Chapter 53 Chapter Forty-Nine

One thing happened.The occurrence of this incident caused the footsteps of death to rush to the door of the old village head Du's house very quickly. The old village head always gets up early in the early winter, eats a bowl of poached eggs served by his daughter-in-law Sima Taohua in front of the bed, and walks through the half-asleep village, alone to the sunny slope behind the village to bask in the warmth and read his Chinese medicine books , where the sun is sheltered from the wind and the sun is as warm as a fire pit, as long as he sits there for a while, Sima Xiaoxiao or Lan Centenarians will follow him to accompany him.On this day, he smelled the milky white smell of male and female carnival in a village last night, and sat on the sunny slope loudly. Before anyone came to accompany him to warm up, he knew how tired the men in the village were one by one last night. Tired, so he flipped through the medicine book by himself, but he couldn't really read a page, but let the names of angelica, huanglian, and orange peel slide past his eyes very familiarly, and let the warm memory slip away from him. In front of him, the seasons came in turn. What happened at the beginning of that year, the spring blossomed in the sunlight.

His wife died that year.He has only been married for two years, and his first child was named Du Yan. His wife's belly has swelled up for the second time for six months. When he puts his hand on her belly at night, he can feel the insects in the stomach. There was a clicking sound, and one night she told him that my throat hurts.One night three months later, his daughter-in-law really died. He crawled on his daughter-in-law's stomach and cried to death, and he stopped crying when he cried.He heard the bouncing in his daughter-in-law's stomach and was still bouncing.Then he carried a bucket of grain and ran fifty miles to ask for a midwife.At dawn, after he led the donkey and invited the midwife to the village, his daughter-in-law had already been carried on the straw bed outside the gate.

The midwife said, what about people? He pointed to the straw shop and said it was there. The midwife turned the donkey's head and left without dismounting. When she left, the midwife only said one sentence, saying that if there is no doctor in your village with three surnames, more people will die than live.He was just twenty years old that year, his wife died, and he kept an empty bed for two years, and suddenly disappeared from the village in one day.His brothers, sisters-in-law and sisters didn't see anyone coming back when it was dark, so they screamed at the top of Liangding cliff until their throats were bleeding, and they searched in the ditch and cliff where cattle and sheep had fallen to death with lanterns all night.After one night, the family was depressed on the rocks in the center of the village, knowing that he had left the village and walked away from the Palou mountain range.Thirteen years later, when he came back from the village with a bundle on his back, he put the bundle on the crossroads in the village and ate the noodles brought by his sister.My sister said that my brother and sister-in-law were all dead, and they all died in the twelfth lunar month of the year before last. Your child, Du Yan, is seventeen years old and can plow the land, support the columbine, and raise the field. It's time to start a family and start a business.He was holding the noodle bowl, holding his hands in mid-air, and there was a girl Sima Taohua screaming from the other side of the village, saying that her brother Sima Xiaoxiao went to the city to sell skins and hasn't come back yet, but his sister-in-law is about to have a baby. I didn't give birth for a day, and now I'm dead on the bed.At this time, he got up and went to Sima Xiaoxiao's house, no matter what happens, he sent someone to lift Sima Xiaoxiao's woman into the light in the center of the house, put it on the door panel like a dead person, took a look and said, laugh The laughing daughter-in-law is a girl from our Du family, and then he pinched her among the people, climbed on her mouth and blew for a while, and when she woke up with a wow, he found six quilts and placed them on the door panel. Three beds were stacked on the head, two beds were built in the middle, and one bed was stacked at the foot, so that there was a big slope on the door panel.He let Sima Xiaoxiao's woman lie on the slope, holding the handle of the pan brush in her mouth, and opened his bag.

