the soles of the cloth shoes was disturbing.If the wife is a woman who understands righteousness, he will return the money to the farmer, criticize him a few words, and it's over.My own home will never make such an uncoordinated atmosphere. Xiurong turned off the lamp and lay down beside him. "Your heart is too narrow, you are too timid!" She said lovingly, her chest pressed against his arm, and her rough hands stroked his chest, reassuring him. He solved the problem of 'privately run', does he dare to tell others? Don't you just say a word about the matter of a privately run teacher? You see it as big as the sky for a trivial matter that is not a problem at all!" Are you narrow-minded?Even if the heart is broad enough to accommodate mountains and rivers, there should not be a corner that hides dirt and evil practices.If Deputy Secretary Hou had given such a profound and vivid speech at a meeting of party members and cadres in the commune.Now, it was his wife who said such wrong words, a sticky woman among rural women, and she didn't care that he was the deputy secretary of the party committee of the dignified people's commune!She dared to bump into him, and she also caressed him.In a hurry, she dared to scold him.What should he do?When they were introduced to each other, she sat timidly in the corner of the room, too ashamed to lift her head. A real rural girl, she had two children and became a housewife of a family of four. It's unreasonable!She earns work points all day long, and busy with work all the time, arguing and arguing with vegetable sellers for a penny, throwing an egg and yelling in the streets... how many reasons he explained to her, On the contrary, she became more and more angry, "There are wicked people in the agricultural society! Good people are bullied!" Alas, what can I do!He moved her thick arms from his chest, hissed, and made a decision, forget it!You don't have to mess with this guy anymore... After spending Sunday in a hurry, Hou Zhifeng left the house early on Monday morning to go to work.He found that his spirit was in a state of uncontrollable sensitivity. "Secretary Hou, get up early!" "Old Hou, go to work!" ... Among the people who greeted him, some were his classmates in middle school, and some were from the township party in Lincun.He is a local, and he is also a responsible cadre of the grassroots organization of the local local party. His acquaintances and old friends always talk to him in a respectful tone.But he didn't dare to keep his eyes on those enthusiastic faces for a long time, he just put on a blunt smile reluctantly, and got over it.Those guys who greedily devour the people's wealth through legal or illegal means can actually talk about revolution and morality with peace of mind. He admires them. That is also a skill. What kind of strength is needed to maintain their own psychological balance Woolen cloth? When I walked to the gate of the commune, on the square concrete pillars, there was a sign of the Hekou Commune Committee of the Communist Party of China with a white background and large characters, and I felt even more ashamed.Usually, people don't seem to pay much attention when going in and out, but today, the red letters on the sign are particularly conspicuous. In the early summer morning, the breeze blows the green leaves of the paulownia trees, and the small courtyard of the commune is very quiet. There are iron locks on many doors. He is undoubtedly an early arrival. Xiao Qiao in the office put a file with official documents on the table, smiled and left. He opened the file to see if there was any urgent business that needed immediate attention.After a Sunday, there is such a thick stack of official documents, how many things the People's Commune has taken care of! Early in the morning, there was a lot of noise in the yard.Two peasants, tearing to his door, one of them bloodied. "Secretary Hou, look, he beat me into..." the bloodstained commune member said, "Oh——" "Don't repudiate me!" The other one was even harder, "He wiped the nosebleed on his face, pretending!" Ask about the reason, it's just a five-jin mistake in the grain distribution, a small lawsuit.Hou Zhifeng said, "I went to the health center to wipe off the blood, and bandaged the wound, and then I can talk." After the two members went out, he sat down again.Five catties of wheat were worth less than one yuan, and they were beaten badly.One hundred yuan, sent for nothing, secretly stuffed in the snack box.How much wheat can one hundred yuan buy?How will he judge this small economic dispute with justice? There is a notice in the file, which is a printout issued by the county party committee. A deputy director of the Chazi Commune in the Qinling Mountains participated in illegal forest logging activities and was expelled from the party.In front of the announcement, there was a note added by the county party committee, requiring it to be conveyed at party members' meetings at all levels as a warning.Party discipline is ruthless.Speculators who use the name of the Communist Party to do harm to the fundamental interests of the country and the people will be kicked out of the party sooner or later... Party secretary Yan has already reviewed it and asked him to speak at the party meeting of the whole society.He is in charge of the organization and propaganda work of the party committee... This mental burden must be unloaded!The only way to recover is to pay off the one hundred dollars immediately.Neither let the wife know, nor tell the organization.If there is publicity in the organization, it may cause conflicts in the family.Family conflicts made him already tired.He is not afraid of her, it's just that he cares more about influence and thinks more than her.Forget it, as long as I can get over it with my conscience! Hurrying to the entrance of Wangshuizhai Village, Hou Zhifeng jumped off his bicycle.He still does not know the name of the uncle in the house of his wife's sister.Private teachers are a profession that is obvious to all. He asked, and the father of private teachers was Wang Shengjun. Wang Shengjun was throwing earth washers and shovels beside the pigsty in