Chapter 43 Chapter Thirty-Nine

All the congregation of Israel went forward from the wilderness of Sin according to the command of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim.The people had no water to drink, so they quarreled with Moses, saying, "Give us water to drink."...Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, "What shall I do to the people? They are almost going to stone me to death." The Lord said to Moses Said, "Take in your hand the staff with which you struck the river, and lead some of the elders of Israel, and pass before the people. I will stand before you at the rock of Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and from the rock water will flow out of it, so that the people may drink."

After the end of the first month, the weather is getting warmer day by day.Except for a snowfall in early winter this year, the year after year has been so dry that even the well has dried up a lot.The bark of poplars and willows that should have been green at the beginning of the first month was still cracked and yellow by the end of the month.Needless to say, this spring was the longest alley in the famine. When the winter is over and the villagers can go out of the house to keep warm, someone stands at the door of their house and asks the passing villagers if they survived?Those who passed by smiled brightly and said that they had survived.During this question and answer, the Du family found that the faces of the people surnamed Lan were all swollen and watery. When they were surprised, the people surnamed Lan said "Ah!" and said that your surname is Du. His face was all swollen.Then it became clear that every family had cats in the house all winter, and the faces of the three surnames without exception were all swollen, but they were all burrowing in their own houses, so it was not easy to find out.On this sudden warm spring day, when they opened the door and walked out of the house, they all knew that the edema disease had already afflicted everyone. Even Du Yan's family, who thought they had food to eat, had puffy faces. If you want to wobble, if you don't support the wall, you will fall to the ground.

Someone said that this winter, when Dugan's wife let go, Dugan took his baby Du Zhuang and ate his baby girl as food.At first, the villagers didn't believe him, so they asked around about his neighbors. Later, they found that the whole village took advantage of the warm spring sun to walk around the village street for half a month, but no one saw Dugan's family go out. They all believed that statement. I went to report to the village chief. The village head, Sima Xiaoxiao, came out of the house, scaring the villagers into fright.In the end, I haven't seen him in person for less than twenty days, but this time, he has lost his human form.His hair is long and dry, as if burned and rusted together, his body is as thin as a dead branch of a locust tree, but his face is as big as a basin, shining brightly, like a pocket wrapped in blue muslin Clear water.He came out of his house holding the door frame, and seeing a whole village looking at him in the street, he took his hand off the door frame, and stuck it on the ground at the door like a nail, but the sweat hung on the bright water like a raindrop. swollen face.

"Village chief, you walk while leaning on the wall." "I'm fine," he said. So I went to Duggan's house and shook it.Every time he took a step, his legs would trip over each other, and every time he saw a man in the village, he would say fuck it, it would be good to get through this disaster year, and there was a smile on his face like water ripples on the surface of the water .After arriving at Dugan's house, he didn't come out for a while.He closed the door of Du's house, and the assembled villagers slowly arrived at the door of Du's house, waiting to confirm the truth of the rumor that Dugan led the boy to eat the girl as food.People stared at the single willow door of Du's house, and found that the cracks of the willow door were wide and curved, like snakes crawling on the door, and saw the straw and thatch on the crooked front of the door, It has long since disappeared, and there is only a handful of dry soil left on the door frame. As long as it rains, the soil will be washed away by the rain, and then the door frame will fall to the ground.But finally no rain.The door frame never fell down.The Dugans were a family after all.Time is like an old ox pulling a cart, so slow that it makes people flustered.When the villagers couldn't bear their temper, the willow door of Du's house creaked lazily.

Sima Xiaoxiao appeared in the door frame, the water-like smile disappeared on his face, and the blue color was as thick and intense as a vegetable leaf.He looked at the people in the village, and he seemed to be talking to them, and he seemed to be talking to himself: "He really led the boy to eat that silly girl?" And said: "He won't let that silly girl eat first, and when she starves to death, they will eat her." After speaking, he sat on a stone in front of Duggan's house, buried his head between his legs, looked at a straw stick on the ground, and stared at it without moving.The whole village gathered in front of him, stunned, everyone looked ashen, seeing his disheveled head was exposed to the warm sun, and several lice were climbing up and down on the bristling hair like a tree. .Time, which was lazily illuminated by the sun, coiled around his head and walked slowly, making creaking sounds.No one heard the slightest bit of blaming Dugan in his words, and no one asked him how the village people's life would pass tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, so they all just lazily silent, as if waiting for something to happen, until the silence was about to end. When it was getting dark, someone spoke up and said:

