Chapter 9 Nine

The weather has been very nice these days.The loess on the plateau glowed with a lemon-colored glow everywhere.There are no trees around the village, but a few poplars that have lost their leaves tower proudly into the warm sky like silver eagles, casting their thin shadows under their feet.The sun is westward.At this time yesterday, it was the time when the handlebar-style Hai Xixi sang loudly.Now, with a distended stomach, I recall the sad, expansive voice that reminds me of passages from Pablo Neruda's "Wake Up, Lumberjack." I often have some strange associations, which are not far-fetched, but have some kind of vague, almost mysterious inner connection.Of course, all kinds of associations will come to mind only when the stomach is bloated.At this time, I felt that Haixixi's native folk song melody seemed to infuse me with the aggressive spirit of the North American pioneers that Neruda sang.That song, that mountain eagle, that vast and desolate field, that silent and endless mountains, the stretch of that mountain is a tangible melody...the whole is churning in my heart.For a moment, I felt that I was very beautiful and strong.So, I happily walked towards the horse.I want to see horses.I like horses very much.They always remind me of a hero's cause: to conquer the frontier!Go expand the territory! ...However, there was a group of farm workers turning fertilizer in front of the horse.My team members—the "director of the sales department", the lieutenant, the old accountant, and the editor of the newspaper were also among them.I thought it was too late to go back. "Is the house ready?" Captain Xie held a shovel in his hand and stood on the tall compost heap, and saw me at a glance.In daylight, he looked much smaller than yesterday.

"It's packed." "What are you doing here?" "I..." I can't say that I came to see the horse.What is there to see in horses? All kinds of fantasies flew out of my mind, leaving only one consciousness: I am a farm worker!I just said, "I'm here to work." "Okay." Captain Xie happily grinned his stubble-covered mouth, "You dig up the dung, and they smash it." He designated a place for me.It turned out that there were women here. I have never worked with women.During the four years of my life on the labor camp, I hardly ever saw a woman.I lowered my head and walked among them awkwardly, not knowing what to do. "You take a pickaxe and plan it. If you plan a piece, we will smash it." A woman said to me, "Don't be tired, look at you, you are so skinny, you can plan small pieces if you can't plan big ones."

Her timbre is soft, and the originally hard-pronounced square accent is also very mellow, especially the concern in her tone moved me very much.It's been a long time since I've heard the words "Don't get tired"; all I hear are "Quick! Quick!" and "Don't work hard."But I dared not look at her; I blushed inexplicably.I thought excitedly, I will plan for her well, and smash it for her after planing. I scanned the heap with my eyes: there were no pickaxes here.I got carried away and shouted to Captain Xie: "Captain, there are no tools!" "What did you do?!" Unexpectedly, I was reprimanded, "You have to bring a pair of chopsticks to eat!" The women next to me giggled without malice.My face turned blood red.I was ashamed and hated this captain Xie: this is a moody villain!

When I was at a loss, the woman suddenly handed me a key: "Here! You go to my house to get it. There is a useful pickaxe behind the door." I took it in embarrassment, mumbling something in my mouth. "Here, it's at the first door of the first row of houses on the west side." She told me, "It's easy to find. When you turn the corner, the first room is right there." "It's the one with 'American Restaurant' hanging on the door!" Another woman giggled. "You bitch, you only hang a sign at your door!" The woman who gave me the key was not annoyed, she laughed and cursed at her.I turned and left, and they were still laughing and scolding each other.

