Chapter 14 dry river

When a huge watery bright red moon rose from the twilight field to the east of the village, the smog in the village became thicker and seemed to be stained with the sad red of the moon.The sun had just set, and a long, tight cloud remained on the horizon.Between the sun and the moon, a few thin stars give off a pale light for a while.There is a mysterious atmosphere in the village, the dog does not bark, the cat does not bark, and all the geese and ducks are dumb.When the moon was rising, the sun was setting, and the stars were dying out, a child came out of a half-closed wood door. As soon as he got out of the wood door, he immediately turned into a ghostly gray shadow and floated gently.He floated slowly along the river embankment behind the village, and the withered squirrel grass and the scorched willow leaves under the embankment sounded like panting.He walked very slowly, bouncing up the embankment amidst the faint sound of the dead grass bending and the dead leaves cracking.On the embankment he crouched, and the shadow that loomed over him was much larger than his form.Until the next morning when he curled up like a frog among the sweet potato vines at the bottom of the river and fell asleep, the people in the village gathered around to watch him. Most of them didn't know his age, but a few knew his name.At that time, his parents' eyes were all dull, like the eyes of a fish, unable to accurately answer the questions raised by the villagers about the child.He was a thin, dark boy with a big mouth, a short nose, and elastic eyes who never knew what sickness was.He is very skilled at climbing trees.Tomorrow morning, he will use his buttocks to face the rising sun, with his face deeply buried in the black melon seedlings.A group of common people looked like a desolate desert, looking at his butt which was slightly lighter in color than other parts of his body.This ass is full of scars, but also full of sunlight. People look at it, as if they are looking at a bright face, as if they are looking at myself.

He squatted on the embankment, his hands tucked between his legs, his chin resting on his sharp knees.He felt his heart running like a water mouse, sometimes in his throat, sometimes in his stomach, and sometimes to his limbs. There seemed to be rat holes extending in all directions in his body. Glides casually and effortlessly.The moon continued to rise, still drenched with water, and the village was expanding outwards with a gas that was neither smoke nor fog. The gas kept rising and covered all the houses below. The tall poplar tree in the center of the village inserted its top into the misty sky. In the air, the tall and straight tree trunk is like an umbrella handle, the air is like an umbrella like a hat, and it is like a canopy like a poisonous mushroom.All the trees in the village shrank, not daring to exceed the height of the poplar. The poplar stood proudly to the sky. Among the branches twenty meters above the ground, there was a mess of firewood sticks. Magpies and crows, they quarrel every day, and if the moon is bright, they will follow the moon.

Perhaps, when he was squatting on the river bank surrounded by a cloud of shadows, there was a sobbing sound from his thirsty throat, and he might be recalling the past.At that time, he was wearing a fat gown, barefoot, standing under the poplar tree.In front of the poplar tree is the only tile-roofed house in Wuwen Village. The child in the tile-roofed house is a very beautiful little girl with dark eyes like two black chess pieces.The girl said to him: "Little Tiger, can you climb this poplar tree?" He stared blankly at the girl, grinning, and his short nose was wrinkled. "You can't climb it, I dare say you can't climb it!"

He bit his thick lips with his teeth. "Can you go up the tree and break a branch for me? I want that one, see? The straight one, I want to use it to cut a gun. After cutting it, let's play together. You act as a spy, and I play the People's Liberation Army." He shook his head vigorously. "I know you can't go up, you are not a little tiger, but a little old sow!" The girl said angrily, "I will not play with you from now on." He looked at the girl with bright black eyes and grinned as if he was about to cry.He rubbed his feet on the ground, and finally said dryly, "I can go up."