"It would have been better to protect the crops but not the rape." It was Lan Baisui who spoke.He was lying on the ground behind the crowd, with his face on the sky and his hands under his head, the fog of resentment in his words was thick like a stream of water.At this moment, another person said: "The grasshoppers stay around for days and nights, can you keep the crops?" It was Du Yan who asked this question.He was caught in the crowd, saying that this year is the year of Jiazi, the famine may not be over in a blink of an eye, it's time to discuss how the villagers should spend their days.At this point, Sima raised his head with a smile, slowly stood up against the wall, glanced over the heads of a group of villagers, and said that everyone should go home and lead the wives and children to the wheat threshing field. The situation divided the grain and vegetables in the village.

Lan Baisui sat up from the ground, "Dividing food seeds is cutting off children and grandchildren." Sima smiled and said: "You can't just watch people eat human flesh." Lan Baisui stopped for a while and said half-coldly: "Then let's divide it according to the head. If the family has more mouths, it should be divided more. You, the village head, are in vain if someone dies of starvation. The older generations of the villagers with the three surnames only lived less than forty and died of throat diseases. He starved to death when the smoke from the fire broke out."

After saying this, Lan Baisui left on his own.The villagers also dispersed.When Sima Xiaoxiao and Du Yan were left, their estrangement from years ago disappeared without a trace because of their swollen faces. Sima smiled and asked: "Is there really going to be a disaster for two or three years?" Du Yan said: "It is written in the perpetual calendar, you must believe it, and you must not believe it completely." Just break up and disperse.The sound of earth-colored footsteps, wood chips falling into water, sounded weakly to a beard the same two ends.Not long after that, the ring generals came out from various households and floated towards the wheat threshing field behind the village.

There was a sound of kicking and tapping. After a winter in the wheat field, it is like a piece of flat Xuanxu land, exposed to the wind and the sun.The farm house that doubles as the village warehouse has thick stone walls and is located at the corner of the wheat field. The cracks in each stone are filled with dust and firewood, and occasionally there are dead grasshoppers of the same color as the firewood hanging on the wall.All the villagers gathered on the wheat field.The weather was warm just now, but now it is slightly shady, and the air is like ash mixed with water and wet plants.After each family found a place to sit on the wheat field, the children no longer ran wildly with the children. They all sat crookedly on the field with their parents' legs on their pillows, hanging like withered bean sprouts head on.Not a single family came here with a basket or bag to distribute food.Some took little red auspicious baskets specially designed to take away relatives, some took red loincloths for cooking in the kitchen, and more simply left their hands empty, waiting to use their lapels to carry food.Everyone knows that wheat seeds were planted at the beginning of winter two years ago. After a winter of drought, only ten grains of wheat produced two or three green. I don’t know if Maitian can take back the seeds. What’s left in the warehouse is also a plan. Bean seeds grown in corners of the land.Speaking of rapeseed, each one is as small as a louse's excrement. A handful of rapeseeds can cover an acre, and fifteen catties is enough to plant rapeseed in the whole village. How much food can you expect to share?Just divide the three catties and five catties, a few hungry families will no longer be mixed with grasshopper corpse powder, how many days can they eat?But then again, even though the crops are distributed in a land without children and grandchildren, it is a one-time distribution. Although the men's faces are indifferent, they are worried in their hearts. There are no bean seeds in the village, and the wheat seedlings are 10% owed to 70%. Set the trend, when it's time to plant beans, if you can't make up with beans, won't the whole village have to starve to death?But women don't think so much, she thinks that if there is food today, she can cook a food-flavored meal for the children today, and the children will not hang on her body and cry and make noise So, they all stared at the barn next to the wheat field, and at the road on the west side of the house wall.

Sima smiled and walked up that road, holding a small scale in his hand, and the weight of the scale bumped against his legs.When he arrived at the door of the barn, he looked at all the villagers and said, whose child didn't come? Those who don't see anyone don't get any food.Lan Baisui asked why in the crowd?Sima said with a smile. Maybe his child has starved to death in winter, so what should I do if I take another share? Lan Baisui went home and called his daughters.The sixty, fifty, forty, and three-nine four in his family were all hungry and could hardly move a few steps on the bed. Of course, they couldn't lose rations just because they didn't come.

