Hu Zongren squatted down, added three more sticks of incense, bowed and said goodbye, and then walked towards the door with a hammer. Ms. Du and I followed him. After opening the door, Hu Zongren directly walked towards Ms. Du and said, "I found out."
I walked to the fire hydrant where the child was standing. When I got there, Hu Zongren picked up the hammer and smashed the door lock that I had noticed earlier had a thick layer of dust on it.
The voice-activated lights in the corridor turned on again because Hu Zongren smashed the door, and this corridor, which was not big in the first place, made a loud echo. I asked Hu Zongren, what are you doing? Hu Zongren stopped his hand.
Hammer said to me, this is the kid's home.
I stopped him and said, even if you were the one, don't break the door. What will happen if the door can't be locked in the future? Hu Zongren said, "What do you think I should do?" So I went back to Ms. Du's house and found a small stick.
Bend the wire into the shape of a simple fish, put the fish head into the keyhole, make sure it is hooked, then tighten both ends, and then suddenly pull hard in the direction of unlocking, and the door will open. This room
The door was not originally a security door, but an old-fashioned solid wood door. The key to this kind of lock was a car pin type, so it was easy to open.
After entering the house, the scene in front of me made me feel a little uncomfortable. The facilities in the house were very simple. There were two tattered cushions on a long wooden sofa. There were also some newspapers and articles from Sanfang on the coffee table in front of the sofa.
I reached out and fiddled with the melon seed shells, leaving an obvious mark of melon seeds on the newspaper. I almost didn’t dare to breathe hard because the dust here was so big. Except for the one placed on the ground and used a few
Apart from the black and white TV set made of bricks, I could hardly find the same household appliances as the people. The layout of the house is exactly the same as Ms. Du's house, with two bedrooms. In the master bedroom, there is a spliced bed that has fallen apart, and there is a piece of furniture in the corner of the floor.
Some liquor bottles were lying crookedly. There was only one floor in the other bedroom, and there were a lot of mattresses and other things scattered on it. Every step I took could raise dust on the ground. The stove in the kitchen
On the floor, in addition to a water glass and a few broken bowls, there was an old single-burner gas stove. The floor was similar to the bedroom, with many liquor bottles scattered. In the corner of the living room near the TV, there were a few small stools.
The stools were made of discarded wooden boards that were nailed together by oneself, and were also covered with dust. However, the balcony windows were closed tightly, and there was an unpleasant smell in the whole room.
Judging from the number of wine bottles scattered around, the previous owner of this house must have been a very alcoholic person. The shape of the wine bottles indicates that almost all of these wines are Laobaigan. Chongqing’s Laobaigan has a very high alcohol content, and there are no bowls or chopsticks for any of them.
It is conceivable that these people drink so much, the quality of life is conceivable. Since Hu Zongren said that this is the home of the little devil, and it is looking for warmth and maternal love in Ms. Du's arms, it means that the owner of this house must be
It can't be this kid's mother.
At this moment, the door of the house creaked, and someone came in and looked at us at the door. It was an old lady with gray hair. Hu Zongren’s banging on the door must have alerted others. Ms. Du said to
The old lady said hello and said, "Mother Zhang, why are you here? It seems they know each other."
Zhang's mother said, I was taking a nap at home just now, and I was awakened by the sound of knocking things, so I came over to take a look. I said, Xiao Du, why did you come to this house? Ms. Du looked at it.
Hu Zongren and I told Ma Zhang that there was something wrong at home, so we asked two masters to help us take a look. The two masters said that the root of the problem was here, and they could not find it here.
Resident, and I also want to live here for a long time, so I opened the door rashly.
Zhang Ma walked into the house and looked at me and Hu Zongren with a critical look. I felt uncomfortable because of Zhang Ma’s eyes. Although Hu Zongren was the one who broke down the door, it was me who picked the lock after all. So I
She scratched her head and asked Zhang's mother, "Auntie, did a child once live in this place?" Zhang's mother looked at me with surprised eyes and said, "How do you know?" I said we just didn't come into the house.
Are you investigating this matter? Zhang Ma asked me, are you the police? I said we are not, but what we do is similar to them, just in a different direction. Zhang Ma asked Ms. Du again, these two young people
Did you invite them all? Ms. Du nodded to confirm her again.
Zhang's mother said that a child lived here in the early years, and the child's life was miserable. Originally, if Zhang's mother had not appeared, Ms. Du and I would have asked Hu Zongren to reveal the child's life experience.
.Since Zhang Ma is here, I will let her say it, so as not to make Hu Zongren look arrogant. Zhang Ma said that this child has committed misfortunes. His mother ran away with others when he was very young.
Since then, his father has started drinking and gambling. Look at this home. Don’t think that it’s like this because people moved away and packed away their things. Their home was fine originally, but his old man went out to gamble.
, I owed a huge amount of debt, sold all the valuable things in the house, and debt collectors came to knock down my door every three days to collect debts. The baby was still so young, and the old man didn’t have a regular job, so he won the game of cards.
Just eat a meal of meat. The father and son always eat pickles and porridge. There were many times when I saw my son doing something wrong, and from time to time I would give them a piece of bacon and some eggs.
