Chapter 6 "Lamp from the Earth" The Age of Madness and Tragedy

crazy and tragic years (1) 3 That crazy and tragic era.It is a breeding ground for ignorance, ideals, passion, anger, hatred and poets.Tong Suqing, a third class in the standard sense, left the capital at the age of 18, like a dizzy cell in a bright red hot artery, transported by the great blood vessel of history to the northern land far away from the city. Township.The red blood is a metaphor for the most reckless and ignorant sacrifice. It rushes forward vigorously, throws out a few cells with a whoosh, and leaves them in a wild and cold world like sowing seeds. She is just an insignificant grain among these cells.

That year, she and some young people she had never met went to the north to jump in the queue, squeezed the train for two or three days, and then changed to a large military truck. When replenishing supplies on the way, she stopped at a farm in the Sanjiang Plain. The eyes of these young people from the city are amazed by the wide open world - the sky and white clouds are like a deep blue sea with white icebergs floating on them, the sun is cool, and it is full of boundless fields and summer of blisters.Wildflowers of various colors flickered around the water bubble.The leaves of the grass are as bright as a layer of glaze, and the bright green is wet, flowing to the shore, as if the blue waves of the water bubbles are dyed by the grass on the shore.

The fields are boundless, and the cyan wheat fields are gently tumbling under the repeated touch of the wind. The soybean fields and corn fields are lined up in rows, spreading spectacularly to the end of the horizon.The crops grow vigorously between the long and dark ridges of the fields, which is also a huge net with fine warp and weft, covering the youthful years of the educated youths in every detail-this land has an extremely bloody primitive attitude: The ridges of the fields are straightened like hair by the iron rake of the tractor, and the land itself still despises people's tyrannical and ignorant transformation with its infinite breadth—except for the fertile black oozing oil, it is originally barren and has nothing.

This is the mature field of the Great Northern Wilderness.Many educated youth companies took root here.But what she was facing was a more remote place, close to the Xiaoxing'an Mountains forest area. The educated youths who came earlier had already cut wood by themselves, built the pillars and beams, and then wrapped them with thick felt and built a felt roof, that is, a tent.There is a hole in the top of the felt, which is the chimney mouth used for heating the stove in winter.A few large holes were left around the tent, which became windows.The bed frames inside the tents are all made of thick logs, covered with hay, it is very soft to lie on, and has a strong log fragrance.The entire huge tent is separated by several layers of reed mats to separate men and women.

A young man named Jian Weidong, in order to play the cello, would rather choose the most arduous and tiring work than to use his hands to stain the soil or swing an iron pick. He has a delicate rattan box full of books.In this way, they were assigned to the forest farm.His hands exist for playing the cello and writing poetry.Those white and slender hands left an unusually deep impression on her.Naturally, this counter-revolutionary stance brought him a lot of trouble in the future. On the night when Tong Suqing and two other girls came here, the educated youth held a social activity in the open space in front of the tent.The so-called love at first sight was first seen at the fraternity party.The young man played and sang the guitar, and the folk songs of the Soviet Union flowed in the birch forest and the thick night at the border.Accompanied by a starlight like beans, these affectionate and beautiful music, which is far more than the revolutionary model opera, fascinated a large group of young people; an older boy, standing on a stool, recited Pushkin and Petofi's poems; followed by Jian Weidong, who is playing a dark brown cello - long and white with a bow in his hand, with clear joints protruding rhythmically. Under the washing of night and candlelight, he is It is a rhythmic poem.

Su Qing fell in love with this young poet who was like a crane and played the cello.So she immediately followed his performance, took out her beloved harmonica and played a song "The Hawthorn Tree", and the sound of the harmonica seemed a little bit sad. The poet gazed at her affectionately as she played, according to the will of fate.He saw the girl's autumn forest-like braids, glowing indigo in the candlelight.Deer-like black eyes.The cheeks have shy and sweet lines.Before leaving late at night, the young man did not forget to stop the girl who was leaving in a hurry at the door.

At that time, he was wearing a white shirt and indanthrene blue trousers, which looked extremely high-end and eye-catching at that time.The neckline was opened slightly wildly and the sleeves were rolled up, revealing the pale blue neck and collarbone.The varicose veins on the arm protrude very obviously, the fingers are slender, and the posture is lonely and indifferent when playing the violin.His face was pale, but his outline seemed to have the rigid lines of men who lived in cold regions for a long time.The expression is often slack, and there is an indifferent smile from time to time, but it is unforgettable.