A few more men followed.After a while, they all returned to the wheat field with their babies on their backs.Sima nodded with a smile. There were 121 people in total, 29 fewer than before last winter. "Has twenty-nine of them died since harvesting the rapeseed?" He asked Du Yan. Du Yan said, "Yes. One difference is not enough." Just opened a warehouse to distribute food. In order to prevent the warehouse locks from rusting, Sima Xiaoxiao nailed a piece of canvas to the door frame, just to cover the two warehouse locks.In front of the villagers, he took off his cotton trousers in public, tore off a patch from the inside of the trousers, and two bright white keys fell out.But when he picked up the key and lifted the canvas to unlock it, his hand froze on the door frame. The lock has been opened and has been picked. The edema on his face immediately disappeared, and purple once again thickened his face.Everyone in the village saw the two iron locks that had been pried open, and they opened their mouths like hungry mouths that could not be closed, and their faces immediately turned white with shock. They all surrounded the barn door. "I call him his ancestors," Sima said with a smile, "Whoever it is, whoever's family will have no children or grandchildren!" He took off the iron lock and pushed open the door, only to see that half a bag of peas, half a bag of mung beans, two bags of corn and more than a dozen catties of rapeseeds were all intact on a long wooden bench in a row. Each of the mousetrap is intact on the bag.It's just that there are blood stains of mice on every mouse trap, but there is no mouse. Needless to say, every time the lock picker entered the house, he only took the mouse from the mouse trap and did not touch a bag of grain. There were no windows in the warehouse, and the light leaking in from the door was like a dirty white sheet.Looking at the row of intact grain bags, Sima looked at all the men pouring into the warehouse with a smile, and said that if he knew who it was, he would give him half a bowl of mung beans, and then he went out from the warehouse. Surrounded by the warehouse in amazement, only Dugan sat in the distance, looking at the village, his face was yellow and white, and he stopped his baby Du Zhuang with his hands without saying a word. Sima returned to the warehouse with a smile. "Grandma Rita," he said, "didn't realize Brother Dugan was the nicest guy in the village." The villagers didn't know what he meant by what he said, so they looked at him in bewilderment.He didn't care whether the villagers' eyes were long or short, and he asked people to carry all the grain to the center of the wheat field and put them side by side. After counting, I sat on the half bag of rape seeds and rested for a while, then took the rape seeds back to the warehouse, locked the warehouse door, walked through the crowd again, looked at every child in the village, and then Sitting on half a bag of bean seeds, he sighed that hemp rope was thick and long, and he asked for a cigarette pouch from Dugan. When he went to dig rape leaves in his purse to smoke, he shook his hands and dug for a long time. is empty.So, I tore off a ball of cotton from my cotton trousers, stuffed it into a cigarette pot and lit it to smoke.The sky is a kind of cloth gray, and the cold air of late winter and early spring flows over the wheat field from time to time.The cotton smoke Sima spit out with a smile, refused to disperse in the wheat field, reflecting his swollen face pale and white.He coughed a few times in the smoke, as if he was going to spit out his stomach, but he still smoked one after another.In the wheat field, there is no crying of children, nor the running of children.The sound of cotton smoke flowing was loud and loud, like a coarse sheet being pulled back and forth in the wind.A man said, the village head, let’s divide it up. After the division, it’s time to go home and cook. I haven’t smelled the food for a month.Sima glanced at the man with a smile, returned the cigarette bag to Dugan, and came back to stand in front of the grain bag.The women couldn't wait any longer, and put aside the strip-shaped children, they went to the side of the grain bag, and their eyes fell on the corn and bean seeds that opened the mouth of the bag. Under those gazes, the beans rolled up evasively, trying to get into the bag.When a woman pinched a mung bean and put it in her mouth, Sima smiled and said sternly, put it down, and the woman put the mung bean back into the bag, saying, village chief, do you want to divide the food or not?Sima Xiaoxiao looked at the children in the village again, at Dugan, at his three children Sen, Lin, and Mu, and kicked a bag of sorghum hard, kicking the bag out of the bag. The yellow-orange corn grains flow out vigorously, and there is light and light on the wheat field, like the fragments of the sun piled there.The eyes of the villagers all turned around, and their eyes squealed on the pile of sorghum. "Today, I, Sima Xiaoxiao, will become a sinner in the village with three surnames." Sima smiled, not looking at the men and women in the village. He set his sights on those children, those dwarfs, chicken breasts and idiots that almost