Chapter 6 Chapter 4

One morning, my grandpa suddenly came to visit my grandparents.Someone went to Xintaizi and told his daughter Yuzhen that when she was cooking breakfast for her parents-in-law two days ago, she lost her mind, followed the firewood and put her hand into the firewood stove, and didn't even know the pain... She has been absent-minded for a long time.Moreover, I also heard people from Nanjing say that my father lived with some fashionable foreign students, both men and women.Grandpa finally got the consent of my grandparents, allowing him to send the three of us, mother and son, to Nanjing to reunite with my father.If my father doesn't take us in, he will take us back to our mother's house.I clearly remember that autumn, when almost all the leaves of the trees fell and the sorghum field was harvested, two long-term laborers got into the carriage and took us to the railway station five miles away, "Luanshishan Station" - the rocks in that area Used to supply the stones needed for laying the Middle Eastern Railway.In order to go to Beijing, I wore a padded gown with blue flowers on a red background that my whole family had made in Shenyang, and I was very excited.

Not long after the carriage left the village entrance, there were rows of bare mountains beside the road, with jagged rocks and no trees growing. I asked, "Mom, what is this mountain called?" She said, "This is called 'Ghost Crying Wolf Howling Mountain'".The name of the mountain and my mother's expression made me remember it firmly. Now, she went to seek refuge with a husband who had been away from home for many years, and led her two young children to a completely unimaginable big city thousands of miles away. There was no family there, not even relatives. Isn't it like entering the world of howling ghosts and howling wolves?She knew that her future was uncertain, but she never wanted to go back to the small village outside the Great Wall where she had spent ten years of isolation and loneliness, and lived a life like a widow.My love and concept of literature all my life is actually derived from my mother who has no education above middle school. She turned the natural phenomena of the wild land, the threat of tigers, wolves and leopards, and the unspeakable lonely life into many summer nights. The story inspired me from childhood to life.Some of her country stories are gentle hope and sadness, and some are full of heart throbbing.Like ghosts crying and wolves howling on the mountain, it is unadorned and strongly symbolizes her fear of the big southern city at that time and her worry about her own fate.

The clearest memory of my childhood is that my grandfather took my brother and my mother took me on the train from Shenyang. The train drove day and night. Mowed.Except for the sparse windbreak forest, the horizon is all dark brown muddy land.Grandpa said that the plowing can only be done after the thaw in March next year. After exiting Shanhaiguan Pass to Peiping, transfer to Jinpu Railway to Nanjing. The train journey took three days and two nights.At Xiaguan Station, through the window of the train, she saw the handsome and confident strange man with bright eyes waiting on the platform from the thick white steam of the train, standing tall and straight (until his old age, his waist always straight and not bent).The steam gradually dissipated, and the wife he was forced to marry at the age of nineteen came out of the car door; at this moment, she hesitated in her steps, holding my hand trembling like an elm leaf, and a shy expression covered her beautiful face. joy.On the platform, standing beside her were two country children in brand new cotton robes.

Grandpa lived in Nanjing for about ten days, and then took the train back to his hometown outside Guanwai. When he was leaving, my mother cried so hard that she couldn't let go.Grandpa and grandma had four sons before they gave birth to this daughter. He grew up holding her in his hands, and now he wants to leave her in the sea of ​​unaccompanied people in the south.In those years, my mother often said to my brother and me, "If you don't study hard, your father will not want us." I have learned to be sad since I was very young, and my sleep is always restless.Sometimes I wake up at night and hear my father whispering to my mother in the next room.His voice was gentle and steady, and I fell asleep peacefully.

Not long after I arrived in Nanjing, I was sent to the first grade in a nearby elementary school.I just came out of the countryside in the Northeast. I am thin and rustic, and I can't understand Nanjing dialect. On the first day of school, I only understood the teacher's words: "You are not allowed to drink water and pee later." I felt that going to school was terrible.Finally, some friends and a classmate expressed their affection for me and gave me a piece of red and green flower eraser, which I had never seen before in the countryside, so I was very happy.Two days later, he didn't know what was wrong and asked for the eraser back, which made me very sad.I still remember that eraser to this day, so when I started traveling, I bought beautiful erasers all over the world.

Another impressive thing is that when the snow thawed in the early spring of that year, I had to go to school through the alley called "San Tiao Lane".I was curious since I was a child, and I watched the excitement along the road. One day when I was going to school with my brother, I accidentally stepped on the mud and my cotton shoes got stuck in it. My brother beat me for being late, and I cried a lot. At this time, a car came and stopped. Next, my father was sitting inside, and he asked the driver to come out and pull my shoes out of the mud and put them on for me, and they drove away.When he came home at night, he said that children are not allowed to take official vehicles to school, and we will never use official stationery with official titles.One must be aware of the distinction between public and private, and on the other hand, children should not develop the mentality of showing off.

After I was beaten for the first time (it seems to be the only time), he also told me in the same tone that this is not a country where you can run all over the mountains and fields. You can’t pick flowers in city parks, let alone pick them again and again. Lie, "I hit you to remember".This first impression made me rarely lie in my life.Even if you want to tell a little white lie to someone, you will feel guilty.