Chapter 54 Chapter 50

Many more women in the village became pregnant. On the well platform, in the cattle pen, on the rolling roads and mills, and beside the stones for washing and hammering clothes by the river, you can see women busy with their half-grown bellies.During the leisure time in winter, the men would go to the sunny place on the back slope to bask in the sun. Seeing that the old village chief hadn’t gotten up from home yet, he asked each other about the situation, and after sitting for a while, he went to the cliff to look for the fallen leaves, but the fruit was still hanging. Sour dates on thorn branches.Go to the bottom of the cliff to look for the jujube, which has fallen but has not been dried.One day, in front of the village and behind the village, there were no jujubes to be found, and the twelfth lunar month approached step by step, and a group of men gathered in the slopes, basking in the sun, catching lice, and planning their lives.

Say, it's almost Chinese New Year. He said that it was time to add new clothes to the children and to buy something for the daughter-in-law. Say, let’s sell human skin again. Said, it's time, I don't know what the Jiaohuo Academy looks like if I don't go there for two years. Said, it's time to take the children to learn more. Sima smiled and said, yes, take all the children over three years old, and let them see what it's like to sell skins. After a while, the old village head dies, and according to the village head's order, let them accompany them Sleeping with dead bodies for a few nights, they will grow into adults.

This is the first time that Sima Lan, Sima Lu, Lan Shishi, Zhu Cui and others have experienced selling human skins. The day was chosen on the 23rd of November, the day of the zodiac. I spent the night repairing stretchers, preparing potions, packing luggage, and baking dry food. I left Du Yan to take care of the old village chief who died in front of the door. The other men dawned He took the baby on the road.The ox carts in the village are tied at the entrance of the village. All bedding, bowls and chopsticks, iron pots and odds and ends are piled up in the car boards like blanks. Five sets of rafter stretchers are tied at the end of the car boards. The children are like candied haws on a string. The same squeezed on the luggage, and said goodbye to the woman and the village chief who stayed in the village.

At that time, the sun was just turning red on Dongshan, and there was a slight sound coming from Dongliang.Sima Lan, who was sitting by the side of the carriage, said what was the sound, and his elder brother Sima Sen said that the sun was coming out, and the sun was squeezing out from the crevice of the mountain.He cast his eyes on Dongshan Liang, and sure enough, he saw the two mountain peaks squeezed together, leaving a narrow gap like a door, and a puddle of blood flowed out of the gap in the sun, and the soup and water poured out the two peaks. The mountain peaks were all stained with blood, and the sky in the east was reflected in caramel.He sniffed his nose, and what he smelled was the algae gas of the winter wheat. He said, why is the sun like blood?Why is it not round?The adults under the car cast their gazes coldly and hard. The men didn't speak, but the women beside the car stared at him muttering.

Father said, say another word of blood, and I will tear your mouth apart. Sima Lan didn't know what was wrong with her, and the children didn't know what was wrong, so they all looked away from the plasma sun, looking at their knees or something on the car.At this time, the village head walked from the back of the car to the front of the car, and his plump face disappeared in a blink of an eye.What remains on the face is the uneven skeleton, the cheekbones look like two stones will fall from there one day, and the deep eye sockets are like two eye holes.The village head said that the adults are selling their skins, and no one can say anything about bloodshed, no one can say anything about life and death.As a result, the children seemed to be sensible and realized the horror of the matter, and their faces immediately became solemn and gloomy.

The village head said, let's go.After speaking, he was supported by his son Du Yan and his daughter-in-law Taohua and sat down on the spot Like a bale of grass scattered on the ground. Liu Gen's father raised the bullwhip. The ox cart clanged out of the village. The women who saw them off were all in tears, and confessed that they should go early and return early, that if someone bought it, they would sell it, and if no one bought it, they would sell it; The child cooks and dyes the clothes for the New Year and confesses that when he comes back from the city, he must remember to buy a bag of needles. The sewing needles at home are gone, and he said that if he has more money, he will buy a few rusty needles and a few embroidery threads. Go for a few days, and if you say a certain date, you can go to the village to pick you up.

