My eternal regret is that I should not leave my hometown and my mother.
I was born in an extremely poor rural area in northwest Shandong. Our family is the poor among the poor, and it can really be said that there is no poor place. During the ten-year catastrophe, I jumped out to oppose the perverse but popular "Lafayette" of Peking University, which was regarded as a thorn in her side and determined to get rid of it quickly. Her minions have fled to my hometown twice, deliberately "beating" me into a landlord, and their arrogant teachers have not scared my villagers. When I was a child, a partner pointed to their noses and said loudly, "If Quanguan Village complains, Ji Xianlin's family will be the first!"
This sentence is not an exaggeration, he is telling the truth. Grandparents died early, leaving their father and other three brothers alone and helpless. The youngest uncle gave it to someone else. My father and uncle were so hungry that they had to go to someone else's jujube forest to pick up the dried dates that fell on the ground to satisfy their hunger. This is certainly not a long-term solution. Finally, the two brothers were forced to leave their homes and go to Jinan to make a living. At this time, they were only in their teens and twenties. In a big city without friends, Uncle Jiu must have gone through a lot of hardships to settle down in Jinan. So my father went back to his hometown and said that he was a farmer, but there was no land to cultivate. It must have gone through a lot of hardships. Uncle Jiu sometimes sends money home from Jinan, and his father lives on it. Somehow, I found a daughter-in-law, my mother. My mother's maiden name is Zhao, and her family is as poor as ours, otherwise she wouldn't get married. She has no food at home, so she has no money or leisure to go to school. So my mother doesn't know a word, and she has lived all her life without a name. Her home is in another village, five miles away from ours. This five-mile road is the longest road my mother has traveled in my life.
That "Lafayette" of Peking University became a "landlord" because I was born in such a family and had such a mother.
Later, I heard that our family was really "rich" for a while. Probably at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, Uncle Jiu used the last fifty cents left in his pocket to buy one tenth of the Hubei flood lottery and won the prize. The two brothers talked about "returning home with wealth" and went home proud. So he shipped the money home, and Uncle Jiu stayed in the city. His father made arrangements for the village. He bought bricks and tiles and built a house at an absurd price. Bought a field with a well at an absurd price. I was very excited and really proud. Unfortunately, the good times didn't last long. My father entertained friends from all corners of the country in an absurd way. In an instant, the built tile house was demolished to sell bricks and tiles. Oil fields with wells have also changed their owners. The whole family has returned to the original situation. It was at this time that I was born in this world under such circumstances.
Of course, my mother experienced this great change personally. It's a pity that I was only a few years old when I lived with my mother. Tell me, I don't understand either. Therefore, the sudden ups and downs of our family are like a flash in the pan, and I haven't fully understood it. I'm afraid this mystery will become a mystery forever.
Anyway, our family has returned to the previous poverty state. It was later said that our family had only half an acre of land at that time. I don't know how this half acre of land came from. A family of three lives on this half acre land. Of course, Uncle Jiu in the city will also give some help, but things like the Central Hubei Flood Control Award are not rare once in a lifetime. Uncle Jiu doesn't have much money to help his brother.
How can I live at home? I'm too young to say clearly. I ate badly anyway, I know that. According to the standards at that time, eating "white" (referring to wheat flour) was the highest, followed by eating millet flour or stick-flour cake, and eating red sorghum cake for the last time was red, like pig liver. White has nothing to do with our family. "Yellow" (the color of millet flour or cake is yellow) has little relationship with us. Only "red" people spend all their time with each other. This "red" is bitter and astringent, and it is really hard to swallow. But if I don't eat, I'll be hungry. I'm really a little red.
However, children also have their own ways. My grandfather's cousin is a juren, and his wife I call her grandma. Their branch is very rich and has land. Although juren is dead, his family is still very good. My great-grandmother is still alive. Her own grandson died young, so she gave all her love to me. She is one of the few people in the whole village who can eat "white". She not only eats by herself, but also leaves half or a quarter of a white-flour bun for me every day. I wake up every morning and immediately jump off the kang and run to the village. Our family lives outside the village. I ran to grandma and shouted, "grandma!" " "She immediately smiled from ear to ear, put her hand back in her fat sleeve and took out a small bun from her pocket and handed it to me. This is the happiest moment of my day.
In addition, I can occasionally eat a little "white", which I bought by myself. In the summer wheat harvest season, our family has no harvest at all. Jia Ning's aunt and sister-in-law who live across the street-their family is also extremely poor-took me to the rich fields in our village or other villages to "pick up wheat". The so-called "wheat picking" means that when other long-term workers cut the wheat, there will always be some ears of wheat left. These are not worth picking up, so we poor people come to pick them up. Because there will never be much left, we picked up half a basket for a long time, but for us, it is already a treasure. My aunt and sister-in-law must take special care of me. A child of four or five years old or five or six years old can pick up ten catties and eight catties in a summer.
