Chapter 23 Chapter One

When the sun was setting behind Human Face Peak, Wei Tiangui's donkey cart just reached the fork on the side slope of the road, and with a momentum, it slid down the ancient road along the river bank.So, the sound of whining cars on the asphalt road gradually faded away; the thin twilight diffused wearily from the east, from the beach of the Yellow River.This light blue evening mist seemed to filter out all the noise.Now, there is only the frog cry of "G-G-G", here and there lazily sounding once or twice from time to time. When you come here, you have stepped out of the city and set foot on the rural land.

To the west, across the Great Wall-like embankment of the asphalt road, you can see the highest point of the rolling mountains, and the afterglow of the setting sun outlines the outline of Renmian Peak.It lives up to its name, it really looks like a human face turned upside down.The platform on the top of the mountain is like a broad forehead, a protruding rock and the steep cliff below form the towering eyebrows and deep eyes.Going down, a sloping mountain ridge and a high cliff at the end of the ridge are a slightly arrogant nose.Then, a sharp jagged peak demarcated the delicate lips tightly shut, and finally, a domed high rock gave the whole face a stubborn chin, and it lay on the ridge for countless times Thousands, hundreds of thousands of years.Every year in May and June of the old calendar, the sun always sets next to this face, making this face emit a golden aura, and it never makes a sound, just lying, lying like this, as if thinking about something profound. Question, and it seems that I didn't think about anything.

In the past, when Wei Tiangui was young, people in Zhuangzi said that the human face peak looked like his silhouette. The ancient road gradually leans towards the river bank and gets farther and farther away from the road.From the bank of the Yellow River to this dirt road worn by people, there is a flat grassy beach in the middle.The beach is covered with dense "creepers" - a kind of reed that pulls vines along the ground.Wei Tiangui avoided the staggered ruts of carriages, cars, and tractors, and drove the donkey cart to the grassy beach beside the road.The wheels rolled on the soft, vigorous "creepers", and the spokes clanked against the strong Achnatherum splendens.The donkey took small steps, shook its head from time to time, and snorted once or twice like a sigh.At this time, I heard the sound of the Yellow River slapping the tooth-shaped river bank, and occasionally, there was the roar of the collapse of the river bank, passing the leaves of "creepers" like a faint thunder. The pointed ones roll towards the fields and deserted beaches.

Only here can Wei Tiangui use his brain to think.Yes, only by stepping on the land so familiar to me and so dear to me can I evoke the memories and experiences of that kind of farmers.Although Wei Tiangui is the secretary of the party branch of the brigade, he is still like a farmer. His thinking cannot be separated from experience, and experience can only be extracted from the deep well of memory. In the past few years, every year at the beginning of summer, he would send his second son to deliver some vegetables to his old friend and old superior, He Lide, the deputy secretary of the prefectural committee.This year, in order to inquire about the implementation of the production responsibility system by the advanced teams in other provinces, he came by himself in a donkey cart.

Fifteen years ago, he was secretly led here by someone sent by Holliday.Today, the house has been greatly improved.Three red brick walls enclose a single-door courtyard.Although there is not much land on both sides of the corridor, there are many varieties of flowers and plants, green, yellow, white, and purple, all of which are vying for glory.The brown vines of two old grape trees climbed the white wooden support, and the green shade covered half of the courtyard.Of course donkey carts can’t get in, so they can only be tied to the concrete poles at the gate of the courtyard.When he took the sack of vegetables to the storage room according to the instructions of his former "liaison officer" and now Mrs. Liu Yuqing, Holliday's surname, he went into this room and went through that room in a detour, which made him feel even more strange. It feels like a world away.