Some men became impatient and tedious, saying that I will die of tetanus this time, so you don't need to pick me up. It was Lan Baisui who said this, and as soon as he finished speaking, he strode away, and the women were as silent as if they had locked the door at night. Even if we say goodbye. The men walked in a pile, kicking and kicking on the beam road, and the ox cart followed behind them, and the iron wheels rolled over the pavement stones, shaking the children like sifting chaff.Sima was sitting on the left side of the car, Lan was sitting on the right side of the car, and Du was sitting in the car. They all had their hands in their sleeves and had winter cold noses.This is the first time they have followed the adults out of the Ralou Mountains, and the first time they have experienced the solemn life of selling human skins. With bloody novelty and heartbeat, they watched the car go out on the long road, and the women were still there. The village entrance waved.

Sima Lan felt sorry for his mother and the women in the village. He didn't know why the men were standing in front of the bullock cart, putting their hands in their bosoms to warm up, looking at the flourishing wheat in the field, talking and laughing, and soon Forget about the women seeing off.But those pregnant women raised their hands in the air, like dead branches hanging in the sun, swaying non-stop with the wind. He also waved his hands in the air. All the children in the car waved their hands in the air. Auspicious days seem to be for good weather.The thin white mist curled up in the ditch under the beams slowly dissipated amidst the rolling sound of iron wheels.At some point, the sun turned from a mass of plasma into a ball of red fire, and rose to the top of the eastern mountain. At first, it was still struggling with the mountain top, and then with a chirp, it leaped into the sky and separated from the mountain range.A world is shining brightly.The rays of light one after another warmed up the mountain ridge, and the villagers who were seeing off soon became a black spot. Sima Lan blinked his eyes, and they all disappeared.The adults were still talking and laughing in front of the car, turning around to greet the children in the car from time to time.As for the handlebar willow root father, at some point, he jumped up and sat in front of the car, thrust his whip in front of the car, folded his hands, and fell asleep with his eyes closed.

The world is getting bigger and bigger. The sky is also getting wider. The village that appeared in the daylight looked from a distance, like a piece of clothing thrown from the sky by someone and hung on the mountain range. The bullock cart swayed endlessly behind the adults, and a series of clinking sounds spread all the way. It was not until the sun rose a few poles, and it was close to Pingnan, that it stopped at a village, set up a pot to boil water, ate dry food, and continued on. I rushed into the city along the endless beam road. It turns out that the outside world is not much different from the Palou Mountains. Men also carry hoes on their shoulders to hoe winter wheat and pick manure to apply winter fertilizer.The women also went to the river to wash clothes in cold weather, and when they were pregnant, they would pick up firewood in the village or take their babies by the door with their big bellies.The barking of the dog is also barking with a khaki color, and the lowing of the cow is similar to that of a muddy river. Even the cemetery beside the road is a round mound, and occasionally there is a piece of grave on the top of the mound. old paper.The sky seems to be bluer, but in the village, sometimes you can meet bluer sky than this, so blue that it seems to be peeling off the color from the sky.The only difference is that there are fewer pregnant women here, unlike in the villages, when the women say that their stomachs are straightened out, the fermented face is swollen overnight.

There is really nothing more novel. The sun directly overhead seems to be getting a bit warmer. The children fell asleep on each other in the car. When we arrived in a market town, the ox cart stopped in front of a restaurant, and everyone ate a bowl of sauced noodles. When we came out of the restaurant, we saw a lot of red paper pasted on the walls of the town street. The shopkeeper said, what is written on the wall?The shopkeeper said that it has become a cooperative, and a commune has been implemented.The children don't care what is cooperative or what is communalization, but the grown-ups are stunned in the restaurant hall, their faces stiffened and dazed, saying that the land has been merged into one piece? The cattle of each family are considered communal. ?Even the plow, columbine, hoe, and rake have to be put in a warehouse? The boss widened his eyes and asked where you came from. The accent is the same as ours here. Why don’t you know about cooperatives and people’s communes? Culturalization? We have implemented cooperatives for two years, and the communes have also begun to flourish.The grown-ups stopped talking and asking questions, and walked out of the restaurant silently.

