Chapter 43 short story mother mouse

My brother is more than ten years older than me, and I have been taken care of by him all the time. Now that I am in my thirties, I still live with his family.I'm an incompetent person in every way, so naturally I've become an eater in this city.I live in my brother's house, and I do nothing but read idle books and go for a walk all day long. I also had a small ideal when I was in college. At that time, I wanted to be a staff member engaged in auditing work.My homework is not bad, and I am interested in this major, but after graduation, I only participated in the work for half a year, and I refused to do it anyway.In retrospect, there was no particular reason for my sudden resignation.If you insist on pursuing it, you can only remember a vague fear.During that time, when I returned to my rented house after get off work every day, I always suspected that there were a few handcuffed policemen waiting for me inside, so every time I unlocked the door and entered the house, my legs trembled with fear.I even decided that one of my neighbors was the secret police because he kept asking questions about my life in the hallway and called my audit work a "high-risk occupation".Handcuffs clank in the pockets of his baggy trousers as he walks toward me.Finally one day, an honest and trustworthy boss of mine was taken away by the police, allegedly involved in a certain bribery case.On the same day, I resolutely submitted my resignation report and decided to never go out to work again.

I lost my source of income and had to move in with my brother.My brother works as a clerk in a government department, and my sister-in-law sells low-quality leather shoes on the street with a flatbed cart. There are two boys in their family, one in middle school and one in elementary school.Fortunately, my brother's house is relatively big. After I moved in, they converted a storage room into a bedroom.My sister-in-law was very unhappy about the arrival of my unexpected guest, but she tried her best to suppress the expression of this emotion, and she was polite to me on the surface.As for my brother, I have never been able to figure out his true attitude towards things, not for decades.When I brought my simple luggage into the house that day, he seemed to be very enthusiastic about making room for me, and from time to time he made some jokes that were familiar between me and him.When I was about to clean the room, he held me down with his big hands and told me to "rest my wounded mind well."He also told me that his home is the safest place, and I don't have to do anything here, just enjoy life.For some reason, I felt that my brother was not relaxed when he said these words. His eyes rolled around, as if he was worried that something bad would happen.

I stayed at my brother's house.More than ten years have passed, his eldest son has already started working, and his younger son is about to move away, and I still live here.Otherwise where can I go?My brother still leaves early and returns late to attend his shift, but his back, which was originally straight, is now a little hunched.My sister-in-law has stopped selling leather shoes in the past few years, and sells a kind of chemical fiber socks pretending to be cotton socks.Her hair is also gradually graying.She still has resentment towards me as a diner in her heart, but she has gradually accepted her fate, and sometimes she seems a little kind in front of me.Like my brother, my sister-in-law doesn't want me to do housework, not because she wants to take care of me, but because she thinks that I can't do anything well and will only make trouble for the family.So I became such a ridiculous guy: I sat at the desk all day long and read some idle books (the professional books were thrown away by me long ago), and when I was tired, I went for a walk in the courtyard where I was, and teased the neighbors puppy or chick.No one in the courtyard ever laughed at me to my face, because my brother is very respected here.But I guess they all call me "crap" behind my back.If it hadn't been for an accident that happened, maybe I would go on living like this.

The mother rat didn't show up in my room until she was about to give birth.Apparently it was there long ago, I just never found it, and it gave no indication of its whereabouts.It is a female mouse that is not too big, chubby, dragging its belly on the ground.It looked frightened and humble, and shambled along the wall.I saw it get into my shoe cabinet without a door, and then there was no sound at all.How is it so quiet?I was really curious, so I quietly squatted next to the shoe cabinet and raised the curtain a little.I met those shining, frightened eyes that stared at me from the shadows.In the corner where it stood was a large pile of old newspapers in shreds, and some rags.I quickly put down the curtain.Generally speaking, I have seen its nest, and it should change a nest, but it didn't.Then I thought maybe I should throw some broth-soaked rice grains on the floor, plus old cotton batting would be a welcome addition since it was so cold.My normally clean room was beginning to get dirty from such thoughts.

