Chapter 10 10

6 I met Wu Min at the gate of Nanyang Department Store in Ximending.I went to Nanyang to ask for underwear, but my vest was pierced, and the elastic band of the underwear lost its elasticity. Go be a rag.Nanyang Department Store had a three-day autumn sale, and a red note was hung at the door: 30% off shirts, pajamas and underwear.When Wu Min saw me, he hesitated and felt unnatural.I found a middle-aged man beside him.The man was about fifty, with a bald green shaved head. His whole body was skinny and pale. The veins on his forehead were bulging, and his eyes were sunken. Two patches of black and green, as if recovering from a long illness, with a languid expression.He was wearing a yellowed white shirt with a frayed and fuzzy collar.A pair of loose black trousers were tied around his body, dangling.He wore a pair of black rubber shoes, one of which was open at the toe.

"Ah Qing—" Wu Minqiang greeted me with a smile. "Where are you going?" I stopped at the gate of Nanyang Department Store. "I also came to Nanyang to buy something—" Wu Min hesitated before introducing the sickly middle-aged man beside him. "Ah Qing, this is my father." I hurriedly nodded and said: "uncle." Wu Min's father smiled shyly, but looked at Wu Min, as if waiting for him to answer something to relieve his embarrassment.Without making a sound, Wu Min pushed open the door of Nanyang Department Store and walked in.His father followed him inside as well.After entering, Wu Min went to the shirt department first. The counter over there was full of shirts that were sold out at a huge discount, and the customers who picked up the cheap were all gathered there, tumbling for a while.Wu Min also squeezed in, grabbed two pieces out, one blue and one gray, turned around and asked his father:

"Father, do you wear fourteen and a half inches, or fifteen?" "It's all right." Wu Min's father replied. "Are these two colors okay?" Wu Min handed the shirt to his father, and his father took it, held it in his hand, looked to the right, thought for a long time, and said: "It's the gray one." He returned the blue one to Wu Min, and Wu Min stuffed it back into his hand. "I've bought both of them together, so it's rare to see a big discount." After buying the shirts, Wu Min led his father through the departments one by one. He bought underwear, hand towels, socks, and slippers from head to toe. Bought a bottle of Sanhua brand hair tonic.Wu Min paid the banknotes and carried the big and small bags in his hands. He didn't discuss with his father at all about the next few items, and settled for them himself.I also bought four sets of Three Wrigleys underwear and snatched up a blue and white striped shirt at a bargain.We walked out of the gate of Nanyang Department Store, but Wu Min whispered in my ear:

"Ah Qing, you accompany me to the train station. After I send my father to the train, we will have dinner together." Wu Min's father went to Hsinchu by regular bus at 4:30.Wu Min also bought a platform ticket for me, and we sent Wu Min's father to platform two to wait for the train.Standing on the platform, Wu Min had both hands full of packages, and said to his father: "What else do you need, just write to me." Wu Min's father wiped the sweat off his forehead with his hands, his eyes were dazed, and he pondered for a long time and said: "Enough, nothing more."

After a while, he rolled up the shirt sleeve of his right hand, showing his thin wrist, and held it up for Wu Min to see. "This ringworm has been born for two years, and it's still not good. It's very painful. Do you know any medicine that can cure it?" Wu Min's father's wrists were covered with rings of ringworm, some of which were scarred and turned crimson, and some had just been scratched, revealing bright red tender flesh.Wu Min frowned and said: "You didn't say it earlier, the Huamei Pharmacy is opposite the Nanyang Department Store. They have a kind of 'Cure Baifu', which is a special medicine for treating ringworm—how about it, I bought it and sent it to your second uncle's house."

Wu Min's father took a look at Wu Min, nodded, put down his shirt sleeves, and fell silent.The three of us stood silently on the platform. After a while, Wu Min suddenly told his father thoughtfully: "Father, when you go to the second uncle's place, the second uncle doesn't pay much attention to it, but you know how the second aunt is. Don't take advantage of her advantage." "Understood." Wu Min's father replied. "As soon as you arrive, give that bottle of hair tonic to Second Aunt, and say that I bought it for her. It's a brand she often uses."

