Chapter 3 Chapter 1 Heizi's Scream

Heizi's fear of the night grew day by day. The coming of night was a grave calamity for him.As long as he lies on the bed and closes his eyes, he will hear voices from the next room.It was the sound of stepfather punter and mother doing that sort of thing.The cruel voice mercilessly raped six-year-old Heizi's ears. His tears flowed down silently. It was a miserable late night at the turn of spring and summer. Under the extreme torture, Heizi missed his dead father and slowly fell asleep. He saw his father sticking out his head in the rolling river, and he heard his father's deep call, which sounded like the sobbing river.Father's body gradually surfaced.Father was riding the waves in high spirits and drifting towards Heizi with a smile on his face.Heizi anxiously called to his father, he opened his hands, and eagerly wanted to rush towards his loving father, but his body couldn't move no matter how hard he tried...Suddenly, the sky was dark and the waves were raging, and his father was hit by a huge wave. Descended, never to surface again.Heizi's miserable scream pierced through the layers of evil waves and the black sky.It was the heart-piercing scream of a child.

At this moment, Heizi woke up from his nightmare with a roar like thunder, "Little brat, what the hell are you calling! If you call me again, I will break your neck and throw you into the big river to feed the fish!" The rough roar of the boatman made Heizi sit up abruptly. In the darkness, he couldn't see the boatman's face clearly, but he felt a biting cold penetrated his heart.He was terrified, and in his utter helplessness he feared that the puntman would actually spring upon him and break his neck. He shrank to the corner of the bed trembling. The sound of the boatman's heavy footsteps departed.

Tears flowed from Heizi's eyes, flowing through the boundless night.At this time, a hand reached out in the darkness and pulled him over.He was held tightly in the arms of his suffering mother.His mother's warm and soft breast reminded him of the happy time before the flood that engulfed his father.He didn't dare to cry, his mother felt his trembling, and Heizi also felt his mother's trembling.He even heard the sound of his mother's tears falling on him, which sounded like thunder. After the flood, my mother brought Heizi to beg all the way to Quliu Village, where she married a 40-year-old punter who was alone.For the extremely ugly and powerful boatman, this is tantamount to picking up a treasure for nothing.But for Heizi, he fell into a kind of boundless suffering and fear.

Mother is out. Heizi still has to persevere until dawn alone in the dark. He dared not sleep.He was afraid that he would dream of his dead father as soon as he fell asleep, and he was afraid that his stepfather would really break his neck and throw him into the river to feed the fish when he got angry. Heizi lived a difficult life in Quliu Village. Wherever he went, discriminating stares and humiliating words made him unable to lift his head.When he walked alone in Quliu Village with his head bowed, he looked like a little old man with his big head drooping, and his thin and short body seemed unable to bear the weight of that big head.Sometimes there will be a group of children following him, throwing dirt or small tiles at him, and hurling insults at him with extremely vicious words. At that time, he feels like a mouse exposed to the broad daylight and beaten , There is a kind of loneliness that cannot be hidden.

When he hurriedly passed by the gate of the lonely old lady Chimao's house in Quliu Village, he smelled the strong smell of burning incense that could only be smelled in temples. He took a peek and saw the wrinkled, gray-haired, haggard red-haired grandmother sitting on the futon, her cloudy old eyes were empty.He was startled and ran away quickly.He didn't know how many years Chimao Granny had lived, she was like an oil lamp that was about to run out of fuel, as long as there was a slight breeze, the weak flame could be extinguished, but she didn't want the weak flame to be extinguished in her heart.

Chimao Granny lived so tenaciously, and the weak light was not extinguished peacefully until Heizi left Quliu Village at the age of eighteen. In Quliu Village, the first person who got close to Heizi was Chimao Granny. It was afternoon. Heizi wandered around Quliu Village bored. The sun is dazzling. Under a tallow tree, he looked towards a mountain far away, and a black eagle flew towards that distance.Heizi thought to himself, if he could have a pair of wings, he would take off from Quliu Village and fly far away. Suddenly, there was a dog barking. He saw a half-grown dog flirting with an old bitch.He thought it was funny, and sat under the tallow tree, watching the half-grown male dog flirting with the old bitch.A male dog will always be a male dog, and although his body is only half the size of the old bitch, he has no loss of maleness, and he mounts the old bitch.A bitch is always a bitch, and she didn't shy away from the male dog because she could be the mother or grandmother of the little male dog. She barked and tried her best to cooperate with the male dog, and stuck out her tongue in excitement.The male dog entered the old bitch, and he rode on the old bitch, barking and twitching happily.

