Chapter 27 Chapter Twenty-Five

one Everything continues to restore to the original state. The time is fast, like a strip of red silk drawn in and out by a magician.A big tree becomes a young tree, an old age becomes a middle-aged man, a middle-aged man becomes a young man, even a strong cow shrinks back into the womb of an old cow after becoming a calf.The undead came back alive from the grave, and the picks and hoes that were broken during the burial returned to the blacksmith's shop, where they were burned red and beat.The shovel turned the hoe back to the branches and sprouted again, and even the worn-out clothes of the people became newly woven cloth, or cotton and seeds.

In the summer of this year, Sima Xiaoxiao, Sima Lan’s father, was pecked to death by crows and hawks voluntarily. Full of food, remembering that Sima Xiaoxiao's bones should be buried thickly in the soil, so after the autumn harvest, a funeral procession with few people appeared on the golden land.The funeral was presided over by Lan Shishi's father, Lan Baisui. Because when Sima Xiaoxiao was the village head, every household in the village lost their lives at his hands, so the funeral team looked even more desolate, without crying. Only Sima Lan, Sima Hu, and Sima Lu, three young dutiful sons, followed behind the coffin, with three pairs of frightened eyes open, like three puppies who couldn't cry, walking freely in the deserted market where they were selling their lives. move around.

The only surprising thing that happened was that after the funeral procession left the village and went to the crossroads, and Sima Lan smashed a new earthen basin, Lan Shishi, the sixteenth-year-old daughter of Lan, suddenly ran out of the village. She was wearing a white filial blouse that her mother wore when her grandfather died. She was as fat and as big as a white robe. She couldn't help but ran after the funeral team.The autumn wind bulged up the filial piety clothes, and she was like a cloud rolling rapidly on the ground. She went behind the funeral procession, inserted into the procession, took Sima Lan's hand, and wanted to go to the grave together with Sima Lan.

The coffin stopped. Lan Baisui was so angry that his lips trembled, and he said forty, your mother, take off your filial piety, your father and mother are still alive, and they will live to be a hundred years old. Lan Shishi opened his bright black eyes and said, Dad, don't you want me to be Brother Lan's wife? After Lan Baisui kicked Forty out of the funeral team lightly, there was a lonely explosion in front of the coffin, and a piece of horse dung paper fell down. In the smell of gunpowder, the funeral team , Lost and defeated, walked towards the beam again.After the burial, Sima smiled, Lan Baisui looked at the villagers who were about to leave, and said after holding back for a long time: You must live past forty!I thought about changing the fields in the village again. In all likelihood, everyone has lived past forty.

No one in the village paid any attention to him, he was left in the cold like a lone goose lost in the flock. two Three years later, when another group of people less than thirty-seven or eight were carried into the cemetery, people remembered the day when Sima Lan's father, Sima Xiaoxiao, was buried. The stubble of the harvested rapeseed flowers danced and rattled.I remembered that Lan Baisui stood on Sima Xiaoxiao’s new grave at that time, rubbed his hands together in front of his chest, and said to him for a long time, you all know that the old village head died, and before he died, he said that he would let me take care of the affairs of the village and the affairs of the village. It is to try to make the villagers live past forty years old, fifty, sixty, seventy and eighty years old, and say I want to touch it for a few years. There is no other way but to change the soil.Let's go to Dongshan Liang every day, carry the shovel and pick the shovel, start from the Dongliang land, dig the field three feet deep, bury the upper soil, and turn the lower soil up.He said that the people in the village with the three surnames lived short lives. If it wasn't for the soil, you would have twisted my Lan Baisui's head and stuffed it into my crotch, dug up my Lan family's ancestral grave, and dried all the bones on the mountain ridge. superior.

Dongshan Liang is four and a half miles away from the village. Lai Ri Lan Baisui carried shovels and shovels and set foot on the fields of Dong Liang. The fishy yellow smell in the harvested rapeseed stubble was still gurgling in the morning. The tranquility is spreading towards the surrounding mountains with a smile.The crow just woke up and flew up from the cliff, its cry and its dried eye droppings fell on the field.Lan Baisui stood on a high spot at the head of the field, and waited for a few rods from the redness in the east to the rising sun, but he didn't wait until a villager came to turn the field for soil according to his will.He murmured to the rising smoke in the village: Sanxing Village is over, it's over, I'm afraid it's going to be over.

