Chapter 23 Section IX

A row of wintersweet is planted at the foot of the wall outside the Jialan Hall.In the past few days, the weather has turned cold, and the heavy snow has pressed down, and all the flowers have bloomed.For most of the day, the headmaster stayed there, watching the plum blossoms without moving.When Cuilian told her about the escape of Wang Qidan's brothers, Xiumi only smiled slightly. She waved a freshly cut plum blossom and said to Cuilian, "Come and smell it, how fragrant it is." From Cuilian's point of view, the headmaster seems to have become more relaxed.The dark clouds on his face were gone, and he often had a smile on his face. He was also whiter and fatter than before.The strangest thing is that one morning, Xiumi suddenly came to the kitchen and announced to Cuilian who was cooking in a very serious way:

"I'm able to sleep well at night now." She also said that since she can remember, she has never been so comfortable as she is now, as if there are no worries.Nothing to worry about.It was like a long, dark dream, but she was about to wake up now. "But, but, but, but—" Hearing what Cuilian said, Tiger felt very uneasy. He even felt that the heavy snow blowing outside the window, the warm flames in the stove, and Cuilian's snow-white carcass all became pure and empty, " How did that happen?" Cuilian patted his naked buttocks again, and said with a smile, "You are too young to understand these things."

The little thing is looking at his mother's photo again. The photo had been soaked in water for too long. After being exposed to the sun and the fire, the paper was brittle and hard, and the head had already turned white, and nothing could be seen clearly.Little things never talk about fucking in front of anyone.When others talked about the headmaster, he was like a little mole, rolling his eyes, listening with ears pricked up, and not saying a word.But once someone mentions the headmaster's madness, or when she is crazy, the little thing suddenly says: "You're crazy."

The strange thing is that every time he looks at the photos, he always looks at them secretly, like a thief.The magpie said, don't look at the little thing's silence, but he understands it in his heart.She said she had never seen such a clever child.Once when she was saying this, the madam happened to overhear her, and the madam hit her hard on the head with a tickling wand.Madam won't let people say that he is smart, because she believes in a saying that has been handed down in the village for many years, that smart children don't grow up. These days, it's snowing all day long, and the courtyard and the courtyard are all covered in white.Baochen said that since the day he came to Puji, he has never seen such heavy snow.Since he had nothing to do, Baochen found a bamboo knife and went to the bamboo forest in the backyard to cut two bamboos and cut them into strips. He wanted to make a lantern.

New Year's goods are all ready.He bought two pork legs from Ding Tuzi's new butcher shop, and a few fresh fish from a fisherman's house, and put them on the porch, frozen like iron.Granny Meng sent over a basket of walnuts, two pumpkins for steaming rice cakes, and a spoonful of sesame seeds.Mr. Ding Shuze sent two sets of Spring Festival couplets, four pairs of peach charms, and six pieces of paper-cut door stickers yesterday, only one lantern was missing. Baochen hung a lantern around the stove, sighing from time to time.He said that this was probably his last year in Puji.He said that to live this year well, you can't lack anything, and you can't settle for anything.After the new year, they will go back to Qinggang.

Ever since the headmaster sold the family land to Long Qingtang from Zhenjiang, Bao Chen had secretly made a decision that he would take the little things back to Qinggang.One day, Baochen called Xiaodong to him, put his legs between his legs, and asked, "Puji, are you willing to go to Qinggang with us?" The little thing blinked his eyes, stroking Baochen's beard with his hands, and didn't say yes or no, but asked instead: "I went to Qinggang, do I want to be your son?" One sentence made Baochen laugh out loud, he patted his head and said: "Silly boy, in terms of seniority, you should call me grandpa."

The most difficult thing is the magpie, she has nowhere to go.She had said to Baochen several times, just let me go to Qinggang with you.Baochen didn't speak.He knew that she was just talking casually, and she would still marry sooner or later.She was originally introduced to the Lu family by Granny Meng, and she was somewhat related.These days, Granny Meng has been asking matchmakers everywhere in private to propose marriage to Magpie, but the year is approaching and the road is blocked by heavy snow, so she hasn't found a suitable family yet. The only thing she can do is to make shoes out of soles.Baochen said that the shoes she makes these days are small enough to wear them to death.But as soon as the words came out, he felt unlucky, so he spit on the ground twice and slapped himself.The little thing giggled.