He handed her a handmade wooden box and said, This is a poem I wrote.Check it out if you're interested. Feeling nervous, she turned around holding the box and left.The crimson shy smile disappeared into the fragrant birch forest of the night.The moonlight was very high that night, and the bright light shone on the thick water vapor in the forest, gradually permeating it. She returned to the tent and eagerly opened the box under the dim lantern in front of the bed.It is a stack of birch bark as flexible as paper, and on each bark is written a poem in ink pen. Afterwards, they spent many days exhausted by excessive labor and sleepless nights caused by excessive worries and thoughts in this forest.Those bright moonlight shines on the path to meet lovers.Often in the evening after work was over, after eating in the tent canteen next door, the two of them would walk hand in hand in the ravine at the same time.In that dense forest, they once sat and chatted on the felled cross-logs, and embraced implicitly and tremblingly for a long time.

He said to her right there, do we belong here forever? She didn't know how to answer.It was always difficult for her to guess his thoughts. Not distinguishing and being blind are precisely the prerequisites for love. The bright moonlight broke through the night and streamed down from the tall branches. They were like the dark seabed deep in the depths. Watching the light shine in the form of rays, and as the clouds drifted and blocked, it kept changing, bright and dazzling.The birds chirping in the mountains and forests are all-too-familiar nocturnes. With ideals and youth, I despise or endure hunger, illness, labor, and homesickness.No one knows how long it will take.Their young and ordinary lives and wills cannot support the heavy weight of pain and disappointment.After such nights, in the days when they lost their ideals and lost their youth, their vivid faces and fiery youth, like the boundless reeds blown by autumn frost, gradually fell down.And wither quickly.

They don't know what an embarrassing and desperate position this blatant and ignorant conspiracy launched by history will push themselves and their youth into. winter is here.The work of logging and clearing forests has become busy.Wearing a cotton coat and a fox fur hat to work in the forest, the whole body is very heavy, and it doesn't feel cold when working.The feet crunched and creaked in the thick snow, and the dry snowflakes were as soft as talcum powder. When I was thirsty, I grabbed a handful and stuffed it into my mouth. My teeth hurt from the cold, but I soon felt sweet The cold snow water is as refreshing as mint.The hot air exhaled from the mask caused a layer of hoarfrost to condense on the eyelashes, which pierced the eyelids like ice scum.