The sister-in-law still came to clean without complaining. She didn't say anything, and silently swept out the uneaten and dried rice grains, as well as the velvet and cotton wool.I think she knows all this in her heart.She also helped me wipe the tables and chairs, but she never approached the shoe cabinet, not once, which is really strange.According to my analysis, the cloth curtain hanging in front of the shoe cabinet is already very dirty, and it should be changed long ago, so she will not miss it.Of course it was very quiet, it never made a noise when she was cleaning the room. There was a subtle change in the elder brother's attitude.Sitting on the edge of my bed, my brother sighed one after another, complaining that I lacked initiative in life. "Why don't you find a spiritual sustenance?!" He said this as if asking me or someone else.In the past, he didn't care about my mental state as much as he does now. He always thought that I was doing well.

"More than ten years have passed, and you still have hope in me." I smiled mockingly. "You're my only brother. Actually, I don't have any hopes for you." His back looked a little aggrieved and helpless.After a while I heard the sound of quarrels, which sometimes quarreled between him and his sister-in-law recently.Of course I know that my brother definitely doesn't want me to leave his house, on the contrary, he is afraid that I will leave.For a long time, he came to visit me in my room several times a day, and he didn't say anything, he just seemed relieved to see me in the room.Maybe, he was worried that I would run away, he is the kind of person who likes to worry about nothing.I have a hunch that he knows about the rats, or maybe his sister-in-law told him.From time to time, he got up and walked to the shoe cabinet, and then walked back. He even pretended to lift the curtain, but his hand always stopped halfway.I also found out that he was coming home early.Could it be that he was worried about me and went home early?Old people are always suspicious.

Maybe the mother mouse has given birth to pups, maybe not yet.It is indeed too timid and too humble to make a sound.Even in the middle of the night, I never heard him make a noticeable noise when he came out to feed.I knew when it was dispatched, and this was another strange intuition of mine.When I struggled to open my eyes, driven by an inexplicable, determined will to wake up, I would see that little black shadow on the floor.I can't see the condition of its stomach clearly, I only know that its movements are not fast and a little clumsy.It cruises around, eats what it thinks is delicious, and then returns to the nest.

I think it's lucky that I don't eat at the same table as my elder brother's family, otherwise, it would be a bit shameful to leave food for the mice every day.From the beginning, I ate in my room.When my sister-in-law finished the meal, I went to the kitchen to get my share and went back to the room. After I finished eating, I sent the bowl back to the kitchen.This kind of thing seemed to happen naturally, and my brother never expressed any objection.When I went to the kitchen to pick up my meal yesterday, my sister-in-law pointed at a dish with a spatula and said to me without looking up:

"This is what you like, eat more." It was a plate of cured pork, she knew I would never eat this, why did she say that?I hesitated for a moment, but still put some into my own bowl.After returning to the room, I suddenly realized.So those pieces of bacon all lay on the floor.When she came to clean up the room the next morning, it took her a long time to wipe the floor with detergent. I don't know how long it took, but one night I was surprised to find that the body of the mother mouse had almost doubled in size.Already a soft, bouncy thud can be heard as it runs across the floor.Probably because I feed it a fancy diet every day.I secretly lifted the cloth curtain of the shoe cabinet, but I didn't find any young mice inside.The mother mouse's belly is still so big, and it is still dragged to the ground.So let me see it as a pot-bellied squirrel, I told myself.Many people keep squirrels, and they have never heard of squirrels being able to transmit diseases.Although I have an out-and-out house mouse, it stays in the house and never goes out, and it never bites my furniture. The possibility of it spreading the plague should be very small.I think I can live in peace with it.Recently it has grown a bit too big and eats more, but as long as the sister-in-law is willing to provide it with food, it's no big deal.My sister-in-law always said: "Eat, eat as much as you can, you won't make us poor. How can a family like ours be poor?" She spoke in a tone that sounded like she was selling fake cotton socks made of chemical fibers.However, the food is genuine, not only I love to eat, but the mother mouse also loves to eat.

It was snowing, and I threw some old cotton on the ground, some of which were picked up by the mother mouse, and some were still on the ground.The sister-in-law swept the broken flowers with a broom.She suddenly stopped her hand movements and said to me seriously: "I said, why don't you go find a girlfriend?" I shook my head with a wry smile and didn't answer her. "I see. You know nothing good comes out of that kind of thing. Look at your brother and I, we're doing shit. Our lives are too hard to emulate. You're so smart." I suspect she's mocking me, but it doesn't look like it.