When Baochen was making the lantern support, his hands shook so badly that he broke several bamboo bones in a row.He felt that it was an ominous omen, and when he told the magpie about it, the magpie also became suspicious. She said that she pricked her hand in several places when she was taking out the sole of her shoe, "You said, there is no Something will happen. I heard that the court is arresting the revolutionaries everywhere." She was talking about Puji Academy, but Baochen was worried about something else. On the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, the sky suddenly cleared up.Bao Chen was pasting and drawing on the finished lantern when he suddenly heard someone singing faintly outside the courtyard gate.It sounded like an old woman's voice.At the beginning, Baochen and Magpie didn't pay much attention to it, thinking that it was a beggar who came to the market.Baochen even hummed a few words, but the more he listened to it, the more he felt something was wrong.Gradually, the magpie was stunned. She held a shoe sole in her hand, stared at the wall blankly, and said in her mouth: "The things she sang, every sentence has its origin, how do I feel about the singing? Are you talking about our family?"

Bao Chen had also heard some tricks, fixed his eyes on the magpie and said: "She is not singing, she is referring to Sang and Huai, she is cursing people. Every sentence pierces people's hearts." "How does this person know everything about our family these years?" Magpie said, winding the thread in his hand on the sole of the shoe, "Wait for me to give her some steamed buns, get rid of her." After speaking, she went out.Not long after, the magpie came back with a few steamed buns in his hand.As soon as he entered the door, he said to Baochen: "Hey, where is the beggar? Who do you think she is?"

"Who?" "blind!" "Where did the blind man come from?" Bao Chen asked. "Blind old lady with big gold teeth." Magpie said, "I gave her steamed buns, but she didn't want them either. Without saying a word, she walked away on crutches." Holding a pen in his hand, Baochen said after a long while, "Why did she do this?" At dusk, the magpie suddenly proposed to burn paper on his wife's grave. She said that the words of Mrs. Da Jinya made her feel very uneasy, and her eyelids kept twitching.Baochen asked her which eye twitched, and Magpie said both eyes twitched.Baochen thought for a while, and said: "Then let the tiger go with you." When the little thing heard that the tiger was going, he also clamored to follow him, so the magpie had to pick him up.The three of them carried baskets, and just as they walked out of the courtyard, Bao Chen chased them out of the house again, and shouted at them, "Burn a few for that Zhang Jiyuan too."

