Chapter 41 Chapter Thirty-Seven

The whole congregation of Israel set out from Elim, and on the fifteenth day of the second month after they came out of Egypt, they came to the wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Sinai.The whole congregation of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, saying, "Would that we had died at the hand of the LORD of Egypt, when I sat by the meatpot and was full; and you brought us out into this wilderness , to starve the whole congregation to death!" The great famine started after autumn. As the weather turned from warm to cold, the food tanks of each family were finally exhausted.At first, the villagers could grab a handful of corn grits or sweet potato flour and sprinkle them into the pot when cooking, and then they finally became boiled vegetables in clear water.Earlier in the village, there were one or two chickens swaying on the street, but then the chickens disappeared, and so did the dogs, all of which were killed and eaten.If the door of someone's house is closed when eating, it must be where they got the food, or they killed wild sparrows or old turtledoves and cooked them secretly at home, lest the neighbors come in and ask for a bite.

There was a strong wind blowing on the mountains before winter, and after the wind, even the sparrows and mice were completely gone in the village. When someone saw Mrs. Duggan cooking mice for her children, someone asked her where did she catch the mice?It is said that two families caught a few mice last year, but they finally felt that the mice they caught were not enough to make up for the energy they had consumed, so they let it go.I started to cook a handful of grasshopper carcasses in the pot every meal, saying that grasshopper meat is more fragrant than pork, and it can pass the day with bran vegetables.

After a few days, someone ran out of coarse grains, and the grasshoppers were finally eaten up, so they came to see Sima Xiaoxiao. "Village chief, you can't watch people starve to death." Sima smiled and said, "What can I do?" The villagers said: "You are the one who let the sorghum go away and guard the rapeseed. It's time to take out the beaten rapeseed and eat it." Excluding the rapeseed that was divided, the rapeseed left in the village is the seed of rapeseed planted by the whole village next year, so we have to take it out and divide half of it, and the life of each family will be peaceful again for half a month.During the period, there was a heavy snowfall, and the silver-white, knee-deep snow in the Ralou Mountains, as long as people moved from one end of the village to the other, their faces would turn pale and sweat profusely like rain.So, all the cats stayed on the bed at home, covered with quilts, saying that saving some energy would save half a bowl of rice.Some children get out of bed and jump, and the adults beat them on the buttocks, saying that they are afraid that the family will not be able to eat all the food, right?Go to bed and go to sleep.The baby went to bed. At first, the adults didn't let him move, but later he was so hungry that he didn't want to move.Later, he collapsed on the bed and couldn't move.Some people said that Du Zhuang, the baby of Du Gen’s family, was about to starve to death, and was thrown by his parents on the beam road waiting for passers-by to pick it up. Sima smiled and said no, Du Zhuang is the eldest child of the Du family, and he looks dignified and beautiful. , Even if you throw it away, you should throw that girl away.I went to the beam to look, and sure enough, I saw Du Zhuang, eight years old, like a pile of mud, sitting on the side of the beam, leaning on a persimmon tree, with a bowl and chopsticks in front of him, his face collapsed into yellow and white, sweating. Crawling on his face like a worm, when he saw someone standing in front of him, he said "I'm hungry" softly, then he raised his arms feebly, as if he was trying to catch something but didn't catch it, he closed his eyes and tilted his head in the tree.

Sima smiled and put his hand in front of his nose to try it out. Seeing that the person was still alive, he picked it up like a ball of cotton and went to Du's house. "My god, you eight generations, are you throwing a human baby or a pig baby?" Dugan sat smoking in the sunlight under the eaves, and put the crushed tobacco leaves on the blown-cleaned ground. The golden color looked like the first-class goods. Seeing that the village chief and the visitors were all staring at the crushed tobacco leaves in front of him, he became lazy. He lazily raised his eyelids and said, "Do you smoke? Rapeseed leaves."

