Chapter 16 sixteen

The outside is already a silver-white world.The first snow leveled the vast expanse of land, whether it was a garden or a deserted village, they all lost their individual characteristics, and everywhere was so dazzlingly beautiful that one couldn't imagine that there would be such absurd scandals in this world as happened a few minutes ago. It's unimaginable for people to have such dirty minds that they don't do them any good. O Nature, you teach us to purify us every once in a while by your silence!Her footsteps are printed on the white snow, giving people a light and warm feeling.She also followed the footsteps when she came back: uniform, neat, not messy, with graceful curves at the corners, as delicate as a string of pearl necklaces.I carefully walked in her footsteps, like picking up the precious things along the way, one by one, one by one... in my heart.

I knock on the door.She didn't say "please come in" or "come in", but shouted loudly in the room: "Push, the door is open!" She sat on the kang and teased the child.This is a child over two years old, wearing a small padded jacket of the same pattern as her padded jacket. She looks like a girl, but with a crew cut and thick eyebrows, she looks like a boy.Seeing me coming in, both the child and she laughed out loud, but when he saw me laughing too, the child hid in her arms in fright.I'm a little bored.I thought, my appearance must be scary, even the smiling face is scary.

"Where is the stove?" I asked, "Do you have a trowel? Do you need adobe and bricks..." "What are you busy with?!" She rubbed the child with her shapely slender hands and smiled at me. , "Look at your coffin, you are quite active in your work! Sit down for a while." "The coffin!" Terrible and ridiculous.I sat my "coffin" on the immovable adobe stool.There is no fire in the room, but it is as warm as our "home".This kind of warmth is gentle and comprehensive, unlike a stove that burns only one side, but also has a compelling scorching.This is the function of the farmhouse heated kang.Looking at the poor and clean kang, I suddenly felt a longing for home.Home is not the "home" Captain Xie said, but a real home.After four years of rigors of forced collective labor and near-death starvation, all kinds of unrealistic ambitions and bourgeois romantic fantasies were thrown into the ocean of the East.I remember a few verses from "Evgeny Onegin" in my heart, and these few verses can explain my current ideal.There is a housewife, and a can of beef and cabbage soup, a big can of beef and cabbage soup—this is my ideal now.

She continued to comfort the child and ignored me.I sat blankly on the adobe stool and lowered my head unconsciously.A sudden sadness of disappointment welled up in my heart.I don’t know if it’s the disappointment of the original hope, or the disappointment of “Housewife” and “Beef and Cabbage Soup”, or the loss of all hope... In short, I entered this small, simple but full of a In this unspeakably warm earthen room, it seems that I can see more clearly the patheticness of my current situation... I don’t know if she noticed my expression, but she coaxed the child, put the child on the kang, and jumped off the kang, Lifting the lid of the pot, took out a white-faced steamed bun, and stretched it out in front of me, "Here!" I was taken aback!He looked at Momo with bewildered eyes, and then at her.She stood in front of me frankly, with unconcealable tenderness and pity in her eyes, but absolutely no trace of ridicule or contempt.I dare not answer.Because such things are so precious at such times, so precious that it is hard to believe that they can be given for nothing.The mix of doubt and fear and the joy of looking out made me dizzy.

The child called her on the kang: "Mom, mom..." The little hands scratched and crawled towards the edge of the kang.She stuffed the steamed bun into my arms, turned around and sat on the edge of the kang to pick up the child, put her head on the child's head, and sang as she shook: beat baskets, grind noodles, uncle is here to cook.It's a shame to roll the white noodles; it's a shame to roll the black noodles!Slaughter a big cock for uncle, the cock crows!Kill a big hen, the hen will lay eggs!Roll out two sheets of Qihua noodles for uncle, uncle drinks noodle soup, and I eat a big bowl!She sang, not recited like most women read nursery rhymes, not only with a rhythm, but also with a melody.The melody is changeable with pure childishness.Her hearty voice, cheerful melody, humorous lyrics, innocent expression of shaking the child up and down like a seesaw, and the child's creaking laughter blended together in this small earthen house. rippling.Only a childish person can be so inseparable from children and this unique nursery rhyme.

