Father's Land Mother's River

Chapter 3

"Guan Xiaozhu, Guan Xiaozhu, dragging your pigtails to beg for food."

A group of urchins followed the thin, hunchbacked Mr. Guan who staggered on his feet. The little gray braid on the back of his head aroused their great interest, and they shouted jingles at the same time.

Mr. Guan turned around and walked slowly towards the urchins. His white-haired and gnarled faces made the urchins feel guilty and scared, they scattered and ran away, leaving only a little boy standing in place.

Mr. Guan approached the little boy and asked, "Your name is Liu Xiaonan, I recognize you, why don't you run away?"

Liu Xiaonan said timidly: "I made up the jingle, Grandpa, I was wrong."

Mr. Guan grinned open his shriveled mouth with few teeth left, and giggled dryly: "It's a good compilation, and it's pretty easy to read, but I've never asked for food."

Seeing that Mr. Guan was not angry, but praised himself instead, Liu Xiaonan boldly asked again: "Then why are you so thin, like a stick?"

Mr. Guan stroked Liu Xiaonan's head and said, "This is character."

Liu Xiaonan didn't know how to be strong, she just asked curiously: "Then why do you wear a braid, men don't have braids."

Mr. Guan replied: "This is also the strength of character."

Liu Xiaonan continued to ask: "What is strength of character?"

Mr. Guan smiled again: "There are still many problems, a bit like your father back then."

Mr. Guan naturally knew that he couldn't explain his character to a seven-year-old boy.He led Liu Xiaonan to the gutter next to the production team, pointed to the stone tablet that was used as a stepping stone, covered with mud and dirt, and said, "Clean it up."

Liu Xiaonan stood barefoot in the ditch, found a broken tile and poured water on the stele, picked up a handful of grass and kept scrubbing.After the stele was cleaned, rows of engraved characters appeared on it.He was still illiterate, but the carved characters seemed to have a strange force, which firmly attracted him to the stone tablet, and he couldn't help stretching out his tiny fingers to trace the strokes.

Mr. Guan stood aside and pointed out: "If you are interested, you might as well come and copy it every day. It will be beneficial in the future. When you understand the words on it thoroughly, you will know what character is."

Liu Xiaonan raised her head from the stone tablet and asked, "Grandpa wrote these words?"

Mr. Guan raised his head and sighed: "I wrote it. Your ancestors lacked a scholar. Your father has a talent for reading. Unfortunately, the luck is not good. I wonder if you will be better than blue in the future."

After speaking, he shook three times and walked away alone.

From that day on, Liu Xiaonan never saw Mr. Guan again, and heard from her grandma that Mr. Guan fell ill.A few days later, grandma wept secretly at home, lamenting that Mr. Guan passed away, and that there would be no husband after Mr. Guan.He had never seen grandma crying like a lost girl, and he didn't understand why grandma was so sad.

Grandma brought Liu Xiaonan to kneel in front of Mr. Guan's coffin and made him kowtow three times.

After Mr. Guan was buried, Liu Xiaonan asked grandma: "Mr. Guan is not a man of character, how could he die?"

Grandma hugged Liu Xiaonan and smiled with tears in her eyes, and told him about Mr. Guan's "strength of character".

Grandma said that Mr. Guan is very stubborn, as stubborn as a boulder on the top of a mountain, unmoved by wind and thunder.Before the Republic of China, men all wore big braids. After the Republic of China, all men had their braids cut off, but Mr. Guan kept a small braid.

He can run from the city to the countryside to teach for one person, and no one persuades him to turn back. He has no complaints or regrets in his life, and his stubbornness makes people feel distressed.

Grandma's words were vague and vague, Liu Xiaonan didn't understand, but he remembered the following story.

During the tug-of-war in [-], one night, under the leadership of Liu Zhifu, more than [-] young and middle-aged men in the village went to dig a deep ditch on the road at the entrance of the village to prevent the Kuomintang in the city from driving into the village to encircle and suppress them. Unexpectedly, they were attacked at night. Catch them all.

The Kuomintang asked the villagers to hand over the people who encouraged them. If they did not hand over, they would bury all the villagers who dug the ditch in the ditch, but the people who encouraged them had long since disappeared.

At the moment of life and death, Mr. Guan rushed to hear the news and made a generous statement to the official: "Why are the people innocent? The indiscriminate killing of innocent people may not conform to the spirit of the Three People's Principles of Mr. Sun Yat-sen."

Mr. Guan used the head of the project to guarantee that the villagers who dug the ditches were honest farmers, and whoever came would not have to obey orders?
Mr. Guan argued hard, and finally saved the lives of more than [-] people in the village with his own strength, filled the ditch and guaranteed that the road would not be damaged in the future.

This is an important reason why the villagers still respectfully call him Mr. and allow him to keep his pigtails in the new society.

Mr. Guan became Liu Xiaonan's teacher for a day, and his grandmother often urged him to copy the words on the stone tablet.Less than a year later, his grandmother who loved him and often told him folk stories also died of illness, but the words on the stone tablet grew in his heart.

