Chapter 29 Chapter 1 The Goddess Is Just a Legend

Thinking back now, the two months I lived in that southern county-level city was the most comfortable and corrupt period of my ten years in the industry. The newspaper is still not revised, and a group of newly recruited people are still waiting.The newspaper office is almost free of board and lodging, and only a small amount of money is deducted from the salary every month.This newspaper is not short of money, supported by finances and enterprises. If you want to advertise, you can only choose this newspaper.There is no competition for journalists, because this is the only newspaper in this county-level city. It doesn't matter if the manuscript is good or bad, and there is no competition from newspapers from the same city.

The life of the two directors is even more carefree. The director follows the secretary of the municipal party committee, and the deputy director follows the mayor. Whenever the secretary and the mayor go to the countryside to inspect the work of enterprises, the two directors will follow them. Township, there are not only red envelopes, but also gifts.As for the manuscript, the correspondent has already written it, and as long as he adds his name, it can be published in the newspaper. The reporters also parted ways, and each went to several departments.Every night, after drinking and eating, the reporters lay in bed waiting for the phone call.Each department also has a correspondent, and the job of the correspondent is to contact the corresponding reporter of the newspaper. When the call comes from the correspondent, the reporter will follow the department leader to check the work the next day.After this trip, there will still be red envelope gifts, but less than the director's.Manuscripts, of course, are written by correspondents, and the reporter's office will post their own names, and the manuscript fee can be counted at the end of the month.

Such a newspaper does not support reporters, but a group of bureaucrats. Can such a comfortable job make money?can.A newspaper reporter who had been working for only two years not only bought a car worth more than 100,000 yuan, but also bought a house in the provincial capital.When I heard this news once in the office, I was taken aback.Countless talented and capable journalists work hard in big newspapers in big cities, and their monthly income is just enough to survive; while these so-called reporters in small cities and small county towns, these so-called reporters who only transcribe the manuscripts of their correspondents, earn so much .

During those two months, I didn't break up, because I had to wait for the newspaper to be revised, and I would break up again after waiting for the revision. Our new batch of journalists who did not have any red envelopes or gifts to take, had to figure out their own way and find their own topics.In this county-level city with a population of only a few hundred thousand, there is really no news. Every day is calm and the days are the same as before, except for dogs wandering on the street and people peeing in the corner. These are not news. What else to find? One afternoon, I walked into the residential area of ​​an old factory without any objection, and saw that the building was old. It should be a tube building built in the 1980s. Clothes were drying on the balcony. The clothes were also very old, and some were still patched. .Two little girls were standing in the open space downstairs playing badminton. Half of the badminton was broken, it should have been discarded by others, but they picked it up again.They were having so much fun, laughing loudly, running fast, sweat beading their faces.That sweaty smile blooming in the afternoon sun made me feel sore.

At that moment, I suddenly had an idea, I want to do a "good deed". After that, I went to the poorest families in this small city, told people about their experience and life, and soon some donations were made.I sent donations to these families, and seeing the happy smiles on the children's faces, I felt that I could finally do something meaningful.Just being able to help others feels meaningful. Sometimes, I will come to the cultural center.Director Zhang is very happy every time he goes there.We sat under a big tree in the cultural center, with our bodies sunk deep into two reclining chairs. There was a bamboo coffee table in the middle of the reclining chairs.We often lie on the deck chairs like this, chatting without saying a word, the sun shines through the dense leaves, sprinkled on our bodies, and there are cicadas singing among the leaves, chatting with each other .In this quiet courtyard, time seems to stand still.Often, we get up and suddenly find that it is night.

Life in the cultural center is more leisurely. There are two kinds of people here. One is some literati in this small city. They write poems, draw pictures, play erhu, and talk allegro. They can come here with a little fame.They are engaged in their own "side jobs" with the salary of the state; there is another kind of people who can't do anything, but have a backer, such as eight aunts and six aunts who lead, and stay here for the elderly. Director Zhang used to be a poet. He published several poems in "Star Poetry Magazine" in the 1980s and became a celebrity in this small city. He was transferred from a chemical factory to the cultural center.Curator Zhang stopped writing poems after he came to the cultural center, and he couldn't write poems anymore. He began to study tea art and health preservation.The Pu-erh tea and the stewed soup with refurbished patterns have nourished Director Zhang into a childlike face with white hair and a fairy demeanor, and he has also become very detached and open-minded.