Wu Min's father nodded again.As the train pulled into the station, Wu Min waited for his father to get on the train and find a seat before handing him bags of clothes through the window.After Wu Min's father sat down, he stretched out half of his body from the window and pointed to his right wrist. "Amin, ringworm medicine, don't forget, it's very itchy—" "Got it," Wu Min frowned, and replied, "I'll just send it to you." The train started and left the station. Wu Min was still standing there in a daze, looking at the distant train, and said very calmly:

"My father, he just got out of prison this morning. He spent three years in Taipei Prison." 7 "I saw my father for the first time when I was seven years old." Wu Min and I walked to Lao Dachangli on Guanqian Road near the station, and ordered a fast food, ham and egg sandwich, alone.The second floor of Lao Dachang was quiet, at 4:30 in the afternoon, neither early nor late, there was no one there.The light on the second floor was very dim, and the light music from downstairs came faintly.After we finished our sandwiches and drank coffee, Wu Min lit a Jade Mountain, took a deep breath, and said:

"The first time I saw him, I was very scared. At that time, he was much stronger, and he hadn't started taking drugs yet. He had a shiny suit hair, and he was quite airy. As soon as he arrived at my second uncle's house, he quarreled with my second aunt. I got up because he was going to take me away. When my mother was pregnant with me, he was imprisoned for the first time. I was born at my second uncle’s house. I saw that he was fierce, so I hid in the rice barn. My second uncle opened a rice mill in Hsinchu. The rice warehouse was full of big baskets containing millet and rice bran. I got into the pile of baskets and refused to come out. When my father came to catch me, I crawled all over the ground and kicked over. A basket of rice bran was sprinkled all over the head and body. The second aunt laughed when she saw it, and said, "This looks like a mouse that is stealing rice bran!"

Speaking of which, Wu Min himself laughed first. "The Hakka women are the most powerful!" Wu Min shrugged his shoulders and said with a lingering fear. "Is your second uncle afraid of his wife?" I laughed, "I heard that all Hakka men are afraid of their wives." "Second uncle? Second aunt roared, his face turned yellow with fright, do you think he is afraid?" Wu Min laughed, "Second aunt's family is a prominent Hakka family in Hsinchu, and the rice mill is her dowry. The second uncle is single, and he is short in front of the second aunt. I feel sorry for him, and I always get scolded by the second aunt every day, from the dining table to the dining table. During the years when I was at the second aunt's house, when I am always in fear. I remember the night when my second aunt drove my mother out and called me to her room to sleep. I slept in the middle of the night and was swollen with urine. I didn’t dare to get up. In the pants-"

