Chapter 3 2

The cicadas in the morning just woke up, and the sound is still very tender.The sunlight from the eggs shone on the straight loess alley, with pools of feces piled up at the base of the walls.In this quiet khaki world, Li Xiangqian led a group of land reform workers around a corner. Everyone was still awake, with backpacks on their backs. I passed a family's house. On the smooth earthen wall, there were two old black wooden doors.Li Xiangqian patted the closed door casually twice, called "Tang Zhankui!" and led the way in. In a square yard inside, a small cucumber shed was set up, and a rope was pulled in the middle to dry the flowered cloths of women and children.

"Tang Zhankui!" Li Xiangqian called out loudly. A woman came out of the room, with a cramped smile on her sallow face, standing on the earthen steps, she put down her rolled up sleeves, and took turns wiping down her sleeves until nothing could be done. . "His father has gone to the field, Comrade Li." Li Xiangqian specifically pointed out Liu Quanlai. "This is Comrade Liu. He will live with you from now on. He is here to do business for us, so we have to greet him well." "Yes, yes! It should be!" The woman said with a smile, "We know that the peasant association came to give instructions last night."

"Go in and have a look, Comrade Liu. You're welcome, we're all on our own." Li Xiangqian hurriedly led the other team members away. "Come in and sit down, you comrade," the woman said with a very uncertain air, laughing. "Have you eaten yet?" "Not yet." "Hey! Then I'll go make a fire and steam two buns for you, shall I?" "You can eat it cold, no need to steam it." "Come in and sit, come in and sit." She led him in, holding her head up and shouting, "Er Niu, bring me some steamed buns! Get some more! -- Shall I steam it?" She was a little asked him worriedly.

He politely refused again and again.She led him into the first room on the right, and as soon as he entered, he saw a bare earthen kang, which took up most of the room.There are only a few empty baskets and jars piled up on the top of the kang, and some messy wheat straw.However, the condition of this family's house is probably not too bad. The uneven loess wall is covered with a few pieces of white powder, and the rain from the roof has left two large yellow marks on the white powder, which is more transparent. There is a kind of flute flavor.Next to the Kang, there was a small rectangular table. The woman dragged out a black wooden square stool from under the table and asked him to sit down, but she stood leaning against the door frame to accompany him.

"How many children do you have?" Liu Quan wanted to lead her to talk, he wanted to learn to approach the masses. "Oh, I lost two boys earlier, now there is only one left, and a daughter." He asked long and short questions again, and talked about family affairs with her. "Our Tang family is not local!" Although she has been married for twenty years, she still calls her husband's family "Our Tang family". "When Erniu's father was in his teens, he and his parents fled here and came here. They worked hard and worked hard. It was easy to get along, and finally they had land to grow." She said these old sayings. Nothing was said about the situation.

A sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl came in, wearing a purple cloth shirt and pants, and a black cloth apron. Holding the corners of the apron with both hands, she walked up to the table, lifted the apron up, and saw six or seven black-faced buns. Tugutu rolled onto the table, and from the sound, one could tell that it was as hard as iron. "Er Niu, sweep the kang." The second girl climbed onto the kang, and took a small broom tied with sorghum straw and rustled on the earthen kang. The area was very large, and she crawled around on her knees.Her back is very slender, and her pair of fat feet are a bit childish. She wears faded pink linen stockings and round blue cloth shoes.

Her mother kept looking at her, as if worried. "I'll sweep," she said suddenly, "Go get the pickled radish. Bring a pair of chopsticks." While sweeping the kang, the woman turned her head to watch Erniu bring a plate of pickled radishes, and then watched her go out. Then the woman looked at Liu Quan eating with worried eyes. "Are you used to eating?" She asked with a smile, "I heard that all the students here this time." "Students can't bear hardships?" Liu Quan said with a smile. She also laughs.But after a while, she said again, "Let's deal with it, and I'll get you noodles later." It seemed to have a comforting meaning.