No one can doubt her innocence.It was very natural to her that she gave me this precious thing, without purpose, out of sheer kindness. However, I still murmured: "I'm not hungry, give it to the child." I stretched out the steamed bun to the child. "She just ate," she said. "Eat, eat." But the child stretched out his hand and yelled, "I eat, I eat." "Ershe, be obedient!" She moved the child into the kang, not letting the child reach the bun in my hand, and immediately jumped off the kang, lifted the lid of the pot, and took out a steamed potato. "Here! Ershe, do you see this? You eat this."

The child smiled, took it, and peeled the skin clumsily with his little hands. Because of her pure generosity, I couldn't bear to eat such a precious thing she gave me.My hunger was suppressed by cherishing this momo.I even feel a little "reckless", my belly can be filled with anything, why do I need to eat such expensive food?I really want to exchange this steamed bun for two potatoes that are still on the drawer—my nearsighted eyes are very sensitive to food. When she lifts and covers the pot, I can see that the drawer is full of potatoes.However, I am embarrassed to say it.Seeing that I was still holding the steamed bun, she pointed at me and said to the child, "Say: 'Uncle, you eat, you eat.' Say!"

The child took out the potato stuffed in his mouth and pointed at me with his little finger covered in mashed potatoes: "Eat, you eat, you eat!" "I won't eat it," I said to the child sourly, "Leave it to your father, okay?" "Hee hee!" She laughed again, "Her father is in Java! You should eat it. You see, all of you who have been educated come to this trick!" I don't know what she means by this "Java country".I only know that in classical novels, very distant or non-existent places are often called "Java country", and many daily expressions of farmers in this area still retain the characteristics of ancient Chinese.So, is her husband far, far away?Or is the child without a father now?

"Then... or, you can keep it for yourself." I looked at the pot and wanted to put the steamed buns in.If she is more polite, I can say that I can eat two potatoes. "Look at you bastard!" Unexpectedly, she became angry, "I can't help you! Then you put the momo down for me, and you can go where you came from!" She said Turning around and hugging the child, he didn't look at me anymore. I was awkwardly holding the steamed bun in both hands, as if I didn't know where to put a pot full of hot soup. "You, didn't you say you want to turn on the stove?"

"Play a ball!" She couldn't help giggling again, "My stove was made by Xixizi, so it's easy to burn. It's like this: I had a rest yesterday, and I pushed the wheat that Xixizi picked up. I ordered some white noodles and steamed five steamed buns. One Xixizi, one for me, two dolls, and one more. I wanted to give it to you. But I couldn’t find it when I looked for you yesterday... There was no yeast, so I had to steam dead noodles Yes. You can make do with it. I still have some white flour, and I have fermented the yeast, so I can eat the fermented dough next time.”

