Chapter 15 The first episode

On the second day when I was about to travel to the South, I suddenly received a call from my sister.My sister said on the phone that my father's illness had relapsed. It was during the years when the peasants had the heaviest burden, and also during the years when medical expenses were soaring, that my father contracted a disease. I work in the county seat, which is dozens of miles away from my hometown. It takes more than an hour to take the bus, and after getting off the bus, I have to walk an hour on the mountain road. I can't bear to spend the few dollars on the ticket. That winter, after several months of separation, I returned home and suddenly saw a big bump on my father's back.I asked my father what happened?My father said calmly: "It's all right, it's just a pimple." I asked my mother again, and my mother said that the pimple on my father's back had been growing for several months. She kept persuading him to go to the hospital, but my father was reluctant to spend money. , has been procrastinating, and it has grown rapidly in the past month.

I had a bad feeling, so I forced my father to go to the hospital, but my father still refused to go.Later, I found out that the family only had a few tens of yuan at that time, and they had to wait to pay the electricity bill and buy salt.My father also had a premonition that his condition might be more serious and it might cost a lot of money.At that time, the hospital was the era when doctors received red envelopes wantonly, wrote prescriptions randomly, charged fees randomly, and slaughtered patients. That day, I took my father into the hospital, and the doctor said it was cancer after examination.If you go through the formalities right away, you might still be saved.

Father lay in the hospital ward.I ran on the streets of the county town, borrowing money from everyone I was familiar with and people I was not familiar with.I told others about my father's condition.However, people at that time did not have much money, and they could only borrow a few hundred yuan for a day of running.I can still remember sitting on the steps of a building one night, crying with grief.Later, tired of crying, he stood up staggeringly and went to the hospital to visit his father. Later, under the guarantee of a friend, I went to the bank to borrow tens of thousands of yuan, and only then did my father successfully complete the operation.

After the operation, I thought my father had completely recovered, but unexpectedly, the old disease has relapsed now. The younger sister brought her father to the provincial capital.At that time, I rented a very small room in the village in the city, and only a single bed and a desk in the room took up most of the space.Every night, I would lie on this table to write manuscripts and novels, and when I was tired, I would lie on the bed and sleep soundly.I have a debt of tens of thousands of yuan on my body, and the debt of tens of thousands of yuan makes me breathless.I have to work like hell.

After my father and sister came, I put the table in the hallway outside the house.My father slept on the bed, and my sister and I spread newspapers on the floor and slept on the floor.I haven't seen him for half a year, but my father has lost a lot of weight, his cheeks have sunken, and his formerly very strong body is now so thin that he has become a bone, which makes people feel distressed.My father didn't fall asleep that night, and I didn't fall asleep either. Only my sister, who was tired all day, slept soundly.I looked at the thin father on the bed, tears kept streaming.My father would turn over every once in a while and let out a long breath. Cancer patients would be very painful.My father was afraid that I would worry about his body, so he gritted his teeth and endured the bone-piercing pain without saying a word.

After dawn, we were walking on the street leading to the hospital. My father kept pulling his right shoulder blade with his left hand, his cheeks bulging high.I asked my father what was wrong, and my father said, "It's all right." I understand that my father was gritting his teeth and enduring the piercing pain all the way. When I came to the hospital, after the doctor's examination, I avoided my father and said to me: "The cancer has reached the terminal stage, and the cancer cells have spread." The doctor also suggested hospitalization for chemotherapy, but I knew it was too late.Besides, chemotherapy costs tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands, and I, a small reporter, only had a monthly income of one or two thousand yuan.

My father and sister and I walked out of the hospital and came to a photo studio on the street.Before that, because we had no money, we had never taken a family portrait. Now, we were finally able to take a picture together, but it was still incomplete. Neither my mother nor my younger brother was there.Later, the whole family did not take pictures together again, which makes me regret for the rest of my life. Walking out of the photo studio, I took my father into the restaurant, but my father was unwilling to go anyway, saying that he would spend so much money on cooking at home.I was a little annoyed and pushed my father into the restaurant, and the three of us ate three bowls of fried noodles.Father ate deliciously, and that was the only time in his life that he ate in a restaurant.

