Chapter 47 Chapter Forty-Three

Yahweh said to Moses, "Send someone to spy out the land of Canaan, which I have given to the Israelites."Moses sent men to spy out the land of Canaan.When they came to the valley of Eshcol, they cut off a branch of the vine, with a cluster of grapes on it, and carried it on poles with two men, and brought pomegranates and figs.After forty days, they spied the land before returning.When they arrived at Kadesh in the Wilderness of Paran, they met Moses, Aaron, and all the congregation of Israel, and reported back to Moses, Aaron, and all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land, and told Moses, "We have arrived where you sent The land we went to was indeed a land flowing with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of the land."

After hoeing the crops, Sima Xiaoxiao set up a table at the intersection leading to Liangdao. Du Yan sat at the table, and the villagers lined up in a long line, while he called the name of each head of the household.Every time one was called, Du Yan took out a piece of paper from a stack of papers.On that paper it was always written: XXX is a kind-hearted family. Because of the natural disasters in the Palou Mountains, the food, wild vegetables and crows were cut off, and many people and animals starved to death, so they had to go out to beg. The right to dig up their ancestral graves and their houses.

Village head: Sima Xiaoxiao (fingerprint) Head of household: XXX (fingerprint) XX month XX day The sky is a bit gloomy, but the clouds are not thick, like thin smoke floating freely in the sky.The white light was covered by clouds into a light yellow color of the soil.There was an uncontrollable joy in the crowd.The adults thought it would be a shame to spend their lives begging outside the world, but the children thought it was a blessing in disguise to be able to see the world for a while.They ran back and forth among the crowd. Although their small faces were swollen, they were red with joy.Just like the rising sun, every time Lan Baisui called a name, they would stop at the table for their father and watch Du Yan hand over the paper written in advance to Sima Xiaoxiao. He pressed his bright red index finger from behind.

Then the baby went to pick up the piece of paper, Sima smiled and said: "Let your father come." The head of the household stepped forward and rolled his fingers in the printing box, and pressed his name heavily, and the children took the paper and piled it towards the people on the other side of the table. The air is filled with the crimson smell of inkpad, just like the fragrance of the setting sun flowing in the village at dusk.From morning to daylight and dusk, a mass of mud hangs on the side of the mountain ridge, and each household in the village has finished the agreement, and the collective team got up, carried the bedding, took the bowls and chopsticks, and went to the outside world.

Most of the children were not in the middle of the team, each of them held a black letter and red seal of the return to the village agreement wrapped around the adults like a mess, talking and laughing, as if they were not following the adults to escape collectively, but went to the town to go to the market , I can drink a bowl of mutton offal soup when I am hungry. Sima smiled and called: "Every family puts away the agreement, what should the children do if they lose it?" Then he said, "Lan, give me ours." Du Yan said: "The ink pad is still not dry, and it won't be effective if it is muddled."

They stopped asking about the agreement to return to the village, and the children held it in their hands like a banner, and a group of children chased in front of the crowd, running happily.The muddy sunlight illuminated the mountain ridge into an endless piece of dirty cloth that has not been washed for many years. It is black here and gray there.In the hoeed wheat field, the weeds were gone, and the wheat was sparsely scattered on the field, bowing their heads, as if they could not straighten their waists because of their thinness, and had no face to face the villagers with three surnames who had placed high hopes on them.It was listless everywhere.The footsteps on the mountain ridges are like the fallen fruit of withered betel.The adults walked and said something at first, and then they stopped talking. The silence on their faces was as thick as the earth, exuding the smell of dust.The women huddled together, dragging the three-year-old and two-year-old children left behind by Sima Lan, talking about the hardships of life, changing the baskets of bowls and chopsticks in their arms to the left, and then to the right, and let them fall down. There was a miserable sound all the way.At this moment, laver-colored exclamations came from the group of children at the front.

The adults called: "What's up?" Sima Lan said, "Come on, the puppy has fallen." Lan Changshou said, "Quickly pull him up." Sima Hu replied: "I'm afraid I'm dead, I can't pull it." The puppy is the second child of Lan Changshou's family. He is five years old this year. His old hemp legs were sent to the foot of the Xiliang cliff, and the remaining second child will eventually survive.Hearing such a call, Lan Changshou ran a few steps, panting and uncomfortable, then calmed down and walked quickly.After chasing under a persimmon tree, I pushed aside the crowd of children, and saw his little dog lying on the ground, with blood pouring out from his forehead, and he didn't even look angry.Du Bo imitated an adult's pulse on the puppy's wrist. Lan Changshou carried the baby from the middle of the road to the side of the road and sat down. Du Bo's hand for taking the pulse was still on the puppy's wrist, as if glued together .

