Hunger is more unbearable than any disaster in the world, and opium addiction seems even more unbearable than hunger. Xiaowen falls into the abyss of double desire and double pain. The vast and complicated world has become very simple, as simple as a bowl of gruel.
Steamed buns or a shiny black and purple smoke bubble. When Xiao'e swept the earthenware urn and the porcelain basin, she scraped and scraped the milky yellow oil paper wrapped with opium stuffed in the hole in the kiln wall, but nothing could be swept out.
When even a star of rice flour could not be used to make a smoke bubble, the cave dwelling that was warm in winter and cool in summer, and the fire pit where he had enjoyed the ultimate joy of life countless times, suddenly lost its charm. Eight and a half acres of arid land and
The concierge, all of them were twisted into bubbles by Xiao'e's deft fingers and stuffed into the small hole of the pipe, turning into green smoke and sucked into the throat. Xiaowen slipped down from the fire pit, pulled on his shoes, and just took a step out of the cave dwelling.
Xiao'e shouted on the kang: "What will I do if you leave?" Xiaowen turned around and said, "I can't lure you to beg for food and wait, I will make steamed buns for you to bring back." When he walked out of the cave dwelling, he had no attachment.
The fire of hunger burning fiercely in his chest made him see stars shooting out of his nose. Xiaowen walked without thinking to the nearest Shenhe Village to the east of Bailu Village. When he entered the village, he barely had time to pay attention to the shabby and low gatehouses.
He walked straight to the green brick door of Li Guinian, the richest man in Shenhe Village. When Li Guinian saw him, he curled his lips and walked in. He asked his grandson to bring him a mixed-noodle steamed bun with pea noodles mixed with wheat noodles.
Xiaowen didn't care much about Li Guinian's sullen face, he was immersed in the sweetness of chewing the mixed noodle buns. He was leaning under the gatehouse, one shoulder against the blue brick pillar in front of the gatehouse, and his hands were
Holding the pea-yellow steamed bun, a round, squirming geta bulged out from his cheeks. After eating, he carefully sucked in the crumbs of steamed bun that spilled between his palms and between his fingers.
Suddenly he remembered Xiao'e. He immediately felt regretful and then forgave himself: "Forget it, I've finished eating. I'll give it back to her when I get it next time." When he went to the downstairs of He Yaozu's house in Hejiafang,
At that time, it was lunch time. He Yaozu heard the news from his family that Xiaowen came to beg for food and walked out. He said affectionately: "Oh, Xiaowen, what are you doing carrying it under the gate? Come in, come in, come in quickly." Xiaowen followed He Yaozu.
Entering the gatehouse and entering the courtyard, I thought to myself, I can have a full meal this time.
He Yaozu and his family were eating around the square table in the open room of the living room. They all stopped with their chopsticks and stared at his arrival in surprise. He Yaozu instructed his family to scoop out rice for him, pulled a low stool and put it on the steps of the living room and said: "Sit down.
Sit down here and eat." It doesn't matter where you sit down. Xiaowen took the rice bowl handed by the He family's daughter-in-law and couldn't wait to revel in the delicious enjoyment of pure white noodles. The hot noodles did not slow down his devouring speed at all.
Hot sweat dripped down from his forehead like a hanging thread. When he finished eating and drinking, looking forward to scooping out another bowl, he heard He Yaozu's voice from behind: "You all saw the master today. I specially treat this good master
Please come in and let me open your eyes. Bai Jiaxuan is the first benevolent and honest person in our country, but there is still a chance that he will become a prodigal son. You have never seen a prodigal son, but you will meet him today. You must learn from the prodigal son. He is a good master.
..." Xiaowen had just caught the second bowl of noodles, and suddenly a fire surged in his heart. He wanted to slam the bowl in front of the He family and his son, but instead he sat down softly and stirred the slender noodles into his mouth.
After eating, he wiped his mouth, turned back to He Yaozu and said cheerfully: "If you like me to be a master, then I won't leave, okay? If you still want me to be a master anytime, just send me a message.
I don’t want to work just to make ends meet..."
Xiaowen continued to walk southeast. The farther south he went, the more unfamiliar the people and the place became. It was rare for him to get a piece of leftover food or steamed buns in a day or two. However, he was constantly attacked by vicious dogs, forcing him to pick up a stick, and his legs and feet were covered with wounds.
