Chapter 26 1. Third Aunt's Groom

When the winter of 1940 came, I was missing Yue Fei. After the tragedies of "standing naked" and "burning the lantern", I no longer had the courage to go to school.But every morning I have to put on my schoolbag in a serious manner, and follow my mother's teachings, and act like "hold your head up and go your own way". As soon as I walked out of the house, I turned into an alley and went straight to the city wall to catch crickets. up.I flipped through a pile of bricks and tiles, hopped and chased the cricket like a frog, and finally caught a huge and fat cricket with my palm, but was recognized by a group of children who had never carried a schoolbag as an incompetent cricket. The mother cricket of the fight.I, my crickets and even my schoolbag have become the laughing stock of the public.Naturally, I became interested in a monkey that would not laugh at me, and followed an old monkey-playing man and his little monkey in a red vest around Yancheng.But my sister pulled me out from the monkey-watching crowd and handed me over to my mother.I was locked up at home to "make up" homework.My sister humiliated me once again with an ingenious quiz. I couldn't figure it out: "A square table has four corners. If one corner is sawn off, there are still several corners." The answer turned out to be one more horn!After experiencing a series of ups and downs in life at the age of six, I felt that the only way out was to go to Yue Fei to fight the Japanese devils.Because my father said that a hero named Yue Fei personally led the victorious light cavalry, and he was stationed in the suburbs of Yancheng where we live now.It seems that my father went to teach at Yenching University after entrusting our family to Yue Fei.At night, the sound of horseshoes rattling in the dream, Yue Fei leaped over the wall on his war horse and knocked on the door knocker of my house.

Mother sat up with a jolt and asked, "Who is it?" It was a female voice that answered the mother: "Second sister, it's me!" The wind wrapped snowflakes and two bloated snowmen rushed in, and my mother hurriedly closed the door tightly. Under the dim light, the two snowmen put down their net baskets, took off their scarves and cotton hats with ears, and patted the snow on each other.I saw that the snowflakes were melting on the tip of the third aunt's nose, and the drops of water were shining brightly on the eyebrows of another young man.The latter is the third aunt's groom.My sister said we should call him Uncle.But my mother whispered in the next morning, remember, he should be called uncle, but my third aunt became my aunt.

But I remember she was the third aunt.When I was three years old, my third aunt graduated from K Women's High School and took me to the Drum Tower in Kaifeng with my mother.The third aunt looked at the sunset in the ancient city for a long time, and said: "Goodbye, Kaifeng!" She kissed me on the face again and said, "Goodbye, Xiao Ban!" My mother said that after the third aunt got off the Drum Tower, she will arrive Went to a place far, far away.I couldn't understand why my mother asked me to call her aunt when I saw my third aunt again, and I had never heard of this rough-eyed uncle.But I like his arrival, and I think he is a warrior sent by Yue Fei.

Early in the morning, my aunt ran to my house from Xijia Back Street, pulled my mother aside, covered her mouth with the palm of her hand and said, "They live in your house, and there are many people talking about my father's side, and my father wants you to talk more. Watch out!" I love the creepy, eerie vibe.I'm tired of the long six-year-old childhood and need to find suspense in the adult world. The mother let the third aunt and uncle live in the small east room.The outside of the east house is the kitchen, which is full of firewood, straw, and jars for storing food. It is a place where rats are rampant.While cleaning the east room, my mother kept apologizing: "I'm wronged, I'm wronged!" But my uncle praised repeatedly: "It's great, it's great! It's not cold by the stove, and I don't have to worry about running out of food! "