In order to fully understand the characters on the stone tablet, Liu Xiaonan became obsessed with reading without knowing it.

My mother has a biological book with a shoe shape in it. I don’t know it’s from that era. It’s in traditional Chinese characters and has pictures of various animals and plants. He often takes it out and looks through it.

It was not until the fourth grade of elementary school that Liu Xiaonan recognized the words on the stone tablet: During the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, the three brothers of the Liu family in Lijiazhuang, Qixia County, Shandong Province, migrated across the ocean due to poor family circumstances, and migrated to Chaotou Village, Fuzhou City, southern Liaoning. .Diligent and self-restraining, law-abiding, thrifty in housekeeping, the Liu family has gradually become the most prominent family in Chaotou Village.So it was renamed Liuzijie Village on the day of recovery in the 33rd year of the Republic of China, and a monument was erected as evidence.

Liu Xiaonan was very disappointed, these words meant nothing to him, he felt that he was deceived by Mr. Guan.

At this time, Liu Xiaonan already had his own ideas. He believed that what Mr. Guan instilled in him was the poison of feudal thought, and the gray braid at the back of his head was the most powerful proof.

However, the habit of loving reading has been formed, but books are not easy to get.His uncle found him a copy of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", which was short of chapters and pages, and he plunged into it, still reading it with great interest.

After his grandma passed away, he and his uncle slept on the same kang.The uncle can also tell stories, most of which are chivalrous and righteous. He is protected at home and abroad, and he has never scolded him. He feels that his uncle is far more amiable and respectable than his father.Uncle sometimes sighed to him, you love reading so much, you can see what is going on.

At that time, Liu Xiaonan was very proud, the teacher praised him, his classmates and even senior classmates envied him, Gu Yu became his good friend, and he hoped to get his father's affirmation and praise.

As long as he can remember, his father either reprimanded him or restricted his freedom, and never praised him.

After his father came home, he took the initiative to mention his favorite work to his father, and waited for his father's praise with a small face.Unexpectedly, what he was waiting for was a loud and loud slap from his father. If his mother and uncle hadn't stopped him from the side, he didn't know how many slaps he would have received.

His father sternly warned him not to write anything like that in the future.

His father only came home once a month, and when he returned home, he imposed various regulations on him. His father was a stranger to him.He was very afraid of his father in his heart, he couldn't play around with his temper like Liu Qishun, Guan Xiaoyun and other peers of the same age, and gradually developed an introverted personality.

His father did not object to his reading, but he lacked exercise while reading. He was no shorter than others but lacked strength, and his slender stature was never strong.Since he was a child, he could not fall against Liu Qishun every time he wrestled. If Liu Qishun hadn't often copied his homework, he would have been bullied to death by Liu Qishun.

Liu Xiaonan felt that Mr. Guan was responsible for all of this. He wasted too much time and energy on that stele, and he would never patronize that stele again.

Not only that, Guan Xiaoyun also fell out with Liu Xiaonan.Guan Xiaoyun has two older sisters and a younger brother. Her parents let her go free. She dares to fight snakes and dig out bird nests. She can climb trees and swim. She often fights and wrestles with boys. She is a wild girl who is not afraid of anything.

She doesn't like Liu Qishun, and never plays with Liu Qishun.It is too domineering to say that he relied on his grandfather as the village party secretary and his father as the production team leader, and he was a bully by nature.

Guan Xiaoyun and Liu Xiaonan are playmates who grew up together. One is aggressive and the other is easygoing.

Once Guan Xiaoyun played tricks and insisted on Liu Xiaonan carrying her on his back, but Liu Qishun happened to see her.Liu Qishun scolded them as Zhu Bajie carrying his daughter-in-law, so shameless.

Liu Xiaonan hurriedly put Guan Xiaoyun down, but Guan Xiaoyun jumped on his back again, and sang a song like a demonstration.Liu Qishun was so angry that he reported it to the teacher. As a result, the two of them were criticized by the teacher and fined them to stand outside the classroom for a class.

Liu Xiaonan repented and stood neatly outside the classroom, with her head bowed in shame.But Guan Xiaoyun kept sticking out his tongue at him and making faces, not taking it seriously at all.

The friendship of youth is strong if it is said to be strong, but if it is not strong, it can be torn apart in a blink of an eye. Who is not a little bit petty?Liu Xiaonan's critical draft offended Guan Xiaoyun. She said her grandfather had been dead for many years.From then on, Liu Xiaonan was ignored again.

Liu Xiaonan fell into loneliness, but Gu Yu quietly walked into his youthful life at this time.

Gu Yu's family is a devolved household from Bincheng, and moved into the East Wing at the beginning of this year, opposite to Liu Xiaonan's house, with only a yard in between.They started to be strangers to each other, and they were not in the same grade, so they didn't interact with each other.

Gu Yu is the youngest girl in the family, she is fair and beautiful, she can sing and dance, and she can give speeches on stage with an open voice, full of emotion.Wearing a green military uniform, with a red cuff on his left arm, and two shofar braids, he is quick and knowledgeable, and speaks like firing a machine gun. He is well-founded and does not give anyone a chance to refute and breathe.Her innate arrogance and demeanor made her rarely have good friends in the countryside.