Three years later, as if to test Lan Baisui's words, in one summer, seven men in the village had swollen throats and five women had sore throats.Three months later, before the summer was over, eleven of the twelve villagers with throat problems died, and the youngest was only nineteen years old. He died within half a year of getting married.It wasn't until the day of the funeral that the villagers discovered that his wife's belly was already bulging, and her seventeen-year-old face was still tender and plump, with a fair complexion, and she was the most beautiful among the girls in the village.On the day she got married, the whole village went to her house to eat and drink. Stewed fatty meat with cabbage and vermicelli, a big bowl for adults and a small bowl for children, the lips of the whole village were covered with pink solidified oil.In the evening, someone went to make trouble in the house and hid under the new bed all night. The next day, everyone in the village knew that the bride cried and then laughed on the bed.And the nineteen-year-old groom did not rest all night, naked and naked, and pressed the woman under him nineteen times in a row.When the villagers saw the bridegroom, they said, save your woman, she is only seventeen, sooner or later she will be yours.When he saw the woman, he said, "You should feel sorry for him a little bit. You will regret it if you bleed dry."After hearing this, the bride and groom blushed, bowed their heads silently and left at the village head or beside the mill.

Since then, the villagers have never heard the sound of the woman calling the bed, like a flute broken by the villagers. Now her man is dead.The villagers heard her sharp howling again, and the voice echoed through the village tearfully: You save him, you save him—he is only nineteen years old, and we have been married for less than half a year...I just passed Seventeen made me a widow... On the day of the burial, the coffin was like a piece of dead wood, swinging leisurely out of the village above the village alley.The sunlight falling on the coffin blazed hot and white on the surface of the black lacquered coffin, like the last few drops of water about to be boiled dry on the pot.She was behind the coffin, banging her head against the rails of the coffin.People pulled her back, and she rushed out of the village to grab the coffin bearers, grabbed the old carrying pole tied to the coffin head, and called out that you killed my man, you all went to Dongliang Field three years ago Digging the ground for soil, my man won't get throat disease if he is less than 20.The plum wood on the coffin, due to the daily use and the use of the ancestors for generations, has been polished red and bright, as if stained with oil and lacquer.At the place where the ropes were tied, the coffin ropes had been tightened hundreds of times, and deep ravines had been worn away.The newly-married woman was hanging by the rope ditch, pulling the knots of the coffin rope one by one. The blood flowed from her fingers and dripped along the rope ditch in the middle of the burial path.The funeral procession had to stop amidst her cries, and they all clearly heard her crying, saying, you men who specialize in carrying the dead, you have the strength to plow the fields for soil—why? It wasn’t you who died—why didn’t you know that digging up the ground and replacing it with soil can make people live past forty—why it wasn’t you who were lying in this coffin.The seventeen-year-old widowed woman screamed hoarsely on the beams of the mountains, with the smell of red blood, hitting the coffin of the funeral team, the dark brown and dull faces and hands of the bearers , legs, and Da Xia Tian's bare-backed chest, like a green fruit, hard and hard, shaking everyone's chest up and down.The wild beating of the heart is like the hooves of mules and horses galloping on the mountain ridge.

The new widow who cursed and talked nonsense was Lan Bashi, the second girl of Lan Baishi. Three days later, she went crazy, took off her clothes and threw them on the well platform, with a five-month-old belly, she scolded the men in the village for not plowing the land for soil like a white country drum.Amidst her spitting and cursing, the villagers regretted that morning that was worthy of historical records. No adult listened to Lan Baisui's call and went to Dongshan Liang to exchange land for land.As the day approached the top of the village, Lan Baisui came back alone, followed by the only person behind him, a teenage child.This is Sima Lan, the most earth-shattering figure in Sanxing Village.

One in front of the other, they are like a pair of old and young mules and horses who have traveled thousands of miles.When we got to the village, the old mule turned around and said you should go home. Sima Lan raised his head and said that he would not dig the soil in the future? He said that if dozens of people don’t die in the village, no one will follow me to dig the land for soil, and no one will regard me as the village head. After eleven of the twelve villagers with throat problems died, the villagers finally found out that the only one who survived was Lan Baisui's daughter-in-law Du Meimei. Planting wheat, harvesting corn, planting beans, hoeing sweet potatoes, never getting in touch with each other, while Lan Baisui and his daughters who were born in a year, standing in a neat row, are digging the soil almost all the time. Exchange land.