Although the mother mouse has a huge belly, it shows no signs of giving birth to pups at all.Under good nutritional conditions, its fur becomes smooth, brownish red, and its eyes are very bright.I deeply feel that it is a complete egoist.It's still humble though, and doesn't add an extra burden to me. My brother still often comes to my room, he sits down and then stands up, stands up and sits down again, I don't know if there is anything he is worried about.Now there is another thing about him that I am not used to, that is, he likes to look at his watch. Sometimes he has to check the time five or six times when he sits in my room for half an hour, as if he is waiting for a meeting. "Brother, what's on your mind?" "Where is anything going on, I'm so empty." My brother told me that recently he often had hallucinations, and the hallucinations always showed the daughter who died when she was only eight months old.After talking about it, he expressed his concern about my mental state. "I am most afraid that Da Nian (his eldest son) will move back. He has already moved out, and there is no reason to come back. I will not agree. Besides, the new situation at home does not allow him to do so." What is the new situation at home?The family still has three bedrooms plus the miscellaneous room I live in, and I haven't moved out for two years, so there is nothing new.If you have to talk about the new situation, it is that the brother and sister-in-law live in separate rooms.But that was a few years ago, so nothing new.These years, when New Year came home occasionally, he always lived in the same room as Ernian, which was bigger.After much deliberation, the new situation can only be the female mouse I raised.But what's the matter with the mother mouse?It hides quietly in my shoe cabinet, and it does not harm anyone's interests at all.Yes, because of it, I often made the floor stained with oil, and its feces were left in the corners, but my sister-in-law didn't complain to me.Not only did she not complain, she seemed to support me in raising this female mouse. I don't know what my brother's words mean. Since I can't figure it out, I don't bother to think about it.I still actively feed the mother mouse, secretly hoping that it will grow as big as a squirrel.Because that way, in case the family wanted to hunt it, I could declare that it wasn't a house mouse, but a squirrel species that was perfectly fine to keep.However, the female mouse stopped growing when it weighed about two catties.Although its body shape is rare among house mice, at first glance, it is still a house mouse through and through.It is still immobile, timid, only out of the nest in the middle of the night, and never goes out.It is certain that it will not give birth to pups. The day before yesterday, I peeked at its residence again.I found that it had abandoned the original comfortable mouse nest, so I squatted naked on the wooden board in the corner of the cabinet and dozed off.It also appears to have quirks. Since living in the same room with the mother mouse, I have greatly reduced the time I spend reading idle books, and the distance I take for walks has also been greatly shortened. I have become more fond of sitting in the room and thinking about things, and I have paid more attention to the faces of my brothers and sisters-in-law.The threat came from my two-year-old nephew, who was totally unprepared. In the second year, I lived on campus in high school, and I usually only go home when I am on vacation.He never came to my room after returning home, and the most we met at home was nodding.I thought that my mother mouse would not be found by him hiding in the shoe cabinet.But a hijacking happened!How did this happen?I never left a step while he was at home. The food on the ground was untouched, and my sister-in-law quickly swept it up.I searched every corner of the room, but still found nothing.I have locked the door at night, and no one can come in.Just as I was anxiously rummaging through the boxes, my brother came in, with the marks of insomnia on his face. "There was a glass bottle on the kid's desk in 2010," he said. I answered absent-mindedly, and kicked over the coffee table angrily. "You're so angry!" he said in surprise. Later I saw the glass bottle on the table in the second year room.Inside the wide-necked glass jar, my mother mouse was terrified, looking so helpless.The boy in 2002 was throwing pork fat slices in the bottle.The pieces of meat fell on the mother mouse, and the mother mouse seemed to be petrified, motionless. "Uncle, how could there be such a big mouse in our house?" Nian Nian turned around and said to me. "Where did you catch it?" "I didn't catch it at all, it got into the bottle by itself. It's very dirty, isn't it? I took out this bottle last night to put the specimens. When I woke up in the morning, I heard a bang. It turned out that it was sitting in it in a big way. Where did it come from? I was afraid when I saw it." "You don't like it so much, give it to me." "No! Where are you thinking of? I'm very interested in it. I'll keep it and