Chapter 14 Chapter Fourteen

The construction of Lingyin Canal to the head of the village is on the ninth day of the lunar month after autumn.At that time, the mountain ridges were already somewhat barren, and the maize had been taken back to various courtyards. There were golden tassels of sorghum hanging from the eaves and tree branches of the whole village. The dense fragrance of autumn was brilliant in the streets and alleys. Chickens and sparrows, as long as they open their mouths, Xinxin will fill their stomachs.This is an auspicious day. There is no one in the village with a swollen throat, no one is sick, and there is no white couplet posted on the door frame, which reads: "If you go to heaven today, you will live a long life in the Ming Dynasty." years old".Looking out from the mountain ridge, the plowed land is as red as the water soaked in the dye house.The fields that haven't been plowed are dull gray and white, and the stubble of sorghum is evenly arrowed in the field. There are many grass and vines that have never been exposed to sunlight, and they are climbing up in a hurry by taking advantage of the last few days of the year. Open a piece of green color.At this moment, the plowed land was plowed, and the wheat sower was sowing wheat seeds. Suddenly, someone carried Sima Hu on the beam and shouted:

"Sixth Aunt Sima—Sixth Aunt Sima—Uncle Hu is back from selling leather, you go home and open the door, and cook a bowl of soup for Uncle Six—" Sima Lu and Sima Hu's two women were tying corn poles on the hillside, and they came down from the hillside together. They saw Er Bao and Du Liu who were carrying Sima Hu, so they hurriedly lifted a corner of the thin quilt on the stretcher to look. Sleepy Sima Hu's face was ruddy, and when he opened his eyes, excitement fluttered in the corners of his eyes like cloth.How much did the daughter-in-law say she sold?Sima Hu said that all the good leather on the two thighs were sold.The daughter-in-law said that selling leather can't just be our Sima family's business, what should you do if you sell out the leather and the family needs money urgently?Sima Hu glared at his daughter-in-law, and said that the Lingyin Canal will be connected immediately. After a few days, the village committee will be established, and the fourth brother will announce that I will be the village militia battalion commander. He will send me to sell human skins one last time to celebrate the opening of the Lingyin Canal , Can I sell all the leg skins?The daughter-in-law thinks about it too, and asks the battalion commander of the militia to control the deputy village chief?Du Liu is going to be the deputy village chief.Sima Hu thought about it for a while, and said that the division of labor is different, picking vegetables and peeling green onions is in charge of each job, and no one can control the other.

The daughter-in-law lifted all the quilts on the stretcher, and she saw that Sima Hu's thighs were all wrapped in gauze, thick and white, like two white marble pillars.There is a little blood red on the gauze, and the plum blossoms in the snow are fresh and colorful.His trousers were placed at the toes, and the ankles of the trouser legs were tied with two thin ropes. One trouser leg was stuffed with 10,000, 5,000, and 2,000-ring fire and thunder whips, and there were bundles of them. Thumb bombs, half-foot-long two-shot and three-shot cannons.In the other trouser leg, apart from firecrackers, there were various kinds of red, green and green candies. Around his feet, wrapped in clothes, there were more than ten bottles of white wine, a piece of red cloth, and a roll of red paper. .There is a festive atmosphere, covered under the quilt like steam in a cage.The woman was suffocated by the atmosphere of this New Year's Eve, and her face also turned red, asking if she would buy me some clothes?Sima Hu gave his daughter-in-law a bad look, opened a paper roll on the pillow, and took out a piece of gray cloth, which was heavy and slippery. The one with blue flowers, said it belongs to a girl, so do whatever you want.The woman compared the cloth to her body at the head of the village, tugged it again, and said that it was strong and the color was good-looking, and pointed to a plastic bag of candy next to the stretcher:

"Is it ours or the village's?" Sima Hu said, "Look at your fucking worthless face." The woman was not angry, knowing that the candy was her own, she immediately gave half of it to Sima Lu's wife. "Fifth sister-in-law, take it back and feed it to your nephew and niece." The two women happily covered the quilt, carried the stretcher and walked across the street to their home. The villagers all came out of the fields and their homes, surrounded each other layer by layer, and asked Du Liu and Er Bao in bits and pieces. All of a sudden, the village was full of spring rains in March and April, with red and white everywhere. The sound of talking.