every family has. The silly boys and girls leaned on them, panting and said, "You scolded my ancestors for eight generations and broke my Sima Xiaoxiao's leg, that's what killed Sima Xiaoxiao. I can't even fart. Don't gossip." Here he was out of breath, stopped to wipe the sweat from his forehead, and then continued: "I made a calculation, just two or three bags of grain, more than a hundred mouths Eat, stay in the spring until the wheat is ripe, the more than a hundred people will starve to death. But if a family can reduce a few mouths, then maybe it will be able to survive until the wheat is ripe, maybe More than half of the people can survive this famine. But whose mouth will be reduced?" He looked at the villagers, and he saw that the eyes of the villagers were dead on his face.He found that since he became the village chief, the order of the villagers has not been as good as this time.He heard the breath held by the villagers like the wind coming in and out through the crack of the door after closing the door, and he heard his own breathing like a broken bellows that had to be used after it was broken. "If you want to reduce the mouths for eating, which people's mouths should be reduced?" He asked the villagers, but he replied, "You all know which people's mouths should be reduced, and those who should be reduced. , ten or twenty years old is not as tall as a whip, like my eldest, second and third child. It is time to subtract those cripples who can’t count to five when they are in their teens, or who can count. Human mouths. Almost every family in the village has children like this, let alone more than thirty mouths. If these thirty mouths do not eat food, there are less than a hundred people left in the village. The food may be divided until the wheat is ripe. It’s gone.” Speaking of which, Sima Xiaoxiao turned around on the ground, looked at everyone’s faces, and saw that the men in charge of the village didn’t seem to understand what he said. The posture of beating and cursing with him. Those swollen faces were all dark and gray, with a thin layer of light like green vegetables.He thought that they all understood what he said.He thought anyone could figure out what he said.He thought, if Dugan hadn't starved to death his crippled girl first, if he hadn't secretly used the girl as food, would his family have survived till now?He looked at the faces of the women and the children, they were still staring at the grain sacks, and the children were still sleeping drowsily with their heads resting on the woman's legs and arms. He went to see his forest, forest, and wood, and he saw that forest, forest, and wood were surrounded by blue, deer, and tiger around their mother, vying for a few pieces of dried radish they got from where, and they were chattering and chirping like a crowd. A pile of rats vying for food.He said: "It doesn't matter if you scold me or beat me. I am the head of Sansurname Village. I have the final say on everything in the sky and on earth. Today's food distribution does not include the food of disabled children." Then he stopped talking abruptly. There are some clouds in the sky drifting towards the depths of the Ralou Mountains.The wheat field has sunlight again.The face was swollen, and it looked like a wax plate with nose and eyes.In the surrounding fields, there are patches of yellow and exhausted color, which is the same as the swollen face.The sparse green wheat seedlings seem to be the occasional blue veins and vessels on a swollen face.At this moment, the women seemed to understand Sima Xiaoxiao's words. A widow asked: "Village chief, are you saying that you won't distribute food to disabled children?" Sima smiled and said, "Hey." The widow said, "Aren't they human?" Sima smiled and said, "You have the right to assume that they are not human." The widow said, "You let them starve to death?" Sima smiled and called to the whole village, "I won't distribute food to them. Whoever has the ability to survive can let the disabled children eat the food." The widow stopped talking, and just hugged a silly boy with a gaping mouth who was sleeping on her lap and tightly stopped her. He never spoke again.Those handicapped children who understood Sima Xiao's jokes all began to look at his face, each pair begging and begging, as if the village head would give them food for this begging.But the village head for a while didn't look at these children at all. He looked at the grain, took the scale over, dug out a bowl, weighed it, grabbed a handful into the bowl, and weighed it again. Throw it aside and say let’s start distributing the food, starting from my house, all the children I have named will stand on this side, and those who have not been named will stand on the food side.Then he called the names of Sen, Lin and Mu.Sen, Lin, and Mu were chewing dried radishes sweetly there, but he didn't hear his call, so he stepped forward and carried one in each hand, and lifted Lin and Mu to the open space east of the wheat field like two oil bottles. , and pulled Sen over, telling you not to move here, and asked your mother to make you a bowl of delicious food after the food was divided.The children don't know that they are put here to