I asked Zhang’s mother, how did the child die? Zhang’s mother sighed and said that in the final analysis, his mother was still to blame. This house originally belonged to the old man, and his mother married in. It was only in the first few years.
We have a good relationship as neighbors, and we often visit each other. Not long after we got married, his mother got pregnant with him. During the pregnancy, our neighbors took good care of him. His mother was still very talkative and young, but she was a bit ungrounded and liked pursuing pursuits.
Some very unrealistic things. I asked Zhang Ma what is unrealistic? Zhang Ma said that our generation has endured hardships, so we know that a stable life is hard to come by. Some traditional ideas are also deeply rooted. If you marry a chicken, you will follow the chicken.
Marry a dog, follow the dog, although the old saying goes, if young people feel that the current conditions are not good, just work hard and they will always have a bright future. The mother of this child is too dissatisfied with the current life.
Zhang’s mother said that the child’s father was originally a factory employee. He worked in a workshop and had no education. Although he didn’t make much money, he was still very down-to-earth. The child’s mother said to everyone that her husband was useless and could not do anything.
Making money or something, and even said that she was blind so she followed him, and so on. These words tell our neighbors that you are a good joke! Zhang’s mother went on to say that we all thought she had a severe reaction during pregnancy.
, I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t say these words to the baby’s father. Why bother to cause discord between other people’s couples? But after the baby was born, he weaned the baby before he was one year old, and then suddenly
One day we heard the baby and the baby's father crying loudly in the house. Everyone was very concerned and asked what was wrong. Only then did we find out that the baby's mother had been with another man when she was pregnant.
As soon as the child was weaned, she immediately ran away with the man. As for where she went, no one knew, including her own parents. It was just that Lao Wang on the ground floor saw the child's mother getting on a black TV that day.
A nice car, and then no one saw her again.
Zhang's mother then said, think about it, the baby is still so young, not even one year old, and this man works in a workshop, how can he take care of her, so from the beginning she called the baby's grandma to live here.
For a period of time, I helped take care of the child. When the child was three years old, my grandmother also passed away. As a result, the family was basically completely ruined. The man had to quit his job to take care of the child. Maybe he felt that life was unsatisfactory. This
The man began to drink and gamble. When the child was 5 years old, the man began to become very manic. His relatives stopped contacting him and he had a very bad temper. When he saw the child, he was like seeing his mother. He often beat the child.
My son, sometimes when we tried to persuade him, he would pick up a kitchen knife and scare us, telling us that no one should interfere with their family’s affairs. Several times when I came home from shopping for groceries, I would see him tying my son’s hands to the fire hydrant at the door.
That pipe is over there.
Then I suddenly remembered that I had noticed a supernatural reaction on the fire hydrant pipe before, similar to the hand grabbing the pipe. It turned out that this was the reason. Although I felt very angry after listening to Zhang Ma’s story, I didn’t know who I should give birth to.
Is it the child's father or the child's mother who is angry? If the child's mother had not run away with another man during this period, perhaps the family would have just lived a poorer life and would not have been separated. Zhang's mother went on to say that later
One time, the child fell ill. Due to long-term malnutrition and beatings, the child was already very weak. My old man and I took him to the hospital. I couldn't find the old man who called the child, but the child was in the hospital.
He died not long after he came back. When he came back for the funeral, he needed to notify his family, so he asked someone to pry open the door. After prying it open, he found that the baby's father had been at home, drunk and unconscious. Wait until
After finally sobering up, the neighbors helped to finish the funeral.
Zhang’s mother said that she didn’t know if he regretted or blamed himself. In short, he moved away quietly not long after that. After hearing this, Hu Zongren spread his hands and said to me, do you still remember that you were on the stairs?
Is there any reaction to finding the child? He didn’t go upstairs or go downstairs. When I said I remembered, Hu Zongren said that the child thought about running away, but he didn’t dare. He was also afraid that he had no mother in the first place, and if he ran away, he would not even have a father.
That's what he told me.
I suddenly felt sour and turned to look at Ms. Du. She was also wiping tears quietly. We didn’t touch anything in the house. We just found an excuse to get Zhang Ma away. There was no need to let her know what we were doing.
. She gave the child a ride in the house. Ms. Du asked Hu Zongren the name of the child and said that she would give him a memorial tablet at home. Although she was not related to him, since he
If you want to find love from me, then I will definitely give you what I can give.
After I took the money and left Ms. Du's house, I was still in a bad mood. It had nothing to do with Hu Zongren, it was entirely because of that child. Hu Zongren probably saw it, so he said to me, let's stop arguing. I know
You are in a bad mood now. Now you understand why I suddenly felt depressed that day, right?
He sighed and said, "I originally thought that I had taken life and death lightly for a long time. Who knew that emotions are so common? My heart felt like being pressed by a stone, which became heavier and heavier. I originally lived a simple and happy life, but I had to keep walking into other people's lives."
In life, how can it not be heavy to bear these things that I should not bear or even know about? I told Hu Zongren, you are right, this is not anyone's responsibility, but we cannot escape, so we can still
How about it, can we go back?
Hu Zongren didn't say anything, but went to the canteen and bought two cans of beer. We each had one bottle and toasted silently.