Chapter 8 Seven Evil May Days

Seven Evil May Days The May Festival is coming, forcing two things to happen: Wang Po takes poison, and Xiao Jinzhi dies tragically. The crescent moon stabs Lin Duan with the same machete.Wang Po loosened her hair, and she walked to the firewood fence behind the house, where she gently opened the fence gate.Outside the firewood fence is dark and sweet, and the breeze dare not disturb the black night painting; cucumbers are climbing up the shelves!The maize leaves are ringing, there are no frogs, and there are few insects. Wang Po was dressed in hair, like a ghost, kneeling on the firewood, putting the cup in her hand to her mouth.Everything came to her mind, everything tempted her.She lay flat on the haystack.Teared by grief, he burst into tears.

Zhao San got up from the bed, he didn't know anything, and in the firewood fence, he looked at Wang Po with a little anger: "Why? I'm crazy!" He thought she was stabbing at the firewood fence to cry. Zhao San bumped into the cup in the grass, which made him stop all thinking immediately.He ran into the house, and under the light, he found a thick black liquid at the bottom of the cup.He wiped it with his hands first, and then tried it with the tip of his tongue. It tasted bitter. "Wang Po has taken poison!" The next morning the village shouted such news.The villagers came to see her sadly and intermittently.

Zhao San wasn't at home, so he ran out to find a place for her on the chaotic graveyard. On the mass grave, the living dug a hole for the dead, and the hole was deeper, and they jumped down first two and a half miles.The wet soil in the lower layer was turned over to the side of the pit, and the pit became deeper!big!Several people jumped down, and the shovel kept turning over, and the hole buried people's waists.The mounds outside were higher than people's heads. The cemetery is the outline of a dead city, without the fragrance of flowers or the sound of insects; even if there are flowers or insects, they are all singing farewell songs, accompanying the endless loneliness of the dead.

Random graves are the residences where landlords donate to poor peasants after their death.But the living peasants are often expelled by the landlords, who make them carry their burdens and children, from the dilapidated house to the even more dilapidated house. Sometimes he was chased and spent the night in a stable.The children were crying for their mother in the stable. Zhao San went to the city, and the sudden incident hit him, how weak he was!When I met a vehicle selling vegetables in the city from Diayu Village, the driver said something troublesome: "Vegetable prices are low, and money is scarce. Food is not worth much."

The driver beat the whip, and he said: "Only cloth is expensive, but salt is expensive. Gradually, the family can't even afford salty salt! The increase in land rent will make the old peasants survive?" Zhao San jumped into the car, lowered his head and sat on the rear shaft of the car.The two weary legs hung down desolately and swayed.The wheels clattered on the rutted road. The city, the streets are crowded!There is too much noise in the vegetable market.Around the butcher's shop, people were arguing. Busy hawkers, the gourds of various colors in their hands danced with the air, they were crazy for the "May Festival".

Zhao San didn't see anything, as if there were no people on the street!It seems that the street is an empty street.But a child followed behind: "It's the holiday, buy it and go home, let the child play!" Zhao San couldn't hear this, and the kid selling gourds seemed to be an adult instead of a child, so he chased after him. "It's the holidays! Buy it and go home for the kids to play with!" The gourds of various patterns on the willow branches, like some tied butterflies, followed Zhao San and ran behind. A coffin shop, red, white, more or less placed at the door, he stopped there.The child also stops following.

Everything is ready!The coffin stopped in front of the door, and the digging shovel stopped turning! The windows are opened to let the dead see the last rays of sunlight.Wang Po's chest was jumping out, she was still breathing a little, the bright light shone on her plain attire.She has been changed into a pair of black cotton trousers and a light-colored short shirt.Except that her face was purple, there was nothing strange about her when she was dying. People shouted: "Lift her! Lift her!" She was still breathing a little bit, and a little bit of foam was spit out from her mouth, at this time she had already been lifted up.Outside Ping'er shouted anxiously: "Feng girl is here! Feng girl!"

Mother and daughter meet too late!Mother and daughter will never meet again!The child carried a small bundle in his hand and walked slowly to his mother.She took a closer look, and when her face was about to touch her mother's face, there was a crisp crackling sound.Her little bundle rolled to the ground. People around, eyes and noses feel sore and wet.Who could stop crying from the unbearable soreness aroused by this little girl?Unrelated people mingled with the girl crying for her mother. Among them, the widow whose husband had just died cried the loudest and mourned the most.she almost cried herself

Husband, she fancied perfectly, was sitting on her husband's grave. The men yelled: "Carry it! It's time to carry it. Clean it up and cry!" The little girl felt that she was not at home, that she had no one by her side.She stopped crying. The eyes of the poisoned mother were always open, but she didn't know her daughter, she didn't know anything!She stopped on the kitchen board, foaming at the mouth, her heart still beating a little. Zhao San sat on the edge of the Kang and lit a cigarette.The women found a white cloth for the girl to wrap around her head, and Ping'er tied the white belt around her waist.