prevent them from living, to put them in the dead pile, and to interrupt their lives like beating grasshoppers.When Sen, Lin, and Mu heard that they had a good meal, they all opened their eyes wide, looking at their biological father's face with gratitude.Next, Sima smiled and called out the names of a few more children, but none of them came, so he stopped calling them one by one, but went from house to house among the villagers. Which one will be dragged into the pile of disabled children.When it came to a ten-year-old mute boy, his mother said to the village chief that he was awake.Sima smiled and said, let me listen to what he has to say, and I will distribute food to him today.The mother had no choice but to let him take the baby away.Then we arrived at Lan Baisui's house.In the Lan family, from the third child, Lan Seventy, to the fifth child, Blue Fifty, the three daughters all have protruding breasts and pot backs, like three hen cubs who will not grow up.When he went to pull them, Lan Baisui said that seventy, sixty, and fifty are human lives, so can they starve to death?Sima smiled and said that there is no other way, you will be in charge of the food distribution later, and forests, forests, and trees are the same.Lan Baisui touched his three disabled girls one by one, turned his head, looked away and said, then drag them over there.Sima smiled and pulled Lan Seventy, Lan Liushi, and Lan Fifty into a pile of disabled children, and put them there like three empty bowls for eating.Among them, Lan Liushi is the ugliest. Not only is her chest and back uneven, but she also has a big gall on her neck. She walks and moves in yellow and white, like a rabbit lying there, but her heart is incomparably clear. Sima, who was about to leave, smiled and called Uncle, saying that he wanted us to starve to death? Sima smiled and was startled, a layer of whiteness flashed across his face, and said: "God doesn't have eyes." Liu Shi said, "Uncle, just give us a handful of food." Sima smiled and said, "One basket per person, thirty or so people are one basket." Lan Liushi burst into tears, tears streaming down her face, falling on her body like turning over a mountain as they flowed through the gall bag.The sun has risen, and the light has turned from rotten yellow to white, which somewhat smells like summer.The villagers looked thicker in cotton-padded clothes. Someone took off the cotton-padded jacket and sat on the sidelines, the red sound of squeezing lice and frolicking.There was a smell of blood flowing in the wheat field.The disabled children were piled there, with sad and desolate faces on their understanding faces, as if seeing their own coffin.Those who don't understand are completely ignorant, or crawl on the ground to sleep, or compete with other children for something to play with.The mother's face is full of gray anxiety and helplessness, look at the disabled baby here, look at Sima's smiling face, and then look for something on the face of her man, and find the cold indifference and adobe The thickness is the same, and then I look at other women speechlessly. Do we let the children starve to death if we don’t share the food?Thinking that a grain of sorghum can make a bowl of rice, thinking that they are human babies, even pigs and dogs should let them drink.As a result, their thoughts turned into hatred in their hearts, and they would stare at Sima viciously and smile from time to time.Lan Changshou's daughter-in-law was just when Sima smiled and pulled her baby with paralyzed legs. She hugged the baby tightly and said, Village Chief Sima, if my baby starved to death, I would dig your village chief's grave. Sima smiled calmly and said: "If you have the strength, go dig now." The woman said: "My baby is not stupid or stupid and grows tall." Sima smiled and said: "His legs are like hemp sticks. Ask him if he grows up. Who is willing to marry him? If someone is willing to marry, I will not reduce his food. You can ask who I would like to marry my daughter to him." The woman looked at the villagers as if asking for help, as if she was looking for someone willing to marry the girl into her family, but when she glanced over the faces of the villagers, her eyes turned red. "Is there no willingness to marry?" Sima asked with a smile, like asking her or asking a villager, and after asking, he went to her arms to ask for a baby, and she let go of the baby from her arms.But when Sima smiled and dragged the child away, the polio child cried and screamed, as if he was about to die.The woman was awakened by the crying of the baby, she jumped up from the ground, ran a few steps and bumped her head on Sima Xiaoxiao's back. Sima smiled and fell down like a wall. The woman took her baby away again. Sitting up from the ground, Sima Xiaoxiao suddenly saw Sima Lu standing obediently beside his mother, and the other five children, Sen, Lin, Mu, Lan and Hu, all ran towards the woman, bumping their heads on her body, He scratched her face with his hands, scaring the woman so much that she grabbed the baby and ran all over the field, screaming and screaming all over the place.He hurriedly got up and stopped the five children, like stopping a litter full of barking dogs. Sima