Looking at the male dog's butt shaking violently, Heizi suddenly felt sick. He thought of the sound coming from the next room in the dark.He turned away. A group of older kids showed up. They yelled loudly: "The dog sees." One of the boys grabbed a handful of sand and threw it towards the male dog's crotch. Immediately afterwards, the other boys rushed to grab sand and threw it towards the male dog's crotch. Startled, the old bitch broke free from the male dog. The old bitch and the male dog were in a hurry to escape, but the male dog's genitals could not be pulled out because they were covered with sand.Their buttocks are connected together, screaming that they can't leave each other no matter what.The anxious ugliness of the dogs made the boys laugh.

The dogs finally broke free and ran away screaming. The boys had had enough laughing, they found the sunspot. They surrounded Heizi. "Hey, little wild species, why don't you go and help the boatman go boating?" the boys said, and then laughed. Heizi was extremely humiliated. At this moment, the punter was punting on the ferry of the big river outside the village. He didn't know what happened in the village at all, he didn't know Heizi's humiliation and sadness at all. Heizi wants to leave. "Don't let him go," a kid yelled. This kid is called the fourth child, and he has three vicious elder brothers above him. He runs amok in the village, and ordinary people will not mess with him.

The fourth child had spoken, and Heizi seemed unable to leave. He stood there, helpless and confused, he didn't dare to raise his head, the sunlight was extremely dazzling, and the eyes of the boys were also extremely dazzling. The fourth child giggled twice. Heizi felt that laughter was full of evil. "Take off his pants!" said the fourth child, "See if his thing looks like the dog's dick just now." Two boys rushed forward and pushed Heizi to the ground, and another boy went up and took off Heizi's pants.Heizi's naked lower body was instantly exposed to the sun, shining white.Heizi cried.

The fourth child grabbed a handful of sand, stepped forward, and was about to sprinkle the sand on Heizi's lower body, when he heard a cry: "Fourth child, stop!" As soon as the fourth child saw the man, he ran away with the boys. Heizi saw the haggard red-haired granny walking towards him, he couldn't understand why the haggard red-haired granny's voice was so clear and clear, not as blurry as her eyes; A wild child who is not afraid of the ground will be afraid of the old red-haired mother-in-law. He stood up silently and put on his pants. "My child, I have really wronged you." Chimao Granny's voice was full of kindness.He looked at the red-haired granny, and tears welled up again.The red-haired granny stretched out her dry but still hot hand and wiped away the tears from his eyes.He felt that the rough hands of the red-haired granny scratched his eyelids, but he didn't feel the pain.