Everyone in the village saw it, and there was a thread-bound book of traditional Chinese medicine in the bundle, which was the "Huangdi Neijing", which was handed down from generation to generation, and some shiny pliers, scissors, tweezers, and small bottles of red and purple medicines.Those medical instruments were shining brightly at the door, and the eyes of the villagers were stabbed and blinked non-stop.The twenty-eight-year-old kidnapper Du Sang, in front of everyone's eyes, covered Sima Xiaoxiao's daughter-in-law with a sheet on the quilt on the slope, leaving her legs exposed outside the sheet, and carried the bag of dingle jingle drills by himself. They entered into the bed sheet and made the medical equipment make noise without any haste. Blood and amniotic fluid leaked out from under the sheet like a river.After half a meal, the villagers heard the sound of cold equipment colliding at the door of the house.I saw him throwing scissors, pliers, tweezers, etc. red dripping under the door panel, and then sweating profusely, he got out from under the sheet, holding a baby in his hand like a skinned rabbit.

This is Sima Lan's elder brother Sima Sen. Sima Xiaoxiao, who had sold his leg skins in the city, came back and betrothed his sixteen-year-old sister to his baby Du Yan. My sister said, I am only sixteen miles away. Sima, the older brother, smiled and said, his father is a doctor, and if anyone in the village can't live past forty, he will let you live past forty miles.Sixteen-year-old Sima Taohua happily married.Because he can deliver babies, he can read the characters in that crisp yellow Chinese medicine book all over the mountains, he knows many new and strange things that many villagers outside Palou Mountain have never heard of, and he has become a character in the village. .He said it was time to plant wheat, and the villagers looked for columbine rakes to sow.He said that the wheat was yellow, and the villagers went to pick fertilizer from the fields. He said that your child has worms in his belly. Write a prescription and go to the pharmacy in the town to grab a dose of medicine. After eating it, the child will surely lay down a bunch insect.He pointed to the pregnant woman and said, "Your fetal position is not correct. Sleep on your left side at night with a pillow under your stomach. That woman will give birth smoothly when she gives birth."

No one in the village does not respect him as a cripple who returned to the village after being away for thirteen years.He said that the world is different, and there are village chiefs in the villages outside, and everyone in the village thinks that the village chief must be him.He became the head of the village and said: There is no other way. If the village of the three surnames wants to have a prosperous population, it has to live faster than die, and it has to let women give birth to babies like pigs.As a result, the children in the village have been running around the streets and alleys like mushrooms for several years.However, he didn't expect that when he had a stuffy throat this time, when he let women give birth to babies, the women put the dead statue in a bowl of vegetables and brought it to him.

He sat on the north slope as usual, and the sunlight made a slight sound on the grass he turned around. Listening to the subtle sound of sunlight, the book of traditional Chinese medicine was like two old wooden doors open on his knees.At this time, he heard footsteps in front of him, thinking that a man was coming, but when he raised his head, three women came blowing like a gust of wind and a ball of fire. When they saw the village chief, they yelled and said Village chief, we knew you were here. We came here for nothing else. I asked you if you appointed the men to go crazy last night. They said that you said that as long as women give birth to babies and If you are as diligent as a pig, you are not afraid that the villagers will not live to be forty?It's you who said that women give birth to babies like pigs, and those who give birth to more babies are stronger, don't you?The women said, you speak so well, why do you love your daughter-in-law?Why did she give birth to a boy and a girl to rest in the nest? Every family's bed makes noise all night long. How come your baby Du Yan's bed creaked a few times and stopped making any noise?

The woman said that we have been to the town and the city, and we have never seen a village head like you in the world. Apart from asking women to have babies, there is nothing else we can do.The women said that if you are not capable, you should not be the village head. When you are the village head, you are making men suffer and women suffer. The ones who said this were Meimei, a centenarian woman from Lan, Sima Ye, who was newly married to the surname Du, and Kuozuier, who was married to Sima from the Lan family.These were three women who had cried all night last night. They came here by appointment, and they spoke with confidence, as if they wanted to pour the grievances of last night on his head.

The village chief said, you are really not afraid of losing your sons and grandchildren in the village, and you are not afraid of losing the Sanxing village in the world. You let your daughter-in-law have a baby, the open-mouthed daughter-in-law said, I was afraid to let your daughter-in-law have a baby, I gave birth to five children, and when I gave birth to the fourth and fifth children, I was a little bit close to death, but Sima Taohua Why do you rest in the nest after giving birth to Zhucui? Dusan's face darkened with a bang, and the brick-like medicine book was closed in his hands.