the courtyard, and let him sit in the house with a smile. "I'm responsible for investigating and solving the problem you reported." Hou Zhifeng sat down, caught the cigarette that Wang Shengjun forced into his hand, and put it on the table. He doesn't know how to smoke. "The problem will be solved reasonably. do not worry." "There's nothing false about it, just investigate." Wang Shengjun said. "This—money." Hou Zhifeng took out ten ten-yuan bills from his underwear pocket and put them on the table, which he had just borrowed. "Count down your money." "This--ah!" Wang Shengjun hurriedly grabbed the money and stuffed it back into his hand, holding onto his hand tightly, "You--" "Let go!" Hou Zhifeng was angry and annoyed.He hated that fawning smiley face, even if the problem he reflected was true, he hated him too!He caused trouble to his family, and made him suffer two days at work. "If you don't listen to the persuasion, I will hand over the money to the county!" Wang Shengjun let go of his hand, at first he was dazed, then surprised, then embarrassed and desperate. "I'm leaving." Hou Zhifeng stood up. My whole body felt relaxed and at ease, and my heart fell firmly to the ground again, beating normally and rhythmically.He raised his head, walked out of the village alley in Wangshui Village, and walked on the loess road in the countryside. In the early summer on the plateau, layers of green waves rolled up in the terraced fields, dotted with the dark green of several peach and apricot trees. The tent, just before the sunset, is showing a gorgeous color.He rode his bicycle and headed towards Central Primary School. Unexpectedly, Wang Shengjun himself was the close elder brother of the brigade party secretary, and his son originally entered the school as a private teacher, relying on the authority of the elder brother of the party secretary.Not only does his son have no expertise in physical music and beauty, he can't even organize the first and second grade students together.He finished elementary school and junior high school during the ten years of turmoil. Strictly speaking, he himself should sit in the fourth grade classroom to study again. Isn't the problem simple? The only problem now is how to repay the one hundred yuan debt. After the monthly payment, as usual, he handed over twenty yuan to Xiurong, and she was responsible for arranging the family's food and clothing expenses, leaving nineteen and fifty cents.If you save ten yuan a month, it will take ten months.If you bite the bullet and save fifteen yuan a month, you can do it in seven months.The food in the commune is very cheap. Meat is eaten once a week, and it usually costs 10 cents a day. He cut down the meat meal once a week without hesitation. The difficulty is that he attends too many meetings, and he has to go to the county almost once or twice a week, and travel expenses are an unavoidable expense.When people are cruel, they can always find a way.He rushed to the county seat before the meeting, walked straight into the beef and mutton steamed bun restaurant, stood in front of the ticket window the size of a fist, handed in a 50-cent ticket, and said, "I want a small portion." Fifteen cents, forty-five cents is all you need for a good meal.The national financial discipline stipulates that cadres are on business trips in the county, and they can be subsidized with 40 cents a day for food expenses based on invoices. He only needs to sell 5 cents. This has been budgeted long ago. After receiving the ticket that the conductor stuffed out of the window, he walked away without haste, and said seriously in front of the crowded ticket buyers behind his buttocks: "Give me an invoice." He ate very satisfactorily, then walked into the county party committee auditorium and sat down, took out his notebook, unscrewed the fountain pen, and wrote down the county party committee's opinions on a certain job arrangement in detail.He did not envy any of his more well-dressed colleagues, nor did he take part in discussing the new additions of civilized furniture and fashion to the market.He lived on his own thirty-nine and fifty cents.He sat on the reclining chair in the venue, upright, neither arrogant nor shrinking.Middle-aged party workers with low wages and wearing patches on their sleeves, elbows and buttocks are no less spiritually inferior or empty than any of the comrades sitting here. the value of human existence. His fountain pen moved on the fine grid of the diary, recording the instructions of the leaders of the county party committee, and the matter of repaying the debts had already disappeared without a trace. From spring to autumn, he had saved more than 70 yuan. It just so happened that his superiors added a subsidy to the commune cadres for going to the countryside. Xiao Qiao in the office sent him 30 yuan at a time, saying that it was the total accumulated in the first half year.He was overjoyed, and immediately scraped together one hundred yuan to pay off the debt in one fell swoop.The puddle of sewage in my heart has been completely wiped out so far! He misses his children especially.For more than half a year, I went home every Saturday and saved a little candy for my children.At this moment, he felt that it was too harsh. After all, a child is a child. Who wouldn't be greedy when they were young?Especially dolls in the countryside are already frugal enough.He went into the supply and marketing cooperative and bought candy worth one yuan, which cost him money. He should go home today to have a look. Every family smoked, and the firewood smoke condensed over the village, forming a scene of light blue fog.At noon on a cloudy day after the volt, it was hot and hot.He walked into the yard and saw the woman sitting under the stove cooking a pot.He stopped the bicycle, called his son, and called his daughter. The two children walked up to him with indifferent eyes. They had long since stopped expecting their father to bring them any good food. "Eat candy." He untied the paper bag and put it on the table. The two babies jumped up immediately, and their voices became sweeter when they called daddy. The bellows in the kitchen