Chapter 60 Chapter fifty-six

The footsteps of Dusang, the head of Guaizi village, were so busy that the streets resounded in March and April.He carried his bag of bright white tweezers, pliers, scissors, alcohol bottles constantly mixed with boiling water, shochu, and purple potion, and turned from one house to another.His thin and long pair of scissors seemed to have never been dry. The liquid medicine rubbed on when cutting the umbilical cord and the amniotic fluid on the umbilical cord left a dark yellow color on the cut surface, which exuded the bluish-white smell of wine and yellow amniotic fluid all day long. taste.The trees sprouted, and the village turned dark green.The elm coins on the elm trees are shining silvery white in the sky in strings.When Paulownia has no leaves, it holds the dusty grape-like paulownia on the branches. After three days or two days, the trumpet-like pink flowers cheerfully fill the sky.Willows and poplars float gray and white fluff everywhere.In the dead of night, one can hear the rolling sound of balls of floc in front of the window and the wall.

In the daytime, the wide alleys and narrow alleys of the village are covered with white poplar catkins like the flowing winter fog.When you walk on the road, catkins and poplar flowers fly into your nose, eyes and ears.You are about to open your mouth to speak and tell the person on the opposite side that so-and-so's woman gave birth, so-and-so's woman gave birth to a dystocia, so-and-so's woman gave birth to a freak, and everyone's birthday has passed half a month without stomach pain, but the words have not yet come out. A ball of flakes flew down your throat.The village chief's trousers are always covered with dust and catkins, the hands of the midwife are full of fishy smell, and the uterine blood under the nails is ruddy all day long.This is a good season to give birth.Men always arrange bed affairs in the late spring and early summer of the first year, so that women will give birth in the next spring, or they will be busy in bed during the slack season in late autumn and early winter of the first year, so that women will give birth in the humidity of autumn in the next year.Babies born in these two seasons will not be affected by heat or cold.While women are sitting in confinement, although they still cook and wash, they are spared a lot of suffering.Confinement without guilt is a blessing that men entrust to women.There is also the village chief who is as proficient in delivering babies as a hoe. Even if you have a baby lying in your belly, he can turn your baby's head back to the gate of the womb.Women want to be born in March and April.Women are mostly born between March and April.In March and April, Mai Mai had just straightened Mao Yidong's body, and the men were waiting at home for the last moment to have children.The village head ran around one by one, cutting the umbilical cord of the baby, or telling the women who were about to give birth some things they should pay attention to.Wherever the village head goes, a bunch of weaned babies will follow in front of the door.When he came out of that house, the children poured into the upper room of the house.If a woman hasn't had a baby yet and her tits are too full, they take turns sucking the full breasts.If the village chief just cut the umbilical cord of the baby, the baby has not even opened its eyes, and does not know what the world looks like. They have to eat it too.Sometimes, when they didn't go, the women would squeeze the excess milk into a bowl and put it on the corner of the table, waiting for their arrival.They can smell a light red smell, like the smell of flowers on the river beach grassland, half-contained with aquatic plants, which is particularly unique in the freshness of spring.If the smell of this house is intermittent, it means that the woman of that house is about to give birth, and they can go to this house to beg for milk for half a month. If the smell is suddenly strong, like a leak from the door frame A river, they knew that the baby in this family was finally born, and they couldn't beg for milk for a few more days.That milk is reserved for the newborn baby.

That smell is a woman's amniotic fluid smell.Wherever the village head goes, the house smells half fishy and half sweet amniotic fluid.They can no longer follow in the footsteps of the village chief. For a few days, the village chief is not in the village, and the village chief and the villagers are hoeing together, and they follow the smell of amniotic fluid to find milk.They ate at home, played in the village street, and followed the smell of amniotic fluid when they were hungry, and the milk would flow into their bellies in all likelihood.The days are like the fragrance of green leaves and flowers overflowing in this season.Blue Forty learned to walk.After a few days of crawling on the village streets, Lan Sishi would start to walk staggeringly.When she could walk, Sima Lan always pulled her like a brother.He took her by the hand like holding a ball of boiled melon, and played at her door, his own door, and the crossroads in the village for a while, and then her mother came out of the house and called them to a place where no one was around. Sit on a rock, roll up your clothes, carry other children on your back, and stuff one breast into each mouth.While eating her milk, he still holds Forty's hand in one hand, swimming between the breasts together, and holds the lotus root white milk bag with the other hand, like holding a skin half filled with warm water. bag.One day, they were eating milk by the cowshed at the entrance of the village. Sima Xiaoxiao came back from the field. He went there to pat the ashes off his body, sat down and smoked a bag of cigarettes, and talked to Forty Niang about Ye Lu for a while. If Huaxiang said it, Forty Niang pushed them away from her chest, saying go play with other children, so she and her father went into the thatched hut next to the cowshed, and it took a long time before they came out.After coming out, my father went to the ground, and she went home to cook.Later, she would come to the front of the cowshed to nurse them at that time every day, and Dad would come back at that time every day to pat the dirt on his body, sit down and smoke a pipe, and when he and Shishi had had enough milk, they would go to the place where the cows were stored. They came out of the grain room in a hurry, one went to the field, and the other went home to cook.