"You really can?" the girl asked in surprise. He nodded vigorously, and took off his coat, revealing his blue belly.He said: "You watch people for me, people in my family don't allow me to climb trees." The girl took the clothes and nodded faithfully. He hugged the tree trunk with his feet.There was a thick layer of calluses on his feet, and they were firmly held on to the silver-gray tree trunk without slipping at all.He climbed the tree like a cat, with quick and easy movements and a natural quality.The girl hugged his clothes, looked up, and watched the poplar tree slowly tilt, and slowly turn upside down towards her.In a trance, she saw the boy with bare back and bare feet bending the trunk of the thick poplar tree like a bow, and the poplar tree seemed to shoot him out at any moment.The girl trembled under the tree.Later, she saw the poplar tree suddenly straighten again.In the late autumn sun that is gradually slanting to the west, the white poplar branches are gathered together, plucking the light blue air rustlingly.In the sky as clear as ice, strands of dense poplar branches are flying; the remaining poplar leaves on the branches seem to have withered, but the dark blue color remains unchanged; with the swing of the branches, the dead leaves rustle.The miraculous movements of the poplar dazzled the girl's eyes, and she saw the crow's wing-like light shining on the black spine of the boy who was climbing higher and higher.

"Come down, little tiger, the tree is about to fall!" the girl shouted to the boy on the tree.The boy had climbed into the sparse canopy of poplar trees, and crows and magpies flitted among the branches, like a swarm of giant bees, like a swarm of gloomy butterflies. "The tree is going to break!" The girl's cry burned his ass like a flame, and he climbed up faster.The fishy wind blown by the wings of the crow and magpie blew straight into his neck, making him feel chills running down his spine.The girl's cry reminded him that he, too, felt that the tree trunks were slender and frail, and that they were very curved, and that the ice-like sky was tilting and spinning.A lump of flesh in his leg jumped up, and he looked down at the throbbing muscle, seeing it clearly.At this time, he heard the girl's cry again, and the girl said: "Little tiger, come down, the tree is crooked, and the tree is about to fall on my tile roof, smashing the tiles of my house, my mother I'm going to beat you!" He was stunned for a moment, leaning his body against the tree trunk, and looked down.At this moment he suddenly felt dizzy, and he was surprised to find that he had climbed so high.The poplar trees covered all the trees in the village, like standing out from a flock of chickens.He climbed the poplar tree, feeling a sense of happiness in his heart.All the houses are under his ass, and the sun is under his ass.The sun sets quickly, not round, like a big duck egg.He saw that on the thatched huts near and far, the rotting wheat straw was flattened by the rain, leaving behind a layer of moss that grew in summer, and the moss was covered with spots of bird droppings. The dust on the street was thick, and a green car The car drove past, stirring up a cloud of dust, which took a long time to dissipate.After the dust cleared, he saw a yellow puppy whose intestines had been run over by the wheels of a car staggering on the street. The dog's intestines were dragging in the dust like a long rope. The puppy walked calmly without barking. Then, the warmth on the dog's fur gradually faded away, the yellow dog turned into a yellow rabbit, turned into a ground squirrel, and finally disappeared without a trace.There is the sound of empty bottles everywhere, and the distance is uncertain. The warmth and coldness of the world are applied to the things one by one. The tree is half cold and half hot. and go.The girl called him again from below, but he didn't listen.He looked at the yard in front of the tile-roofed house tremblingly. If he hadn't climbed the poplar tree, he would never have seen the yard. Although the little girl with dark eyes under the tree often came to play with him, his parents repeatedly warned him He is not allowed to play at Xiaozhen's house.Is the girl Xiaozhen?He asked himself suspiciously.He was always staring in a daze, and everyone in the village said that he lacked a mind.He looked at the yard. There was a wide corridor built in the yard, and there was a shadow wall. The thorny plum blossom leaves beside the wall were withered, leaving only the purple-red rattan. There were still two bicycles standing in the yard, and the rims on The nickel plating glinted at his eyes.A tall man came out of the house and urinated carelessly under the wall. Then the boy saw the man's purplish red face and was so frightened that he clung to the tree trunk, not daring to breathe.This man once twisted his ears and asked in front of many people: "Little Tiger, how many legs does a dog have?" He grinned vigorously to one side and said: "Three!" Everyone laughed.He remembered that his father and elder brother were also in the crowd at that time, his elder brother's face was flushed, and his father laughed along with everyone in embarrassment.The elder brother beat him for this, but his father held him back and said, "The secretary is willing to tease him, which means that we can get along well with us, and that he has eyes for us." mouth, asked angrily: "What is this?" He gritted his teeth and said:

"Shit!" "Little Tiger, hurry up!" the girl shouted from under the tree. He climbed slowly again.Then his legs trembled violently.From the chimney on the tile-roofed house under the tree, thick white smoke suddenly rose, and the thick smoke shot up from the gaps in the branches and from the crow and magpie's nest.Dirty feathers rolled in the crow and magpie's nest, and black birds stained with red sunlight flew around him, making noise.He grabbed the thick and thin branch with one hand, and pulled it down hard. The whole tree shook, but the branch did not break.