This is a self-made brass key, which has been polished to a smooth surface and still has the slight warmth of the human body, probably she put it in her close-fitting pocket.I turned it over and over and stroked it gratefully as if it were her hand. There is no signboard of "American Hotel" hanging on the door. Just like other houses, there is a pile of blackened firewood and a rope for drying clothes.I open the door.This is an adobe house smaller than our "home", and it takes up half of the room once the kang is laid.The dirt floor was swept clean.I never knew that the mud floor would become as flat as a concrete floor after processing.There is no wooden furniture in the room, and the tables and stools are all made of adobe.The table next to the wall was built with two layers of kang face, which was built like a cabinet, and an old floral cloth was drawn on the upper layer as a curtain.All the adobe "furniture" was angular and cleanly cleaned.Shiny empty wine bottles and empty cans are symmetrically displayed on the earth platform as decorations.A shabby felt was spread on the kang, a patched quilt and a few clothes—and the doll’s clothes—stacked neatly on top of it.The fence around the Kang was colorful, and I glanced through it in a hurry. It was a whole book of "Popular Movies" and the color stills of "Anna on the Neck".

There is a pot platform under the kang, and an iron pot with a wooden lid sits on the pot ring! The first time I entered a stranger's room alone, I felt the warmth of being trusted, but I also had such an instinctive impulse: I wanted to lift the lid of the pot, lift the curtain, and see what was there to eat—everything stored Food places are irresistible to me.sin!I quickly took out the pickaxe behind the door and went back to the horse. "Is the door locked?" I lowered my head and returned the key to her, she asked me. "Locked." I began to swing the pick.A woman beside her began to hum and chirp: "Sister Ga, I just waved three times on the gate. I don't see my sister Ga, how good is she?" "I'll take you..." She turned around and scolded the woman with the most vulgar words.Because these words were very vivid, several women laughed out loud.Not understanding how the woman's song offended her, I raised my head in amazement and glanced at her.She was arguing with the woman, with her back turned to me.All I could see were two jet-black braids tied together, draped over a calico padded jacket.The back and elbows of the padded jacket are patched with a few patches of darker colored cloth.

Horse manure mixed with soil is called manure.It's freezing in winter.We have to dig out the manure, break up the frozen blocks, turn it over again, and then transport it to the field by horse-drawn cart and unload it. The piles are piled in vertical and horizontal rows, and a layer of floating soil is shoveled to cover it, and it will be scattered in the spring.Because I ate a lot of barnyard noodle pancakes and wanted to help her do more, I worked very hard and planed a large pile in a short while. "Wait a minute. Look at you, you fool-me-me!" She didn't say "fool", but said "fool", with a long and gentle voice, and I smiled slightly because I felt kind.I glanced at her again, she was smashing the dung with her head down, I didn't see her face clearly. "Soak the barnyard rice first, then cook the rice porridge, the thicker it gets..."

"Just cut some yellow radish and put it on..." "Cut the yellow radish into dices, hope it's beautiful!..." "Yellow radishes are not as good as sugar radishes; put sugar radishes on them without any hint of sweetness..." "Candy radish is bitter, you have to boil it first..." After the women finished laughing and cursing, they were seriously discussing cooking techniques beside the compost pile, and she turned her face to them and said casually: "Damn ball! I would rather eat a bite of fairy peach than half a basket of rotten pears. If you want to eat, Just stew dry rice!" "Hee hee! Who can compare to you, you run the 'American Restaurant'..."

"Don't play tricks on your mouth," she straightened up, "you have no ball skills! The barnyard rice is still cooked. Do you believe it?" "Letter, letter, letter! You make a meal for us to taste..." "Try it? I'm afraid you won't be able to touch it after tasting it, so you'll go to sleep on someone else's kang!..." She laughed again.She loves to laugh. Then, they laughed and scolded each other again. At this time, Hai Xixi came back driving the big cart mightily, "ah, ah..." plucked the skinny horse's head with a whip, and sat on the shaft with her chest up.

"Why did you call it a day, donkey day?" Captain Xie stopped the shovel in his hand, and asked Hai Xixi coldly. Captain Xie worked the same as the farm worker, and I noticed that he did more than the farm worker. Hai Xixi was obviously the same as I was just now. He didn't expect Captain Xie to be here, so he quickly jumped out of the cart, "Wow—" he stopped the cart. "The animals are tired, captain." "Is it because the animals are tired or you just don't want to do it?" Captain Xie squinted his eyes and asked again in a mocking tone.In my eyes, the thin and withered Captain Xie grew tall all of a sudden, while the tall and burly Hai Xixi shriveled up.I sympathize with Hai Xixi.

