Time: 2011-1- 10 18:19:18 Words: 3610
29. the traces of the years
As soon as the sun came out, bacon, sausages, and salted fish were hung in front of every house to dry. From time to time, the fragrance of fried oil could be heard. I knew that there were roasted dumplings, dumplings, fried lotus roots, and some families even prepared peanuts and peas. Everyone fried them while tasting them. They were very sweet.
When I got home, the first thing I did was to ask my mother. I ran to the kitchen and found her frying a pot of oil.
"Mother, why does Liu Shengbing have a father? Didn't they say that his father died?”
His mother turned to the door of the stove and added a few pieces of firewood, saying,
"That's another man that his mother got together with. I heard that he's from the streets and has a unit.”
" Oh," I said. Just as I was about to go out, Wang Yulan came in limping. I frowned again. This woman came to look for my mother every two or three days, telling her stories like Xianglin Sao, but my mother was not annoyed...
"Sister Yizhen, look, that slut is really shameless! It made us feel uneasy during the New Year. Just now, just now, she ran over and pretended to pick vegetables for us, and as we were picking, we got together…What a shameless mother! If she was shameless, would others be shameless as well? To think that his mother could stand it…"
She sat on the edge of the dregs and took a stick to add firewood to the stove. Her mother used chopsticks to pick up the lotus root slices and put them into the pot. As she stirred them in the pot, she said,
"It's the new year. Bear with it."
"Sister Yizhen, I'm so angry! If I can't take it anymore, I'll kill their entire family! Anyway, I bought a few packets of rat poison, and we'll all die together…"
His mother hurriedly said,
"Yuzhen, you can't do this! Did his mother offend you? You still have a boy and a girl. You mustn't do anything stupid!"
Wang Yuzhen added another piece of firewood to the stove and used the fire tongs to poke the firewood in the stove.
"That's what I said. If you really want me to do it, how can I do it? Sister Yizhen, I'll listen to you…"
I felt bored listening to them, so I strolled to the garden behind the house to admire the vegetables. I saw a lot of spicy vegetables beside the fence. When I was young, we didn't have any vegetables to eat. We used to chop this kind of spicy vegetables, boil the water, and then put the selected spicy vegetables into boiling water to remove the strange smell of the spicy vegetables. When it was cold, we used a knife to cut it into pieces, then used red chili to cook the vegetables in a pot with a little sauce. It was very delicious. So, I returned to the house, found the shovel, went to the fence to look for the spicy vegetables, shoveled one and chose one, and removed the old leaves and the grass in the middle. Suddenly, a voice said from the other side of the fence,"
"Little brother, what are you doing?"
I looked through the gap of the fence and saw Zhang Bing and Cai Mingyi squatting on the road outside. I didn't know what they were doing.
"What are you guys doing?"
They stood up and Zhang Bing said,"
"We're digging."
I ignored them and continued to shovel my spicy vegetables. After a while, I shoveled a big hug. I carried it to the kitchen. Wang Yulan was still talking passionately to her mother. I found the big wooden basin and put the spicy vegetables in it. I took a ladle to scoop water. I opened the urn and put the ladle in. Mother reminded me,
"Be careful, don't get the water into the oil pan.”
I carefully scooped out hot water and poured it into the basin. Suddenly, a pungent smell rose into the air. I added a few more scoops. Wang Yulan stretched her neck and asked me,
"Jianguo, do you want to eat Chinese cabbage? Wouldn't it be more tender to use rape?"
His mother said,
"Vegetables need to be a little older to be delicious. After the vegetables are cooked, they will rot.”
It seemed like Wang Yulan really didn't know how to cook food. She probably just cooked it randomly. Otherwise, she wouldn't even know how to cook the vegetables that every family in the countryside would make.
I went out and continued to stroll around the vegetable garden. I found a lot of rice and vegetables, so I thought of a folk song I used to say when I was young:
"Rice dish, steamed dish,
The delicious old woman brought a bowl over.
A bowl on the left, a bowl on the right.