"Pull it hard," cried the girl, "the tree has fallen, and it turned up and down to frighten people." He pulled the right of the tree hard, and the branches were bent, bent, really like a bow.His arms were numb and his fingertips were swollen.The branch refused to break, and bounced back violently.His legs trembled more violently, and his head sank heavily.The girl looked up at him.The smoke from under the trees billowed upward like waves.He was chilled all over, and two hairs on the back of his head stood up loudly, and he felt once again how high he had climbed.The straight and smooth tree right still stood proudly upright, as if challenging him.He crossed his legs, stretched out his hands to grab the branch, and pulled it down hard. The branch hissed, and the thin strips at the top collided with other thin strips, making crackling noises.He put all his weight and strength on the branch, and although his legs were still clinging to the branch, they had been completely forgotten.The more the branch bent, the more hatred filled his heart, he let out a low growl, leaped over, and the branch broke.There was a very crisp sound when the tree right broke, a tendon in his head jumped happily, and his whole body was immersed in a sense of pleasure.His body flew up lightly, and the very long tree was flying with him. The clear air, white cooking smoke, and orange glow rolled around his body.In a hurry, he saw a woman in a large flowered jacket running out of the suddenly flattened tile-roofed house, with a horse-like cry coming from her mouth.

The girl was looking at the tree, and suddenly found that the boy was hanging on the tree, like a fat fruit.She guessed that he must be very comfortable, and she was so envious that she also wanted to hang on the tree right.But soon there was a change. The boy slowly fell down with the branches, and she saw his body elongated, hanging from the treetop like a bundle of brown satin that she had chosen. The branches of the tree whipping the silk, there was no sound.Holding the boy's clothes and taking a step forward, she suddenly felt a flexible branch jerk her cheeks, and the piece of brown satin fell on her body.She felt that this piece of silk was as hard as a stone, and it would make a roar like hitting iron sheet when touched.

He got up from the ground inexplicably, and some parts of his body felt slightly numb, but everything else was fine.But he immediately saw the girl lying under the branch, her black eyes half-closed, and a stream of blue blood trickling down the corner of his mouth.He knelt down, put his hand through the cracks in the branches, and poked the girl's face lightly.Her face was hard, like an inflated ball. The woman in the flowered jacket flew to the back of the room and scolded: "You little bastard, can you go to the sky? How did your father and mother make you such a bastard? Break me a branch and I'll break it!" You have a rib!"