Sima smiled and said, "You can't just throw the baby away, you're still a human being if you throw it away." Dugan didn't look at the village chief: "I'm letting him live." What about the second child?Du Genpuru glanced into the room, Sima smiled and walked out of the room to look, and saw his woman and the silly girl together on the same bed, holding half a bowl of mush soup, he took a sip, and the girl took a sip, and drank finely. Meticulous, Sima Xiaoxiao walked closer to the bed and looked, and saw that the daughter of the Du family was getting uglier and uglier, she was still as weak as a three-year-old at the age of seven, and the skeleton on her chest was as big as an adult, as if she was wearing clothes on her chest. Like a bamboo basket.Glancing at the bowl, the paste soup seemed to be sticky and thick, with a purple color and a strong and strange taste.Sima Xiaoxiao felt that the smell was very familiar, and tried to think about it with the strength of moving mountains and places, but he just couldn't remember what kind of food it was.

He walked out of the house again, glanced at the courtyard of Dugan's house, and saw an elm tree in the corner, half of its bark had been peeled off, exposing the bone-like whiteness, so he felt a thud in his heart, thinking of the familiar strange tree just now. What is the smell?Looking at the moment, Dugan, who had just been carried back, was grabbing the rapeseed leaves that his father made tobacco into his mouth, choking until the white eyeballs almost flowed out. "Aren't you afraid that the baby will choke to death?" Duggan said: "It's his good fortune to die."

Sima smiled and paused for a while. "If you can't feed yourself, you should throw away that chicken-breasted girl." Dugan rolled his eyes and Sima smiled, "If you throw away a good one, someone might pick it up and adopt it, but if you throw away a crippled one, who will support her? Wouldn't that really make her die?" Throat stuffed, Sima smiled and his heart skipped a beat, "I didn't expect you, Dugan, to be alone. Take a cloth bag and come with me." Coming out of Du Gen's house, Sima Xiaoxiao went to his brother-in-law Du Yan's house, opened the door, and saw that his sister Sima Taohua had a thin layer of rosy complexion, and his brother-in-law Du Yan was also very popular. Cui was alive and kicking, as if he hadn't seen anyone in ten or eight years, and when he saw him, he called his uncle a fiery kiss.He didn't promise his nephew and niece, nor did he say anything to his sister who was cooking with a loincloth tied around her waist, and went straight to his brother-in-law who was reading the perpetual almanac at the farm.

"How long will this famine last?" "I'm afraid I won't be able to stop it for a year." "I'm here to borrow a bag of food." Du Yan put the book on the drawer table, saw Sima smiled empty-handed, and said to the daughter-in-law in the kitchen, go find a cloth bag and pack it for his uncle to carry back from outside the village.After finishing speaking, he went to close the wide open gate, and when he went to the gate, there were five or six villagers, some with bags in their hands, some with baskets in their hands, and some with a sea bowl in their hands. His house is coming.Du Yan's face immediately turned pale with shock, and just as he was about to close the door, Dugan, who was walking in the front, called his brother from a distance, saying that I can borrow you?They are all people surnamed Du from the last ancestral grave, and the baby will starve to death in a few days.

Du Yan came back, stared at Sima with a smile and asked: "What's the matter? His uncle." Said: "I am the village head, I can't let the villagers starve to death." Du Yan sat on a chair and said that my family has some food, but the famine has been going on for several months, and I have eaten all of it a few days ago. If you don’t believe me, you can look for it. Except for the half bowl of yellow noodles on the chopping board in the kitchen, I found you Take it all.At that moment, there were black clouds in the sky, and Du Yan's house looked cloudy and damp. Sima stood at the door with a smile, his face turning blue from cold, and said, brother-in-law, I will really look for you if you do this.Du Yan took out the perpetual calendar again and flipped through it, as if no one else was in the room, and said, "Look for the village chief, if you find it, just carry it away."

I had no choice but to find it. Five or six men rummaged through boxes and cabinets, and when they saw that the tanks and jars were empty, they moved the beds.As expected, a mass of empty soil appeared in front of everyone, and every face was flushed with excitement, but after digging up the empty soil, there was not even a single grain of food. Sima smiled and called his sister Sima Taohua aside. "Food?" "It's over." She said, "For a family with four mouths, how long can one bag last?" He said: Taohua, you and I are brothers and sisters, if you don’t give me a bag or two of grain, your brother will not be able to be the village head in the next year, and you will never want to grow rapeseed for five years in a row, and the villagers will still not survive at that time Forty, even you will have a short life.Taohua said, the baby's father said that the villagers can't even survive this year's disaster, so they don't care if they can live past forty.Sima smiled and was dumbfounded, he didn't know what to say for a moment, looked at Du Bo and Zhu Cui who had been terrified by the door, knelt down and stroked their faces, and said to uncle, where is the food?At this moment, Du Bo was about to open his mouth to speak, but Du Yan coughed, and then he closed his mouth again.Sima smiled and looked at Zhu Cui's face.