A kilo of wheat. My mother wiped all these off. In order to reward me, after the wheat season, my mother will grind wheat into flour, steam it into steamed bread, or paste it into white flour cake to satisfy my appetite. So I'm full. I remember one year, when I was picking wheat, my performance might be a little "extraordinary". On the Mid-Autumn Festival-farmers call it "August 15th"-my mother got some moon cakes from somewhere and broke a piece for me, so I squatted down beside a stone to eat. At that time, for me, moon cakes were really amazing things, and it was hard to compare them with dragon liver and phoenix marrow. I seldom eat it once. I didn't notice if my mother was eating. Looking back now, she didn't eat a bite. Not only moon cakes, but also other "white" ones, which my mother has never tasted, are saved for me to eat. She may have been eating red sorghum cake all her life. You can't even eat this in famine years, you can only eat wild vegetables.
As for meat, the memory of eating seems to be blank. Next door to my mother's house is a workshop selling boiled beef. The old ox who worked hard for farmers all his life could no longer plow when he was old, so several farmers bought it at a very low price, killed it in an extremely barbaric way and cooked and sold the meat. Old beef is hard to cook, there is really no way. The farmer peed in the meat pot, so the meat was rotten. Farmers are kind-hearted. In this case, they told their neighbors, "Don't buy meat today!" My mother's family is poor. Although I love my grandson very much, I can only use a clay pot, spend a few dollars to make money and put a can of beef soup. Talk is better than nothing. I remember once, there was a tripe in the jar, which became my patent. I can't bear to eat it all at once, so I cut it piece by piece with a rusty iron knife and eat it slowly. This tripe can really be compared with moon cakes.
"White", moon cakes and tripe are rare. How about "yellow" "Yellow" is also rare. However, although I am only a few years old, I have come up with an idea. In spring, summer and autumn, grass and crops are growing outside the village. I will mow the grass outside the village, or cut sorghum leaves in other people's sorghum fields. Splitting sorghum leaves is not only forbidden by landlords, but also popular; Because the ventilation can be improved when the leaves are cracked, sorghum can grow better and the grains can be beaten more. Grass and sorghum leaves are for cows. Our family is poor and we have never raised cattle. My second uncle's family has land and often raises two big cows. My grass and sorghum leaves are for them. Whenever I, a child with less than three pieces of tofu, walk into my uncle's door with a big bundle of grass or sorghum leaves on my back, I feel confident and not afraid. If I put the grass in the cowshed, I will always get a "yellow" meal, which will not be "rolled up" by my second aunt (in our local dialect, it means "scolding"). Speaking of Chinese New Year, I feel in my heart that I have made great achievements in feeding cattle in the past year and have the courage to go to my uncle's house to eat yellow flour cakes. Yellow flour cakes are steamed with yellow wheat and dates. Although the color is yellow, it ranks above the "white", because it is only eaten once a year during the New Year, and things are rare, so yellow flour cakes are expensive.
What I said above is all about food. Why do you talk about food when you talk about your mother? The reason is not complicated. First, as a child, I care about food easily. Second, almost all the delicious food I said above has nothing to do with my mother. She has nothing to do with anything but "yellow". I stayed with her until I was six years old, and then I briefly went home twice. Looking back now, even my mother's face is blurred and there is no clear outline. In particular, I find it difficult and easy to understand: I can't remember my mother's smile anyway. It seems that she has never laughed in her life. Her family is poor and her son is far away. She suffered a lot. Where does the smile come from? Once I went home, I heard Aunt Ning across the street tell me, "Your mother always said,' If I had known, I wouldn't have let him go!'" ""How much bitterness and sadness are contained in a short sentence! I don't know how many days and nights the mother looked at the distance and looked forward to her son's return! However, this son never came back until his mother left this world.