In this small city, there are many jokes about Director Zhang when he was young. Even after decades, people still talk about it.They said that when he was young, Director Zhang had long, long hair and a thin face. Whenever he saw people, he put his right palm on his chest, looked at the sky, and said in a dull and melancholy tone: "The night is here for you." My black eyes are covered, but I use them to find the light." People in the small city don't know Gu Cheng, they only know Director Zhang.They were amazed by Director Zhang's profound expressions and verses, and agreed that this young man with long hair was crazy.

An old employee in the cultural center said that when Director Zhang first came to the cultural center, he lived in the same room with him.Director Zhang couldn't sleep at night, so he turned over suddenly, lit a match, wrote and drew on the back of a piece of cigarette paper, and still muttered words.He asked: "What are you doing?" After a long time, curator Zhang said: "I'm writing poetry." He said: "You turn on the light and write, there is still manuscript paper on the table, how convenient it is for you to write like this." Curator Zhang Youyou said: "Everyone is asleep and I wake up alone. If you turn on the light, you will have no inspiration."

Although curator Zhang is crazy and incomprehensible to ordinary people, but curator Zhang is an absolutely good person.He doesn't have any bad intentions for people, he is alone and kind to others. He enjoys a high reputation in the cultural circles of the small town. One day, I heard about surrogacy from Director Zhang.Previously, I imagined things between men and women as sacred, and I imagined childbirth as sacred.I think it's all when the feelings have accumulated to a certain level, and then the quantitative change will change to the qualitative change, and that kind of thing happens, pregnancy and childbirth.I have always believed and understood this way very purely.

It wasn't until I met a surrogate mother that I realized that pregnancy and childbirth can be like buying clothes and throwing them away if they don't fit. The cultural center is actually a unit of right and wrong. These two kinds of people in the cultural center often have conflicts.Talented people look down on those with background, and those with background look down on talented people even more.In this small city, talented people are a little neurotic. They often sing when they are talking, and they often cry when they are singing; , flowers are inserted next to the cow dung.And those with backgrounds looked down on these down-and-out people the most.People with backgrounds are arrogant and self-satisfied. They like to talk with their noses and treat everyone around them like nothing. This kind of arrogant attitude is the most unbearable for talented people.The two kinds of people are incompatible in this cultural center.