The wound bitten by the dog began to fester, and purple-red pus flowed from the calf through the ankle and poured into the upper of the shoe. He then began to have a fever, and the strong nausea made him retching and vomiting out strings of bloody mucus. That night he started to
He fell down on the temple platform where he was perching, and his whole body was shivering as if he had been soaked in well water. However, his mind became clear for the first time in several days, and he realized that death was approaching. At this moment, he suddenly thought of Xiao'e, and he burst into tears.
, calling Xiao’e’s name, staggering away from the temple stage...
After two days of desperate movement and climbing, he finally got a view of the village shrouded in trees in Bailu Village. When he passed by a familiar trench, he fainted from emotion and tumbled down the slope softly.
, and fell into the big trench. He saw Xiao'e pouting at him, winking and smiling, climbing onto the kang. She reached her right arm under her left armpit and unbuttoned one button after another, with two snow-white eyes.
The doves and pigeons fluttered out; she leaned sideways beside him, filled the small hole of the pipe with a grain of shiny soil, and the two of them started to smoke each other, one after another; the smoke was strong enough.
The two of them were messing around on the hot bed, and a skewer on the shabby mat made him jump up. He lay down on the kang and stuck out his bare buttocks, asking Xiao'e to pick out the skewer from his flesh with the needle.
The stab came... Xiaowen jumped up from the severe pain of the acupuncture. A white dog with blood-stained fur whined and jumped away with its tail raised. She turned back and stared at him for a while, then barked twice in disappointment.
He slipped away. He hugged his foot and took a look. There were two rows of symmetrical holes on the top and sole of the foot, but no blood came out. He guessed that he probably couldn't squeeze out a drop of blood from his flesh. His heart flashed.
After seeing a ghastly scene, those strangers were starved to death on the village road or under the temple platform. The villagers were afraid that the corpses would rot and become smelly, so they ordered a few people to drag the corpses to a distant ditch and dig them randomly.
The pit was stuffed into the earth and buried. The dogs followed them, first a few, then dozens of big dogs, puppies, male and female dogs of different colors, digging around the pit, looking like the nameless one.
After the dead bodies were pulled out, the dogs started tearing and biting like crazy. Almost all the dogs in the original area turned into wild dogs, eating human flesh until their eyes were red and their fur was stained with blood. Bai Xiaowen saw several dogs being killed by dogs.
They gnawed the human leg bones until they were white, and the rags and trousers were torn into strips. They couldn't help but convulsed, and then they lay down softly under the ridge of the trench. There was a loud hiss of the grinding of the axle.
There was a noise, and someone drove a cart to the trench to collect soil. Xiaowen took a look and recognized the person driving the cart as Lu San, and couldn't help but close his eyes.
Lu San drove the horse-drawn wooden wheeled ox cart into the trench, tightened the wooden gate and tied the lock rope, took out the shovel and hoe from the carriage, turned around and walked towards the ridge to dig the soil, and saw a man lying curled up in the corner.
He was used to seeing people dying of hunger, so he was not too surprised. He used the pointed hook of a hoe to pull his legs and feet to test whether it was a dead body or a living thing. Xiaowen raised his arms, raised his head, and called out, "Uncle."
". Lu San threw away his hoe, took a step forward and squatted down, holding Xiaowen's shoulders with his hands and sitting up: "Oh, oh, ah, ah, this is what happened." Xiaowen's head that had been numb for a long time suddenly became active, and he realized that his current
Every word and a half would be conveyed word for word to his father through the medium of Lu San. The slightest hint of cowardice or regret would make his father proud. He didn't want him to be proud, so he said: "This situation is good, this situation is very flattering."
Lu San curled his lips: "Think about what you were like before and what you are like now." Xiaowen said without thinking: "No matter how good the situation was in the past, I didn't want to live with it, but now I am happy and happy in this situation." Lu San said without thinking.
After hearing this, he slowly stood up and took two steps back, creating a distance between him and Xiaowen, and said mockingly: "You pretend to be tough. It's too late for you to regret it. You used to be a master, but now you are curled up in a trench.
When you are a servant, you stick to the right path and don't go astray. You don't sit at the table with high tables and low stools, but you insist on getting under the table and chewing bones. You turn people into dogs and you still pretend to say no.
I regret that you regret it now and can't express it." Xiaowen was so angry that he trembled: "Hey, three old men, it's just that others are scolding me and scolding me, but you also come to scold me for being a coquettish person. Who do you think you are?" Lu San sneered and patted his chest,
He looked at Xiaowen with disdain: "I'm considered old - San. Don't look at the three old men who have worked hard all their lives. They can't even get a prodigal like you in their eye sockets. If I were to live like you, I would have plucked out one of my hairs long ago."