The little thing scrambled to carry the basket, but the magpie refused to let him carry it because he was afraid that he would be tired.The little thing snatched the basket out of her hand and said, "My strength is great." Holding the basket in both hands, with his little belly sticking out, he staggered and walked quickly in the snow.Hua Erniang next door saw it and praised him, and the little thing walked faster. When he arrived at the cemetery, the magpie took off the kerchief from his head and spread it on the snow. First, he asked the little thing to kowtow to his grandmother, and then took a part out of the basket, found a place leeward, and lit a fire.While burning the paper, the magpie muttered something, as if the lady could really hear it.The burning flames licked the snow and creaked.The tiger heard the magpie say to his wife's grave: After the Chinese New Year, Baochen and the others will go back to Qinggang, and the little things will go together. After the Chinese New Year, she might leave Puji too. "We're all gone. Who will burn paper on your old man's grave during the holidays?" Afterwards, she began to cry. They came to Zhang Jiyuan's tomb again. Zhang Jiyuan's tomb was much smaller. There was no monument in front of the tomb, and there were no tomb rails around it.The snow in the lily pads was so loose and soft that once the little thing stepped in, he couldn't pull his legs out. Magpie said that in previous years, it was the wife who came to visit Zhang Jiyuan's grave, but this year, the wife would also ask someone else to visit her grave.Having said that, she began to cry again.The tiger was about to go to help her, when he saw the little thing pointing to the distance with his hand, and said: "Look, what's that?" Following his line of sight, the tiger saw that the sun had already set, and the evening light was floating between the two hilltops, swaying like molten iron.Bypassing a protruding cliff is an official road leading to Xiazhuang.The west wind blows strands of snow particles, flying all over the sky, one after another.At this moment, he heard the sound of "" horseshoes. "Magpie, magpie, look..." the little thing called. The magpie straightened up and looked towards the road.A dense group of officers and soldiers was dragging their guns and running in the direction of Puji.Horses passed them by.These officers and soldiers were all wearing blue-gray cloth robes and hats with blood-red fringes dancing on their heads.They ran crowded and crowded, and they were about to bypass the mountain road and reach the river. The magpie yelled: "Not good!" The man was stunned. Tiger's heart sank suddenly, and he was at a loss for a while.These days, the news of the arrival of officers and soldiers circulated every day, and the tiger was tired of hearing it.Unexpectedly, once the officers and soldiers appeared, they were still trembling with fright, as if their intestines were broken.At this time, he suddenly heard the magpie shout: "Little thing, where is little thing?" She wandered around in the same way as if she was looking for a lost needle in the ground.She had never seen so many officers and soldiers, and was terrified. The tiger turned around and saw him all at once. The little thing looks like a rabbit, jumping in the snow-covered cornfield.He was running in the direction of Zaolong Temple.At this moment, he had almost run to the road below the hillside.Several times, the tiger saw him fall, with snow all over his head and face, but he got up and ran desperately towards the school. "Go, hug him... Tiger, go..." the magpie cried. As soon as the tiger was about to chase, he heard the magpie say, "Hey, my legs, why can't my two legs move?" As soon as the tiger turned his head, he heard the magpie shout, "Don't worry about me, go quickly!" Chase the little things." The tiger started to gallop down the mountain.He heard the sound of horseshoes behind him, which became more and more clear.When he stopped him at the corner of the gable wall of the Zaolong Temple, the little thing was already so tired that he was hiccupping.He retched a few mouthfuls, but he didn't spit out anything. He gasped and said, "They're coming to catch mom... run, run as fast as you can." But the little thing can't run anymore.The tiger took his hand and tugged as he ran, and the two stumbled to the door of the school. Just in time, Cuilian came out of the temple carrying a small wooden bucket, as if she was going to fetch water from a pond.The little thing shouted to her: "Come, come..." "Here we come, here we come..." the tiger followed the little thing and shouted. "Who's here?" Cuilian asked, "What's wrong with you, what scared you so much?" But as soon as she finished speaking, she heard a "bang" and the gun went off. Then a few more shots were fired, each time Cuilian shrank her neck. "Hurry up and hide in the kitchen with me. Quick!" She said, threw the bucket, turned around and ran back. The tiger followed Cuilian and ran into the kitchen in one breath.He saw that Cuilian had got into the stove and was waving to him.Only then did the tiger realize that the little thing didn't follow, he called him a few times, but no one answered, he wanted to turn around and go out to look for him, but the officers and soldiers of the brigade had already squeezed in through the temple gate.Someone was firing a gun bang bang, the bullets flew in through the window, smashed a water tank in the corner of the room, and poured water all over the ground.He was dazed in the kitchen for a long time, then remembered the little thing again, and was about to open the door to go out to find him, when Cuilian rushed over and hugged him tightly behind her: "Fool, bullets don't recognize people." After a while, the gunfire stopped. Tiger carefully opened the door and came out from the kitchen.The first thing he saw was a black mass on the snow.It was horse manure, and it was still steaming.Walking around the corner of Xiangji Kitchen, he saw several corpses lying on the snow, and a soldier was gathering up the guns scattered on the ground. Tan Si covered his stomach with his hands, screamed non-stop, and rolled around on the snow.A soldier walked up to him and stabbed him in the chest.When the soldier pulled out the knife, Tan Si firmly held the blade with both hands, preventing him from pulling it out.Another soldier came over and hit him on the head with the butt of his gun, and he immediately let go of his grip and fell silent. He saw little things. He lay face down in a gutter under the corridor, motionless.He walked towards him, and heard the sound of roaring, and the melting snow was rushing in the ditch. Tiger squeezed his little hand, it was still hot.Turning his little face around, he found that his eyes were still rolling, as if he was thinking about something.He even stuck