Chapter 2 1

In the early spring of 1974, Jingqiu, who was still in high school, was selected by the school to participate in the editing of new textbooks. She wanted to go to a place called Xicunping, where she lived in a poor and lower-middle peasant’s house, interviewed local villagers, and then wrote the history of Xicunping. The teaching materials are for the students of No. 8 Middle School in K City where she lives. Of course, the ambitions of the school leaders are not limited to these. If the textbooks are compiled well, maybe the entire education system of K City will use them, or it may become a hit, and the entire province of L, and even middle and high schools in China will use them.At that time, this great pioneering work of No. 8 Middle School in K City will be written into the history of Chinese education because of its historical significance.

This move, which seems unthinkable today, was only considered "innovation" at the time, because "education needs to be reformed".The teaching materials used before the Cultural Revolution were all a set of feudalism, capitalism, and revisionism. As the great leader Chairman Mao wisely pointed out: "For a long time, it has been ruled by talented scholars, beautiful women, emperors, and generals." After the start of the Cultural Revolution, although textbooks were rewritten repeatedly, they could not keep up with the rapid changes in form.You just wrote "Lin Biao Fighting Pingxingguan" today, praising Vice Chairman Lin for his bravery and skill in fighting. In a few days, news of Lin Biao's defection and the crash of the landline in Undur Khan came, and your teaching materials had to be changed again.

As for letting students compile teaching materials, that is the symbol of educational reform, from the masses to the masses, the noble ones are the stupidest, and the humble ones the smartest.All in all, innovation is the most expensive thing. Along with Jingqiu, two other girls and a boy were selected together, and they are all students with relatively good composition scores.This pedestrian is called the "Education Reform Group of the No. 8 Middle School in K City". The team is led by Master Li from the Workers Propaganda Team. He is in his thirties and is quite active. I couldn't do much work in the factory, so I was sent to the school as a worker propaganda team member.

The school's vice-principal Chen was the team vice-president, plus a teacher Luo who taught high school Chinese. The group of seven people set off for Xicunping on a cold spring day. From City K to Xicunping, you have to take a long-distance bus to the county seat of K County, which is more than 30 miles away, but the bus often takes an hour to pick up people. The county seat of K County is still eight or nine miles away from Xicunping, and this section of the road can only be walked by foot. When Jingqiu and his group arrived in County K, they met the Village Chief of Xicun Pingwang who greeted them there. He was also a mighty character, and he was quite famous in K City, County K, because the village was the "University of Agricultural Sciences". Village" is an advanced village with a glorious anti-Japanese history, so the name of village chief Wang is also relatively famous.

But from Jingqiu's point of view, Village Chief Wang is just a middle-aged man who is not tall, very thin, his hair has almost fallen out, his back is a bit arched, and his face is also very ordinary, which does not meet the expectations of heroes at that time. Facial makeup description: tall and burly, with a black and red face, thick eyebrows and big eyes.Jingqiu immediately began to worry, how can such a character be written as a "tall, big, and complete" heroic image?It seems that this textbook really relies on "editing". Speaking of this group of seven people, each of them bundled their luggage into something like a military backpack. The ropes of the backpack were tied in the standard "three horizontal pressures and two verticals". daily necessities.

Village head Wang said: "Let's go over the mountain. It's only five miles away. If we go through the river ditch, the distance will be twice as long. I see you guys are not in good health, and there are a few women ,I am afraid----" These seven heroes said in unison: "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, just come down to exercise, and walk no matter how difficult it is." Village head Wang said: "Crossing the mountain road is also exercise, and you have to wade through several streams of water when you walk in the river ditch. I'm afraid you girls-"

Several "female" feel uncomfortable when they hear others call them "female", because "female" in the local dialect means a married woman.However, when the poor and lower-middle peasants are called this way, a few "women" are not easy to get angry. Instead, they reflect in their hearts that they do not have a deep understanding of the simple language of the poor and lower-middle peasants, which shows that there is still a certain distance between themselves and the poor and lower-middle peasants emotionally. The petty-bourgeois ideology and the poor and lower-middle peasants became one.

Village head Wang wanted to help some "women" carry things, but all the "women" refused. Who is so delicate?Aren't they all here for exercise?How can you ask someone to take care of you from the beginning?Village head Zhang didn't force it, and just said: "When you can't carry it anymore, just say a word." Walking out of the county town, I started to climb the mountains.It should be said that the mountain is not too high, but because they were carrying backpacks and carrying net bags, several people walked sweating profusely. Village head Wang had more and more things in his hands, and finally his back was not empty.Two of the three "women" had their backpacks gone, and they walked panting with only a washbasin and other small items.

