Chapter 38 Chapter Thirty-Four

"I have indeed seen the distress of my people, and I have heard their cry, says the LORD. I knew their distress. I came down to ask them to be delivered from their distress, and I brought them out of the land , to a good and wide land flowing with milk and honey. Now the cry of the people has reached my ears, and I have seen how the Egyptians oppressed them. Therefore I send you so that you may lead my people out of their misery Come." The ancient famine seems to be brought by Sima Lan, who was only seven years old, carrying a bunch of grasshoppers with a sprig of dogtail grass into the Palu mountain range.At that time, twenty-six-year-old Du Yan was eating at the head of the village. The summer light was sticky and sticky in his bowl, and his bowl was covered with golden paste. Yang Gen, Lan Fifty, Lan Forty, and Lan Sanjiu from Lan Baisui's family walked back from the village in a group. Each child had a childish smile on his face, and each held a few red flags in his hand. The white, green and purple grasshoppers hopped into the village, singing a ballad in unison:

The grasshopper flies, the grasshopper calls, The grasshopper came to the chicken and smiled, Drink egg greens, eat egg yolks, After eating eggs, eat chicken sausages, Chicken and human flesh are eaten up, Pick up a bone and make white soup... A layer of snow-white surprise floated on Du Yan's face. He put the bowl under the tree and stopped the children from saying, where did the grasshopper come from?The sky and the ground are full of miles outside the village.Snow white frosted off his young face.Before I could ask any more questions, I saw two big grasshoppers flying over the top of the head like a little bird, and landed on a jujube tree to grab the leaves, so the chopsticks fell from my hand to the ground.From the nearest alley to the outside of the village, in a barren grass cemetery behind the village, foxtail grass, coir grass, white grass, tooth horn teeth, wheel flowers, and winter jasmine, which have already bloomed and are still full of leaves, are crowded around the grave.A swarm of blue grasshoppers flew over the grass like a swarm of moving bees.There are two dogs, jumping and jumping on the edge of the grave. Every time they jump, they can catch a grasshopper, big or small, and eat it into their mouths.Sima Lan's eldest brother Sima Sen, second brother Sima Lin, third brother Sima Mu, and several other skinny melons in the village, who were so short and black, stood on the grave like a long-lasting fire stick, with their hands stretched out. In mid-air, screaming and beating the grasshoppers with his clothes.Du Yan stood on the edge of the grass, and dead grasshoppers rained down on his feet.He knew that the famine was indeed coming. The children said that all the chicken and human flesh were eaten up, and they picked up a bone to make white soup. What kind of prediction is more accurate than the children's jokes?He ran straight to Sima Xiaoxiao's house, and saw Sima Lan and his younger brothers Hu and Deer feeding chickens with grasshoppers on the dog's tail grass.Sima smiled and scraped a hoe with a knife,

The courtyard is full of white and yellow pagoda flowers and pagoda trees. He was surprised on the threshold of Sima's house. "Uncle baby, it's not good, a famine is coming." Sima turned around with a smile and put his gaze on his face. "Go to the field to hoe rape in the afternoon, and ring the clock for me when you come home." Du Yan was still riding on the threshold, holding on to the door frame without moving. "Listen to me, I am the only one in the village who can read a few words. It is said in the perpetual calendar that grasshoppers are flying all over the sky and there will be no rain for three years."

Sima smiled and knocked the hoe on the ground. "You are deceiving me, Sima Xiaoxiao, for being illiterate. I am also your child's uncle and village chief if I am illiterate. Where is the weather when the weather is good and the weather is dry?" Du Yan left Sima Xiaoxiao's house. Du Yan sat in his room for a long time. When it was getting dark, Du Yan dragged his son Du Bo, carried a canvas bag and a wicker basket in his hand, walked into a courtyard, and said, sister-in-law, I am really sorry, the food in the house is not enough, and the year before last you My family borrowed twelve catties of wheat from my family, so how about returning it if you want it?The sister-in-law stood at the door thinking about it, she seemed to remember it, apologized for not paying back the food in time, and hurried back to the house to dig out a few bowls of wheat.I went to another house and said I still remember it?Your family borrowed a small basket of sorghum from my family last year.Go to the next house and tell me that I made you laugh, brother, I'm here to ask for a bowl of black beans that you borrowed.In this way, he walked more than ten courtyards and half a village.The wicker basket was full, and the cloth bag contained a portion.After returning home, he rummaged through the box, moved the bed to the middle of the room, dug a big hole in the ground, buried a jar of grain under the bed, got up and looked at his wife and said, "Your family still owes us a load of grain."

