Chapter 51 Chapter Forty Seven

Time jingled and finally stopped at the intersection of Sima Lan's childhood and childhood.He watched the handles of hoe and shovel grow taller, becoming unattainable together with mulberry forks and rakes.The door frame was as wide as the city gate.Treetops swayed in the clouds, and sparrows flew as fast as arrows.The world has become unreasonable.He could only lift the ax in the corner ten times into the air. The deer could lift it six times, but the tiger couldn’t lift it at all. But his elder brothers Sen, Lin and Mu were all as tall as him, but each of them could lift it fifteen times. , twenty times.

He didn't understand why the sun would set when the sun came out. When people had enough to eat, they ran and urinated, but they were still hungry.In particular, I can’t understand that when a person dies, he can’t speak, breathe out, eat steamed buns or drink soup, or walk back and forth. He can’t even lie on the door and bury him on the ground. Gone in the world, it is like losing something, like a sparrow flying to the hillside of a house, and that sparrow will never be seen again. Sima Lan often sits on the threshold of the courtyard gate with her chin raised, looking at the golden sunlight in front of her, looking at the flock of sheep hanging on the opposite mountain ridge, listening to the sound of the sunlight flowing on the leaves alone, listening to the flock of sheep walking in the ditch. Lan Wangwang, who was chewing grass, chirped and chirped, thinking that it would be nice if people didn't die.I thought it would be great if the men in the village could grow white beards and the women could become toothless wives.I thought it would be great if the loess on the hillside could be eaten as food. He could grow up in a blink of an eye, and then he would stop at the appearance of an adult. He is strong, strong, and immortal.But he thought again, he stopped at a young and strong age and would never grow old, his father Sima smiled, and his mother Ju had to stop at an age of dying, crying endlessly like a villager with a throat disease If he is called, there will be many children like his little brother Sima Hu, who will never grow up, crawl or stagger forever, and even pass the threshold with great effort.People still can't stop at a certain age and never grow old, Sima Lan thought, that would make the elderly and children suffer.But if people want to live as they are now, they will get a throat problem with a bang, and someday they will disappear from this world when they die. They will lose sight of the sun, the moon, the wind, and the wind. When it rains, I can't see the sparrows fighting in the trees, the chickens and dogs in the yard fighting for food, even when others call him and shake him, he is wearing a bright shroud, lying on the door and not knowing it. It is even more frightening to be old and young.

It would be better for people to live forever, Sima Lan thought, even if they don’t eat well or dress well, and they have to carry a shovel and baskets full of mud and dung to work in the fields every day, as long as they can Just live. Sima Lan thought, why do people have to die? In those short chopstick-like childhood and childhood intersecting days, the only thing that made Sima Lan puzzled and anxious was that he couldn't figure out why the villagers died while they were still alive, and why their throats were red and swollen when they talked about it. In a few days, the villagers should carry the coffin and bury the man on the slope.Then there was no sign of that person in the restaurant at the head of the village.Even when you went to borrow from his house, you couldn’t hear that person talking anymore. Since then, for a long time, that family has been silent in the village, neither talking nor laughing.The grown-ups, who were about the same age as the dead man, buried the dead man. They sat on the hillside in the sunlight, looking at the pile of loess in front of them. Smoking the dry tobacco until the sky is cloudy, the grass is deep and the soil is thick, and finally it is time to have lunch. When a woman calls from the village, someone stands up and says, go home. Cats live up to five years old, and dogs live the longest. Longevity is not enough to live to be twelve years old, cows and horses are tired and exhausted to live a lifetime, but only live for more than ten years.It's time to run out of knowledge, go home and eat, and send dung to the field after eating.

The villagers all left, the footsteps were silent and chaotic. Ashes left behind in the cemetery sighed sadly, ten miles long, exactly like the mournful cry of a woman whose man had just died. From then on, death took root in Sima Lan's heart, and grew up smoothly. When he was four or five years old, he couldn't sleep at the thought of death, thinking about it until dawn, put on his clothes, and sat on the threshold Hearing the rush of sunlight on the leaves, fear filled his heart, and the shock of death, like ice grains, crackled and burst from his body in a sudden trembling. It fell off and rolled all over the world.