Along the way, the men were silent, their faces darkened. Along the way, the men let out a ten-mile-long sigh from time to time, looking sad and desolate. It was not until they crossed a stone bridge that Sima smiled that Leng Dinger burst out a sentence, saying that I fucked his grandma, a person from Sansurname Village They are not people of this world.The words were cold and hard, like frozen icicles, spit out from his mouth with a bang, and the adults who walked in a pile stopped their feet and stood on the road staring at him.Sima smiled but didn't look at anyone, and walked forward alone, leaving the others and the baby in the bullock cart behind. Children can't take care of so many lives that are yet to come.They still slept soundly in the car, and the saliva dripping from the corners of their mouths wet the front of their jackets.When the sun was about to set, the adults woke them up, and they found that the world had become different, not the original world. The mountains disappeared without a trace, and the endless plains were laid out in the setting sun. The city walls are tall and large, the brick walls more than one foot long are two feet high, and where there are corners, the corner lines are not even crooked at all.The white brick seams are stretched as straight as silk threads.The moat below the city was neck-deep in water, and the algae on the water surface were withered but still blue and black.Walking along the road around the city, the voices of those urbanites who were carrying coal briquettes were as crisp as apples and pears, which are rare in the Ralu mountain range. It turns out that the city and the Palu Mountains are two different worlds.There really are buildings here.And there is a three-story building where people can stand on the balcony outside the window and take half of the county into their eyes.The eyes of the children began to blink, and they all stared round.They stood on the bullock carts, rubbed their tired eyes, and let the city walls, buildings, pedestrians, closed shop doors, dead blue moats and children with schoolbags in the city all pass through their eyes .Let the Jiaohuo Academy in the east of the city slowly walk over, and they saw that Sima Xiaoxiao had already stood alone in front of the gate of the Jiaohuo Academy, so they all heard the sound of skin-cutting knives, trembling clearly ringing in their ears. The circumcision rings before the twenty-sixth day of the lunar month.They waited in the teaching fire academy for three whole days, and wandered around in the teaching fire academy during the day.He slept in a warehouse at night, and cooked his own meals in a pot outside the Jiaohuo Academy where the radishes and cabbage had just been harvested.For three days, it was a long torment for adults and children, especially when it was time for meals, the smell of double sheep intestine soup opposite the Jiaohuoyuan permeated the air greasy. It was tasteless.They followed the direction of the wind to chase the smell of mutton soup. When the wind was blowing eastward, they stared at the smell of mutton in the air from the east of the early morning meat restaurant.When the wind blows to the west, they ran to the west of the restaurant again, grabbed the smell of mutton in the air with their hands, and licked the red oil on their palms with their tongues.Sima smiled and couldn't stand it anymore. After spanking the five children's buttocks one by one, he went to the restaurant to help them wash the pots and bowls for a long time, and brought back a bowl of mutton soup for Sima Sen, who was nine years old, and Sima, who was eight years old. Sima Lin, seven-year-old Sima Mu, four-year-old Sima Lan, and Sima Lu who was less than three years old each poured a few mouthfuls, and each scooped a spoonful of vegetable soup, and the five children soaked in steamed buns. , the fragrance floats for ten miles.The people in the village, each family gathered around a wild stove, cooking in the empty winter vegetable field. When the other children saw the smell of oil wafting from Lan's house, their eyes widened, and the rice bowls in their hands stiffened. It stopped moving in mid-air. Three-year-old Lan Shishi came from his own pot with steamed buns in cabbage soup. He said, Brother Lan, come here, and Sima Lan walked over with his diluted double sheep intestine soup. A child stood on a vegetable bed, forty said let me drink a little of your sheep intestine soup, and I will marry you when I grow up.How much did Sima Lan say to drink?She said drink half of it.After hesitating for a while, he poured half of the sheep intestine soup into her bowl.At this time, the cousin Zhucui who came to see the skin seller with my uncle actually stood beside him, staring at the two of them, the light in her eyes crackling.She said, Cousin Lan, you are my cousin, if you don't give me the sheep intestine soup, why would you give it to her.Sima Lan looked at Zhucui, then at the bowl, raised her head and drank half a bowl of soup in one gulp. Zhucui was about to cry.Bai's crying called her uncle, who took her hand, went