The train driver in the courtyard

Under the dim light.

Li Aiguo said slowly: "The Java sparrow is not a real Java sparrow, but a nickname for a certain type of mouse in some remote rural communities."

"In those places, people use the word 'crow bird' to refer to this kind of mouse in order to avoid the idea of ​​eating it."

After these words were spoken, the expressions of the residents were polarized.

Some residents feel guilty.

Their eyes were wandering, not daring to look at others, and some even lowered their heads slightly.

Life has been very hard these days, and some people, like Xu Damao, have secretly caught mice in the suburbs and roasted them for food.

Most of the residents turned pale.

A while ago, in order to eliminate the rat infestation in the courtyard, these residents had to deal with rats a lot, and they were very familiar with their appearance and habits.

The sight of those grey, furtive figures moving through the darkness is still vivid in my mind.

Now that I think about it carefully, the color and texture of the meat on that plate are actually somewhat similar to rat meat.

The residents couldn't help but feel nauseous and their stomachs churning at the thought that the food on the plate might be disgusting rat meat.

It was at this moment that all the residents understood why Xu Damao would rather risk being sent to the police station than tell the truth.

Although Xu Damao was just a film projectionist, he was no different from an ordinary worker.

However, Xu Damao considered himself a cultured person. He always acted like a worker with a higher status and lived a better life than the average resident.

If everyone knew that he can't even afford meat now and has even resorted to eating rat meat.

That would be a great humiliation for him.

He had completely lost face, which was something he could never accept.

This is also the real reason why some residents secretly eat rat meat but dare not admit it.

Liu Lan's eyes widened, her face full of shock and confusion.

She never imagined that the so-called meat Xu Damao brought back would actually be rat meat.

"Da Mao, why are you doing this!!"

Seeing that the secret was ruthlessly revealed by Li Aiguo, Xu Damao knew that he could no longer hide it, so he could only dejectedly tell the whole story.

"We can't buy meat in the capital these days. Your belly is getting bigger and bigger, so you need to supplement your nutrition."

"When I went to the commune to show a movie, I found that the members there secretly went to the fields to catch mice and roast them for food."

"I've tried it. Although rat meat looks dirty, it tastes really good."

"So I took the opportunity of showing the movie to catch some mice."

Liu Lan looked at Xu Damao quietly, her lips trembling slightly, and for a moment she didn't know what to say.

She felt mixed emotions.

Although Xu Damao deceived her, the reason behind it was for her and for the baby in her belly.

Xu Damao did not steal the chickens and ducks of the members, which made Yi Zhonghai a little disappointed.

Jia Dongxu was also depressed for not being able to send Xu Damao in, but he soon cheered up again.

Jia Dongxu squinted at Xu Damao and said, "You are amazing, you have even managed to get to the point where you have to eat rat meat. Is that something humans eat? Aren't you ashamed?"

"Jia Dongxu, what I eat has nothing to do with you. No matter what, I didn't steal anything. Untie the ropes on me quickly."

Xu Damao also gave up at this moment, glaring at Jia Dongxu with wide eyes.

Jia Dongxu did not help Xu Damao untie the rope, but just looked at Yi Zhonghai.

His meaning was very clear, he needed Yi Zhonghai's order to release Xu Damao.

Seeing that the situation had become tense again, the third uncle who had been expressing his opinions spoke up: "Since this is a misunderstanding, Lao Liu, quickly let Damao go. If the residents of other compounds see this, they will think that we, the uncles in charge, are bullying the residents."

Well, this sentence is worth at least ten kilograms of waste paper. Xu Damao, you must remember it.

Liu Haizhong had no choice but to reach out to untie the rope with a frustrated look on his face.

"Old Liu, wait, this is not right." Yi Zhonghai grabbed Liu Haizhong's arm and said, "When we were eliminating rats in Beijing last year, the district propaganda officer said that rats have a lot of germs, and people may get infectious diseases if they touch them.

It is said that it is some kind of plague, and it is particularly severe.

Now Xu Damao actually ate a rat. Could he be infected with an infectious disease?"

Liu Haizhong was startled and quickly let go of Xu Damao's arm and took several steps back.