He found her very amiable. "Don't bother, Aunt Tang, I'm going out later, I won't have lunch here." "It is said that there is a meeting today, are we here?" The woman frowned and looked at him. "Are you at the meeting? Today is the farmers' meeting and the Women's Federation meeting." "The Peasant Association didn't have us at first, and they said we were middle peasants. In the spring of this year, there was a rectification, and it was said that the middle peasants were also at the meeting." She turned her head and shouted to the door, "Er Niu! Go to the field and tell your father." One sound, tell him to go to a meeting. Do you hear that, girl? Go and listen to the women's meeting later. Do you hear that?"

Sand was sandwiched in the steamed bun, which made it crackling and hard to swallow.Liu Quan asked her for some water, but she kept saying "Yes, yes," and walked out.But never come.He reluctantly ate two steamed buns, then hurried out of the room and called out, "I'm going out, Aunt Tang!" "I'm building a fire here, comrade, and the water will be there soon." "No need to boil water, I'm going out." When he walked into the yard, Erniu was digging the soil under the melon shed with a hoe. She didn't pat her head when she saw someone passing by, she just raised the back of her hand to wipe the sweat.

He should go back to the elementary school to concentrate, but when he came just now, everyone was talking and laughing along the way, and he didn't pay attention, and he couldn't remember the way back.Standing at the gate, hesitated for a while, then turned around again.He saw that the second girl was always shy when meeting people, so he straightened his face and nodded to her. "I go to elementary school, do I keep going east?" "Facing east..." She gestured with the hoe, as if she didn't know what to say. After thinking for a while, she said, "Go east and turn when you see the jujube tree. Go a little further and see the mung bean field." , the temple is right outside the market." She went to the gate and pointed.Her face was flushed from the sun.Her hair had been cut, neatly draped over the back of her neck, and her temples were pulled high.The front bangs, messed up by the wind, are all clustered to both sides of the face, which sets off the oval shape of the eyelids even more.She has single eyelids, with a row of straight and long eyelashes covering her shiny black eyes. Looking from the side, she has a kind of oriental beauty.