Father always came out of the cow house first. He looked around the village in front of the cowshed for a while, coughed, and she came out of the house.After ten or eight days like this, once when Dad came back from the field, she said, "No way, I'm getting red."Dad said that's fine.When Dad said forget it, his voice was low and deep, as if he had lost something that he could never get back. When he was so sad that the sky was dark, Forty Niang looked sorry for him and squeezed her breasts deeply. I stuffed it into the mouths of Sima Lan and Lan Shisi, and let them suck it until the rain fell, and the whole village was filled with the white fragrance of her milk. There was a deep sadness in the eyes of the forty and forty mothers.Dad said, she would be pregnant, she said, she would.Dad said, it should be a boy.She said, neither does it blame you.Dad said, will we never see each other again?She said no.Dad stood up from the ground, and when he was about to leave, he stroked Forty's hair, as if touching a precious object he had never seen before, slowly, and in the end, his hand slipped on Forty's face again.Forty just stared at that hand, and then at Mother's face.Her mother became emotional, looked away, and said that it is better to call the fourth child's name Lan, which will attract girls, and it is also a dewy memory of you and me.Dad said, let's call him Sima Lan.He also said that I think the skin and eyes of the 40-year-old are good, and she will be juicy when she grows up. Let her marry Lan Wa in the future.She said, I am willing, but I have to tell her father.Dad took his hand away from Forty's face, like pulling away a piece of clothing that has been worn by someone, with a faint trace of hatred in his eyes, saying that sooner or later I have to be the village chief, and if I become the village chief, I can't do it thing.Afterwards, the sound of a cow came from outside the village, and when he heard the sound of the cow's hooves beating like a sledgehammer hitting a stone, Dad turned and walked away without looking back. In the color, like a floating object in running water, his body swung past a row of locust trees in front of the village, and disappeared in the wheat field.

Forty Niang's tears fell to the ground in bits and pieces at this moment, making a bean hole under her feet.In the days to come, I really didn't see my father coming to the side of the cowpen again, nor my forty mother coming here to give them partial milk.They seem to have experienced an earth-shattering affair. Every time he crossed the threshold from his home, avoiding three big and small brothers, and came to the edge of the mill in the center of the village, Du Bo, who was one year and two months old, You must be waiting under the milling plate, either playing with a willow stick in your hand, or turning an iron ring that has been withdrawn from the barrel.There are also blue willow root, blue poplar root, and Du Zhuang. They are all about one year old, growing around the mill like a piece of mushroom, playing with the time in their hands casually in the open space, and blue forty came from home as scheduled. Staggered out, sometimes followed her sister by fifty, or sixty, or seventy, and sometimes she waddled along alone and played with them.In just a few days, it was like autumn leaves fell overnight, and every house looked like autumn yellow. Everyone in the village knew that he was named Sima Lan, and that he and Forty had engaged in baby marriage.So when she came, the adults and those children who called them brothers and sisters all had smirks on their lips and said, Lan, your wife is here, hurry up and take her by the hand.He went to grab her little hand.Adults and older children were all laughing.After laughing, he went down to the ground.He led her to seek milk from the woman who gave birth to children.The smell of amniotic fluid, at this time, will have a tinge of red fishiness, shining in the sun, leading him by the nose, leading him to the pair of snow-white big tits.They are not afraid of going hungry.They can always find milk.Every family in the village has one woman who is pregnant and has a baby.

