In the mountain nest, it gets dark early.From the street paved with crushed stone slabs, squinting, you can see the high and low tile troughs, short walls, and the criss-crossing dirt roads outside the street, fields, and deserted sandy beaches on the river bank. The white gas gradually softened and disappeared.However, the wind did not blow, the heat could not be killed, and the evening became unusually dull.Three or five dogs were still lying lazily under the screen wall of Pogen's house at the back of the street, unable to kick them away, with their tongues sticking out, unable to restore the brutality of biting to the death for love during the mating period.

The big cliffs at the bend of the river are darker and more solemn.When the setting sun slanted across the river, the ripples and water shadows were reflected on the cliffs, flickering and flickering. It was a blurred and unpredictable magical scene; now, there is nothing.Thousands of pigeons living in caves in the cliff, can not be for the strange Continued to be agitated by the light and shadow, and restlessly stirred up a white dot on the river surface; the white dot gradually turned gray and black, and then it was no longer recognizable, only the hustle and bustle of "cuckoo" and "chirp". .The main body of the night stood between the sky and the earth, and everything fell into the deep darkness.

In Jingziguan on the other side of the river, a grass donkey brayed loudly. At this moment, a black shadow hurried across the street.The footsteps are raised high, rising and falling like in a urn: the person has already gone, and the sound bounces off the gravel slab with a "boom".Under a crooked willow tree in the middle of the street, he stopped and looked into a house; the six board doors of the house were not closed, and it was dark, but he could only see the burning coals in the stove facing the door. "Hey——Old Brother Qin! Hello——!" "Who is it?" "I."

"Monk!" A voice echoed in the room, "Is the cow no longer good? His, I don't know if the cow is unlucky with you, or you are unlucky to have a cow! Come in, it's hot, here's tea." Monk Wang fumbled in from the middle of the facade, knocked over a washbasin, and made a ringing sound.Walking to the backyard, the moon just came out, and Lao Qin's family was sitting and enjoying cold tea, and the young and old were very happy.Lao Qin's fat lady took a small bamboo chair, splashed a basin of cold water on it, and moved it under Monk Wang's body.Monk Wang just leaned against the wall of the back building and panted heavily.

"Didn't you grind some soybean milk for drinking?" "Drink it, drank two washbasins; half a jar of white sugar is also stuck in it!" "Where's the leather?" "It's delayed. I grind the soymilk later, and let Xiaoyue go to Jingziguan to buy it. When it gets dark, she forgets to go. God damn it, girl, it's all in her hands!" "You can't blame me! Let me just say, why can't my old Qin cure a cow?" A layer of sweat suddenly broke out on Monk Wang's head.He kicked down, wiped his face with the lapel of his clothes, and said in a pleading voice:

"Brother Qin, I can trust you with all my heart! Last time I bought your rat poison, although it killed three chickens at home, it is indeed the real medicine. Let’s take a look at my cow. After a while, it fell down, only foaming at the mouth, and breathing out of its nose as if it was about to breathe fire. I’m worried that it will be difficult to pass tonight!” As he spoke, his crying tone dropped. "I have to drink the blood of a white rooster!" "Is the yellow rooster okay?" "No way. Don't Cai Cai's have it? The day before yesterday I wanted to buy something to eat, but the widow didn't want to part with it. The rooster is huge!"

"Oh." Monk Wang asked Lao Qin to go to his house first, then he turned around and ran out from the front room in the front hall.Lao Qin's fat lady yelled to stop knocking over the basin, and Monk Wang replied "it's okay" and arrived on the stone-paved street early. It was a street, but it wasn't really a street: there wasn't a single store, and there was never a fair.There are a total of forty families, and the houses are arranged in two rows opposite each other.This is the most southeast mountain nest in the Qinling Mountains, where the three provinces of Shaanxi, Hubei, and Henan intersect.On this street, that is, under the curved willow at the entrance of Lao Qin’s house, there is a piece of irregular black stone, which is the boundary marker: the south row of the street is from Hubei; Those facing down are from Henan.Monk Wang's house is just facing the straight line of the street. He is from Shaanxi. The Sanwen roof is on the ground of Shaanxi, but the yard is on the territory of Hubei.Caicai's family is from Hubei, and they live at the east end of the south row of the street.When Monk Wang rushed away, Cai Cai was not there. Cai Cai's mother, a widow in her fifties, was feeding the pigs.The widow regarded the pigs as very precious. Every time she was fed, she always squatted by the side of the pig trough, sprinkled a handful of ingredients, mixed the food, and watched the pigs eat well.Seeing Monk Wang coming, she hurriedly got up and wanted to go into the house to serve dinner. When Monk Wang told the story, the widow screamed in fright, grabbed the white rooster from the chicken coop, and clamored to see the condition of the cow.Monk Wang said that it was dark and the road was uneven, so he stopped persuading him and ran to his house along the stone-paved street in one breath.

