Chapter 35 Section 2 Homecoming

When my probationary period was over, I decided to take a trip home, which I hadn't been since my father passed away.I don't know how my mother and younger siblings are doing. I received the salary for the last month of my probationary period, that is, the salary for my series of unannounced visits. salary forecast. With this money, I bought the cheapest mobile phone, the Nokia 3310, which was a model that had been eliminated. The price at that time was 780 yuan.I still use this phone, and whenever I pull it out in public, it always attracts some curious eyes.However, it is enough for a mobile phone to have only two functions: making calls and sending text messages.And these two functions of this phone can still be used, why should I change it?The mobile phone is like a lover, the first and the most emotional.

I can still remember the day I bought my mobile phone, I called home, the owner of the store at the entrance of the village called my mother, I took the mobile phone and said to my mother: "I have a mobile phone!" My mother said on the phone: " What chicken?" I said, "It's a mobile phone." My mother scolded me and said, "You don't work hard, why raise chickens?" In the few days when I just bought my mobile phone, I always liked to show off in crowded places, pretending to send text messages or make phone calls, looking at others out of the corner of my eye to see if they were paying attention to my mobile phone.However, when someone else's phone rang and someone else had a mobile phone with a more novel style and more colorful colors, I felt ashamed and quickly put my mobile phone in my pocket silently.

However, this is a mobile phone after all, a real mobile phone. Walking on the street, the hard mobile phone in my pocket hits my chest, giving me a solid feeling.I held my head high, high-spirited, and felt that I was also an "organic family". That kind of happiness and satisfaction has not been experienced in a long time. Then, I went shopping like crazy in the supermarket, I bought clothes and shoes for my mother.Over the years, some of my mother's clothes are coarse cloth clothes made by myself, and some are old clothes given by relatives. My mother's shoes are cloth shoes bought by myself.I must let my mother wear brand-new "material clothes". In the eyes of my mother, Dacron, validin, and polyester are the best "materials". She never knew that there are more expensive "materials" than these in the world. Much clothing.I also bought a lot of delicious food for my mother, such as pistachios, almonds, fish skin peanuts and so on.My mother has never eaten these things, and my mother has never been willing to spend a penny on herself.

I also bought clothes for my younger sister and younger brother. My younger brother has been wearing my leftover clothes since he was a child.When he was a child, he often cried and asked his mother for new clothes, and his mother always said: "When you have money, you can buy as many as you want." However, our family always had no money.When my younger brother was in junior high school, a classmate from his family with good conditions gave him a leftover jacket. My younger brother liked it very much. In spring and autumn, he wore a jacket naked, and in winter, he wore a jacket with a padded jacket.Until the younger brother was riding a tricycle in the county town, he was still wearing this jacket that had lost its original color.

The younger sister's clothes are always very fat, and the mother often said: "The baby is growing up, the clothes should be bigger, and I can wear them next year." A piece of clothing will last for years.My younger sister goes to school in robe-like clothes and is often bullied by bad boys.At that time, my younger sister would often come to me crying, and as soon as I saw my younger sister being bullied, I would run over and beat those bad boys to the ground and run away.Years later, my sister will still recall these experiences and shed tears. However, I was unable to buy clothes for my father.

Standing in front of the men's clothing counter in the supermarket, looking at those straight suits, I wanted to buy one for my father, but my father was no longer there. In my memory, my father only had one summer suit and one winter suit.The summer suit is a white coarse sweater, and the winter suit is a blue Chinese tunic suit.Father never wore anything else, let alone a suit. I came to the bookcase in the supermarket again, saw the four classics in hardcover, and thought of my father again.My father loved reading and reading all his life.My father, who has never been to school, learned to read through the private teachers in the village, and was able to read these two books thoroughly.In rural areas, these two books are also the most popular reading materials.

My father has read and read it countless times in his life, and he often quotes sentences from these two books when he speaks. He is considered a "cultural person" in the village. I remember that in the year I graduated from university, I published my first book. I happily took this book for my father to read, hoping to get appreciation from him.Unexpectedly, after reading it, my father said: "It is far worse than the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin." The literary standard that my father provided me was actually and. I said unconvinced: "Among all the writers in China, there are few books written by them that can compare with Three Kingdoms and Water Margin."