When Zhao San was not in the room, the women began to ask the girl: "How many of your fathers surnamed Feng died?" "Dead for more than two years." "Where's your own father?" "Go back to Shandong early!" "Why didn't you take you back?" "He beat my mother, and my mother led my brother and me to Uncle Feng's house." The women inquired about Wang Po's old life. They were moved by Wang Po. The widow said again: "Why doesn't your brother come? Go home and find him to see your mother!" The girl with white hair turned her head to the wall, tears were running down her little face again!She tried to bite her lip, her little lip was parted, and she opened her mouth to cry again!Accepting the warmth of women made her bolder, walked to the mother's side, pinched her mother's cold fingers tightly, and wiped the foam on her mother's lips with her hands.Xiao Kong is only disturbed by his mother, and the burden she brings is underfoot.The women said again: "Go home and find your brother to see your mother!"

As soon as she heard about her brother, she was about to cry, but she barely stopped.The widow asked again, "Is your brother not at home?" She finally covered her face with a white kerchief and burst into tears.With the help of crying, she dared to talk about her brother: "Brother died the day before yesterday! He was arrested and shot by the officials." The turban was torn from the head.The lonely child shook his mother's heart as if epileptic and cried: "Mother...Mother..." She won't cry about anything anymore, she's still young! The women said to each other: "Brother is too much for us to die? Why didn't you listen..." Zhao San's cigarette bag appeared at the door, and he could clearly hear them talking about Wang Po's son.Zhao San knew that the boy was a "red beard".How did she die? Didn't Wang Po take poison and commit suicide after hearing that her son was shot?Only Zhao San knows this.He didn't want others to know that his wife's suicide was also related to a certain robbery case. He felt that being a bandit was a bit shameful anyway. He shook his pipe, and his voice sounded stiff and empty, urging the girl with the pipe: "You go! She is dead! There is nothing to see, you go back to your house!" The little girl was abandoned by her father, her brother was shot again, she brought burdens to live with her mother, her mother died again, and her mother was not here, who should she live with? In a daze, she forgot her burden, put on a piece of white cloth, and left her mother's house.Leaving her mother's doorstep, it was a bit like leaving her heart behind and letting her go away. Because Zhao San was old, he judged the young man in his mind: "It's okay to marry a woman if you have money, but why not if you don't have money? I haven't seen it before. When it's the festival, that whore can't celebrate the festival, so let him go and grab it. Young man That's how people lose their lives." When he saw his wife who was about to lose her life, he hated the boy who was shot very much.When he thought of the old foreign cannon borrowed by Wang Po last winter, he admired him again: "Beard for a long time! Don't be bullied!" The women lit the firewood, and the pot gradually steamed.Zhao San was twirling his cigarette pipe, and he paced back and forth.After a while, he saw that Wang Po still had a little breath, and the breath still did not stop.He seemed to be waiting impatiently for her death, he was sleepy, leaning against the wall to doze off. The horror of dying for a long time, people don't feel the horror!People were gathering to eat and drink. At this time, Wang Po made a sound underground. It seemed that her purple face turned into lavender.People put down their glasses and say she's going to live again? Not like that, suddenly some black blood flowed from the corner of her mouth, and her lips seemed to be moving, and finally she yelled twice, people stared and said she was going to die! When many eyes were around her, she was moving and wanted to get up!People are panicking!The woman ran out of the window!The man ran to get the water pole.Said she was a dead body. After drinking, Zhao San bravely said: "If you let her get up, she will hug the child to death, or hug a tree, even an adult, she has the strength to hug." Zhao San greedily pressed the pole over with his big red hands.A solid knife sliced ​​at Wang Po's waist.Her stomach and chest suddenly swelled like fish bubbles.Her eyes immediately rounded up, as if glowing with lightning.The corners of her black mouth also moved, as if she was talking, but she didn't speak, blood spurted from her mouth, and shot all over Zhao San's shirt.Zhao San ordered the man: "Quickly press it lightly! It's covered in blood." Wang Po didn't even have any breath left!She was put into a coffin waiting at the door. In front of the temple in the back village, two homeless old men from the village, one carrying a red lantern and the other carrying a kettle, led Ping'er to report to the temple.After walking around the temple for three weeks, they came back along the Mao Mao pedestrian path. The old man recited a set of tunes, and the red lantern accompanied the white cloth on the child's