"Er Niu! You haven't called your father yet?" Her mother yelled from inside when she heard her voice. "I still think you're gone!" "What are you busy with? It's still early for the meeting. The gong hasn't sounded yet." Although she replied like this, she untied her apron and dusted it around her body, as if preparing to go out. Liu Quan originally wanted to ask more carefully, because it is very unreliable to use jujube trees and mung bean fields as signs, and they may not know each other.But hearing her mother call her, it seemed that her mother was a little worried when she heard her talking to him.He didn't go any further, thanked him and left. Walking in the alley, the Fausts rustled under his feet, as if someone was following behind him.He could imagine that if it wasn't for the clear sky and broad daylight, walking alone in the middle of the night would be a little scary.There are always monotonous loess walls on both sides, but at the turning point, it is really small and easy to identify.He was standing at a three-way intersection, facing a tree, when someone behind him spoke, which surprised him. "That's not a jujube tree." He turned around to look at it, he gave a surprise, and then smiled. "It's a good thing you and I are on the way, otherwise we would really have lost our way." Erniu smiled and pulled the skirt of her skirt, said nothing, turned her head to look at the shadow of the person on the dirt wall in the sunlight. The ground in this alley is low in the middle and high on both sides, making it very difficult to walk, so the two of them still walked in a narrow ditch in the middle, one behind the other.When Liu Quan talked to her, he needed to turn around, so he couldn't take care of the uneven road ahead.It was inconvenient to speak, and there was really nothing to say, so everyone was quiet, and it was still the same as before, only the sound of Faust being stepped on under the feet. "Have you joined the literacy class?" After a long period of silence, Liu Quan finally came up with such a sentence. "joined." "Know how many words?" "I don't know the words." "Why can't you be illiterate if you enter the literacy class? Are you being polite?" "It's time to turn." Although she didn't answer his question, there was laughter in her voice, as if she tried her best to hold back her laughter just now. You can see the Tuxuzi.A square of green wheat fields and bright red sorghum fields are exposed from the hole in the wall. "Hey, those are mung bean sprouts." She finally pointed to a door opening. "Oh, that's the mung bean field." "I just guessed that you didn't know him." She laughed out loud. He laughed too. When I got out of the loess wall, I was standing under a big tree.This tree grows on a small soil slope, and a few steps down is the main road.On the other side of the road, you can see a red wall protruding from the green bushes from a long distance, which is the Guandi Temple.Looking further into the distance, there are those square fields again, stretching to the sky like green brocade. "Is your land dry or watery?" "Here, that's the one over there." She pointed. "Oh, isn't that already gone?" "That temple over there is the primary school," she pointed again. If you can't find the little school here, you'd be too imbecile, he thought.He thanked her with a smile. "I'm sorry to make you go all the way," he said. "We're used to walking," she replied casually, her eyes already looking towards the temple opposite.The front of the temple seemed to be very lively, and many people in uniform were busy walking in, probably from the work team. Liu Quan walked down the hillside alone, and when he reached the road, he couldn't help turning his head to look around.She was still standing there, holding a tree trunk in her hands, pulling it low, and shaking it.The strong sun was shining on her face.Her hair was not very black, it was scorched by the sun; when the sun shines again, her hair, lids and arms look like wood with a golden luster.She looks like an ancient and colorful boxwood statue.However, the moment he turned his head, she had already turned around and walked in.The branch that fell from the board was suddenly let go by her, and it bounced back. The green branch reflected the light blue sky, and it was up and down in the air, turbulent. stop.Liu Quan stood there looking at the branch, dumbfounded. Suddenly another person came out of the hole in the wall, but it was yellow silk.Liu Quan collected himself and looked again, it was Huangjuan.She held up a notebook to block the sun overhead.It was a hot day, and she pushed her hat back, and her short hair was also tucked behind her ears, but there were still a few loose strands of hair sticking to her cheeks with sweat, and a slight blush appeared on her fair face.Liu Quan stood here looking up, as if waiting for her here, so he had no choice but to make a mistake, even if he had seen her already, he nodded to her with a smile. "The road here is really difficult," he said. "Fortunately, I met someone from the village and gave me a ride. You really have the ability to walk here alone." She laughed. "Do you think I know the way? If it weren't for you leading the way, I'm going around and around, and I don't know how long I will go around!" "Oh, you saw me walking ahead?" Liu Quan said with a smile.The natural question that followed was "Why didn't you call me?" But the question didn't come out. "Which family is that girl? Very lively." "I'm staying at their house. By chance, she went to the field to ask her father to attend a meeting." The two explanations he added may be superfluous, even if she heard it, she didn't seem to pay attention to it.Because there were other female comrades passing by at this time, she immediately rushed to greet them, and her attitude seemed to be more affectionate than usual. Everyone chatted and laughed, and