Hunger for a hundred years

Chapter 26 (6)
At this moment, Chen Yuexiang trembled her lips, and said in a low voice, "I didn't steal your sheep, I'm not a thief."
Then wept loudly.

She cried because she was regarded as a thief.

After He Zhongbao walked down the stone ridge, the onlookers quietly walked up to Chen Yuexiang and carried her to the bed.Her leg was not broken, but she had to get out of bed for at least a month.Wang washed the blood off her face with hot water, and Wang's daughter, the dumb Chrysanthemum, hugged He Kou who was awakened from the fright, and coaxed, coaxed, but her own tears welled up. .

He Da came back the next morning, bringing back a handful of "pig roots" (high-quality wild grain).When he was still in Zhu's board, he heard what happened last night from Mrs. Wang who was looking for food.He was in a panic and wanted to speed up his pace, but he couldn't. His short body struggled upwards, becoming a living scar on the ground.

When He Da entered the door, Chen Yuexiang was letting He Ji lie on her chest, biting her shriveled breast.

"Why clean up He Zhongbao?" Before Chen Yuexiang could speak, He Da asked.

Chen Yuexiang didn't expect her husband to take the initiative to ask this question, so she looked at her husband intently.There was murderous look in her husband's eyes.

At this time, Chen Yuexiang calmed down instead.She knows that once a cowardly person who is accustomed to silence is forced into a hurry, he will dare to burn the house down and kill people. If he really does such a thing, he will kill his husband and family. "Forget it," she said, "good will be rewarded with good, and evil will be rewarded with evil. I don't believe that my father is so domineering, my son is so domineering, and my grandson is still so domineering!"
He Ji couldn't suck the milk, so he burst into tears.His voice was rough, not like a famine-era baby.

At noon that day, He Da went to He Zhongbao's house.No one in the village heard them arguing, and He Da came out after only staying for three or two minutes.No one knew what He Da had said to He Zhongbao, not even Chen Yuexiang.This has become a deeply hidden mystery.The strange thing is that after He Da left, He Zhongbao never came to Chen Yuexiang to "settle accounts".

As for the sheep, it is said that He Zhongbao himself was smothered to death in the red sweet potato pit, and had two weeks of "tooth sacrifice"
Not only Hejiapo, but the entire countryside in the Qingxi River Basin is like a hungry stomach.Knowing that the bark and grass roots are poisonous, he also stuffed a lot into his mouth. After a short relief, he foamed at the mouth and died.Some people predicted that if this continues for another month, the phenomenon of cannibalism will repeat itself.Cannibalism is not without it, it just eats the dead, not the living: the ones buried in the soil in the afternoon, went to see them in the middle of the night, and were dug open, and all the flesh of the dead was removed, leaving only a pink bone .Even the carcass bones were chopped off to make soup!There are some unlucky dead people whose bones are boiled in more than one pot: A’s family chops up the bones and boils them for a while, and because they have a good relationship with B’s family, they secretly lend the bone to B’s, and B’s family boils them again. Once, return it to A's family.
Insufficient food not only deprives the right to life, but also deprives human dignity, but for Li Bamboo Carpenter in Hejiapo, his dignity has more meanings.He is a truly qualified outsider, because his ancestral grave was not buried in the loess of Hejiapo.When the hungry god of death approached the threshold of his house, he was still facing the people of Hejiapo with a humble smile, especially He Zhongbao.In this 800-meter-high mountain, because of Wang and Chrysanthemum—his relatives, he has no choice but to fall in love with this place. He hopes to put his roots here. However, he is afraid that the people of Hejiapo will dig up the soil. Expose his thin root system to broad daylight.He must claim this right with humility.Hungry death, however, would not care about that.

Its sharp claws first grabbed the chrysanthemum.

Last year, Chrysanthemum suffered from edema once, and managed to slip away from the busy clutches of death. Now, she suffered from edema again, and when pressed lightly on her body, a round pit appeared.He Da remembered that he had suffered from this disease before. When He Jianxiang threw him beside Dagou Grave, he was cured by eating sedum grass, so he asked Carpenter Li to get some back.He Da didn't understand, although they were all edema, the causes were very different, for the chrysanthemum at this time, nothing could save her, only food.

As bad as Chen Yuexiang was, Wang Shi was pregnant with a child too!Wang's should be a woman in her fifties, and she is pregnant with a child. Moreover, she has not conceived a child for more than ten years after being married to Carpenter Li, but she conceived at the most difficult time in life!