It was also in this hospital that I first heard of "Blood Slave" and met "Blood Slave". That day, I accompanied my father to check his body in the hospital. There were many patients in the hospital. I sat on a bench and overheard the conversation between two people beside me.They're talking about their bodies, saying they've been in such bad shape lately that they can't lift a bucket of water, which wasn't the case before.Then, they talked about selling blood. They said that they had to sell blood more than ten times a month, and if they sold too much blood, they would collapse.Shocked to hear these conversations, I looked over my shoulder and saw that they were both very thin and sallow.

I remembered a tip I received a few days ago. The reporter was in a village hundreds of miles away from the provincial capital. He said that the whole village was selling blood, and many people made a living from it.There were also people who contracted long-distance buses and took a carload of people to the surrounding provinces and cities to sell blood.I reported this clue to the boss, who thought the subject matter was too sensitive and gave up. Now, unexpectedly, the blood slave is by my side. I took the opportunity to chat with them to find out more.Even though the boss of this topic does not allow reports, I still want to know about the special life of this group of people that is unknown to us. This special "occupation" surprises me.However, they are very sensitive and have a strong defensive mentality. When they heard my question, they kept silent and left in a hurry.

Blood slaves, what kind of people are these?Why rely on selling blood for a living?By doing so, are you ending your own life prematurely? It was also in that hospital that I met a nurse for the first time in my life. We were wandering the corridors of the hospital, not knowing which department to go to.There is no cancer department in the hospital, and there is no oncology department.I called the internal medicine department first, and then took my father to the doctor's office.I can still remember the appearance of that doctor. He is in his 50s, wearing glasses, fair skin, and looks very skilled in medicine.He advised us to go to another hospital, saying that that hospital could cure osteosarcoma, and the charge was cheaper than the normal hospital where he worked.Then, he called a woman. The woman led us to a house at the end of the alley. The house was small. There was a bookshelf against the wall with several bottles Western medicine.

