Chapter 11 Chapter 9 Poisonous Weeds

The period when the government relief food did not arrive was the hungriest time in Quliu Village.In the spring of this year, there was a famine, and the rice in the fields had not yet headed, and many families ran out of food.The old people have verses, saying that in the 19th year of the Republic of China, Quliu Village also suffered from famine, and many people starved to death.When the famine started this spring, people in Quliu Village also began to die. Those old people who were weak and sick were the first choice of death.Quliu Village mourned everywhere, shrouded in the lingering shadow of death.Anyone can fall asleep and never wake up, and everyone can die suddenly while working in the fields.

The mother told Heizi, "Hei'er, you must drink plenty of water, drink as much water as you can." Mother knows that water is the foundation of life, water can keep you alive sometimes, as long as you keep drinking water, there will be a dawn of life.Heizi often drank water in large gulps this spring, and his stomach was swollen from drinking, but there was nothing in his stomach.When he was so hungry that he didn't even want to drink water, Heizi would lie on the bamboo chair in the hall and stare blankly at the spider webs on the beams on the roof.There were a few flies flying around in front of his eyes, and he clearly saw the arcs of the flies flying out, the arcs were white, with a rattling sound.

Heizi thought, how can flies not be hungry, how can they maintain a vigorous spirit?His heart was beating, and he wanted to continue searching for the flying path of the fly, but his eyes suddenly went black, and the fly turned into a shining flying object, shining brightly in front of his eyes. At this moment, he heard heavy footsteps, he wanted to get up to meet the dumb uncle, he knew that the dumb uncle had brought wild vegetables to their house, but his body was extremely heavy, like a huge lump of iron, slowly into darkness. The dumb uncle helped him up. The dumb uncle's eyes were moist. He felt sorry for Heizi. Heizi was getting thinner and skinny. He quickly poured the wild vegetables in the clay pot into a bowl and gave it to Heizi to eat.The wild vegetables are bitter, but it is better to have something to eat than starve to death. Heizi's wolfing down made the dumb uncle burst into tears.Heizi knew it was a wild vegetable called copper money grass.

Uncle Dumb traveled to the deep mountains to pick wild vegetables, because all the wild vegetables in the fields of Quliu Village had been harvested, and even the wild vegetables on the nearby mountains had disappeared. Decent and impeccable.All edible plants were eaten.People are like locusts when they are hungry. After Heizi finished eating the bitter wild vegetables, he recovered in one breath, his eyes glowed with brilliance.The dumb uncle smiled tearfully.He patted Heizi's head and told him to lie down and not move.In this way, you won't consume your energy if you don't move, and you can support for a while.

The dumb uncle is gone. He went out with that heavy clay pot, and he was going to Chimao Grandma's place to bring her wild vegetables to eat.He also went to the homes of more hungry people who were on the verge of extinction, and gave them wild vegetables for emergency relief. In that hungry spring, the dumb uncle seemed to be a god to save the suffering. Those who were so hungry were looking forward to the dumb uncle appearing in front of them miraculously. The dumb uncle got up at dawn. In fact, he was also suffering from hunger. Relying on his extraordinary physical strength and strong will, he took two sacks and a pole and walked towards the distant mountains.

When the dumb uncle left, Heizi also woke up, and he wanted to get up and go with the dumb uncle.The dumb uncle held him down with a dark face.The dumb uncle pretended to be angry, so Heizi didn't get up. After the dumb uncle left, Heizi couldn't fall asleep. He got up and went home dazed. The mother and the punter were discussing something. Heizi heard it, and his mother was about to go out to beg. Once they saw Heizi walking in listlessly, they stopped talking.They all looked at Heizi with complicated eyes.Heizi walked into the kitchen, took a ladle of water, and drank it.After Heizi finished drinking the water, he lay down on the bamboo chair and closed his eyes.

He heard the sound of flies cutting through the air again, like the sound of tearing rags, very sharp. His mother walked up to him and said to him, "Heizi, I want to go to the town for a few days, you have to be obedient at home, hey! Don't run around, drink plenty of water, hey!" Heizi didn't speak. Mother saw two lines of tears streaming down his cheeks. Mother is gone. Heizi knew he couldn't stop his mother. Heizi heard a desolate cry after his mother left.He knew that someone else was starving to death.He got up and went out the door. Desolate cries came from Li Wenhuai's house.

Hunger made people in Quliu Village less fond of spectators than before, and there were no spectators in front of Li Wenhuai's house.Heizi walked over. It was the little madman who died. Little Crazy is Li Wenhuai's youngest son, two years younger than Heizi.The little lunatic behaves strangely, and often thinks over and over again on a simple question. For example, when he sees a dead leaf falling from a tree, he will pick it up and keep talking to himself: "Why does the leaf fall?" Withered, why did it fall from the tree?" For another example, sometimes he stood by the river, looked at the fish swimming in the shallow water, and would keep talking to himself: "Why do fish only live in water? Why do people live in water?" Can’t you live in water like a fish?” For another example, he would pick up an egg and think carefully: “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” This question once made him fascinated.In order to prove this problem, he stole an egg from his home, kept the egg on his body all day long, and put the egg in his crotch whenever he had time. He wanted to use his body heat to hatch chicks.His behavior similar to that of a great scientist when he was a child was not as good as that great scientist. On the contrary, he became a little lunatic in Quliu Village. Even his father thought that the child's nerves were a little abnormal. While eating, a sentence popped up: "Why do people eat?" He was confused by such questions.No one can understand this child.