Lan Changshou shook the baby and said, "What's wrong with you, dog?" Du Bo said, "Uncle Lan, he's dead, his pulse is gone." Lan Changshou gave Du Bo a bad look: "He just fell and scratched a little bit." Du Bo said, "If you don't believe me, ask my father." The adults in the village surrounded him from behind.Du Yan went up to feel his pulse, and listened with his ear on the dog's nose, and he said that he was dead. There was no sound at all, and the pulse dissipated like a cloud. Lan Changshou was stunned.His woman howled earth-shatteringly and jumped on the dog.It was now a little brighter.More than a hundred people from the village of Sanxing were in a mess on the beams, their faces were yellow from the slopes, how could they die if they fell, who didn't fall before?Not to mention a small piece of blood like a hand, it is common to see a large piece of blood like a chopping board or a mat, but whoever falls will die.Du Yan explained, what time is this? During the Great Famine, people's blood is almost dry, and anyone who bleeds will die.

The villagers were all dumbfounded, looking at the Lan Changshou couple and their dog that died after a fall, they thought Du Yan's words were really reasonable, who still has so much blood to shed these days.Ask why it fell while walking?It is said that standing side by side with other people's children is more red and bigger than seeing whose ink pad is on the return to the village agreement, and accidentally fell down. Also died. Lan Changshou's family has no children since then. He cried and said: "I have no children and grandchildren, my family has no children and grandchildren..."

His wife said: "God, you can leave a deaf child in my family, how can you let my two children die?" Sima smiled and stepped forward and said, forget about throwing the baby away, can crying live?If you cry for a while, you will die.It is said that where there is land, there is food, and where there are mountains, there is firewood. If adults survive, they can have children.Lan Changshou's daughter-in-law stopped crying, stared at Sima with a wicked smile, and said to the village chief, does the baby mean that it can be born as soon as it is born?Now that there is a famine, everyone goes out to beg for food, people have no strength at all, how can they still give birth to children?Sima said with a smile, he will survive the famine.The woman said that there will be another three or two years of famine, and the dog's father will be forty, and he will die of a throat disease. How can my family have a baby?

