Chapter 8 Eight

Luo Xiaomao explained everything in the police station. His will was not strong enough to face the police like Xu Yunfeng faced the KMT military spies.He explained the whole process of cutting and selling wires (Because of his confession, Wang Dali was arrested and sentenced to 2 years of forced labor. Wang Dali has a criminal record: he was caught picking up money on the bus a year ago.) Except In the above-mentioned explanation, he also explained some other acts of theft, such as stealing a plastic sheet from a certain house one day, and stealing a broken aluminum pot from a certain house one day, and so on.The police gradually became bored with his explanation, and asked him to pick up the main ones. Luo Xiaomao said, "No more." The police yawned, read the record to him, and then asked Luo Xiaomao in a slow voice: " Is there anything else you haven’t explained?” Luo Xiaomao replied: “No more.” The police asked Luo Xiaomao to sign the record, “Sign your scientific name and indicate the year, month, and day.” The security chief is concerned about Luo Xiaomao's "future", "comrade policeman," said the security chief, "how are you going to deal with him?" "It mainly depends on you and his parents to persuade and educate him," the policeman said with a slight smile, "and also depends on the teacher's education. There are many juvenile delinquents now... This is the first time he has entered the police station, and he is not yet qualified to be sent to a forced labor camp." The militia battalion commander was not reconciled: "Just let him go back like this?" "You let him go back and let him live in the police station?" The policeman asked sarcastically, and then turned around and stared at Luo Xiaomao, "You have registered at the police station now. We will give you a chance to change your past. If you commit the crime again, you will be sent to a labor camp. You Be innocent." Luo Xiaomao's pounding heart calmed down... 8 Of course Luo Xiaomao's father did not want his son to become a prisoner.Lao Luo adopted extremely strict control measures against his son.That summer vacation. In the "remnant" part, Luo Xiaomao never stepped out of the house again.Lao Luo deprived his son of all the right to go out, and kicked out one by one the cups his son put under the bed to raise crickets.Every day, when Lao Luo came back from digging the air-raid shelter, the first thing he said after taking off his rattan helmet was to ask his daughter: "Has Xiao Mao gone out today?" Luo Xiaomao's sister said, "No." Lao Luo's serious face gradually relaxed open.After dinner, Lao Luo sternly checked his son's homework, which he assigned to his son. It was a long way before 9 o'clock and he ordered his son to go to bed.In order to use labor to better educate his son, Lao Luo cut off half of his daughter's housework for his son. "From tomorrow," Lao Luo issued a new order with a tigerish face after checking his son's homework one night. "The task assigned to you is to choose and wash vegetables and dishes every day, do you understand?" "Understood." Luo Xiaomao replied painfully.

From the next day, Luo Xiaomao shared part of her sister's housework.Soon, the burden of making lotus root coal at home was honorably transferred from the shoulders of the elder sister to Luo Xiaomao.His father led him to buy coal, transported it back and dumped it in the yard, and then pulled a bucket truck to drag a half-truck truck of yellow mud, and mixed it well, so he carried a lotus root coal machine to make a row of coal by himself under the scorching sun. Drain lotus root coal.Half a year later, he took over all the housework from his sister just like the worker propaganda team took over the school.After graduating from junior high school, the older sister who had been idle at home for two years went to work in the sand foundry of the street office. One year later (in the autumn of 1972), the older sister was officially recruited by the Changsha Municipal Engineering Company to lay a layer of asphalt for the road. At that time, even young men hated it, but at that time, a good job would not come to such a family.That's all.

After the summer vacation that changed Luo Xiaomao's life ended, Luo Xiaomao transferred to the class taught by his mother in Xinxing Primary School where his mother was.This wise decision was made by Xiaomao's father. Since many teachers knew about Luo Xiaomao's stealing wires in the school-run factory, Lao Luo worried that his son would be even more unworthy at school, so he made this decision not for his wife. willing to accept the decision.Luo Xiaomao's mother is a woman who values ​​honor very much and is very competitive. She can't wait to grab all the awards in the school. Of course, she is worried that her son's rotten shit will spoil her pot of delicious soup (excellent class collective) .Lao Luo said displeased: "You are not willing to educate your son as a mother, who would have the responsibility to educate him?" Lao Luo pointed out angrily: "Luo Xiaomao doesn't listen to you, just tell me, I will Hit him! As parents, we must at least fulfill our obligation to bring up our children until they are 18 years old. You have to understand.” Since then, Luo Xiaomao’s mother has taken her son to school and back home every day.She looked at her son with a distrustful look from time to time like a strict guard watching a prisoner.One day, a female classmate's pen and 1 yuan and 30 cents disappeared from the pencil case. "Ms. Huang," the girl cried and raised her hand and said, "My pen and 1 yuan and 30 cents are missing in the pencil case." Teacher Huang's eyes immediately fell on the face of his son sitting in the back row like a hawk. . "Sit down," Teacher Huang said to the girl, "I promise to help you find out the truth. There are thieves in our class, and students must be careful about their own things in the future." When Teacher Huang spoke, her two dark brown eyes were tightly closed. Staring at his son, Luo Xiaomao was flustered and blushed.