hurried up the stone steps of the temple, leaving him behind.This was a natural action, and she didn't express any displeasure in the conversation just now, but he intuitively felt that she was a little dissatisfied with him.But why?If he thought she was unhappy because of Er Niu, he should feel happy.But after all, he is not such a pretentious person who thinks that any woman has a crush on him.The evidence was that he didn't feel happy, he just felt very unhappy for no reason. After the work team gathered in the temple, they were divided into two groups to attend the meetings of the farmers' association and the women's federation.All comrades and a small group of male comrades preside over the women's federation's general meeting.Liu Quan's group went to the ancestral hall of a rich family to hold a farmers' meeting.Today's meeting is just a routine.Zhang Li and several team members took turns to give lectures on the principles of land reform, starting with the origin of the private system, and the peasants were taught a lesson in the history of social development, and they were all drowsy.Liu Quan also spoke for a while. One meeting lasted six hours.After the meeting was over, everyone came back to the village, and it was already dark.When Liu Quan returned to Tang's house, as soon as he entered the door, he saw a thin middle-aged man, not tall, coming forward with a dry pipe in his mouth, nodding and smiling at him.It must be Tang Zhankui. "Go and sit in that room!" He seemed more dull than his woman, and he couldn't even call "comrade". He let Liu Quan go to the spare room this morning, and Erniu immediately brought in a lamp.But the oil lamp was not stable on the table, probably because of the unevenness of the mud floor.Erniu put the lamp on the kang, and went out to find a brick to put under the table legs.She squatted under the table and put the bricks on top of it. She raised her head several times to see if the bricks were leveled, and then piled up and pushed the table to see if it wobbled.At this time, Liu Quan noticed that she was wearing a light pink flower in her hair, but she didn't seem to see it in the morning. Tang Zhankui sat on the Kang and sucked a pipe.He was shirtless and wearing a white cloth vest. The light shone on his ochre-yellow face. It was flat, but there were several deep wrinkles like cracks in the soil. "Is today's meeting too long?" Liu Quan said. Tang Zhankui laughed a few times, and said politely, "It's not too long, it's not too long." Then he fell silent again. Liu Quan saw that he seemed to have something on his mind, so he explained the general method of land reform to him again.I asked him that he had 11 mu of land, and he received less than ten shi of grain a year. After paying the grain, it was just enough for the whole family.For a middle peasant like him, according to the law of "do not move in the middle and keep the two ends flat", his property is under the protection of the government, so there is absolutely nothing to worry about. However, Tang Zhankui still frowned. "It is said that the reclassification is to be disrupted, is there such a thing?" "If not, I will never touch your land like that of middle peasants." "That's good, that's good," Tang Zhankui sighed, "Ever since I heard that, I've felt a lump in my heart. I don't have much else to do with my few acres of land. I'm familiar with the nature of the land. The land along the river, It was bought by Yang Laoer the year before last. The land is quite good. The brothers of the Yang family are not successful, and the land is deserted. I don’t know how hard it is. Since I planted it, I turned it over twice a year, and often picked it. Now the harvest is much better than before. If it is exchanged for others, it is a bit reluctant to exchange two acres." His fields are all piecemeal, one acre by one acre. From what he said, each piece of land has its own history and its own unique personality.Like all taciturn people, he sometimes began to talk about his favorite things, and suddenly became very chatty.Liu Quan listened, but found it very interesting. Er Niu went out and came in again, leaning against the door and listening blankly.Tang Zhankui's woman asked them to go out for dinner, and she made soba noodle pancakes.Everyone sat down around the table.The fire on the stove was still very hot, so she asked Er Niu to sit on a pot of water. Beside the stove is a large sauce-yellow water jar.Erniu lifted the lid of the tank, picked up the gourd ladle to scoop up water, but before scooping it down, she hurriedly took a photo of her eyelids in the water.She tucked the flower back.After taking another photo, I always seem a little worried.As a result, he plucked the flower again and stuck it upside down by his sideburns.This time, it was not inserted firmly, and the pink flower fell down without a sound, floating on the dark yellow water.Her face was reflected in the shadowy water, the flower was perched on her eyes, motionless, Er Niu didn't go to fish it, she held the side of the luxury tank with her hand, just looked at her own shadow. "How can it take so long to scoop up some water, and it's not embroidery," her mother said, "what are you looking at there?" "I don't know why the water is so muddy today," Er Niu said, "there is so thick mud underneath." She picked up the flowers and sprinkled them with water, still sticking them in her hair, scooped up a pot of water in a hurry, sent them to the stove, and then sat on the table to eat.She sat with her body slanted and ate with her head down. Because Liu Quan didn't want to embarrass her, she also tried to avoid looking in her direction.But she could see clearly the way she looked in the mirror in the water tank just now.He couldn't tell what kind of feeling it was in his heart, he seemed to have a vague pleasure, but also felt a little uneasy.