Sima Xiaoxiao was choked by this question, turned around and rummaged through his wife's bag for a while, but found nothing, and then went to everyone and said, whoever has food, let the couple stay in the village and guard the village. give birth.After calling it like this, the villagers were silent for a while without saying a word, all in a state of silence, like a pile of dead corpses erected.At the end, Lan Baisui walked back to the woman Meimei, and said her mother, take it all out, good or bad Changshou is the same person.Meimei then took out half a yellow-faced steamed bun from her bosom.Du Yan gave his wife a look, and Sima Taohua untied a finger-thick belt from his waist, and poured out half a bowl of millet from the belt.There were other women, some took out a handful of dried grasshopper powder wrapped in steamed buns from their pockets, and some took out a dried leg or wing of cooked crow meat.Seven seven eight eight, put half of the basket in Lan Changshou's basket.At this moment, Sima Xiaoxiao's daughter-in-law suddenly unbuttoned her trousers, stripped her body naked, tore off a bag from her trousers, and poured half a bowl of fine flour into the woman's basket, making everyone gasp in shock. inside. "My God, you still have flour at home!" "It's crow bone powder." She said that a few days ago, three big pots were set up in the village to eat crow meat. She got up in the middle of the night to pick up the crow bones, dried them, mashed them and ground them into bone meal.The villagers all respected this daughter-in-law's shrewdness, saying that with such a woman, your Lan, Lu, and Hu would not starve to death even if there was another ten years of famine. However, Sima smiled and stepped forward and said: "Why are you so ignorant? I'm the village head. If you don't take out some food first, I'm still a fucking village head." After that, he turned around and said to Lan Changshou, go back to the village. With this in mind, you can't impregnate a woman, and it's useless for a person to live.So Lan Changshou took his dead baby in his arms, took his daughter-in-law, and went back to the village with half a basket of crow bone powder, dried crow meat, grasshopper powder, yellow cakes, and black buns.The sun was hanging overhead, and the village was still faintly visible.The villagers looked at Lan Changshou and his wife who had gone away, and wanted to say something, but they couldn't say anything, until they were about to disappear, but Sima stepped on a high place with a smile and called out everyone's words. "The daughter-in-law will be pregnant for ten months. Don't throw away the dog in your arms. It's fine to eat it as food, or use it as bait to beat crows." Lan Changshou turned around and called back: "Don't worry, let's go, village chief, if I lose a family in the village, will I still have face to live?" The villagers began to walk slowly outside Palou Mountain again.The children no longer run wildly, and no longer play with the agreement of returning to the village one by one.They all followed their parents, holding their left or right hands, and the long and messy fleeing team lost their villages, fields and sparse crops in the muddy sunlight.The dust under their feet was bounced up and down by them, and flew on their pants, bodies and faces. Everyone was covered in dust, and their noses and mouths were filled with the smell of dry earth.When arriving at a fork in the road, Sima smiled and said, let's go from here in a few households.They just looked at each other, and Lan Baisui led Lan towards the fork in the road.After walking a few more miles, they saw another fork in the road. Sima smiled and said, should I go to Du's house or Sima's house? Du Yan led the people surnamed Du to a fork in the road. They were all finally broken up into pieces, they were divided when they saw intersections, and people were kept when they saw villages. Dozens of villagers with three surnames scattered to the various roads leading to the outside of Palou Mountain at dusk, like a handful scattered in the world. The dust and stones are gone. However, after five days, Sima Xiaoxiao's family returned to the village. Half a month later, all households and lands returned. Who would have expected that the famine would never end, and the whole world would suffer from disasters.The people at the foot of Palou Mountain said, not only your Palou Mountains, but hundreds of miles around are full of famine years.If you have two feet, you can escape the famine by walking hundreds of miles, but when you arrive in the town, the people in the town say that it is more than a hundred miles, and the grasshoppers fly from thousands of miles away.Think such a small grasshopper can fly thousands of miles?Suspicious and hesitant, someone came to the city and saw that the people in that city abandoned the city and went to the countryside.The people in the city said that the whole province and the whole country are in famine years, where are you going? Sima Xiaoxiao led his fellow clansmen and kept them scattered at various intersections and large villages like sowing beans and sowing seeds. They stayed overnight in an old vegetable house in a field by the river, and arrived at the county seat at noon the next day.The bustling streets of the county town in the past disappeared quietly at some point, all the shops in the past were closed, and none of the restaurants were open anymore.He was a little surprised, and wanted to ask for clarification, but there was no one there.In terms of familiarity with the county seat, it is the place where the teaching compound is located.He led his family across the street from the county town to the entrance of the Fire Academy in the east of the city. He saw the two familiar red lacquered wooden doors tightly closed. Is the fire academy not working today?The old man looked at him puzzled and said it was late.What are people doing?He became even more suspicious of him, as if he had seen someone from outside the world. "What can I do? I went to make steel." Finally, it became clear that the whole