Jingqiu is a very strong person. Although she is struggling to recite it, she still insists on memorizing it by herself.Bearing hardships and standing hard work has basically become the standard of her life, because Jingqiu's parents were both found out and criticized during the Cultural Revolution. Her father was a "filial son and grandson of the landlord class", and her mother was a "child of historical counter-revolutionaries".Jingqiu can be regarded as a "children who can be educated well" and enjoy the treatment of "the theory of having ingredients, not only the theory of ingredients", because she usually behaves well, one is not afraid of hardship, and the other is not afraid of death, and she always does not fall behind. .

Seeing that everyone seemed to be dying, Village Chief Wang kept promising: "It's not far, it's not far. We'll rest for a while when we get to the hawthorn tree." This "hawthorn tree" has become the "plum tree" in the story of "Looking for Plums to Quench Thirst", inspiring everyone to keep going. When Jingqiu heard this hawthorn tree, the first thing that came to mind was not a tree, but a song called "The Hawthorn Tree", a Soviet song.The first time she heard this song was from a teacher from the Russian Department of L Normal University who came to K City No. 8 Middle School for an internship.

The intern in Jingqiu's class was a twenty-six or seven-year-old girl named Pingping. She was tall and strong, with fair skin, regular facial features, and a high and straight nose. a foreigner.But Pingping's eyes are not sunken, but big, and the most striking thing is that her eyelids are not double, but three or four, which makes the girls with single eyelids in the class envious. It is said that Pingping's father was the head of the Second Artillery Division. Because of Lin Biao's incident, he was punished, so Pingping's life was very miserable.When Deng Xiaoping came to power, her father was lucky again, so he recruited her from the countryside and put her in L Normal University.As for why she entered the Russian Department, only God knows, because Russian has long been out of favor at that time. I heard that in the early days of liberation, there was a climax of learning Russian, and many English teachers switched to teaching Russian.Later, China and the Soviet Union turned against each other, and the Soviet Union was called "revisionism" by China, because they actually wanted to "revise" Marxism-Leninism.Many of the teachers who previously taught Russian have switched to teaching English. The No. 8 Middle School in K City, where Jingqiu studied, is separated from the whole city by a small river, so the traffic is not very convenient.I don’t know what the municipal education committee thought, so they transferred all the few remaining Russian teachers to K City No. 8 Middle School, so K City No. 8 Middle School has almost become the only Russian-language middle school in K City, and there are L teachers almost every year. Students from the Russian Department came to practice, because apart from the No. 8 Middle School in K City, only the following counties have Russian-language middle schools. Pingping was not assigned to the middle school in the county below because the old man was a bit stubborn.Pingping likes Jingqiu very much. When she is free, she always plays with her and teaches her to sing those Russian songs. "The Hawthorn Tree" is one of them.At that time, such things could only be done secretly, because Soviet things had long been taboo in China, not to mention that during the Cultural Revolution, everything with a little bit of "love" was banned as bourgeois decadent and degenerate things. up. According to the point of view at the time, "The Hawthorn Tree" was not only a "pornographic song", but could even be regarded as "decaying and declining" and "unhealthy style", because the lyrics basically said that two young people fell in love with a girl at the same time, and the girl also felt that they were both Very good, I don't know who to choose, so I ask the hawthorn tree.The song ends with: "Lovely hawthorn tree, full of white blossoms, Dear hawthorn, why do you worry? . . . Which one is the bravest and cutest? Dear Hawthorn, please tell me. " Pingping has a very good voice, a so-called "foreign voice", claiming to be "Italian bel canto", which is more suitable for singing this kind of songs.When she was resting on Sunday, she ran to Jingqiu's house and asked Jingqiu to accompany her on the accordion, singing to her heart's content for a while.Pingping's favorite song is "The Hawthorn Tree". Whether it's because she thinks this song is good, or because she loves two people at the same time, she doesn't know how to choose. So Jingqiu was really surprised when Village Chief Wang mentioned "Hawthorn Tree", thinking that he also knew this song.But she soon realized that there really was such a tree, and now it had become the goal of