Father's Land Mother's River

Chapter 32 The Dream Ahead

A bus with a special mission is driving on an intercity highway, and the atmosphere in the compartment is polarized.Guan Xiaoyun sat in the back row with a few familiar girls, talking about each other's funny stories, and hearty laughter echoed and danced in the car.

Most of the few young men were silent, even solemn.Did they expect that five years later, they would return to their hometown in desperation along this road, carrying worn-out luggage rolls?

The staff of the Bincheng Textile Factory, one old and one young, who were in charge of picking up people, sat in the co-pilot's seat, frowning and turning around from time to time, quite dissatisfied with the noise in the car.

After thinking about it, I can understand that these rural youths are going out of the village for the first time to see the outside world, so excitement is inevitable.He didn't say anything to stop him, and easily chatted with the driver about what he had seen and heard in the countryside.

Liu Xiaonan sat by the car window and kept looking out of the window, so the noise in the car would not disturb him.

Outside the car window is the rural scenery he is familiar with. The mountains are still those mountains, the rivers are still those rivers, the villages are still those villages, and the land is still this continuous land. Why has it changed to another color at this moment? Charming charm?

Shouldn't you be glad you finally escaped from the land?I used to hate it so deeply that I even wanted to run away far away and never look back, but why is it so hard to let go of the attachment and sentimentality at this moment?

Last night, Liu Xiaonan sat cross-legged on the kang and chatted face to face with her parents for a long time.His mother handed him 40 yuan and [-] catties of local food stamps as his living expenses for the first month, and told him to take good care of Guan Xiaoyun and never let anyone snatch him away again.

He wanted to say, don't have too much hope, Guan Xiaoyun may not become your daughter-in-law in the end, and he has higher pursuits.Seeing that his mother was both happy and worried, he held back and said nothing.

His father didn't teach him any more, but only told him how he escaped from Liuzi Street.He was shocked. His father still had such a difficult, tortuous and heart-bleeding life experience, but why was his father still attached to the land?Why would you want to tie yourself to the ground?Could it be the deep love of hurt?
It was difficult for him to understand, and he only cast his firm and expectant eyes into the distance, to the strange city that was about to arrive.

There is a cliff-like urban-rural boundary, low houses and vegetable fields can still be seen outside the car window, and high-rise buildings are already in sight.The bus suddenly slowed down, slowly entered the urban area, and merged into the dense traffic flow.

The interior of the car suddenly fell silent, and all eyes were turned to the window.

Row upon row of high-rise buildings, flashing traffic lights, jingling trams, trolleybuses with blue sparks, endless stream of bicycles, densely arranged shopping malls and shops, and tall sycamore trees with bark on both sides of the road—— After more than two hours' drive, they have entered a strange and novel world, which is also a new starting point for their lives.

The bus turns into a wide street, on one side is a raw material factory with densely erected lightning rods, on the other side is a small garden and a staff hospital, and directly opposite is a tall club, all building signs are clearly marked with "Bin City Textile Factory".

The destination has arrived!Everyone half stood up, their young hearts beating uncontrollably.

The bus turned again, drove into a long and narrow square with a small slope, and stopped in front of the factory gate.

It's time to get off work.Groups of colorfully dressed female textile factory workers came out of the factory gate, watching with great interest the peasants who were lined up at the side of the factory gate with their luggage and dressed in simple rustic clothes. The rotation workers brushed past.

Roll call, according to the pre-assigned list, temporarily live in the temporary dormitory next to the factory gate.Among these familiar and unfamiliar faces, Liu Xiaonan recognized Yu Zhiyong, a classmate who dropped out of high school halfway, who happened to be in the same dormitory.

Yu Zhiyong had a crew cut, was wearing a gray check suit, and a pair of brown leather shoes with three joints. When he met him, he held Liu Xiaonan's hand, laughed and punched Liu Xiaonan a few times on his chest.

Liu Xiaonan felt that Yu Zhiyong's big flat hands were rough but strong, his laughter was hearty, his eyes were energetic and he was well-dressed, so he judged that the life of the past few years had not crushed him.

The two of them didn't care about reminiscing about the past, Yu Zhiyong took the seat by the window first, threw his own luggage on the lower berth, and threw Liu Xiaonan's luggage on the upper berth.

They queued up to the cafeteria for a free dinner, returned to the dormitory to unpack their luggage, and locked the clothes they brought into the bedside cabinet.After everything was settled, Liu Xiaonan and Yu Zhiyong walked out of the dormitory together, and walked casually along the small square at the entrance of the factory.

Liu Xiaonan looked around, every time he went to a strange place, he was used to getting familiar with the environment first.

Yu Zhiyong smiled and said: "Don't look around like you haven't seen the big world, Bincheng is nothing more than that, and nothing will be new after a while."

Liu Xiaonan said: "I didn't expect that we would meet again here. The school made a big fuss back then. When taking the college entrance examination, Teresa Teng's songs were played publicly in the county."

Yu Zhiyong said: "I don't regret it. In the past few years, I have been in the society and learned more than you in school."

After Yu Zhiyong dropped out of school, he lived in his grandfather's house, doing odd jobs to earn a little money.Later, I came to Bincheng to build a building with a construction engineering team, and started working as a small worker.

The little worker works hard and earns little money. He buys cigarettes and wine out of his own pocket to honor the master bricklayer, and gradually learns the craft of bricklayer.