Zhucui said: "Uncle, your family only has food, and Brother Lan still needs to cook carrots and stewed pork for Shisi." Sima smiled and didn't know that these words were the first predestined words for Zhucui to become his daughter-in-law more than ten years later. , is the beginning of the earth-shattering country love between Sima Lan and Lan Shisi.He listened inexplicably, looked at the six or seven yellow faces behind him, and saw those pale and panicked eyes, as if he believed that his family could still eat radish stewed pork, so without saying a word, Crackling With a sound, a green slap hit the face of the niece Zhucui. Zhucui's cries filled the Du family's house like knives chopping. Du Yan suddenly stood up and threw the perpetual calendar on the chair. "Who did you hit?!" "What's the matter? I'm her uncle, can't I hit her?" Du Yan sat down again. From then on, Sima Xiaoxiao and Du Yan became estranged, and their hatred filled mountains and rivers, lakes and seas, and even their younger sister Sima Taohua also lost contact with Sima's family in the following years.Returning from Du Yan's house empty-handed, Sima returned home with a smile, sat in the middle of the courtyard and sighed, the daughter-in-law asked about the situation, stood in the courtyard for a while, took a bamboo basket from the eaves, and returned to the house without much effort, and filled a basket. Blue peeled off the grasshopper shells, one by one, like a cicada shell that has been taken off, and dug half a bowl of wheat bran from somewhere, and put it in front of the man, saying that you should send it to Dugan's house. Better than tree bark to support people, good or bad grasshoppers are also flesh. Sima looked at those grasshopper shells with a smile and said that you didn't throw them away at the beginning?The daughter-in-law said that if you dumped your six children, half of them would starve to death.Sima smiled and grabbed a handful of grasshopper shells and looked at them in his hands. It was like grabbing a handful of wheat chaff. It was frivolous and pierced his hands. He covered his nose and smelled it, but he could still smell the grass blood.I followed my daughter-in-law back to the house and opened the lid of the tank to have a look. Seeing that there were still half of the dead grasshopper shells in the tank, I thought my daughter-in-law is really a living person, and asked, can this food survive the spring?Said, not to others can almost survive.Sima Xiaoxiao was suddenly moved, some inexplicable strength came out of his body, he turned around and looked around, and suddenly pressed his wife on the bed, ripping off the clothes and buttoning them up.The daughter-in-law played on the bed and said, you are crazy, and the children are all in the yard.Then he said, don't move around, you haven't done this for so many days, starving to death every day, it's rare to have such a little strength to be emotional.The daughter-in-law just sat on the bed softly and didn't move, let him make a fuss for a while, but only a little bit of effort, thought she had some strength, but was soft a few times, exhausted, sweating profusely, dizzy, slumped on the corner of the table tiredly, He slapped himself in the face, and cursed what a fucking day this is, young people do this. The daughter-in-law got up from the bed and put on her underwear and said: "In the days of famine, who can have such strength." Sima Xiaoxiao squatted motionless, leaning his back against the table leg, and closed his eyes.At this moment, Sima Lan suddenly walked in from the door. "Father, I can know where my aunt's food is hidden." Sima smiled and opened his eyes, where are you?I told my father to ask my mother to make a bowl of noodles. " Sima Lan asked, "Are you dry noodles?" Sima smiled and said, "Baiganlo noodles." Sima Lan stretched her neck and swallowed a mouthful of spit: "Bake me a bowl of braised pork with radish." Sima smiled and stood up, "Pure meat is also fine." Sima Lan didn't speak, but turned around and ran out. It was already noon, and in the old days, the smoke would be rising from the cooking in the village, and the streets and alleys would be filled with the strong smell of food. Perhaps someone from Qin Kui’s house had already brought the best food to the street.But at this moment, the village was quiet and empty. There were no chickens, dogs, or animals, and naturally there was no smell of hot milky white dung, and no one was sitting on the rock under the tree at the door with a rice bowl, chatting freely. .The tops of the kitchens in each house are clean, and the chimneys are so clean that the black ash is gone. All doors are closed.Occasionally, where