several of them. The backpack was pressed on her back, it was heavy and hot, Jingqiu felt that her back was drenched with sweat, the net bag full of small things in her hand, and those thin ropes seemed to have been pulled into the palm of her hand a long time ago I had to go, so I had to keep switching from left hand to right hand, and from right hand to left hand. Just when she felt that she would not be able to hold on any longer, she suddenly heard Village Chief Wang say, "We've reached the hawthorn tree, let's take a rest." When the few people heard it, they let out a long breath, like death row prisoners hearing the amnesty order, and fell to the ground before they even had time to take off their backpacks. After resting for a while, several people were relieved.Master Li asked, "Where is the hawthorn tree?" Village Chief Wang pointed to a big tree not far away: "That's it." Jingqiu followed Village Chief Wang's hand and saw a tree with a height of six or seven meters. She didn't think there was anything special about it. Maybe because it was quite cold, not only was the tree not full of white flowers, but even the leaves hadn't grown yet. Turn blue.Jingqiu was a little disappointed, because the image of the hawthorn tree she extracted from the song "Hawthorn Tree" was much more poetic than this. Every time she heard the song "The Hawthorn Tree", a picture appeared in front of her eyes: two young and handsome boys were standing under the tree, waiting for their beloved girl.And that girl, wearing a dress that Soviet girls loved to wear, came slowly from the twilight.But when she had come a certain distance, she stopped, and, hiding in a place where the boys could not see, asked sadly which of the hawthorns she should love. Jingqiu asked Village Chief Wang curiously: "Does this tree have white flowers?" This question seemed to have touched Village Chief Wang, and he talked endlessly: "This tree originally had white flowers, but during the War of Resistance Against Japan, countless anti-Japanese fighters were shot and killed by Japanese devils under this tree. The blood of the people irrigated the land under the tree. Since the first anti-Japanese hero was killed here, the color of the tree has gradually changed, becoming more and more red, and in the end, the tree has bloomed red." Several people were dumbfounded, and Master Li reminded several students: "Why don't you write it down?" Several people suddenly realized that it seemed that the interview was about to start now, so they found out their notebooks and memorized them. It seems that Village Chief Wang has seen the big world, and it seems commonplace to record what he said with these four or five pens, and continued his speech.After he finished telling the story of the hero tree that witnessed the history of the Xicunping people's resistance against Japan, half an hour had passed, and the group set off again. After walking a long way, Jingqiu turned her head to look at the hawthorn tree. She vaguely felt that she saw someone standing under the tree, but it was not the anti-Japanese warrior who was tied up by the Japanese devils as described by Village Chief Wang. Zhishi, but a handsome young man.She severely criticized her petty bourgeois ideology, and determined to learn from the poor and lower-middle peasants and compile the teaching materials well. The story of this tree must be included in the teaching materials. What title should I use?Maybe it's called Bloody Hawthorn?It seems a bit too bloody, so change it to "The Hawthorn Tree with Red Flowers"?Or "Red Hawthorn Blossom"? After resting for a while, she put on her backpack and carried her net pocket. Jingqiu didn't feel more relaxed, but more strenuous.Perhaps there is a stark contrast between memorizing and not memorizing. It is sweet first and then bitter, which always makes the bitterness in the back appear more bitter. But no one dared to cry out.Fear of suffering and fatigue is the way of the bourgeoisie. Jingqiu is afraid that others will assign her to the bourgeoisie.Originally born is not good, if you don't rely on the proletariat, you will really cut yourself off from the people.The policy of our party is "you can't help yourself, you can choose your path", which means that you should be more careful than those with good backgrounds, and you must never say or do anything that is not proletarian. But suffering and tiredness are not things that don't exist if you don't tell them. Jingqiu wished that all the painful nerves in her body would die, so that she wouldn't feel the heaviness on her back and the pain in her hands.She can only use a trick she has practiced for many years to help her forget the pain in her body: cranky thinking.When she thinks too deeply, she can often have a feeling of being there, as if her soul has flown out of her body and become those imaginary characters, living a completely different life. For some reason, she