For this situation, I was confused at first and didn't understand it deeply. In high school, a few years older, I gradually understood. However, depending on others, the economy cannot be independent, and I have empty ambitions, so I can't achieve them. I secretly made up my mind and vowed to marry my mother as soon as I graduated from college and found a job. However, before I graduated from college, my mother left me forever. The walls of this cell have been pasted with white paper. Although it has been out of date for a long time, the pasting has turned dark yellow, with several leaking places and large black spots. However, with the sunshine or bright lights, the room still looks white and dazzling. Two glass windows open to the sky, and the light and air are not bad. Facing the window, there is a black rectangular desk on the stone wall of the room. There are some thick books and ink boxes on the desk. There is a short bamboo chair with sawed feet at the table; Then behind the bamboo chair, there is an iron bed; The bed was covered with a gray military blanket and a coarse cotton quilt, which were folded three times and placed neatly on the inner edge of the bed. In the inner corner of this room, there is an unpainted and uncovered white wooden box with another toilet hidden in it, which is open day and night and bears the filth discharged by prisoners in this room every day. In front of the white wooden box, near the wall, there is a blue magnetic spittoon, which is like a game with a toilet. It is also open day and night, bearing the sputum and tears spit by prisoners in the room, as well as the orange peel bagasse and paper scraps thrown down. Suddenly ran into this room, if you didn't see the ugly white wooden box and the fragrant pine sitting at the table, the man who was nailed by the chain and knew at a glance that it was a prisoner, or you would think that this was not a cell, but a study room.
Indeed, Xiang Songzuo, chained in this room, also feels better than the room in the school where he lived when he was studying in the provincial capital ten years ago. This is a room in the detention center's preferential treatment number. This detention center is divided into two parts, one is the preferential number and the other is the ordinary number. The discount number is for people with political status or assets. They have committed various crimes for various reasons and will also be punished by law; And their daily life, their bodies, can't stand the same treatment as ordinary numbers; It's the same to put them in the ordinary number. It's not a day or two. Maybe they will all get sick or die of illness, which is absolutely unacceptable. Therefore, giving them special treatment is nothing more than expecting them to repent at an early date. Therefore, it is more appropriate to say that the special care number is not so much a prison as a rest home, but it is not free to enter and leave. Compared with the wet and filthy ordinary horn, it is a world of difference. Prisoners who suffer from illness in the ordinary number suddenly see the cleanliness and spaciousness of the preferential number, and there is always a feeling of heaven and hell in their hearts. Because Xiang Songzuo is an important political prisoner, the official hall moved him from the ordinary number to the preferential number in order to quickly change his original socialist belief. Chansons lived on an ordinary boat with three companions before, and it was quite easy to talk. Now I'm alone, sitting in this cell, really lonely. He can't smoke or drink, and he can't relax by smoking or drinking. The only thing that can make him forget everything is reading. He borrowed many books from his cellmates. He used to like reading. As soon as he has enough books to read, even the ten-catty chain nailed to his feet doesn't feel heavy. Especially now, books are like morphine needles in doctors' hands, which are used to relieve pain. When he read this book, he read it with relish and forgot his mental depression and physical pain. After all, his brain power is limited. After reading for hours, his head will swell and ache for a while. He put a pair of elbows on the table, hugged the swollen head with his palms, or looked at it, gritted his teeth and said to himself, "Try your best! It hurts! It hurts again! Cerebral hemorrhage, dizzy! " It was not until the brain pain was so severe that he could no longer stand it that he put down his book and stood at the table. Or fall on the iron bed, straighten your limbs and close your eyes; Or walk indoors from the inside out and from the outside in; Or stand by the window and look at that small piece of dreary rainy day outside the window; I also successfully looked at the willow tree with half dead branches and half green leaves outside the fence. As soon as he saw the dense green willow leaves, he guessed that all the trees on the earth probably grew bright green leaves in the warm spring breeze-he seemed to get a little spring from here. He lives like this every day. Today, when the guard on duty opened the door to see him, the most important prisoner on duty, he saw Xiang Song not reading or pacing. He sat at the table, supported his head with his left hand, thinking and writing on paper with his right hand. Chansons seems to have some feelings today and wants to write about it. What is he writing? Ah! He is writing a letter to his friend. Dear friends: I was finally arrested and put in prison. You can read about my arrest and imprisonment in the newspaper, and I don't need to say it. After I was captured, I was tied with a rope, nailed with heavy shackles, photographed countless times, escorted by armored vehicles, displayed alive at several mass meetings, and even put in a cage. All this is like showing a movie, scene after scene! I don't want to recall things that have passed. Memories can only increase my unbearable shame and distress! I don't want to tell you about my prison life. . The ancients said: "The tree wants to be quiet but the wind will not stop, and the son wants to raise it but not close." This is exactly what I should say. I can't bear to imagine my mother thinking of her beloved son on her deathbed; When I think about it, my heart will crack and tears will fill my eyes. When I rushed back to Jinan from Beiping and Qingping from Jinan to attend the funeral, I saw my mother's coffin and humble house. I really want to hit a coffin and go underground with my mother. I regret it. I really regret it. I shouldn't have left my mother. No matter what fame, status, happiness and honor there is in the world, it can't compare with being with my mother, even if she doesn't know a word.