However, the money earned is not always in hand on time.One year was approaching the Chinese New Year, and the contractor hadn't paid the wages owed for several months, and there was no result in collective collection of accounts. Some had reasons to continue to default.

Yu Zhiyong found the home of the contractor, stuck a knife in the family's dining table, and celebrated the New Year at his home without paying.He is homeless and alone, barefoot and not afraid of wearing shoes, and using violence to control violence has become the law of his existence.

Then something happened that completely changed his attitude towards life.Once, he was temporarily sent out to buy iron wires urgently needed at the construction site. It was impossible to change clothes temporarily, so he got on the bus wearing clothes full of mortar.

As soon as he got into the car, all the contemptuous and disgusting eyes shot at him like sharp arrows, as if erecting a barrier to block him at the door of the car.

He had self-knowledge and wanted to stand in the corner by the car door so as not to be looked at by others.But the conductor said, if you stand there, how can others get on the bus?

He jumped off the bus and walked blankly on the wide street.

When it rained heavily, he hid in a low bridge hole and cried a lot.Eat the food we grow, live in the buildings we built, why look down on us?

On that day, he made a solemn oath that he must find a place to stand in this city.

Knowing that the Bincheng Textile Factory was going to the countryside to recruit farmers for rotation, he quit his job on the construction site and returned to his grandfather's house to seriously review the junior high school curriculum.

Whether it is a farmer rotation worker or something else, it is the first step to really enter the city.Not only can I support myself, but I can also take the bus at will as a matter of course.

Before entering the factory, he bought this suit and leather shoes, and began to move towards the goal of reborn life.

Liu Xiaonan said: "Our classmates are not destined to end, this time we are truly fighting side by side."

Yu Zhiyong happily agreed: "I like your words."

"Two classmates of our class were admitted to the health school. You are familiar with the road. If you have time, take me to meet them. We didn't go to a college technical secondary school. It's good to be able to walk into the university campus and get a taste of college students."

"I don't have such lofty ideals in life as you. Girls in the city are all slim and beautiful. If I can marry a girl from the city and settle down in the city, my goal in life will be achieved."

"Your goal is not low."

"Dare to think to be motivated."

As night falls, the lights come on.Crazy disco music was playing from upstairs in the club, someone was already reciting English in the English corner of the garden, and couples haunted under the shadow of the trees, embracing each other and licking watermelon and sucking watermelon juice from time to time.

The two walked along the edge of the garden, and Liu Xiaonan whispered, "The donkey's lips don't match the horse's mouth, that's why it makes such an ugly sound."

Yu Zhiyong couldn't stop laughing: "You are envious and jealous."

Liu Xiaonan thought to himself, he and Guan Xiaoyun had never kissed before, could it be possible to make such a sound?That night he had a dream. In the dream, he kissed a girl with a blurred face, and there was no sound at all.

The next morning, we still went to eat a free breakfast collectively.During the meal, several male and female leaders who led the team repeatedly emphasized that everyone should cherish food and not waste it casually. During dinner last night, someone threw the leftover steamed buns all over the table.

After breakfast, there were still leftover steamed buns and pickles on the dining table in the cafeteria, which was a mess.

Liu Xiaonan felt deeply ashamed.The factory leaders treat them as children who have traveled far away from home, but they don't know how to cherish them.The free lunch is gone, and I sent them a lunch box in exchange for a meal ticket.

The main work before the National Day is to study and train.In the morning, we went to the factory bath together to take a bath. At noon, there were jokes about some girls showering in underwear.

Visiting the factory in the afternoon, Liu Xiaonan was deeply shocked by the scene of intensive and large-scale continuous production of light industry in front of him: in the airtight factory building, all kinds of machinery are neatly arranged, making a unified roar, the spinning machine is rotating at high speed, the loom The warp and latitude are intertwined; the female textile workers shuttle back and forth in front of the machine, and their white figures are like beating musical notes.
He was so enthralled that he was hardly sure that this was where he would work.

Learn the history of the factory and the regulations of the factory, sign the contract, and apply for a work permit. After the work permit is issued, you can go to the library to read books.The library is located on one side of the club, and there are a large number of books, newspapers, magazines, and literary publications.

Liu Xiaonan spent every night in the library. He first searched for "Quiet River Don".The administrator told him no, and asked him to look for it at Xinhua Bookstore.

On Sunday, Liu Xiaonan asked Yu Zhiyong to take him to the health school.Two classmates from the health school took him around the campus. It was just a playground teaching building, nothing special, but he still felt a mysterious and holy atmosphere.

He imagined that one day, he would stroll around the quiet university campus with a thick book in his arms, what a proud and happy thing it would be.

After bidding farewell to their classmates in the health school, the two went to the Xinhua Bookstore. Liu Xiaonan got his wish and bought the long-awaited "Quiet River on the Don" and "The Biography of Madame Curie". "The Biography of Madame Curie" was known to him through the semiconductor radio, and it is said that this is a biography that has influenced a whole generation.

It has been rewarding.Strike while the iron is hot, Liu Xiaonan asked Yu Zhiyong to help him find the exact location of the editorial department of "Haiyan".In fact, it was just next to an uphill street not far from the medical school. It was an ordinary three-storey building with a single courtyard, and the gate was locked.

Liu Xiaonan stood for a while and then left with Yu Zhiyong. He knew that sooner or later he would come back here and bravely knock on that mysterious door.

(End of this chapter)