Angrily, she rushed to the boy kneeling on the ground, and just as the kicked foot touched the boy's spine, she fell powerlessly.Her eyes were straight, her mouth was twisted, and she threw herself on the girl, crying, "Xiao Zhenzi, Xiao Zhenzi, my child, what's wrong with you..." ... A cat covered in tiger stripes stepped on the withered grass on the embankment to the top of the embankment, its paws were padded and it stepped on the withered grass, making almost no sound.It stood in front of the boy in amazement, its eyes glowed green, it whined and its tail stood straight up like a mast.He looked at it timidly.It didn't go away, smelling the strong smell of blood emanating from his body, he couldn't bear the gaze of its two phosphorescent eyes, and stood up with difficulty. The moon has risen very high, but it is still watery and not very bright.The stars in the western half of the sky shine like diamonds.The village was completely shrouded in smoke-like mist, and he knew without turning his head that the only tree in the village was the poplar tree that could poke out a section of its top from the mist, like a tree in a flood.Thinking of the poplar tree, his nose and eyes were sour.He carefully walked around the majestic wild cat, and staggered down the river. The river was a shadowy silver gray, not water, but steaming sand.There has been a severe drought for three consecutive years, the river is stacked with dry firewood, and the cat barks at him behind his back, but he has no heart to care about it.His bare feet stepped on the warm sand, one step at a time.The heat of the sand moves up from the soles of the feet inch by inch, at first it is very thick and thick, and finally it is just like a spider's thread, as if it goes along the bone marrow and penetrates into the head.He couldn't figure out where his body was, and his whole body turned into a fuzzy mass, like an unpredictable shadow, with hot sensations everywhere. The moon shivered as he fell in the sand, casting a bloody gleam on his bare back.He lay on his stomach, unable to move anymore, feeling the moonlight scalding his back like a hot iron, and the smell of burning pigskin filled his nose. The woman in the big flower jacket didn't beat him, she just went to cry her heart and soul.Listening to the woman's thrilling cry, he was terrified, and he knew that he had committed a crime.He saw the tall red-faced man jumping over, there was a buzzing in his ears, and then everything was calm.He seemed to be trapped in a dome-like glass cover. Groups of people ran through the glass, hurried, chaotic, swarming, like firefighting, like charging, shouting with their mouths open but no sound could be heard.He saw two thick legs moving, and two scuffed suede shoes approaching his chest.Then he heard a frog croaking in his stomach, and his body flew up lightly again, and a sweet liquid rushed to his throat.He only cried once, and immediately thought of the little yellow dog dragging its intestines in the dust of the street.Why doesn't the puppy bark?He thought over and over.The suede shoes kept him doing somersaults.He suddenly felt that his intestines were dragged out like that puppy, and the intestines were covered with golden soil.The poplar tree that he took a lot of effort to pull down also started to fly, the pliable and leathery branches whizzed like a gust of wind, the branches splashed one by one, a fresh smell of poplar sap lingered on him The lips parted, and he was still rolling on the ground at first, but then he gnawed on the dirt and remained motionless. The sand gradually cooled down, and the temperature on his body dropped together with the sand.He was lying face down, and the fine dust was continuously sucked into his nostrils.He wanted to move, but he didn't know where the body was. He tried to think about the position of the limbs, and finally thought of the arms first.He pushed his arms up hard, his neck seemed to be broken, and his cervical vertebrae were rattling.He fell down heavily again, his mouth was full of sand, and his tongue was so stiff that he couldn't bend it.After eating three mouthfuls of sand, he finally turned over.At this time, he looked up at the night sky very bitterly. The moon was already in the south, and it had faded away from its color and became bright. The dark sky also turned into a beautiful silver-gray, and there was a golden light shining in the river sand. , that radiance was very cold, surrounding him from all directions, stabbing him like a small knife.He stared beggingly at the lonely moon.The moon shone on him, the moon was pale, and the shadows in the moon were very clear.He had never looked at the moon so seriously before, and the shadows in the moon surprised him greatly.He felt it was very strange, and he forgot what it looked like when he closed his eyes.He thought hard about the moon, and his father's face emerged from the pale moon. He only knew what his father looked like today.My father had two swollen eyes, and the eyeballs looked like pears soaked in salt water.Father kneeling on the ground is also very high.The suede shoes may or may not have kicked Father.The father knelt and begged: "Secretary, you don't see the blame of the villain. I will definitely beat this bastard. His ten dog lives are not worth the life of Xiao Zhenzi. As long as Xiao Zhenzi is safe and sound, he wants me I'll cut the meat too..." The secretary smiled at his father.There were circles of blue