Sima Taohua said, "Are you crazy?" Du Yan said: "When you got married, you agreed that the bride price would be two sets of clothes and ten catties of cotton. The day before marrying you, your father asked for another load of food. " The daughter-in-law said: "If you want to get it back, you have to kill me first." Du Yan didn't say anything else, moved the bed to the original place, covered the empty soil with a layer of hay, and took the basket to find three distant uncles and one distant aunt of the child, saying that the family planned to build two wing rooms, please People naturally want to take care of other people's food, and want to borrow a basket of grain from each family, coarse grains and fine grains are fine, even sweet potato slices are fine.In this way, wheat and beans, sorghum and sweet potato slices, plus half a basket of dried tofu dregs, were buried under another bed.When it was dark, the work was over, and I went to the grassland behind the village to see the two dogs whose stomachs were bloated from eating grasshoppers. The head came out of its mouth, bouncing in the slop.Looking at the sky over the grass again, the setting sun was as red as thick silk, but not a single grasshopper was flying.I walked around on the grass, stepped on the grass with my feet, but I didn’t see a grasshopper flying around. When I was suspicious, my five-year-old daughter Zhu Cui called him to go back to eat, but she was holding a grasshopper in her hand. Grasshopper, with fingers that are bigger than a human, with a boxy body, like a blue wooden plank planed by a plane, with thighs as hard as wire under the body, kicking hard from time to time, shaking the rope that is tied to it.Du Yan had never seen such a big grasshopper. He pulled out the grasshopper's wings to see that it was wider than a sparrow, like the palm of a child.Asked where it was caught, Zhu Cui pointed to a corn field in the south, so she followed Zhu Cui, her face suddenly turned ashen.In such mid-autumn, the maize has already sprung out, and in half a month, it will soon be ripe for autumn.I can already smell the bright yellow breath of autumn, but in the shoulder-deep maize field, most of the two-inch-wide sorghum leaves have been eaten by grasshoppers. The gaps and holes are densely packed on the sorghum leaves, forming a web like a net. one slice.

Du Yan said: "The famine is coming as soon as it is said." Du Yan said, "I'm afraid that the pellets will not be collected this year." Du Yan said: "It's a disaster year that hasn't been seen in a hundred years. If you don't starve to death, you have to flee the famine." Du Yan dragged his daughter home. When he slept until midnight, he heard someone calling under the window sill of his house, opened the door and came out, and saw Sima standing in the moonlight with a smile on his face, his face turned pale, like a layer of frost.He looked at the bleary-eyed Du Yan, and said that he had spoken harshly to him during the day, begging his forgiveness, and asked if it was true that the year of calamity was coming?It is said that all the rapeseed leaves in the field suddenly disappeared. Even if the moths fell off, there should be a layer of leaves in the field. It cannot be bare on the ground, and the trees are also bare. The vegetable stalks are still there, but the rapeseed leaves have disappeared.The two walked side by side to the river below the ditch, and the moonlight made a slight kicking sound under their feet.The chirping of insects in the pagoda tree forest, like a rainstorm, spreads far away, eagerly and clearly. Even the frog drums in the river are a little different from the past. The sound hit people's chest.

There were many men, women and children standing on the village head, all of them seemed to have Sima's smile on their faces, and the amazement they stared at was boundless and boundless.There are children running around under the legs of adults, and they are as excited as New Year's Eve.The one who ran the most was Sima Lan. He was playing hide and seek with a few children. When Sima came over with a smile, he kicked his ass. He just squatted down on the ground. They came to the river. Seeing a piece of rapeseed of three and a half acres, half of the stalks stood up in the moonlight in a blink of an eye, and the leaves that were flourishing like spring willows did not know where they went.Standing by the river for a while, Du Yan went to the rapeseed field and walked around the rapeseed. It turns out that when the rapeseed is about to bloom, the scent of the fishy buds is gone. between.Du Yan walked through the rapeseed, and the green smell rushed into his nose.I leaned on a rapeseed tree and looked carefully, and immediately smelled the turquoise smell of grasshoppers flying over in the green air.He came out of the rapeseed field.