always thought of the hawthorn tree, and the anti-Japanese fighter who was tied up by the enemy and the handsome Russian guy in a white shirt appeared alternately in her mind.As for herself, sometimes she is the anti-Japanese fighter who is about to be executed, and sometimes she is the Russian girl who is distressed because she doesn't know who to love, making her confused whether she is closer to communism or revisionism. When the mountain road was finally finished, Village Chief Wang stood down, pointed down the mountain and said, "That's Xicunping." Several people rushed to the edge of the cliff to watch Xicunping, only to see a small river meandering through the foot of the mountain like a green jade belt, surrounding Xicunping.Xicunping, which is bathed in the sunshine of early spring, is more beautiful than the several mountain villages that Jingqiu went to exercise before, and it is really beautiful. Standing on the top of the mountain, you can have a bird's-eye view of Xicunping, and you can have a panoramic view of the whole village.The fields are like small green and brown patches all over the mountain village, and houses are scattered everywhere.There seems to be a lot of houses in the middle, and there is a Dachangba. Village head Wang said that it is the location of the brigade headquarters.When the team holds conferences, they go there, and sometimes they hold gala parties, which are also held there. Village head Wang explained that according to K County's establishment, a village is a brigade, and the so-called village head is actually the secretary of the brigade's party branch, but people in the village like to call him "village head." A group of people went down the mountain and first came to the house of Village Chief Wang. His house was by the river and could be seen from the mountain.Only his wife was at home in Village Chief Wang's house, and she asked everyone to call her "Auntie".Everyone else in the family has gone to the fields, and those who have gone to school have gone to school. After resting for a while and eating, Village Chief Wang came to arrange the residences of several people.Master Li, Principal Chen and the boy named Sun Jiankang live in a villager's house. Teacher Luo is only here temporarily to give some guidance on writing. After a day or two, he has to go back to teach, so just squeeze anywhere. up. It is a pity that the three girls cannot live together.A villager agreed to give a room in his house to the students, but only two people could live there. Village head Zhang had to take the lead and said: "The one left among you can live in my house. Sleep in the same bed with my second daughter." The three girls looked shy, and they didn't want to "drop out" and live in the village head's house alone, sharing a bed with his daughter.Seeing that the problem was not easy to solve, Jingqiu took the initiative and said, "Then you two will live together, and I will live at the village chief's house." The other two happily agreed. There were no activities scheduled that day. Everyone settled down by themselves, took a rest, and went to the village chief Wang’s house for dinner in the evening. Tomorrow, work will officially start. Most of the time will be spent interviewing villagers and compiling teaching materials, but they will also arrange to go to the fields with poor and lower-middle peasants. , Do some farm work. Village head Wang took other people to their residence, leaving only Jingqiu and the aunt at home.The aunt took Jingqiu to her second daughter's room and asked her to put her luggage there.That room, like those rural houses that Jingqiu had been to, was dark, with only a small window on one wall, no glass, just pasted with cellophane. The aunt turned on the light, but the light was also very dim, and I could barely see the furnishings in the house.Jingqiu saw a room of about fifteen square meters, which was tidy.A bed is relatively large, larger than a single bed, and smaller than a double bed. Although it is a bit cramped for two people, it is still okay. The bed was covered with freshly starched sheets, stiff and felt more like paper than cloth.The quilt was folded into a triangle, the white quilt was turned out at the two corners, and the quilt was covered with red flowers. Jingqiu thought about it for a long time, but she couldn't figure out how it was folded. the quilt, lest it will not be folded back to the original shape tomorrow.According to the requirements at that time, when students went to the countryside to live in poor and lower-middle peasant families, they had to use things from the villagers, just like the Eighth Route Army back then, and they had to return to the original state before it counted. There was a large glass plate on the table by the window, the kind specially used for holding photos, which was considered a luxury item in those days.There is a dark green cloth background under the glass