Ask: "Is he really fast?" Said: "You Daoliang is a bluestone, and it can be opened once it is blasted and dug." Ask: "When will you return to the village?" Said: "It's almost ten days and half a month." Question: "Why hasn't anyone returned to the village these days?" Said: "The village head is crazy. Anyone who wants to go back to the village will throw a shovel and a braze." Question: "The canal is connected, and they all live to be forty, fifty, or sixty years old. There are a lot of grandchildren and grandchildren. Isn't the house of each family not enough?"

Said: "Cover." Ask: "Money?" Said: "Earn." Ask: "Do you still sell leather?" Said: "You can still do business." Said: "The channel is open, and those who die early will lose money." Said: "If you want to live to be sixty or seventy years old, eighty or ninety years old, with white hair and beard floating all over the village, what do you think it should be like?" Said: "Widows will not be too lazy to remarry because of their short lifespan. People like Du Bo should remarry casually." Sima Hu's daughter-in-law walked in front, suddenly turned around and asked the man:

"Fourth brother Qu Yitong really wants to shop with Lan Shishi?" Sima Hu slapped the stretcher violently: "Go your way, we don't need to take care of brother's affairs." Someone was looking for Lan Shishi in the crowd, but he couldn't see him, so he looked towards the Xiaowamenlou at the other end of the alley.A child had already gone to the door to announce the good news, but the door failed to open after several pushes, and when she came back and said that there was no one at Forty Aunt's house, she joined the crowd and jumped around again. In the following seven or eight days, the women and children in the Sansurname Village were deeply immersed in the joy of the New Year.The Lingyin Canal will be opened immediately, and the 16-year project will come to the next stage.Sometimes when they were eating and heard a few cannons, the villagers put down their bowls with a bang, ran to the beam, and waited for a long time to see a puff of smoke spreading like a cloud in the sky.There were children who went to welcome Joy and their fathers against the sound of the cannon, but they turned back when they couldn't find their way when they climbed the mountain.When I turned back, I would dance rubber bands on the street and pick out sparrows.The woman asked if you saw your father and your uncles?A: Where is the sound of the guns far away? It's a few mountains away.The women couldn't bear to cast their gazes into the depths of the rake building for a long time.When eating, bring the bowl to the dining field, turn it over and over again, it means that the canal is almost repaired, and if the repair is completed, the life will also be cleared, and the person will live a long life.Then discuss which person died early, who died at a loss, which widow will remarry first, and who is likely to marry.Such topics are discussed day and night, hanging on walls, trees, and fields everywhere. As soon as I talk about it, I feel that I have talked too much, and it seems wordy to talk about it in a monotonous manner.So the wind died down, and I calmed down, and I should do what I should do.But when the excitement and joy began to feel a little numb, Du Bo went to the construction site, went there the first day, and returned on the third day.When I came back, the sky was still hazy, the moonlight had faded like the setting sun, the village was thick with darkness, and the cool air of autumn night was permeating like winter.Du Bo sat on his wife's grave to rest for a while, and told her that the canal has been repaired, and that the child will soon become a deputy village head, and after becoming a deputy village head, he can become a village head. Everyone has to listen to our Du family.If you say you go first, you can go first, and let me live the good life for you.After resting enough, he left the cemetery and went back to the village. He first stood up at the head of the village, thought for a while, and then patted the gate of the first house with his hands, evenly and rhythmically.Then he called:

"Hey—it's time to kill the chicken, it's time to buy meat—" knock on the door of the second house, "It's time to kill chickens, it's time to buy meat—" knock on the door of the third house, "It's time to kill chickens, it's time to buy meat—" knock on the door of the thirty-seventh house, "Sister Zhucui, Sima Lan is coming back soon, you should kill the chicken and buy meat. Be nice to him—" When I raised my hand to pat the gate of Lan Shishi's house, I suddenly remembered that Shisi was alone, and no man or child had gone to repair the canal on the beam. My hand froze on the door for a moment, and I smelled some strange Chinese medicine smell coming out from the crack of the door. He bit his nose and turned around.Turning around, I saw the sun jumping out from the Dongshan beam, and the beam land in front of the village and the road at the entrance of the village were immediately covered with a layer of golden yellow.In the golden room, a bannerman walked back towards the village vaguely hugging him.Several carts of tools, several carts of mess, and a mess of people.When he turned around, his face was swelled with surprise, and immediately turned red, and he hurriedly put his mouthpiece on his mouth, and shouted loudly:

"Every household, listen up—the Lingyin Canal has been repaired to the side of the beam—the villagers are back on the beam—they are all getting up to pick up people——" Like a lunatic, he called in this alley and called in that alley again.The dark red and hoarse voice covered the village like a sunny cloud.Immediately following his call, the gates of Sanxing Village rang one after another. The creaking sound of the door hinges was ten miles long, followed by the footsteps of women, the surprise sounds of children calling daddy and brother, gray Teng Teng, Bai Liangliang, rumbled in the village alley.People were all buttoned up, rubbing their sleepy eyes and running towards the village.The voices were ups and downs, and the footsteps were thunderous and lightning flashing.The flames of rekindled joy spread inside and outside the door, on the street, in the village and in mid-air.Like a big red quilt warmly covering the whole sky.The children struggled from their mother's arms, ran and jumped towards the approaching man, fell down and got up without crying or fussing and continued to run forward.The women followed behind the children, giggling, and silver falling on their feet.They sneered at a certain woman beside them, saying that seeing how anxious you are, they didn’t even bother to wash your face when they heard that the man had returned.At the same time, I was ridiculed by others, saying look at yourself, you don’t even care about wearing shoes, and you are more fun than anyone else in running around.The whole village boiled.Surprise Hong Yanyan swelled in everyone's heart so much that it was about to explode in a blink of an eye.Autumn is also very good. When the golden basin is round, the sound of red copper bumping can be heard all over the world, clear and crisp.Qiuzao is neither hot nor cold, caressing everyone.The lowing of the cow after standing up under the shed was thick and muddy, but it warmed people's hearts.

That's it. The men hurried back after being out for half a year, one by one, followed by a motorcade, and approached the village step by step.The women said, doesn't it mean that you can come back the day after tomorrow, if you knew it, you should kill the chicken and stew it in advance.They say they want to live past the age of forty, and people from other villages don’t discriminate against our three-surnamed village. They say they want to marry their daughters to the town, so that they can go to the market and go to the store as soon as they go out, cook their meals, and then go out to buy salt. Buying vinegar can also be used in time for meals; if you can go out of the village to watch a play every month, living in that life for a year or two is not in vain.Surprised by this, talking endlessly, the men arrived at the entrance of the village.The women found that things were a little different.The ones pulling the carts didn't walk fast. The one in the front seemed to be slowing down his pace. From time to time, he would look back at the huddled men behind him, and then look at Sima Lan who was walking beside him.