No matter what the women are doing, working in the fields, doing laundry in the ditch, or washing Miner shoes at the door, all women have a full belly.Most of the women who went to the ground had just raised their stomachs, as if they had eaten too much. Although their stomachs were big, there was absolutely no milk.Most of the women who go down to the river to do laundry are five, six or seven or eight months pregnant, and there is still some time before giving birth. The breasts have already protruded like fine flour steamed buns, but the milk is still like hanging on the wall. Like the diaspora, it is not worth eating and drinking.Only those women who can only sit at the door for a long time, cleaning or sewing, are already born in front of their eyes, and their tits are already swollen and painful. When you stand in front of her, she will say come on, Lan baby, forty, you Two mouthfuls to suck my milk.This makes for a sweet meal.In that season, I really never starved for a day, and Sophora japonica can also be used as a meal.Peach red and plums pass behind, and the locust tree is white as if holding a tree of winter snow.Leading boys and girls to the tree, or being led by older boys and girls, standing on the edge of the ditch, the scent of Sophora japonica will burn your nose hot.Stretch out your arms, yank a few from the tree, and eat until your belly swells.When thirsty, go back to the village to find milk or drink water.At sunset that day, there was a wind blowing on the street, and there was no woman who was about to give birth sitting at the door, so Sima Lan stood in front of the alley, and put her nose into the alley to inhale. Sniffing in the middle of the village, then under the trees in an alley behind the village, and finally at the wind outlet in the west of the village, he pushed aside the snow-white scent of Sophora japonica flowers from the spring air, and cools the tender greenness of Chinese toon leaves and saponin buds. Put the incense on the side of the nose, and finally found a trace of the familiar half-red and half-green amniotic fluid smell mixed with water and blood from the yellow smell of cattle pen, pig pen, and sheep pen.He called Lan Shishi and Du Zhu over, took Shi Shi's hand, and asked Du Zhu, Yang Gen, and Liu Gen to follow behind them. Against the breeze in the setting sun, he walked into an alley, and the familiar scent It looks thick and strong.They ran following the smell, turned around the corner, changed an alley, abandoned several courtyards, and finally arrived in front of his aunt Sima Taohua's house, the smell was no longer like a rope, but like splashing on the ground. A puddle of water.

They stood in front of the door for a while, and then suddenly realized that Du Bo did not follow them to eat Sophora japonica flowers that day, as if they understood what was going on, Sima Lan pushed open the closed door of the aunt's house.The smell of amniotic fluid from the yard came rushing over with a bang, causing each of them to hiccup.He had never encountered such a strong smell of amniotic fluid, as if suddenly standing at the edge of the sink where the meat was washed during the Chinese New Year slaughter.He walked through the smell of amniotic fluid and went to the landlord's room, and his vague feeling was confirmed.My aunt gave birth.Zhucui was born.Uncle Du Yan was burying a plate of bloody navel bags under the tree behind the house.Father Sima Xiaoxiao was smoking a cigarette alone in the main hall, the relief on his face was as thick as mud hanging on a broken wall.In front of the bed in the back room, mother Du Ju was washing Gusheng Zhucui's blood-conceived clothes.The area in front of the bed is lined with elder brothers Sen, Lin, and Mu who came to see the excitement.Du Bo stood in front of his mother, his hands were tightly held by his mother, his face was full of the novel light red brought by his younger sister's birth.A thin layer of skin had formed on the half bowl of milk on the corner of the table.Sima Lan stood behind his brothers. He was not excited by the half bowl of milk, but by the scent of toon, soap buds, willows, locust flowers, livestock pens, dust, and wheat seedlings in the village. , Seven seven eight eight, among more than ten smells, not only can I distinguish the faintest amniotic fluid smell, but I can also follow that smell to find the birth bed and get excited.Something warm in his heart was swaying like hot water in winter, patting his chest and crackling.He stood in front of the bed stupefiedly, staring at his aunt on the bed, seeing his aunt's face was yellow and white, as beautiful as a sick apricot after ripening, exuding a sweet smell more and more.