My father said: "Then you should work hard and write a Three Kingdoms or Water Margin." Since then, I dare not be proud or slack off, because I know that my so-called works are far worse than those of Three Kingdoms and Water Margin. I stood in front of the bookcase, hesitated for a long time, and finally decided to buy the hardcover and, I know, this is the best gift for my father. This season, the south is still singing birds and flowers, while the north is already freezing cold. I took the slow train, and the slow train is often the most crowded, because the tickets are cheap, and almost all the compartments of the slow train are migrant workers.I stood at the junction of the two carriages for two days and two nights. I stood so hard that my bones were hardened together. I would fall down if I moved. I was dizzy and even had hallucinations before I finally arrived at my hometown. The provincial capital station where it is located.

Then, the train turned to a car, and the car turned to a three-wheeled tram, and finally came to the simple road into the mountain. That day, it was snowing in my hometown.My younger sister and younger brother were wearing bloated old-fashioned cotton-padded clothes, with their hands in their sleeves, huddled, standing in the snowflakes flying all over the sky, waiting for me for a long time.The younger brother saw me and grabbed the package on my back; the younger sister looked at me and smiled happily, but shed tears. We went home along the mountain road, and we were the only ones on the silent mountain road. The snowflakes fell on the mountain peaks and on the withered grass, silently.We walked along the winding mountain road to the top of the mountain and sat under a cypress tree to rest.Back then, when I was carrying cornmeal steamed buns and sweet potatoes to middle school, I would rest under this cypress tree for a while before getting up and walking again.There are very few trees in my hometown. The only few trees on each mountain have grown up. Everyone can remember the names of these trees many years later.

Under the cypress tree there is a bluestone board, big enough to seat two people.More than ten years ago, when I was in school, the bluestone boards were like this; more than ten years later, when I passed by here on my way home from the prosperous metropolis in the south, the bluestone boards are still like this.This bluestone board has been sat on by every child who goes to school in the mountains.Every child who walks out of the mountains will remember this bluestone slab. Walking down the mountain from the top of the mountain, it was almost dark. I took the luggage and carried it on my shoulders. My younger brother walked in front.I asked, "Why did you bend your waist like this?" My brother smiled and said nothing.The younger sister said later that the younger brother is bending more and more now. After he dropped out of junior high school, he took part in heavy manual labor, plowing the land and pulling manure, sowing and harvesting, all of which were bent.Later, he rode a tricycle in the county town, and now he works as a small laborer in the construction team, all doing manual work with bending over.The burden of life bent my brother's waist.