What did Holly tell him today? "Don't take advantage of the wind, rain and mud." He Lide warned him, "Now that we talk about large-scale contracting, and we have done large-scale contracting for cleaning the floor, has our collectivization for more than 20 years been in vain? To be honest, I always have some doubts about these new ways..." "However, those communes and teams in the neighborhood have implemented household contracts, and they have all achieved results. People in our brigade also have this requirement." He said. "They are them, you are you. You are the red flag that we have set up for many years. Don't look at them now that they are making a fuss at home and house, once the higher authorities want to close, they have to close together." Holly smacked his lips confidently, and smiled again "What the masses demand is not necessarily socialism. Of course, some people now say, 'Thirty years of hard work, and I returned to the pre-liberation overnight'. Doubtful. To be honest, to put it mildly, it’s still the solitary work in the early days of liberation. But from the solitary work in the early days of liberation to the later cooperative and communalization, is it easy for us to walk? You know this best. Everyone in your team is rich. Doesn’t this prove that our past methods are still correct? Wei, we are all old now, we must be careful and stop following others. This is because I don’t treat you as an outsider. , I won't say it in front of everyone..."

In the past, Holliday had always spoken to him in an indisputable tone.Now, although Hu Lide's tone is not so sure, it seems that there is an irrefutable reason, and this reason is based on the actual example of their brigade.Yes, because our China is so big and complicated, you can find a proper example at your fingertips if you want to prove any argument.However, if he wanted to use Wei Tiangui's brigade to prove what He Lide called "the methods used in the past were correct", he had his own opinion.However, he couldn't tell Hu Lide about this opinion.How he has come over the past twenty years, only he knows best in his heart.

Thinking of this, he suddenly lost interest in speaking.At this moment, Liu Yuqing walked into the living room with a smile. "Look at the dishes that Lao Wei sent us, they are so fresh! Lao He, don't look at you as the deputy secretary of the prefectural committee, who still misses you now, isn't it Lao Wei? Lao Wei, don't leave, just eat here dinner." He didn't like this woman who was originally named Liu Weiqing, but now changed back to Liu Yuqing.He felt that this woman had too much talk in her heart, and he even suspected that what she meant by "don't go" was "hurry up, we're going to have dinner"!He said goodbye.

"Forget it, I have to go shopping for my girl." Finally, Hu Lide sent her to the gate of the courtyard, shook his head, and sighed: "Ah! Now we are all worrying about our children." It’s not dark yet, and on the ancient road, we can still see the faint lights flickering on the mirror-like bend of the river and clusters of small white flowers of camel thorns on the bank.The sandy shore was undulating, showing a vague curve in the shimmering water.And the barn swallows are still flying over the river bend, catching dinner—at this moment, it is the time when mosquitoes are rampant.A wild duck with a green head and feathers, as if hit by a gun, folded its wings and plunged into the dense reeds without a sound.This section of the river beach is flat, the river surface is open, and the river water is now so calm that it seems to be thinking too much.

But Holliday was right: they were old!Although Holly was wearing fine woolen clothes, and was pulling on leather slippers—shoes with tiptoes and no heels, I’m afraid it would cost four or five yuan a pair, but his stomach was already protruding, and his flabby cheeks were drooping. From the corners of his mouth to the corners of his mouth, even in the middle of his speech, he was beeping and moving. There was not even a trace of the abundant energy of the previous ten years! As for myself, is he better than Lao He?When I touched my neck with my hands, there were a few tendons under the loose old skin, and there was a hole behind my ears. I was unshaven, and there were curved wrinkles carved on both cheeks; it was fine a few years ago, In the past two years, my back has become a bit rickety.If you spread the plastic sheeting to the side of the road, shake open the sack, turn the cucumbers and tomatoes upside down, and lift the scale to stand aside, what is the difference with those profit-seeking traders in the free market?Who can see that he is a newspaper figure, a famous hero?Who can tell that he was once a prominent "boss" and "commander" who held the seal of the county's revolutionary regime?Who can see his demeanor more than ten years ago?At that time, he was tall, wide-bodied, with a big face, straight nose, and a pair of thin Mongolian-shaped eyes that were shrewd and aggressive. Among other things, those two rows of solid and neat teeth were called students who brushed their teeth with white jade toothpaste every day. The baby was amazed... But now, if he really went to the free market, people would definitely see the sack in front of him: "Hey, fellow, how do you sell these cucumbers?"