Their family has started to eat the food grown in the new soil, so Meimei has survived with a sore throat. The villagers all wanted to win life by plowing the land for soil. One sunny day, in the courtyard of his home, Lan Baisui took out a piece of raw white cloth woven by his wife and a clay pot with red printing, cut the white cloth into a steamer cloth, and spread it on the Eight Immortals table in the middle of the courtyard. At the meeting, Du Yan, who was literate, was invited to sit at the table, and Sima Lan and his son Du Bo held the piece of raw white cloth with their hands. Then, Lan Baisui squatted under the tree like a captured thief. Put your head down and say that everyone who agrees with me, Lan Baisui, as the village chief, come here and get your fingerprints on the cloth, and if you don't agree, don't force yourself. The villagers of the three surnames did not know that their unprecedented solemn act on this day, the third day of the ninth lunar month, was the beginning of their new catastrophe.They followed fifteen-year-old Sima Lan and lined up in a row. On the raw white cloth, after pressing hard with their index fingers in the ink pad, red marks like plum blossoms appeared on the raw white cloth. . From then on, Lan Baisui became the head of the village, and began to lead the villagers to dig and replace the land solemnly.Get up when the rooster crows for the first time, leave the village when the rooster crows for the second time, and go to Dongshanliang to start working when the rooster crows for the third time.Lan Baisui asked someone to calculate a detailed account. Their family, a man and a few women, spent three years plowing and exchanging the land for renewing their own private plot of five acres. From Dongliang to Xiliang, it takes about twelve years and three months from the side of the canal in the front valley to the barren grassland in the back valley. If these occupations are removed, it will take thirteen years, or even thirteen years and a few months.However, if one day is stretched as long as a whip, the rooster crows to the ground, and the moon rises to finish work, the thirteen years will be shortened to seven or eight years.No one in the village raised any objection to this. Men and women were deeply immersed in the frenzy of plowing the land for soil and prolonging life. The 22-acre east slope was dug three feet deep, the mellow soil was pressed down, and the raw soil was turned up. When the smell of snow-frozen soil filled the mountains and plains, people walked towards the second mountain ridge in the clear rooster crowing. I saw a piece of new soil in the white snow, and there was a man lying on the new soil. It was Lan Changshou, Lan's 100-year-old cousin. Touch a section of icicles under the eaves.Beside Lan Changshou, the young Sima Lan held his chin and stared blankly at the whiteness of the whole world, as if they were also frozen corpses, as if one was lying upright, and the other It is sitting upright. When the villagers arrived at the field, they all stood by the new soil in astonishment, asking what happened to him? Sima Lan said he was dead, and he died when I came. Needless to say, the man was already dead, his face was already glowing with the color of ice, and his arms and legs were hardened into blue stone pillars.People went to pry his mouth to see, as if accidentally breaking the edge of a bowl, they knocked off his frozen brittle lips, and saw that his throat was so unobstructed from between his unclosed teeth. An unobstructed alley. He didn't die of laryngitis.The shovel still in his hand told people that he died of exhaustion digging the ground for soil.After the arrival of the village chief, Lan Baisui, he broke off his fingers, pulled the shovel from his hand, sat on the ground and cried for a while. After crying, he looked at the villagers who were standing together and said, let’s go to work. , What are you doing guarding the dead? The villagers stood still, staring at Lan Changshou's dead body, stunned. Go to work, Lan Baisui said again, even if you are exhausted, you still have to do it. People still stand still. Sima Lan glanced at Lan Baisui's shameless and helpless face, then glanced at the villagers, suddenly crawled over the corpse's mouth to look, raised his head and said in shock——Oh my God, look, he's still exhausted, His throat is bruised, he has a throat disease.After saying this, the young Sima Lan separated Lan Changshou's mouth, twisted his head to look like a melon, let the villagers see it, then twisted his body suddenly, grabbed the arm of the corpse, Following two bluish-white bang bang bang bang bangs, he carried the corpse on his shoulders and strode towards the village. At this time, looking at Sima Lan and the corpse in the distance, Lan Baisui, who was kicking his body, made up his mind to marry his sixth daughter, Lan Shishi, to him.He thought that in the next generation of Sanxing Village, there would never be a more suitable son-in-law than him to be the beautiful daughter