observe it slowly. Besides, it came to me voluntarily. Such a mouse is rare." When Ernian spoke, her pink gums were exposed, and her expression was cruel.I sensed that he was hiding an insidious purpose.Why on earth had the mother mouse come into his room and then jumped into the jar? I had to leave my nephew's room because he was throwing things around and pretending not to welcome me.After all, it is under the fence.But I can't go far, I always come and go by his open door. He was not content with just watching my mother mouse again, and he poured cold water into the glass bottle.I found that the female mouse has very good swimming skills. It swims in a small space, with a pointed face above the water and a round belly that looks weird.At last it got tired, its four legs stopped paddling, its body sank, I thought it was dying.The nephew quickly poured out the water, leaving it at the bottom of the bottle.It was dripping wet, belly up, and struggling to breathe.My nephew glanced at me sharply and said: "It's doing gymnastics." "nonsense!!" "If you don't believe me, we can try it. I'll put it on the table, and you see, does it run? Not at all! Didn't you think so?" "It's terrified of you villain." "Then it's okay for me to leave the room?" As he spoke, he came out of the room and went around to the kitchen. I rushed up and approached it, trying to bring it back to my room.When my hand touched its body, it suddenly turned around and bit the back of my hand hard.I screamed and burst into tears.The wounds were tooth marks and did not bleed, but this made me more worried. Could it be contagious hemorrhagic fever or plague?Looking at it again, it is strange that it got into that bottle again (how did it get in?).It is lying on the bottom of the bottle exhausted, repairing itself.I couldn't help but sigh: how little I know about it. When Niannian came back from the kitchen, he accused me with a black face: "I told you not to move, but you moved anyway, making the table full of water." I bandaged my hands with ointment, thinking to myself, if I contract a bad disease, I will die, otherwise what else can I do?It is impossible for my elder brother's family to afford my medical expenses, and it would be too embarrassing to say it. In the second year, I didn't bring the mother mouse to school, but put it on the table.It squatted at the bottom of the glass bottle, neither eating nor drinking, and seemed to be dozing off all day long.It quickly withered, and its fur was a bit ugly.Think about how well I fed it earlier. My brother sat at the table with me and observed the mother mouse, and he was not at all surprised by its presence. "This kid has some new ideas in the past two years. I don't agree with him making such a risky move." He said. "What risk did he take?" "I have heard your sister-in-law tell me that it is in our house, but I don't want it to be exposed like this. I did this for two years regardless. I am very upset about this matter. Don't underestimate it, it There is a bottomless black hole in your heart, if you face it like this every day, you will end up with a plague at home." Sure enough, they knew it was at home a long time ago, and their previous pretense was just to prevent it from being exposed.There must be some deeper reason here.Wouldn't there be any danger as long as we don't face it, even if we keep it all the time?From this point of view, the actions of the second year were blatantly spreading the plague.What is his intention?I could see that my brother didn't really object to Two Years, but rather appreciated it. Another possibility is that my brother's house has always kept this special house mouse, but I haven't found it before; the one in my room is just a member of the family.Think about it, for so long, my brother and sister-in-law have a tacit understanding of the strange situation in my room.Maybe he was not an insider for only two years, but he immediately showed great interest in the mother mouse, and he learned its temperament without a teacher, which is much deeper than I know about it.Once again I felt that strange horror of life: conspiring with the people you live under the same roof to keep you in the midst of a gigantic lie.In retrospect, no one deliberately lied to me, maybe I can only blame myself for being too simple-minded, and I can't see through anything. The mother mouse half-opened its eyes in the bottle, and seemed to be lingering on its last breath.My sister-in-law dropped two slices of bacon into the bottle yesterday and they are still there, dried out. "Why is it on a hunger strike?" "It has huge energy in its body." My brother said solemnly. When we were away for two years, my brother and I sat at that table every day.Our eyes rest on it.But it, as far as I could see, was not on us at all, because it didn't bother to open its eyes afterward.I know it's definitely not asleep either. At night, I heard my brother yelling in my dream. It was a very impatient cry, as if there was a fire at home.I walked across the living room in my pajamas to his closed door, and heard him growl a couple of