Old Qin has arrived first.On this street, this is the most capable person in the three provinces. He knows some medicine, he can heal people, he can also heal cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, and dogs. He can pick and castrate. As he said, he opened a small business stall, lived a good life, and maintained a decent life.The smell in the cowshed was very strong, hot and sour, and he couldn't bear it. He squatted in the yard, smoking a cigarette, and exhaling three puffs. When Monk Wang came back, he first found a cattail fan and gave it to Lao Qin, then went into the shed and lit an old-fashioned vegetable oil bowl lamp on the windowsill.With the dim light, one could see a bunch of skeleton-like old cows lying under the cow trough, next to them was unfinished soy milk, dripping with water and sprinkled white spots on the ground.The bull's head rested weakly on the pile of grass, his eyes were closed, his breathing was short of breath, and his stomach was swollen like a drum.The nasty mosquitoes flew in groups and raised their hands.It flew away with a buzzing sound, dropped the hand, and flew back with a buzzing sound.

"Pull up the cow!" Lao Qin finished smoking a cigarette, lifted the chicken in his hand, and began to pluck the feathers from the chicken's neck.The chicken trembled and screamed, and tried to break free from his hands several times. Lao Qin scolded his mother, twisted the chicken's neck under the wings, and plucked all the hair.But from time to time, he shook his pants, called Monk Wang's name, and scolded the cowshed for raising so many pans. Monk Wang's face was covered with sweat, clusters of mosquitoes were beating on his head and beating gongs. He smiled wryly and tried to pull the cow up.However, every time the cow just stood up its front legs, "gudong" fell down again.He rubbed the ox's front crotch sadly, tried his best to tie the rope on the ox's nose ring to the post, and then got the cat's body behind the ox's buttocks, trying to lift it up.Three times in a row, without success, he fell to the ground instead, with a hand full of thin cow dung.

"Forget it, monk! Turn the cow upside down and don't hold it in its stomach. This cow is too old to be useful. Why did you fall in love with this scumbag?" "Brother Qin. It's cheap. The team estimated it at 250 yuan for me." "You have supported the boat for more than ten years, where can you serve this tall animal!" "The land is divided into households, how dare you not have a cow?" "I didn't." "How can I compare to you?" Lao Qin laughed "hehe", and seeing that the cow had turned his body, he went to the window sill and turned the oil lamp wick a lot wider.Immediately the bullpen was brightly lit.He asked Monk Wang to hug the bull's head, pulled the stool over by himself, raised his hand "Kuang!" and cut the chicken head, the chicken head fell off, and "Gululu" rolled under Monk Wang's feet.Monk Wang closed his eyes.