head. They went home.Ping'er didn't cry at all, he just remembered that when his mother died that year, didn't he also report to the temple like this? Wang Po's daughter failed to come with her. The news of Wang Po's death spread throughout the village, and the women sat beside the coffin and burst into tears!Squeezing their noses and wailing: Those who cry for their children, those who cry for their husbands, those who cry for their own lives, in short, no matter what grievances they have, they all come here to send them off!When an elderly person dies in the village, that's what they, the women, do. Will send the coffin to the cemetery!The coffin is about to be nailed! Wang Po finally survived, she felt cold and thirsty, she said softly: "I want to drink water!" But she didn't know where she was sleeping. It's May Festival, and gourds are hung on the doors of every house.There was a crying child in the house of the silly woman in the second half of the mile, but she squatted at the door and brushed the wool of the sheep with the iron rake for the horse. Erliban was limping.The holidays brought him a very pleasant feeling.In the cabbage field, he saw some cabbage trees being eaten by bugs.On weekdays, he would curse the bugs with short sentences, or kick the cabbage with his feet in anger. But now that it's the holidays, he is enjoying everything, and he feels that he should be happy.Walking on the edge of the ground, he saw that the persimmons were not red yet. He wanted to pick some persimmons for the children to eat!It's the holidays! The whole village means the festival, vegetable fields and wheat fields, no matter where it is, it is quiet and sweet.The bugs also seemed to sing a little better than usual. The festival renders the soul of Erliban.He passed the house without going in, threw the persimmon to the child and left again!He wants to take advantage of such a happy day to meet friends for a while.Paper gourds were hung on the doors of the neighbors to the left. When he passed by Mrs. Wang's house, there were green gourds hanging on the door.Going further, it is Jinzhi's house. Jin Zhi's house, there is no gourd outside the door, and there is no one inside the door!Two and a half miles away, I looked around for a long time: the child's diaper was blown by the stove, floating in the wind. Xiao Jinzhi had only been in the world for a month before she was thrown to death by her father!Why do babies come to such a world?Make her go back with resentment!It's just so short!Just a few days of little life! Was not she frightened that the little child slept among the dead?Mom is gone!Mom sobbing can't hear it! it's dark!Nor does the moon come to keep the child company. A few days before the May Festival, Cheng Ye always ran around in the city, and fought with his wife when he came home.He said: "The price of rice has dropped! The rice bought in March is now sold for less than half of the cost. It is not enough to pay off the debt. How can we celebrate the festival if we don't sell it?" And he gradually didn't love Xiao Jinzhi, when the child woke him up at night, he said: "Do your best! Make a fuss! " The day before the festival, his family didn't prepare anything, not even a catty of flour.When I cook rice, nothing comes out of the soybean oil jar. Cheng Ye went home angrily, and checked that the food hadn't been cooked yet.He cried out sharply: "Ah! Like me . . . I'm going to starve to death, I don't even have food... I'm going to town... I'm going to town. " The child is breastfeeding in Jin Zhi's arms.He said again: "Do I still have a good life? You are so tired that I have no chance to be a robber." Jin Zhi lowered his head and set the meal while the child was crying beside him. Cheng Ye looked at the pickles and porridge on the table, he thought for a moment and then couldn't stop saying: "Cry! Prodigal, I'll sell you to pay off the debt." The child was still crying, and the mother was in the kitchen, not knowing whether she was sweeping the floor or clearing the woodpile.Daddy got angry: "Sell you all together, what's the use of you noisy housewife..." The mother in the kitchen was lit like a match: "What are you like? Come back and fight, I'm not your enemy, you will sell it, let's see you sell it!" Dad flew away from his job, and mother jumped up violently. "Sell it? I'll kill her!...What am I selling!" In this way, the little life was terminated! When Wang Po heard that Jin Zhi's child had died, she wanted to come and see, but she only stood up with the stick and fell down again.Her leg bones were invaded by poison and she couldn't walk. Three days later, the young mother went to Luanfengangzi to see her child.But what can you see?Get ripped off by dogs for nothing. When Cheng Ye saw a pile of grass stained with blood, he fancied it was the grass that bundled the little golden branches!They turned their backs and wept. How many tragic tears did Luanfengangzi shed?In the miserable area of ​​Yongnian, not even a crow will fall. Cheng Ye saw another grave, where the skull was seen again. Walking out of the cemetery, some coffins and graveyards, the impression of silence urged them to quicken their pace.