At home, one suffers from edema and the other is pregnant. The two of them are like two empty pockets, waiting to be filled by the hungry craftsman Li Bamboo.In order to find food, regardless of day or night, Carpenter Li basically cannot be seen in the courtyards on several floors. In the eyes, on the palms, on the soles of the feet, and even on every hair, there are two words engraved: food!food!food! ——Food for dog days!What responded to him was the dry and cracked soil, the white stone surface, and the sound of the wind wandering among the bare branches and bushes.The most dangerous places people are least likely to go to are the places he frequents.He climbed up Laojun Mountain and went deep into the dry fir forest of the Drum Tower, hoping to find a bracken. However, the land there had been peeled off a layer long ago.At Baiyanpo, in order to get a trace of sweet potato vine growing in the middle of the cliff, he almost fell off the cliff tens of feet high.

However, he failed to save the life of his daughter Chrysanthemum.

One evening, Li Zhuang came home with a bunch of hard-earned wild southern claw leaves hanging on his hoe. As soon as he walked to the slope, he heard Wang's cry. "My daughter is dead!" Carpenter Li Miao's brain exploded, and he fainted to the ground.

If Carpenter Li dies, it means that two other lives will die, so he cannot die.He has no right to die.

He fainted for an hour, then woke up and struggled to get up.

The chrysanthemum really died.

At that time, the only way to pay homage to the dead was to cry a few times and then bury them or hang them out with a reel.Chrysanthemum is already an adult and can only be buried. Carpenter Li wrapped his daughter in a bamboo mat made by himself, and dug a pit next to the grave of Chrysanthemum's biological father, He Kunzhang.After burying his daughter, he didn't return home, and immediately went up the mountain to look for food.

The thin wife is about to give birth, and if she doesn't eat another meal, she will die.Wang is an out-and-out old woman, not to mention that she can't eat, even if she is poorly nourished, her life is in danger.Carpenter Li of course hopes to be like He Da, who went to the street to buy a bottle of cough syrup, but he has no money, even if he has money, he can't get that rare thing
That day, Carpenter Li went out in the afternoon, carrying a basket and holding a hoe, and stood at the door for a while.His wife's groans came from behind, piercing like bamboo sticks. "My relatives, my relatives!" Carpenter Li said in his heart.Outside the door is bright sunshine.Always bright sunshine.He gently closed the door, crossed a gutter, walked into an alley, turned around again, and stood at the door of his house for a while, and his shadow was no longer seen.

After midnight, Carpenter Li came back from the outside. He was as light as when he went out, for fear of disturbing his wife.He walked to his wife's bedside in the dark, and saw that she seemed to be asleep or dead. He probed his wife's breath with his hand, and a trace of life-like heat stroked his palm.A certain part of his body was stabbed sharply.He touched his wife's belly, the hilly protruding part was the seed sown by his blood. "My God! My relatives." Carpenter Li yelled this twice, and knelt down.

Wang Shi woke up very startled. She would have woken up earlier in the past, but she didn't react at all at this time.

She didn't fall asleep, but passed out.

Carpenter Li struggled to get up, walked out of the bedroom, sat down on the bench in the kitchen, and mechanically wrapped the dry tobacco—the dry tobacco had already been exhausted, and what he wrapped was a kind of pointed vine leaves rolled up.

The next morning, Wang temporarily broke the rope of hunger, woke up from the coma, and climbed up with all his strength.For the sake of the child, for the only flesh and blood of Carpenter Li, she needed to live; if she wanted to die, she had to give birth to the child.

She wants to find some water to drink.

It was broad daylight, but Wang's eyes were dim and she couldn't see anything clearly. Her mind was blank, like standing by a big river watching the distant waves and listening to the roar of thundering water.She couldn't remember the past, when did her husband go out?She has no memory at all, like half a year, and like a year.While staring in such a daze, something hit her face violently.

Wang raised her hand, trying to separate the object that hit her, but the object was wobbly, blocking her way.

She raised her head to look up, and her eyes were like torches.

Carpenter Li Bamboo hanged on the purlins.

In those days, the dead had become a part of everyday life, as normal as hunger itself.Carpenter Li's death is easy to explain: Although Chrysanthemum is not his biological daughter, he gave her all the love of a father. When she died, he felt it was his responsibility; besides, there are still two lives waiting. He went to feed them. He had gone out to look for food, but what he brought back was an empty basket, and even lost his hoe. --Instead of watching his wife and the child in her belly die, it is better to die first.

Such an explanation is very reasonable.
Without the care of Chen Yuexiang and He Da, Mrs. Wang would have followed her husband that day.Chen Yuexiang dissuaded her from committing suicide and helped her give birth to a child.Only a dead child was born.A few years later, Mrs. Wang married again, and the man also belonged to He Jiapo.Wang's husband died less than half a year after her marriage.Since then, people from far and near have said that she is Kefu, no one will marry her again, and she herself has given up the idea of ​​remarrying.Ten years after the death of Li Meijiang, the Wang family died without any illness.