the sun is warm, a few men are sitting smoking sesame leaves or rapeseed leaves, and they all live in silence, no one wants to say a word.Sima Lan ran across the village street like a stone rolling through an empty bamboo tube.He saw Du Bo and Zhu Cui playing in the village just now, so he ran back and said those words to his father, and now he was going to the village to stop the cousin from asking. Sure enough, he stopped his cousin who was about to go home. "Zhucui, come here. Let me tell you something." Zhu Cui walked towards Sima Lan. Du Bo called: "Sister, come back." Sima Lan said: "If you don't come, I will make everyone in the village ignore you." Zhucui hesitated for a while between Du Bo and Sima Lan, and finally betrayed her brother and walked towards Sima Lan.Sima Lan glanced at Du Bo triumphantly, took Zhu Cui's hand, and walked towards an open-air stone mill in another alley.They hid behind the stone mill, and Sima Lan said somewhat mysteriously: "Do you still want to be my wife?" "My uncle just slapped me," she said. He said: "I won't marry forty, I will only marry you." She raised her head suddenly, a gleam of light flashed across her face like a tsubaki leaf. He said: "When I grew up, I went to the city to sell the skins of my legs, buy you a bowl of stewed pork with radish, and I also pulled a foreign cotton shirt." She asked, "Cousin, is it true?" He said, "You have to tell me where your food is hidden." She said: "You can't tell your father where it is hidden. It is hidden in the tree hole of the old locust tree in the latrine behind my house, and there is a jar buried beside the latrine." After half a bowl of rice, half of the villagers gathered at the gate of Du Yan's house, and there was a large area of ​​cloth bags, baskets, jars, and washbasins.The faces of men and women were covered with hunger yellow, and the children who came with them snuggled up to the adults as if they were about to die.The Du family was about to have lunch, and there was a half pot of golden corn grits soup. Outside the door, the villagers could smell the overwhelming yellow fragrance, rushing in the stomach of every villager like a river, alluring.At this time, Sima Xiaoxiao appeared. He walked past the villagers like a savior, and knocked on the door of Du Yan's house like a drum. It was naturally Du Yan who came to open the door. "Is it going to rob people? There is no king's law, is there?" He said, "I am the village head, and I am Wang Fa." Du Yan said, "What do you want to do?" He said, "Look for food." Du Yan said: "Go and find you." Sima Xiaoxiao walked straight from the air duct on the east side of Du's house into the latrine in the backyard, stood in front of the old locust tree and looked at it for a while, there was indeed a hole the size of a bucket on the waist of the locust tree, which was as thick as the two hugged each other, and the hole was covered with a The big ball of grain grass was stuffed, and when the ball of grain grass was pulled off, a pink corn smell with the smell of locust tree rushed out, pushing Sima Xiaoxiao's body to stagger for a while.He turned his head to the side, kicked a bundle of grain and grass by the toilet pit, and saw that the empty soil under the grain and grass was still moist and red, and when he stepped on it hard, his feet were buried in the soft soil.Immediately, his face turned green, and he covered the grain and grass on the spot, turned around, stretched his arms into the tree hole, and brought out a bag of grain weighing more than a hundred catties, which he carried on his shoulders and came out. The sun is warm in the courtyard of Du's house.The villagers of the three surnames all had a bright light on their faces in the sunlight. When they saw Sima smiling and walking out carrying the grain, the bamboo baskets and willow baskets around them creaked, and the square mouth of the Shengzi rounded up. , Everyone's mouths made inexplicable murmurs, and their hanging hands trembled.Du Yan stood at the mouth of the wind tunnel, his face was white and blue, and his lips were dead green.The baby is his uncle, he stopped Sima and said with a smile, you carry it back at night and let Sen, Lin, and Mu eat it.Sima smiled and said, I am the village head, can I let the villagers of the three surnames starve to death?Du Yan said that if you want to distribute it to the villagers, don't memorize it. I will let you share the food in my family, but if I don't let you share it, you have to stay.Sima smiled sneeringly, and said, "Aren't you afraid that people from the village will even carry away the grain buried by the Maochi when they come in?" Du Yan remained silent and made