of his Lan family.I think he is Sima Xiaoxiao's child. I think his father, Sima Xiaoxiao's intelligence is not only passed on to him, but also the fiery boldness that his mother suddenly glows at certain times is also passed on to him. three On this night, there was no moonlight, and the villagers finished their work early. Sima Lan walked from one end of the village to the other in the darkness, and knocked on the gate of Lan's empty courtyard.The one who opened the door was Lan Sishi, who had already left her long braids.She opened the door with a bang and asked who it was, and he immediately hugged her in his arms.For a long time to come, he was grateful for the hug that night. She didn't cry or neigh, but she was first startled, then trembling in his arms, struggling to break free, repeating over and over again. Repeated a sentence: I'm going to call, if you don't let go, I will call.She repeated it like this, as if she was speaking with the greatest strength, but it was like mosquitoes and flies buzzing above her head.She was stunned by a suddenness.He didn't speak, but just put his mouth on her face indiscriminately, letting the blood all over his body run wildly like never before, to experience the thrill of the spring tide that he never had before the age of sixteen.They huddled together like that, half twisting, half longing, and they were pulled from the gate to a tung tree in the courtyard.A dead twig exploded beneath their feet with their emotion burning.who's that?Lan Baisui's question came softly from the room, and immediately the courtyard was as quiet as a tomb. He released her from his arms, and a stream of cold sweat hung on his forehead suddenly. who?Lan Baisui stood at the door of the upper room. Lan Shishi walked out from a mass of black shadows: Me. Lan Baisui disappeared from the door again. At this time, Lan Shishi said something that shocked Sima Lan for the rest of his life, but it didn't come true.She said: Brother Lan, I just celebrated my fourteenth birthday the day before yesterday.You kissed me and touched me just after I was fourteen. If you don’t marry me in this life, you won’t even live to be thirty. You Sima family don’t want to have a long-lived person after they’ve turned the land for soil. .In the future, whenever Sima Lan recalled that night, he always felt that his boldness was entirely due to Lan Baisui's weakness.He felt sorry for Lan Baisui and looked down on Lan Baisui.But he didn't know that it was just such a person, but his father made him the village head. Just such a person would give birth to a series of girls who were more beautiful than each other.However, recalling what Lan Forty said that night when he was fourteen years old, a kind of fear darkened his heart.Speaking of Lansi, she is usually thin and thin, with yellow skin on her complexion. It is only since last year that the rosiness has reached her face as expected.The bulge of the chest also seemed to be only a few days ago, as if it was flat and flat yesterday, and it was not until his body leaned against her tonight that her chest bounced along with the rapid breathing. stand up.He thought it was because of her thinness that she didn't dare to scream out loudly, until she was like her sisters who married out once a year, or even twice a year, with her neck stuck and her messy hair pushed back After tidying up and walking up to the room with steady steps, he finally understood that it was he who was overwhelmed by her and frightened by her.He once thought that she was going to yell, so he retreated into the darkness outside the door and ran towards the threshing floor.He has taken a good look at the route, going to the wheat field, and then running from the back of the village to his home.Or cover her mouth when she yells, and drag her out of the gate in panic.However, none of this happened.With that she went back into the house, leaving him in the dark, and all the preparations that had filled his chest were gone at once.He felt unprecedented emptiness and powerlessness, and his legs were trembling limply. When he wanted to retreat outside the gate, he saw a pair of eyes staring at him at the door of the toilet. That was Lan Sanjiu, the youngest girl of the Lan family. Lan Sanjiu's hands were still stiff on her trouser belt, I could see it, she giggled at Sima Lan flatteringly, and said that I wouldn't tell my parents, I wouldn't tell anyone.Come and sit at our house, brother Lan, there is a fire to warm your hands, isn't it cold outside?She asked, the light in her eyes was as beautiful as the moonlight.From then on, he also remembered Lan Sanjiu in his heart.He thought that if he could only marry one woman in his life, it would be better to marry thirty-nine than forty, but unfortunately she was too young.She was two years younger than Forty, not yet twelve years old, and only a few months older than Lan Forty when he rushed into the funeral procession to accompany him to the funeral, so it took two or three years longer to marry her.Two or three