This little lunatic finally starved to death. Before he died, he must have understood "why do people eat", but he will never understand many problems in the world. Heizi left Li Wenhuai's house. He suddenly thought, he must not starve to death. The question startled him.What is death?He tried his best to keep his eyes wide open, looking at the scenery of Quliu Village.He has no way to answer this question. He returned home, lay down on the bamboo chair and fell asleep. He heard a voice. It was a wonderful sound.The wonderful voice coming from the sky made Heizi tremble, and he felt like being electrocuted, and then he heard someone say, "Heizi is dead."

His body floated into the air. He saw many people busy in the yard of the boatman's house in Quliu Village.He saw his mother, the boatman, the dumb uncle, Wang Chunhong, Li Yuanxin...they were all crying.The dumb uncle and the boatman are nailing a thin wooden coffin.After nailing it, Heizi saw the dumb uncle and the boatman put his body into the thin coffin.His mother screamed heart-piercingly, and Heizi said in the cloud: "Mom, don't cry, I'm fine, I'm not hungry at all now, my whole body feels light and comfortable." They obviously couldn't hear what he said in the cloud. Heizi saw the dumb uncle put a wooden plank on top of the coffin, and then, the dumb uncle and the boatman nailed the coffin boards together. Dangdang... Heizi suddenly said loudly, "No—"