The boys cut the wood, and the girls clear the forest.Despite the hard work, you can appreciate the rare spectacle in the world during the interval of labor. The mountains are full of dark pine forests, and the tips are covered with a layer of white snow with distinct colors.The banks of the small stream were frozen, paved into a crystal clear Milky Way on earth, meandering in the forest.An unfrozen trickle of water in the middle of the stream rushed rushing forward, making a wonderful chime-like sound.In a wet depression in summer, the water on the surface freezes into a sheet of glass in winter. The grass and yellow flowers are unbelievably frozen under the ice and snow glass, and they are still as bright as summer flowers, like a bird. Colorless and transparent fine amber. Against the blue sky, the white birches in the forest after the snow are tall and beautiful.With all the leaves gone, only the bare pure white trunk remains, and only the spicy juice flows endlessly in it.Looking around, the branches are covered with snow, and there are many cute bird nests as delicate as black eyes between the branches.Bai Hua stood proudly, regularly dividing the tile-blue sky behind her into two halves, towering straight into the sky like a silver sword.The sun also set golden edges around the outline of the birch, which is stunningly beautiful. In addition to the white birches that serve as a foil for the snow, there are also green holly dotted in the forest and snowfields. The four seasons are full of greenery, lush and luxuriant, and the cold green is like the cool summer sun. It looks particularly refreshing against the dazzling white snow.At the end of winter and the beginning of spring, the azaleas all over the mountains and plains are like splashed ink on painting paper, and the branches of shrubs and plants are full of pink and white shy flowers. Crazy and Tragic Years (2) In the silent mountain forest after the migratory birds left, there was a lot of snow, one scene after another, and the whole field was confused.Soon after the snowfall, the ice-blue clean sky was exposed, and the sun shone from behind the mountains, illuminating the forest and snow fields.The thick snow in the forest stretches flat, covered with dazzling gold, like a large piece of luxurious fur with a soft touch. But in those endless winter days, the inside of the tent was as cold as an icehouse.The beds in the tents are all made of wood and cannot be made into kangs. In the temperature of more than 30 degrees below zero at night, sleeping must rely on the stove to maintain the temperature.The educated youths take turns arranging different people to be on duty at night to keep warm.Put down a large iron bucket, dig a hole in it, connect a chimney to the felt roof, and it becomes a big stove.The students on duty at night have to keep adding firewood to it to keep the temperature so that the educated youths will not be frozen.At around 2 o'clock in the middle of the night, I have to go out to the non-freezing spring in the valley to fetch water and put it on the stove to warm it, so that everyone can wash their faces with warm water in the morning.Of course, if you are on duty in the middle of the night, you don't have to go to work during the day the next day, and you can just catch up on sleep in the tent. That week it was Jian Weidong's turn to be on duty, and it happened that he accidentally got a dilapidated manuscript: "The Ninth Wave". —read it.In that era of extreme spiritual desolation, to be lucky enough to find such a popular underground literature and read it secretly in bed, the excitement of this kind of stimulation is naturally incomparable. The night was getting deep, and everyone had fallen into a deep sleep.He thought the fire was not bright enough, so he lit the horse lantern and a kerosene lamp, and read a book while guarding the stove.He was so excited that he was unwilling or afraid to forget to add firewood. Every time he added more firewood, he always put a lot of firewood in. Seeing the flames blazing and the stove getting hot, he looked at it with peace of mind, hoping that the fire could last a little longer. time. He was fascinated by watching it, and it wasn't until three o'clock in the morning that he realized that he should go to the valley to draw water warm on the stove for people to wash in the morning, so he got up and prepared to go out.Before going out, he cleaned out the ashes that were clogged in the stove, but since he couldn't find a dustpan, he temporarily piled up the ashes beside him, letting it use up the residual heat by the way.Fearing that the fire would go out after he went out, he deliberately added a lot of new firewood. Seeing that the fire was burning ragingly, the young man yawned and picked up two wooden buckets and went out to fetch water. It was a clear, dry, snowy night.There were gusts of wind.The snow was knee-deep, making it extremely difficult to walk.Borrowing the moonlight, he came to the spring, but slipped and fell on the ice, and his nose was bruised and his face was swollen.Finally enduring the severe pain, he got up in embarrassment, insisted on fetching two buckets of water in the dark, and walked back with difficulty.My knees were so sore and I was freezing all over.In his heart, he was secretly worried about the injury of his hands, and regretted this unlucky duty.Stop and go, finally returned to the camp.However, he was stunned by the scene before him.I saw that the iron sheet of the chimney was red, and the felt roof around the mouth of the chimney had burst into flames, and the burnt smell was particularly pungent.His heart tightened, and he ran forward quickly. Before he could climb the slope, he saw flames rising with a gust of mountain wind, and then with a soft crackling sound, the felt roof collapsed, instantly igniting the flames in the tent. Lamp oil diesel... The bucket he was carrying was overturned on the ground, his legs and feet were weak, and he just fell to his knees on the ground.Panicked screams soon came from inside the tent, and he covered his eyes with his hands, lying on the ground weakly and trembling.When he came back to his senses and ran up, the fire had already surrounded the entire tent.The blazing stove, the hot ashes that were not thrown away in time, the oil pot, the kerosene lamp, the horse lamp, the books, the warm clothes pasted to the stove to dry, the bed made of logs and hay, the curtain of the reed mat, and The firewood stacked next to the tent, even the heated blanket itself-all played a role in helping the tyrant.In an instant, the entire tent was surrounded by raging fire, and the smell of burnt felt in the thick smoke was particularly choking.Due to the overwork during the day, the young people slept soundly.Even if the agile people jumped out of the tent from the flames, their bodies were all on fire. They screamed and went madly into the snow more than ten meters away. Except for ice and snow, there is no water for fighting fires.In the depths of the forest, the panicked cries for help and tearing pain screams of the educated youths can be heard. Those unprepared young girls were pressed under the bed boards and beams, unable to escape in the fire, and then They could only hold hands tightly, curled up on the ground, and waited for the fire to possess them... When they faced this sudden doomsday, their young age and the education they received at that time could not give them too many calm and intelligent ways of escape.Like refugees from Pompeii, they leave blank smiles on fossils.And then escape into history. Fortunately, the trees around the tent were cut down to make building materials, and the escaped people smashed