were crackling, clearly the sound of intentional beating.The dishes and bowls clashed uncomfortably on the chopping board, and the sound was very harsh, which was an omen of the woman provoking him. His happy mood has been destroyed, so what is wrong with it?Or was she deliberately trying to cause trouble?Obviously deliberate!He said nothing, waiting for the development of the situation. "Bring the water!" she yelled at the child, "I've worked hard to serve the dead!" The two babies lowered their heads timidly and stopped eating and chewing. "What's the matter?" He couldn't stop talking. "Get out!" She walked into the back room and scolded the child, "Get the water!" The children went out one after another. "Let me ask you...you did such a generous thing?" She obviously couldn't bear it anymore, "You kept it from me...you..." She vaguely mentioned the one hundred yuan matter, saying that if she hadn't gone to her sister's house this morning, she would have been lied to by him for the rest of her life! When Hou Zhifeng heard that it was still about the one hundred yuan, he suddenly became angry.In the past six months, how much hardship he has endured to save one hundred yuan!It was enough for him not to blame her.Instead, she provoked him to make trouble, it's outrageous!He still has to work in the Hekou Commune, and it is inevitable that he will encounter similar incidents of money in the snack box again in the future!If she accepts bribes and he secretly saves to repay the debt, is it still worth it?Since she is not willing to give up, let's explain it, explain it.It seems that some conflicts between husband and wife cannot be completely resolved by patience. "Shiba cows stand on dung piles, pretending to be big!" Xiurong began to speak rudely, "Earning more than 30 yuan, I can't support women and children, and I still think I can go to the sky and go to the earth..." "Xiurong, calm down." He suppressed the fire, not wanting to make noise and make people laugh: "Speak slowly if you have something to say, let's keep it clean, that's fine..." "I'll give you a small official hat, and you'll think you're an emperor! Look at your ancestral grave, and you've got no pulse!" Her mouth was so flaming that she even dug her, "People treat you like a human being, but you don't care about it!" I don't know how to flatter!" "Fart!" Deputy Secretary Hou's head was on fire, his eyes sparkled, and he slammed on the table, trembling, "You're such a jerk!" "Divorce!" Xiurong's voice was louder and she jumped up, "I don't want to suffer with you..." "Leave, leave!" Hou Zhifeng was furious, "Can't I leave you, that evil ghost?" "Whoever is inseparable is not human..." The two of them dragged into the street. Neighbors came rushing to each other from left to right, chattering, the women sealed up Xiurong, and the men tried to persuade Zhifeng to ask the reason for the quarrel. When asked the reason for the quarrel, Hou Zhifeng couldn't say anything, he just sighed that the mother-in-law was too shameful.Xiurong couldn't say anything, but just burst into tears, saying that when he became an official, he looked down on rural women and wanted to find a foreign woman, and so on. The neighbors, aunts and sisters-in-law dragged Xiurong away. The people got separated, and the child hadn't returned with the water. The more he thought about it, the more angry he became, and he regretted that he shouldn't have come home. He put up his pocket, turned the lock on the car, pushed the car out, and went back to the commune.He stood in front of a woman for the first time today, showing that he was not afraid of her.Although she didn't completely win, she didn't show weakness either, that's all she was. After climbing over a not too high sloping beam, you can see the town where the commune is located.This is the commanding height of the commune, where you can overlook the beautiful fields and cottages of Hekou Commune.The sun has set in the west, and the autumn wind is blowing on the slopes. In the green gauze curtains of the river, there is a faint milky white water vapor. The asphalt road that runs through the Hekou Commune, cars come and go, and the sound of cars is faintly heard.This is his hometown, lovely hometown! He carried a bag full of steamed buns on his back. When he went from the countryside to the city to study in middle school, the road was less than one meter wide, and the loess was thick on sunny days, and muddy and slippery on rainy days. He relied on the stipend from the New China School to go to middle school. Yes, I'm about to graduate from high school. He was transferred out to be the secretary of the general branch of the school youth league, and he did not take the college entrance examination.When he was over thirty-five years old, it was obvious that he was no longer suitable for youth work, so the county party committee sent him to Hekou Commune as a grassroots party cadre. In the blink of an eye, I will be forty years old-the age of forty.Has he ever been confused?Bewildered.When he was crushed by the paper hat of the "hardcore royalist", he was more than confused, he was simply confused.Are you still confused? He lived and worked on the land of Hekou Commune. For forty years, the folks in those villages worked and lived here just like his parents, brothers and sisters.Can he do something worthy of them? Hou Zhifeng suddenly remembered the words of a class teacher in middle school.It was the first day of high school, and a strange class teacher walked into the classroom to meet another class of freshmen.He is a Chinese teacher with a rich voice, and he spoke to his classmates for the first time like reciting a poem: "You have crossed a new milestone today, "Three years from now, you're going to be in every area of ​​your life. "I wish you, from your youth, "Just pay attention to cultivating yourself-- "A green space in the heart..." It is really not easy to cultivate and maintain this green space in the mind!How many temptations have tried to pollute it! He stood up from the grass, patted the grass clippings on his buttocks, and pushed the car, and the sunset glow became more and more brilliant.