My tears flowed down. When I got home, I didn't see my mother. My sister opened the courtyard door and I walked in. I saw the armchair under the eaves, which was the armchair my father often sat on, and he would sit in this armchair as soon as he came home.At this moment, I seem to see my father sitting in an armchair, holding a book in his hand, reading it carefully, with an intoxicated expression.Every time he returned home from the field, my father would put down the farm tools, drink some water, and then sit in this armchair, carefully reading the books and newspapers he could find. My sister said that since my father died, my mother has kept this armchair under the eaves.The armchair has never been moved, and no one has ever sat on it. I took out the hardcover and the book from my backpack and put them on the armchair.I said silently in my heart: Dad, I am back, and I brought you two of your favorite books. The night was already very deep, and a cold wind blew outside the door. The wind whistled, with a sharp howling sound, as if shaking a slender wire.The snow had already fallen more than a foot thick, and the mountains in the distance and the houses nearby were all white.Under the reflection of the snow light, the surrounding scenery is hazy.I don't know whose dog barked twice suddenly, with a low voice, as if frozen. I asked: "Why is the village so quiet?" I lived in the village when I was a child, and the village in my memory is very lively. Even in the cold winter night, there are often voices of yelling to play poker, and calling for children in the alleys. The sound of the boxing game under the bright lights... But now, the village is very quiet, so quiet that it makes people feel palpitating, as quiet as a tomb. The younger sister said: "The young people in the village have all gone out to work. They can't earn money from farming, and a lot of land is barren. Now there are only the old, the weak, the sick and the disabled in the village. A few days ago, Gen Shengbo'old ), and no coffin bearer could be found.” I was surprised and asked: "How did Gen Shengbo become 'old'?" The younger sister said: "Yes, he is only one year older than Dad, and Wan Lingbo is also 'old', half a year ago." I suddenly felt very sad.Genshengbo and Wanlingbo are father's best friends. Mother hasn't come home yet.My sister said that my mother went to church.Since my father passed away, my mother has believed in Christianity. "In the village, there are many people who believe in Christianity." My sister warmed up the food for me, but my mother hasn't come back yet; I finished eating, but my mother hasn't come back yet.The younger sister said that today is the weekend, and my mother will go to church on this day of the week, and nothing can be done. It wasn't until ten o'clock in the evening that my mother came home, and there were many old ladies in the village who went home with my mother. Mother's hair is mixed with a lot of white hair, and there are more wrinkles than in the past.My mother took my hand, touched my face and said, "My baby is back." My mother's hands were full of calluses, as rough as tree bark, which had been worn down by various farm tools. The old ladies from the same village squeezed into the room, and the room suddenly seemed cramped.Some old ladies took my hand and said, "Thank God, my baby got home safely." Other old ladies took my other hand and said, "My baby's safe return is a gift from God." I suddenly felt that these aunts and aunts who watched me grow up became very strange and I couldn't recognize each other.But they spoke very sincerely, and their eyes and expressions were sincere. I can't understand why these amiable and respectable elders of mine have suddenly become like this. After the elders left, my younger sister stuffed two bundles of flower poles into the hole of the kang, and the surface of the kang became warm all of a sudden.We took off our shoes and sat on the kang to chat about family affairs. We talked a lot about our childhood, and there would be bursts of laughter, followed by tears.When I was a child, life was too hard, we were always struggling with hunger, and the biggest wish at that time was to be able to have a full meal. Mother sat in the corner of the kang, not saying a word.However, every time I turned to look at my mother, I saw her quietly wiping away tears. I asked my mother, "How did you believe in Jesus?" Mother said: "Jesus is good, Jesus can save the suffering." I asked, "How does Jesus save the suffering?" My mother said: "Jesus said that anyone who suffers can go to heaven after death, and now there is nothing wrong with suffering a little bit." The church in the neighboring village was built a year ago, and the priest did not know where he came from; but this priest has a strong appeal, and more and more people believe in Christ.My mother said that half of the old people in the village believed in Christ. My mother also told me a lot of novel things.A certain grandfather in the village got cancer. The doctor told him to go home and wait for death. After believing in Christ, the cancer healed on its own.The couple in a certain family in the village often got divorced. After believing in Christ, the couple lived a good life... I thought, this might be true.When a person has spiritual sustenance, he will feel better. When the mood is good, some diseases will heal without treatment. Moreover, cancer is formed by the stagnation of hostility.Christianity advises people to do good deeds, and if the couple both want to do good deeds, naturally they will not quarrel. I am relieved that without my father, my mother has found spiritual sustenance, she has many church friends, and she will no longer suffer loneliness. The younger sister said that there are many widowed and elderly people in the village, and their children go out to work, and believing in Christ has become their spiritual pursuit. That night, our family said that we didn't rest until three o'clock in the morning.I fell asleep as soon as I closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes, it was already past nine o'clock in the morning. This is the most solid sleep I have had in the past two years, without dreaming, without