My uncle added a wooden plank to the little bed, sat on the haystack and said, "Second Sister, I seem to have seen you somewhere?" The mother said, "If I remember correctly, you were in Anyang Province seven years ago. He Mingyuan, who led the student movement at the second high school, right?" The uncle said, "Oh, the second sister has a good memory! In Angao, you and Mr. Zhang often go for a walk in Yuan Shikai's Yuan's garden, right?" The mother said: "Yes, then It's the place where you guys met in secret!" My uncle said, "You and Mr. Zhang even ran to Xiaotun Village, and went to the Yin Ruins to pick up a few turtle shells, and the tortoise shells were engraved with oracle bone inscriptions." My mother said, "That's right. , You go up and take a look, and say, these tortoise shells can be used as "Yin Jian", and you can give it to Chairman Jiang to look in the mirror, and then he can see what King Yin Zhou looks like." The uncle said: "I blame me for showing my sharpness! My mother said: "Where, where! My Mr. Zhang said that this He Mingyuan is very serious, so let him go to the podium to criticize oracle bone inscriptions. But you led the whole school to strike, and even alarmed the provincial government!" Uncle said: "Yes, yes, the provincial government said that there were aliens active in Angao. The Provincial Department of Education expelled my student status, and even asked them to revoke the school in Angao!" My mother said, "It's disgusting! I still I have never heard of it. The Provincial Department of Education expelled a student, which clearly means that you will not be allowed to go to school in Henan! I have never seen that a regiment of military police was used to escort all the students to leave school. Two box cannons 'I grabbed your arm and dragged you out, didn't I throw you into the Huan River? My classmates even held a memorial service for you, and they all cried like tears!" My uncle said with a smile: "I am a fierce son. On the other side of the river, I ran around the reed tree!" The third aunt said: "Okay, save me to introduce again. But he is not He Mingyuan now, he is the teacher He Yunfeng." The mother said: "Oh, I Understood."

I asked my mother, who are those two "box cannons"?Mother said that those were two soldiers, and the officer asked them to escort He Mingyuan to the prison.They said, hey, a sixteen or seventeen-year-old student kid, why arrest him?The officer got angry and said, don't underestimate him. When he was sixteen years old in Kaifeng Modern Middle School, he led the students to drive away a principal, and now he is going to the train station to make trouble by lying on the tracks! The soldier escorted He Mingyuan, pushing and shoving on the embankment of the Huan River. The soldier asked, why did you commit such a riot at such a young age?He Mingyuan said that Chiang Kai-shek lost our Northeast without firing a single shot.We are going to Nanjing to petition, telling him to resist the Japanese and fight devils, and stop beating us Chinese.The soldier said, I heard your accent is from the mountains in western Henan, we are fellow villagers!At such a young age, you still know that you miss the Northeast, but you are a bloody child!I don't know if you can swim?He Mingyuan said, my water skills are not good, but I just read a book lying on the Luo River.The soldier said, Hey, then tell you to take the water to fight devils!Suddenly he was lifted up, and he was thrown into the Huan River in a flicker, and he fired a burst of guns along the river, and reported to the officer: "The boy jumped into the river and escaped, and was killed in the river!"

So, I decided that my uncle was Yue Fei's warrior. In the evening, my grandfather came to my house to visit his long-lost Sannier and his son-in-law whom he had never met. I remember that grandpa hurriedly walked in a strange posture, holding a cane in both hands and lying behind his back, as if he was guarding against sneak attacks from behind, and his top hat was also lowered, only the goatee on his chin could be seen , with a white mist spraying from his mouth.In the middle of the night, when my third aunt and uncle saw my grandfather off, I could see that my grandfather was very satisfied with his third son-in-law.Uncle helped grandpa, and the flashlight shone on the snow.Grandpa's walking stick draws circles on the snow.Grandpa only draws circles with his cane when he is happy, and beats the ground hard with his cane when he is not happy.That day I saw my grandfather drew several circles with his cane, stroked his beard and said, "Be careful, don't show your face in public."

Sixty years later, my uncle's younger brother, Uncle Mingbiao, told me that he remembered that one night sixty years ago, my uncle hurriedly ran back from L County to his home in Podi Town. His mother hurriedly gave him a few steamed buns, and he just took a bite when the long-term worker in the front yard ran to the back yard and said, "Your captors are here, and the door is blocked!"With the steamed bun in his mouth, he climbed over the back wall and ran away. My uncle probably joined my third aunt while biting the steamed bun, and sneaked into Yichuan in a hurry.The two fugitives sneaked into the mountains of Yichuan County one night, and Yaner was newly married.Liu Zijiu, Secretary of the Underground Provincial Committee of the Communist Party, did not forget the beauty of being an adult on the way to the Taiyue base.