The woman took out a few pills from each medicine bottle, wrapped them up, and said, "It's 5,200 yuan in total." At that time, my father felt very strange, why did the small hospital treat the patients when the big hospital didn't accept them?Why is there such a high price for a few small packets of western medicine?My father didn't want to buy medicine, so he dragged me out. When we came to the entrance of that regular hospital, we saw many men and women wandering around, their eyes like thieves looking at every passer-by. When we found a target, we posted it and introduced: "I used to have someone like you." illness, I was treated in a certain hospital." This is the so-called medical care for children. When I sent my father home, I was very sad when I saw the dilapidated house and the few farm tools under the eaves.This old house and those few worthless farm tools are all the property accumulated by my parents throughout their hard work.The peasants are so poor! His father was seriously ill, and his mother's legs and feet were not flexible.My mother’s family was very poor when she was a child. She was always hungry and cold, and her legs and feet suffered from rheumatism and osteoarthritis. It was difficult for her to walk, and she couldn’t do heavy work.How can such a family leave me?However, if I don't go to the south to work, how can I pay off the debt?How can life get better if I stay at home? I have always wanted to tell my parents that I want to go to the south, where the wages are higher.But I couldn't open my mouth. Later, until I left the north in the name of a business trip, I didn't explain it to my parents.I secretly came to a newspaper office in the south. After the first month’s salary was paid, I mailed 2,000 yuan to my mother and called home and said, "I am in the south now." My mother asked, "When will you come back? On a business trip How long?" I had nothing to say except that I was working in the south now.The mother didn't blame, but said: "The south is so far away, you have to cherish yourself. Don't send money to your family, neither your father nor I need money." In fact, the family needed a lot of money at that time, and my father needed dozens of yuan for injections and medicines every day.Later, I heard from my sister that in order to save money, my father resolutely refused to take expensive pethidine and only took painkillers that cost a few cents a pack.The effect of the painkillers was poor, and my father trembled in pain. When the pain was unbearable, he used his nails to dig into the brick wall, digging out several deep holes in the brick wall. In the rural home in the north, my father's illness got worse day by day; in the cities in the south, I worked hard to save my father's life. That year was the most painful year of my life. The first newspaper office I worked in the south was invested and sponsored by an advertising company, and it ranked at the bottom in this city in terms of circulation and advertising share.However, the director and I naively believed that as long as we worked hard, this kind of newspaper would definitely occupy an important place in this city. Not long after I came to this newspaper, I heard that there are still blood slaves in this southern city.I also heard that when blood slaves sell blood, they not only abuse their own bodies, but may also be infected with AIDS. I want to enter the blood slave community. If such a manuscript is published, it will definitely be rated as the best manuscript of the month, and if it is rated as the best manuscript of the month, it can get a reward of several hundred yuan.In order to reward good manuscripts and earn more money, I no longer consider my own danger. In fact, in a sense, there was no essential difference between me and the blood slave at that time.We are all taking risks, we are all gambling with our lives.The purpose of our gambling is all for the few hundred yuan.They can get a few hundred yuan for selling blood; and I can get a few hundred yuan for writing a good manuscript. That spring, I came to the train station carrying a snakeskin bag containing my change of clothes and bedroll. Every city's train station is in chaos, and every city's train station has too many stories staged.Here is where life in the city begins for some and ends for others. I came to the eaves of a row of houses in front of the train station, opened the snakeskin bag, took out the bedroll, spread it out, took off my shoes, put my head on the shoes, and fell asleep on it.I don't know if I can catch the blood head this time, and if I can enter the blood slave, I don't have any confidence.Looking at the train station illuminated by street lights like the daytime sky, I suddenly remembered the first night I just came to the provincial capital city in the north. That night I also slept in the square in front of the train station, feeling like I fell into the sea middle.This time, I slept in the train station square in this southern city again. The difference is that I have a job, and my heart is solid and clear.The same is that I still have no money, and I am still struggling on the food and clothing line. This is the sky in the south, where the white street lights and colorful neon lights make the night sky beautiful and charming; this is the city in the south, where tall buildings stand row upon row, reflecting each other with brilliance.In the lighted windows of the building, at this moment, warm family sitcoms are being staged: the wife prepares a table of steaming and fragrant meals, waiting for her husband to come back; or the husband embraces his wife, Deep in the sofa watching TV... They were born in this city, they have no worries about food and clothing since they were young, they always have pocket money they can’t spend, they don’t have to work for their parents, and they can be admitted to college with lower scores , They fall in love in college, they return to this familiar city after graduation, they can enjoy the welfare housing of the unit for a small amount of money, they get married, they give birth, and their children continue to enjoy this city. All kinds of rights and preferential treatment provided by the city... I was born in a remote rural area. When I was a child, I was always hungry and not warm. I had to run dozens of miles of mountain roads to go to school every day, and I had to help my parents with farm work after returning home. ;My family is very poor, my sister must drop out of school if I go to school, and my family can't afford to support my two children; There is no children's palace, no art classes, no summer camps in my hometown. I work as a tutor and part-time job in college, and no girl will take a fancy to me, a poor student from the countryside; I came to work in your city; I worked hard and overworked every day, but I didn’t dare to get sick. A sickness would wipe out my savings; I couldn’t enjoy any benefits in this city because I I don’t have a registered permanent residence in this city, because my name is Dagongzai… At this moment, when you are whispering to your wife in a high-rise building, I, who also went to college like you, suffer from hunger and cold in the train station square.And all this is just because you were born in the city and I was born in the countryside. The greatest inequality in life is the inequality of birth.