Sima Lan's eyes were no longer green before he left home. His eyes were cloudy and misty, and the dirt on his face was like a mountain of thick soil, like a dry beard that hadn't been washed for three to five years, or even ten or twenty years. The stubble is as deep as the sorghum stubble that has not been plowed this season.He lowered his head slightly, but struggled to lift it up every now and then, glancing at the women and children standing at the entrance of the village.Young and strong men, all thin, wearing tattered clothes that seemed to have never seen water in a hundred years, followed behind him, approaching the village step by step.As the distance between the two phases shortened, a strange air whirlwind began to flow in the middle.The sound of people's unstoppable breathing, the squeaking sound of the suppressed winter wind and frost.Finally, they came close, and the eyes of the two sides clashed.The footsteps changed from heavy to light, and the hailstones suddenly froze on the entrance of the village.All the cars pulled by the men stopped.Hundreds of women and children finally saw clearly that seven dead people were pulled into the seven rack carts behind the two carts of tools and miscellaneous miscellaneous things, and they were all put in coffins.Seven black coffins lined up like a black embankment.The sun shone blindingly on the black coffin, and the characters "sacrifice" in front of the seven coffins were all engraved into golden round plates, like seven rising suns overhead.The men stood by the coffins, stupefied as if they had lost one of the women's clothes, not knowing what to say to the woman, how to explain how it had been lost.The women piled up on the intersection like a piece of cotton, all dumb and pale, the astonishment in their eyes crackling like a slate, hitting the coffin, the face of Sima Lan in front of the first coffin, and the pole of the frame on and on the luggage in the carriage.The sun is getting brighter and yellower, and the light-colored fire is burning on the top of people's heads.From the village to the outside of the village, from the mountains to the outside of the mountains, from the inside of the world to the outside of the world, there is silence for hundreds of miles and thousands of miles.The sound of eyes landing was like a raging fire.The running and jumping of hares and grasshoppers on the other side of the mountain came clearly.In this boundless silence, a child coughed, and a large piece of green leaves from a locust tree next to it was shaken down.The air was filled with white dementia and shock.The ground under the feet is full of the child's trembling from fright and the tension of holding his breath.All the villagers, men and women, big and small, had blunt and powerless eyesight, cut off by the black half of the coffin, and could no longer see far away.Everyone was waiting for an earth-shattering sound, waiting for the sun to burst above their heads with a bang, and the fragments, dragging light, splashed to all directions inside and outside the mountain ridge.The time is dark, sticky and thick, unable to flow or turn, soaking the Sanxing Village under the warm sun in the cold.More than a hundred pairs of eyes, I don't know when, slowly moved away from the coffin, as thick and heavy as a beam, covered with dust, and carefully fell on Sima Lan's face.Sima Lan felt the sound of cracking and peeling on the wooden dirty face, and the rumbling rumbling in his chest was rolling like the muffled thunder in February.He walked forward a few steps, with the sound of his footsteps shaking, he stood in front of the first coffin, put his hand on the coffin, and said to the hundreds of women and children in the village: "You have seen it, this time the canal is being repaired in the village." A total of seven people died. Anyone over the age of thirty-seven with a throat problem died. I made them die. The earliest death was three months ago. I didn’t let you know because I was afraid that you would go to the construction site to make trouble. , The Lingyin Canal was once again unable to be repaired in the village. It was me who said that every man who returned to the village said that someone died on the canal, and the whole village would ask his family to hand over two acres of land after the eighth generation of his ancestors. The last one to die was the last gunfire at dusk yesterday. When digging a hole in the mountain ridge of Liujiajian in Houliang, the hole was deep and there was little air. If you don’t suffocate people, don’t try to dig the hole. If the cave is not opened, Lingyin Canal will last forever. Don’t even think about repairing it in the village, what do you guys think? I can only let people over the age of thirty-seven with throat problems enter the cave.” At this point, Sima Lan patted the coffin with his hand, “If a person dies, he will die. One on the hillside. Today I brought them all back. Each person has a pair of paulownia coffins. The coffins are all three inches thick, and the front and back are made of cypress. Each coffin costs two or three hundred yuan. Qiancun still owes the coffin shop in the town, and the funeral arrangements in the backside are all up to you, big or small. If you can do it big, you can do it small, and