world was busy with one thing: digging out the furnace, transporting some ore, throwing it into the furnace, lighting it for seven days and nights, and burning the stone into steel. I remembered that when they stayed in the vegetable house by the river, they saw the sky at night, it was full of red lights, and it was bright all night long. It turned out that the whole world was busy.On the gate of the Jiaohuoyuan, the gate that used to be clanging in the wind has gone to nowhere, leaving two deep black holes in the gate, like two eyes that have been gouged out. .The old man smiled bonyly under those blind eyes, and said that you are fleeing famine, go to the west of the Jiaohuoyuan, where people eat and drink, and their stomachs hurt every day.Having said that, the old man stood up, and tremblingly brushed past them.Sima smiled and finally realized that the old man was the shopkeeper of a restaurant across the road for a lifetime. Every time the villagers with the three surnames came here to sell skins, they would go to him and ask for a few bowls of haggis soup. Eat and drink as much dry food as you can.His restaurant was opened almost at the same time as Jiaohuoyuan. Sima Xiaoxiao followed his father when he entered the restaurant for the first time. He was only ten years old. At that time, the shopkeeper was in his early sixties, and he was so fat that he handed haggis soup into the hall through the window. At that time, the meat on the arm almost fell into the soup bowl.But at this moment, the shopkeeper lost weight, the flesh on his body disappeared, and the fallen skin was endlessly slack like the loose shirt on his body. Every time he walked and swung, his ribs slapped.He seemed to have been waiting in front of the Jiaohuo Academy for a long time, as if he was specially waiting for Sima Xiaoxiao and his friends to arrive.So he swaggered away after saying a few words to them.Crossed the road, walked into his restaurant, and half-closed the door. Sima smiled and saw that there were no bars on the door, and there were also a pair of small, black blind eyes.He began to look towards the west of the Teaching Fire Academy.He knew that there was originally a flat vegetable field, which was specially used for the patients of the Jiaohuo Academy and fresh vegetables from the restaurants in front of the Jiaohuo Academy.He said to his family, you wait here, I will go over there to have a look, then he left his luggage in front of Sima Lan and went to the west of Jiaohuo Academy. Turning around the wall of the teaching fire academy, the eyes were blocked by a pile of fresh brown soil.It was a new cemetery, thirty or fifty, messy and messy, without a pile of old soil.The oldest tomb may have been completed last year. The weeds on the loess are sparse, like a few yellow threads blown by the wind.On more grave mounds, even a single thatch has not yet grown, and the brilliant soil particles exude a strong cold smell.Sima looked at the newborn graves with a smile, feeling confused for a while, as if someone had suddenly hit him with a club from the back of the head, making his mind a muddy mess.Standing in front of that piece of grave, he felt a strange fishy smell rose from his chest, reached his throat, and was swallowed back by him. The old man who opened the restaurant said: "What do you want to eat? There is everything here." Sima smiled and said, "They all died of starvation?" The old man said: "Go home, the world is in a time of famine." The old man said again: "This is the year when God only takes human life." Turning around, looking at the yellowish sunlight and the deserted fields, Sima returned to the family with a smile, opened his mouth to let his wife look at his throat, and said that I smelled a fishy smell. The daughter-in-law looked at it for a while and said, "It's smooth, nothing." Sima Lu looked at it and said, "Father, it's a little red." Sima Lan stared at Sima Lu coldly, Sima Hu looked at it again, and said, "Father, mother and fourth brother coax you, there is really a piece of red." Sima smiled and his daughter-in-law kicked Sima Hu's ass. Sima Hu hated his mother and said: "It's really red, if you kick me, don't expect me to grow up to support you." The whole family stayed in front of the Jiaohuo Academy for a while, and a smile suddenly appeared on Sima Xiaoxiao's face, saying that it's my turn to enjoy the blessings, let's go back to the village, and starve to the side of the road, it's better to die in our village. What about Sansurname Village? So he led the family back to the Ralou Mountains. Many people came back afterward. They all returned. They all said: "Grandma Rita, it's better to rake the mountains, at least you don't have to go hungry to chop trees and make steel." They also said that there are more graves outside than in our Sanxing village. Die outside is worse than die in the village. .Those surnamed Du said that they went to several villages, and even went to a street town in a neighboring county. Not to mention that they could give us a bite of food, they even bought half a bowl of soup at the head of the village.The people surnamed Lan said that they had seen a strange thing in the world. They said that a villager eats a cafeteria, and there is a long line to get the meal, but each person only gets half a bowl of noodle soup. Anyway, we are not as full as we are. Sima Xiaoxiao came to the head of the village, looked at the villagers returning from the outside, took out the agreement to return to the village and threw it at will, or tore it into strips, rolled some leaves and smoked, he greeted the family who had just returned to the village, Say it again?It's good to be back, right now it's a famine year all over the world.He also said that I have a sore throat and I can't survive the famine. Look at my throat.The villagers lay on his gaping mouth one by one, looked at it and said, village chief, you don't have a throat problem, just drink more boiled water and you'll be fine. He said: "You don't have to coax me, I know how long I can live." The villagers said, "What