times inside, then fell silent.At this time, I turned on the light in the second-year room, and saw that the glass bottle on the table was empty, and the few pieces of dried bacon at the bottom of the bottle were still lying there.I searched the search room again, but there was no trace of it.I went back to my own room to look at the shoe cabinet, but there was nothing there. In the morning, my brother didn't even look at me and said: "There must be an outbreak of plague in this house." "It's not there anymore." I seemed to be defending. The brother snorted through his nostrils and went to work with his briefcase between his hands. Of course it's still there, back in that bottle.What kind of a mysterious guy is this. A week passed quickly, and two years went home again.Niannian entered the house for a while, and Da Nian, who hadn't seen him for a long time, also came back. On New Year's Eve, he wore a fancy leather jacket with pockets all over it, with a bird feather in each pocket. "Uncle, you're still so young." He said teasingly, looking me up and down rudely. "Thanks to you, I'm fine." I shot back coldly. My brother is an introverted person who is difficult for outsiders to figure out, and my sister-in-law doesn't like publicity. How could they give birth to such two sons? The two sons closed the door of their bedroom tightly and never came out again.My heart seemed to jump to the mouth of my throat, and wild thoughts kept coming up in my head.I raised my desperate eyes and saw my brother walking in.he's resting today. "Let's go for a walk, there are too many people in the house." It's been a long time since I took a walk, so as soon as I go out, I feel the eyes of everyone in the compound glued to me.They greeted their elder brother with hesitant voices, as if they were weighing whether to greet me too.I quickly lowered my head, not looking at anyone. "You're still very arrogant. As far as I know, those two guys, Da Nian and Nian Nian, can't defeat you. As I said earlier, why is he coming back? There's no need for him to come back." "Whether he comes back or not, he is your son." "You speak from my heart. Of course I know what those two guys are doing in the room, and I don't want to witness it myself. It's not a matter of endurance, it's just some kind of strategy." My brother and I went to the gravel field, where we used to play as kids, and sat outside on a concrete pier.A long time ago, when my brother was my direct supervisor, he made some behaviors that puzzled me.I remember one night, he made a bet with others to catch crickets over the cemetery.He and I got up in the middle of the night to get to the place, and there were green will-o'-the-wisps flying all around us.There are quite a few crickets, but they are all hidden deep in the grass in the tomb.I was so frightened that my knees went limp, how dare I go and stir in that ghost lair?My brother was actually scared too, but he told me to wait by the side of the road, and he said he was going to catch it alone.But I saw that he didn't go to the cemetery, he disappeared into the night in a flash by the side of the road.I waited and waited, crying in fright.In the end, I couldn't bear it anymore, and I went home alone.The next day I asked him about crickets, his eyes wandered, and he answered irrelevantly that he was not afraid, and those who wanted him to be afraid had miscalculated. "Have we ever had house mice in our house?" I asked my brother. "Of course, it's a secret, and no one wants to be honest about it. What's the purpose of keeping them? Probably to relieve loneliness. There are no strange things in this world." "Yeah, just like me, a diner, eating at your house for no reason." Brother laughed.Then he asked me if I could remember anything from before I was four years old, before my parents died.I shook my head and replied that I couldn't remember much. "At that time, the rats in the house were all fed by them. I saw my father get up at night and sprinkle rice on the ground. They are decent people and would not admit it. It is rare for two people to die of illness at the same time, only I know it's the rats. They even let the rats make a nest in the bed. I don't want to die, and neither does your sister-in-law, you should have seen that." "What are they doing in the room behind closed doors?" "Amputation. Just do that with two tweezers and a scalpel." "So you already knew." "It's not the same time they did this. I don't want Da Nian to go home. If there is only Er Nian alone, he can't do it. He lacks courage." "So you're hiding out?" "Yeah, it's just a strategy." It was overcast.Suddenly, on the road in the distance, Danian and Ernian were calling us, and their voices were like weeping.My brother looked a little nervous, and we stood up together. When they approached, I was greatly surprised.The two brothers were crying with red eyes. The two pockets on Danian's leather jacket were torn and dangled from the clothes, and the pants were covered with dust. It seemed that they had just had a fight with someone. The elder brother lowered his face and asked them