Lan was in the midst of this brood of brothers, and he gave the woman who ran away a bad look and said, "Father, don't give her family any food." Sima Xiaoxiao found Lan Changshou in the crowd. "If you don't send your baby here, there will be no food for your family." Lan Changshou walked over, slapped the woman on the face without saying a word, and sent his numb child to the rubbish pile in the east of the wheat field.However, when he turned around from the side of the pile, he saw his woman lying on the ground, and several people were calling her name. Among those who pinched her, there was a woman who was saving Lan Changshou woman while yelling at him. He exclaimed, "You beat your woman to death, and you didn't even have any breath left."He stopped, looked at the woman, and said loudly that this woman is too lazy to cook, and I asked her to put half a handful of maize for every meal, and she always put a handful, saying that the soup was too watery to drink and could not support people.If it wasn't for her, my family's food would not always be the first to be eaten among the left and right neighbors.Said she died and the children and I would survive the famine. The women were left speechless. No one stopped Sima Xiaoxiao from taking their crippled child anymore.After a while, thirty-one disabled children and two foolish adults were all gathered in the east of the wheat field, sitting upside down like a pile of dying animals.Then the food distribution officially began.Normal people have a small bowl for each person, plus a small handful.A family lined up and walked past Sima Xiaoxiao. Sima Xiaoxiao nodded and said six. Lan Baisui dug out six small bowls, and Du Yan grabbed another six small bowls.Sima smiled and said three, Lan Baisui would dig three small bowls, and Du Yan would grab three small handfuls.After the food was distributed to each household, there were still a few catties of red peas left in the bag. Sima carried the bag with a smile and grabbed half a handful of beans for the women of each family.Finally, he threw the bag on the ground, looked at the large group of disabled children, and suddenly said loudly: "The food distribution is over, and you have to take all the disabled children home, so you can't bear to let them eat. Let them eat. The whole family will starve to death. I mean, everyone is cruel and locked them all in the house in this wheat field." Without speaking, they all stared at Sima's smiling face. Sima smiled and said: "It's not that we are cruel as parents, but God is cruel." Still as silent as a dry well. Sima smiled and said: "I have three children." But Sima Xiaoxiao Shi Potian was shocked and did not expect that in the silence, when his words fell to the ground, the first person to move would be Lan Baisui, who has always been quiet. He put down the empty bowl in his hand, and no one would move. Look, walk past Sima Xiaoxiao, go straight to the east of Maichang, and lead Lan Qishi, Lan Liushi, and Lan Fifty to the village silently.Sima looked at his back with a smile, looked at the three disabled girls in his hands, his heart twitched, thinking that he was still a man and a father, he couldn't help but look at him differently, and felt some inexplicable regret up.But Sima Xiaoxiao still chased their father and daughter and shouted: "Hundred years old - you are like the father of the daughters, but you will regret it one day." Lan Baisui stopped.He turned his head to look at the wheat field, and then at a cliff beside the field. He seemed to have spent a lot of effort trying to say something, but before he could say anything, he turned around and walked away. The sun has moved from the wheat field over the earthen embankment that borders it to the foot of a cliff.A wattle tree on the cliff began to glow a light green.On the cliff under the wattle tree, there is a piece of red water soaked, it seems that someone has been there, there are footprints and hand marks on the wet soil.Following Lan Baisui's gaze, Sima smiled and glanced down the cliff.Looking at the disabled children on the cliff top field, their parents took them away in the blink of an eye. A wheat field is empty.The hot sun poured water all over the ground. The people going to the village, carrying food and their children, drove to the village like a team, and the only Sima family left on the wheat field.Sen, Lin, and Mu were sitting in place, looking at Sima Xiaoxiao with strange eyes, as if Sima Xiaoxiao was not their father suddenly.To the west of the wheat field, his woman, blue, deer, and tiger gathered around a basin of miscellaneous grains and looked at him with desolate and sad eyes, as if there was something he did not allow them to dare to do. He stood alone in the middle of the wheat field, and when most of the villagers had left, he said, Lan, take your three older brothers home, starve to death and leave no one behind, and then he went down the cliff , pulled the wattle tree, grabbed a little bit of the red cliff soil, chewed it in his mouth, and wrapped it around in a cotton jacket.Coming back from the cliff, his woman was crying with three Rugua children in her arms.He said: "Go home, if it's not them, it's not our Sima family."