"Hold tight!" Lao Qin let out a roar, and the chicken's neck was stuffed into the cow's nostrils, and at the same time he heard the cow sucking the blood of the chicken rapidly.And the overflowing blood sprayed Monk Wang's hand, and got into the sleeve in a black and red path like an earthworm; he didn't dare to move again. "It's all right now." Lao Qin threw away the chicken and began to wash his hands in the basin.Monk Wang let out a long breath, stroked the bull's head and looked at it for a while, then went into the main room and loudly opened the cabinet. "Monk, you meathead, what are you doing?" "You're so tired, Brother Qin! I'll get a bottle of Baigan, let's cook some vegetables and drink a few cups." "Monk, are you going to let Xiaoyue say something about me again?!" "She dares!" "Forget it, Neighbor Hui, who doesn't want to do someone a favor? Can you drink it in such a hot day?" Monk Wang drank the wine and stood at the gate of the cowshed. Hearing this, he was a little embarrassed.Lao Qin stood up and wanted to go, but he held back, picked up the headless rooster, and said: "Old Brother Qin, how can this work? If you don't drink alcohol, take this chicken to eat; stay with me and cook, I can't cook anything good." Lao Qin held the chicken in his hand, and Monk Wang sent it to the door.Lao Qin said: "What about Xiaoyue, have you decided?" "That's what happened anyway." "When the time comes, don't forget our Shaanxi Township Party!" "That's for sure. On this street, I support people from the three provinces." Lao Qin staggered down the ramp, his figure slowly shrunk down on the winding cobblestone street.Monk Wang raised his head, the moon was already high.Tonight is the twelfth day of the lunar calendar, the light is not very bright, but the road is very clear.He looked at Jingzi Pass in the distance, and the houses of Henan people in the pass could not be seen, but the lights were scattered high and low, with a difference between light and dark, fluttering, showing off, and spreading light in the solitude.The Danjiang River under the Guan was a long strip of gray water, and no matter what, the boats and figures could not be seen clearly. "Hey-Xiaoyue! Hello-Xiaoyue!" He cried out sharply.On this street, the only person from Shaanxi, and in fact he alone, has a unique shouting rhythm: the first voice drags on for twelve minutes, but when it comes to the content, it is surprisingly fast.That is to say, the cry can travel six or seven miles no matter day or night.At three o'clock every day, Monk Wang would stand in front of his house and yell like this for a few times, and everyone on the street knew that Xiaoyue was not at home again. "This wild girl, there are people and nobody, and I can't think of this family once I get on the boat!" Monk Wang often tells his neighbors this way. Monk Wang yelled three times and went back to the cowshed. Seeing that the bull's complexion was better than that of the first one, he pressed the oil wick of the vegetable oil bowl lamp on the window sill, and began to feel countless razor clams coming out of his trousers. Running up, he dipped his finger in saliva and pressed it lightly on the waistband of his trousers: a fleshy thing, rubbed it, and pinched it between two fingernails in the dark, making a "beep" sound. "Grandpa, protect me. Come tomorrow morning, my cows will be able to graze grass!" He put a pile of wet wheat straw in the corner of the cowshed, and smoked it to drive away the mosquitos.For a while, the smoke swelled, and the mosquitoes were not smothered to death, but I choked so much that my nose and tears came down.Then they simmered fireworks in the main room, blew out the lights, and squatted quietly on the Thubu stone in the courtyard to smoke waterpipes. The pipes are made of bamboo tubes, a skill he learned from Henan people.Before the production team divided the land, the father and daughter were reluctant to plant tobacco on their private land.After the land was allocated to the households, the food was accumulated as soon as the crops were harvested, and they also planned to grow some tobacco for smoking.But he didn't have much addiction. He only planted ten trees, and all of them entertained the guests who came to the house. Since then, he didn't want to plant any more, thinking that smoking is a luxury.But Xiaoyue bought him a large bundle of shisha boards from Jingziguan, and said: After a lifetime of suffering, don’t you even enjoy smoking? Although he was not very happy with his daughter’s point of view, his filial piety accepted it. .Just put the hookah board under the water urn to soak in the moisture, and put it in an empty porcelain box of Xiaoyue's snow cream. When I am in a good mood, I squeeze out a pill the size of a soybean and press it in the smoke hole of the bamboo root pipe. Take a breath, blow it, and think to yourself: This is really "a breath of incense". As soon as he came back to life, he thought of Xiao Yueniang who died eight years ago, that pale and thin face, always flashing in front of his eyes.He said "Alas", complaining that she was unlucky and died too early. Thinking like this, she began to worry about Xiaoyue again; crazy girl, is it so late, is there anyone else who wants to ferry by the river? I couldn't help standing at the door again, and shouted in a rough voice: "Hey-Xiaoyue! Hello-Xiaoyue!"