Whenever there is a conflict between these two people, and the conflict is reflected to Director Zhang, he always smiles and says, "Calm down, calm down." Health preservation has made Curator Zhang detached. He is like a well-educated old fairy. No matter who brings any problems to him, his expression is very calm, like water in a dry well. One day, when I was chatting with Director Zhang, a "talented" person who said he was from Allegro came over and said, "Someone in a normal school put up a small advertisement to recruit girls who are willing to be surrogates." Director Zhang was surprised and stood still. When he got up, he stopped saying "calm down", and said in surprise: "How can such a thing happen, there are all teenage girls there." Curator Zhang walked around the open space again and again, He was restless like a ferocious beast locked in a cage. After sighing, he said: "The world is declining, people's hearts are not old, morality is deteriorating, principles are no longer, and demons and ghosts have come out of the cage one after another." This is the first time I've heard of surrogacy, but I don't know what surrogacy is all about.I asked: "What is surrogacy?" Curator Zhang said sadly: "This is a violation of human relations. It is really a treason and will be punished by God." He still didn't explain to me what surrogacy is. He probably thought that I didn't have a family, so it was inconvenient to say these things. The next day, I came to Director Zhang again, sat under the tree and continued to drink tea. I told Director Zhang about surrogacy. The sensitivity of my profession made me feel that this was a major subject.A burly old woman "with backstage" came suddenly.As long as this old woman comes to Director Zhang, she must come to complain about all kinds of problems of those "talented" people.In fact, she came to complain without any specific purpose. She just wanted to say what she was holding back in her stomach, and she wanted to tell an important person. In this way, she would feel at ease and feel as light as a swallow. It's singing and dancing.In this cultural center, "talented" people and "background" people do not interfere with each other, but they are incompatible. Everyone sees that the other is not pleasing to the eye, and everyone is the sand in the other's eyes. This tall, burly old woman, her husband holds some kind of official position in the normal school.Curator Zhang asked: "I heard that some people in the normal school put up small advertisements to lure little girls into surrogacy?" The old woman didn't take it seriously: "Isn't that the Goddess in Songzhuang who did it? The Goddess said it was a meritorious deed that would benefit all generations." I was surprised and remembered Songzhuang. On the weekend, I first came to the normal school located on the edge of this small city. On many walls of the school, I could see small advertisements "recruiting female surrogacy, 100,000 yuan a time".The students in this school are all from junior high school, and they are all in their teens. There is still a layer of light fluff on the faces of the students, which is still immature and immature.However, the "surrogacy company" has set their minds on these children, which is really infuriating. That afternoon, I took a long-distance bus to Songzhuang, which is more than 30 kilometers away from the urban area. I wanted to find the goddess, and I wanted to see what kind of person the legendary surrogate boss was. Goddess is well-known in Songzhuang. A young man wearing wide trousers and his bare skin was as black as charcoal took me to an abandoned courtyard. He said, "This is the home of Goddess." The witch must have moved away for a long time. The wild flowers and weeds in the yard bloomed and withered, and withered and bloomed again. The ground was covered with a thick layer of fallen leaves, which were green and black in color, like a thick layer of moss.There are two rooms in this courtyard. The iron lock on the door hangs high. The iron lock is covered with a layer of rust. It is obvious that no one has opened it for a long time. I came to the house of the neighbor of the Goddess. The neighbor is a warm, generous and cheerful woman in her 40s. After she brought me tea, she sat across from me and chatted with me.She said that the goddess is about 60 years old this year. After moving away from Songzhuang a few years ago, she never came back. The goddess is a foreigner. During the "Three Difficult Period" in the 1960s, the goddess came to Songzhuang and married an old bachelor in the village as his wife.No one knows where the goddess came from, only that she is a foreigner who came to Songzhuang after fleeing famine. After marrying in Songzhuang, the godmother can't transplant rice seedlings or grow rice, and everyone in the village looks down on her.Suddenly one day, the goddess said that she was possessed by a god and went down to the mortal world to help the world cure diseases.She said that she was the Eight Immortals of the Queen Mother and the younger sister of Dong Yong's wife. At that time, people knew an ancient opera called "Song of Heaven".The witch sang and danced, and was still rolling on the ground. When she rolled her eyes, she couldn't see her eyeballs. That kind of image scared everyone. People said that this daughter-in-law from out of town was really possessed by a fairy.After half an hour, the godmother got up and looked as usual. From then on, she became a veritable godmother, and she didn't have to work in the fields, but only treated people. The Goddess has her own unique set of "medical skills" in treating diseases. Whenever a patient comes to her door, the Goddess will mutter something in front of the statue, and sometimes she will worship Chairman Mao's statue devoutly. Then, she will burn some yellow paper to let the patient Drink the paper ashes.This unique medical technique actually cured several patients. The witch's fame spread far and wide, and she became a celebrity. In the countryside at that time, almost every village had such a goddess. I was puzzled for a long time as to why they could cure some patients, and then I asked an old doctor.The old doctor said that at that time, rural medical care was extremely underdeveloped, and people would go to the goddess for any illness, such as stomach pain, cold, indigestion and so on.After swallowing the ashes of the yellow table paper, it is indeed effective for indigestion, and people mistakenly believe that the goddess's medical skills are superb.In fact, not only the ashes of yellow paper, but also drinking some soil and dung water can still cure indigestion. Later, with the reform and opening up, the joint production contract responsibility system was implemented in the countryside, and the goddess suddenly knew how to farm and plant rice seedlings, and the eight fairies suddenly left the world and returned to heaven.She has never been possessed by a fairy again. The Goddess has no children, and has always been dependent on her wife. The wife who is 20 years older than her obeys the Goddess. A few years ago, my wife died, and a foreigner came to the house of the Goddess, and they discussed it for a few days before leaving Songzhuang.Some people in Zhuangzi said that the Goddess was doing business in the urban area, and the business was very big, and she even bought a house in the urban area. "What kind of business does the goddess do?" I asked. "I heard it's helping people get pregnant."