Chapter 15 Chapter 3 Little Things

The tiger got up from the grass, peed, and looked down the mountain.The roof of that temple has been renovated.There were no monks in the temple, usually only some passing beggars and wandering monks took shelter from the rain and rested there. There was a pond in front of the temple, and beside the pond was an earthen stage. During festivals, troupes from Anhui and Hangzhou were there. Sing there.Since the headmaster returned from Japan, new tiles were laid on the roof, and the crooked gables were reinforced with rivets. In addition, several wing rooms were built on both sides of the temple, and it was converted into a Puji school.However, Tiger has never seen anyone go to the school to study, only some bald and shirtless men from nowhere come in and out of the gate, humming ditties, wielding guns and clubs, and fighting and killing.

On the official road behind the temple, Little Thing was riding on horseback, holding the horse's belly tightly, and screaming "Yeah!" But the white horse just raised its head docilely, motionless, as if thinking about it thoughts. Everyone in the village called him Xiaoshi, and the elderly called him Young Master.Some people with malicious intentions called him a little bastard behind his back.Back then, when the headmaster returned to Puji from Japan, he also brought him with him. He was only two years old, and he could not speak well, and fell asleep on the porter's back.The old lady said that this little thing was a wild child picked up by the principal on his way back home, and everyone in the village believed it.However, when he was three or four years old, the headmaster's expression could already be seen in his eyebrows and eyes, with similar lips, nose and eyebrows.Someone let out the word in the village that the child might have been shot out by a "platoon gun" in the bandit's den in Hua's house.

Ding Shu, a private school teacher, likes to meddle in other people's business.Once, when they were playing by the river, Ding Shu walked up to them with a cane, squatted down, held the little thing's hand, and asked him: "Do you remember who your father is?" Shaking his head, he said he didn't know.Ding Shu asked again: "Then do you know what your last name is?" The little thing still shook his head and remained silent. "I'll give you a name, do you want it?" Ding Shu squinted at him.The little thing didn't say yes or no, but just kicked the sand by the river with his feet.

"The place we live in is called Puji, so you should be called Puji. Puji, that's a good name. If you become a prime minister one day, you will be called by this name well; if you become a monk, you won't even have a Buddhist name It’s all saved.” Ding Shu chuckled, “As for the surname, it will be your grandfather’s, the surname is Lu, you have to remember it.” People still call him Little Thing. The headmaster never cared about him, and if she met him on the road, she wouldn't even look at him.The little thing didn't dare to call her mother, and followed everyone else to call her "principal".The old lady loves him the most. She doesn't call him Little Thing, but "Dudu Bao", "Heart and Heart", "Stinky Baby", "Little Cotton Jacket", and "Little Foot Stove".

"I kicked it desperately, but it still didn't run away. What do you think is going on?" When the tiger came down the small slope, the little thing said to him with an unhappy face. "Fortunately, it didn't run away. If it spread its legs and ran, you would have been thrown into a pile of shit." The tiger taught him like an adult, "You are too young to ride a horse." He pulled the rein Come, lead the horse to the stable by the pond.It was already dark. "I just slept on the hillside for a long time." The tiger yawned and said, "I also had a dream." The little thing was not interested in his dream.He shook his little fist on the horse's back, and said to the tiger: "Guess what is in my hand?" Before the tiger could answer, he loosened his fist, spread his hand, and laugh.

It was a dragonfly, which had already been crushed by him. "I dreamed about your mother—" said the tiger.He hesitated whether to tell him what happened in the dream. "That's so strange." The little thing said dismissively, "I dream of her every night." "It was taken care of from a young age." Tiger said. Little things have a rarity.It was a small photo taken by his mother when he was in Japan, the only treasure of the little thing.He didn't know where to hide it.For a while it was stuffed in the pocket of the coat, and for a while it was pressed under the pillow mat of the bed, and when there was nothing to do, it was secretly taken out by one person.But this little photo was ruined by the magpie. She soaked it in the water basin, beat it with a mallet, and rubbed it with her hands. The paper bumps are gone.The little thing chased the magpie, cried and bit, like crazy, and made a fuss for a long time. Finally, the madam came up with a solution. She soaked the little photo in the water, smoothed it gently, and put it in the stove. dry in.Although the face in the photo was blurred, the little thing was still regarded as a treasure, and he no longer dared to carry it with him.When these things are mentioned, the old lady always wipes her tears and shakes her nose: "This child, when someone mentions his mother, he usually keeps silent. I thought he didn't want his mother, alas...how can there be a child?" Don't want to be a mother?" Just a few words over and over again, and there is no end to it.