smoke in the secretary's eyes. His brother dragged him home.His heels scratched the hard ground.After walking for a long time, I still haven't stepped out of the shadow of the poplar tree.The passing shadows of crows and magpies brushed his face like fluff. The elder brother threw him in the yard, kicked his butt hard, and shouted: "Get up! You are just making trouble for the family!" He lay on the ground and refused to move, and the elder brother kicked his butt vigorously continuously , Said: "Get out! You have done evil and you have done something, haven't you?" He stood up miraculously, and stepped back to the corner of the wall. After standing still, he looked at his slender brother in horror. The elder brother said angrily to his mother, "It's fine to smash him to death, and it's a disaster to keep him. I had hoped to be a soldier this year, but now it's all over." He looked sadly at his mother, who never hit him.His mother came over in tears, and he called mother wronged, tears and snot flowing out together. But the mother scolded fiercely: "Turtle! Are you still crying? You are wronged? Even if you are killed, you will not be released!" The mother's hand wearing the copper thimble slammed on his ear door.He howled dryly.The sound that was not human-like stunned the mother for a moment. She bent down and pulled out a dry cotton firewood from the haystack, and smoked it blindly at him. The sparrows on the wall shot into the twilight like bullets.He leaned his body hard against the wall, looking at the red arc drawn by the cotton wood in front of his eyes... A thin rooster crowed in the village, waking him up from his haze.His stomach seemed to have condensed into an ice lump, and his whole body was completely cold. The moon was tilted to the west, and the Milky Way was covered with waves like roof tiles.He wanted to turn over, but he turned over easily, his body rolling like a log.Of course he didn't know that he was rolling down a small slope, and there was a pitiful pile of sweet potatoes at the bottom of the slope.The purple potato vines gave off a faint bitter taste, groups of fireflies the size of date pits were crawling on the potato vines, flying in his eyes and ears.The father came staggeringly, and the mother held the cotton firewood that had been beaten into a pole, and slowly stepped aside. "Get out!" Dad yelled angrily.He shrank his body back hard. He shrank his body back hard, and the sweet potato tendrils rattled.The moon is everywhere, a layer of frost is condensed in the river, and the haystacks are like bunkers, messily arranged on the river.The sweet liquid rushed into his throat again, and he involuntarily opened his mouth wide, spitting out lumps like clots one by one.The spit out clots lay around his mouth like cat poop he'd ever seen.He was terrified, and a vague premonition appeared. It was a daughter-in-law with slender eyebrows, she was lying on a reed mat, her face was like a purple petal.A few people beside me were crying like singing.This little daughter-in-law is so pretty, she looks like a flower when she lives, and even more like a flower when she dies.He followed a group of people to squeeze in to watch the fun. It was an empty room, and a red trouser belt was still hanging on the beam.The dead man's face was calm and serene, and he ignored everyone.The red-faced branch secretary in the brigade came to see the deceased with tears in his eyes, and everyone quickly made way for him.The branch secretary stood in front of the young daughter-in-law's body, tears filled her eyes, and a bright smile suddenly appeared on the young daughter-in-law's face.The eyebrows are scissored like a swallowtail.The branch secretary suddenly melted to the ground, and transparent liquid flowed out from all over his body.People said it was a pity for the young daughter-in-law to die.A person who lives in obscurity can attract the attention of so many people after death, even the secretary of the branch came, which shows that death is not a bad thing.He felt that death was a very tempting thing at that time.As the chaotic crowd walked out of the empty house, he quickly forgot about his little daughter-in-law.Now, the little daughter-in-law, Si, and vaguely the yellow puppy are all coming towards him along the silvery river bottom, without complaint or anger.He had heard their scrambling footsteps and seen their great black wings. After seeing the wings, he suddenly understood his ins and outs. He saw himself stepping on the icy frost flowers, walking up and down in the river water, and groups of eels slid back and forth in the water like vermicelli.He squeezed the eel away hard, and landed in a bright black glazed house.The little north wind blew in unceremoniously from rat holes, chimneys, and cracks in walls.He looked angrily at this golden world, the sun in the cold winter came in through the window paper, shining on the pile of fine sand on the kang.He landed wet on the sand, his body covered in fine sand.He cried hard for the coldness of the world.His father said: "Howl, howl, howl poor from birth!" After listening to his father's words, he felt the bone-chilling cold, and his body shrank like a silkworm, shrinking and wrinkled. At that moment yesterday afternoon, he was trembling and leaning against the dirt wall of his house, watching his father walk up step by step.The setting sun shone on my father's tall body and his sad face.He saw his father walking forward