snow to fight the fire, avoiding causing a forest fire.There is no dawn in Xiaoxing'an Mountains in winter.In the early morning of the next day, people who were still in shock tentatively walked towards the ruins from the smog that had not yet receded—then they saw the scorched bodies of four girls and their humble prayers for life before they died.The four girls were pressed under the beams and the crossbars of the bed, their scorched hands were still tightly clutching their companions, or stretched out to the surroundings in some kind of emptiness, as if they were being led by the god of death.Their bodies have turned into pitch-black coke, and the shrouds are constantly soaked with black and thick human oil.In front of this group of statues made up of the charred corpses of young girls, everything is being roasted and mutilated. Just last night, they were young and plump carcasses, but now they are black souls trembling with innocence under the shroud. Those girls were their partners in singing "The Internationale" at the fraternity.They are young people from all corners of the country.The undead of the Republic. That night, after the accident, Jian Weidong shrank in the dark forest because of fear.Crying like crazy. The woods on a cold winter night, and the ultimate silence.The moon star is sparse, and the deep mist is lingering around, casting a layer of halo on the bright moonlight scattered on the snow.Heaven and earth blended together silently.The tall birch trees have shed all their branches and leaves, leaving only dripping bones, but they are simple and beautiful.The branches swaying with the wind go deep into the dark blue sky, full of the sweetness and sadness of the years in the forest.Through the woods, the misty clouds are like torn transparent brocade, with sparse stars looming in it.The departure of migratory birds made the forest quiet. Crazy and Tragic Years (3) He trembled with terror at the fault he had committed.In this silent forest, I enjoy the tolerance and condemnation of the dark night.Tong Suqing was able to escape because she woke up early, but it was not until the evening of the next day that she found Jian Weidong, who had lost his body, in the depths of the woods. He was dirty and confused. Jian Weidong was dealt with as a matter of course by the organization.Peeking at corrupt underground novels, behaving badly, setting fire to houses, seriously affecting the production revolution... He was originally aloof and lonely, but the sudden disaster made him embattled on all sides.He was punished by notification, denunciation and confinement.Several unrepentant male educated youths encouraged the production team leader to hang him from a tree and flog him. They also clamored that he should be sentenced as an arsonist and put in prison. After a series of disputes, Jian Weidong could no longer stay here, and was finally transferred to another production team outside Xiaoxing'anling.It is extremely remote, and it is a large wetland swamp.Because Tong Suqing couldn't bear him to leave, she asked to be dispatched together. When they came to the new production team, they were told that there was no spare accommodation.There is only one dilapidated house abandoned by farmers that is said to have evil Feng Shui.They used this dilapidated house to temporarily build a shack with a fence in the middle, which became their residence.With a desperate attitude, she and Jian Weidong simply removed the fence and lived together amidst everyone's scorn and rumors. In the next few years, there was another crop of newly arrived young educated youths.Some of the original educated youths had returned to the city, which made Jian Weidong extremely jealous.The popular and professional ones were recruited and transferred away, the sick ones retired, and the bold ones rioted or escaped illegally.But Jian Weidong and the others committed a "criminal offense" because of their bad status and "bad" performance. In addition, he and Tong Suqing lived together, which had a very bad influence. Therefore, both of them were isolated, and their relationship with the captain and instructor was very stiff. Very little hope. If he did not return to the city to work through proper channels, the family would not have the food, oil and cloth tickets distributed to others. Even if he fled back, it would be very difficult for the family to take a share from the family's share to support him. In those hopeless days, Jian Weidong had stopped writing poems and playing the cello.Art is always a derivative and appendage of life.If life is not guaranteed, how can we talk about those spring and snow. His chin was covered with jagged stubble and he looked much older.Personality is more irritable, arrogant and moody, not working, not doing things, drinking and fighting with a group of educated youths almost every day.Can't earn work points, can't get food stamps, so hungry and flustered, they do some sneaky things.At that time, Wei Dong lived with her, and they often quarreled and slandered her. To make matters worse, Suqing is pregnant.This is undoubtedly worse.In that era, even normal love and marriage among educated youths would cause a lot of gossip.What's more, she is not yet married to Weidong, so when something like this happened, she dared not tell her family, and was helpless, living in shock amidst endless contempt and spurning. In the days of pregnancy, in order to earn work points, I had to carry a basket on my back early in the morning, hold a steamed bun, and drill into the endless green gauze tent to break corn.I didn't come back until the end of work at night, already tired and dizzy.He leaned over to plant in the field with difficulty and embarrassment, his back hurt so badly that he couldn't straighten up.When I went home at night, I was so hungry that I was flustered, but the rice jars and cauldrons were empty, and there was not even drinking water.A bitter despair... That year, because Weidong was dissatisfied with her pregnancy, he became bad-tempered, like a villain without sympathy and responsibility.And she had no choice but to endure.I gritted my teeth and never returned home for a year. That kind of bitterness is the sourness that penetrates into the bone marrow, and it has reached the bottom line of fate, so that no matter what adversity she encounters in her later life, as long as she compares it with the situation when she was an educated youth, she no longer feels that there is nothing she can't bear. .This is also the only spiritual wealth left to most of the elders during those years of educated youth who were wasted in order to "transform the earth". She went through difficult pregnancy and childbirth alone in the countryside, and gave birth to an illegitimate child—Jian Sheng. When Jian Sheng was half a year old, Jian Weidong's father passed away due to the ups and downs of the troubled times.Jian Weidong got news from his family and asked him, his only son, to go back to take care of the old man's funeral.He knew that this opportunity to go home was once in a lifetime, holding his father's obituary, he almost wept bitterly and ecstatically.He finally had an excuse to go back to the city, and vowed no matter what, he would never come back under this excuse. He said to her, come with me, and never come back after leaving.You see, the educated youths have changed several times now, and our group is basically gone... Last time I was recruiting, I submitted an application with those sons of a bitch, but now they come back empty-handed. We waited stupidly It is impossible to return to the city... After listening to it calmly, she said bitterly, what will we do after we go back.What about Jian Sheng?