The tiger went to the pond, gave the horse a drink, and then led it back to the stable.The little thing had already brought a handful of dry straw and threw it by the trough, and the two of them wiped the horse manure from their shoes on the road sill before closing the door and coming out.It was completely dark. "Tell me, what is revolution?" On the way home, the little thing asked him suddenly. After thinking about it for a while, the tiger seriously replied, "Revolution means doing whatever you want. You can slap whoever you want, and you can sleep with whoever you want."

He stopped suddenly, his eyes glistened, and he looked at the little thing maliciously, and said to him in a slightly trembling voice: "Tell me, who do you most want to sleep with?" He thought that the little thing would definitely say: Mom, unexpectedly the little thing looked at him with high vigilance, thought for a while, and said, "No one will follow, I will sleep by myself." When the two of them reached the entrance of the village, they vaguely saw the blacksmith Wang Qidan and the brothers Wang Qidan holding a big knife in their hands, stopping a stranger, asking this and that, pushing and shoving.The stranger carried a long wooden bow on his back, and they pushed him round and round on the road.From the looks of it, he's a cotton flicker.They questioned him for a long time, slapped him several times, and then let him go.

The tiger proudly said to the little thing: "I'm right, you can slap whoever you want, and you can sleep with whoever you want." "But why did they stop him?" asked the little thing. "They are being ordered to interrogate suspicious persons." "What is a suspicious person?" The little thing asked again. "Spy." "What is a 'spy'?" "A spy is—" Tiger thought for a long time before replying, "A spy is just pretending not to be a spy..." He probably felt that he hadn't explained the matter clearly, so he added: "How can there be so many spies in this world? Wang Qidan and the others are just looking for trouble to beat people."

The two were talking, and before they knew it, they had already reached the door of the house.Both Magpie and Baochen looked for them in all directions. When eating in the evening, the madam couldn't stop sighing.She is only in her fifties this year, her hair is all white, she talks and walks like an old woman.Her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn't even hold the bowl or hold the chopsticks steadily. She coughed and wheezed, and she was often suspicious.Her memory is also terrible, and she talks in a rambling and incoherent manner.Sometimes, a person looks at his shadow on the wall and talks to himself, and doesn't care whether others listen or not.Usually, before she nags, there are two opening remarks:

Or: "This is all my fault!" Or: "This is all retribution." If it is the previous sentence, it means that she is going to scold herself next.But what crime had she committed?Tiger never quite figured it out.According to Magpie, Madam regrets that she should not have brought a young man named Zhang Jiyuan into her home.Tiger Ji Yuan has seen this before, and I heard that he is a revolutionary.He was tied up with stones and thrown into the river to drown. In the local saying in Puji, he was "planted with lotus". If she said the latter sentence, it means that she is going to scold the principal.Today she said the latter sentence. "This is all retribution!" Madam blew her nose fiercely, and wiped it on the table leg in front of everyone. "I took good care of her when she got married. Clothes, quilts, jewelry, everything that other people should have, she never lacked. Who knew that I encountered bandits on the road. I didn't know until the next day when Changzhou's in-laws sent someone to deliver a letter." The truth. The elders in the village said that bandits rob people mostly for ransom, and it can take three to five days, or as many as seven or eight days. Someone will come to the door to ask for the ransom. After paying the money, the person will be released. I wait every day, Looking forward to it every day, I can’t eat, I can’t sleep, I can’t see through my eyes, and after more than half a year, fart, I don’t even see a ghost.” Whenever the lady said this, the little thing would giggle, and when he heard the lady say the word "fart", he would giggle silly. "Xiumi, the child, actually said that I was reluctant to spend money to redeem her! If someone really came to ask for the ransom, would I be reluctant to part with the money? She would say this to her bad luck, not to mention that she still has some savings at home. If I have no money, even if I demolish the house and sell all the property in the family, I still want to ransom her back, Bao Chen, Magpie, tell me, have you ever seen someone come to ask for a ransom?" Magpie lowered his head and said, "No one has ever been here. Not even a shadow." Baochen said: "Don't talk about people coming, I can't wait to come and deliver them to them, but six or seven pairs of straw sandals are ruined, and I haven't found any news about her. Who knows that she is in Hua's house." Tiger didn't know where Hua's house was, since his father said so, it probably wasn't too far from Puji.Baochen and the magpie coaxed and persuaded her, and it took a long time for her to talk and talk, before the madam raised her sleeves and wiped away her tears, and leaned timidly against the wall for a long time, before picking up her rice bowl to eat. The little thing played like crazy for a day, it seemed that he was tired, he fell asleep on the table before finishing his meal.The madam hurriedly ordered the magpie to carry him upstairs to sleep, and then asked the tiger to fetch water from the stove to wash the little thing's feet.But when the tiger picked up the water and went upstairs, the little thing woke up again, and was playing with the magpie on the bed. Since the headmaster returned to Puji, the little thing has been sleeping with the old lady.But recently his wife has been coughing a lot, and she was worried that she would pass on her own diseases to him, so she let him sleep with the tiger.In the words of his father Baochen, this little thing has now become his wife's life: if you hold it in your hand, you might break it, if you hold it in your mouth, you might melt it. "Are they really going to fight Meicheng?" the tiger said to the magpie. "Who are you talking about?" "The principal and them." "Who did you hear that from?" Magpie seemed taken aback.She is dusting the bed.Her waist, chest and butt looked so soft that even her shadow cast on the opposite wall was soft. "I heard what Cuilian said." Tiger said. At noon, when he and Little Things went to the stables to lead the horses, they saw Cuilian talking about it with several other people by the pond in the school.When he was looking at Cuilian, he also felt that he couldn't get enough of it.Her ass is much bigger than a magpie.I don't know why, these days, whenever he sees a woman, no matter who they are, he feels flustered, his mouth becomes dry, and his eyes straighten. "No way?" Magpie said to himself, his face turned pale with fright.She is as timid as a mung bean, and she will be startled when she sees her own shadow. "You children don't care about adults' affairs. Keep what you hear in your stomach and don't gossip around." At the end, she said this. After dusting the bed, Magpie checked the temperature of the water with his hand, then held the little thing in his arms and washed his feet.The little thing splashed the water with his feet, splashing all over the ground, but the magpie was not angry, and scratched the soles of his feet.The little thing was giggling in her arms, and his head could roll back and forth on her chest at will. "Tell me, did the principal really go crazy?" The little thing suddenly asked after laughing enough. Magpie touched his head with a wet and cold hand, and said with a smile: "Silly child, if others call her principal, you can't follow her. You should call her mother." "Is Mom really crazy?" he asked again. The magpie didn't know how to answer for a moment. She thought for a while and said, "Eighty percent, maybe, probably. Look, look, the socks are all torn." "But, what will happen if a person is crazy?" The little thing fluttered his big eyes, unwilling to let go. Magpie laughed and said, "You're not crazy, so why bother?" The tiger also sat down in front of the foot basin, took off his shoes and socks, and stretched out his feet to the magpie with a smile on his face: "You wash it for me too." Magpie twisted his calf and said with a smile, "You wash it yourself." Then, she carried the little thing to the bed.She helped him take off his