Chapter 3 2 From poverty to poverty

Click, click, click, click... Every time the train shakes, my mother and I are farther away. I can't stop crying. Aunt Xi Sako might feel guilty for cheating me, she didn't comfort me, she just sat beside me silently. It breaks my heart to be separated from my mother.I don't think there will be anything more sad than this in my life. However, this thing in life seems to be endless once it changes.Change is coming soon. "This is where?" I asked involuntarily when I got off the train at Saga Train Station. Although it was still dusk, the town was completely dark.Although Hiroshima has become a slum, it is a city after all, and the shops are open until late, so the night roads do not feel so dark.Because of this, when I was little, I wanted to go to my mother's shop alone.But there are no red lanterns of shops here, and no pedestrians passing by.There are only five or six adjacent restaurants in front of the station.

I don't know what good this place is for my education. I just think that from tomorrow onwards, I will live in such a deserted place. The previous worries and fears are really uncomfortable. My aunt walked quickly along the dark road beside the river embankment to a darker place, not knowing where she was going.I walked for about forty minutes, and the young me felt that the time seemed endless. It is already autumn, and the weeds are overgrown on the river beach, making people feel even more lonely.My mood is like that child in a fairy tale who doesn't know where to be sold. Do people arouse animal instincts when they are in extreme conditions?

To this day, I can still vividly remember the feeling—the house, like a close-up shot, suddenly jumped into my restless eyes that could not calmly look around. At the same time, there was a panic in my heart. "Isn't it? Don't be that house!" It was a dilapidated thatched hut that was located between the river and the grass, as if it had emerged from an ancient legend, and it was extremely lonely. Moreover, half of the thatch on the roof has peeled off, and iron sheets are nailed. "Zhao Guang, this is the place." Alas, my aunt stopped in front of that hut. My mind went blank.Just imagining the appearance of my grandmother living in this shabby hut makes me feel scared.Because, this is simply the house where Grandma Shan or other monsters live.

"Mom, here we come." My aunt opened the door with all her might.Unexpectedly, a tall, fair-skinned, elegant old lady came out of it.To be honest, I found it a bit of a letdown. My aunt stood between me and the old lady and said to me: "Zhaoguang, this is grandma." Then with a smile all over his face, he added a sentence to the bewildered me: "I saw it when I was a child, remember?" My aunt was trying to make me fit, but I was so young, how could I remember? "Auntie is going back...Mom, I'll come see you in two days." Maybe my aunt was still a little guilty, she left in a hurry without entering the house.

My grandmother and I met for the first time, so suddenly fell into a state of being alone. Although I was young at the time, I also looked forward to the kind greetings, such as: "It's great to be here, are you hungry?" or: "Although it will be lonely, but work hard with Grandma!" However, the first sentence of grandma was: "Come with me!" She strode out the back door and walked to a nearby cabin.Inside the hut with only two tatami mats, there is a large stove.Before I could figure out what was going on, my grandmother said to me: "Starting tomorrow, you will be cooking, watch carefully!"

After speaking, I started to light the stove. Although I heard what my grandmother said, I didn't understand what it meant at all.I stared blankly at my grandmother building the fire as she threw straw and wood chips through the oven door to adjust the fire. After a while, grandma said: "Come on! Try it." As she spoke, she handed me the bamboo tube she had just used to blow fire.I took the bamboo tube and blew it inexplicably "Hoo-hoo--". My mind is full of doubts. "Why do you have to brag about this? I have to cook by myself, what's going on?" However, grandma was still chattering on and on:

"That's too much effort." "The time is too long, and the fire goes out!" I followed my grandma's instructions, blowing "huh-huh-" and focused on lighting the fire.When I was tired, the air flow from my blowing was weak, and the flame seemed to be extinguished.I hastened and blew desperately, "Hoo-hoo--".But I blew so hard that the sparks flew and the smoke billowed and choked me half to death. Facing the blazing flames, I knew in my heart when I was young: I must live here.This is an unchangeable fact. Choking on the smoke, coupled with grief, and tears pouring out—this is the reality that eight-year-old me suddenly had to face.

When I woke up the next morning, grandma had already gone out.She said she had to get up at four o'clock every morning to go to work.I don't have time to help me make breakfast, so when I come, I am eager to teach me how to cook.Moreover, she also entrusted me with a major task yesterday - to offer the freshly cooked white rice in front of the Buddha statue. Grandma solemnly put her hands together in front of the Buddha statue last night and said: "Starting tomorrow, Zhao Guang will serve meals. Namo Amitabha, Namo Amitabha..." I lit the fire and cooked rice as my grandma taught me last night, but I didn’t know what went wrong. The cooked rice was hard, as if it was not cooked, but the rice underneath was mushy.