"Poor," I shook my head and sighed with a smile, "like a little daughter-in-law." "What can I do?" Wu Min took a puff of a cigarette, "Who told my parents not to live up to expectations? My father went to jail, and my mother stole someone - I got pregnant with a worker in a rice mill, and let my second aunt push it out all the way." Go out the door." "Did you see your mother afterward?" "I haven't seen her," Wu Min shook his head, "I don't know where she is, I just heard that she married that worker, and she probably lives pretty well." "Ah Ching," Wu Min pondered for a moment, put out his cigarette, and suddenly called out, "Have you ever heard someone cut off his finger to quit gambling?" "Yes," I said with a smile, "some people even cut off two or three of them!" "My gambler dad cut off nine fingers, and he will go to draw cards if there is one left!" Wu Min shook his head and sighed with a smile, "He bet with the Taiwanese that Sangong can stay at the table for three days and three nights. He I just gambled away my whole life like that. It’s not that I’m saying something cruel, it’s fine if my dad is locked up in Taipei Prison, where I can still visit him from time to time and take care of him. Now that he’s released, it won’t take more than three Yue, once he gets his gambling, who knows what will happen? Ah Qing, why is life so troublesome? Living is hard!" Wu Min looked at me with a helpless smile and said. "No one knows how hard it is!" I replied, "Don't tell me you want to cut your hands again? Xiaoyu said, 'Next time Wu Min cuts his dick, I won't give him a blood transfusion!'" "No, why would you do such a stupid thing?" Wu Min felt embarrassed and kept her head bowed. "Ah Qing, Mr. Zhang asked me to stay with him last night and move back to live with him." "what do you say?" "I promised him." "No wonder Xiaoyu calls you a little slut! Why does that 'Scar King Five' move, and your soul flies over? What are you greedy for him? Is he that beautiful apartment in Guangwu New Village?" I remember Wu Min told me that the first day he moved into Mr. Zhang's apartment, he soaked in his blue-tiled bathroom for an hour and refused to come out. "I didn't say that I would move back to live with him now," Wu Min said, "I just went to his place to stay with him. Last night, when I left Anle Township, I went to his house to see him , I know he must be drunk again, he is not a good drinker." I suddenly remembered that when I went to Mr. Zhang's place that day, Mr. Zhang told Xiao Qinqui, the little ghost, to throw me a bag of old clothes that Wu Min left at his place, and asked me to take it away.It was probably at that moment that I suddenly noticed the line at the corner of Mr. Zhang's mouth, like a deep knife mark. He reminded me of the villain star Long Fei who played "Scar King Five". Long Fei always liked it in that movie. Smiling, a deep scar appeared on the corner of his mouth. "Such a ruthless person deserves you to treat him like this!" I suddenly felt that the 500 CC blood I lost to Wu Min was really not worth it. "I pity him." Wu Min said, looking at me. "You are pitiful to him?" I puffed, and spit out the coffee I just took into my mouth, "My little boy, please pity yourself first, your little life was almost ruined by him hand." "You don't know, Ah Qing, Mr. Zhang is a very lonely man. When I lived with him in the past, he was usually cold and not very talkative. But when he drank alcohol, he would have an attack. Take it first." I came to vent my anger and cursed for no reason. Then I closed the door alone and fell asleep. Once he was so drunk that he vomited upside down in the room. I hurried in to serve him and change his clothes. He was drunk I was so confused that I probably didn't know who I was. He hugged me and buried his head in my arms and cried bitterly, as if his heart was torn apart. Ah Qing, have you seen it? Have you ever seen a big man? Do men cry so terribly?" I said I have seen it.I thought of the physical education teacher who shared a room with me in the Yaotai Hotel, that big man from the north, he had built up muscles on his lower abdomen, which were as hard as iron, and he kept asking me to touch them with his hands.But that night when he was lying next to me, he cried so mournfully that I was at a loss what to do. He was also very drunk that night, reeking of alcohol. "I used to think that big men wouldn't cry, especially someone as cold as Mr. Zhang. Who knew that his tears were also hot, and they flowed so much that they kept dripping on the back of my hand. Mr. Zhang is very unpopular, mean, suspicious, and stingy. He usually doesn’t have many friends. None of the boys who live with him are sincere to him. Cheap, take some things away. Xiao Qinkuai is the most ruthless guy. Mr. Zhang told me that he not only took away Mr. Zhang’s Canon camera, but also his most precious set of Sanyo stereos, and He said that if Mr. Zhang went to sue the police, he would reveal his relationship with Mr. Zhang. After being hit this time, Mr. Zhang thought of me again. He probably thought that I was the only one who could be relied on, so he asked I will go back to accompany him." "Then why don't you just move back in and live with him, and just be that 'Scar King Five' little slave again?" "I'm thinking about it. For the time being, it's good to be like this. Mr. Zhang has a strange temper. He is lonely for a while. If he wants me to go back, if he regrets it again, I will be too embarrassed. And now I have nowhere to go. The master wants me to go back at night. I live in Anle Township and keep the store. I said to him: 'Mr. Zhang, when you really need me, I will definitely move back to accompany you'." Wu Min stopped for a moment, looked at me, and continued: "Ah Qing, I know that Mr. Zhang is not a very cute person. But I have been with him for a long time. Although he has been unfeeling to me, as long as he needs me, I will still go to him. He took care of him. No matter what, he always let me live with him for so long. To be honest, the days when I was with Mr. Zhang from childhood to adulthood, I lived the most comfortable life. " There was a smile on the corner of Wu Min's mouth. He looked up at the electric clock on the wall, picked up the bill on the table, got up and said: "At six o'clock, we should go to work in Anle Township." 