if you can’t, you can do it small. Your family will pay for the food and food. ──What are you doing in a daze, each of you pulls your coffin back.” Speaking loudly like in a meeting, Sima Lan stood on tiptoes, stretched her neck, and began to look at the women, searching from left to right, and finally set her eyes on a woman from Lan's house. The woman's face turned pale, and she collapsed on the ground. Sima Lan patted the first coffin, "San Nizi, this is your man." Pat the second coffin, "From Chang Gen's family, this is your man." Pat the third coffin, "Du Dadao, this is your man." Pat the fourth coffin, "Sima Hongmei, this is your man. You were a widow when you were young. I'm sorry for Sima Lan." Pat the fifth coffin, "Sister Sima Zhu, take this away." Pat the sixth coffin, "Lan Ye'er, take this mouth away." When he reached the seventh coffin, he stood down and looked at the villagers who were still stunned. He saw that there were no tears on their snow-white faces, and they were as dumb as dust on the unearthed coffin, just like the villagers who came over. A few dogs lay motionless between the legs of the crowd knowingly and sadly, and even the sparrows flew over their heads in silence.He said that everyone should take the coffin away, can the dead be brought back to life in a daze?Then he turned around and called out to the men behind him, all of them went home to wash their faces, rested for a day, and tomorrow morning the original team would go to dig the seven tombs. Whoever wants to be lazy and play tricks and not dig the tombs will dare to drink a sip of the water when it flows into the village. His tongue was cut off.After he finished speaking, he turned his head around and got into the shelf cart that held the seventh coffin, and with a twist of the handlebar, he pulled the coffin away.However, he had just walked a few steps when Sima Lu's daughter-in-law suddenly ran out from the crowd of women, came up to pull the cart and said, "Fourth brother, is this a deer?"He said yes, you can take it home, the last shot blasted him yesterday.Sima Lan thought that if he said that, the woman should take the coffin away, but the woman stood in front of him for a while, and Leng Ding'er let out a cry of "wow", saying that fourth child, you can live forty, fifty, Sixty, but your fifth brother?He was only thirty-seven, why did you let him die?Why did the water pass so that he could not drink water, and he passed away without a throat problem?Crying and asking like this, Sima Lu's daughter-in-law stomped her feet and shook her head. Like a lunatic, she tore her cries into a greenish color and beat Sima Lan's dirty face one by one like a whip. Nuran and Calm were beaten to the ground.His face immediately turned pale, and the regret of the villagers was vividly hanging on his cheeks.He was a little at a loss, standing there watching Sima Lu's daughter-in-law pounced on the coffin, used her hands to remove the nailed coffin lid, hit the coffin lid with her head, her hair disheveled, screaming earth-shatteringly, tears and snot The same hit her face and the coffin.She pawed at the seam of the coffin with the black line, staring at Sima Lan called: "Fourth, you give me back my man—you give me back my man—he is only thirty-seven, and his throat is not sick, why do you let him die——why do you let him die—" The sun had rolled over from the sky beyond the village and shone warmly on the coffin.From some coffin, the stench of black blood and strong white wine smelled like a dead body, mixed with the cry of the Sima Lu woman, and soaked in the water after the rain in the village.With this cry, all the other women suddenly woke up, they were still crying while watching Sima Lu's woman, and then they suddenly remembered that their man was also lying in the coffin, and she became a widow in the blink of an eye just like others Then everyone blew over from the crowd like a whirlwind, crying and making noise around the seven coffins.Daughters-in-law cried for their husbands, children cried for their fathers, brothers and sisters cried for their elder brothers, idlers cried for their neighbors, and all the mountains and plains became white crying, and the sky and the ground were full of clear noses.In mid-autumn, willows, pagoda trees, Chinese toon trees, elm trees, and paulownia trees all still have some beautiful colors, and the half-yellow old leaves are smeared with red and yellow among the trees and dyed among the green branches and green leaves. Amid the crying, the yellow leaves and half-green leaves all swirled down.The fragrance and warmth in the fields were driven away by the crying, and the ravines and ravines were filled with desolation and sadness.The men all go to pull the women, asking if a dead person can still cry and live, this is not the first time you have seen a dead person, so there is no need to cry so sadly.The women whose husbands died saw that the men were still alive, talking loudly, walking with twitching feet, although their clothes were dirty and their faces were black and red like a piece of rusted iron, they were still alive after all, so , tearing off the clothes of those men and yelling "give me back my man—give me back my man—", making the whole world full of red and crying, and