plate, and the photos are placed on it, and then pressed down with the glass plate.Jingqiu couldn't help leaning over to look at it. The aunt must also receive visitors often, she is very talkative and amiable.She pointed at the photos one by one and told Jing Qiu who those people were.Jingqiu saw Wang Duansen, the eldest son of the aunt from the photo, who was very tall. She couldn't imagine that it was the son of the village chief Wang and the aunt, and it might be a mutation in the family.The eldest son works at the Yanjiahe post office and only comes back once a week. The eldest daughter-in-law is called Duo Min, who teaches in the elementary school in the village. She has delicate features, is tall and thin, and is a good match for the eldest son. The eldest daughter is Wang Duanfen, who is also pretty. She graduated from middle school and works in the village.The second daughter is Wang Duanfang. She looks completely different from her elder sister, with a protruding mouth and smaller eyes than her elder sister.Wang Duanfang is still studying in Yanjiahe Middle School, and she only comes back once or twice a week. While talking, the second son of the village chief came back and said that his father asked him to come back to fetch water so that he could cook early. He heard that there were guests from the city today, and he was going to invite the guests from the city to come to the house for dinner tonight. Jing Qiu went out to say hello to the second son of the village head, and found that he didn't look like his brother at all, but he looked like the village head, short and short, with facial features that didn't seem to have grown.Jingqiu was a little surprised. How could there be such a big difference between two brothers and two sisters in a family?It seems that when the parents gave birth to the first son and daughter, they tried their best to create the best breed, but when it came to the second, they slacked off and completely followed the Creator to make a mess. Aunt always makes people feel very kind when she speaks. One or two addressings will make you feel like a family.The aunt pointed to her second son and said to Jing Qiu, "This is your second brother, Wang Duanlin." Jingqiu didn't know what to call him, so she just said, "Are you going to carry water? Let me help you." Duan Lin seemed very shy, and whispered, "Can you handle the water?" "Why can't I be picky? I often go to the countryside to study agriculture---" The aunt said: "Do you want to help? Then I will go to the backyard to chop two vegetables, and you can wash them in the river." Then, she took a bamboo basket and went to the backyard. Only Jingqiu and Duan Lin were left there, and Duan Lin seemed to be even more at a loss. He turned around and ran to the back of the house to get a bucket.After a while, the aunt came back with two vegetables and handed them to Jingqiu to go to the river with Duanlin. Duanlin didn't look at Jingqiu, and greeted: "Let's go!" and walked to the river first.Jingqiu carried the food basket and followed behind.The two walked along the narrow path to the river.Halfway through the walk, I met some young men in the village, and they all made fun of Duanlin: "Duanlin, did your father tell you about his wife?" "Yeah, it's still from the city." Duanlin was so anxious that he put down the bucket and chased those people, Jingqiu shouted from behind: "Let's go, leave them alone." Duanlin came back, picked up the bucket, and ran towards the river like flying.Jingqiu was puzzled, what do these people mean?How can you make such a joke? When we got to the river, Duanlin resolutely refused to let Jingqiu wash the vegetables, saying that the water was cold and your hands were cracked.Jingqiu couldn't catch him, so she had to stand by the river and watch him wash the vegetables.After Duanlin finished washing the vegetables, he filled both buckets with water. Jingqiu rushed to carry the water: "You didn't let me wash the vegetables just now, so now I have to carry the water." Duanlin refused, picked up the bucket and walked back like flying. When I got home, Duanlin went out again, and Jingqiu wanted to help my aunt cook, but she couldn't do it.Just when Duanlin's little nephew woke up obviously, the aunt ordered: "Mingming, you take Aunt Jing to ask Third Father to come back for dinner." It was only then that Jingqiu knew that the Wang family had another son, and she asked Mingming, "Do you know where the third father is?" "I know, I'm in the greed team." "Greed team?" The aunt explained: "It's on the exploration team, children can't tell." Mingming took Jingqiu's hand: "Let's go, let's go, go to the greedy team, the third father has candy to eat---" Jingqiu followed and walked out. After walking for a short distance, she obviously refused to leave, and stretched out her arms to be hugged: "I'm dizzy, I can't walk anymore." Jingqiu couldn't help laughing, and hugged Mingming.Despite