Chapter 5 Fives

Xing Hong didn't talk to the girl in the same room anymore, and even exchanged a few words.After Daxu and I found out, we scolded that girl mercilessly on the way to work the next day.We are simply losing our minds.The two of us with our arms akimbo scolded her as a "running dog", a "sycophant", and a "wicked ghost", which made her cover her face and cry all day long.In fact, we wouldn't have scolded such words, but when we thought of her sticking Xing Hong's arm and pulling her hair at the meeting that night, we were terribly angry.If she is a man, she must be beaten by me.Da Xu doesn't know how to hit people, he only fights back when others hit him, but I was like a savage in those days, Xing Hong said that when I was working in the field, I always squinted at people, looking evil.

After this incident, some guys started to make all kinds of rumors behind our backs.There were gossip in the team that we had some life problems.Such words made Xing Hong very sad, but she never mentioned it to us.It's not good for us to talk to her about this, but we became more and more inseparable from now on, and she would come to our room with a bowl to eat even for meals.No matter how short the time was, she would come and sit with us for a while when we were working and resting in the fields.She was charming when she was with us, she was nice to both of us.There are a lot of books in her box, we read at night and don't go anywhere, even if we don't even know about the critique meeting in the house.Later, she simply brought over all the washbasin and mouthwash cups, which made it impossible for us to sleep late, because she knocked on the door at dawn and said, "Get up quickly! I'm coming in." We slept at noon When she took a nap, she would wash her hair in our room, and after washing her hair, she would sit quietly and read a book.Only go back to her room at night.

Both Daxu and I love her, but we don't want to deprive her of the love she gives to others, because she seems to like us both equally. I still remember the good times the three of us had together.The dry season in our place is very long. Since it is slack season and work is finished early, it was still bright when we came back.Da Xu went to fetch water from the well, and I brought our washbasins and towels to the corridor.He brought the water back and we could hear the splashing in the house as we stripped shirtless in front of the door and washed the mud off our bodies.After we finished washing, we sat on the small bench in front of the door.At this time, she said in the room: "Da Xu, Xiao Wang, have you finished washing?"When she said "Okay," we walked in.She was sitting on the bed in front of the window, with a hairpin in her mouth.I said, "What are we doing?"

"Read. Open my book case." She has a lot of books, some brought by her, some borrowed by her, and some given to her by others.She walked over in my slippers and opened the door to let the evening sun into the room.She likes to lie on the bed and read a book, and put a piece of plastic on the pillow to prevent the wet hair from getting the pillow wet.She also has many childish little problems. When she reads, she will make a "squeaky" sound with her toes.When the lunch bell rings, she sometimes gets lazy. When we pack up the lunch box and say to her: "Xiaohong, get up! Go eat." At this time, she will smile softly: "I don't want to get up. Give me Call." We say, "You're too lazy. We don't want to serve you today." And she'll say, "Then I dabbled your socks! I did your laundry!" And we say: "We are doing this for your own good. You are going to be lazy." She sat up slowly, and then lay down again. "No, one missed meal will not cause laziness. Besides, I am younger than you, so you should let me go." So we let her go.

After dinner, the sky began to darken, and she was still lying on the bed reading a book. After a while, she would suddenly get up and ask, "Da Xu, what book are you reading?" Da Xu told her, and she said, "Oh." Then Lie down, she will ask me again after a while, and I tell her too.She might happily go on: "Oh, it's Shaw. Do you like him?" I said, "It's very delicate, but I still don't like him." "Oh, I like him, the old man is so fine. Otherwise, he would say inexplicably: "Hey, hey! Stop reading, both of you. Let me ask you, do you like Jack London?" How can we say that we don't like it.She said, "He's so savage. One should love, like a good man. Yes! I don't." I retorted, "You're a little girl. Don't be silly." She would say cheerfully, "Yes Lah, I'm a little girl." After finishing speaking, she fell silent.