He looked at Gu, and Gu also stared at him.Gu said the fourth child is really called Lan?Then he put his eyes on his mother's belly that looked like a pot, and said that if she was called Lan, she might really give birth to a baby girl.Without waiting for her mother to reply, she said that she was engaged to Lan Baisui's family, so she might as well be engaged to his cousin.Sima Lan didn't know what the aunt meant, but as the aunt's eyes fell on her own arms like the moonlight, he saw a hairless worm wriggling in the aunt's arms, and her whole body was as red as boils. Cooked meat, fist-like head, not even a single hair, but the leather is so loose that wrinkles are piled up.He looked a little strange when he was born, and he looked a little disgusted, a tasteless water leaked from his mouth, and Leng Dinger wanted to retreat from the room.He thought of forty's hair, like black silk threads, all growing below the ears, and staring at the head of the old sweet potato-like cousin in his aunt's arms, forty's hair was flying all over the sky in his heart .My aunt said let this Nier grow up to be the daughter-in-law of the fourth blue baby.The mother said, look at him staring at the milk bowl, his eyeballs are about to flow out.Gu said Lan baby, take it away and drink it.He didn't want to drink but still grabbed the half bowl of milk, walked out of the door of his aunt's house, and gave the half bowl of milk to Lan Shishi.When Si Si drank the half bowl of milk, his eyes were stuck on her hair, and the hair was really fluttering, making his heart itch.The sparrows homing in on their heads.The setting sun was on the western mountain beam, and half of the mountain beam was dyed red like pregnant blood.They put the empty bowl on the stone in front of Du Bo's house, and smelled a black and purple amniotic fluid smell, followed the black and purple smell to the back of the village, and saw a stream of amniotic fluid flowing on the ground like clothes drying after washing The water samples seeped from under the threshold of the two rooms, pushed open the gate of the courtyard and walked in. I don't know when the village chief had arrived first.He had already taken the birth and was washing the amniotic fluid and blood in the main room of the two rooms.There was a child crying hysterically for the first time in his life, from the inner room, and the landslides and ground cracks shook the thatch off the house.The baby's father said that he was crying so much.The village chief said that when he first came to this world, crying is laughing.Thank you, the village head, the baby's father said, with you as a good hand at delivering babies, I will give my wife another baby at this time next year.

The village chief said to give birth, because he was afraid of having a baby, and people were in a hurry to die. The village was slowly lost in this world.After speaking, the village chief—the village chief—my daughter-in-law is about to give birth—was heard from the village in time. The village chief wiped his hands on his trousers and walked away with his pocket of tweezers and pliers. Lost.Sima Lan and Du Zhu stepped into the room through the amniotic fluid under the door frame, and sure enough there was another half bowl of expressed milk on the corner of the table.He and Du Zhu shared the half bowl of milk.Putting down the bowl and walking out of the two thatched houses, the setting sun on the village street has only faded.Dusk came quietly, and the world was cold and silent.The solitude before the end of the day entered the village.The cow tied into the pen is chewing the green grass, and the smell of hot grass soaked in boiling water is emanating from the cow's mouth.The chicken went back to the nest.Pigs are walking around the empty trough.Both the cat and the dog lay quietly at the door.This day is the most glorious day for Sanxing Village.From sunrise to sunset, six children were born in a village, four boys and two girls.There are five or six more to come in the night.Sima Lan and the others stood at the entrance of the village, and Du Bo also came from the mother who gave birth to his younger sister.Sen, Lin, and Mu, who are five, four, and three years old, came out of the ground like mushrooms at some point.Sixty and fifty sisters came to call Forty to go back for dinner, but here they stood in the group of children without saying a word.They all saw the dripping blood on the Xishan Liang.The setting sun was gone, and only a pile of bloodstains lay on the bottom of the sky connecting with the mountain ridge.They all heard the fluttering sound like leaves when the setting sun disappeared, and smelled that the clear and sticky spring fragrance in the village in April was gone.The smell of brown amniotic fluid, with a slightly fishy smell, flooded the village, like a torrent of water washing away the village.On the village street, the footsteps of the village head delivering babies kept beating like drums.The gap between the drumbeats made the warmth and tranquility of the world thicker and thicker like a wall that cannot be pushed away.They watched the sunset outside the village at the entrance of the village, listened to the movement in the village, and looked at the distance of the mountain ridges. The peaks and mountains were like the backs of sleeping cows in silence, shaking slightly in their breathing.Those wheat seedlings and weeds dyed red by the setting sun are like the hair on the back of a cow.The six children who came to the world on the same day seemed to be crying, and their red and tender neighings flew in the mid-air at the entrance of the village like silk threads.Sima Lan's stomach was filled with the juice and milk of Sophora japonica, and he pissed on the side of the road. The pooled urine, white and thick like milk, flowed into a small river along the road towards the village. The center trickled in, and Du Zhu urinated on his pants. He cried, and the other children laughed, and Du Zhu laughed again.After laughing, Du Zhu said, the milk I drank is peeing, and I still want to drink milk.At this moment, there was a creaking sound on the mountain ridge, and they turned their heads to see that the sun had completely set, and even a trace of blood red was gone.Looking up, you can see the first quarter moon hanging closely in the sky.A group of stars condensed around the moon like the urine splashed when they pissed.When night came, Sima Lan said that I still wanted to breastfeed.