her small size, she was quite heavy. Jingqiu had walked for a long time, and now she hugged Mingming and felt very heavy.But Mingming refused to walk, so he had to hug for a while, rest for a while, and kept asking: "Have you arrived yet? Have you arrived yet? Have you forgotten the way?" After walking for quite a while, before arriving, Jingqiu was about to rest for a while, when she suddenly heard the sound of an accordion from somewhere far away, she didn't expect that there would be someone playing an accordion in this small mountain village, so she couldn't help standing there, Listen up. It was indeed the sound of the accordion, and it was playing "Cavalry March". This is a fast-paced accordion piece. Jing Qiu has also practiced it, but she has not practiced well enough. She is more proficient with her right hand, but not with her left.She found that the player who played the violin was not only very familiar with the right hand, but also the chords with the left. The sound of the piano comes from a row of shed-like houses. Those houses are not like the houses of the villagers, which are single-family, but a long strip of several houses connected together. It must be the "greedy team" The house is gone. Jingqiu asked Mingming: "Does your third father live there?" "Yeah." Seeing that he had already arrived, the hero got up, and his legs didn't feel dizzy, he wanted to break away from Jing Qiu and run over by himself. Jingqiu led Mingming and walked towards the row of houses.Now she can clearly hear the sound of the accordion, and the sound of the piano has become "The Hawthorn Tree". Several male voices joined in and sang this song in Chinese, as if their hands were busy with other things, and their mouths were careless singing.But it was this careless, intermittent, low-pitched humming that made the singing so beautiful. Jing Qiu was fascinated by it, as if she was in a fairy tale world.Twilight is everywhere, smoke is curling up from the kitchen, the air is filled with the unique fresh smell of mountain villages, the sound of accordion and the low voices of boys are in the ears, this strange mountain village suddenly becomes cordial, with a feeling that can only be understood. , an indescribably touching atmosphere, it seems that all senses are immersed in an atmosphere that can only be called petit bourgeois sentiment. Mingming broke away from Jingqiu's hand, ran towards the row of houses, entered the third door, and the accordion sound stopped.She guessed that the person playing the piano was probably Mingming's third father, the third son of Village Chief Wang. She was a little curious, would the third son be more like the eldest son Duansen, or the second son Duanlin?For some reason, she really wanted him to be like Chang Sen, because it seemed unreasonable that such a beautiful piano sound came from a man like Duan Lin.She knew it was unfair to Duan Lin to think like this, but she still couldn't help thinking like this. Jingqiu waited for Mingming's third father to come out of the house like waiting for a magic player to reveal the treasure. She thought that if he wasn't the one playing the accordion, he would be one of the few singing.She didn't expect that in this corner of the world, there would be such a group of people who could sing "The Hawthorn Tree". Maybe the villagers here didn't know that this song was a Soviet song, so these exploration team members could sing freely. After a while, Jingqiu saw a person coming out with Huanhuan in his arms.He was wearing a dark blue knee-length cotton coat, probably issued by the exploration team, because Jing Qiu had already seen several people wearing such clothes walking around the house.Mingming blocked a part of his face, and it wasn't until he walked up to her and put Mingming down that Jingqiu saw the whole of his face. When Jingqiu looked at a person, it was as if she had a pair of eyes in her head and another pair of eyes in her heart.The eyes in her head told her that this person did not conform to the aesthetics of the proletariat, because his face was not black and red, but fair; his figure was not as strong as a "black iron tower", but thin ; His eyebrows are thicker, but they are not like two swords flying upwards from the center of the eyebrows as in the posters.Although his eyebrows are thick, they are not tense at all.In a word, he doesn't fit the proletarian definition of "handsome." I remember a film called "The Younger Generation" filmed on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, in which there was a man named Lin Yusheng, who was considered a backward-minded young man who was afraid of going to the countryside and going to hard places to exercise.Lin Yusheng was played by Da Shichang. At that time, Da Shichang was still very young, thin, with a sharp outline, a bit like a white-faced scholar, and his appearance fit the role very well. If Jingqiu were the director, if she