Chapter 7 Miners: People are mortal, either under the pit or on the kang

On April 30, 1994, Zhang Youcai, the oldest old miner in the Kangjiawa coal mine, a state-owned coal mine in the local county, "died away" on the kang of his ancestral house. This day happened to be the fifteenth day of the third month in the lunar calendar. According to local customs, it happened to be the "auspicious day" for the deceased to "journey to the west with a crane". Zhang Youcai, an old miner who lived in the same family for five generations, was frugal all his life, and has extremely high technical authority and network influence in the local public and private coal mining circles.Now the old man kicks his legs and closes his eyes. His 52-year-old son Zhang Desuo originally wanted to cry for his father's funeral. Later, the local feng shui grandpa calculated that five generations live together. Ma Daixiao must "do the opposite of the right thing", and must make a "happy event" with a good reputation.

When mentioning Zhang Youcai, the elderly all say two words: "porcelain" and "stupid". The interpretation of the word "porcelain" in the local dialect means "real" and "honest". Old man Wang, who is the same age as him, also told an interesting story about the two of them ordering menus: Zhang Youcai was poor when he was young, and he didn’t study for a few days. Later, he went to the coal mine to dig coal. Once he and Wang Laohan went to a small restaurant for dinner. a la carte. In fact, the old man Zhang Youcai can still recognize a few "foreign code characters", which are the Arabic numerals we see today.After some embarrassment, the old man quickly pointed with his thick black fingers after the title of the dish on the menu, and slowly landed on the price column.His understanding is that the fewer the prices of these dishes, the cheaper the dishes the two of them ate must be the cheapest in the restaurant.

Zhang Youcai, who was illiterate since he was a child, relied on his unique "porcelain" and "stupidity", followed the old mine manager from scratch, and made this "red flag" on the front line of the county's state-owned coal mines. "Supported for 50 years, and finally because of "good work performance", he was specially approved by the county magistrate to "become a regular" and become "eat the state". Zhang Youcai's job in the mine is a safety worker.This type of work does not require any profound cultural knowledge, but only rich experience in pit excavation and common sense of coal mining. After working like this for decades, he and the old mine manager have become close friends.And he is also very competitive. He has been an "advanced worker" in the mine for 30 consecutive years, which has never happened in the Kangjiawa Coal Mine's decades of mine construction history.

In 1980, Zhang Youcai, who was over 60 years old, retired from the coal mine. In fact, as early as five years ago, he was included in the retirement list, but the mine repeatedly tried to keep him, and the delay lasted for another five years. Now that he is older, he often recalls the past. When the sun was setting, Zhang Youcai often sat alone on the hillside opposite the Kangjiawa Coal Mine, thinking about his co-workers who died or were still alive.He recalled his whole life working in the pit, and he did not know how many thrilling and heart-wrenching scenes he had experienced: roof collapse, landslide, water seepage, gas explosion... Those workers who were talking and laughing with him just now became yin and yang in an instant Two intervals.The world is changing rapidly, and people in front of him are coming and going in a hurry, but he has nothing to say about all this, which brings him endless confusion and melancholy.Later, due to Zhang Youcai's good mining technology and rich experience in underground construction, in recent years, the owners of small and medium-sized coal mines nearby often drive to ask him to "look", and he always responds to requests.

Zhang Youcai always sighs that time is not forgiving. As he grows older, he sees the boundary between life and death very blurred, and there is only one door between Yin and Yang.He believes that people will not die without complaint or reason, as long as they do good deeds, death is life, but against the law of nature, life is death, yin and yang cycle of life and death, and so on.In his view, human life and death are as simple as that. Sometimes one day passes when one closes one's eyes and one opens one, and one lifetime passes when one closes one's eyes and does not open one's eyes.

Zhang Youcai believes that there are several ways for a person to die. If the children and grandchildren die in bed, they will be "weak ghosts" after death, and once they encounter a mining accident under the mine and leave the whole family behind, they will be "hard ghosts" after death.At this time, regardless of the "weak ghosts" or "hard ghosts", they all have to squeeze towards the gate of the "Super Life Gate" when they reach the underworld. At this time, the "weak ghosts" cannot squeeze the "hard ghosts".So from this point of view, he hopes that one day, he can also join those workers who are ghosts in the pit, and there will be no chance to "come up" after going down the pit.

At the end of last year, his son made a high-quality cypress coffin for Zhang Youcai and Zhang Luo. When the painter was painting and painting, Zhang Youcai walked around it all day, and the days went by day after day. Why aren't you dead yet?He was very sad. Finally, "Heaven follows people's wishes", when he was giving guidance to a coal mine to go down a pit, he encountered a landslide accident. He walked safely and without pain, and was directly carried into the coffin from the pit. After the ceremony, he was directly buried in the soil.