Now he has a look of fear and hesitation, which is completely different from yesterday. "You don't want me to settle accounts with you, don't you?" I heard that there was something in Captain Xie's words.Sure enough, Hai Xixi was even more embarrassed than when I suddenly saw the captain half an hour ago, neither advancing nor retreating.Behind him, the skinny horse picked up the grass dregs on the ground with its limp lips.Suddenly, Captain Xie roared: "Go and unload the animals, and bring a pickaxe! If you don't want to smash your ass tonight, don't drop two pieces of dung, I'll fuck you..." Captain Xie's scolding has amazing artistic skills.He cursed angrily, but the listeners laughed. Even Hai Xixi pursed his lips and snickered. Of course, I was a little gloating.It turned out that Captain Xie scolded everyone so vulgarly, but he was being polite to me just now.Hai Xixi took advantage of his scolding, "drive, drive" to drive the cart into the stable.After a while, he came out with a pickaxe. "Where are you planing? Captain." His tone was by no means flattering, but a fearless posture that could do it anywhere. "Here's Da'er." Captain Xie pointed in front of him, and said wearily, "This Da'er has a big lump, and I haven't stopped talking for a long time." "Spit! Spit!" Hai Xixi spat loudly into both hands twice, "Get out of the way, look at me!" He groaned and smashed down the pickaxe vigorously. In a blink of an eye, the two became close partners to deal with difficult labor together. One planed and the other smashed, which was very harmonious. "Bear, what a loser!" I heard her cursing in a low voice next to me.I don't know who to scold.I still keep my head down on my work.She couldn't finish the frozen blocks I planed, so I used a pickaxe to help her smash them up, and she just turned them over to the other side with a shovel.While we were both done with the frozen blocks in front of us and I turned around to dig again, she was idle.At this time, she leaned on the shovel handle under her chin, and sang softly: You don't have to laugh when I sing about flowers, I relieved the impatience in my heart.I was impatient and I was drinking nonsense, hey! You should be me singing for joy! In theory, I know that the tune she sang and the tune Hai Xixi sang yesterday belong to the so-called "Hehuang Flowers".This is a high-pitched folk song widely popular along the Yellow River and Huangshui River in Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia.But I haven't heard of it in the past.What she sang today is different from what Hai Xixi sang yesterday.The melody has less ups and downs, and the ending sound at the end slides up to a pure fourth and a major sixth. In the Northwest dialect, "impatient" means "trouble"; "drink" is used here as the word "sing".There are no open fields here, there are manure piles on all sides, and her totally untrained, somewhat wild voice led me to the hillside under the blue sky, and opened my heart.However, I am a little sad.There is no longing and pursuit in her lyrics, but there is a kind of hope trembling in her tone, expressing a sad and moving feeling carelessly.That's right, carelessly.My sorrow is also that the people who give me such a beautiful enjoyment don't realize that they have created this beauty.For example, Hai Xixi's impression on me now is extremely dishonorable; as for her, she is lowering her head in thought, absent-minded, without any sense of pride.We turned over a lot of fertilizer in the afternoon, and there was a big pile beside it.Captain Xie walked around the manure yard, checked everyone's grades, was very satisfied with these women and me, and shouted: "Come on!" Everyone hurried home.Out of politeness, I said to her, "Thank you. Let me drive the pick back for you." She was cleaning the shovel, turned her head and looked at me in surprise, as if she was not used to such polite words.Immediately, she snatched the pick from my shoulder in a panic, and said in a stubborn and rude tone: "You take it! Look at you skinny monkey, your face is ashen."