I had no choice but to offer the hard rice to the shrine, and as my grandmother taught me, put my palms together and recited: "Namo Amitabha, Namo Amitabha..." Then, eat breakfast alone. I miss my mother's delicious white rice, which feels like a long time ago even though I had it only yesterday morning. With nothing to do after breakfast, I went outside.The dark and lonely scenery yesterday came, but it looked very beautiful in the morning.Across the four or five meter wide road in front of the door, there is a river about eight meters wide with clear water.Miscanthus swaying in the autumn wind on the embankment.The sky was also bluer and higher than that of Hiroshima. I was fascinated to look at the vast sky, and a big bird flew by leisurely.I couldn't help shouting:

"Mom, look! Look!" Mother is not here, I should know... I was restless, picked up the stone at my feet, and threw it into the river with all my strength. Over and over again, keep throwing. I stood on the embankment, looking blankly at the road with many pedestrians in front of the door. Not long after, I saw my grandmother coming back from a distance. Grandma's job is to clean the staff rooms and toilets of Saga University, the junior high school attached to Saga University, and the elementary school. She can go home around 11:00 a.m. sooner. Grandma on the way home looked a little strange.Every time she took a step, she made a sound of "gala gala" and "gala gala".

I took a closer look, and there seemed to be a rope tied around her waist, dragging something on the ground along the way. "I'm back." Grandma still made the sound of "crack gala", greeted me as if nothing had happened, and walked into the door.I followed behind to enter the door, and grandma was untying the rope around her waist. "Grandma, what's that?" "magnet." Grandma looked at the rope and said.A magnet was tied to one end of the rope, and nails and scrap iron were glued to it. "Just walking and doing nothing, what a pity, walking with a magnet attached, you see, you can earn a little extra money." "Earn?" "Sell these scrap irons, and you can sell them for a lot of money! If you don't pick up things that fall on the road, you will be punished by God." As grandma said, she took off the nails and iron filings from the magnet and threw them into the bucket.A lot of loot has already been collected in the barrel. When grandma goes out, she seems to have a rope tied around her waist. I just stared blankly. Grandma is really capable, although she can't tell from the outside.But that's not the thing that surprised me the most. After grandma threw all the nail filings into the bucket, she strode to the river again. I followed behind, wondering why grandma looked at the river and smiled. "Zhaoguang, help me." After she called me back, she turned and scooped up chips and twigs from the river.A wooden pole was erected on the river to catch some chips and branches floating down the upstream.When I went to the river to look around, I was still wondering why the wooden stick was lying in the river. How could I have imagined that it was a magic weapon used by grandma to intercept drifting objects! Grandma dried the branches and wood chips from the sticks and used them as firewood. "In this way, the river water can be kept clean and we have free firewood. It really kills two birds with one stone." Grandma said with a bold smile. It now appears that Grandma was committed to resource recycling as early as forty-five years ago. Sticks don't stop just twigs and small pieces of wood. There was a market upstream, and vegetables that could not be sold, such as radishes with forked tails and misshapen cucumbers, were thrown into the river and stopped with wooden sticks. Grandma looked at the strange-shaped vegetables and said: "Cut the radishes that are split into small pieces and cook them to taste the same, and the curvy cucumbers that are shredded and pickled with salt also taste the same." That's right. There are also some fruits with damaged skins that are also discarded because of their poor appearance.But for grandma, those "just look a little bit worse, cut and eat, and taste the same". That's right. In this way, most of the food in my grandmother's family depends on the fruits and vegetables floating in the river.Moreover, "the tomatoes are refrigerated and drifted down in the river in summer", which is even more delicious.Even sometimes, there will be intact vegetables floating down. At that time, the wholesale vegetables in the market were still covered with mud, and part-time aunts had to wash them by the river. Usually, a dozen people were washing the vegetables while chatting, and someone would accidentally slip their hands, and the vegetables would be washed away by the water. Also, the Chinese cabbage is a bit heavy. Even if the aunt did not slip into the water after washing, there would always be a few outer leaves falling off and falling into the river. Every day, there are always all kinds of things going down the river, blocked by wooden sticks, so grandma called that river our family's "supermarket".She looked at the river in front of the door, and said with a smile: "And it's delivered to your door, and there is no shipping fee." Occasionally, the wooden stick didn't stop anything, so she said regretfully, "Is the supermarket closed today?" Grandma said there was only one downside to this supermarket. "Even if I want to eat cucumbers today, I may not be able to eat them, because I completely depend on the supply of the market." What a cheerful grandma. Others look at the recipes and think about what dishes to make, while grandma looks at the river and thinks: "What do you have today?" Then decides on the menu. After all, grandma knew everything about the river. Once a box of apples floated by.It was stuffed with rice bran, and rotten apples were placed on top of the rice bran. I took an ax and was going to dump the rice bran, leaving only the box as firewood, but my grandma said, "Touch the inside of the rice bran first." "what?" I thought to myself: "Why?" But I still reached out to touch it obediently-there was an intact apple inside! I almost think my grandmother is like a prophet. Another time, a very new wooden clogs floated in. "There's only one, there's no way, let's use it as firewood." When I picked up the axe, my grandmother said again: "Wait for another two or three days, and the other one will float down." I think no matter how lucky I am, there won't be such a wishful thing.But two or three days later, the other clog really floated down, which surprised me. "After that person dropped one of his clogs into the river, he was reluctant to part with it for a while, but after two or three days he would give up and throw away the other one too. In this way, you just made a pair." Grandma's wisdom amazed me.After seeing my grandmother's lifestyle with my own eyes, I have a deeper understanding. But the sense of foreboding I felt when I first saw the house was still spot on.Although I was poor in Hiroshima, here I am reduced to a lower level of abject poverty. However, it is also the beginning of a period of happy years that ordinary people cannot experience!