Chapter 24 fugitive

Many times, I feel like I am a fugitive. From the day I was born, I have been on the run.Grandmother Wang Sunyang once told me that the day I was born was very cold, she fell on the way to find the midwife wearing a thin old jacket, and the skin on her knee was broken.I am her first grandchild, she is happy.But when I was born, I was so small, like a little mouse, and I was dying.Grandma unbuttoned her skirt, placed me—the little cold mass of flesh—on the chest of her shriveled breasts, and covered it with the clothes.Grandma used her body temperature to wrap me alive, and my first cry came from my grandma's bosom.

That was the first successful escape in my life, and it was my grandmother who did not let me die at birth. It was neither my fault nor my parents' fault that I was born in the poorest village in western Fujian.Some memories of Hungry Childhood are poignant and funny.After I grew up, my father often told me about one thing. Of course, after the problem of food and clothing was solved, he talked about it at the dinner table during the New Year and the holidays. , but my father has never been a person who is good at telling jokes.My father said, one day when I was three years old, everyone in the family went out to work, and I crawled around the house. My grandmother was busy with housework and didn't take care of me. I climbed onto the dining table, and I saw a A group of things like snails stood on the dining table.I thought it was an escargot, so I grabbed it and couldn't wait to stuff it into my mouth... Grandma found out that it was too late, and I had already swallowed the soft thing.I didn't know that it was a ball of chicken feces that the old hen flew to the dinner table and dropped.She hurriedly said: "You made a crime—" Then she wiped off the chicken feces left on my face and hands, and took me to rinse my mouth...

I never hated the impoverished country where I was born and raised, but it always made my heart ache and made me want to escape. The death of cousin Jin Shui is so painful and sad. On the Dragon Boat Festival that year, his cousin Jin Shui died in a flood.Thinking of that Dragon Boat Festival is so dark.We all ran to the embankment to watch the roaring water of the Tingjiang River.Every year around the Dragon Boat Festival is the rainy season, the water in the Tingjiang River will rise sharply due to flash floods upstream, and the floods threaten our village.The flood doomed that the Dragon Boat Festival would not be easy, the adults shouted to strengthen the embankment, and we brave children stood on the embankment and watched the flood.My cousin Jin Shui was standing next to me, and I heard him muttering: "Zongzi, Zongzi——" During the Dragon Boat Festival, no family in our village made Zongzi. Make zongzi; Second, because of the threat of floods, everyone can't pass this festival.I don't know why he said zongzi at this time, it made me drool and hungry.Jin Shui suddenly stretched out his hand and pointed to the flooded river. He said excitedly, "Look, that's a zongzi—" I looked in the direction he pointed, and there were no zongzi, they were clearly floating. of a door panel.A lot of debris washed down from the upper reaches of the river, and some villages in the upper reaches must have been washed away by the flood.The children who were with us didn't see any zongzi either.But Jin Shui firmly said that he saw the zongzi.That must be an illusion in the mind of cousin Jin Shui. We did not expect that Jin Shui would suddenly jump into the rolling flood.We were stunned!Jinshui has always been known for its good water quality. After he jumped into the flood, I thought he could swim back.He kept swimming towards the floating door panel, and when he was almost there, a huge wave hit him... We never saw the golden water come to the surface again, not even his body was found... …

My cousin Jinshui disappeared in the flood and in the years of poverty, but he remains in my memory forever. He is the strongest motivation for me to swear to leave my hometown. I will always carry the souls of my loved ones to escape in this world, Jin Shui, grandpa... My father has always encouraged me to leave my hometown and go to the outside world.Every time he took me to work in the fields, he would say to me: "You must study hard, otherwise you will suffer here for the rest of your life like me!" He asked me to learn from my uncles Li Jiaying and Li Jianeng. Uncles Li Jiaying and Li Jianeng were both college students in the 1950s. At that time, they worked in a certain department of the General Staff and in Shanghai respectively. It is said that they both took fair-skinned Shanghai women as wives. happy days.

Those two uncles were my role models, but I didn't study as hard as my father expected. After entering junior high school, my grades dropped sharply because I was obsessed with writing.I write in my notebook what I think is poetry, but it's actually just a few lines of writing.Later, I fell in love with novels again. I secretly wrote to my cousin Qiulan in Nanping, asking her to send me a large number of literary magazines. Those literary magazines made me addicted like drugs, and I couldn’t extricate myself from them.Finally, I also started learning to write novels... Writing is indeed a poison.

I admit that I am too poisoned to be cured. My academic performance was getting worse and worse, and I was farther and farther away from my father's expectations. I didn't dare to face my father's eyes, and I didn't dare to think about how he earned the money for my education.Many times, I dare not go home, wandering in the country fields like a wild dog. My temper is getting more and more irritable, and I often fight with people because of little things.I know that I am falling, the education of my father and teachers has failed on me, and I am slipping further and further on a hopeless road... The final result is that I failed to enter the university.My father’s heavy sigh in the middle of the night made me feel ashamed, even though he always comforted me, saying that it doesn’t matter if you don’t get into college, because you can earn a living by striking copper, and you can also earn a living by striking iron.But I know, it's different, it's different!When many of my classmates happily received their university admission letters, I quietly joined my cousin Li Wenyang as an apprentice to a plasterer.Li Wenyang was a well-known contractor and plasterer in our area at that time, and my cousin Li Tutu went with me.At that time, Li Wenyang contracted the construction of a building in a village deep in the mountains.