years is such a long period of time and the road of hard labor, especially for the people in the Sanxing Village who will die before they can live to forty. Sima Lan followed Lan Sanjiu into the Lan's house. A pot of corn ear fire lit up the upper room of Lan's house.The cobwebs on the wall fluttered in the fireworks, like the wind blowing.Around the brazier, Lan Baisui's hands, Lan Liushi's hands, and Lan Fifty's hands stretched out. They seemed to want to suppress the rising flames, and their hands were all very close to the fire.The light from the fire coming out from the seams of their hands was bright and bright, as red as silk strips under the sun.Blue Forty wasn't there.Her mother wasn't there either.They are in another room.Later, Lan Shishi said that she had gone to discuss her marriage with her mother.On the first night of Sima Lan's wedding with Zhu Cui from Du Bai's family, what flashed in his mind was the moment when he warmed up at Lan's house. Lan Baisui said, Lan Wa'er, do you really want to marry forty? Sima Lan said, think about it. Lan Baisui said, you can marry if you want, since she is your daughter-in-law. Sima Lan stared blankly at Lan Baisui. Lan Baisui didn't look at Sima Lan. He filled a bag of cigarettes, took three puffs, and said for a long time, "Boy, you're sixteen, and you're going to get married in no time. Our Lan family doesn't want a gift from you, but You have to do something for your Uncle Lan.He said that you know that your Uncle Lan is an honest man, and his heart is as solid as Yumu. If the people in the village didn't want to live past forty, no one would listen to me.It is said that our village with three surnames has sold human skins to the Japanese since our ancestors. When it came to your grandfather’s generation, the human skins were sold to soldiers and bandits.After liberation, the war ceased, and the business of human skins fell into disfavor. It was only when the county town caught fire that year, thirteen people were burned to death, more than a hundred people were burned, and dozens of houses were burned. Your father led the villagers there. Made a fortune and bought rapeseed and radish seeds for the whole village.At this point, Lan Baisui knocked his unsmoked smoke into the brazier, told his daughter to go to sleep, and to dig the ground tomorrow, and then he put two corn cobs on the embers, Hold your face against the black smoke and blow a few times, saying that it is my turn to be the village head now, and your father has sold all the leather on my legs in my life——and looked at his daughters, waiting for the daughters to walk away with interest Now, Lan Baisui moved the oil lamp to the corner of the table, stood in the bright place beside the brazier, and took off his trousers to his ankles.Sima Lan's eyes snapped, and the scars on Lan Baisui's legs made his eyes straight.He saw Lan Baisui standing in the dim yellow light, his thighs turned purple, slices of thin skin that had been cut off and sold one after another, starting from the base of his thighs and ending at his knees, about ten pieces. The big ones are like palms, and the small ones are like twig leaves. They are connected one by one, with convex and concave.Sima Lan didn't think that they were two legs, but they looked like willow stakes cut down in spring to be smashed down by the river. Are you afraid?Lan Baisui said, your father's legs are like this, and all the men in the village who are about 30 years old have thighs like this.He pulled up his pants and said that your aunt didn't dare to sleep with me when it was just like this. I knelt under the bed and begged her, so she got into the same bed with me. Sima Lan didn't speak.He felt a little nauseous, a sour water in his mouth was like a mouthful of vinegar.He watched Lan Baisui fasten his trouser belt, but his gaze was still as rigid as a bunch of dry branches.The red and purple scars like tiger spots were covered by Lan Baisui's trousers, but Sima Lan's own thighs were trembling slightly, and the leather on his legs was cold and hard, as if a cold wind had just blown over his thighs.He swallowed the sour water, twisted it on his thigh with his hand, and when the hot pain slowly flowed down his body, his heart felt a little bit warmer. He stared at Lan Baisui's face. It's your generation's turn, Lan Baisui said, the village needs a sum of money. The shovels, shovels, and baskets in the village should be replaced. Lan Baisui said that the brothers Du Yan used a pen to calculate on paper. They said they would buy five shelf cars. Six and a half years can be shortened. It doesn’t cost much, Lan Baisui said, I’ve done the math, and it’s enough to sell three thigh leathers for two people. Whose skin are you selling?Lan Baisui said, you go baby, if you don't go no one will listen to me, and said, if you sell it, go buy the wheels of the trolley.It is said that if you sell the skin, you will give a gift of forty, and our Lan family will not charge you a penny from Sima's family when we shop together.