On the way home from school at noon, the mother looked at her son with disgust, "It's not enough for you to embarrass your father in H Normal School, but you also have to go to our school to embarrass me!" The mother said sadly.The son said: "I didn't steal it." The mother said disgustedly: "You tell your father about this. See if your dad believes it or not! "Luo Xiaomao felt sad. Back home. As soon as the mother put down the purse, she pointed to her son and said to Lao Luo who was sitting on a low stool choosing vegetables: "Ask what bad things Luo Xiaomao did in my class today? " "I did nothing wrong. The son said. The mother said: "There will be no other..." Lao Luo also believed that the son stole it. "Come here!" Lao Luo roared with resentment on his face, "You don't look like a human, you shit!" " "I didn't steal it." "Luo Xiaomao said.

Lao Luo punched his son on the shoulder, and the son said, "I didn't steal it." Lao Luo punched his son on the shoulder again. "I didn't steal it." Son Pi Ya grinned.Lao Luo kicked his son on the bone of his left leg again. The son bent down in pain and cried, "I didn't steal it, I was really unhappy." "Do you still want to admit it?" Old Luo Yang He raised a huge fist and punched again, hitting his son to sit on the ground, and the son cried even louder, "I just didn't steal it." Of course, he was beaten and questioned more severely by his father, and his son's heart was completely broken. On Xu Yunfeng.

"I didn't steal it." "How dare you say I didn't steal it?" "I just didn't steal it." No matter how Lao Luo beat him, his son was so strong and unyielding. Lao Luo felt that his son could become an underground party.The mother came over after cooking the dishes, "Lao Luo, eat first, and then settle accounts with him after eating." The mother looked at her son very sadly, "If you don't admit it, don't want to eat." "Come here!" Lao Luo shouted.Old Basil ordered his son to kneel down and reflect on his mistakes.

Luo Xiaomao wiped away his tears while his parents and sister were eating, and slipped out through the back door of the dormitory.That afternoon, Luo Xiaomao wandered around the street.In the evening, he walked into Zhang Jinguo hungry and hungry, just in time for Zhang Jinguo to have dinner. "Have you eaten yet?" Mother Zhang asked him. Luo Xiaomao said pitifully: "No." "Zhang Jinguo, give your classmate a bowl of rice." Zhang's mother said.Zhang Jinguo went over to fill a bowl of rice for his classmates, Luo Xiaomao took the bowl, and started to gobble it up as soon as he sat down on his buttocks. "You look like you escaped from a starvation prison," Zhang's mother said.Luo Xiaomao's eyes immediately became wet, "My father hit me..." That night, Luo Xiaomao wanted to sleep in Zhang Jinguo, but Zhang Jinguo's mother urged him to go home. "You go back, your parents must be looking for you everywhere now." Zhang's mother said: "Go back and make it clear." Luo Xiaomao was embarrassed to stay any longer, and walked out sadly.He felt that he walked out of a family full of warmth and love, and plunged headlong into the vast dark night of late autumn... It was a night when the full moon was hanging high in the sky, and the moon was pink.He didn't dare to go home, he walked aimlessly on the desolate street for a long time, then climbed into a van parked by the roadside, huddled in a corner, looked at the whirling black tree shadows and the desolate moon, lost his mind Fell asleep in a daze.In the middle of the night, he woke up from the cold.He was wearing nothing but a sweatshirt and a gray smock, unable to resist the chill of the late autumn night.The carriage was wet with dew and cold.Luo Xiaomao was so cold that his teeth were chattering, so he jumped out of the car and did radio gymnastics to keep out the cold.The street was deserted, except for a few dim street lights flickering, only the sound of his lonely and wronged footsteps.He walked aimlessly, and unknowingly came to the river. The river was foggy and gray, only the stars and the moon in the sky were clearly visible.

He sat in a lee corner of the house and waited for daylight.At dawn, a scruffy black dog tried to walk beside him and stared at him pitifully. "Go away," Luo Xiaomao shouted bravely, "I'll kill you." The dog ran away, and an old fishing man came, holding a fishing rod, and went straight down to the barge that was still swaying in the morning mist superior.Of course Luo Xiaomao also went down to the boat, watching the old man fishing, and soon the bright autumn sun and hunger fell on him together.He fought resolutely against hunger throughout the day, and when he couldn't win the fight, he buried his head in the clear river and drank a few mouthfuls of river water to satisfy his hunger.But in the evening, the people gathered by the river returned home like birds, so hunger and loneliness beat him like a whip, making him dizzy, as if there were thousands of troops fighting in his stomach, and he had to go to the hungry. The army surrendered.He had no choice but to walk towards Zhang Jinguo again.It was past 9 o'clock, Zhang Jinguo had already fallen asleep, and Zhang's mother opened the door.As soon as Zhang's mother saw his appearance, she guessed that not only did he not go home, but he was also hungry. "Zhang Jinguo, your classmate is here."

