Chapter 26 Alien father and son.2

I rushed out to look for those fallen birds all over the place.The little dead creatures lay soft and warm in my arms and on the palms of my hands.In the first moonlight, I saw that the flock of birds were all small and ugly sparrows. The blood was so bloody and thick that it stained my clothes red. "My father never used to play mahjong." Dongzi said softly in a bamboo shadow.He stood far away from the bird, not knowing what to be afraid of.Then I heard an old voice telling me, "Put them on the ground, the sparrows will return to the soil after they die." Dongzi's father bent down slowly, his movements to pick up the gun were so tired and slow.Many years later, I still remember the lonely breath of that tall figure exuding in the twilight.I even had the impression that it wasn't the outsiders who shot down a group of sparrows that evening, but the miraculous bird shadows that flew from unknown places and impacted their wandering souls.That winter came to our village in a heavy snowfall.The surrounding bamboo forests have turned into piles of pure white snow, which will not fall when the wind blows.The green bamboo branches were all yellow and dry under the snow pile, and there had been no human traces on the snow for a long time, and those black pebble-like traces were all stepped on by dogs.Trembling, the grandfather took off the bamboo strip outside the door, and turned to his family and said, "It's the end of the year, and it's time for the bamboo craft boat to go."

I waited for the last bamboo boat to leave the village.The Chinese New Year is approaching after the boat has gone.I carried a bamboo basket to pick up dog dung, stuck in the vast snow alone, thinking about the world outside the village outside the winter along the way.Walking to the side of the Copper Kang Bridge, I saw human footprints appearing on the snow for the first time. The footprints were small, with rubber-soled patterns, extending all the way to the bamboo forest by the river.I traced to the depths of the bamboo forest, and found a boy in a flowered padded jacket hiding behind the bamboo, looking at me, and I recognized it as Dongzi at a glance. "What are you doing here?" "Nothing. Don't keep meddling in my business."

"I thought you were going to shoot the gun." "Father never gave me a gun, he asked me to look at the bamboo." "What are you doing looking at the bamboo?" "I'm probably dying. I had a dream again yesterday, and I dreamed that the bamboo was full of red flowers." "My grandparents How could you die if you didn't die?" "Can't the village hear me coughing? I coughed so loudly at night. Dad said I probably wouldn't survive this winter." Dongzi's feet were sunk in the snow, and I thought he was like a single bamboo growing in the snow and ice.His face was still full of sickness, and his erratic eyes were as fateful as the old man's. "It's great when it snows. When I was in the Northeast, my father could know overnight whether it would snow tomorrow. When the snow was thick, my father had already polished his shotgun and waited for the surrounding mountains. Once on the snowy mountain All the wild animals ran to the inhabited place with their lives." Dongzi coughed again, and with an air of showing off, he looked up and looked around, "Why are there no mountains here? When I came back, my father said that my hometown is full of mountains. Well, bamboo grows on mountains.” Maybe there are many mountains in the world outside the village.I never saw mountains.Under the temptation of Dongzi, he imagined the mountains in the far northeast.In the snowy winter, the mountain is covered with bamboo, and the bamboo is covered with white snow. When the wind blows, many red flowers protrude from the bamboo branches. That is Dongzi's mountain and the bamboo forest in Dongzi's dream.The fifth day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar is extremely cold.The bamboo boat was moored on the river beach like a monster lying in ambush in the snow. The wind was so strong that day that it kicked up snow powder and beat everyone who walked out of the house.People carried bamboo utensils like hills to the river, but their faces were blue from the cold and they could not speak.The grandfather, who was nearly eighty years old, boarded the boat first. He personally stacked a boat full of bamboo into a round mound, and finally inserted a clump of green bamboo branches on it.At this time, the crowd crowded by the river murmured, and everyone began to pray at the same time, praying that the north wind would not make waves when the boat passed Baiyang Lake, and praying that the heaven would protect the unique bamboo flag in our village.