Soon, the dumb uncle in Quliu Village also walked into Heizi's life.Heizi got close to the dumb uncle at Grandma Chimao's house.Heizi often went to Chimao Grandma.He would sit on the threshold of Chimao Granny and watch Chimao Granny sitting on the futon and chanting sutras.It is said that Grandma Chimao has been a vegetarian for more than 30 years, and she does not know why she eats vegetarian food and recites scriptures.Her home is a small Buddhist hall, which is different from the small Buddhist hall in the temple. Heizi was sitting on the threshold, and was seen by the boys of the fourth brother, who called Heizi watchdog.Whenever Heizi thinks of the ugliness of dogs mating, he feels very ashamed, he is not a dog!He no longer sat on the threshold.Even so, he often went to Chimao Grandma's house.The dumb uncle is also a person who often goes to Chimao Granny's house, so Heizi naturally became close to the dumb uncle.The dumb uncle has helped the red-haired mother-in-law take care of her life for a long time. He helped her carry water, help her grind rice, and help her do some heavy work that she couldn't do, including tidying up the house.After Heizi got acquainted with the dumb uncle, he followed behind the dumb uncle.The dumb uncle went to fetch water, and he followed behind, and the dumb uncle went to chop firewood, and he followed behind... The fourth child said that Heizi has become the dumb uncle's follower again.Heizi didn't change his actions because of what the fourth brother said, because the deterrent power of the dumb uncle was much stronger than that of the red-haired granny.As long as he is with the dumb uncle, no one dares to bully him, and whoever dares to say a word to him, the tall and mighty dumb uncle will stare his eyes and scream at that person. In Quliu Village, some weird people can't be offended, such as the dumb uncle, the red-haired mother-in-law, and the pig-killer Hong Qi who came out later, including Heizi's stepfather, the punter. Heizi's closeness to the dumb uncle has indeed changed some of his lonely situation in Quliu Village, but he can't get rid of the nightmare. The role of the mother is very humble, not even worth mentioning.She is a docile woman.Everything the boatman did to her, the mother just endured in silence.It seemed that as long as she and Heizi could survive these impoverished and difficult years, that would be enough.How important it is to her and Heizi to be alive.The mother is like a cow, constantly working for the boatman and herself. She rarely cares about Heizi, and Heizi has very limited opportunities to be with her except when eating with her.The mother is a dark shadow in Heizi's heart. Heizi witnessed the whole process of the boatman bullying his mother. That night, my mother made gruel and stir-fried vegetables, and sat at the dining table with Heizi, waiting for the boatman to park the boat and then go home for dinner. Mother looked at Heizi under the small swinging oil lamp. Heizi was very hungry.His eyes were fixed on the thin porridge without a few grains of rice.He couldn't take care of the soft touch of his mother's eyes, which was so far away from him. The mother's gaze was extremely complicated. "Hei'er, wait a little longer and eat when he comes back, okay?" Heizi didn't hear his mother's voice, maybe his mother's voice was too weak, like a mosquito, maybe Heizi's mind was all on the imagination of eating, he imagined how the thin porridge entered his mouth, how it slipped. Go to the stomach and become the source of happiness.Heizi kept swallowing, and there were a hundred or a thousand frogs cooing in his stomach. Mother's face contorted. She was very helpless. She had no choice but to say: "Heizi, if you are really hungry and can't hold it anymore, then you should eat first and eat less food, alas!" Heizi really heard what his mother said, and he couldn't wait to pick up the porcelain bowl. As soon as Heizi swallowed a big mouthful of porridge, and felt the joy of eating, the boatman came back. The boatman was obviously very angry when he saw that Heizi ate first. His crowded face seemed to have never been stretched, and now it was more tightly squeezed, like a crooked melon that hasn't grown well. There was a malevolent gleam in those little eyes. The boatman stomped his strong feet on the ground, and with a sound of Dong, both Mother and Heizi felt the shock.The boatman coughed loudly, seemed to suppress his anger and sat down at the table, picked up the porcelain bowl, and began to eat on his own.He was really hungry too, as punting was a very strenuous physical activity, he didn't have time to take a bite of vegetables, so he drank a bowl of porridge in a few sips in a daze.The sound of him drinking porridge is extremely loud, which is easily reminiscent of a cow drinking water. Heizi dared not eat it. He had to wait until the boatman had finished eating before he dared to eat boldly. He was afraid that the way he ate the porridge would accidentally offend the boatman, and that would be a big trouble. will also be ruthlessly deprived.Therefore, Heizi could only listen to the strange sound of the boatman drinking porridge, and endured the great pain caused by hunger.The boatman's exaggerated porridge drinking paused for a moment. He stretched out his chopsticks, picked up a chopsticks of green vegetables, and put them into his big mouth. After chewing for a while, he stopped moving. Anger builds up for a while. He smashed the chopsticks and the hand holding them on the dining table with all his might.Very loud.The dishes bounced on the table. The boatman yelled: "Bird! You can't even stir-fry a la carte well. Putting so much salt makes me salty to death!" The mother said cowardly: "Is it salty? I only put a small spoonful of salt!" Just such a sentence made the