Sima smiled and said, "You are the only one in the village who can understand the perpetual calendar. If you have something to say, just say it." Du Yan said: "Let your daughter-in-law save some food." Sima smiled and said, "I'll let you speak directly." Du Yan said: "If you really believe me, you should hurry up and get some food and hide it, otherwise your family of six The children are going to starve to death. " Sima smiled and asked, "Drought or flood?" Du Yan said: "I'm afraid it will be plagued by grasshoppers first."

Sima smiled and left, quickly climbed up the hillside, and told the villagers waiting there at the head of the village to go home and prepare a sack of slices, and those who didn't have a sack torn off the quilt and sheet, and tomorrow the family would share a piece of rapeseed. On the ground, a swarm of grasshoppers came and drove them into the corn field.At this time, many villagers left, only the twenty-eight-year-old Lan Baisui was piled there like an old quilt.Whispering and asking for a long time, the village chief, don't you want autumn grain? Sima laughed and said, "Eat more rapeseed to live past forty years old."

Lan Baisui softened his voice more and more: "Brother Xiaoxiao, don't yell at me, I'm just asking casually." At this point, Lan Baisui completely languished, like a sheep, walking towards the house alone in a boring way, the sound of footsteps was boneless and fluttering lightly, looking pitiful.At this time, Sima Lan got out from under the legs of the crowd, chased after Lan Baisui and took Lan Baisui's hand, and inexplicably called Uncle Baisui, Uncle Baisui, saying don't be angry with my father, uncle, don't be angry with my father. Lan Baisui took a look at Sima Lan, who was already familiar with the world, patted his head with his hand, and went to the side, saying that uncle is not angry, because uncle will not be the village chief in this life.

The night is ancient and quiet.The moonlight is cold and cool, flowing in the alley like fine water.Sima Lan stood under the shade of a tree in the middle of the alley, watching Lan Baisui walking away, feeling sad and sad, but then thought that whoever became the village head could yell at the villagers, and one day I would How about becoming the village head yourself? He didn't know what he would be like when he became the village chief, so he just stood there, thinking far away and illusory, and the people in the village with three surnames, at this moment, no one knew what Sima Lan, who was already seven years old, was thinking. Knowing that his life's deeds may have begun from this moment.The cries of night birds outside the village came from the other side of the alley, and Sima smiled and called from the other side of the alley, saying, Lan Baisui, please go, don't blame me if your family can't keep the rapeseed tomorrow. Sima Lan stood there without moving. The sound of footsteps behind him began to ring towards the doors in all directions.When someone passed by him, they patted his head with their hands, saying that you are sensible, you know that Lan Baisui is your father-in-law, and you know that you love him.He ignored the person who patted him on the head, watched Lan Baisui disappear into the moonlight without blinking, and watched other villagers walking home, he closed the gate with a creak, and then followed Sima Xiaoxiao towards his house . He asked, "Father, is it going to be a disaster year?" Sima smiled and said, "With Dad around, the sky cannot fall." He said: "My cousin Du Bo told me that his father buried the grain under the bed." Sima stopped his steps with a smile.He turned around and saw Du Yan, who had just climbed up from the mountain ridge, was walking in the open space at the head of the village where there were still a lot of people just now. Stop it: "Hey, listen, if the village is in disarray in a famine year, if you can't make it through, I will lead the whole village to dig food under your bed." Du Yan was stunned, and was stunned as if his scar had been removed. In the moonlight, Sima Lan saw Du Yan in front of her father, her face turned green, she didn't say a word, but her mouth was wide open.The village was completely quiet, and the moonlight and stars moved down from the green treetops overhead, making the sound like the carefree laughter of a group of girls from the Lan family.