should we do if you go to enjoy the blessing?" "I have plans," he said. At this time, Lan Baisui led his family down from the beam.The bedding rolls and the begging basket were picked out with a stick, and the daughter-in-law Meimei followed closely, followed by the eldest daughter, Lan Jiushi, the second daughter, Lan Bashi, the sixth daughter, forty, and the seventh daughter, Sanjiu. , his face was covered with dust from the road.Seeing that the villagers were all waiting at the head of the village, Lan Baisui put the burden on his daughter-in-law's shoulders, wiped the fat sweat from his face and strode towards the villagers, saying loudly that I can get food, I will Know how to use what in the village to go outside the village to exchange for some food.When he said this, he seemed like a weak and stupid person who accidentally planted a good crop Moving his feet straight in front of him, he left Sima Xiaoxiao, who was talking about life and death, aside. The villagers were startled: "Hundred years old, what are you talking about?" Lan Baisui seemed to be afraid that others would not believe him, and said eagerly, "Really, I have a way." However, Sima Xiaoxiao stood there without moving, and yelled at the villagers in a rough voice, saying that when the Baisui family came back, the whole village would go back, and everyone should go home separately.Go home and take out unused shovels, shovels, iron rake teeth, extra rice cookers, door handles on the gates, lock rings, and iron rings on the bucket hoops, whatever can be vacated All the iron wares were taken out to the village head for concentration, and the men picked them down the mountain, and brought back some grain for those villages and towns that could not meet the steelmaking quota.Sima smiled and said, I asked outside the mountain, how much good steel they smelt, the government will reward them with food, but they have even smelted door knockers, and there is no more steel for the government, so they are in a hurry Find ironware and throw it in the furnace. The villagers turned their attention to Sima Xiaoxiao again. Sima smiled and said, "Let's all go home." Lan Baisui stood there dumbfounded, and added after a while: "After replacing the iron, you can also give them the trees as firewood." Lan Baisui said: "That's the next step." The villagers stood silently for a while, thinking of the grand occasion of steelmaking by people outside the mountain, and the attractive scene of them serving bowls and queuing up to share meals, thinking that the village chief is indeed the village chief, why didn't we think of using iron to go down the mountain to replace them What about the food?Someone started walking home.Said that I smashed the pot when I went home, why do I need the pot if there is no food?Another person followed the footsteps and voice, saying that I fucked his grandma, I still have an eight-pound hammer and carpenter's ax at home, and it would be strange not to exchange half a catty of sorghum for him.They all filed to go to their respective homes.The sun was still shining brightly overhead.Half a month's time seems to be that spring is rushing away, and the summer that is chasing after it seems to be in a hurry, so that the branches and leaves that should have been shaped in spring can't wait to bear the taste of summer before they grow up. They are like In the early summer, dwarfs that can't grow up are withered like green, full of sickness and insects.The warm smell of fallen leaves is everywhere in the village.Hanging in the air, the worm bag, half thinner than in previous years, swayed under the sun like dried bean clips.All the villagers returned, even Lan Baisui's family also returned to the house where they had been separated for half a month.Only Sima Xiaoxiao, Du Yan and the embarrassed Lan Baisui were left in the village.These three elderly men of the three surnames in the village stood like tree trunks without branches and leaves in the sun, with a thick layer of indifference covering their faces.Finally, Sima looked at Du Yan with a smile and asked: "Honestly, do I have a sore throat or a bloody sore throat?" Du Yan looked at Sima's smiling chin again, "It's a throat problem." "How long can I live?" "Maybe, three and a half years is nothing." The indifference on Lan Baisui's face was like a leaf blown by the wind, and the creaking sound was replaced by surprise. "Brother Du Yan, what are you talking about?" Du Yan said: "He has a sore throat, and he won't live long." Lan Baisui stared at Sima and smiled. "real?" "Leng Ding'er hurt after seeing the cemetery on the west side of the Teaching Fire Academy." Lan Baisui, who was silent for a long time, put his eyes on Sima's smiling face. "My God, what will happen to the village after you die?" "I won't die for a year and a half." Lan Baisui was silent for a while, then stammered: "Brother Xiaoxiao, don't blame me... to be honest, I think... miss you after you die, and the village chief asked me to continue... for a few years." Sima looked at him blankly with a smile: "What's the benefit of being one?" Lan Baisui said: "I think... growing rapeseed can't make people... live longer." How can you make the villagers live past forty?After a while of silence, Sima asked with a smile, and then stared at Lan Baisui's face again, as if Lan Baisui's strange method was on his face, and he would get it just by asking.But Lan Baisui suddenly became speechless, blushing, unable to speak.At this moment, Sima Xiaoxiao smiled coldly at Lan Baisui and Du Yan, saying that I was only in my thirties, and I might still be able to survive the famine and my sore throat.If you really can't make it through, whoever can lead the villagers to grow rapeseed for a few more years in the future will continue to be the village head.As if it was a will, when he was speaking, there was a deep sadness on his face, looking at Sima Lan and Du Yan, he was silent for a long time, and then he continued, whether he can live past forty or not, he must let everyone eat Three to five years of rapeseed, change the stomach again.