And next time!It's not easy for me to ask why she "thought" to give it to me.It's impolite.What else but pity?Unlike the "director of the sales department", the lieutenant, and the old accountant, I peeled off the skin as soon as I left the labor camp and changed into the cadre uniform sent from home.My cotton-padded jacket and trousers were issued by the labor camp.This kind of clothing without a collar and three patch pockets is also a sign of punishment like the gold seal on the face.Cloth, similar to medical gauze, has worn out a few holes after wearing it for a few days, and now it is as hard as a carapace. I huddled in such a set of cotton clothes and trousers, like a chrysalis dying in a cocoon before it matured. of. After being silent for a while, she saw that I was looking down at the steamed bun in my hand, and she wanted to eat it, so she lifted the cloth curtain of the earthen table again, brought out a plate of salted radish, took out a pair of chopsticks, and wiped it with her hands. Wipe it and put it next to me. "From now on, you will come when you are hungry. When I saw you that day, your face was ashen, just like Ibris..." She didn't know what she thought of, but she suddenly smiled again.But she immediately suppressed her laughter, pursed her lips, and sat on the kang looking at me. After all this pushback, of course I wanted to eat it. "Respect is worse than obedience".But I was too embarrassed to eat in front of her.My deadly vanity is not quite lost.At the same time, I know that I am not eating well now, and I am afraid that a woman will see me wolfing down.She didn't understand my mentality, and she didn't understand the social manners of not sitting by and watching the guests eat, so she asked strangely: "Eat, what are you waiting for?" Then she urged me, "Eat quickly, someone might come later." .” Yes, it's kind of scary.Today, the farmers and workers are resting, and it is very likely that someone will come to visit her.How bad it is to see me eating at her place!I also ① Iblis, Arabic, devil.We can't take this precious food to our "home" to enjoy, there are still several pairs of eyes!I slowly picked up the steamed bun. This is indeed a dead-faced bun, the face is snow-white and snow-white, she must have done it twice.Because it is a dead-faced bun, it is very strong, weighing half a catty, and has the same hardness and elasticity as a softball.I gnawed, chewed, gnawed, gnawed... trying to be gentle.I haven't had white pasta for four years—and I've only lived twenty-five years in total.It melted in my mouth like snowflakes falling from outside.It has not been fermented, but it is still full of the fragrance of wheat flowers, full of the summer sun, full of the intoxicating earthy smell of the plateau, full of the sweat of harvest, full of the original fragrance of all food... Suddenly, I found a very clear fingerprint on it! It is printed on the skin of the white-faced bun, very, very clear, from its size, I can even recognize it as the fingerprint of a middle finger.Judging from the texture, it is a "luo" rather than a "kei", which is small in circles and gradually expands outward, just like the ripples of small fish on a lake in spring.The ripples are gradually rippling away again, rippling away... poof!One of my clear tears fell on the bun in my hand. She probably saw the tear.She stopped laughing and didn't look at me. She turned back and lay down on the kang with her arms around the child, and sighed, "Ah—what a pain!" Her "Ah" was not linear, but aria-like.Expressive, more sympathetic and loving than pity.Her sigh opened the floodgate of my tears. The tears that I didn't shed when the "sales department director" raped me silently surged outward.My throat was choked, and I couldn't swallow the half bun in my hand. It was extremely quiet in the earthen house for a while.Outside the house, snowflakes occasionally fluttered on the paper window; on the kang, the child pursed his mouth gently.But in the bottom of my heart, Verdi's grand laws arose, especially the part of "Save Me" which was even more whirling.Ah, save me!save me! ... After a while, she was on the kang and said quietly to the child: "Ershe, you say: Uncle, don't worry, you can eat what I eat. You say, you say to the uncle: Uncle, don't worry, What I eat, you eat..." Judging from the sound, the child's face turned to me. "Uncle, don't worry. Uncle, don't worry..." The child became more and more enthusiastic. Maybe she thought the words she didn't understand were very amusing. She stood up and stepped towards the edge of the kang, pointing at me with her little finger: "Uncle, don't worry. Uncle, don't worry..." "And wow!" She turned up and supported the child, "If you eat, you will eat. Tell me!" The child was stunned, learning inarticulately: "If you eat, I will eat .” She laughed out loud, picked up the child in her arms, turned around and pressed the child on the kang, and tickled the child with her fingers. "Goods that don't improve, you eat what I eat, not 'what you eat, I eat'... Goods that don't improve! Goods that don't improve!..." She and the child rolled on the kang, laughing and making a fuss.The atmosphere in the room immediately cheered up, and my mood was also cheerful.I quickly finished the steamed buns, not even the salted radish. "There are still potatoes." She waited for me to finish eating, then sat up, brushed her hair, stretched the padded jacket down, and pointed to the pot under the kang, "There are still potatoes, a pot. Take it yourself." At this time, I was in the mood to see her clearly. The first thing that amazed me was the characteristics of a daughter from the southern country on her face: beautiful eyes, bright and flexible pupils, long eyelashes, I can imagine that when they are covered, they can rub against her cheeks.The bridge of the nose is slender, but very straight, and the flesh-colored nose wings are very delicate; the lips are slightly wide, but extremely expressive.Many novels describe women with eyes as the focus. From her face, I know that lips are no less than eyes to express inner emotions.The graceful lips, her thin cheeks and very delicate nose together form a charming and changeable triangle.Her skin was darker than the average woman's, but smooth, except for some inconspicuous freckles on either side of her nose.There is also a light blue rim around the lower eyelids.The light blue color made her beautiful black eyes express an unforgettable affection.The various parts of her face fit together so harmoniously that it was always pleasant and comforting.From the few words she talked with me, and from her behavior, I feel that her character is pungent, strong, hearty, and enthusiastic.This is also very consistent with her southern daughter-like face.It was only later that I realized that the characteristics of the daughters of the southern countries are also possessed by the peoples who migrated from Central Asia. She was between twenty and twenty-five, not older than me. Her name is Lantana Flower!