He woke up, and it turned out that he had a dream, dreaming that he was dead.The feeling of ascension was gone, and there was only a grumbling protest in his stomach. Drinking water, he sat up jolted up. He wants to drink water, he wants to feed himself with water. The dumb uncle came back very late. He went home with two sacks of wild vegetables.Seeing his bruised nose and swollen face, Heizi knew that he must have fought with someone else.Sure enough, the dumb uncle ran to a distant mountain to pick wild vegetables, and got into a fight with others when they were competing for wild vegetables. Heizi was heartbroken. The dumb uncle's face was gloomy. When he came back, he walked to the entrance of the village and saw Li Wenhuai's family put the little lunatic's body in a coffin and carried it to the mountain for burial.There is a custom in Quliu Village that when a child dies, he cannot be buried in the daytime, but quietly sent up the mountain to be buried at night. Uncle Dumb asked Heizi to help him wash the wild vegetables and boil them in a large pot. After the pot was finished, he put the wild vegetables with soup and water into a bucket. Just like that, he cooked several pots of wild vegetables in a row. Loaded several barrels.The dumb uncle brought buckets of wild vegetables to the door of the house.Before that, he and Heizi drank a few bowls of wild vegetable soup.After he packed a pot for Heizi to deliver to Granny Chimao and the boatman, he took out a rusty iron whistle from his pocket, which was given to him by the production team leader.In the past few days, after the wild vegetable soup was cooked, the dumb uncle always delivered it from door to door. The production team leader saw that he was working too hard, so he lent the iron whistle to the dumb uncle. The dumb uncle blew his whistle at the door of his house. As soon as the whistle sounded, people came out from all directions, carrying pots and cans to make wild vegetable soup. The dumb uncle shared wild vegetable soup with them spoon by spoon. People left silently carrying wild vegetable soup, but their eyes were full of gratitude and the flame of life. After a few days, the dumb uncle was also in trouble, and the wild vegetables in the distant mountains were also taken away.He wandered in the countryside, hoping to find a life-saving plant to rescue him. The people in the village were starving to death. They lay on the bed at home and waited for the whistle. The whistle had two meanings, one was that the relief food had arrived, and the other was that the dumb uncle's wild vegetable soup was ready. Heizi was lying on the bed of the dumb uncle, dying. My mother went out for several days and did not come back.He hoped his mother would come back, and she would definitely bring him food.After the dumb uncle went out, he also hoped that the dumb uncle would come back soon.Although eating wild vegetables makes people pale and emaciated, and sometimes causes diarrhea, he still hopes to smell the wild vegetables in the dumb uncle's pot. The dumb uncle saw the tree on the embankment. He staggered towards the embankment. The edible trees on the embankment have been stripped of their leaves and bark, while the inedible ones are lush and green.Suddenly his eyes lit up, and he saw the leaves of the maple tree.Desperately he climbed the tree and filled the sack with leaves. Back home, he secretly lit a fire, took a little maple leaf and put it in the pot to boil, then he scooped up a bowl and ate it.Heizi heard the noise in the kitchen, and he was waiting for the dumb uncle to bring it in for him.The dumb uncle grinned his teeth, this stuff is too unpalatable. He sat in the corner of the stove after eating. Time passed minute by minute.After touching it for about two hours, there was no poisoning or allergic reaction on his body.He grinned, and immediately lit a fire to boil maple leaves to help the villagers. Heizi heard the dumb uncle's laughter, and when he heard the dumb uncle's laughter, his heart was filled with hope. Heizi didn't know how many leaves and weeds the dumb uncle tasted. On the contrary, he could hear the dumb uncle's whistle every day.The dumb uncle saved a village. The relief food has not come down for a long time. The dumb uncle also survived to the last time.The sky was clear and the spring breeze was blowing that day.The bright spring scenery is so intoxicating.But what the villagers saw was darkness. The dumb uncle saw clumps of smelly grass on the river beach. It is said that the stinky grass that emits a bad smell is poisonous, and people in the village will not eat this grass even if they starve to death.But the stinky grass grows extremely lush in spring, and the leaves and roots have a fresh and tender color. The dumb uncle was fascinated by the smelly grass. If the clusters of stinky grass on the river beach can be eaten, then the people of Quliu Village will be blessed. There was a charming gleam in the dumb uncle's eyes. He picked several stinky weeds and took them home. Heizi happened to be drinking water in the kitchen when he saw the dumb uncle come in with stinky grass.Heizi knew that Uncle Mute wanted to taste the stinky weed for himself again, so Uncle Mute tested it for himself before giving it to the villagers.The dumb uncle washed the stinky grass and put it into the pot, lit a fire, and boiled it. Heizi heard from his mother that this grass is poisonous. Heizi waved his hand at the dumb uncle, and said loudly, "Mute uncle, this grass is poisonous, you can't eat it!" The dumb uncle asked him to go into the hall. If he doesn't go, he wants to prevent the dumb uncle from tasting this poisonous weed. He couldn't stop the dumb uncle, and the nine cows couldn't pull back what the dumb uncle decided.The dumb uncle continued to cook his stinky grass. The pot is boiling. The dumb uncle and Heizi smelled a strange fragrance. None of them thought that the stinky grass would emit such a fascinating fragrance after being boiled.The taste of other wild vegetables is bitter, but only this stinky grass has this smell. They all breathed deeply this wonderful smell. There is a sweetness of sugar cane in this smell, and the aroma of flowers. When the dumb uncle smelled this fragrance, a smile appeared on his face, and he stretched out his thumb to Heizi, which meant to say: "How about it, no problem. Could such a fragrant thing be poisonous? I don't believe it." !" Heizi was still a little worried and apprehensive. It was this kind of fragrance that made Heizi suspicious. Bitter things are not necessarily poisonous, but fragrant things are not necessarily beneficial, this is Heizi's idea. Soon, the stinky grass was cooked. The dumb uncle filled a bowl. Heizi grabbed the bowl of stinky grass and said, "Let me taste it!" The dumb uncle took the bowl of stinky grass and put it on the stove. He lowered his face. No matter how much Heizi is, today, he has to taste it once, he can't let the dumb uncle take risks every time, he can't always sit back and enjoy the benefits.Heizi is going to take the bowl of stinky grass. The dumb uncle is on fire. Heizi had never seen the dumb uncle get angry with him.The dumb uncle really got angry this time, and he was so angry, his eyes were blood red, and he growled in a low voice.He lifted Heizi vigorously and carried him outside the kitchen door.Then the dumb uncle went back to the kitchen, closed the kitchen door and plugged it in. Heizi couldn't get in. Heizi kicked and hit the door vigorously.No matter how he yelled or kicked outside, the dumb uncle ignored him. The dumb uncle drank the bowl of stinky grass soup.After drinking, he sat in front of the stove, waiting for something without saying a word. Heizi was tired from tossing around outside, so he sat there slumped. After a while, he heard the sobbing of the dumb uncle. Through the crack of the door, he saw a scene he will never forget.His eyes bulged and his mouth opened wide. The dumb uncle whimpered and rolled on the muddy floor of the kitchen with his stomach in his arms.In the process of rolling, his clothes were covered with firewood shavings and the white foam he spit out.The painful struggle made Heizi's mind go blank.The dumb uncle suddenly struggled to stand up, he stretched out a hand to grab the air, suddenly spit out a mouthful of blood, and then fell down heavily. Heizi cried out in surprise, "Uncle Dumb—" Uncle Dumb is dead. He died in this hungry spring, for the villagers to taste poisonous weeds. After the dumb uncle died, Heizi didn't cry. A few flies flew around in high spirits, piercing the air, their voices shrill and ear-piercing. He heard voices piercing through the ages from the darkness. On the second day after the dumb uncle died, the relief food came out. Mother came back on the fifth day after the dumb uncle died. When she returned home with a bag full of food, Heizi told her, "Uncle Dumb is dead." The bag fell to the ground with a dull sound.