Chapter 10 chapter Ten

For the past two days, Gu Gang went to the village office every day to help write Spring Festival couplets.These are all prepared to be sold to peasants during the New Year, and they are distributed from house to house. Those from better-off families will be given a set of seven characters, and those who are very poor will be given a pair of five characters, because the price is always based on the number of characters.The most common words and phrases are "Long live Chairman Mao, and the future of the Communist Party." Although the antithesis is also very neat, the black and round characters written on red paper or coral paper are still very pleasing to the eye, but it is different from the previous "gathering" Comparing such things as the land of blessings in Luan, and the gates of gold and jade, they always seem to be different.

The day Jinhua came back to her natal home was a gloomy and snowy day.When she came, Gu Gang hadn't gone out yet, so everyone just sat there, chatting without saying a word.As soon as Gu Gang left, she complained about her suffering.She said that her mother-in-law treated her more politely because she was a newcomer, and the sisters-in-law couldn't stand her, and they joined forces to speak ill of her.They said she was lazy and gluttonous, and that her husband would rather starve himself and save something to feed her.Her mother-in-law was very angry when she heard this, and scolded her son for being worthless.Jinhua said that this is nothing.It is true that everyone is starving.

Yuexiang came back from Shanghai this time, and brought a towel and a piece of soap for her, which caused a lot of gossip.Since then, the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law have often revealed their anger and asked her to go back to her natal family to borrow money.This time her mother-in-law officially opened her mouth and asked her to come back and borrow money.Otherwise, they won't be able to pass the New Year. "Oh, it's really—" Yuexiang said, "I knew that the countryside was so miserable, I would never buy those things to bring to you again, instead it would make things difficult for you."

Jin Hua continued to narrate her pain, using a monotonous voice, her face was expressionless, her eyes were looking at the ground, and her hands were folded under her padded jacket.It was very cold in the room, and there was often a long silence, as they all sat there motionless, puffing out white smoke. "Hold on, sister!" Yuexiang comforted him. "In other people's homes, it's natural to feel a little bit wronged, unlike when you're in your own home." When Jin Hua heard this, she felt sad for a while, she lowered her head, lifted her skirt, and wiped her eyes.After wiping and wiping, the tears seemed to flow endlessly.

"Sister, don't cry," Yuexiang said. "You are finally lucky. As long as your brother-in-law treats you well, you will always have a good day in the future. Although it is a little bit hard now, it is not your family, but every family is like this. If you want to talk about what kind of life our family lives, no one else will tell you." I know, sister, you know—" She began to describe the plight of her family. Kim Root didn't say a word.He also knew that Yuexiang's remaining savings were absolutely unwilling to take it out.But he couldn't help feeling sad when he thought of his childhood with his sister.When he was a child, he gave her everything, even a good cricket he caught.On Ching Ming Festival, when people from the city go to the countryside to visit the graves, he always rushes from the front of the village to the back of the village, hiding behind trees and waiting for them to distribute rice noodle dumplings to the bystanders.He collected more dumplings than anyone else, enough for the two brothers and sisters to eat.In summer he would catch grasshoppers in the fields, tie a long bunch of grasshoppers with a piece of grass, take them home and ask his mother to fry the whole bunches in oil until they were browned, fragrant and crispy.

They have always been poor.He remembered lying on the bed in the morning, hearing his mother scooping rice out of the rice jar, the spoon scraping the bottom of the jar, making a small piercing sound. The bitterness of the bone. One day he knew that there was nothing to eat at home, and when it was almost time for lunch, he held his sister's hand and said, "Come out and play, sister Jinhua!" .They played for a long time in the field.Then he suddenly heard his mother calling out, "Golden roots! Golden flowers! Don't come back for dinner!" He was very surprised.When they got home, it turned out that she had boiled some of the beans she had saved for seeds.Beans are very tasty.His mother sat nearby smiling, watching them eat.

Now that he has grown up and has a field of his own, it seems that he is not suffering silently as before, and there is nothing he can do about it.The younger sister begged him with tears in her eyes, but he had to let her go back empty-handed. He was sitting on the bench with his knees wide apart, leaning forward, groping with one hand behind the top of his neck. Yuexiang complained to Jinhua, and after complaining a lot, she stood up and went over there to cook.Jin Gen also stood up and followed.She was bending over to scoop rice in the jar. "Today I want to have a good meal, and not the sloppy stuff," he whispered to her. "Boil it harder, I want to count the rice one by one."

"Okay, go away, let my sister look strange, and wonder what the hell we are doing here," she said softly, without even turning her head. When he returned to Jinhua, she had shed her tears and was playing with Ah Zhao.She took Ah Zhao's hand, stood at the door of Gu Gang's room, and looked inside. "Look, Ah Zhao, don't you remember, this is my house," she said. "Don't go in there," Ah Zhao said, "Mom is going to beat you." "why?" "When that man was at home, he wasn't even allowed to look at him. If you saw him eating, Mom would beat you."