I shrugged my shoulders in the wind and blended in with the crowd.The solemn and demanding faces all around made the day long and difficult.I wandered among adults and children, waiting for something to happen suddenly, to blow everyone and all the houses in like a wind.When the bamboo craft boat was about to weigh anchor, a woman screamed horribly. Everyone looked at her and saw the stranger crowded beside the woman.He carried a quilt on his shoulders and tiptoed to gaze at the boats in the river from above the heads of many people. A large expanse of snow was turned black by his stepping.

Women are terrified when they see strangers being wrapped up.Dongzi was wrapped in his quilt.Dongzi's whole body was tightly bound and buried in a large cotton quilt.All that was exposed was a silent face.Amidst people's astonishment, the stranger put the quilt on the snow, and Dongzi lay down.His little face was blushing so confusingly, his eyes were like small oil lamps, shining on the strange crowd. "What are you doing? Is this child dead?" Grandpa bent down, touched Dongzi's face, and asked Dongzi's father sharply. "Not dead, he doesn't want to die right now."

"What do you want to do with a child like this?" "...you let Dongzi follow the boat for a while." The stranger looked dry and stared at his grandfather's withered lips, but my grandfather was habitually silent. After a long time, my grandfather said, "Send bamboo The boy wants to pick the children from the ancestors." "Dongzi's surname is Tong." The outsider said slowly.Looking up at the crowd on the river beach, his long face looked otherworldly.At this moment, my grandfather noticed the expression on his face that resembled that of a wicked Tong Zhen. He seemed to smell the strange smell of the bamboo fire that burned ragingly on the roof of Tong's house.The vicissitudes of the world floated in the grandfather's chest like oily flowers. Perhaps out of a desire to avert disaster, he made an exception and agreed to let a dying child from a foreign country play the role of the bamboo delivery boy.The members of the Tong family made a noise in anger. They lined up and stood on the river beach, blocking the gangway leading to the bamboo boat.But I have such a respectable old grandfather who condensed power, he pushed away his younger generations with crumpled iron fence-like hands.

Dongzi's face protruded from the thick flower quilt, showing a happy and bewildered smile.Is he smiling at me?In the village, he almost only knew me, a descendant with the surname Tong.I saw the stranger walk towards the gangway with his son on his shoulders.The springboard made of bamboo strips sank deeply under his footsteps, and bounced heavily again.When he reached the center of the river, the stranger suddenly stopped, his head which had always been uplifted was lowered now, like an old sheep suckling a lamb, licking his son's little red face.It was a strange day.The snow began to melt, the river was very cold and crystal clear, and the bamboo boats had a deep draft.People stood in the snow water and looked at the unusual bamboo boy buried in a pile of new bamboo ware going down the river. They didn't know whether this was a symbol of bad luck or auspiciousness, but felt a wisp of smoke from the soul slowly rolling in Passing through our village, bumping against each bamboo tree and everyone's skirts, Dongzi's red face soaked in lung disease has remained in the memory of the villagers ever since.

When the bamboo boat passed the Copper Kang Bridge again, all the people in the village heard gunshots in the distance. The gunfire lasted for five minutes, and it was deafening.I was shocked and excited, as if I felt that the ancient bamboo forests with a radius of tens of miles were leaning over in the violent tremors of the air.The gun shot out a beautiful fire, and many bamboos were ignited, and red flowers rose from the bamboo leaves. But no one knows where he fired the gun.People looked into the hole of the Copper Kang Bridge. There was a fire in the hole, flickering alone. The fire had been burning in the hole for a whole winter.

Since then, Dongzi's father, the outsider, has disappeared. "At that time, no one could have imagined that Dongzi would survive. Even less, he would become the best bamboo craftsman in the village." My grandfather knelt on a huge bamboo mat and murmured.He is also very old, like the grandfather in the story, he is also over eighty years old.The wind died down before nightfall, and the bamboo forests all over the village fell silent.The descendants surnamed Tong who surrounded their grandfather listened to the movements of the outside world and felt that there was a river flowing through their thoughts. "Maybe Dongzi's real surname is Tong, maybe he is a descendant of Tong Zhen." We heard the last words of our grandfather in the darkness of the main room.