Mother Zhang yelled at her sleeping son.Zhang's mother is a kind woman, busy cooking fried rice for Luo Xiaomao, and even fried an egg for him. "Be obedient, Luo Xiaomao, you are really a slut." Zhang's mother glanced at him while eating, and said. "After dinner, I'll take you home. Mother Zhang will guarantee you once. I want your father not to beat you this time, okay?" "Okay." Luo Xiaomao said gratefully to Mother Zhang. Sure enough, Luo Xiaomao's father never beat Luo Xiaomao, nor did he pursue the matter of stealing the girl's pen and money.After his father sent Zhang's mother away, he cursed a few words and asked him what he had been doing outside for two days. "Nothing," said the son, "watching other people fishing by the river." "What about at night?" "Sleeping in a truck at night." "What did you eat?" Stuff," my father sighed, "it's not going to kill you if you behave well."

A few days later, the mother of the boy sitting behind the girl came to the school in order to better cooperate with the teacher in educating her son.It turned out that when she came back from get off work yesterday to wash the sheets for the child, she found a pen under the mat that she had never seen before... At noon when Luo Xiaomao's mother told Lao Luo about the matter, Lao Luo scolded his wife: "In the future, if there is no evidence, we will Don't tell me again." Luo Xiaomao breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this.However, Luo Xiaomao's parents are still very strict with Luo Xiaomao, and still let Luo Xiaomao do a lot of housework to achieve the purpose of labor reform.

On Sundays, Luo Xiaomao often cooks meals for ten people by himself.For this reason, he hated his sister to the core.My older sister Luo Lili danced for a while in middle school—she played the role of a white-haired girl; she played basketball for a while and was a member of the school's female basketball team, so she had a good relationship with her classmates.It has been three years since I graduated from junior high school, and those female classmates who are full and have nothing to do will come to play with Luo Lili almost every other week, sometimes five or six at a time.My sister seems to have been loved by her father since she was born, so my father loves my sister's classmates very much, and likes them to stay for "light meals".In the past, the heavy burden of revolution was carried by her sister herself, and Luo Xiaomao didn't feel that her classmates hated her.Now, the burden of the revolution fell on his shoulders, from choosing vegetables to serving bowls and bowls of dishes, it was all his own business.During those years, his family burned peanut shells and old chaff.Luo Xiaomao's mother has a cousin who is in charge of the grain warehouse, which is the source of peanut shells and old chaff in his family.In order to make a good stove for burning old bran and peanut shells, Luo Xiaomao's father also brought out the knowledge of physics and mathematics he learned in college, and used a lot of brains, from the size and angle of the stove, the hearth to the chimney. After experimenting and modifying for several times, in the end, as soon as the peanut shells were poured into the stove, the fire would burn fiercely, making Luo Xiaomao frantic as if he was in a battle. fire. "Your brother's fried dishes are delicious." His sister's classmates praised him. "It's no wonder that the dishes cooked on such a big fire are not delicious!" Then they further praised: "Your brother is so good." Luo Xiaomao hated them very much. They could sit in the main room and chat, but he had to sit in the kitchen. Facing the "booming" pots and stoves inside, they are cooking like fire.Sometimes, when he really can't win, he just grabs the small dishes from the bucket and throws them into the red-hot iron pot, regardless of how the stinky sweat on his forehead happily falls into the pot. "I think your brother is very sensible," they couldn't help praising Luo Xiaomao when they saw Luo Xiaomao standing aside to eat very modestly (this was because his father asked him to give up his seat to the girls who were eating sweets), " If only I had a younger brother like you." Luo Xiaomao didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and only hoped that they would stop running to increase his workload.Luo Xiaomao has been cooking like this every day at home for five years. It was not until 1976 when he went to the countryside to become an educated youth that he unloaded this annoying burden and handed it over to his parents intact.Luo Xiaomao’s motivation for going to the countryside is different from that of many educated youths. He went to the countryside resolutely to avoid housework. In July 1976, after graduating from high school, he could have stayed in the city and waited for a job, but Luo Xiaomao didn’t want to wait. During the one or two years of recruiting, I stood in front of the burning peanut shell stove with a spatula every day, and I was in great pain.Therefore, as soon as he graduated, he proposed to his parents that he would go to the countryside to exercise and rely on his own hands to support himself.