any pressure in life, and without thinking about work.I opened my eyes, jumped off the kang, and felt like a tractor full of diesel, which could burst into a sprint as soon as I stepped on the accelerator. The snow has stopped and the sun is out.The sun shines on the white snow, just like the setting sun reflects on the water, a glow all over the place.The ice began to melt under the eaves, and long ice skates were hanging down.A few sparrows came out to look for food, and walked out a long string of "human" characters on the snow.There are a group of children in the village road, wearing cotton gloves and cotton hats, competing who can slide farther on the snow. I prepared pastries and cigarettes, ready to visit Gen Shengbo and Wan Lingbo, when I suddenly remembered what my sister said last night, they were all 'old', and I felt sad. If Genshengbo and Wanlingbo were alive, they would both be less than 60 years old this year. Father, Genshengbo and Wanlingbo are best friends.The three of them talked about everything. During those years, the three of them were "tie sticks".This profession has now disappeared. To pierce the thorns is to cut off the jujube thorns, hold them upside down in your hands, and use a chopping knife to cut off the branches and tendrils, leaving only the main trunk, which is the thorns.Jujube thorns are called Vitex thorns in many places, and they are miscellaneous. They generally grow on the banks of ditches and affect the growth of crops.These pigtails are bundled together and pulled to the market for sale.Those who needed it bought them home and put them in a wooden frame in the shape of a "day", which became the common ones used by rural people in those years. The northwest is bitterly cold, and the crops are ripe once a year.Every autumn, after the crops are harvested, the land needs to be plowed. After the plowing, crops cannot be planted, and the land needs to be leveled. At this time, plows are needed.When picking the ground, there are animals pulling in front, and a farmer holding the rein in the back to control the direction, and the one placed on the ground in the middle is the pick.There is often a child sitting on top of the pig, or a stone is placed on it.The animals pull the hog back and forth, and the land is leveled before sowing. "The plough rakes into the wheat straw, raises the field so that the shovel can be turned left and right, and the cart can be turned back." This is a summary of rural technical talents. If these can be achieved, they will be "able pedestrians" in the countryside, that is, crop handles. .This adage has been popular in the northwest countryside for thousands of years, but now it has been forgotten by people. As long as I can remember, I have seen my father making stalks.It wasn't until I was in the upper grades of elementary school and the production responsibility system was implemented in the countryside that my father stopped making stalks.Since then, the land has been distributed to every household, and farmers can finally have enough to eat. My mother said that my father had tied the strips for eight years. Decades have passed, and I can still remember some things about my father's death.My mother said that every time my father came back, he would curl up his arms, his fingers would be stiff, and he would go to the kerosene lamp and say, "I have thorns on my hands. Pick them out for me." My mother asked, "Where are the thorns?" My father said, "" It’s all over your hands, take a look, and pick where you see it.” Mother took out a large needle from the sole of the shoe, and picked out the thorns that had penetrated into the flesh one by one.After picking the thorns, the father can pick up the rice bowl and eat. Another time, when my father came home, his nose was bruised and his face was swollen, and his arms were covered with blood.The mother asked: "What's the matter?" The father said that when he was chopping jujube thorns, he didn't see clearly that there was a hornet's nest on it. A swarm of hornets chased him and bit him, and he fell off the cliff. In the summer, every time my father went out to get the prickly pricks, he would bring a bottle of salt water with him, which was the empty bottle left after hanging the needles.Fill the empty bottle with water, put it in a cloth bag, put two steamed buns and steamed sweet potatoes in the cloth bag, this is my father's daily food.The summer in the north is extremely hot and the climate is dry. After my father drank the water in the salt water bottle, he could only look for water to drink everywhere.Sometimes, I can't help but find a puddle of water the size of a washbasin in the shade.The northwest is too dry, and this puddle of water often attracts many animals.Wolves, foxes, rabbits... and all kinds of insects: corporals, grasshoppers, spiders... The color of the water has turned green and yellow, and my father floated the dirty things on the water aside, Pick it up with your hands and take a few sips. All the stories about my father’s pricking the scorpion came from my mother’s narration. My father never mentioned how much he had suffered. He always said: “The past is all good times.” After the father carried the pigtail back home, he put the pigtail on the wooden pier under the moonlight, and chopped off the crooked roots of the pigtail with an axe, so that the pigtail looked straight and tidy.Then, he tied the stalks together with ropes twisted from wheat straw, and each bundle was square and of the same quantity.Then, Unity hid in the depths of the cave. There is a small town nearby, and there is a market on the fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth day of the lunar calendar.Every early morning of this day, Gen Shengbo and Wan Lingbo would come to my house to gather, and when the time came, they would go to the market with their father.Each of them pulls a shelf cart full of scallops.There was a sack on my father's sack, and I fell asleep on the sack.There is a schoolbag under my body, and there are pencils and notebooks in the schoolbag. They don't even know how to settle accounts when they sell pig sticks, but I can. At that time, there were no clocks at home, so we could only rely on the