The boss, Sima Sen, said that everyone should go home for dinner.Sima Lan said that if I want to drink milk, I can smell who has milk at home.The children turned their eyes to him, and followed him back to the village by moonlight.Whose new baby was crying, it was a girl, and the cry was as sharp and red as a needle flying from the other side of the village.They walked into a family's house in the face of the crying, only to find out that the girl was crying like a needle because her mother had not given birth to milk for three days.Walking out of that house, they stepped on a puddle of water, kicked up the smell of amniotic fluid from the puddle, followed the smell of amniotic fluid to the house where a puddle of amniotic fluid flowed out of the door, and stood silently in front of the bed for a while, The woman on the bed stood up and said, "There are so many of you, each of you can only eat one bite."As he said that, he pushed the two peaks into the air.They ate three mouthfuls of milk each under the oil lamp, and saw that the chick of the baby who was later named Yang Gen was like a small red bean.Walking out of Yang Gen's house, following in the footsteps of the village chief, they went to another house, and each of them took another three mouthfuls of milk. They saw the belly of the woman who hadn't given birth to a baby out of her clothes, like a soft and white cotton bag.After walking out of this house, the village chief disappeared. Only Lan Baisui, Lan Changshou Dugan and a few men stood in the center of the village, calculating how many people could be added to the village this spring.Dugan said that I had counted several times, and the village chief had also counted several times. There can be twenty-eight people added, two dead at most, and twenty-six more.Lan Baisui said that he could add twenty-nine to thirty people.Can there be so many?Dugan looked at Lan Baisui.Said that my daughter-in-law was also pregnant, and Lan Baisui said that the belly of the woman behind my room was also showing.

Dugan said disdainfully that it was a baby born in autumn, which is not counted in this spring.Lan Baisui got a little angry, saying that students in Autumn are also human beings, and this year the wasteland on the back beam will be given to my family with two acres.Sima Lan and the children passed in front of them, leaving their quarrel behind.A red and white smell of milk mixed with amniotic fluid lured them away.They walked and ran on the village street without being noticed by the adults at all.They are like a group of lambs who can eat grass alone after weaning, and can feed themselves.The moonlight melted and drenched the roads in the village like milk, and made the amniotic fluid flowing on the street from the birthing family dark black, as if it was tea left overnight.The smell of blood rising from the amniotic fluid filled a village like sweet berries.They followed the smell, as if they were catching the rope of a fishing net that had fallen into the water, leading the rope through the vast amniotic fluid, and the milk flowed into their mouths.From one family to another, from this vast ocean of amniotic fluid to this vast ocean of amniotic fluid.The shoes were soaked, and the amniotic fluid poured into the shoe sockets was like crossing a wide river in shoes.The cries of the newborn baby flew over the village blue and purple, making the moonlight tremble non-stop.Sometimes the cry would suddenly sound out from the silence, one by one like a cock crowing before dawn, and immediately the whole world would be filled with the sweet cries of new babies.The footsteps of the village chief delivering the baby moved through the night like a shuttle.The cries of the men going out to look for the village chief seemed to be louder, and they sounded for a while, and then for a while.The men of those women who were not yet born and women who had given birth all moved to sit on the millstone in the center of the village after eating, and a lantern was placed on the top of the millstone, illuminating his ruddy and smiling face. Face.Under the roller, half a basket of good oil tobacco leaves was placed. While they were smoking the pot or rolling cigarettes, they talked about the weather, crops, houses and the newly opened land on the beams, etc. Somebody's baby was born, and when the crying came, he suddenly changed the topic, counted how many babies there were in that family, and compared whose women were more fertile and fertile. She was conceived, and she was born when she said she was born.Occasionally, they also exchanged some experiences in bed, talking about how to live better and make the wife's belly bigger overnight. The