Those residents had also experienced the experience of exterminating rats, and knowing this knowledge, they all took two steps back away from Xu Damao, for fear of being infected with germs.

The faces of those residents who had stolen and eaten mice turned pale.

Several residents couldn't help but touch their stomachs, fearing that they would suddenly start to hurt.

After what happened last year, more than half of the rats in the capital were eliminated, but there are still quite a few.

Some people are already starving, so why don’t people eat rats, or eat rats in an unlawful manner?

One reason is that rats are too dirty, and the other is that rats carry germs.

Jia Dongxu dodged to the side, pointed at Xu Damao with a look of disgust and cursed: "Okay, Xu Damao, I thought you were just afraid to admit that you ate rats for the sake of face, but it turns out that you want to spread the germs to everyone in our compound. You have such a vicious mind!"

"No, the mice I caught are not dirty and do not contain any germs. Please do not frame me."

Intentionally spreading germs is a serious crime, much more serious than stealing. Xu Damao was so scared that his face turned pale.

He stammered and tried to explain, but the recent propaganda had already been deeply rooted in people's minds, and the residents looked at Xu Damao with anger.

"Send him to the street office. Quickly, send him to the street office." Yi Zhonghai was overjoyed and winked at Jia Dongxu, asking him to seize this opportunity.

Just as Jia Dongxu was about to step forward, a figure stopped him again.

Looking at Li Aiguo standing in front of him, Jia Dongxu stiffened his neck and said arrogantly, "Li Aiguo, Xu Damao made a serious mistake this time. As the captain of the patrol team, do you still want to protect him?"

Yi Zhonghai also frowned: "Li Aiguo, I warn you, Xu Damao is deliberately spreading the germs. He might have been instructed by Dieter to do so."

Wow, Yi Zhonghai has also learned this trick.

Li Aiguo said: "There are many kinds of mice."

Yi Zhonghai interrupted Li Aiguo and said, "No matter what kind of rat it is, it is not a good thing, and it does not reduce Xu Damao's guilt."

"Yi Zhonghai, I think you are not concerned about the safety of the residents, but want to punish Xu Damao!" Li Aiguo said coldly.

Yi Zhonghai's thoughts were exposed, and his face immediately turned red. He snorted coldly and said, "Okay, you continue to defend him. I don't believe you can turn black into white."

"Black is black, white is white, and that will never change."

After saying this, Li Aiguo looked at Xu Damao and said, "Damo, do you have any unskinned mice at home?"

Xu Damao didn't know what Li Aiguo was up to, but he nodded anyway: "There's one more, but I'm afraid it'll take too long to skin it. It's now hidden in a sack under the bed."

When Liu Lan heard that there was a dead mouse hidden under the bed, she was shocked and looked fearful.

Seeing that she could not be relied upon, Li Aiguo could only call Nan Yi to come to Xu's house.

Li Aiguo shone the flashlight under the bed. With the help of the weak beam of the flashlight, Nan Yi stuck his butt out and took out a sack from under the bed.

When the sack was opened, a huge "rat" was found inside. The rat was fat and strong, weighing nearly two kilograms.

"I was right." After carefully observing the mouse, Li Aiguo picked it up and carried it into the yard, holding its tail.

When the residents saw Li Aiguo carrying a mouse out, they all gasped.

"This mouse is really big."

"How much meat is this? No wonder Xu Damao is greedy. I can't resist it either."

"Snapped!"

"Lao Chen, if you dare to eat rats, I will divorce you."

".I'm just saying. From today on, I will never eat rats."

"."

Amid the discussion, Yi Zhonghai was a little confused about what Li Aiguo was going to do, and frowned and asked, "Aiguo, doesn't this rat just prove that Xu Damao was trying to spread the plague?"

Li Aiguo brought the mouse in front of Yi Zhonghai, almost up to his eyes. Yi Zhonghai was startled and quickly stepped back away from the mouse: "Li Aiguo, stop messing around."

"Yi Zhonghai, you are a great man, but how can your eyesight be so bad?" Li Aiguo walked into the crowd holding the mouse, his eyes swept across the faces of the residents, and said word by word: "This thing is not a mouse!"

boom!
As soon as these words were spoken, the scene suddenly became lively.