out his tongue and licked his lips.Later, he told his father Baochen over and over again that when he saw the little thing by the gutter, he was still alive.Because his eyes are open.He also stuck out his tongue and licked his lips. His body was limp to the touch.The padded jacket on the back was wet, and blood flowed from there.The tiger called his name, but he refused.Only the corners of his mouth trembled a few times, as if saying that I was going to sleep.His eyeballs gradually stopped moving, and his eyes became blurred, more white and less dark.Then, his eyelids slowly drooped and narrowed into a slit. He knew that at this moment, what was gurgling from his back was not blood, but his entire soul. A man with the appearance of an official came towards them.He knelt down and poked the little thing's face with the whip.Then, he turned to the tiger and said, "Do you still recognize me?" Tiger shook his head. The man said: "A few months ago, a cotton plucker came to your village. How about it? Do you remember? I am the cotton plucker." The man smiled smugly and patted him on the shoulder.Strangely, the tiger felt that he was not afraid of him at all, as if he was born to be a cotton player.He pointed to the little thing lying on the ground and asked, "Is he dead?" "Yes, he's dead." The man sighed and said, "Bullets don't have eyes." Then he stood up and walked back and forth in the snow with his hands behind his back.It was obvious that he had no interest in tigers, nor in small things lying on the ground. He felt that the little thing's hands had grown cold, and his face had lost its flush and was turning blue.After a while, he saw the principal come out. With her hair loose, she was pushed and shoved to the yard from the Garan Hall, which was never sunny all the year round.She looked at the tiger, and then at the corpses lying on the ground, but she didn't seem surprised either. The tiger wanted to shout to her: "The little thing is dead." But he just opened his mouth, and didn't make any sound.All the people have no interest in the death of the little thing. Seeing the principal coming out, the official went up to meet her and bowed to her.The headmaster stared at him intently, and after a while, he heard the headmaster say: "Guicha is the Dragon Guard?" "Exactly," replied the magistrate politely. "Excuse me, who is Long Qingtang?" the principal asked again. That voice, it sounded like talking to someone, without a trace of panic.Doesn't she know that the little thing is dead?His little arms are already stiff.From time to time, some melted snow dripped down from the eaves, and landed on the tip of his nose, splashing crystal drops of water. The official didn't seem to expect the principal to talk to him like this, and seemed to be taken aback for a moment.Afterwards, he nodded himself, as if to say: What a good eye!He smiled and replied: "It's my father." "So Long Qingtang has already defected to the Qing court," said the principal. "Don't put it so harshly." The official still had a smile on his face, "Good birds just choose trees to live in..." "That being the case, you can come and arrest me anytime, why wait until today?" The tiger listened to what she said, as if he had been expecting someone to catch her. He didn't understand what the principal was talking about.The little boy clenched his fists tightly, and the blood on his back had stopped flowing long ago, but his brows were still furrowed. But the official laughed so hard that the roots of his teeth were exposed. When he had laughed enough, he said: "Isn't it because of your family's more than 180 mu of land! My father has always been strict and orderly in his work. He said, if you don't sell the land, we won't be able to arrest you for a day." He laughed so hard that he didn't even have the strength to speak. He heard the headmaster say "no".As if to say, "Oh, I see." Then he saw his father.Baochen was standing at the gate of the temple, blocked by two soldiers with guns.But he was still stretching his neck and looking inside.The tiger moved the little thing's body so that the snow water from the eaves would not drip onto his face.It was getting dark, and there was an eagle circling the yard in the gray night sky. At this time, he heard the principal say: "There is one more thing, and I have to tell the truth." "Just say it." "The dragon guards Guigeng..." "Long was born in the early years of Guangxu." "So, you are a pig?" The headmaster's words startled the official.His face was a little ugly, and he said after a long time: "Yes, it seems that you know everything clearly. Everyone says you are crazy, and according to the officials, you are the most shrewd person in the world." People. It's a pity that your luck is not good." The headmaster stopped talking, just tiptoed around the crowd, as if looking for someone.Tiger knew who she was looking for. He saw the headmaster suddenly squat down and carefully inspect the pile of horse manure on the ground, watching without moving.Then, she scooped up a handful of horse manure from the ground and spread it evenly on her face.Eyes, mouth, nose, all over the face.She silently wiped horse manure on her face, as if doing something important and necessary.The official watched from the side without stopping, pacing impatiently.There was silence in the school. A soldier ran over and said something earnestly, and Long Shoubei lazily ordered his subordinates: "Tie it up." Several soldiers came towards her and pulled her up from the ground.After a while, she was tightly tied up and escorted back to Meicheng overnight. Cuilian also left Puji that night, Longshoubi Village hired a big sedan chair, carried her around the village far away, and went to Meicheng overnight. The little thing lay naked on the clean sheet.His body looked so short, so small.The magpie brought a basin of hot water to clean the blood on his body.She didn't cry, her face was numb, and she didn't seem to be sad or sad.When she grazed her shoulder blade, which was shattered by a bullet, she asked him softly: "Puji, does it hurt?" Looking at her, it seemed that the little thing was not dead: just scratch his armpit, and the little thing would still giggle. When Erniang Hua was looking through the clothes that Little Things had changed, she found a small wooden top, a shuttlecock, and a bright cicada in his trouser pocket. As soon as Granny Meng saw this cicada, she said it was not an ordinary object.Putting it in his mouth and biting it, it turned out to be golden, "Strange, where did he get such a cicada?" Granny Meng handed over Cicada to Baochen, asking him to keep it safe.Baochen opened his red eyes, looked carefully, and finally sighed: "The child's rare things, no matter if they are copper or gold, let's bury them together."

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