When the plague began to spread, Bai Jiaxuan fell into extreme fear. When he attended the funeral of Lu San's woman, Lu Huishi, he still maintained the generous and loving mood of the patriarch as usual, and carefully helped Lu San prepare the meal.
It was an unfortunate funeral; and when he later confirmed that Lu Huishi had started the plague, his fear grew day by day. Bai Jiaxuan seemed to be in a rare panic and ran to ask Mr. Leng for advice: "My brother Leng really doesn't have a prescription to cure him."
Mr. Leng said: "Any disease that cannot be cured can be cured by a prescription." Bai Jiaxuan stared with panicked eyes and wanted to ask: Then why can't you stop someone from putting flowers? Mr. Leng made a philosophical statement.
He said with an expression: "It seems that this is not a disease, but an evil spirit, a disaster. The prescription can only cure the disease, but it cannot exorcise the evil." Bai Jiaxuan nodded and said, "I have also thought of this these past few days... but
What should we do? Wait for death." Mr. Leng said, "There are still prescriptions to ward off evil spirits." He took out the brush and wrote a big word "peach" on the hemp paper, and then paused and wrote the word "ai".
When Bai Jiaxuan returned home that night, he asked Lu San and Xiaowu to bring their axes and wheelbarrows, go to the peach orchard in the north of the village, cut down a bunch of peach branches, and pile up a row of peach wood stakes outside the street gate.
Another stick was tied under the roots of the two bluestone door piers at the street entrance. A mahogany stick was also tied across the gate where the plaque "Gongdu Heirloom" was embedded. A bundle of moxa sticks was hung on the two gates.
Peach wood pegs were inserted under the threshold of every small door outside and in the courtyard, and I suddenly felt safer. When the villagers discovered Bai Jiaxuan's behavior, they walked into the Taoyuan with axes in hand, and each Taoyuan was quickly destroyed.
The ax was shaved bare.
During the trend of planting peach trees in every house to ward off evil spirits, Liu Mou'er, the long-time worker of Lu Zilin's family, drove back a large pile of quicklime in an oxcart. He also picked up several loads of water and poured it on the pile of lime. The lumps of lime exploded into snow-white.
The powder was poured out, and a cloud of acrid white smoke rose up. Lu Zilin personally took the shovel and spread the white ash powder on the floor of the yard. Even the square table enshrining the ancestral shrine was covered with half a foot of white ash, and the street
The door was a dazzling white inside and outside; the cowshed and horse stable run by Liu Mouer were also sprinkled with white ash inside and outside. The villagers asked Lu Zilin in confusion, and Lu Zilin said: "This plague is transmitted by germs, and the lime will kill it."
"Li" people listened to these strange terms with their eyes open and became even more confused. Some people even turned around and said nonsense: "Then let's just move to a lime kiln." Bai Jiaxuan went to ask Mr. Leng again: "If Zilin uses
The method works, let's go and bring back a cart of lime." Mr. Leng said: "Zilin told me the day before yesterday that it was his second-rate guy who sent him a letter to prescribe the prescription. Zilin has become foreign in the past two years.
"Speak foreign words and do foreign things and go abroad." Bai Jiaxuan was secretly surprised when he heard Mr. Leng's words. Brother Leng, who had always maintained an equidistant relationship between him and Lu Zilin, for the first time openly ridiculed his in-laws and put his
Bai Jiaxuan, whose son-in-law Lu Zhaopeng was despised by the Communist Party as a foreign party, couldn't help but add: "If lime can cure diseases, Brother Leng, why don't you open a medicine shop and open a lime kiln?" The two laughed happily.
After laughing at Lu Zilin, Bai Jiaxuan was worried again: "Almost every household in the village has peach wood pegs, but people are still dying... It seems that this evil spirit cannot be stopped." Mr. Leng said cheerfully: "It can't be stopped.
If you can't provoke him, you can hide. If you can't provoke him, you can't resist him, so you can't hide."
Bai Jiaxuan walked through the streets of Bailu Town and walked into Bailu Village with his waist stooped. Familiar faces circled in his mind. Just more than a month ago, these faces were still greeting him in the village lanes, fields or markets. They
Now I have abandoned my parents, wives and children and entered the underworld. I have neither fulfilled my filial piety as a son of man nor fulfilled my responsibilities as a father, but I am still unfulfilled. Their ghosts wander around the villages, lanes, fields, markets and towns, looking for those with weak constitutions.
As a substitute... Bai Jiaxuan called the whole family to his mother Bai Zhao's east room, and announced in an unarguable forceful tone: "Xiaowu, you, your mother and the people in your house go to your uncle's house in the mountains.
, ask Xiaoyi to follow." He turned back to Mrs. Bai Zhao and said, "Mom, take the two grandsons Xiaowen's children to my eldest sister's place, that academy in Jingning." Mrs. Bai Zhao said, "I will go with that nerd.