One day, an old man, seventy or eighty years old, passed by on the mountain ridge. He was looking for a bowl of water to drink when he was tired.When the villagers came back, they stood at the head of the village and called——children, look quickly, that man's beard is as long as chopsticks, and as white as snow. Sima Lan followed his three elder brothers to the top of the beam to look at his beard.He saw boys and girls in a village all on the mountain ridge. Du Bo pulled his two-year-old sister, Du Zhucui, and the eight daughters of Lan Baisui's family. One, like a row of willow branches hanging upside down in the air, and willow roots, Du Zhuang and other milk babies.When they saw the old man drinking water, they brushed off his silver beard with their hands, and then put their lips on the rim of the bowl. Even so, the beard cut on his upper lip was still soaked in the bowl like a brush.The children heard the beard making a scratchy sound like washing pots in the bowl.When taking over the empty bowl from which the old man had finished drinking, someone found a beard on the upper lip left in the bowl, one inch long and short, thicker than the hair, sticking to the bowl like a shiny silver thread.

The villagers threw away the beard like a hair from the edge of the rice bowl. Sima Lan heard a clang, and a bright white voice jumped up from the ground. The old man walked to the outside of Palou Mountain.The children seem to have finally seen a rare treasure, satisfied their long-satisfied eyes, and realized that the old man's beard is exactly as the adults said, if it is not cut or shaved for a long time, it will curl up like hot white fans.Reflecting on the shape of their beards, they happily went back to the village, but Sima Lan stayed by the side of Liang's road.He pushed aside the grass on the side of the road and found the silver beard on a wormwood tree.The beard stood on the wormwood leaves, shining in the sunlight like a long needle used for sewing.He held his beard and smelled it, and a faint smell of sour sweat flowed into his nose like hot vinegar.

Stretching his neck, with a thud, he swallowed the smell of sour sweat into his stomach. At this moment, his father, Sima Xiaoxiao, came out of the village.My father was full of frustration, as if he had knocked out a bowl while eating.The father came and said, Lan Wa'er, your uncle is dying. He has never been married and has no children. He wants to meet six of your brothers before he dies. Your brother and brothers have all gone.His father stood before him, and the autumn sunlight lined his eyes, which looked like weak worms just out of their shells.He looked at Sima Lan's hands on his chest and asked what are you looking at?Sima Lan said that I picked up a white beard.It is said that the old man is more than one hundred years old.It is said that people's beard is longer than chopsticks, and when drinking water, the beard rattles in the bowl.

The father stood there stupidly, asking what about others? Sima Lan pointed to the west of the mountain ridge. His father told him to go back quickly and take a look at his uncle, saying that he would not be able to see him if he was too late.Then, my father walked towards the west of the mountain ridge like a meteor. Sima Lan didn't reply. Sima Lan stood there looking at his beard.He discovered that the beard was not actually silvery white, and that there was a layer of dark yellow under the silvery white of the beard, and that the dark yellow would flow from one end of the beard to the other after being exposed to the sun for a long time.When it flows to that end, the silvery white at that end becomes chaotic, and the silvery white at this end becomes pale.He smelled the hot and sour smell of the beard, and there was also a strong smell of raw meat.The smell of raw meat came from the root of the beard. He pulled out a hair of his own and smelled it. The smell of raw meat on the root of his hair was as light as water, neither strong nor strong. He thought that the old man was seventy or eighty years old, maybe he was already a hundred years old. , the beard still has a sticky bloody smell, but I am not yet five years old, and I am just growing, with a grain of white flesh on the root of my hair, but the bloody smell is not as strong as his.He thought, the hair of the villagers with the three surnames did not smell of blood when they were pulled out. He thought, is it because there is no smell of blood in the hair that they can't live to be old?Think I'll grow a silver beard on my chin when I'm dying?