topic will not stop until the village chief comes out of that house.Speaking of the village chief, is his family well-born?The village head said Shunli, and it was not the first child of newlyweds.Say how many people were born in the village today?Say ten.Are you saying there is still a baby to be born?I'm afraid there will be two more babies.The village head went to the house where the child was going to be born.Not long after we left, the cries of new babies and the footsteps of children pouring into the crying house could be heard again.The adults looked at a group of children passing by in front of them, and smiled brightly on the faces of the middle-aged and old people in the village who were young but approaching death day by day.At this time, the moon was about to set, and it moved from the west of the village to the beams in the south, and the coolness poured over the villagers like water.The adults called their children and said, it's late at night, and the milk is not full yet, it's time to go home and sleep.The children stood disappointedly in a puddle of amniotic fluid on the village street. When hesitating whether to go home or not, Sima Xiaoxiao called the village chief's name in front of the gate. Sima Lan immediately heard a strong smell of amniotic fluid coming from her home.The smell of mother's milk in the breath of amniotic fluid was mixed like the fragrance of fruits in autumn, so he took Lan Shishi's little hand and walked towards his own home.The other big and small children also hesitated for a while, and walked over. The village street seemed to have just rained, and the amniotic fluid was spread thinly on the ground in every alley.The last moonlight became more and more soft and white, making the whole Palou mountain range melt into it quietly.The twelve newborn babies who entered the world have all quietly rested, and their dreams are like fog in the village.The growing sounds of leaves, crops and weeds, insects, and small flowers, along with the breathing of sleeping babies, floated around the village street, and the older babies walked through the rain-like amniotic fluid , the tea-colored crackling sound of treading water and the flying down of the amniotic fluid, together with all kinds of delicate sounds, become the murmur of this world, swaying leisurely and warmly in the depths of the night. The moon set quietly. The timid Sima Lu was born. The mountain range in the east began to turn red like the back of an ox, and the sun was seeping from the gap between the two peaks like the first drop of pregnancy blood leaking from the womb before giving birth. When they arrived, the carrying poles on the coffin had been tied up, and the coffin had been removed.Sima Xiaoxiao, the new village chief, raised the bar with a loud shout—the eight bearers carried the black coffin on their shoulders. Sima Taohua, the man Du Yan, the baby Du Bai, and the girl Zhucui all burst into tears. .At this time, the villagers seemed to understand with a bang that the old village chief was really dead, and he shed tears when he really left this world.In winter, when the farming was slack and the village head was buried, each family member carried the shovel and hoe needed for burial, and came to the funeral ground as follows. Sima smiled and called out again: "Funeral—that's it!" Coffin Village slowly moved out of the village.Du Yan walked in front of the coffin, dressed in linen and mourning, holding a portrait of his father and a pot in his arms.Taohua led Du Bo and Zhucui to follow behind the coffin, dressed in linen and mourning like a big sheep leading two lambs.Du Yan just walked silently, and Lan Baisui, who was leading the coffin, sprinkled money into the sky from time to time, calling the funeral motto.Occasionally set off a few paper cannons.In the sound of the whispering cannon, the paper money fluttered in the sky like autumn leaves, fell on the bloody cries of Sima Taohua and her pair of children, and floated like falling on the river.More than half of the winter snow has melted, leaving only a hard white layer on the shady slope.The ashes of the barren land on the mountains, the green of the wheat fields, and the icy white of the snow, all shone with colorful lights in the sunlight.People in a village hugged a coffin village, like hugging a section of black embankment, and sent the old village chief away from this world.Following Sima Xiaoxiao's order to throw the basin, Lan Baisui fired another cannon, and Lan Changshou walked out from the crowd, held Du Yan's hands, and forcefully threw the blue earthen basin to the ground. The ground broke on the crossroads at the head of the village. The crying stopped. The