He unconsciously sighed.The shadow of You Xiaozhou could not help appearing in his mind. Last year—the winter of 1980, You Xiaozhou was transferred to their county again.As a newcomer, regardless of the complicated situation in the county, he strongly advocated the land contracting at the "three cadres meeting".You Xiaozhou was also an old friend of his, and he really sweated for the secretary of the county party committee at that time. "Don't worry, take your time." He persuaded, "Haven't you learned from the previous experience?" "Not in a hurry, what are you afraid of?" You Xiaozhou said with a serious face, "As long as the farmers have enough to eat, it doesn't matter if I go to prison again. Besides, I won't be sent to prison now." You Xiaozhou is not like He Lide, this person does not joke easily, but makes people feel kind and sincere.His eyes, though stern and self-assured, were honest and frank at the same time.Because I was short-sighted when I was young, but now I have reached the age of presbyopia, I can take off my glasses. "The household contract does not touch the collective ownership system, but reforms the form of distribution and the relationship between people under the collective ownership system." You Xiaozhou explained to him, "The 'big pot of rice' can't be eaten, and some commune and team cadres' blind instructions , eating more, occupying more, forcing orders, and even oppressing farmers can be eliminated. Of course, I also know that in the past, there was a gust of wind, one-sidedness, one size fits all, and one word. These four "ones" killed Let’s go! Now I don’t make a one-size-fits-all approach, and each brigade can choose a specific form according to its own situation. For example, in your brigade, it’s okay to do it later or not to do it.” Hmph, big and small stones are not so easy to remove.After half a year, these poor teams by the river have been contracted to households. Most of the commune cadres pointed to his Weijiaqiao brigade and said: Why doesn't he, Wei Tiangui, "a half ghost" do it?If he doesn't mess with us, we won't mess with it. Follow the "half ghost"!Still the same, this year's production is still not going up, but this crime seems to be Wei Tiangui's. The day before yesterday, You Xiaozhou rode a bicycle to his house after a meeting in the county town.After entering the door, he glanced around and asked casually: "Old Wei, how many years has your wife been gone?" "Four years." "Young couples come to keep company, I think you should find a wife too." After finishing speaking, You Xiaozhou smiled rarely. He made no reply.You think it's ridiculous, why do you still ask me to find a wife?This person, even if he wanted to chat about family affairs with others, he couldn't get to the point.Just tell me what you have, you didn't introduce someone to me. Sure enough, after a while, You Xiaozhou's face sank again. "Now, those with shovel handles are welcome to contract their labor to households, but those who don't use shovel handles in the county and the countryside worry about it, saying that it is an individual economy. In fact, should the labor be scattered or combined? , this is a technical requirement of labor, which is mainly determined by productivity. Most of our current agricultural production is still manual labor. Take your famous advanced brigade, isn’t it also hand tools that account for the vast majority? ?In this case, it is better to do it in a decentralized manner. Even in the future, modernization will require a lot of labor to be distributed according to the technical requirements. This is not only the case in agriculture, but also in other industries. For example, a car driver can only work on one job. If a person drives a car, he can only drive it alone when he reaches communism. Then you can say that the driver’s work is done alone, and it is an individual economy?” He sat on the kang with his back bent, listening to You Xiaozhou's eloquent talk.But I thought in my heart: Okay, now people in the city and the country who don't hold a spade are coming together to oppose you. Do you know the difficulty?You are obviously here to mobilize me.Then you just give the order, why waste all this spit.You You Xiaozhou, what a You Xiaozhou! So, he went to find He Lide, but He Lide's opinion was completely opposite to You Xiaozhou's. This requires him to use his brain to think: his whole life, his more than 20 years as a secretary...he can only think on his own, he can't tell Hu Lide, and he can't ask You Xiaozhou for help.He has too many personal secrets. The afterglow in the west was extinguished, and the blue human-faced peak lay silently in a light blue, transparent light...