"This thing has a rat's head, a rat's body, and a rat's tail. Why isn't it a rat?"

"Driver Li used to be an honest kid, but now he has learned to cheat for Xu Damao."

"Yeah, we are not blind, how can we not recognize a mouse?"

The residents did not believe Li Aiguo's statement. Even Xu Damao hung his head and muttered quietly, "Brother Aiguo, I did eat a rat. Don't worry about it. Let them send me to the police station."

Ever since Li Aiguo stood up again, Jia Dongxu has been a little scared, worried that Li Aiguo would come up with some good idea to help Xu Damao.

After hearing what Li Aiguo said, Jia Dongxu felt relieved and laughed: "Li Aiguo, do you think I'm a fool?"

"I didn't expect that you have such a clear understanding of yourself." Li Aiguo looked at Jia Dongxu.

"Hiccup" Jia Dongxu's smile froze: "."

"Okay, Li Aiguo, stop messing around! If you don't have any other evidence, don't delay our work." Yi Zhonghai originally wanted to arrest Li Aiguo under the name of "sheltering".

Seeing Zhang Gangzhu standing beside him with a fierce look in his eyes, he had no choice but to give up this unrealistic idea.

But the third uncle knew that Li Aiguo was not the kind of person who would play tricks. He looked at the mouse and thought of something in a trance.

The third uncle thought for a moment, then stepped forward to stop Yi Zhonghai and said, "Old Yi, we have already wasted so much time. We don't need to worry about this moment. Please, Aiguo, explain the matter clearly. Only in this way can everyone be convinced."

"Okay, I'll give him this chance today, so that others won't think that I'm bullying others by taking advantage of my status as a big shot." Yi Zhonghai was already calm at this point, and he stood aside with his hands behind his back.

The third uncle looked at Li Aiguo and said, "Aiguo, didn't you just say that this thing is not a mouse? What do you mean by that?"

This is really a good joke. Li Aiguo held the mouse and shook it, and the mouse's tail swung left and right: "Everyone knows, what are the similarities between us and chimpanzees?"

Yi Zhonghai frowned: "Li Aiguo, we are talking about mice now, why are you talking about chimpanzees!"

"Why are you in such a hurry? Are you feeling guilty?"

"Okay, okay, go ahead. Let me see how powerful your mouth is!" Yi Zhonghai felt that he didn't need to bother with Li Aiguo for the time being, so he stood aside with his arms folded.

Li Aiguo asked again, and the residents were all confused.

"That thing was sent by our African brothers. I have seen chimpanzees in the People's Zoo."

"Humans and chimpanzees are two different animals. How can they be the same?" "Yes, humans have no hair, while chimpanzees have a lot of hair. They are not the same kind."

".Are you hairless?"

"."

Ever since our African brothers sent us a few chimpanzees the year before last, the big black monkeys immediately aroused everyone's curiosity, and all the residents in the compound went to the zoo on weekends.

The residents had a heated discussion about Li Aiguo's strange question.

But no matter what, there is no similarity between humans and chimpanzees.

At this time, the good student He Yushui raised his hand: "Brother Aiguo, I know!"

Li Aiguo pointed at He Yushui and said, "Everyone, please be quiet. Please let He Yushui answer."

The good student He Yushui did not answer immediately, but turned around and ran back to the house. After a while, he came out with a schoolbag and a biology book.

He Yushui walked into the crowd, opened the biology book, and said loudly: "Brother Aiguo, it is introduced in the biology book.

Humans and gorillas are both in the kingdom Animalia, class Chordata, order Mammalia, family Primates, and family Hominidae.

It’s just that humans belong to the genus Homo under the family Hominidae, and the species Homo sapiens

Gorillas are animals of the genus Pongo, subfamily Pongo, family Hominidae.

Although the residents do not understand what phylum, class, order, family, species and genus mean, the knowledge in the biology book is definitely not wrong.

"I didn't expect my man is so closely related to chimpanzees. No wonder he has so much hair on his body."