No luck, I won't go." Bai Jiaxuan thought about how his mother always valued her brother-in-law Mr. Zhu before and after her eldest sister came over. Then she gradually became a little annoyed, and couldn't tell the specific reason for her annoyance. She just kept being annoyed, so he said: "Then you can
Go to the second sister's house in the city, or go to the mountains with Xiaowu. Anyway...you have to get up and leave tomorrow." Xiaowu asked, "Dad, what should you do? You go into the mountains with your family, and I will stay at the house to guard the house.
"Bai Jiaxuan said coldly: "If you can't hold on, you leave." The next day, he implemented the escape plan of the entire family to avoid the god of plague. The only person who went against Bai Jiaxuan's plan was his wife Xiancao. She didn't say why, but she just refused to leave.
So he stayed. Lu San drove the ox cart to send Bai Zhao and Xiaowen's two children out of the west entrance of the village. Xiaowu led his younger brother Xiaoyi and his wife out of the east entrance of the village. Xiancao and her husband walked back to the empty house.
Siheyuan said: "How can I leave you? Am I more valuable than you?" Bai Jiaxuan was heartbroken: "Then let's fight together and see who is more lucky." Xiancao shook his head gently and said: "If this house
I have to leave alone, so it's better for me to leave." Bai Jiaxuan also shook his head and said, "Come to think of it, I'm the only one who's a waste. I'm afraid that if I leave, whoever doesn't leave will have no choice but to leave alone, and it doesn't matter who is important or who is not.
Important." Xiancao Gessen shuddered and raised his hand to cover Jiaxuan's mouth. The two of them watched silently and didn't say a word for a long time.
The day after she sent the whole family out to hide away, the grass jelly was infected with the plague. She pooped three times in one day, and the first time she pooped out was thick yellow feces, which she didn't care much about; the second time at noon
What she pooped turned into watery poop, but the color was still yellow, and she still felt a little lucky. The time interval between running to the latrine for the third time was greatly shortened, and she felt that there was no need to delay, so she walked quickly towards the backyard.
As she unbuttoned her belt, she raised her buttocks before stepping firmly on the stones in the latrine. There was a sudden sound, like the sound of children shooting water arrows from bamboo tubes. She quickly turned her head and looked, and saw a piece of green mist falling on the ashes in the latrine.
Shit. At that moment, there was a loud bang in her heart, and a black mist filled her eyes. The loud bang seemed to originate from her chest, but also from her back; it felt like her heart suddenly exploded, or her spine was broken. She
He sadly stood up from the edge of the latrine, his arms so weak that he could not tie his belt. He looked back at the green excrement of blowflies in the latrine, and muttered to himself: "Without me, this
I’m gone”
When Bai Jiaxuan came back in the evening, he happened to see Xiancao stretching his neck and vomiting on the steps of the courtyard. He went out early in the morning to find his sister and brother-in-law Mr. Zhu at Bailu Academy. Since Xiancao was determined not to travel far away to avoid the plague, he came to his home away from home.
It would be good to stay for a while at Bailu Academy, which is not far away. The academy is in a secluded place with neither villages nor shops. I have never heard of any gentleman who wrote the county chronicle putting flowers on both ends or one end.
My sister and brother-in-law sincerely expressed their willingness to accept my sister-in-law to come to the academy to take refuge. Bai Jiaxuan rushed back to Bailu Village without stopping, preparing to send the fairy grass out early tomorrow morning. Unexpectedly, the invisible claws of the God of Plague grabbed the fairy first.
The hair of grass. Bai Jiaxuan heard a "squeak" sound when he walked into the second door with his waist hunched. He raised his head and saw a green soup spraying out in an arc, glowing with the red light of the setting sun slanting from the west wall.
, like a rainbow shining with a ghostly atmosphere. There was also a bang in his head, and he stood motionless in the courtyard of the second gate, with his hands hanging on his hunched waist.
Xiancao seemed to be very calm. After she pooped out green feces in the afternoon, she concluded that she was heading towards the irreversible ending of death. She quickly calmed down from the initial panic. When she vomited for the first time, she saw Jiaxuan flashing
The hunched body that stood stiffly when she entered the second door became even calmer. She took out a blue cloth handkerchief and wiped the dirt from the corner of her mouth, and greeted her husband who returned from the house calmly and gently as usual: "I'll give you my lower body."
Bai Jiaxuan's stiff body trembled, and he stumbled across the brick floor of the courtyard, stepping on green dirt and almost slipping. He grabbed the arm of the fairy grass with both hands and cried. Since the fairy grass entered this house,
She had never seen what her husband looked like when he cried. This was the first time that she was deeply moved. Bai Jiaxuan only cried once and then stopped abruptly. He raised his face and asked pitifully like a child: "Oh my god, you
How can I live without you..." Xiancao smiled softly and said, "I said I'll leave first and I'll take your place when I leave. That's good."