both: "What's the matter with you?" "We don't want to live anymore." Niannian sobbed. "Damn!" My brother yelled, I've never seen him so majestic. The two brothers ran away as if they heard the charge, and disappeared after a while. "There are some things, don't jump to conclusions too early, it will become clear after a while." My brother said. I wanted to ask my brother what he was concerned about, but then I thought, let's go to the house and have a look later, maybe everything will be clear.Like, did they amputate my mother mouse or something like that.I noticed that my brother's walking suddenly became old.I couldn't help but sigh how difficult it must be for him to experience such violent emotional ups and downs every day. When we got home, Danian and Ernian were eating in the kitchen.My brother went to bed as soon as he entered the house.When I came to that room, I saw the table full of water and blood, and my head thumped.But it wasn't there, and neither was the jar.I searched the room with my eyes, but couldn't find it.At this time Danian appeared at the door, he knew what I was looking for. "It went back to your room. It hit us hard. I don't see how a human can be worse than a mouse? It's a shame." It really went back into that shoe closet.It lay on top of the cabinet, its eyes wide open, but the light had gone out of them.It's not dead, its belly is bulging.No matter how carefully I looked, I still couldn't find any scars on its body.Its fur is a bit wet, but otherwise it's fine.I tried pulling it out with a stick (I was afraid to touch it with my hands because I was afraid it would bite me), and it still wouldn't move.Maybe those two thugs have done some internal damage to his body, maybe the blood I just saw was from his lungs, it's horrible.If it had died, my emotions might not have been so frenzied.That's the problem, it's not dead at all, it doesn't see anything with its wide open dull eyes, but it sees everything.What did it see? I was pacing back and forth in the room, and suddenly, I heard countless small voices.Under the floor, behind cupboards, on the ceiling, the sound of rats chewing on wood was everywhere.I think they're about to burst out of their hiding places.Concerned that I was hallucinating, I washed my hair with cold water, but the situation remained the same.They have been in this room for a long time, biting day and night, but I used to be like a deaf person. The sister-in-law came in to clean up. She swept with a broom stroke by stroke, looking very calm. "Sister-in-law, did you feed all these mice?" My sister-in-law turned around and touched my forehead with her rough hands. "You have a fever, poor thing. I'm not from your family, but I also know the rule: adapt to everything here, don't fight. You see, I learned a lot from your brother." Strangely, when she was in the room, the mice did not bite, but as soon as she went out, the mice gnawed happily again, as if they were demonstrating.I thought about that question again: What kind of torture did the mother mouse suffer? I sat in my little room, the sun was shining on the floor, and it was actually sun outside.At first I heard my brother and sister-in-law arguing in the kitchen, then there was a commotion inside the house.Some dishes were thrown on the ground, and Ernian was yelling "dead man!" I stared blankly at the ray of sunlight, unwilling to move my body.Gradually, I felt that I also had the eyes of a mother mouse -- I didn't see anything, but I saw everything.The noise of mice gnawing on wood gradually died down. Later I learned that Da Nian committed suicide at home.He couldn't do it, so he asked Niannian to help him, and Niannian started screaming, but of course it didn't work. The worried brother just kept saying: "He shouldn't be back, it's messy enough if he doesn't come back, everyone has their own problems." The female rat's wound healed quickly, and she could eat on the floor again.Maybe, it didn't hurt at all, at least I didn't see it.Every night I hear its springy step on the floor, still humble and cautious.And my sister-in-law, when cleaning my room, would occasionally stop what she was doing and say what was on her mind.She always repeats this saying: "Don't fight and you'll be fine." My body gradually became empty. What kind of thing is this?When I gazed at these three people in my family, I saw the same features in them too.I think the words "extravagant" are the most appropriate words to describe us. My brother is not as worried about my mental state as before.Once a week, he generously opened the cloth curtain of the shoe cabinet, and looked at the blind female mouse to his heart's content.In the end, he sighed, calling it "the inheritance of his parents." "I go to work every day, but my mind is not on the class at all. I am in such a hurry to go back in the afternoon, I will take off my shoes," he said. "But look at it, it doesn't run around. It has a big dream in its heart." "That's right." The elder brother sighed, and looked at the cracked soles under his feet with a feeling of inferiority. April 6, 2003 in Beijing