After you're done eating, lick the spatula!"
So, I pulled the rice and vegetables in the gaps of the vegetables. After pulling a few ridges, there seemed to be a large handful. I took it to the kitchen. Mother looked at it and said,
"How can you steam vegetables with just this little? You might as well go and find a basket."
I took the basket and the spatula and went back to the vegetable garden. This time, I searched carefully and found a lot more. I found a lot of rice and vegetables lying on the ground in the vegetable garden. So, I took the basket and continued to search. It was the same when I was young. Every night after school, I would run home with a basket and run to the fields. Then Dong Gou, Dong Sheng, Yi Gang, Ming Yazi, a large row of people, all carrying baskets. However, Dong Sheng liked to carry round baskets, Dong Gou liked to use a shovel, and I basically used a sickle. Everyone would run to the irrigation canal to play for a while, then look for wild vegetables by the ditches. When it was dark, when the adults were all in the government office, they would take the opportunity to pounce on the fields to steal vegetables and stop work. Regardless of whether it was red or blue vetch, or whether it was rape or spicy vegetables, he had to find a basket full of them. Otherwise, the pigs might starve at noon tomorrow. Usually, my speed is the fastest, and I can fill the basket in a short while. When they returned home, if their father was there, they would quickly empty the vegetables into a wooden basin and chop them up quickly to prevent their father from discovering that they had stolen the vegetables from the public fields. If they deducted the adult's centimeters, it would be a big deal. After chopping them up, they would put them in a basket and carry them to the river to wash them. Then, they would empty them into the pig tank and start feeding the pigs...
When I emptied the rice and vegetables into the basin, my mother said,
"Go to the flour factory to pick up Su Mei and bring back the flour water.”
I walked towards the flour factory. It had been a long time since he had gone to the factory that his father had run. No, to be precise, it should be a workshop. Look, there was a master, a helper, a father, a daughter, a father's nephew, and my cousin. How did this look like a modern factory? However, there was a power machine that drove the electric mill and the flour mill. It could be considered a machine production. I reckon that my father's factory is very hands-on. He has to be a leader and an employee. He has to take the lead in everything and practice what he preaches. In addition, my father is a person who is famous for being single-minded in his career. His public affairs have always been far more important than his personal affairs.
I remember when I was young, my companions and I were looking for pork and vegetables. We should be in the fourth grade of primary school. On a hot day, we carried baskets and sickles to the district irrigation canal to look for pork and vegetables. As usual, we had to swim in the district irrigation canal and soak for half a day. Everyone competed to see who could swim faster and who could swim further. We played games and chased.
Someone said,"Let's go ashore!" Looking for pig vegetables!"
So we climbed ashore and scrambled to put on our trousers and gowns, pick up our baskets and sickles. Someone said,
"My scythe is so fast! He cut down this tree with one slash!"
Hence, someone else said,"
"My scythe is also very fast, but it still broke.”
I wasn't willing to fall behind, so I cut down three small trees in a row and said proudly,
"I cut off three in one go!”
Someone said,
"Run! The person in charge of the tree is here!"
Thus, we scattered like birds and beasts. I went straight to the soybean field under the dike, crawled in the middle of the soybeans, held my breath, and listened to the chasing and shouting in fear. When everything calmed down, I stood up and looked around. There was no one. The thumping heart calmed down. Just as he picked up the sickle, he realized that there were many chicken beans in the middle of the soybeans. These beans were wild and were very delicious after being picked and simmered in a pot. I plucked until it was almost dark and the basket was almost full before I went back.
His mother's surprise was actually a kind of happiness. Because there was no vegetable garden, the chicken nest beans were just a bowl of vegetables. When my father returned, he didn't mention anything about cutting down trees. My heart was finally at ease.
The matter was still exposed. I don't know who was caught by the people in charge of the tree and gave up all of us who participated.
At noon, at the dining table, my father asked me with chopsticks,
"Did you participate in the tree-cutting yesterday?”
I lowered my head. Father asked me again,
"How many did you chop?"