He said, brothers and sisters, don't forget that you are Du Wa's daughter, and you are also my sister. I'm your little sister, the open-mouthed daughter-in-law put her hand on her waist, saying that a few years ago you made all the women in the village pregnant and gave birth to babies, and your own sister died of dystocia, didn't you shed a tear? After five generations, you still know that I am your sister. The old village chief fell silent, his Adam's apple kicked and moved up and down a few times, as if he wanted to say something, but he couldn't.At this time Sima Ye stood two steps forward, a jujube tree with scattered thorns stuck in front of him, and called Uncle Kidnap, saying that you are the village chief, you are thirty-nine years old, and you will be forty in no time. No one in the older generations of the village can still read and write at the age of forty, and can see a doctor and take medicine. In any case, you are a well-educated person in the village. If you are well-educated, you can call every man to your house and tell them to go home at night. Grab a woman.Say you know what I'm like these days?After confinement, my lower body bleeds every day. It is black, thick and thick. It flows like a river. I cook and wash clothes during the day, and my lower body is wet after a busy day. Half a basket of cotton rags can’t wipe it off. It's clean, the yard of my house is full of the smell of women's red blood; I slept all night, and the next day it rained like rain.Everyone in the village knows that I have a disease that makes my lower body incapable of doing anything. They all know that my man is short-sighted and his body is as strong as a cow. Do you know what he did to me last night?I cried and begged him, and he tied me to the bed frame with hemp rope, making me come back to life after the death, the blood flowing from the bed was like splashed wash water, my man said you said to him On average, if each woman does not give birth to four children, the village will gradually disappear.She said, Village Chief Du, look at my neck and see how that meaty head beat me and tied me to the bed.

Sima Ye stretched out his wrist in front of the village chief. The sun shines on the north hillside, like golden water sprinkled all over the ground.The moisture of early winter crackles and dissipates in the sunlight, and the tiny sound is like rising water vapor.Sima Ye picked up his red jacket and flung his white and tender arms in front of the village head. The rope marks that had been bound on his wrists jumped out, and crawled into the village head's eyes like green and purple snakes. . Sima Ye said, can you look at my lower body, my lower body is as rotten as a bad peach or pear. The village chief didn't say anything, he stood up from the ground, coughed, as if holding a mouthful of phlegm, and went home from the women. Sima Ye chased him and said, don't go, village chief. The open-mouthed daughter-in-law called out, "Brother Kidnapper, you don't have the ability to let the villagers live past forty years old, so you just give up the position of village chief. Just letting women have babies is nothing." Brother Dusang, at this time, the blue centenarian woman Meimei who had been silent for a long time spoke up. He said that I had already given birth to six children, and I would die if I had another one. Many men listen to you when they are centenarians. Please give him Say something, don't let him pester me at night, okay?I was afraid that he would hide in the corner and dare not sleep. The village chief who was walking towards the house slowed down his pace when he heard Meimei's words, and the woman and Sima Ye chased after him, saying together that you don't want to go, village chief, you are the village chief's heart Please, don't just protect your daughter-in-law, as if your daughter-in-law is the person in your bed, let her rest after giving birth to two children, but we can't rest after our fourth and fifth births. The village head Du Sang stands in the village At the back of the alley, his face was frosty white, and his lips were stretched into a purple line, as if something would flow out of his mouth if he loosened it a little.Seeing his daughter-in-law Sima Taohua coming out from the alley at this time, she heard the scolding and came to the father-in-law, she stepped down, heard a few words of scolding from the women, and suddenly looked behind the father-in-law three women kneeling down.Sisters and sisters-in-law, she said that it was not my father-in-law who protected me, but my man, Du Yan, who was incompetent. He took hundreds of Chinese medicines from my father to make me pregnant with Baiwa and Cui. If you force me to give birth, I will give birth. You have to go to the village to borrow another man. The three women stood dumbfounded behind the village chief. The entrance to the alley at the foot of the slope was as quiet as the mouth of a dry well. Village head Du Sang looked at his kneeling daughter-in-law Sima Taohua, and suddenly lowered his head. A mouthful of dirty blood flowed from his mouth. Immediately, the hillside and the village were filled with bloody smell, and death was like sweaty clothes. It was pasted on the village chief's chest and back.