funeral team left the village, from near to far, towards the cemetery of Du Xinggou, the group of people became smaller and smaller, and finally disappeared gradually. The money on the side of the road is like a string of white flowers in full bloom. The children in the village followed behind the coffin to watch the excitement, trying to find a paper cannon that hadn't been fired, but none of the paper cannons had been extinguished when they reached the beam, so they were a little disappointed.Funeral is not a rare event, it happens almost once or twice a month, except for being able to wait for the villagers to come back and eat a big pot of vegetables at the dead man's house, like a wedding, there is nothing else to be happy about.Sima Lan retreated from the crowd at Liang Xiang, and his brothers Sen, Lin and Mu also retreated.Du Zhuang, Du Zhu, Liu Gen, and Yang Gen also withdrew.The group returned to the village very bored, only to find that the sixty, fifty, forty, and three-nine girls of the Lan family, as well as the deer and tiger, did not follow to see the burial at all.The village was very quiet.Du Sang, the kidnapper of the old village chief, and Sima Xiaoxiao, the new village chief, led all the adults in the village to the grave, and the loneliness left behind wrapped the village wide and thick.The children stood at the village head where Du Yan's broken earthenware basin, the sun was warming down, basking in the sound of the air, like basking in the endless fog.No one knew what to do, so they just stood there like a piece of dried wild mushroom.The occasional cannon fire from the ravine made the silence of the village even more unfathomable.The children were all stunned in the middle of the road, as if they were the only ones in this village and belonged to them, and even the mountains and the world were only them and belonged to them.Suddenly possessing this dead and quiet world, they don't know what to do, and they are at a loss. There was a bright yellow yelp from the village, and Liu Gen and Yang Gen suddenly said, let's ride the bull. Sima Sen said, sir, he will call when he comes back. Du Zhu said, should he become his own baby again? Lan Fifty said, no way, they have been married several times. Sima Lin said, I haven't buried a dead person yet, let's bury a dead person once. Then the children fell silent with a bang, and looked at each other, and the whole world was silent.When the silence was too great to keep silent, Sima Mu said to bury him, and whoever he wanted to bury, looked at each other for a while, his gaze fell on Sima Lan, as if he was waiting for Sima Lan to bury whoever he wanted. who.Sima Lan thought for a while and said, I will be the village head, so bury me.Then it was time to play the funeral game.Soon someone brought a shovel, a hoe and a pickaxe from home, and asked where the grave was dug?Sima Lan said to dig in the ditch in front of the village, and the adults would not see them when they came back.Sima Sen led Du Zhuang and several strong children to dig graves at the bottom of the ditch with their belongings on their shoulders as earthworks.Sima Hu brought a bunch of old filial piety clothes and filial hats home, and said brother, who wore them.Sima Lan said that those who are older than me don't need to wear them, and those who are younger than me can wear them.Say who wears full filial piety?Sima Lan said that forty is my daughter-in-law, so she should be wearing sackcloth and mourning at forty.Forty looked at her elder sisters Fifty and Sixty, and seeing that Fifty and Sixty didn't say anything, she laughed and put on the set of hemp filial piety clothes on her body.At this time, Liu Gen and Yang Gen acted as bearers, and someone picked a door panel from someone's house and carried it. Sima Lu picked up the paper money that Lan Baisui had just dropped.Lan Fifty brought over a censer with three sticks of burning incense stuck in it.Lan Sanjiu brought a dried willow stick as a banner.Everything that should be there is there.One should be complete.The funeral began grandly.Sima Lan imitated the adult's tone of calling—putting a coffin—he himself lay down on the door with the peeling black paint—covering the coffin—Sima Lin and Sima Mu imitated the appearance of nailing the coffin, and there Stones were beating around the door panel, and they were still saying like grown-ups——Brother Lan, the coffin has been built in the north, you hide the nails, and the nails are in the east.Sima Lan rolled over to the west.When knocking on the west side, he said, Brother Lan, you are nailing on the west side, and you should hide eastward.Sima Lan moved his body to the east.After the coffin was