During that time I became silent and would do some surprising things out of the blue.When I was resting, I would jump down from the half-built second floor. Li Wenyang yelled at me: "You are looking for death. If you fall to your death, how can I explain to your father!" I said to him with tears: "So what if I die! So what if a useless person like me dies!" Li Wenyang was speechless, he understood the pain in my heart. After working there for a few months, I left that mountain village, left Li Wenyang, returned home and signed up to join the army.I left there because of a word from a mountain village girl named Lan Zhen.Lan Zhen is the daughter of the owner of the snack bar in the village. She manages the snack bar with her father.I often drink booze at the snack bar.That night, I drank a little too much and just babbled.Lan Zhen walked up to me and said to me coldly: "What's the use of you always drinking like this? I can tell that you are different from them. You shouldn't be a plasterer all your life. If I were you, I would go back Tutoring, continue to take college entrance exams, if it doesn’t work, go to the army!” Lan Zhen’s words made me decide to flee my hometown.

That was another successful escape for me. When I got in the car and left my hometown, I saw my grandmother crying and chasing me at the back of the car, my parents and younger brothers were chasing her, my face was clouded with tears...or I would look like a dog Come on, do you still have the face to come back? ... I have a deep attachment to the Army, which has allowed me to grow, but growth has come at a heavy price.I spent my entire youth in the army, and I gained valuable life experiences in the army, including wounds and military medals.More than 20 years of military career have transformed me from a young boy into a tough man.Even after successfully escaping from the army, I have never regretted the ups and downs of the past twenty years.

... In 2004, I left the army and took off the military uniform I had worn for more than 20 years.I started my life in Shanghai, I didn't let the local government arrange a job, I chose to be a freelancer. Over the past few years, I have been disheartened. At the beginning, I opened a Teochew restaurant in cooperation with Brother Cheng Yongxin and Mr. Cai Jihong from Shantou. I couldn't bear some unspoken rules in business operations and the nature of a selfish and greedy businessman, so I finally quit the cooperation.Later, I became the chief editor of a book company under Tangshen Media, and after a few months of working, I also left in despair, because I only knew how to work and didn't know how to play tricks, but I had a clear conscience.Several of my employees cried when I left.When they helped me carry my things and sent me out of the office building, I looked at the high sky and just sighed softly.Later, I started a book company with Mr. Xing'an in Beijing and He Pengfei, a bookseller, but we broke up in the end.For more than a year, I have paid a lot, but what I have gained is a cold sigh... Why do I always feel ashamed?I have been thinking about this problem, I am a straightforward person, I do not know how to adapt to this business society.

In fact, I am fighting against a modern civilized society alone. This society does not need your iron heart, your chivalrous heart... After I regained my peace of mind, I decided not to engage in business activities anymore. I am not that material .On a snowy night, in a small guest house in Beijing, breathing the stale air, I wrote an article titled "Hatred Is an Incurable Disease". They are all gradually flat, and my life has never changed because of my roughness. It just makes me more and more tired, farther and farther away from the crowd, and more and more suspicious of myself. Many times, I am actually a Don Quixote, always fighting with Fighting windmills, I think I am a hero, but I am a fool in the eyes of others. I always make unnecessary sacrifices because of my own will! Everything stems from a simple word: 'Hate!' When I was very young, reality told Me, you have to learn to hate, then you will become brutal. Cruelty is a double-edged sword, which can deter others, but it often makes yourself scarred. Hatred is an incurable disease! I decided to give up the hatred in my heart, do A peaceful person, a person who does not contend with the world, a person who smiles, and a person who is open-minded. Hatred makes people selfish, hideous, vengeful, and fearful!"

I also remember what my friend Cao Yuanyong wrote after reading my article: "In my mind, Ximin has always been a hero. Because this brother dares to act, dare to hate, dare to love. I once said, In his temperament, there is both a vicious side and a tender side. It can be said that he is a person with great love and great hatred. Now people like to sing "One night in Beijing, I leave a lot of love", while Xi In that night in Beijing, what Min may have gained was an epiphany of the despicable soul of the worldly mediocrity. Now, he suddenly announced that he would no longer hate, but to have a peaceful and tranquil state of mind. I know that he must have experienced all kinds of 'evil' He is a brother with a simple child's mentality, so mediocre people will inevitably take advantage of his evil side and tender side. When children grow up, they will find the ugliness of adults. Ximin, a young hero, finally sees clearly This point. He must have experienced heart-piercing pain in this kind of epiphany. Just like the hero Nietzsche said, he discovered that the world is full of sheep with ulterior motives, and he must experience heart-piercing pain to surpass. The era when sheep with evil heads eat tigers." I am not a hero, a hero is just a complex of mine.Dreaming of becoming an ancient hero, riding a tall horse, with a long spear to challenge all enemies in the world.That is a dream that I can never realize. There will never be such heroes in ancient times, and individual heroism is becoming less and less meaningful in modern times.There are new standards for heroes now, standards that I cannot meet, for example, in the eyes of many people, rich and powerful people are heroes, but I am not! I'm just a fugitive forever, a fugitive who doesn't grow up, a fugitive who is humble. But I don't know where I will flee in the end. Maybe the ruins of Xinhai Villa after the earthquake are my final destination!