clothes, covered him with the quilt, tucked the quilt on both sides of his head, kissed him on the face a few more times, and finally, she filled the oil lamp with oil.The little thing is afraid of the dark, so he sleeps with a light on at night. Before leaving, she told the tiger as usual: "At night, if he kicks off the quilt, you have to help him cover it." Tiger nodded as usual, but said in his heart: I always sleep until dawn.When he woke up in the morning, not to mention the quilt, even the pillow was under the bed, how could he know how to cover him with the quilt? However, that night, the tiger couldn't sleep no matter what.Not long after the magpie went downstairs, he heard the sound of the little thing grinding its teeth.But he himself was tossing and turning on the bed.As long as he closes his eyes, he will think of the dream he had on the hillside in the afternoon, his whole body is on fire, and he feels a little cold after pulling off the quilt to sleep.There was a strong wind blowing outside the window.For a while it was the magpie's face, for a while it was the principal's unbuttoned skirt, for a while it was Cuilian's big butt, all of them were floating around the room.As long as he moved, the newly laid straw under the mattress would rustle, as if someone was talking to him. On the day Xiumi came back from Japan, it was the first snow in winter.The sky was covered with an apricot-yellow cloud blanket, and patches of wet snow fell, but the weather was not very cold.The flakes melted before they hit the ground.Cuilian was the first to rush outside the village to meet her.She helped Xiumi get off the horse.Dust off the snowflakes on her body (it's just some small snowdrops), then forcefully hugged her head in his arms, and began to cry. It makes sense for her to do that.It is said that before Xiumi got married, the two of them were good sisters who talked about everything.After many years of absence, once we meet again, sadness and grief are inevitable.In addition, she secretly sold the rent collected by her family to a dealer in Taizhou in the autumn of this year. After the incident, she is facing the situation of being evicted again by the owner.The old lady's heart is too soft, thinking that she has been in the Lu family for many years, her parents died early, she has no one to rely on, and it is a time of war and chaos, with nowhere to send her, she is a little hesitant.At this juncture, Xiumi sent someone to deliver a letter.Since she was taken away by the bandits, there has been no news of her for several years, and no one believes that she is still alive.The old lady has set up a memorial tablet for her in the Puji Ancestral Hall.Unexpectedly, this person who had been gradually forgotten would suddenly come back.In Cuilian's words, "God sent her back to save me". She said this in front of everyone, without any scruples.When she heard the news, she was cooking in the kitchen. According to Magpie, she jumped onto a bench on the spot, clapped her hands and said, "Bodhisattva bless you, God sent someone to save me." Xiumi is obviously not as enthusiastic as Cuilian.She just patted Cuilian on the back a few times, then pushed her away, and walked home holding the whip (the task of leading the horse naturally fell to Cuilian's hands).Xiumi's inadvertent behavior made Cuilian feel lost.Regardless of whether this person can become her backer in the future, one thing is obvious: she is no longer the Xiumi she was ten years ago. There are three porters and one porter accompanying him.The porters each carried two heavy boxes, and the poles were bent. They shrugged their shoulders and kept breathing out hot air.The little thing was tightly wrapped in a cotton blanket, and was fast asleep on the porter's back.The girls, daughters-in-law and old women in the village kept chasing the porter and making the boy laugh. Tiger followed his father and participated in the whole process of welcoming Xiumi.His father repeatedly warned him to call her "sister" when he met, but he never had the chance to call her.Xiumi's gaze swept across the father and son without any pause, which showed that his "sister" had completely failed to recognize him after many years.Her eyes are always a little empty, a little scattered.When she looked at people, she didn't look at anything, when she greeted her neighbors, she didn't say anything, when she smiled, she was actually hiding her impatience. Bao Chen has always had a good reputation for being humble, giving people the impression that he is always humble and shy, in order not to let others see his panic, he even rushes to help the porter carry the burden. The old lady was waiting for Xiumi in front of the incense table in the Buddhist hall.She changed into a brocade padded jacket with a large breasted pattern that she only wore during the New Year, and her hair was combed brightly and scented.Xiumi walked towards the Buddhist hall.The old lady began to tremble, laugh, and cry.As soon as one of Xiumi's feet crossed the threshold of the Buddhist hall, she stopped.He stared straight at her, as if wondering if the person standing in front of her was her mother.At the end, Xiumi asked coldly: "Mom, where do I live?" When she said that, it was as if she had never left Puji, which was somewhat abrupt.The madam didn't recover for a while, but she still smiled and said, "Girl, you can be considered home. This is your home, you can live wherever you want." Xiumi took back the foot that had stepped into the threshold, and said, "Well, I'll live in my father's attic." After speaking, she turned around and left.The madam's jaw was dislocated, her mouth was open, and she couldn't close it for a long time.This was the first time their mother and daughter met, and there were no extra words. Xiumi turned around and saw Baochen and his son standing at the door.From Tiger's point of view, his father knows nothing but making fools of himself.He smiled