to Sima Xiaoxiao, and said that you are still her uncle, why did you forget Zhucui when you were sharing sheep intestine soup? , do you still deserve her to call you uncle? Sima smiled without saying a word, walked over and slapped Sima Lan across the face.He turned around and grabbed Sen's bowl, Lin's bowl, Wooden's bowl, and Lu's bowl, and with four clatters, he poured all the sheep intestine soup into the vegetable field.All of a sudden, there was a lot of crying in the empty vegetable field, and the sheep intestine soup splashed everywhere. The adults were dumbfounded, and the children were yelling. At the moment when Zhucui's uncle said, "Your Sima smiled." Are you trying to embarrass me by throwing the bowl and dumping the soup? Maybe you went to wash the dishes for the waiter in the shop, and the waiter stole a bowl of poor soup for you. Afraid that you can't find a bowl of sheep intestine soup?After speaking, he took the bowl and went to the mutton rice shop, kowtowed to the waiter in front of the restaurant, kowtowed to the shopkeeper, said a few words, and came back with a bowl of mutton intestine soup.There was yellow rotten oil floating on the surface of the mutton intestine soup, white chopped green onion, rising heat, because the oil was so heavy that it refused to dissipate in the air for a long time.Back in the vegetable field, without saying a word, he poured half a bowl for his child, and distributed the remaining half bowl to Du Bo and Zhucui. As a result, the crying in the empty vegetable field disappeared, and the eyes of the children turned white.The crowd was as quiet as death, and far away under a stone pot stove erected, the flames screamed like whips, the jumping of raw corn in the pot, and the collision of cabbage and radishes were heart-piercing.At this moment, Lan Baisui didn't say anything, and stroked ninety's face, eighty's face, seventy's face, five-year-old Lan's sixty's face, four-year-old Lan's fifty-year-old face one by one, , Go to the Jiaohuo Academy to carry out a new quilt, go to the mutton restaurant for a while, the quilt is gone, and bring back half a pot of sheep intestine soup. Liu Gen's father took off his jacket and went to the mutton restaurant. He brought back two bowls of mutton intestine soup and two mutton bones. Du Zhuang's father took off his padded jacket and went to the restaurant wearing only a cloth shirt, and brought back two bowls of mutton soup, two sesame seed cakes and half a catty of stewed mutton. Lan Changshou took off the silver-plated collar from his son's neck, and went there in exchange for two bowls of mutton soup, four biscuits and half a sheep's head. The oily smell of mutton in the vegetable field is misty, and as soon as the sun shines, the fragrance is entangled in the mid-air, like a mess of rusty threads.The earth-shattering sound of adults drinking soup, the sound of children gnawing bones and chewing meat, combined with the cold November wind, the whole world becomes the smell of mutton.No one spoke, no one looked at each other, and the whole family gathered together with big bowls, hooking their heads on the bowls and the mutton, suffocating their stomachs full of inexplicable resentment and smell.In the end, only Sima Xiaoxiao's family was left.He neither sent quilts nor cotton-padded clothes to the restaurant. He squatted on the ground and smoked straight, turning the smoke pot red, and the damp winter air slid over the smoke pot, squeaking and turning thin The white smoke.His five children stood in the thick fragrance of the world. Forest, forest, and wood were like three grasses that would never grow up in the shade of trees, and blue and deer were like willow seedlings facing the sun by the river, tall and short. One piece, deep and silent, looking at the smell of mutton in the vegetable field, chewing like running water, at the end, Sima smiled and knocked off the cigarette ash, and said to Boss Sen, if you want to eat, if you want to eat, then It's your turn to sell skins when you grow older. After selling leg skins, you go to a restaurant to eat to support your waist.Sima Sen nodded solemnly to him, and said to Er Lin, "If you want to eat it, you should come to sell the leg skin in a few years, and buy whatever you want to eat after selling the leg skin."Sima Lin nodded to him like his elder brother.He also said to Lao Sanlin, in a few years, when your buddies sell leg skins, they will come to you with them, and selling a little of your own will be enough for you to eat.He went to hold Lan and Lu in his arms again, and said that your buddies are here to sell leg skins, you come with them, as long as you sell a piece of skin from one person's legs, five of you don't say that steamed buns made with mutton soup can also be made with mutton. eat enough.Lan and Lu turned their gazes to the three elder brothers, as if to ask if they sold the skin of their legs for them to eat, but the three elder brothers bit their lips and nodded to the two younger brothers. Sima smiled and filled five bowls of cabbage, millet and grits soup for the five