"Strangled to death... who's left alive?" Lu San picked up the hoe from the ground and dug it up hard at the ridge. The clods of earth fell down and piled up at his feet, and then he replaced them with iron-headed wood.
He filled a cart with soil, then put the hoe and shovel on the side of the cart, led the red horse and untied the brake rope. When he was about to dig out the trench, he turned around and said with half sympathy and half teasing: "What if you...
Don’t strangle me hard, just go to Bailucang, where the food is being left today..."
Xiaowen lay on his back in the trench and was half angry. When he went to the village to beg for food, acquaintances would look at him with blank eyes. His children would drink, dogs would bite him, but he could remain calm. He never expected that Lu San would arouse his shame so strongly.
Feeling that the rage finally subsided, there seemed to be a centipede squirming in the abdomen, and then one became two and three countless centipedes were stirring and digging in the empty abdomen. The thought of Lu San walking out of the trench was circling in his mind.
Three words left for him: Put away the rice. The food has been very strange, but now it has become very close, fresh and vivid. For two or three days, Xiaowen has not had enough water and rice, and Xiaowen has no feeling of hunger or the threat of hunger.
Now the feeling of hunger reawakened, and the pain of hunger forced him to stand up again. He went to Bailucang to eat a meal. With strong concentration of will, he stood up with a dog-beating stick, walked out of the trench and climbed up the slow path, raising his head.
His younger brother Xiaowu had just walked up to him. Xiaowu learned from Lu San that Xiaowen was dying in the trench. He said: "Brother, go home."
"No reply," Xiaowen said stubbornly, raising his head.
"You have reached a dead end and there is no way out."
"The road is not over yet—I'm going to grab some food from the house."
"You should think about how you can go grab food from others."
"Robbing for food is like begging for food, it is better than going home and eating your bowl of rice."
"You don't care about face...you should also think about your ancestors."
"Go away if you are shameless... go and eat your food without shame"
…………
Xiaowen was very proud of his tough attitude towards Lu San and Xiaowu, and with a sudden surge of strength, he walked to the cooking ground outside Bailucang. On the open field outside the wall of Bailucang, there was no sowing due to drought, so he was resting
In the fields, there are thousands of ants moving and making a thunderous noise, like a buzzing swarm of bees with the box lid opened, more like a huge ant family pouring out of the nest, standing, lying, and sitting.
There were men, women, old people and children lying around, and a patch of tattered clothes and trousers formed a turbid flood. There was still a steady stream of people coming in from all directions. When Xiaowen first entered, he felt frightened, and soon he was surrounded by hungry faces.
Inspired by the rude curses, he leaned on a stick and headed towards the densely populated areas. Eight or nine open-air stoves were temporarily set up in the open field, supporting large iron pots with a diameter of five feet. There were two pots on each side of the pots.
A large bellows sent in the wind under the stove, and the flames roared from the front and rear stoves and jumped up to a height of more than ten feet. The people in front of the stove were crowded with young people, and it was so dense that even a piece of wheat straw could be inserted.
They refused to go in. The militia members waved their sticks and forced people to line up in three columns. The newly formed queue instantly collapsed when the members turned around, and the swarming became more intense. Xiaowen took the opportunity to squeeze to the front in this chaos.
, saw the bright yellow rice porridge rolling in the steaming iron pot, and suddenly cried with regret, my God, everyone else was holding a yellow bowl or an earthen basin in their hands, what could I use to fill the rice with my empty hands?
Then he squeezed out of the crowd again and planned to run back to the town to borrow a bowl, but someone grabbed his shoulder. He turned back angrily in anger, and Lu Zilin smiled in surprise and said: "Ah, ah, ah, old man."
Nephew, how can you squeeze into a group with these people?" Xiaowen struggled to free his shoulders and became anxious: "Oh, put your hand away quickly. I forgot to take the bowl. I went to borrow a bowl. If I'm late, I'll scoop it out for others.
It's over." He felt Lu Zilin's hand grabbing harder and tighter, and he shouted more and more angrily: "I'll scold you if you don't let go..." A sad look appeared on Lu Zilin's face, and he switched his hand and started another
Grabbing his arm, he pushed aside the chaotic and crowded crowd and pulled him into the temporary gap in the wall of Bailucang without any explanation. Xiaowen had no strength to resist the hand that grabbed his arm, and he was pulled into the courtyard of Bailucang.
Entering another room, I looked up and saw my uncle, Mr. Zhu, sitting at a table, mute and silent, his head lowered.