rooster to announce the dawn.There is a Laihang chicken at home, it is very beautiful, and it is used as a clock.Neither Genshengbo nor Wanlingbo's family raised roosters, so they had to gather at my house every time they sold pork belly.I remember one time, they came early and smoked at the bottom of the kiln in the house. Wan Lingbo smoked dry tobacco, which smelled very strong. It's called "cannon smoke".I woke up in a daze, and heard my mother say: "The chicken hasn't crowed yet." Uncle Gensheng and Uncle Wan Ling said: "Let the baby sleep for a while, and call the baby when we leave." Every time I sell pork belly, I sleep all the way.At that time, I was very small and sleepy very much. I heard my father say in a daze: "Lie down, it's going downhill." Sometimes, when going uphill, my father couldn't pull up the shelf car by himself, so he said to wake me up and let me go. I come down.Uncle Gensheng and Uncle Wan Ling said: "Call the baby to sleep, don't call the baby." They helped the father push the shelf cart up to the top of the slope. The town that sells tiao tiao is more than ten miles away from our home, and the road is full of ditches and slopes. There are very few people who sell glutinous rice in the town, and most of the time it is only the three of them who sell glutinous rice.This is hard work that no one wants to do.People from all over the world come to buy their pork belly.At that time, it was still a production team, and they didn't dare to ask for too much price, and they sold it when the price was almost the same.This car can't be sold for much money.I remember one time, when my father came home from selling the tiao tiao, he said to his mother, "Today, Wanling is sold and I made 30 yuan." The 30 yuan made my father very excited. After selling the pigtails, my father and the others were reluctant to buy food.I remember that every time it was time for lunch, my father would walk into the commune cafeteria and ask the chef for a bowl of hot noodle soup, soak the cold steamed buns in it for me to eat, while they ate the cold buns they brought .Those buns are made of sweet potato noodles and corn flour, and there are very few wheat flour buns. In my memory, my father only spent money on me once.Once, when I stood in front of a watermelon stall and couldn't move, my mouth was drooling, so my father gave the boss five cents.The boss cut a thin slice with a knife and handed it to me. I ate it very sweetly. My father only learned to read and write when the family got better.At that time, he went into the ravine every day to look for pigtails, so he had no time to study culture.At the market at that time, when someone was buying pigtails and wanted to buy several bundles and how much a bundle would cost, I immediately took out a pencil notebook from my schoolbag, listed out the formulas, and calculated.Many people envied and said: "This child can settle accounts at such a young age." The father said proudly: "My child not only knows how to calculate accounts, but also can read!" I was the pride of my father then and for many years to come. I remember that in the first year when the joint production contract responsibility system was implemented in the countryside, every family’s houses were filled with grain.My father smoked and chatted with Genshengbo and Wanlingbo at home.My father said: "I will never tie the stalks again." Gen Shengbo said: "I never thought there would be such a day." Wan Lingbo was just smoking, and there was a smile in every wrinkle on his face. Since then, they have never tied the knot again. Father and the three of them have always had a good relationship, and the three of them have never quarreled or quarreled together.Whoever has something to do, the other two will help.Years of hardships have made them forge an unbreakable friendship. Genshengbo's family had no children, and later adopted a girl from a relative's family.The girl is very filial to Gen Shengbo and his wife.After the girl grew up, she recruited a young man from Nanshan, whose written language was called Ruzhu.This young man is also very kind to Genshengbo's family. There were two girls in Wan Lingbo's family, and only one boy was born in the end.The eldest daughter of Wan Lingbo's family is Nizi, who is in the same class as me, but she has always been poor in her studies, and she can't do simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.She dropped out of school in the second grade. When I was young, I heard my parents discussing in private, wanting to introduce Nizi to me, let us make a baby kiss.I strongly disagree. I think it is a very shameful thing to "have a daughter-in-law" at such a young age.At that time, I was determined to be a red and dedicated successor to communism, to liberate Taiwan, and to liberate two-thirds of the suffering people in the world.I remember that there was a slogan written on the dirt wall at the entrance of the village at that time: "Think of the motherland and look at the world." And I have a great ideal since I was a child, to liberate all mankind.How can such a person "want a wife"? And now, his father is gone, and so are his two best friends. All three of them had cancer, and none lived beyond the age of 60.I have been thinking, what is the reason for this?Who is the culprit who took their lives? Gen Shengbo and Wan Lingbo actually fell ill very early, but like their father, they have never had money to see a doctor, and they have always been reluctant to spend money to see a doctor.At that time, a cold would take away a year's income of the whole family's crops, not to mention these unexplained diseases.Gen Shengbo had gastric cancer, Wan Lingbo had esophageal cancer, and his father had osteosarcoma.When they get sick, they can only wait to die. I often wondered if the three of them were physically exhausted and severely lacked nutrition when poverty was intertwined. Over the years, I have often dreamed about my father, and every time I woke up crying.I hate myself for being incapable, I hate myself for watching my father go, but not being able to keep him.My mother always comforted me and said: "God wants to accept people, and there is nothing anyone can do. My baby should not feel bad."