were to assign a role to Mingming's third father, she would assign him to play the role of Lin Yusheng, because his appearance is not revolutionary, he is not armed, and he is very bourgeois. But the eyes in her heart are appreciating his non-revolutionary places to the fullest, but they haven't formed a clear point of view, just some undercurrents hidden in the consciousness.She only knew that her heart seemed to be throbbing for a while, she became extremely flustered, and she suddenly cared about her clothes. What she was wearing that day was an old cotton coat worn by her brother, which looked like a tunic suit, but not a tunic suit, with only one pocket on it, which was called a "student suit". The collar of the "student uniform" is very short, while Jingqiu has a long neck. She feels that she must look like a giraffe now, which is ugly to death. Jingqiu's father was sent to the countryside for labor reform very early on. The three siblings in the family depended on their mother's salary as an elementary school teacher. It has always been difficult, so Jingqiu always wears her brother's old clothes.Fortunately, it was an era when people didn't pay attention to clothes. Although people still laughed at wearing boys' clothes, they didn't take it seriously when they got used to it. This seemed to be the first time she cared so much about her clothes, as if she was afraid of leaving a bad impression on him. She couldn't remember who she cared about her appearance and clothes in front of anyone else, and she didn't remember herself. In front of whom has been so embarrassed. The boys in her class seem to be afraid of her. Some people bullied her in elementary school and junior high school. When they arrived in high school, they all seemed to be afraid of her. They didn't even dare to look her in the eye. I never cared whether they were satisfied with her appearance or not, they were just a group of little fur kids. But this person in front of her could make her nervous to the point of heartache.She thought he was well dressed, his white shirt collar was exposed from the unbuttoned blue coat, so white and crisp, it must be made of that kind of "Diliang" fabric that Jingqiu couldn't afford.The beige wool vest on the outside of the shirt looks hand-knitted, and even Jing Qiu, who is good at knitting sweaters, finds the patterns beautiful and difficult to knit.He was still wearing a pair of leather shoes, and Jing Qiu couldn't help but look at the faded pair of Jiefang shoes on her feet, feeling that the contrast between the poor and the rich was too sharp. He was smiling at her, looking at her, but he seemed to be asking Mingming: "Is this your Aunt Jing?" Then he greeted her, "Did you just come today?" He spoke Mandarin, not the language of County K, nor the language of City K.Jingqiu wondered if she should speak Mandarin with him.She also speaks Mandarin very well. She is the announcer of the school radio station and is often selected to report programs at the party and broadcast manuscripts at the sports meeting. Can't speak Mandarin in daily life. Jingqiu didn't understand why he could speak Mandarin, maybe it was because he spoke it to her, a foreigner.She said "hmm." She answered it. He asked: "Is the writer comrade from the county town or from Yanjiahe?" His Mandarin is very good. "I'm not a writer," Jingqiu said shyly, "Don't yell. We came from the county." "It must be exhausting, because I can only walk from the county seat, and I can't even drive a walking tractor." He said, reaching out to her, "Eat candy." Jing Qiu saw that in his hand were two pieces of candy wrapped in floral paper, it seemed that they were not available in K Market.She shook her head shyly: "I won't eat it, thank you, give it to the children---" "Aren't you a child?" He looked at her like a child. "I--you didn't hear Mingming call me 'aunt'?" He laughed, and Jingqiu liked to see him laugh very much. When some people laugh, they just mobilize the muscles of their faces. Their mouths are smiling, but their eyes are not smiling, and their eyes are still indifferent, even hateful.But when he smiles, there are two laugh lines on both sides of his nose, and his eyes are slightly closed. It gives people the feeling that his smile is completely from the heart, not pretending, nor mocking, but wholehearted laugh. "Not children can eat candy," he said, and handed over the candy again, "Take it, don't be shy." Jing Qiu had no choice but to take the candy, and comforted herself, saying, "I'll hold it for Mingming." Mingming grabbed it up and wanted Jing Qiu to hug her, but Jing Qiu didn't know how she managed to win Mingming's heart, she was a little flattered, and hugged Mingming , Said to him: "Aunt told you to go home for dinner, let's go." He stretched out his hand and asked Mingming to go to him: "Mingming, I'd better let the third father hold her, aunt has walked a lot today, she must be