way for Sima Xiaoxiao. Sima Peach Blossom rushed out from the stove, blowing in front of Sima Xiaoxiao like a whirlwind, knelt down and cried, and called brother, saying that you and I are the same parents, and if you carry the food away, you will also take the lives of your nephew and niece.Sima smiled and changed the grain to one shoulder, and whispered Taohua, if I wasn't your brother, could I only carry this bag? Sima Taohua knelt down and did not move.Bamboo basket, willow basket, bowl and Shengzi all followed Sima Xiaoxiao out of Du's courtyard. The food distribution is under the old saponins tree in the center of the village.No bell was rung, no call was made, and a whole village gathered there.The heads of the people swayed like crows walking on the ground, and the food distribution items in everyone's hands struggled to squeeze towards the bag of food, bumping into each other, and the clanging and clanging noises were so noisy.Sima smiled and stood by the tree trunk, and untied the mouth of the grain bag. The villagers stretched their necks to look into the grain bag, and all the muscles and bones of their necks rattled. Yes, colorful like red, black, green and blue gold beads and silver grains.Someone squeezed to the side of the grain bag, stretched out his hand, grabbed the grain and ate it raw, so the smell of grey-yellow wheat, dark red peas, water-colored mung beans, brilliant millet, golden The smell of corn and dark black beans permeated under the old saponins.Everyone's nostrils were locked together by the sudden inhalation, and the smell of food flowing into the alley flowed back and was sucked into the spleen and stomach of the villagers.Sima smiled and said, don't squeeze, don't squeeze, don't squeeze, stand in a team with a small bowl for a family of four, and a big bowl for a family of five or more. After the food is distributed this time, if you can't survive the winter, don't look for me The village head is here, I will share the life of my brother-in-law's family with everyone, and I, Sima Xiaoxiao, have done a disservice to the villagers with three surnames.The villagers stood in a line, with Dugen's family in the front, Lan Changshou's family in the second, and Lan Baisui's cousin's family in the third.Sima Xiaoxiao took a big bowl in his hand, which could hold two and a half catties of grain, and a small bowl, which could hold two catties of grain, and every time he dug out a bowl, he said, do you know how to eat it?I can’t make soup, I can’t roll noodles, and I dare not steam buns. I go to the field to pick up dead grasshoppers and grasshopper shells, fry them on the fire and grind them into grasshopper powder. Mix five catties of grasshopper powder with one or two grains of noodles. It tastes so good that it can't be said.After he finished speaking, he dug out the grain, held it up to someone's face like holding a bowl, and asked, will you grow rapeseed next year?A look of hesitation flashed across the man's face, and he immediately poured the grain into the cloth bag again, and the man hurriedly said: "Growing rapeseed prolongs life, how can I not grow it?" He smiled and poured the grain into someone else's basket, and the bowl of grain was scattered in the bottom of the basket.The sun has set in the west, and the weather immediately cools down.The small wind that blows into the village brings the firewood outside the village and the mummified grasshoppers into the village, and slips along the base of the wall toward the depths of the alley.When the villagers who shared the food went home, they saw that the grasshoppers at the base of the wall were like firewood, no matter whether they were good or bad, they picked them up and put them in the baskets, just like picking up an ear of wheat by the roadside in summer.Villagers who didn't get any food wrapped the cotton jackets they put on early, tied them tightly with straw ropes and hemp ropes, stood in a team, and moved towards Sima Xiaoxiao's side step by step.No one saw that there were still three little people standing outside the team at this time, one was Sima Lan, who was standing on the other side under the old saponin tree, he was stunned and motionless, his face was a gray grass with a lost mind.The other two are Du Bo and Zhucui. The brothers and sisters stood at the entrance of the alley in Dongtou, watching their uncle distribute their family's grain to the villagers bowl by bowl. The bag of grain dried up immediately and was about to be distributed. When it's over, the hatred on their little faces freezes like ice.Finally, they turned their eyes away from the food distribution and fell on Sima Lan's face. Sima Lan lowered his head