Father is back. Father said you didn't go home to see your uncle?Said that your uncle is only angry and angry, and if you don't look at him, never want to see him again. Sima Lan stared at her father's hair without speaking. The old man was eighty-four years old, and his father took Sima Lan's hand, saying that the old man also said that he usually didn't eat anything special, and that the older generation had grown rapeseed, and they all ate rapeseed leaves, young vegetables, and rapeseed oil. Sima Lan still didn't speak, was held by his father, and walked on the way back to the village, as if he was hung on a fast-moving carriage, he moved his eyes from his father's hair, hooked his head to look at his father's black stubble When he was growing a short beard, he heard earth-shattering cries suddenly burst out from the courtyard of his house, like a sluice gate being opened.The crying sound flew over and hit his father's face. Sima Lan saw his father's face turned pale, and hugged him in his arms, saying that your uncle is dead. Your uncle is only seventeen this year, and then staggered and cried Sound ran home.

Sima Lan's hands clenched tightly, the beard pressed against the flesh of his hand like a wire, and cold sweat came out of the palm of his hand. The uncle was indeed dead. When Sima Lan and her father returned home, the villagers were taking off the door panel, putting it on a stool, spreading a layer of straw on the door panel, leading the reeds, and then carrying the uncle on the straw bed, busy. , while his body was still hot, preparing to change his clothes.Sen, Lin, Mu and younger brothers Deer and Tiger all knelt under the grass bed, and their young cries were as monotonous and soft as twigs blowing in the wind in spring.Sima Lanmu stayed beside the busy crowd, his hands clenched into fists, like two small ice pucks.Village head Du Guaizi commanded the villagers who were busy mourning.Lan Baisui was undressing the dead man, first he bent his uncle's left arm, took off his cloth shirt arm, then turned him over, left to bottom, right to top, and took off his whole cloth shirt up.When he was wearing a new shirt and jacket for the uncle, Lan Baisui stretched the white shirt into the jacket sleeve, put the left jacket sleeve on the uncle's right arm, and turned him over so that the right was on the bottom and the left was on the top. He put on his coat.