and stood there, holding his wrinkled pants with one hand, and patting his son's shoulder with the other hand, as if he wanted to say a word or two on his shoulder , at the end, what he said was: "Xiumi, hey, Xiumi, hey, Xiumi..." Even the tiger was ashamed of him. Xiumi walked towards him openly, with the innocent, naughty, and playful smile on her face once again when she was a girl. She squinted her eyes and said to Baochen, "Oh, tilt your head!" Her words carried a strong accent of the capital.After witnessing the embarrassment of the mother and daughter meeting in the Buddha Hall just now, Bao Chen probably didn't expect Xiu Mi to speak to him in such a friendly tone.He felt that the Xiumi standing in front of him was still the troublemaker she was more than ten years ago: she would quietly come to the account room when he was doing accounts, and mess up his abacus beads; she would take advantage of his nap Sometimes, she would put a big spider in his teacup; she would also ride on his neck during the temple fair on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, and slap his bald head loudly.Bao Chen was flattered for a moment, two lines of muddy tears rolled down his face. "Baochen, come here." His wife called him in the Buddhist hall.Her voice was more reserved and confused, and her voice was much deeper.She seemed to have foreseen a series of changes in the future. At this time, Xiumi was already standing in the yard, yelling at the porters to carry the luggage upstairs.Of course, Cuilian also got involved.She put her hands on her hips and yelled.However, the only one who can obey her command is the magpie.The tiger saw the magpie, carrying a copper basin and a rag, flying upstairs to tidy up the room. Madame and Bao Chen didn't have time to evaluate and calculate everything at hand, because the porter had already barged in with that little thing under his arm.The little thing was wearing layers of cotton clothes, and his face was flushed.As soon as his wife took him from the porter, his eyes opened, and he looked at his wife without crying or fussing.To tease or take care of this little thing will keep the lady busy for a while. Afterwards the lady seemed to regret that it was not wise to keep her daughter in such an enchanted garret.For years the attic had been a nightmare, a curse.Her husband Lu Kan went crazy in that attic, and Zhang Jiyuan also lived there for more than half a year before his death.Of course, Madam would never forget that Xiumi would not have fallen into the hands of bandits in Hua's house if the wolves had not been lured into the house in order to rebuild the attic.For ten years it remained empty.Moss grows and kudzu vines grow wildly. Before the heavy rain, there will be swarms of bats chirping and flying around the building. Since Xiumi went to the attic, she hasn't seen her for several days.Three meals a day are delivered by Cuilian.Every time she came down from the stairs, she would be very high-spirited, and her tone of speech became careless. Even the wife would ignore her when she talked to her. "This little hoof seems to have been subdued by Xiumi. Relying on someone to support her, she has become more and more unruly." Madam always likes to nag Baochen like this. Although Madam was angry, her tone of voice with Cuilian was not the same as before.In order to find out about her daughter, she decided to swallow her anger for the time being. "What's in those boxes of hers?" asked the madam, with a forced smile. "Book." Cuilian replied. "What does she do upstairs every day?" "Reading." As the days went by, my wife's worries increased day by day.Now that she followed his father's old path step by step, madness seemed to be the only expected result. "When she came back that day, I saw her expression was exactly the same as before his father went crazy." Madam recalled.She discussed and discussed with Bao Chen, but in the end the wife still insisted on following the method she used to deal with Master Lu Kan: invite Taoist priests to catch ghosts. That Taoist priest is lame.He came to the courtyard with a compass, a cloth cover, and a treasure chest in his hand, and he saw the ghostly aura in the attic at a glance.He asked his wife if he could go upstairs and see, and the lady was a little worried.After all, my daughter is someone who has been to the East and seen the world, what if Xiumi met him and started a fight?She asked Bao Chen to make up his mind, and Bao Chen replied: "Since the man is invited, let him go up and try." The Taoist staggered upstairs.Strangely, after the Taoist went upstairs, there was no movement for half a day, and the attic was as quiet as a sleeping baby.After waiting for about two hours, the madam became a little anxious, so she urged the magpie to go upstairs to have a look (she no longer used Cuilian).The magpie went upstairs with trepidation, and came down after a while, saying: "The Taoist priest is talking and laughing with his sister, sitting at the table and chatting." What she said made Madam even more suspicious.She looked at Baochen, but Baochen also looked at her blankly.At the end, the madam said to herself: "Strange thing! She can talk to Taoist priests." The Taoist priest limped down from upstairs when it was dark.Without saying a word, he walked straight out the door.Madam and Bao Chen all chased him, wanting to find out what happened, but the Taoist didn't answer, just walked out with a smile, not even accepting the money agreed in advance.Before going out, he suddenly came back and threw down a sentence: "Hey! The Qing Dynasty is about to end." The tiger heard this sentence very clearly.In the past, this sentence was said to exterminate the nine clans, but now it is said casually from a little Taoist priest. It seems that the Qing Dynasty is indeed about to end.But the old lady's worries were not superfluous. In fact, the matter was much more serious than what she worried about.