After my mother inserted the door of the small courtyard in Yancheng, and planted jujube needles on the courtyard wall, the small east house became the new house of the two fugitives.A group of mice is jumping happily on the roof of the new house.While looking at the ceiling with trepidation, the mother frequently expressed her heartfelt blessings to the couple.Uncle and third aunt couldn't help laughing happily, but stopped laughing from time to time, looking out the window at the dark night. I must remember that my uncle made me a slingshot.He found a tree branch in the shape of an ox horn on the firewood stack, and while he was cutting the slingshot frame on the branch, he asked me to recite an ancient poem after him, which said: "Shuo rats, so rats, no one can eat my millet! He tied a rubber belt with good elasticity to the slingshot rack, and said in a poem: "Shu Shu Shu Shu, I have no food!" I took out a glass egg from the inside, and said in a poem: "Shuoshu, Shuoshu, I have nothing to eat!" Then he restrained his voice, moved his eyes along the beams of the roof, and suddenly pulled the bow and fired, with a "bang", a A big rat had already been hit in the head and fell down from the roof beam.My uncle looked at the dead mouse, and asked me to shake my head with him and chant: "I swear I will go to you, and I will go to that paradise."

My uncle shot every shot without missing a beat, and killed five or six mice one after another, hitting the mouse's head every time. The small east room became a peaceful world, and I also memorized an ancient poem by rote.My uncle entrusted me with the slingshot and asked me to eliminate harm for the world.But I couldn't pull the rubber strap off the slingshot.My uncle asked me to study hard and practice hard, so that I will become a master in the future.However, when I was able to pull the slingshot, my uncle and third aunt had quietly left.They had no way of knowing that my first victory was an attempt to annihilate a "big rat" in motive, but in effect pierced through an innocent earthen jar.

I don't know why Third Aunt and Uncle walked away so quickly and silently.My uncle was going to explain the meaning of ancient poems to me that night, but in the dark night, someone climbed over the wall and entered the east room where my uncle lived like a flash of shadow.When I saw a mysterious figure flashing on the window paper, I felt that something more important than "Shuoshu" had happened.When he woke up, the third aunt and uncle had disappeared.The mother said that they jumped out from the gap in the back wall.I climbed over the gap in the wall, and there was a winding path outside the wall, leading to a gap in the city wall, and beyond the gap in the city wall was the boundless wilderness.The snow melted on the road, and there was not even a single footprint left. It was on that winding path that I began my long "tracking" of my uncle. My mother took over from my uncle to explain ancient poetry to me.She said that it was a ballad three thousand years ago when farmers cursed field mice, scolding them for not eating my grain and gnawing on my seedlings, and finally said to the mice, I swear to break up with you and go find my paradise.I think that my uncle and third aunt went looking for their "paradise". There was an unexpected commotion in my house.That day, when I came back from the market with my mother, I was shocked when I entered the house.It seemed that a small bomb had just dropped from the roof, the iron pot on the stove was broken into several pieces, the pots and pans containing the rations were tilted, the rice and noodles were scattered all over the floor, and the boxes and cabinets were all open. , He vomited out all the clothes and books, and the bedding was also piled up on the ground in a mess.The elder brother and sister who came back from school were sitting on the threshold in a daze.My mother said, thanks to her letting me take my elder brother, she pushed my younger brother to the market in a stroller, otherwise, I don’t know what will happen! Grandma Li, who sells steamed buns in the front yard, sent a basket of hot steamed buns, and said, "It's weird, I just guarded the gate, and I didn't see anyone coming in!" She stared at the back wall of the south room of my house, blinking her eyelids, "Mr. Meng, I don't know if I should say something or not?" Mother said, "Nanny Li, just say it." Where the coffin is, there is a door on the back wall, which leads directly to the old cemetery at the base of the city wall through the aisle of the coffin. The landlord blocked the door and charged an extra rent, didn’t he? Look, the mark on the door is still there!” Her little grandson also ran over and said, "Last night, when I came back from mowing grass at the base of the city wall, I saw a will-o'-the-wisp behind this house, and there were a few dark shadows flickering!" The mother said: "Thank you for worrying, I knew it was going to be haunted!" My aunt ran to my house in panic again, and asked my mother in a low voice: "Second sister, didn't you tell me to search for the books they left behind?" My mother said, "I already filled the bottom of the pot as firewood." : "My father said that there are many dogs in Yancheng, and the dogs have sharp noses. I tell you to be careful!" My mother said: "Don't be afraid, they are chasing after the wind, and the shadow is gone. What can they do?" Twenty Six years later, when the "Cultural Revolution" had just begun, my mother pointed to a news figure who was being criticized in the newspaper, and said, "That year, the person who sent a letter to your third aunt and uncle telling them to run away is this Principal Guo." Ah, he was the Propaganda Director of the Underground Provincial Party Committee at that time, how did he become a gangster?"