boatman furious. He stood up and grabbed his mother's hair.His mother was grabbed by her hair and pulled aside. The boatman slapped his mother's face like crazy, and his mother's face quickly swelled up, and blood oozes from the corner of her mouth. The mother wailed and begged for mercy. The boatman seemed to want to beat his mother to death and eat bacon.Heizi was helpless, he was terrified, and finally, he burst into tears. The sound of their house alarmed the neighbors. People were saying, "The puntman is going to kill, the puntman is going to kill that foreign woman." The dumb uncle squeezed in from the crowd of spectators at the door of the punter's house, and hugged the punter.The dumb uncle was taller and mightier than the punter, and his strength also appeared to be much stronger than the punter, but it took him a lot of effort to hug the punter away and push him aside. The boatman jumped to the door angrily, and yelled at the surrounding villagers who seemed to be watching a good show: "Get out! Get out!" The crowd parted away, chattering and laughing, but anyway the punter's wife-beating drama brought them a certain kind of viewing pleasure, and a wonderful but trivial after-dinner conversation. Heizi walked over, hugged his mother who was paralyzed on the ground and was crying, and said softly: "Mom, let's go, begging is better than here!" The mother's face was pressed against his, and she said intermittently: "Son, where can you go?" Woolen cloth?" Yes, where can I go? It was dark again. The calls of frogs and various insects came from outside the window, and those calls were chaotic.Heizi stared at the dark roof with wide terrified eyes.The sounds of the boatman and his mother doing that had long since died down, but he still couldn't sleep.Whenever he fell asleep, he would dream of his father.When he dreamed that his father was swallowed by the flood, he would let out a horrible scream.As long as he screamed, the boatman would be hard on him. He was still asleep. He still had that nightmare. He still let out a horrible scream. The screams echoed in the lonely night. The punter's roar yanked him back from his nightmare.He was so frightened that he almost peed all over his pants.After the heavy footsteps of the boatman had left, the mother did not come in.He was very sad.Ever since his mother took him to live in the house of the boatman, his mother seemed to be getting farther and farther away from him, like a kite with a broken string, and he couldn't grasp the warmth and caress of his mother before. He sat for a long time in the dark. He finally got out of bed. He finally went out quietly, and by the faint light of the night, he walked towards a road leading to the outside of the mountain. He walked out of the village, climbed over the embankment, and came to the edge of the big river.The big river whimpered, and the white light of the water cut his eyes like knives.He cannot cross the river.He walked to the side of the ferry, which was the ferry that accompanied the punter day and night.The boatman fixed the ferry boat to the riverside with a boat pole, and the boatman also tightly tied the thick cable to an old tallow tree by the riverside.The thin Heizi began to untie the cable, but he could not untie it, the puntman had tied it so strong that not even the flood could wash the boat away.Heizi was exhausted. He sat under the ancient Chinese tallow tree and began to cry again. Indistinctly, Heizi heard his mother's call. "Hei'er—" "Hei'er—" "Hei'er—" The shouts came closer. Heizi stood up and ran wildly along the river bank. "Hei'er, don't run!" Mother shouted loudly, she found Heizi, and she quickly chased after Heizi. Heizi couldn't run anymore. He stood among the luxuriant grass by the river bank, the wind was blowing his coarse clothes, he felt the coolness from the water vapor, he stood there, not daring to look back at his mother. His mother was standing right behind him. Mother's hair is messy, but Heizi can't see it; similarly, they can't see each other's mother's tears and Heizi's tears. The mother's voice trembled: "Heizi, don't leave Mom, don't wow, Hei'er—" Heizi's body also trembled. The mother's voice came with the wind: "Hei'er, don't go, Hei'er, mom is kneeling down for you." Heizi heard a plop. The voice was very dull, and it made Heizi's heart resound with a mournful singing. Heizi turned around abruptly, and walked quickly to his mother.He plopped down on his knees towards his mother.Mother and son embrace each other tightly.Heizi gritted his teeth, in a daze to keep his crying from getting louder. A dark figure stood in the haze not far away. That's the boatman. Heizi and his mother stood up hugging each other. Mother gently pushed Heizi away. Mother apparently found a dark shadow not far away. She suddenly grabbed a handful of green grass from the grass like crazy, threw it towards the black shadow, and shouted heartbreakingly: "You ugly ghost, if you bully Hei'er again, I will die for you!" Look!" The black shadow drifted away slowly. The black shadow is silent, lonely, or painful.Everyone has their own pain. Heizi finally cried out loud. Heizi's cries mixed with Dahe's whimpers, it was extremely profound.The cries from the depths of the soul and the natural whimpers swelled with an unspeakable sadness and pain in this windy night. Heizi hopes that he can grow wings, leave Quliu Village and fly to an unknown distance.The human body is doomed to never grow wings to fly, but the wings on the soul that yearn for freedom and beauty will take people farther away, where the sound of human footsteps can never reach.Quliu Village left Heizi with many memories. Before he left Quliu Village at the age of eighteen, the breath of death enveloped Heizi in depression.The process of his growth is a history of the soul.