Chapter 6 Thrilling scene (6)

Late autumn night.Except for the noisy noise of a handful of autumn insects, the world is lifeless.The hills in the distance stand tall and dark, and half of the hillside illuminated by the moonlight, the land that has harvested crops looks very desolate.The city is silent, but danger lurks.At this time, "Sun Dasheng" and "Thousand Jun Cudgel" may be active in every corner.The night belongs to them. Ma Yanxiong staggered along the path under the city wall.Fortunately, this place was desolate and it was night, so there were no people there, and his spirit was temporarily relieved.The absinthe wormwood growing luxuriantly on the city wall and by the side of the road gave off a strong smell, which penetrated directly into his nostrils.How fragrant!He was walking on the path overgrown with autumn grass, one foot high, one foot low, staggering.The back is like carrying a bundle of kudzu needles, and the pain is piercing.Road and sleep!Where are you headed?For a person like him who has fought for the party for more than 20 years, the fate of the party, the fate of the country, and the future of the revolutionary cause are always above his personal fate.The reality of the current society makes him shudder: God!Why are the people fighting against the people?He can figure it out when the masses criticize and fight against him—for Communists, is it okay to be afraid of the masses’ criticism?But why did the bad guys come to fight the good guys?Good people beat good people, bad people beat good people, what kind of society has this become!How can we go on like this?He murmured and shouted: Chairman Mao!Does your old man know about this situation?

He has experience: any mass movement in the history of the party has some abnormal phenomena, which can always be corrected in the end.The movement has gone too far at the moment, but he believes that it will be corrected in the end.Right now, he doesn't doubt the greatness of the movement itself just because he has suffered - it was initiated and led by Chairman Mao himself!His affection for and trust in the Party and Chairman Mao were condensed through decades of blood and sweat in the revolutionary struggle and are unshakable.Whether he is personally beaten or angry, as long as it is beneficial to the party, he is willing to do so.

What was he, a Communist, a party secretary, in these bloody days, in the abnormal circumstances of this perhaps great movement?He thought: Isn't the most basic party principle of a Communist Party member to seek the interests of the majority of the people, protect the people, and have the courage to sacrifice for the people?He totally should be doing the same now.Of course, he knows that he is the current focus of conflicts in the county, and all disasters may be caused by him.He personally has nothing to do with the development of any current situation, he can only be beaten and criticized.However, he asked himself in his heart: in this most complicated and difficult time, he should do everything he can to protect the masses of the people. misfortune of the people.That's the principle.He was thinking like this, walking; walking, thinking.We're almost at the breach in the wall.Go out of this gap to the outside of the city.The next slope down the gap is his home.Home!What is it like now?He hasn't been home for three months.How are the three of them doing now?When he was thinking this way, a person suddenly emerged from the grass by the roadside, threw himself into his arms, hugged him and cried "wow"!

This is the cry of a girl, sad and pitiful.He felt that little head trembling convulsively in his arms! Ah, in the twilight of the moonlit night, he recognized, it was his daughter!It's his Xiaomei!He stretched out two skinny arms, picked up the child, and then fell down again—a stone was resting on the scab on his back, and he almost cried out in pain.He gritted his teeth and sat up, a layer of cold sweat dripping from his head. The child was still in his arms—she couldn't care less about crying anymore, she groped for him with her two little hands, looked at him with panicked tearful eyes, and murmured: "Dad! Daddy! Did you hurt when you fell? Is it gone?..."

He lowered his head, put his pale forehead against the child's, and rubbed it affectionately.After a long time, he said, "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter...Xiaomei, tell Dad, why are you here alone at this time!" The child was sobbing, his little lips trembling, and said: "Mom's stomach problem happened again, so she sent me to find some painkillers from Uncle Liu, who cooks in the middle school. When I came back, I saw a person coming from the base of the city wall. I I was taken aback, I thought it was a beggar! It was only later that I realized it was Dad... Dad!" The child cried again.

Two tears welled up from his squinted eyes, ran down his waxy cheeks, and dripped onto the child's little cheek. A whimper rose from his chest and choked in his throat.He can't make a sound!He sent the sob back into his stomach again.He stroked the child's head with his skinny hands and asked, "Is mother at home? Is brother at home?" "My mother is here, sick, and has been lying on the kang. My brother is gone, saying to draw a clear line, and carry a bucket of paste for the rebels... That day when you were parading in the street, he even shouted to knock you down, but that's all for me. Seeing him hiding in the moat and letting go howling..."

Ma Yanxiong had a sore nose, and asked with a sobbing voice: "...then...who will give you...to make food and firewood...mile..." "The grain station no longer sells grain to our family, and there is only a little bit of charcoal left. We only have one meal a day, and we can't eat enough... I don't dare to go to school, and I don't dare to go out on the street. They hit me and said I was a counter-revolutionary woman..." Her little shoulders shrugged violently, and tears rolled down that little face like broken beads.During the ten years of great turmoil, a group of children grew up in this way.Together with their parents, they are under tremendous social pressure and spend their childhood in fear and fear.Ma Yanxiong's heart ached like a knife.He wanted to say something to comfort the child, but what did he say?His withered hands just nervously grabbed the braid on her little head, and murmured, "Don't cry. Xiaomei, don't cry. Dad is back..." "Boom! Boom, boom, boom ..." A sound of knocking on metal suddenly came from the gap in the city wall.