8 After the opening of Anle Township, the business was booming. After a week, it was full almost every day.The birds in the old nest in the park are eager to grow two pairs of wings and fly straight to the new nest in Anle Township, and they have added many new characters that were afraid to show up in the park before.In the park, the moon is dark and the wind is high, and there are dangers everywhere. Without the courage of a rogue, I really dare not rush into our dark kingdom rashly.For example, the group of junior college students who have never seen a battle with tender hands and feet, that group of good family children, some did not even step through the gate of the park, and some slipped in, but only covered up and hid in the camphor forest. Just take a look.But our new nest has become a paradise for these good family children. They walked in swaggeringly, very safe and sure.Amber lighting, melodious electronic organ, and white foaming beer - this tone is just right for the appetite of this group of teenagers looking for romance.They seem to have come to our Anle Township to hold a college fellowship party: two are from Tamkang, two are from Soochow, several are from Furen, and a large group of cultures. Adidas sports shoes are a top student of the sports school and the captain of the Golden Dragon basketball team.The one with curly hair and mustaches is a talented singer from the Music Department of the Art Academy.He wrote a song called "Your Burning Eyes".Sometimes at night, when we were closing, the group of college students refused to leave, and the talented singer sat on the keyboard and began to play and sing: your burning eyes burned my heart your burning eyes burned my soul i raised my hands but held up - the ashes of love The sky is running out old mountain has collapsed the sea has fallen but yo my love why always Can't figure it out Indestructible The talented singer's voice was intense and mournful. He tilted his head, his long hair was thrown to one side, he closed his eyes, and frowned tightly. His cheeks were flushed red, as if he was in unbearable pain. A group of college students surrounded him, He opened his mouth on his back, fascinated by what he heard.And Xiaoyu and I, each with a broom, swept up a wave of dust from the ground.Xiaoyu kept cursing inwardly, scolding the group of college students for not going home yet, so we can close up and rest.Those college students were all paired up, and the few who were left alone probably just lost their love.The talented singer of the Academy of Arts, his lover left him for Singapore last month, he is an overseas Chinese student in the Department of Foreign Languages, National Taiwan University, it is said that he is very beautiful, and he really has a pair of burning eyes. There is another kind of new guests, who have social status and face, and they also have wives and children.The murders and extortion in the park, and the horrors happening in the dark, frighten them back.But in our Anle Township, under the gentle amber light, these chairman, general manager, and doctoral professors feel like fish in water and feel at home, leaving behind their worries about career and housework during the day. In the new nest, temporarily intoxicated for a while.These middle-aged people with full wallets are our best customers. The master told us to be more flattering. As for those college students, three people will share a bottle of beer. Put it there, just look at it as a vase.The master laughed from ear to ear these days, and bought a Longines gold-plated lighter for Xiaoyu and me.Those wealthy guests took out a three 5, we quickly clicked on the ground, lit the fire, and the golden Longines were delivered to the guests, which was courteous and dignified.So we took advantage of their indifference, and secretly filled a glass of the most expensive Napoleon for them, while listening to them pour out many complaints that we didn't understand.It turns out that these middle-aged people who are successful, wealthy, and have a wallet full of hundred-dollar bills will reveal their astonishing troubles after drinking two glasses of wine.A bald man with a big belly who opened two acrylic factories in Banqiao, He Jinfa, chairman of the board, drank half a bottle of brandy and took out most of the package of Hongjishang. He clasped my wrist and kept nagging all night. : Of his three sons, one is a gambler, the other specializes in chasing singers, and the youngest one has just been expelled from school.If the three sons don't know anything, they will spend the old man's hard-earned money poorly.The bald chairman was so excited that he grinded his teeth, and said angrily: "Three prodigal sons, you are evil!" I kept pouring brandy and lighting cigarettes for him, until the bald chairman finished talking about his family tragedy and tipped me a hundred dollars. In front of the master, he praised me a few words, saying that I have thoughtful service.Xiaoyu has been working very hard these days, because the master entrusted him with an important guest and asked him to serve him carefully. The guest is the captain of the Cuihua ship of Yongxing Hangyuan Company.Captain Long was about fifty, about six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a big chest. When he stood in the room, it looked like a large door panel was erected.Probably, the sea breeze blows all the year round, and the whole body is shiny black, as if wearing iron armor, extremely mighty.The first night he came, Xiaoyu smiled softly: "The Dragon Lord is here!"Captain Dragon's head is also surprisingly big, with a rugged face, high forehead and big nose, a pair of