When it was too dark to read in the house, we all sat outside the door.Sometimes without making a sound, watching the sky darken a little bit, and the last bit of red glowing behind the bamboo shoots in the opposite Dai village.Sometimes she would tell us some trivial things about my childhood, and she told us very interestingly.She said that once she and her brother climbed up to the roof to pick mulberries. It was a Western-style house with a pointed tin roof, and her brother went up the tree.Let her sit on the roof and wait, but when she looked down, it was extremely high, as high as seven floors—it was two floors, but she was only four or five years old, so of course she felt tall.So she turned around and climbed up, the more she climbed, the more she slipped, and she slid to a place not far from the eaves. She was so scared that she did not dare to move, and burst into tears.After returning home at night, the torn holes in the clothes let my mother see Ding.No matter what mother asked, she didn't mention her brother.She said proudly: From then on, I felt that sometimes you don’t have to listen to what adults say, you should be upright and not betray others, which is much more important than being obedient.She told other little things that we all loved to hear.She said that during difficult times, her deskmate had many children and could not get enough to eat.She brings him a cornbread every day.But after he went to middle school, he forgot about her, and ignored her when they met.We all know why.Hee, when we were in middle school, we didn't dare to associate with female classmates, just to be decent people.In short, we gradually found that she is a very good girl, she is not afraid of anything.She instinctively abhors any hypocrisy, praises the light, and she can effortlessly point out what is right where we are confused.I think she's smarter than the two of us put together.

Because the three of us were inseparable, everyone gradually saw us as weirdos.They all smiled tolerantly when they saw us walking together.They still like us.Once I heard some old workers say from a distance: "Three good children were all killed by the instructor." It turned out that they thought we had some kind of neurosis.Later I told Da Xu and Xiao Hong that they both thought it was funny.Anyway, we are willing to be together, let them talk. Later, the team leader also sent the three of us together, and usually the three of us worked together alone.But there is a certain tacit understanding that we must not pick jobs.It started with the three of us going to the fields to pull the straw back.We drove three ox carts.Generally, lesbians are not suitable for driving ox carts, because oxen are sometimes mischievous.But Xing Hong caught up very well.We got in the car and went to the fields.The sky in the dry season is blue-white, the horizon is white, and the fields are bare.The sun was coming down fiercely from the sky, and there was not even a cloud.The straw was dry and brittle, like an eggshell.When we threw straws onto the car, Xing Hong stood on the roof and continued.She looked big and fat in our rags, and she looked like a lot of fun.We threw the straw bundles up until she complained: "Slow down!" When we stopped, she lay down on the straw and smiled and said, "You are so great, but you should slow down." If we threw it again quickly, she would lie down and not move until the grass we threw up buried her, then she got out of the grass, piled up the grass quickly, and shouted happily: "Come on, I'm not afraid." .I'm faster than you!" Then we went back with three straw stacks.We carry more straw than six carts.

After the grass was transported, the captain was very satisfied and said: "If the educated youths are like you, we can plant a thousand acres of land." But he asked us to go out of the cattle pen, and he said: "You can work slowly, so that Xing Hong is doing some chores outside. The cattle pen is close to home, so you can arrange your own time, and you can do it anytime." Our team's cattle pen has not been out for several years.It was a big grass shed, the size of a basketball court.Because there is never any excrement, and there is no bedding, it has become a thin excrement pond. The big cows can drown in their stomachs, and the calves can drown in it. It is really choking.We took a look, and I said, "Xing Hong, don't go down, just stay outside."

"I'm not out there, I want to be with you," she said. I went in to test the depth, and the cow dung flooded up to the upper half of my thigh.We pulled a very strong buffalo and drove on a set of pallets. Xing Hong pulled the cow in the front, and the two of us held down the top of the pallet in the back, dragging the cow dung out of the pen to dry.Geez, that dung is so appalling you won't believe it.The damn cow flicked its tail desperately, splashing dung always hitting people in the face.Whenever we pushed out a lot of manure from the cattle pen, we had to wash our faces in the ditch, and Xing Hong's hair was also splashed.It's so dirty here that we can't even talk.Even the damn cow refused to enter the pen again after it came out, and always had to do some weird tricks to enter.We didn't even eat lunch, and at three o'clock in the afternoon, the cow knelt down and couldn't get up.Xing Hong yelled: "I've had enough!" She rode on the back of the ox and said, "Come on, ox, let's swim by the river." The ox jumped up with a bang and ran towards the river quickly. It's so fast that the two of us can't even catch up.I chased after and shouted: "Xiaohong! Put on the nose rope, don't fall!" She said on the bull's back, "Don't be afraid, I can't fall." She laughed wildly.The buffalo had a wide and slippery back, which was much harder to ride than a horse. The buffalo ran faster than the horse, but she didn't fall off.When they got to the river, the cow jumped headlong into the water, and she also fell off the cow's back and fell into the water.But she jumped up again at once, and ran upriver in waist-deep water, and finally stooped and plunged into the water.When we jumped into the water, she yelled from above: "I've already washed it, you guys wash it well."