I lowered my head even more.
"Is it three?"
I nodded. His mother was furious and stood up.
"Kill him! You're always doing bad things!"
My father motioned for my mother to sit down and then said to me,
"I'm the captain, so I have to take the lead. As children, you have to work hard too. Look at you, chopping down a public tree is illegal. You have to pay for it! After dinner, come with me to identify which three trees you cut down.”
I didn't know if I had eaten my fill. I followed my father dejectedly. My father didn't say anything else. I repeatedly resented myself in my heart. Why did I have to compete with them in scythes? When we reached the embankment, my father asked me one by one. In the end, he found three trees in a row and I confirmed it. My father left me and walked down the slope. He turned around and said to me,
"Don't do such stupid things again, huh?”
I was alone on the embankment, walking over and over. We cut down a total of seventeen trees, some in the middle, some in the pocket, and some only at the tip. They were all small trees that had just been planted this year.
Two days later, at noon and during lunch, his father and mother talked.
"Three yuan for one tree, nine yuan for three trees, nine yuan! If you give me cigarettes, I can buy 100 packs of red flowers for nine cents a pack. If he bought the economical ones, he could buy 128 packets at seven cents a packet, 70 cents for ten packets, and seven dollars for a hundred packets. That would be enough to last him for a year. If you want to pull cloth to make clothes, just pull cloth. Three cents a foot, three yuan a zhang, three times nine, you can pull thirty zhang. Thirty feet! The whole family could make a new set of clothes!”
It had been many years, but these words were still clear in his ears.
Thinking about these childhood things, thinking about it, I arrived. They had already finished work and the machine had stopped. Brother Fa Bing saw me and said,
"Su Ning is here? Are you guys on vacation?"
Soldier Bro had a tall figure and broad shoulders. He was very burly. My sister had already taken the powder out of the door. My father came in from behind and looked at me.
"Help your sister carry the pink water back.”
I jumped into the pink water. Su Mei followed beside me. I knew that she was like me, a person of few words. In that case, only I could ask her,
"I didn't go in to take a look at the back, but there's no floor?”
"It's fallen. It's very flat. It's much more convenient to pick up the vermicelli on the ground. Use a broom to sweep it, then clean up the grass, stones, and dust.”
"These fans on the ground are also sold on the streets?”
"No, I haven't. In a few days, the factory would distribute a little of it as wages to everyone to take home to eat.”
"How much does that master pay him every month?”
"120 yuan."
"So many? I only earn 39.50 yuan a month. Even if it's 40 yuan, he'll earn three times as much as I do in a month.”
"Grandpa said that he was going to find someone to learn his skills.”
"Who did you find?"
"It seems to be Yi Gang."
Speaking of Yi Gang, he's Yi Qiang's big brother. I remember now. That year, we went to the third team to pick cotton. Ersheng said that if they had lunch, at least buy steamed buns for us to eat, we would continue picking. Otherwise, we would take the tractor and play on the streets. Sure enough, the third team was the poorest. At noon, they only gave each of us two small steamed buns, which were difficult to swallow. Therefore, Ersheng and Wuer gave us a look, and we ran to the road to climb the tractor. Yi Gang ran with us. He was only in the third grade and was too young. We asked him to go back, but he still followed the tractor for a long time. When I came back at night, I heard that Yi Gang had disappeared. The school mobilized us to search the fields for three days, but where was he? His mother cried her heart out. Later, the team went to the county radio station to request for a missing person notice. After eight days, someone sent him back. It turned out that he had pulled the tractor in the opposite direction. The tractor had driven to a lakeside. He did not know the exact name of our team, so he had said "Shengyi" as "Shengli". It was the Shengli Team who had sent him back after hearing the announcement. I was thinking, why did father choose him? Did such a Wanqi person learn well? However, he was Yi Qiang's younger brother…
I couldn't help but worry about this team's factory.
This book is provided by FunNovel Novel Book | Fan Fiction Novel [Beautiful Free Novel Book]