The grief-stricken father and daughter were startled: a tall man with a bald head and a hunchback came out of the gap, repeating a sentence mechanically: "I am Gao Zhengxiang, a member of the Three Antis, I am Gao Zhengxiang, a member of the Three Antis... " "Old Gao!" Ma Yanxiong couldn't help but blurted out. The tall hunchback stopped abruptly.He hesitated for a moment, then ran over. Standing in front of Ma Yanxiong, he threw the copper spoon and poker on the ground.Under the moonlight, the two hugged each other, unable to speak for a long time. They sat together on the grass by the road.

Ma Yanxiong sent Xiaomei home first, he put his ragged padded jacket aside, and put one hand lightly on Gao Zhengxiang's thick shoulder. Gao Zhengxiang is the magistrate of this county. He and Ma Yanxiong worked together since they were young, and they rose up together to start a revolution.Fighting guerrillas in 1947, Ma Yanxiong was the instructor of the guerrilla team in the district, and he was the captain.Afterwards, they worked together for many years, both old comrades in arms and close brothers. Lao Gao is a straight guy, sometimes at the meetings where Mr. Hong or Hongzhi criticize him, if it does not conform to the facts, he will defend himself, and even contradict his critics.For this, he suffered a lot of beatings.Fortunately, his body is strong and he has not been defeated.

The rebels couldn't find any major problems with him, so they arbitrarily labeled him a "three antis" and forced him to "fight by himself" every day, starting at six o'clock in the morning and ending at one o'clock in the evening.He repeats the phrase "self-reported family" every day, from a sky full of stars to a sky full of stars... "Yanxiong, the party... probably doesn't want us anymore..." Gao Zhengxiang sat next to Ma Yanxiong, and said painfully.After he said this sentence, he couldn't close his trembling lips for a long time, and there were tears in his big copper bell-like eyes-this is an era of turbulent emotions, who hasn't overflowed with this emotional juice?

He waited for Ma Yanxiong's answer.He believed that he went further and deeper than he thought. "Old Gao, don't think like this." Ma Yanxiong pulled up a wormwood with great difficulty, held the soil-laden root in front of his nose, and greedily sucked it. "The party will not abandon us in the end. We should firmly believe in this at any time. We should consciously regard everything in front of us as a test for us by the party." Ma Yanxiong turned the absinthe in his hand upside down , leaning against its cold branches and leaves, and continued to say slowly: "Our group of people has passed a big test during the democratic revolution. History has proved that we have withstood it. Can the socialist revolution stand the test?" What about it?" He squinted his eyes and looked at his old comrade-in-arms, "There have been some tests in the past ten years. But the Cultural Revolution may be a fundamental test, to test whether we can persist in the socialist revolution to the end..." Gao Zhengxiang thought about these words, and said blankly: "The problem should probably be considered in this way, but I can't think of it: why some people don't work and no one fights. We work hard, but we suffer. People who work hard have become Counter-revolutionary, people who don't work have become people who have no problems... You see, the hydropower station we built after spending a lot of juice has now become a "black hydropower station". They say under the bright lights that this power station is a 'Black'. Shameless! To repair this water phone, you chopped off a toe with a stone... And Li Wei didn't do it naked, but now he is a 'revolutionary leading cadre'... Let's talk, In order to knock you down, those bad guys have red lips and white teeth, completely disregarding the facts, and turning black and white!" Gao Zhengxiang slammed the grass by the roadside with his fists as he spoke. Ma Yanxiong threw away the wormwood in his hand, looked at Gao Zhengxiang cordially and seriously, and said to him earnestly: "Zhengxiang, the problem cannot be viewed from one side only. Over the past ten years, we have indeed done many stupid things, and we have indeed accumulated There are many problems. Many practices have harmed the interests of the masses. Serious bureaucracy has grown on the party cadres, and some have even become the lords of the masses. The masses are angry! Take our county as an example. Socialism has been practiced for more than ten years, and as a result, many people still have little to eat and no clothes! Are we not responsible? Therefore, we must treat the masses correctly, and we must also treat ourselves correctly. Otherwise, if the masses do not fight, we will also collapse! As long as We always consider issues from the interests of the masses, and the majority of the masses will eventually forgive us. Of course, I am disgusted by a small number of bad people who label things indiscriminately. ...However, these people should not be confused with the criticism of the masses. Lao Gao, at any time, don't let abnormal emotions disturb normal thinking..." Gao Zhengxiang looked at Ma Yanxiong's pale face with round eyes: this thin man, how big his heart is!He put his big hand on Ma Yanxiong's leg and knee, and rubbed it lightly.He turned to Ma Yanxiong with a simple face like a farmer, and said: "Yanxiong, I understand what you said, we should check our mistakes more. No matter how much we have suffered, we must not lose the consciousness of the Communist Party members. You are right. We should consciously regard everything in front of us as a test for us by the Party. Even if some people treat us as counter-revolutionaries, we should also regard ourselves as members of the Communist Party, isn’t that the case?... Sigh If it wasn’t for your enlightenment tonight, maybe I’d commit suicide tomorrow by jumping off a cliff. It doesn’t matter if you’re beaten and angry, thinking pain is more tormenting than anything else!” Ma Yanxiong pressed his skinny hand on Gao Zhengxiang’s, full of emotion. Ge Qing said: "Zhengxiang, don't lose heart, keep going!" The two stood up from the grass. In the moonlight, he picked up his ragged padded jacket, he picked up his horse spoon and poker.They smiled and expressed their respect to each other wordlessly, and their emotions were even a little passionate, not like two "capitalist roaders" who were criticized, but like they left the campsite of the guerrillas back then to carry out their tasks separately...