tired----" Mingming didn't object, he came up and hugged Mingming from Jing Qiu's hand, motioning for Jing Qiu to go forward.Jingqiu refused, fearing that he would see her unsightly gait or something wrong with her clothes when he was walking behind her, so she said stubbornly: "You go ahead, I --- don't know the way." He didn't insist anymore, he walked ahead with Mingming in his arms, and Jingqiu walked behind him, and saw that he was like a trained soldier, with his long legs walking straight forward.She felt that he was neither like his eldest brother nor his second brother, as if he came from another family. She asked, "It was you just now---playing the accordion?" "Well, did you hear that? Did you hear a lot of flaws?" Jing Qiu couldn't see his face, but she felt that even from his back, she could feel his smile.She said shyly: "I --- where can I hear the flaw? I don't know how to play the piano." "Humility makes people progress. If you are so humble, your progress must be very fast." He stopped, and turned around slightly, "But lying is not a good boy, you will definitely play. Have you brought the piano?" Seeing her shaking her head, he said He suggested, "Then let's go back to my place, can you play two songs and let me listen to them?" Jingqiu waved her hands in fright: "No, no, I pulled too badly, you pulled --- great, I dare not pull." "Then another day---" After finishing speaking, he continued to move forward. Jingqiu was noncommittal, and asked curiously: "How come everyone in your place can sing "The Hawthorn Tree"?" "This song is very famous. It was very popular in the 1950s. Many people can sing it. You can sing it too?" Jingqiu thought about it, but didn't say whether she could sing or not.Her thoughts suddenly jumped from the song about the hawthorn tree to the hawthorn tree she saw on the road today: "It is said in the song--the hawthorn tree has white flowers, but today the village chief said--the tree on the mountain A hawthorn tree has -- red flowers." "Well, some hawthorn trees have red flowers." "That tree—is it true that the flowers turned red because the blood of the martyrs watered the ground under the tree?" She finished asking, feeling a little silly about this question.She felt him laughing, so she asked, "Do you think I'm asking a stupid question? I just want to make it clear so that I can write it in the textbook. I don't want to lie." "You don't have to lie, you heard it that way, just write it that way, whether it is true or not is not your problem." "Then do you believe that the flower is--stained red with the blood of a martyr?" "I don't believe it. From a scientific point of view, it's impossible. It should be red. But people here say so, so let's just treat it as a beautiful legend." "So you're saying that everyone here is-- lying?" He smiled and said: "It's not a lie, but poetic. The world exists objectively, but everyone feels the world differently. If you look at the world with the eyes of a poet, you will see a different world--- -" Jingqiu thinks that he speaks very "literately" sometimes. In the words of a typo king in her class, it is a bit "wentuodu" (文泉楼).She asked, "Have you -- ever seen that hawthorn tree bloom?" "Well, it blooms in May and June every year." "It's a pity that we are leaving at the end of April, so we won't be able to see it." “走了也可以回来玩的。”他许诺说，“今年等那树开花的时候，我告诉你，你回来看。” “你怎么告诉我？” 他又笑了一下：“想告诉你，总归是有办法的。” 她觉得他只是随口许个诺，因为那时电话还很不普遍，K市八中整个学校才一个电话，打长途电话要到很远的电信局去。估计西村坪这样的地方，可能连电话都没有。 他似乎也在想着同一个问题：“这里没电话，不过我可以写信告诉你。” 静秋吓坏了，她们一家住在妈妈学校的宿舍里，如果他写信到学校，肯定被她妈妈先拿到了，那还不把她妈妈吓死？从小到大，她妈妈都在嘱咐她“一失足成千古恨”，但从来没告诉过她怎样才算失足了，所以在她看来，只要是跟一个男生有来往了，就是失足了。她紧张地说：“ 不要写信，不要写信，让我妈妈看见，还以为----” 他回过头，安慰她：“不要怕，不要怕，你说了不写，我不会写的。山楂花不是昙花，不会开一下就谢掉，会开好些天的。到五、六月份的时候，你随便抽个星期天来一趟就能看见了。” 到了村长家，他放下明明，跟她一起走进屋子，家里人大多都回来了。端芬先自我介绍说她是大姐端芬，然后就很热情地为静秋介绍每一个人，“这是二哥”，“这是大嫂”，静秋便跟着她一样叫“二哥”，“大嫂”，叫得每个人都很开心。 端芬最后指着“三爹”说：“这是三哥，快叫。” 静秋乖乖地叫声“三哥”，结果屋子里的人都笑起来。 静秋不知道说错了什么，红着脸站在那里。“三哥”解释说：“我不是他们家的，我跟你一样，只是在这里住过，他们随便叫的，你不用叫。我叫孙建新，你叫我名字好了，或者跟大家一样，叫我老三吧。” 从第二天开始，“K市八中教改小组”就忙起来了，每天都要采访一些村民，听他们讲抗日的故事，讲农业学大寨的故事，讲怎么样跟走资本主义道路的当权派作斗争的故事。有时还到一些具有历史意义的地方去参观。 一天的采访完毕后，小组的人就在一起讨论一下，该写些什么，每部分由谁来写，然后大家就分头去写，过几天把写的东西拿到组里汇报，大家提些意见，作些修改。 每个星期要跟生产队的社员们下地劳动一天。社员们星期天是不休息的，所以静秋他们也不休息，小组的成员轮换着回K市，向学校汇报教材编写情况，顺便也休息两天。 每个星期三和周末，王家的二闺女端芳就从严家河中学回来了，她跟静秋年龄相仿，又睡一个床，一下就成了好朋友。端芳教静秋怎么把被子折成三角形，静秋帮端芳写作文，晚上两个人要聊到很晚才睡觉，多半都是聊老二和老三。 西村坪的风俗，家里的儿子，小名就是他们的排行，大儿子就叫“老大”，二儿子就叫“老二”。但对女儿就不这样叫了，只在她们名字的最后一个字后面加个“丫头”。排行也没把她们算在内，因为女儿都是要出嫁的，一出嫁，就去了婆家那个村，“嫁出去的女，泼出去的水”，就不再是家里人了。 端芳对静秋说：“我妈说你来了之后，老二变得好勤快了，一天几趟跑回来看要不要挑水，因为你们城里的女孩讲卫生，用水多。他怕你不习惯用冷水，每天烧好多瓶开水，好让你有喝的有洗的。我妈好高兴，看样子是想让你作我二嫂呢。” 静秋听了，总是有点局促不安，怕这番恩情，日后没法报答。 端芳又说，老三也对你很好呢，听我妈说，你一来，他就拿来一个大灯泡给你换上，说你住的这屋灯光太暗了，在那样的灯光下看书写字，会把你眼睛搞坏的。他还给我妈一些钱，叫她用来付电费。 静秋听了，心里很高兴，嘴里却说：“他那是怕把你的眼睛搞坏了，这不是你的屋吗？” “我在这屋住这么久了，以前怎么没给我换个大灯泡？” 后来静秋碰见老三，就要把电费还给他，但他不肯要，两个人让来让去，搞得象打架一样，静秋只好算了。她准备走的时候，象八路军们一样，在老乡的桌子上留一点钱，写个条子，说是还他的。 这些年来，静秋都是活在“出身不好”这个重压之下，还从来没有人这样明目张胆地向她献过殷勤。现在这种生活，有点象是偷来的，是因为大妈他们不知道她的出身，等他们知道了，肯定就不会拿正眼看她了。