Later we sat together on the sandbar, and she was soaking wet, her clothes stuck to her body, her hair hanging down her shoulders.She laughed and said, "How wonderful! I think it's wonderful." The river at that place split into two streams, surrounding a small island. The cow ran to the island to graze. Xiaohong was very happy. After she recovered her breath, she went into the water again and had a water fight with us. Let the sun dry your clothes on the beach.After sitting for a while, she lay on the beach, looked at the sky, and said: "The sky is so blue. I sometimes feel it is inexplicable. I feel that I came from there, and I will disappear there in the future." She was a little sad .We also get sad.We thought that one day we would disappear into the embrace of nature, and at that time we were doomed to lose Xiaohong.Also, maybe we are destined to live here forever.Hey, there are so many things in this world that we don't know.But she sat up quietly and said, "No matter where I go, as long as I am a good person, as long as I can do good deeds, as long as I can love and be loved by others, I am satisfied. Da Xu, Xiao Wang, do you all like me?" ?”

We all said, "Like it." We stared at her intently.The slanting sunset gilded her fluttering hair, her face, her eyelashes, her beautiful breasts and slender body with a layer of gold.She smiled beautifully.She said: "I like you. I love you." We were silent for a while, and she suddenly smiled happily: "Well, I will teach you a song. A good song, an old Scottish folk song." She taught us to sing "Auld Lang Syne".We will often sing this song together.She later taught us many songs, but none of them were as good as this one.Daxu and I are both tone-deaf, and we cannot sing well except for the songs she taught us. Later we all felt hungry, so we got the cow back and drove it home. The next day we went out of the cowshed again, and this time the cow dung was shallow.The three of us drove three sets of pallets to push the cow dung out together.The cow still flicked its tail, sending dung ideas flying all over the place.The three ox tails made people desperate.Later, Xiaohong tied the ox's tail with a rope, and it could no longer swing it.But the cow felt very useless when its tail was tied, and when it walked, it spread its hind legs, looking weird.The chained tail twisted desperately, like a nailed snake.We laughed and tied our cows like this too.So the three cows walked around in an unstable dance step, which we all found very interesting.Xing Hong also said to them tenderly: "Niu, I'm sorry. Niu, I will take you to swim later." In the afternoon, the three of us rode oxen to the river to play.Xing Hong also brought rice and a pot, and we cooked and ate by the river.After eating, we sat and watched the evening clouds, and drove the cattle back after dark, so that they could eat more grass.But the next day when we went to pull the cows, the three cows avoided us in panic.Xiaohong is very sad. She will not tie the tail of the ox from now on, and neither will we.Later, Niu got back together with her again.The cows would come up to her quietly, and she would gently touch their noses.She told us that she loves buffaloes, their curved horns, big eyes, and shady noses.She said the cow's silly face was cute, but I couldn't see it. We put the cows out, and the captain sent us to the town to lamy, and then let the three of us go to graze the cows.I have never seen a girl herding cattle, but because she can be with us, she agreed without hesitation. Let's go to herd cattle together.As soon as the morning fog dissipated, we drove the cattle up the mountain, carrying bamboo hats and rainproof brown clothes, as well as rice and vegetables.We walked behind the ox, and Xiaohong rode upside down on the back of the last ox.We discussed where to drive the cattle.Xiao Hong suddenly straightened up happily, patted the back of the bull and said, "Go to the small woods in the mountain, it will be great there." The bull jumped forward and threw her down.We quickly grabbed her by the arm.She laughed with us, and then said: "Go to the woods, go to the woods! There are several ponds with very clear water, I like them very much! The grass is also good there, shall we go?" She said that's fine, so why don't we say no.At the bottom of the mountain, the cattle scrambled up the steep hillside, faster than walking.Climbing up the first hillside, we stood side by side and looked down the hill: the whole dam was shrouded in a faint white mist, and there were yellow harvested fields around, only the villages were full of big trees and bamboos, like green castles .The undulating hills suddenly stand up in the distance, covered with trees, dark and mysterious.In the quiet small valley, there is a dense grove, which is where Xiaohong is going.The sky here is so blue, like the early autumn in the north.Xiaohong looked at our faces, smiled and said, "Hey, let's go!"