When she first came to the countryside, Gu Yu was attracted by all kinds of new things in the countryside, and she was also willing to play with rural children. A large group of male and female students of the same age often gathered around her.

Over time, she found that these rural children couldn't keep up with her own rhythm in speaking and doing things, and their thoughts and thoughts were not on the same track at all, and she gradually alienated them.Those rural children either left voluntarily or were squeezed out by her and scattered away.

Gu Yu took Liu Xiaonan's critique manuscript home and recited it, only to feel that the critique manuscript was written extraordinary, and those words seemed to be engraved on paper.When her father heard it, she asked her who wrote it, and she said it was the little boy from the opposite door.

The father took the critical manuscript and read it for a long time before telling Gu Yu that neither the handwriting nor the language seemed to be written by a 12-year-old child, and he was qualified to be her new friend.

Gu Yu began to take the initiative to approach Liu Xiaonan and asked Liu Xiaonan to escort her home.Liu Xiaonan's family has a big fiery red rooster. It walks with its head held high and its comb trembling. It specializes in bullying children, often attacking from behind, jumping up unexpectedly, flapping its wings and pecking at random.

Neither she nor Liu Qishun dared to go home from the yard, they walked through the back door of Liu Qishun's house, and then slipped back to their own house through the front door.

Liu Xiaonan had to make preparations in advance every day when she came home from school. Whenever she saw a big rooster leading a group of little hens strolling down the street, she would hold a long wooden stick in her hand and look back while walking.

Once you see the big rooster trotting behind him with its wings drooping and the feathers on its neck blooming like a bright red flower, you know that the big rooster is about to attack, so raise the long wooden stick to fight the big cock first.

Under the attack of the big rooster flying up and down, Liu Xiaonan waved a long wooden stick with one hand and covered his head with the other. Go back to your own home.

The funny scene often made Gu Yu laugh while hiding at home, so she decided to go on an adventure with Liu Xiaonan.

Gu Yu left Liu Qishun behind, and Liu Xiaonan and Liu Xiaonan each carried a long wooden stick to go home from the courtyard gate, and if they were attacked by a big rooster, they would wield the wooden sticks to defend together.

In fact, she was mostly hiding behind Liu Xiaonan, letting Liu Xiaonan face the big cock head-on, and return home safely under his cover, which was thrilling and exciting.

Liu Xiaonan's mother was afraid that the big rooster would spoil the little girl from the city, so she killed the big cock.

Losing the threat of the big cock, Liu Xiaonan was indifferent to Gu Yu again.Gu Yu found that this rural boy didn't like to talk much, but he was fascinated by reading, so he attracted him with the comic book in his hand.

Gu Yu has a whole wooden box of comic books, she often takes out a stack of comic books and sits at the door to read.This made Liu Xiaonan very envious and envious, and slowly moved closer to her.

He still doesn't have a book that belongs only to him, otherwise, he wouldn't play with a girl from a city who is arrogant, unreasonable and coquettish.

Liu Zhifu, the village secretary of the Upper Court, came to the house to find Gu Yu's father, and advised Gu Yu's father not to let her play with Liu Xiaonan.His family has a high status, especially his uncle Liu Zhitai, who is a gangster, can he learn well from such an uncle?Don't spoil her, his grandson Liu Qishun can protect her well.

Gu Yu's father didn't care much about these things, kids are kids, whoever they want to play with and who they don't want to play with is up to them.

Gu Yu secretly thought it was funny when she heard this, does she need Liu Qishun's protection?Besides fighting and bullying classmates, swearing and swearing, what else would he do?She felt that Liu Zhifu had ulterior motives, and he was getting more and more distant from Liu Qishun, and he was getting closer to Liu Xiaonan like a demonstration.

A novel came into the store, priced at one yuan and five cents.Liu Xiaonan didn't want to borrow books from Gu Yu all the time, because once she borrowed them, she had to obey her instructions for several days.He lied to his mother that the pencil case was broken and had to buy a new one, asked for two dollars, and secretly bought the book home.

After watching it for less than two days, my mother found out that it was a week's worth of oil, salt, sauce and vinegar.He reprimanded him without saying a word, and took the book away and returned it to the store.

Liu Xiaonan had been sad for many days, and this incident was still in his memory.The title of the book has long been forgotten, and he only remembers one detail: a man with two pens in his coat pocket, who looks like a man who has drunk a lot of ink.

He didn't understand at that time, can ink be drunk as water?Is it mental illness?Only when I grew up did I realize that it generally refers to educated people.

It was only then that Gu Yu realized that Liu Xiaonan was not addicted to reading comic books, so she secretly lent him the book from her brother and sister, on the condition that once there was an event at school, he would write a speech for her.

Liu Xiaonan finally didn't have to worry about running out of books. During this period, he was able to read a lot of books such as "Bitter Cauliflower", "The Armed Forces in the Enemy's Rear", "Fire King Kong", "How Steel Was Tempered".

(End of this chapter)