Ah Zhao likes to play with her aunt.Then, it was time for lunch.What they ate was still the same thin porridge that they ate every day, which was so thin that it turned green; the wild vegetables that looked like ropes were cut into sections and floated in it.Jin Gen was so angry that he couldn't swallow it in his throat.He ate in silence, then suddenly put the bowl down with a thud, and went to the yard to smoke dry tobacco. It started to snow.Tiny flakes of snow were at first visible only in the reflection of the dark mountains.Then gradually you can see countless gray dots appearing in the snow-white sky, slowly descending; Jinhua said that she had to go back.Yuexiang told her to wait a while, saying that the snow would not last long, and she would wait until the snow stopped before leaving.But she seemed a little restless.After a while, she stood up again to leave.

"Auntie, don't leave! You live here and don't leave!" Ah Zhao held on to her skirt and didn't let go. "Yuexiang said with a smile, "If you don't let aunt go back, uncle is going to call the door!" "Golden Root took out his big orange umbrella and shoved it roughly into his sister's hand. "You don't want to use it yourself?" When Jinhua said this, she didn't look at him, but at her sister-in-law. Yuexiang repeatedly said that they could bring them back when they passed by Zhoucun at any time.They sent her out onto the main road, the two women shared an umbrella, and Kim Root followed.But before he reached the entrance of the village, he suddenly turned around and went back without saying a word of farewell.

The snow soon turned to rain.The snow in the south of the Yangtze River is often like this.Yuexiang didn't open an umbrella when she came back, and when she got home, she was busy looking for a cloth to dry her clothes and hair, when Jin Gen yelled at her. "I want you to cook a good meal for us—that thin rice soup again! If my sister wasn't here, I would have thrown you in the face!" "Isn't this what Tiantian eats! My sister is not a customer!  … "It's rare for her to come here once, and she doesn't even let people go home after eating!" "You are so unreasonable! Don't even think about it. She came here because she ate better. She thought we ate so well. We lived so well. It would be embarrassing to ask us to borrow money." Don't borrow either!" Jin Gen was silent for a while, and finally said, "She won't care about us." "Even if she doesn't care too much, there's no guarantee that others don't care too much. When she goes back and tells her man, even the whole family will know about it!" "She won't tell anyone." "If it were me, I wouldn't have told you." He has nothing to say. On a rainy afternoon, the room was very dark and closed.The damp cloth shoes gave off a strong smell.Jin Gen walked over and fell on the bed.After lying down for a while, he sat up suddenly, rolled up the old quilt full of patches, put his back on his shoulders, stood up and left. "What are you doing?" Moon Scent yelled. "Where are you going?" "I'll pawn it and get some wine to eat." "You're crazy!" She grabbed the quilt with all her strength. "It's such a cold day, I'm going to freeze to death!" "Death is death, I don't want to live this kind of life!" "You must have heard such a thing—such a cold day, go to be a quilt! It's strange if you don't freeze to death!" "I'll go push Pai Gow and redeem the quilt after winning the money. This is the head office!" "Nuan, please forgive me!" she gasped. She tried her best to pull to this end, but she couldn't pull him. She was anxious and angry, and tears streamed down her face.He suddenly let go of his hands one by one, and turned away from her, as if he was terribly bored.She sat down on the dirt floor with a thud.Then she got up and picked up the quilt, crying as she shook the quilt off, shaking off the ashes. "What on earth does he want from me?" she thought. "We're starving to death here, and I want me to lend her money to help support her husband's family?" She kept saying this to herself over and over again.If you don't, you won't be able to arouse your anger.Because although she was right, she didn't know why, but felt a little ashamed in her heart.He seemed very distressed, which made her look a little worried.After dinner, she went to bed very tired, wrapped the quilt tightly around Ah Zhao and herself.Later, when Jin Gen went to bed, she wanted to pull the quilt over and put it on her body, but she held it tightly and said, "You don't need to cover it! You are not afraid of the cold!" He pulled the quilt so hard that he almost dragged her and the child to the ground.Then...she was very surprised—he blew out the lamp without a word, and lay down with his clothes on.It seems that whether the quilt is covered or not is completely ignored. He lay like this and did not fall asleep for a long, long time.I really want to turn over and hug her. Since I can't drink wine, I will use her instead, and use that warm body to drown his sorrow.But he felt very ashamed in his heart because he was poor and useless.He thought of those old jokes about a poor man who would pester his wife when he was hungry, and was ridiculed by his wife.Maybe she would laugh at him too.When it was almost midnight, she really knew that he was asleep, so she divided half of the quilt to cover him, and then groped in the dark to tuck the quilt tightly for him.So he stretched out his arms to hug her in his sleep, out of habit.