children, and the five children took the bowls and found them under the wall sheltered from the wind and ate them.At this moment, Sima Lan saw Lan Shisi standing not far away holding a bowl of smoldering mutton soup and looking at him, and handed the bowl of mutton soup to him, motioning for him to drink hers. Mutton soup, he shook his head at her, turning it away.But turning his head, his gaze met Zhucui's white porcelain bowl again.Zhucui ate the steamed buns in mutton soup full of fragrance, while turning her dark blue eyes over the rim of the bowl, when she met Sima Lan's eyes, she curled her lips at him and drank the mutton soup until the wind blows The waves beat, and the sound hit Sima Lan's face like sand and stones. Sima Lan buried her head and face in her own bowl. At this time, a call came from the teaching fire academy, the call was bright red, and it flew here, illuminating the empty vegetable field, and even the sunlight in the field seemed dim.All the villagers of the three surnames froze their bowls in the air, their lips froze on the sides of the bowls, and cast their gazes at the gate of the Jiaohuo Academy, and saw a doctor in a foreign cloth white coat beckoning to them. proceed. ──Did you hear me?Here comes a burnt one, you come here to sell skins. The men put the bowls on the ground at the same time, stood up at the same time, and rushed towards the teaching fire courtyard. ──One is enough, just an inch and a half of skin. After calling the doctor, the doctor left, and the men all calmed down again, looking at each other uncomfortably. Sima smiled and said, I'll sell it. I still have two inches of good leather left on my left leg, and I can cut off an inch and a half except for the rough edges. Lan Baisui said, there is a two-inch piece of good leather on the back of my right leg. If I sell it, I can go to the mutton restaurant to redeem my quilt. In addition, my daughter-in-law keeps getting pregnant, so I should buy her some supplements. . Liugen's father said, tell me to sell it. The jacket I put into the restaurant is new cotton.The baby's mother's belly is so big, she didn't even have a sour and sweet taste in her mouth. Lan Changshou said, if you don't ask me to sell it, the silver-plated collar around my baby's neck will be gone. If I don't have the silver collar, why should I go back and explain to my wife that she is pregnant this time because she is unwilling and I insisted on it? Make her belly bigger. Everyone made a lot of noise, as if what they wanted to do was not to cut the skin of their own legs, but to eat a bowl of steamed mutton for free.During the conversation, they were a little bit incompatible with each other. Lan Baisui said that if the village chief didn't come, he couldn't do it.Let's put it this way, Liu Gen's father is the oldest today, he is thirty-four years old this year, and he won't live for a few years, just listen to his words, he said whoever sells it should sell it. All eyes were on Father Liu Gen, the bull handle. Liu Gen's father said, let's draw lots, the old way, whoever catches it will make a fortune, and whoever has to buy some melon seeds and jelly beans for all the children who come. They all agreed. Father Liu Gen picked up a piece of paper by the wall, folded it and tore up more than a dozen pieces, and asked Du Bo, who was just beginning to read, to write a word on any piece of paper, rolled it up and put it in a hat, shook it, saying that it was time to celebrate the New Year Now, every family is a bunch of children, every family has pregnant women, every family needs a sum of money, everyone wants to make a fortune, let God tell you whoever gets rich will sell it Pi, if you don't let anyone who has a hair, rest your legs.Then he looked at everyone and asked who was the first to catch it? He said it was the same who was the first and who was the last.When I saw that the adults were a little embarrassed, I looked at all the children who came to learn more, and said that you all come over, and each family will give a hand to catch the lottery for the fathers, so that the adults will not catch the wounded children. amiable. The children gathered around the hat. Liu Gen's father said, Liu Gen, you catch it first. Lan Liugen put his hand into the hat. Sima Xiaoxiao, who had been silent for a while, suddenly walked over from the crowd, pulled the children aside, and said in a high voice, count Yang Gen's father as old as I am, and everyone knows that the village chief is dead and I want to be The village chief, the village chief is not here today, so I'll just take the village chief—I said that there is no need to draw the lottery anymore, the skins are for me.I sold the leather, and in addition to buying half a catty of jelly beans for all the boys and a silk headband for all the girls, I redeemed all the cotton coats, quilts, and collars that everyone took to the restaurant. All eyes swept over with a bang. Lan Changshou said, Brother Xiaoxiao, do you mean what you say? Sima smiled and said, if it doesn’t count, I, Sima Xiaoxiao, will get tetanus if I sell the skins.