with one foot bare and one shoe on.Father held a shoe in his left hand and his neck in his right hand, lifted it lightly, and threw it down hard.For the third time he felt himself flying in the air.He got up in a daze, and found that his father was even taller, and his long shadow covered the entire yard.My father and elder brother were like paper figures cut out of paper shells, trembling in the blood-red sunset.The first blow of his mother's old thick-soled shoe hit him on the head, driving his neck almost into the cavity.The old shoe landed more on his back, anxiously and slowly, the sole became thinner and thinner, and pieces of mud flew away. "I can't forgive you even if I kill you! You bastard. There is no grievance or hatred between father and son." The father said sadly.He kept his hands while talking, and the thin soles of his shoes touched his sticky back, making louder and louder sounds.He was so angry that he couldn't bear it, and his heart was as stiff as an iron mound.He had a desire to speak, which grew stronger as his father tapped, and he heard himself shouting at the top of his lungs, "Shit!" Father was stunned, and the shoes fell silently to the ground.He saw that his father's eyes were full of green tears, and the blood vessels in his neck were wriggling like green worms.Gritting his teeth, he yelled at his father again: "Smelly shit!" Father grunted in a low voice, took a stiff hemp rope from under the eaves, soaked it in salt water in a pickle jar, and lifted it carefully. Come out, arms spread out, the rope dripping with muddy water. "Take off his pants!" the father said to his brother.The elder brother was trembling all over, and swam over from the pale yellow sunlight.In front of him, my elder brother stood still, not daring to look into his eyes but looked at his father's, and murmured: "Father, don't take it off..." His father waved his hand decisively and said, "Stripe, don't break your pants." "My brother's eyes quickly passed over his frozen face and fishbone-like chest, and stared straight at his trousers.Brother bent down.He felt a burst of coldness between his thighs, and his trousers fell down like a cloud and lay under his feet.The elder brother pinched his left ankle, pulled out half of the trousers, and pinched his right ankle, tore off the whole trousers.He felt that a layer of skin had been peeled off from him, and looking at the shadow of his brother retreating timidly, he shouted again: "Smelly shit!" Father waved the rope.The rope fluttered in the air, and when it approached his buttocks, it suddenly straightened and made a crisp sound.He snorted, and the words he was used to scolding came out again through his teeth.His father pulled the rope forty times in a row, and he yelled forty times in a row.At the last touch, when the rope fell on his buttocks, it was not stretched straight, but was twisted and weak; his cry was also twisted and weak, much like a moan of pain.The father threw the discolored rope on the ground and entered the house panting.Mother and brother also entered the house.The mother said to the father angrily: "You beat me to death too, I don't want to live anymore. You beat all my wives to death, and you can't keep up with death. It's your old foolish father, Ming Knowing that the Communist Party is coming, I even bought 20 acres of waterlogged land where rabbits don’t poop. It is classified as an upper-middle peasant, for one, two, and three lives, and they have lived like this without ghosts or ghosts.” My brother said: "Then why did you marry the old middle peasant? How many poor and lower-middle peasants can you not marry?" The mother burst into tears, and the father also cried "condolences, condolences, condolences". Amidst the crying of the parents, The rope twisted like an earthworm, twisted into twists for a while, and rolled into a spiral for a while. He twitched his hairs suddenly, and his muscles shrank into strips. With this strength, he stood up and walked in the twilight courtyard. After a few seconds of contemplation, he jumped towards Chaimen and got out of the gap... Before dawn, he woke up again, and he no longer had the strength to lift his head up to look at the pale moon and the pale river. .The mother's screams sounded on the embankment: Hu—hu—hu—hu—la la la la—my poor child.The cry made his place where he still felt itchy, and his heart was filled with joy after revenge.He shouted with all his strength, his chest was hot, and there was a sound of dry paper cracking in his senses, followed by an unbearable cold.He even heard the sound of himself falling into the ice hole, and the half-frozen ice water only splashed seven or eight pieces of ice, which fixed him. The moment the bright red sun was about to rise, he was awakened by a heavy and savage singing.This song is like the howling wind in the ancient forest, carrying dead branches and leaves, muddy water rolling through the dry river.After the gale, there was an odd, tense silence.In this silence, the sun slowly came out, and warm music was played suddenly, the music caressed his scarred buttocks, and ignited the flames in his head, yellow, red, and finally green and smaller, light and dark Jump a few times and turn off. When people found him, he was already dead... His parents' eyes were dull, like the eyes of fish... The people looked at his sunny buttocks like a desolate desert... as if they were looking at a bright face , as if looking at myself...