"Sister-in-law Zhang, be serious. If you continue to talk nonsense, your family will lose the active votes this month."

"."

I saw that the residents all accepted the fact that humans and chimpanzees are indeed from the same family.

Li Aiguo applauded He Yushui and said, "Yushui is good at biology and will definitely get full marks in the exam."

He Yushui shook her pigtails proudly, feeling very pleased.

Li Aiguo looked at the residents and continued, "Look, we and chimpanzees are both animals of the same family, but the difference is so huge.

This thing in my hand is to mice what we humans are to chimpanzees.

Its scientific name is vole, belonging to the phylum Animalia, class Chordata, class Mammalia, order Rodentia, family Cricetidae, subfamily Microtiinae, and genus Microtus.

The scientific name of the common mouse in our homes is house mouse, which belongs to the phylum Animalia, phylum Chordata, class Chordata, class Mammalia, order Rodentia, family Muridae, and genus Rattus.

It can be seen that they belong to the same order Rodentia, but voles belong to the family Cricetidae, while house mice belong to the family Muridae.

They are not species of the same family at all. Although they look similar, the difference between them is actually greater than the difference between humans and chimpanzees.

House mice live in sewers and dark corners all year round and like the smell of decay.

They carry a lot of germs on their bodies, and once you eat or come into contact with them, you are likely to get sick.

That's why we eliminated rats on a large scale last year.

Voles live in fields and feed on grains, seeds, roots, and tree bark.

And they don't like the smell of rot. After eating the crops, the voles' meat is plump and tastes delicious.

In some places in the south, there is a saying that "eating one rat is equivalent to eating three chickens."

In some places in Northeast China, there are terms such as "dried rat meat" and "dried sparrow meat".

The mice and sparrows here refer to voles, not house mice.

"

In fact, after coming to this era and experiencing the experience of eliminating rats, Li Aiguo has always had a doubt.

Rats are dirty, their meat has a strong smell, they carry deadly germs, and most importantly, they are extremely difficult to catch.

A hungry person doesn't have the energy to catch a mouse.

People who are not hungry will not choose to eat rats just for the sake of stuttering, risking contracting an infectious disease such as the plague.

This is the same reason why in years of disaster, fish in the river are rarely used as food.

When the energy consumed to obtain food far exceeds the food obtained by eating it, then this food cannot exist as food.

Rats should not be considered food in any way.

Why are there so many records of eating rats in history books?

Now that I think about it, the rats those people ate were not mice, but most likely small animals from the Cricetidae or Bamboo Ratidae families.

Although the ancients did not understand knowledge such as sections, orders, classes, genera, and species, the life experience passed down was enough for them to make choices.

Dozens of small animals such as voles, hamsters, bamboo rats, etc. are mistaken for mice because they look similar to mice.

Of course, this is just Li Aiguo’s personal opinion. After all, the actual situation at that time cannot be verified.

As he spoke, Li Aiguo held up the "rat": "It is actually very easy to distinguish between mice and voles. The tail of a mouse is long, almost longer than its body length. The tail of a vole is very short, usually no longer than half of its body length.

Mice have thick fur, voles have thin fur."

In order to prevent residents from stewing mice instead of thinking they were voles, Li Aiguo also specifically explained the difference between the two.

Biological knowledge is very obscure.

The residents don’t understand what section, order, class, genus and species are. They don’t understand.

However, the differences between humans and chimpanzees are obvious.

Even people who have little knowledge of biology would not consider chimpanzees as humans.

Using the chimpanzee analogy, the residents quickly understood.

When they saw that the "rat" had a very short tail, the residents remembered the rat they had killed a while ago and immediately determined that it was a vole.

"It turns out that the mouse Xu Damao eats is not a mouse."

"It's good news that voles can be eaten."

"A field mouse this big must have about one and a half kilograms of meat. If you want to buy this much meat, it will cost at least two dollars."

"What nonsense! This is not a field mouse, it's a bird of paradise!"

After listening to Li Aiguo’s introduction.

Those who had never eaten field mice had evil ideas.

Those residents who had secretly eaten voles breathed a sigh of relief, finally no longer having to worry about getting sick.