copper bell eyes, and two rows of white teeth in one mouth, which really protrude from the dragon's head and dragon's face.But Captain Long's men were very forthright and enthusiastic, grabbing Xiaoyu's cheeks and screaming, "Little honey!"His accent has a thick Jiangsu-Zhejiang accent, much like Xiaoyu's old householder, Lao Zhou, who spoke Mandarin.The Cuihua is a cargo ship, mainly transporting oil, and it only takes the route from the Persian Gulf to Japan.Captain Long has just returned to Taiwan for vacation from Japan, so every night he has time to come to our Anle Township to get drunk.The master had ordered that Captain Long should give enough whiskey to drink, and all the food and drinks would be given away, and no money was allowed.The master sees that Captain Long is a priceless treasure, which is closely related to the prosperity and decline of our Anle Township.Because in the future, all the foreign wines in Anle Township can be imported by Captain Tuolong.A bottle of Red Label whiskey can save 200 yuan, and a bottle of Napoleon can earn 380 yuan. I don't know how many glasses of wine will be sold to cover this expense.Our business in Anle Township is made from these foreign wines.So the master said to Xiaoyu: "Yuzai, this person is important, please take care of me, don't let this big fish slip away." "Master, don't worry," Xiaoyu said with a smile, "I'll just hold on to the dragon egg of Lord Dragon Lord." Among the many old friends and new acquaintances in Anle Township, there is only one person who doesn't like our new nest.He misses our hometown, the pond of eternal life in the park where the lotus has been pulled out, the tangled clusters of green corals, and the deep darkness where pairs of flying high and low are filled with bright green like fireflies. eyes of desire.The art master said that our lair is full of primitive atmosphere and wild vitality, it is a thrilling and fascinating place.He concluded: Our dark kingdom is still exciting enough!The master thinks our new nest is too artificial, too vulgar, and too comfortable.The master doesn't like the shadow of the glasses under the amber lamp in the soft voice.He criticized those college students: hypocritical, complacent.The master could not find a trace of inspiration in them who had been baptized by civilization.He missed the group of wild children who fled to the park from Huaxi Street, from Sanchongpu, and from the stormy Hengchun fishing port.They are the source of his artistic creation.Master told me.He once traveled around Europe and America, and lived in Paris and New York for many years, but he finally came back to Taiwan, back to his old nest in the park, because only the group of wild children at the head of the lotus pond can arouse his desire for life. , Raw frenzy.He made portraits of them and recorded "Rhapsody of Youth" one after another.Behind the electronic piano stand on the right side of the entrance to Anle Township, there is a white wall. The Shengmei Decoration Company that decorated Anle Township had originally hung an export oil painting on that wall, depicting a bottle of red and green wine. dahlia.When the master saw it, he frowned, and said, "Vulgar!" So our master begged the master to present a piece of his own work for us to hang, adding to the artistic atmosphere of Anle Township.The master said that his paintings were never given away, but in order to improve the atmosphere of Anle Township, he made an exception and lent us a piece of work to hang for a month.But we didn't expect that the master would lend his masterpiece "The Call of the Wild" to Anle Township.It was a huge oil surface, a portrait of a person six feet high and three feet wide. The background of the surface was a blur of dilapidated houses, stalls, streets and alleys, and a corner of the temple with cornices inserted, a bit like the Longshan Temple on Huaxi Street. The scene in the area is at dusk, and the blood-red sunset on the cornices of the temples paints the dirty houses, streets and alleys in dark red.In the painting, there is a boy in black clothes and black trousers standing at the street corner. The boy's body is stretched long, his hair is messed up like a lion's mane, covering his entire forehead, his eyebrows are twisted into a pair, his eyes, Those strange eyes also seem to be struggling and jumping in the painting, like two flickering black fires, an inverted triangle face, and the thin lips are tightly closed.The boy was barefoot, his black clothes were open, and there was a tattoo of a strange beast on his chest.The boy in the painting has such a vigorous expression, as if he is about to jump off at any moment.When I saw this painting for the first time, I couldn't help but exclaimed: "It's him!" "It's him." The master replied, and the face of the master, which was full of mountains and rivers, suddenly became sad and solemn. "The first time I saw him was on the steps of the lotus pond in the park. He swaggered past as if no one was there. I suddenly remembered the wildfire that burned the mountain. It was so powerful that it burned for thousands of miles and couldn't be extinguished! I know I must draw him as soon as possible. I have a premonition that the wildfire will not last long. After burning, it will be a piece of ashes. He is very straightforward and agrees without any payment. There is only one condition: to draw Longshan Temple in Huaxi Street. .He said that was where he was born. That painting is one of my favorite works.” The master's proud work was finally hung on the white wall of Anle Township. The twinkling eyes in the painting, like two balls of dancing black fire, looked down on all the living beings in Anle Township with resentment.So under the amber's confused light, in the sound of Yang Sanlang's leisurely sound of the electronic organ, and in the whispers in every corner, the ancient myth of the wild phoenix in the park begins again, in our new nest in Anle Township In, the pass on the makeover continues.