even the dogs were barking under the coffin.Seeing that the other women were tearing the men apart, Sima Lu's woman suddenly became courageous, removed her hand from the coffin, grabbed Sima Lan's collar, and shouted, "Your fourth son will be forty tomorrow." He is one year old, but he is only thirty-seven, he has no illness or calamity, his throat is neither sore nor itchy, why did you let him be blown to death—why wasn’t your fourth child killed—you want to share a bed with Lan forty, You came back alive, but how will our girls live after the deer is dead—" He tore and tore, and tore off a bunch of white buttons from Sima Lan's clothes.Sima Lan looked for the lost buckle and her dirty breasts that had been pulled out by her sister-in-law, then suddenly raised her right hand, and slapped her across the face with a thud, the sister-in-law was dumbfounded again, and stopped crying Yes, the tears stopped abruptly.The red marks on the five fingers on the face bloomed in bright patterns, and following down, this slap cut off all the crying like a knife.Adults and children stopped crying, but their mouths were still open, leaving a reddish-brown throat hanging in the air. The village has returned to its deathly stillness, and the sun above the head shone like hoes and rakes touching each other.In this silence, Sima Lan yelled at the crowd: "Crying—what are you crying about, my ancestors? You men don't live to be forty, but you and the children, your grandparents will live to be over forty in the future!" When you are ten, you will live to be fifty, sixty, seventy and eighty, and you can live to see your grandsons, granddaughters, and great-grandsons and great-granddaughters. Whoever lives to be ninety years old may live together for five generations. , why are you crying? Why are you unhappy?" At this point, Sima Lan took a step back and stood on a ridge by the side of the road, "Let me tell you that the Lingyin Canal has almost been repaired, and Du Liu has already received Let the big leopard go to release the water. Right now, the death of a three-year-old child in the village is a joy and mourning. The ancestors of the three surname villages have never had a better day of rejoicing than now, and now they bring the dead back home. You cry every day today. It’s okay to die, but no one can post a white pair. The village where the white pair is posted will not send people to dig the grave. Tomorrow, there will be no crying in the village. The people happily left the village to enjoy their blessings. Those who were alive were able to open the canal, and those who lived were happy to celebrate for three days and three nights." After speaking, Sima Lan walked down from the ridge, and the villagers saw his face The remorse on the face evaporated during the speech, and there was nothing left, and what was replaced was an unstoppable layer of bright pink behind the dirt, which was as faint as the dirt on fire.He came down from the ridge and walked towards the crowd, calling out Sima Hu's name loudly. The villagers turned their heads and saw Sima Hu coming out of the village rubbing his sleepy eyes and leaning on crutches, agreeing to Sima Lan's request all the way. Calling, every step is as difficult as crossing a river.Sima Lan asked loudly: "Have you bought firecrackers?" Sima Hu replied: "Yes. I also bought wine—is my fifth brother dead?" Sima Lan didn't answer Sima Hu, but turned to the women, "Crying!" Ah—you cry, I won’t let you cry after today.” The women fell silent, and they didn’t cry at all. "I told you to cry, but I stopped crying." Sima Lan muttered, and searched the crowd again, asking where is Du Bo?Did Dubo come?Until then, men and women saw that Du Bo greeted all the women and children in the village, but he was sitting on the ground behind the fourth coffin, covering his face with his hands, motionless.The fourth coffin contained his own uncle, who was also killed by the last bombing yesterday.Sima Lan walked towards him.Dubo stood up.Sima Lan said that he didn't expect you to look like a woman.Du Bo said that two people died in my family in the past six months, and Sima Lan said that it would be fine in the future, and that no one asked you to write a funeral couplet in the past few days. The couplets were pasted on two big trees on both sides of the road at the entrance of the village.It is said that the past few days are the days of great joy in the village. Before Du Liu came back from releasing the water, you were talking about the affairs of the village.When he comes back, all these things will be handled by him and my sixth brother.After speaking, Sima Lan looked up at the sky, the sunlight was already hurting her eyes.He narrowed his eyes, and said to all families to take the coffins away, to dig the graves tomorrow, and to bury the dead after dark, and the living will be busy with their lives.Talking and walking, he picked up a shovel of his own from the car in front, carried a sledgehammer on his shoulder, and walked through the crowd to Sima's alley alone.The villagers behind him saw him walking away step by step, when suddenly a woman's voice came out of the silence. "Boss and second, come and take your father's coffin back. He died because he didn't enjoy the life of Lingyin Water."