Chapter 9 Death River (5)

The water on the stove boiled, and the boiling water pushed the lid of the pot up with a thumping sound.Ji Xi didn't care that the water was too hot, so the lid of the pot kept ringing lively, and when they were wet and separated from each other, the pot of boiling water had obviously been burned away, and the room was filled with warm water vapor. At the end of that unforgettable evening, Ji Xi thought, Hu Hui would definitely marry her.She would cook tea for him, cook rice, cut up fish, feed pigs, and bear him several children.However, Hu Hui married another woman as his wife.When Ji Xi poured the fish water full of scales on the groom Hu Hui, she felt that the sun was so pale and cold that day.From then on, she didn't allow Hu Hui to enter her house, and she would rather leave her tobacco leaves and refreshments to other men than give them to him.When Hu Hui died, everyone in the Ajia fishing village went to the funeral, but she didn't.She stood in front of the window, looking at the endless river of death day and night, and there was always the sound of boiling water hitting the lid of the pot in her ears.

The mother groaned again, and Ji Xi left from the portrait of Hu Hui.She moved and muttered, "Oh, what a monkey you are making a fool of yourself." After she finished speaking, she cursed God as usual, and then she came to the mother. "Aunt Jixi, will I die?" The pregnant woman stretched out a wet hand from under the blanket. "Women who give birth for the first time think that they will die, but no one will die. With me, no one will die." Jixi comforted, and wiped the sweat on the mother's forehead with a towel, "Do you want to give birth?" Do you want a man or a woman?"

The mother smiled wearily: "As long as it's not a monster." Ji Xi said: "If you think about it now, when the child is born, you will pick your nose and eyes." Sitting in front of the kang, Ji Xi said, "Looking at your body, it looks like you are pregnant with twins." The mother was afraid: "It is difficult to give birth to one, and it is even more difficult to give birth to two." Jixi said: "People are delicate, and it takes a whole day to have one or two children. Look at dogs and cats, which litter doesn't have three or five litters, and no one to take care of it. Before the cat is alive, it has to hold the cotton litter by itself. , it also hurts, it's not as delicate as a human being."

What Jixi said made the pregnant woman stop crying.However, her strength was as fragile as thin ice. It didn't take long before she moaned again, and she kept cursing Hu Dao: "Hu Dao, you're dead, and you don't care after you've done your crimes. Hu Dao, why don't you come to the next life?" Child, you only know how to be happy..." Jixi smiled secretly.It was getting dark, and Hudao had finished restocking the pig with hay, and was gathering the chopped dry firewood into a bundle, ready to be used next to the Death River at night.The snow is much smaller, if you don't look carefully, it clearly looks like it has stopped.The snow on the ground is thick.The snow on top of the red pine fence is the most beautiful. The bowl-shaped snow is next to each other, set against the red candle-like pine poles below, like a gentle flame, extremely magnificent.

When the sky was gray and dark, Ji Xi felt pain in her heart.She heard the dogs of the fishing village barking joyously, and the people started to make bonfires beside the Death River.The mother calmed down again. She sweated profusely, and the dry reed mat under her body was already moist.Jixi lit the candle, and the pregnant woman smiled apologetically at her, "Aunt Jixi, go catch tearfish. Without you in the river of death, people would think that fishing tearfish is meaningless." Indeed, every year on the bank of the River of Death in the first snow, Jixi can always catch dozens or even hundreds of lively tearfish.The wooden basin that Jixi uses to hold the tearfish can attract everyone's attention.The children playfully stretched their hands into the wooden basin to touch the head or tail of the tearfish, stirring up the wooden basin for a while.At this time, the parents came over and scolded the children: "Don't hurt the scales of the tearfish!"

Ji Xi said, "I'm going to catch tearfish, who will deliver your baby?" The mother said: "I am myself. You tell me how to cut the umbilical cord. I can do it at home alone, and let the shaving knife also catch tearfish." Ji Xi scolded, "See what you can do." The mother moved her legs and said, "Aunt Jixi, if you can't catch the tearfish, will you die?" Ji Xi said, "I don't know, it's just a legend. Besides, no one has ever caught a tearfish."