like a thief, and silently picked the bark from the old saponin tree.No one could understand at this moment the guilt he felt towards the brothers and sisters of the Du family piled up on his chest, making his breathing as difficult as asthma.Perhaps it was the guilt of Yunshan Wuhai at this moment that became the cause of his life, making him and Zhucui a husband and wife.There is already a large piece of bark left by his feet, which is more than the food distributed by each family, but he still concentrates on picking up the broken wood of the old bark, listening to his father every time he digs a bowl of grain. A few words that have been passed down unchanged since then: "Do you know how to eat?" "One tael to five catties of grasshopper powder." "Will we still grow rapeseed next year?" "Plant. Why not plant it?" Pour the grain into a basket or bag, and bend down to dig a bowl. "Do you know how to eat?" "One tael to five catties of grasshopper powder." "Will we still grow rapeseed next year?" "Plant. How can we not plant longevity." Pour the grain into a liter or a bowl, and bend over to dig another bowl. "Do you know how to eat?" Sima Lan heard the wail of the bowl digging the ground in the bag, and turned her head to see that there were only one or two food distributors left, but at this time Du Bo called him.Du Bo said, cousin, come here.Sima Lan looked at Du Bo and Zhu Cui without moving, and Du Bo said that you are a dog if you dare not come here. Sima Lan walked towards the entrance of the alley, hooking her head on her chest guiltily in front of their siblings. Du Bo said: "Cousin, you are not a human, you are a pig, you are a chicken, you are a dog, you are a sheep's butt and a pig's intestines." Du Bo left after speaking. Sima Lan followed Du Bo with his eyes and said: "Isn't it okay for me to let the whole village sell skins and not you when I grow up?" Du Bo didn't respond to Sima Lan's words. He didn't expect that more than ten years later, the benefits brought to him by these words would be much better than the lack of a bag of grain at home.Du Bo left without turning his head.His younger sister Zhucui stayed behind, and gradually her face softened like a bowl of boiling water. she says: "Brother Lan, I didn't scold you." He said, "I won't marry you if you scold me." "I didn't even scold a word," she said. At this time, the food distribution was over, and only Sima Xiaoxiao and an empty bag were left under the saponin tree.Sima smiled and called Sima Lan to go home, and he gave Zhucui one last grateful and affectionate look, and separated from her. When he went under the tree, he saw that there was still half a bowl of grain in the small bowl of his father, including mung beans, black beans and sorghum. He asked if this was for us?It is said that the eight members of our family should share at least one large bowl or two small bowls.Sima smiled and said, "Father is sorry for the six of you brothers. When father shared it with others, he saved and saved, thinking that he would save one liter or two liters for his family, but in the end there was only half of the bowl left."He also said that there is only half a bowl left. At this time, only half a bowl will be divided. After the disaster year, your father's prestige will be high, and no one in the village will dare to disobey your father's words.As he was talking, he led Sima Lan to carry the half bowl of grain and walked home. On the way, he met Lan Bai's daughter-in-law, Mei Mei, coming out of an alley. At the age of 11, he gave birth to seven daughters, and at the age of 28 or 9, he was already showing some signs of aging.She saw the Lan family father and son standing down with a wooden hammer for pounding grain in their hands. When they approached, she stroked Sima Lan's face with her hand, but she couldn't say anything. Sima Xiaoxiao stretched out his hand to pick up the lapel of her clothes, poured the half bowl of grain into her lapel, and she burst into tears. He said, "You go." Sliding her hand from Sima Lan's face, she walked away with the half bowl of grain. Sima Lan said, "Father, the ninth sister of her family has come to share the food." Sima smiled and said, "Her family is the only one with the largest population in the whole village." Sima Lan said: "Uncle Baisui said that you, the village head, are probably in vain. He said that six out of ten people in the village who grow rapeseed will still not live to be forty." Sima Xiaoxiao suddenly lowered his head and looked at Sima Lan's face, as if he wanted to find out the truth of what he said.Ask you heard?It is said that his daughter forty said it.Sima's smiling face became a little displeased.