Du Guaizi lifted the corner of his uncle's jacket to look at it, then grabbed the jacket again and said, "It's a pity that it's so thick, it's a new flower." His mother cried and said that he had been wearing the old padded jacket his brother retired all his life, and that he should wear a new one when he died. Just like serving a bowl to eat, I put on cotton trousers for him skillfully. After changing the clothes, the uncle's arm refused to be meek and meek. Lan Baisui patted the uncle's face and said that you should bear the pain, so he pressed his shoulder with one hand and grabbed him with the other. He pushed his hand against his knee, rattled, and there was a cold cracking sound, and one of my uncle's arms went straight beside him. Sima Lan was on the side of the straw shop, feeling a pain from the cold in his heart, and felt a cool air flow quickly from his bone marrow.Looking up, he saw that the cries of the three elder brothers stopped abruptly, their faces turned pale suddenly, and fear floated on the three old-looking faces like frost. Sima Lu hugged his mother's leg. Sima Hu crouched under the legs of a stool on the straw shop, chasing a running spider and trying to eat it. There was another icy rattle, and Uncle's other arm followed him. The left leg, rattling—stretched. The right leg, rattling—stretched. Shoulders, rattling -- lie flat. Neck, rattling—bent on the pillow. At this moment, the mother took a piece of white woven cloth, walked over like steamed bun cloth, handed it to Lan Baisui, and told the children to come and take a last look, and then cover my younger brother's face, and wait until the coffin is closed. scare the kids. It was from this moment that Sima Lan understood what death was all about.At that time, the setting sun was light red, and the leaves were swirling and falling in the courtyard. Father, mother and the villagers stood by the grass shop, and asked them to walk in front of the dead uncle's body, starting with the eldest Sima Lin.When it was his turn, he walked to the grass bed, and the grain grass protruding from the grass bed hung on his hand with a clatter, and a dark and cold breath was transmitted from the uncle's body to his hand.He felt that he squeezed two handfuls of cold water in his hand, turned his head, and the dead face slammed into his eyes.The ruddy freshness on my uncle's face a few days ago is gone, what remains in this world is a face of hard vegetable green, and there is a layer of convex and concave black in the vegetable green, like thin and bright vegetable leaves stuck to the black land.The uncle's nose is slightly crooked, and the corner of the right mouth hangs under the corner of the eye on the right half of his face as if being pulled by a rope.Sima Lan didn't know why he died like this. When his father died ten years later, he realized that when his uncle died, his throat must have been piercingly painful, and his face was distorted due to the pain.At that time, he was startled by the evil image of his uncle, standing in front of the grass shop, motionless, with only one thought in his mind, that is, will I die?Is it the same when I die?It wasn't until his two-year-old brother Sima Hu pushed him behind him that he woke up from the panic and took another step forward. When he walked past his uncle's body, he screamed and collapsed on the ground in fright. It was my uncle's dead body that held his hand. Because when Lan Baisui twisted his uncle's arm to change his uncle's shroud, Lan Baisui's knee bent his elbow.Uncle Shou's green fingers hooked up like twigs. Sima Lan walked past him, and his hooked fingers grabbed Sima Lan's half-loose and half-tight fist.Sima Lan felt that the middle finger of his right hand was being pulled by his uncle, and the cold air hit his whole body again, even the blood flow in his tiny veins stopped in an instant.He called mother hoarsely, his crisp white call was like a broken branch, trembling and rattling, filling a room with a bang, and then he fell into mother's arms like a stone . When Sima Lan woke up from her mother's arms, it was already the end of the setting sun, and the village was filled with the colors of dusk.The air is filled with the smell of grass, and my uncle's grass bed has been carried to the open space outside the courtyard.I don't know when, that open space was used exclusively for the coffin sheds in the east half of Sanxing Village. People from the east village would set up coffin sheds there when they died, and people from the west village would set up coffin sheds in the open space in front of the cowshed in the west of the village.The crying stopped like a river in dry weather.Sima Lan snuggled into his mother's arms, and he felt her mother's arms were warm and hot, and the strong milky smell made his throat feel like dry straws were twitching back and forth.He struggled a bit, and his mother's joy was on his face. He woke up, and his mother called loudly, and he woke up. Tell him to eat first, his father said, and drink a sip of water first. Sima Lan heard a soft and delicate murmuring sound, which suddenly grew louder and twitched past his ear like a limp cotton rope.He tried to open his eyes wide, and saw that the room was full of people, the seven daughters of the Lan family were all under the boundary wall, and their mother, Meimei, with disheveled hair, was kneeling in the middle of the room, burning three stoves of incense in front of her, holding her hands. He took a brown brush like an ox's tail, and danced and sang in the air.He couldn't hear her lyrics clearly, but he understood that she was begging his soul to come back to him quickly and never leave again.He also heard her begging, constantly scolding his little uncle, saying that the little uncle was heartless and unintentional, that he passed away, and wanted to drag his own nephew with him. Sima Lan was a little grateful to the woman who fed him milk a few years ago, and named him Sima Lan.He rolled his eyes, and saw the men from the village sitting and squatting in the place where his uncle's dead body had been lying. Their voices flowed slowly like the smoke they breathed out. My father said that today the old man also said that he eats rapeseed for years and months. Lan Baisui said, just eat rapeseed? The village head, Du Guaizi, said, I have a sore throat, and I can't live for a few days. The medicine books say there is no way. It's better for women to have more babies, and let the children spend more time with the dead.When the village chief said this, he dug his throat with his hand, coughed up a mouthful of bloody sputum, and continued, I died for half a month, and let all the boys and girls in the village go to accompany the night. Let them understand that death is death, just like the lights go out, there is no big deal, don't live in the world all your life, and be frightened by death.All fell silent. Sima Lan heard a cry from the silence, stretched her head out of her mother's arms, and saw that Du Meimei had stopped mumbling, and her seven daughters had stopped looking at her.All the eyes in the room were staring at what the village head said, like staring at the catkins flying every now and then, and they all saw that Aunt Sima Taohua was squatting behind his man Du Yan, holding her daughter with her arm one day. Zhucui stopped the baby Du Bo with her other arm, and her mournful cry was like autumn rain dripping from the eaves.