closed, Sima Lan lay on the door panel, calling out to the sky—the funeral——Si Ma Hu squatted under a tree and lit a paper cannon.With a bang, Sima Lin, Sima Mu, Lan Liugen, and Lan Yanggen lifted the four corners of the door and lifted Sima Lan into the air.The sisters of the Lan family put on their filial piety hats and filial gowns, and the deer and tiger were all white and filial. Finally, there was a loud call for funerals, and another funeral procession began to pass through the street. .The sun was almost flat to the south, and the warmth was flowing in the village. Sima Lan was lying in the air, and he suddenly felt that he had grown taller and was much closer to the sun.As the sunlight brushed past his eyelids, he felt a superficial and creaky feeling of comfort all over his body. The white clouds in the sky were turned golden yellow by the sun, and the branches of elm, tung, Chinese toon, and locust trees brushed his head and walked backwards.The cries of the sparrows, magpies, and crows on the saponins tree were hitting the door panel like raindrops, making chugging and crackling noises.Liu Gen and Yang Gen are big, they are carried in front of the door panel, and the older brothers Lin and Mu are dwarfs, they are carried behind the door panel, lying on the door panel as if lying on a sunny hillside.The gates of each house were closed, and the village alleys sandwiched them on the river bed like a river.Ma Xiao, who was blue and forty behind her, was fat and fat, and she had to roll up her filial clothes, half-folded and half-handled, to follow the door.She walked and looked back, the pink smile on her face was reflected in the sunlight, and occasionally she cried like a daughter-in-law at a funeral, sweet and tender, like a song.The laughter of the older sisters fifty and sixty and the younger sisters thirty-nine amidst the crying sounded like bright pearls thrown in mid-air that were crystal clear and white and tinged with red.When the funeral procession passed from one village street to another, two autumn-born puppies followed behind the procession wagging their heads. Sima Lan lay on the door panel and heard the sound of the dogs wagging their tails like wormwood blowing in the wind. While whipping, a strange smell wafted away.The eaves of each family were joined together to form a straight line, like a tight straw rope pulling towards the back of the funeral procession.The trees are also slowly retreating.The pan becomes as small as a pancake.The sheep pens in front of Yang Gen and Liu Gen's house are like chicken coops.He turned his head to look at his home, and saw the familiar courtyard farther and farther away from the crack of this alley, like a puff of dry grass floating on the water.He was a little sleepy, he stayed up all night last night, and got up before dawn this morning to watch the funerals of the adults. Now the sunlight caressed his eyelids, like a pair of warm hands closing his upper eyelids towards his lower eyelids.He heard the third elder brother Sima Mu saying, "Why don't you throw a clay pot at the head of the village?"Then someone threw a tile symbolically on the stone.A shard of tile that had splashed on the door flew away from the tip of his hair.He heard Sima Sen and his brothers at the bottom of the ditch arguing as they dug a grave, as if they couldn't dig a tomb because of the terrain.Arguing long and short about the size of the tomb.Suddenly he wanted to giggle, lying on the door panel of the coffin village, it was as comfortable as sitting in a sedan chair.He regretted that he was late for the funeral game.他想以后天天都做出殡的游戏该多好，每一次都死了躺在门板上，让三姓村从身子两边如搬迁走了一样退去，让村这头的老槐渐渐走过来，让蓝家姐妹那和笑着一样白嫩嫩的哭声无遮无拦地朝着村外飞。柳根、杨根从脸上擦把汗，一甩手汗就打在门板上，司马蓝感到他身下的门板被弹了几指头，腰上麻酥酥的痒。挖墓的撂土声湿淋淋地越响越近了。村落越来越小了，像一蓬枯干的草样被风吹走了。谁家的房梁横在残墙上。鸡窝、牛棚、羊圈都被折掉了。找不到家的花狗，卧在倒塌的院墙下，不知道村落去哪了。村落里静得日光落地就如水泼在房前一样哗哗响。司马蓝真的是愈发的瞌睡了，睁不开眼睛了。 世界又回到了原初的模样儿。 门槛越发地高起来。水缸变得和池塘一样大。连哥哥森、林、木也和巨人一样了。雨滴从房檐上落下来，响得如石头从山上滚下去。时光一如从西流向东的水。许多死人重又活过来，成过亲的男人正在拿着妹妹换媳妇。坟地回到了庄稼地。生杨根、柳根的羊水叮叮当当从他们家床上流下来，流出里屋，流入正间，从梨木门坎儿的缝里流出来，在院落里开出一两条小溪流到村街上。村落里到处都是过夜的茶色羊水味，漫天弥地，苍茫无边。各家床前一年到头都有干干湿湿的孕育血。杜柏和竹翠回到娘的身上无影无踪了。蓝四十、蓝三九也都无踪无影了。鹿弟虎弟不见了。姑姑司马桃花怀着三几个月的杜柏在村里走来走去。村长提着他的兜镊子、钳子和紫药水，胳膊弯里夹着本药书，从这一家出来又到那一家。母亲从自家刚种的八分油菜地里扛着肚子走回来，到村头的老槐树下就坐下不走了。她的肚子疼了，汗从额门上雨样落下来。司马蓝在母亲唇红子宫口，被半温半热的羊水浸泡着，浑身上下被捆着一模样，他听见从村街上涌来的脚步如般桨在水面拍打着，听见镊子和钳子、剪子、玻璃瓶在一个兜里碰碰撞撞，打得死去活来。听见镢头在遥远的坟地的刨坑声，像拳头擂在鼓上，咚咚中有柔柔硬硬的骨肉感。听见母亲细润悦耳的哎哟，宛若谁在把绸布撕成布条儿。羊水就像隔夜的浓茶又加了温开水，不冷也不热。司马蓝把头从那羊水中浮出来，在子宫的门口抬起头，可眼睛似乎被一张半红半白的湿布蒙住了，模模糊糊看见有三个狗儿般的男娃从哪儿跑来拉住母亲的手。过一会眼前的脚脖就和树林一样密，粗粗细细，有黄有白、有红有黑，和一片杂林一模样。他看不见人的脸。他听见有人说，司马笑笑呢？ ──还在和蓝百岁一块挖墓呢。 ──快去跟他说，他媳妇要产在街上了。 ──生完再去说，看是不是又一个儒瓜娃。 ──我说不是就不是。因为不是这孩娃才躲在子宫门里不肯出世呢。 司马蓝就在如茶水般的子宫里，银针落地样微脆微亮地笑了笑，然后便把头脸伸送到了这个世界上。 (Finish)