Bai Jiaxuan wiped away the tears hanging in the folds of his cheeks, and took Xiancao to the town to see Mr. Leng for medical treatment. Xiancao broke free from her husband's strong hand and said: "I haven't seen anyone save their life by taking medicine. This is God's birth."
Hey, there is no escape. Don't worry about grabbing the medicine and making the medicine. Take a chance and nail the cane up for me. I'll fight with you and take you with me. I don't want a thick board. A two-inch thin board is enough for me.
"It's done." After saying that, she washed her hands and tied up her apron, dug dough into the noodle urn, scooped up water from the water tank, and kneaded the dough for her husband in the basin to cook. Bai Jiaxuan looked at the woman's calm behavior in surprise.
He turned around and walked out of the street to find Mr. Leng. He immediately came back with a stack of medicine bags, set up a casserole with three bricks in the courtyard, and almost lay on the ground blowing firewood. A column of green smoke came over the eaves.
, lingering on the roof.
Xiancao refused to drink the medicine: "It doesn't matter if you drink it, I won't drink it. Let me die peacefully, and don't ask people to drink bitter soup and bitter juice before they die." Bai Jiaxuan had no choice but to call Lu San to persuade him. Lu San
Rubbing his palms on his clothes, he got angry: "You are so obvious, why did you suddenly become numb? Why did you drink it? How could you not even drink the medicine?" Xiancao looked at Lu Sanchengxin calmly.
With a naive look on his face, he reached out to pick up the bowl and drank it all in one gulp; he wiped the purple concoction on the corner of his mouth, and as soon as he put down the medicine bowl, he spit it out onto the floor with a splash. Lu San immediately covered his face with his hands and squatted down.
, slumped on the threshold. Bai Jiaxuan raised his fist and smashed it down. The medicine bowl on the table flew to the ground with a crash. Blood dripped from his hand to the ground and merged with the purple medicine juice.
The calmness of the grass jelly shocked the master and servant of the Bai family. She went to the latrine more frequently every day, and she had less diarrhea each time. Vomiting was as common as spitting. During the intervals between running to the latrine and vomiting, she calmly
Holding the scissors, she cut her own old clothes, and then used needles and threads to sew the cut pieces of cloth into shirts, jackets, skirts and trousers; this is the simplest clothing in spring, summer and winter. During this period, she
She still cooked for her husband and Lu San three hours a day. The patterns and tastes of the meals changed frequently, making Jiaxuan and Lu San sob as they ate. Until she even had the foot bindings sewn together, it was a sunset like blood.
In the evening, she tied up the thread and bit the white thread with her teeth, and her eyes went blind. She called out "His dad——" to the world that suddenly turned dark, and suddenly fell down on the kang.
Next. Bai Jiaxuan was asking the carpenter to cut the coffin. Hearing the cry, he hurriedly ran from the front yard into the back room, picked up the fairy grass that fell on the floor, and found that her blind eyes and thin face were covered with a layer of green light.
. She touched his hand and said apologetically: "Who will cook for you and the third child?" Bai Jiaxuan held her in his arms, facing those completely blind but still kind eyes, he opened his voice and said: "God damn it.
I have reached this point, and I have to grit my teeth and endure it if I can't stand it. Now you talk, eat whatever you want, drink whatever you want, and what else do you want me to do. I can't do it except reaching for the stars. You can say anything.
Come out... so that I can do my part." After he finished speaking, he felt her body squirming slightly, her wide eyes closed immediately, and she was silent for a long time, begging and saying: "You call Ma Ju and Lingling.
Come back and let me take a look..." Jiaxuan then asked: "Should we call my mother back to Xiaowu?" Xiancao shook her head: "They just ran away and stopped calling. Xiaowen and Lingling, I don't know what they have grown into now.
"It looks good." Bai Jiaxuan said, "Okay, I will ask Lu San to go to the county and enter the city tomorrow. He will call Xiaowen first and then Lingling."
Bai Jiaxuan went to Ma Hao that night and told Lu San about the fairy grass. Lu San immediately agreed to get up and go to the county when the rooster crowed. Bai Jiaxuan took out two hard coins from his waist and stuffed them into Lu San's hands and said: "Go to the county first.
When you enter the city again, follow the same route. When you go to the county, you don't want to see Xiaowen, and when you go to the city, you don't want to look for Lingling." He expected that Lu San would be surprised, and then pointed it out: "These two rebellious things, I said
Don't step on my threshold again, I'll invite them back again." Lu San opened his mouth and suppressed his blush: "But baby, I'm going to die soon." Bai Jiaxuan said with a cold face: "Even if I die or die, I still can't.
They are not allowed to come back." Then he calmed down and said easily: "You go around the county first, then go to the city. Tomorrow night you go to Sanyi Club to watch a play, and you can eat whatever you want.
After a while, I came back after dark and said that I had not found any of the two sea beasts."