The third uncle narrowed his eyes as he looked at the field mouse. Since this thing was edible, could he find a way to catch more of them, and then sell them in the pigeon market? Hey, Java sparrow, this is indeed a good name, and it will surely be sold at a high price.

For a moment, the residents in the compound had different thoughts.

The situation that was originally doomed to fail was turned around by Li Aiguo.

Xu Damao was stunned. It took him a while to react. He hesitated and said, "What I ate was not a mouse? Then why am I so scared?"

He shouted at Jia Dongxu at the top of his voice: "Jia Dongxu, you bastard, let me go right now."

Jia Dongxu still couldn't accept these facts and shouted, "Master, Li Aiguo is just fooling everyone. Vole, mouse, rat, anything with the word rat in it is not a good thing."

Yi Zhonghai was relaxed and contented just now, but now beads of sweat appeared on his forehead. When he heard Jia Dongxu's words, he wanted to nod.

"What Dongxu said makes sense, but this is just Li Aiguo's personal opinion and cannot be relied upon."

The third uncle sighed and looked at Yi Zhonghai: "Old Yi, you can disbelieve Li Aiguo, but can't you disbelieve the biology textbook?"

Textbooks are the real authority in any era, and Yi Zhonghai was speechless at the time.

"The first uncle was also concerned about the safety of the compound, he just made a mistake." Seeing that Yi Zhonghai had no way to step down, the third uncle gave him a way out.

Yi Zhonghai took the opportunity to back off and nodded awkwardly: "Yes, yes, I meant well, but I didn't know the difference between a mouse and a vole, so there was a misunderstanding."

"Master, are we just going to let this go?" Jia Dongxu became anxious when he saw Yi Zhonghai was about to give in.

"Stop talking! If I hadn't believed you so easily, I wouldn't have made such a mistake. Dongxu, you should study harder in the future and stop idle away all day."

Jia Dongxu was somewhat unwilling and was pushed out by Yi Zhonghai as a scapegoat.

This is not betraying teammates, it's just a tactical retreat.

"Da Mao, I mistakenly believed what others said." Yi Zhonghai took the initiative to step forward and untie the rope for Xu Damao.

Jia Dongxu had used a lot of force when tying the rope just now, and now Xu Damao's arm was being hurt by the rope.

As soon as he was freed from the comfort of the rope, Xu Damao rushed into the house with a "whoosh".

Just when everyone was wondering what Xu Damao was going to do, Xu Damao came out carrying a stainless steel pot on his back and a rolling pin in his hand.

Xu Damao rushed over and pointed a rolling pin at Jia Dongxu: "Thief Sun, give me your life!"

When Jia Dongxu saw Xu Damao taking the scapegoat, he was shocked and turned around to run away.

Xu Damao chased after him with a rolling pin held high.

"Master, save me. Mother, save me."

"Sun Thief, today I'll let you know what it means to be powerful."

The residents in the compound watched this scene and burst into laughter.

It was already past ten o'clock in the evening when the Siheyuan meeting ended.

Yi Zhonghai returned to the house and drank two enamel pots of tea before he managed to suppress his anger.

"We could have taken down Xu Damao today, but Li Aiguo got in the way again."

"Old man, I heard from Aiguo that field mice are indeed edible and very nutritious," an old lady whispered nearby.

"What! You want me to eat rats?" Yi Zhonghai's eyes widened, and he slammed the table and said, "I am the eldest uncle in the courtyard! How can I eat something so dirty?"

"It's a vole, not a mouse. Besides, we haven't eaten meat for a long time." An old lady rolled up her sleeves and stretched out her arm, which was already swollen.

As a seventh-level master chef, Yi Zhonghai should live a better life than others.

But he has to take care of two families by himself, so now he can only eat cornmeal and wild vegetable porridge.

Yi Zhonghai sighed and said with difficulty: "I will go back to my hometown tomorrow. There are no field mice there, but more Java sparrows."

Yi Zhonghai's heart was bleeding.

Not only did he fail to deal with Xu Damao this time, but he also had to eat rats like Xu Damao. Life was simply unbearable.

(End of this chapter)