It was not long after Wang's death that the real cause of Li's death was revealed by He Zhongbao's daughter.Any secret is powerful, and this secret will not crush others first, but the person who holds the secret himself; besides, after the death of Mrs. Wang, the Li Bamboo Carpenter's family became extinct in Hejiapo, and no one will pursue it if they tell it .
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On that sunny afternoon ten years ago, Carpenter Li walked through the alley, walked out of the village, stood on the barren mountain and wandered around. He saw nothing but stones, mud, sunshine and wind.However, nothing he saw could be eaten, and nothing could save his wife's dying life.He didn't dare to go far, he was afraid that once he stepped out of Hejiapo, he would cut off the connection with Hejiapo and never see his wife again.He sat down, eyes like a poor cameraman, from east to west, and from west to east, a melancholy field, a dark roof, a dead village. The wind passed by his ears, as if crying.He also wanted to cry, but there were no tears, so he howled dryly.His dry howling is also suppressed.He closed his eyes, a cloud of purple blood splashed around him, he sank in this blood light, sank, sank into the endless abyss.He was frightened and opened his eyes suddenly.

At this time, he happened to see He Zhongbao's family walking up the big field ridge and heading towards Anzi Temple.

They are so energetic and walk so vigorously.They must be full!
When He Zhongbao's family disappeared in the bend of Suanlishupo, a thought pierced into the mind of Carpenter Li Bamboo.

Suddenly, he was full of strength.

He looked around.There was no one around.His blood boiled, and he walked down the dirt road, hiding in a clump of dry bamboo.His mouth was very thirsty, and he took out vine leaves to wrap it.The vine leaves can help him scoop out some saliva.After smoking that bag of cigarettes, the tears that he could not shed for a long time had already flooded his face.His ten fingers were inserted into the black soil under the yuba leaves like plowshares.His heart was struggling, not with hunger, not with death, but with something else and something more sacred.His finger was pierced by a bamboo stick, which made his subdued spirit rise again.

Don't delay for too long, otherwise, you will either give up because of weakness, or you will have no chance.

He successfully sneaked into He Zhongbao's pigsty alley.

This is a very common virtual building in the rural areas of the Qingxi River Valley. You can climb up the virtual building by climbing from the beams and pillars of the pigsty.Carpenter Li hid the hoe in the gap beside the cow trough, carried the basket on his back, grabbed the beam and jumped up, and grabbed the rafters of the empty building.

The door was locked and the wooden window was closed, but the window was a bit rotten. Carpenter Li reached in through the shattered part, pulled the wooden bolt, and jumped in through the window.

He first jumped off the red sweet potato pit next to the fire hall.There was nothing in the pit.

He opened the wooden warehouse next to the bedroom again.There is nothing in the warehouse.

When Carpenter Li Bamboo climbed up the empty building, his nervousness had already disappeared, but at this moment, his heartbeat suppressed his breathing, and he wanted to pee, and a few drops of urine actually landed in his pants .

He can quit, but quitting means death.

On the right side of the wooden warehouse, a pale light came in.Instead, the light made the depths appear even darker.After coming to Hejiapo for so many years, Carpenter Li has only knelt in front of He Zhongbao's house, and never stepped into the house once. He doesn't know the structure of this mysterious house.He lowered his head, letting the light press down on the back of his neck, and stared hard at the darkness.He finally saw clearly that there was still a narrow staircase.Climbing up from the stairs, under the low eaves is a temporary wooden platform.

Potatoes weighing two hundred catties were placed on the platform!

Carpenter Li put down the basket, faced the pile of potatoes along the mouth, and threw the potatoes into the basket like crazy.

Unfortunately for him, this basket is too small and can only hold four or fifty catties of yams.

However, when he bent over and stood up, his legs were shaking.After a little hesitation, he put down the basket and dug out more than ten catties. After thinking about it, he picked out a few bigger ones. "Too many, I just want to save my life, I can't steal so many" he must have thought so, because the yams he carried downstairs were only seven or eight catties.

He could open the back door and escape, but in this way he would not be able to bolt the door. If he did not bolt the door, He Zhongbao would be suspected and pursued.So he still chose the window.He grabbed the window frame with both hands and jumped on it.

The basket suddenly became heavy and fell straight down, almost causing him to fall on his back.He felt strange, and when he looked back, he was frightened out of his wits: He Zhongbao was smiling at him!
He Zhongbao didn't dare to speak.It was an era when wealth was restricted but not poverty. There was a big black pot in the ancestral hall next to Jianshen’s home. The whole team, old and young, gathered around the big black pot to eat and enjoy the great communist life.It is against the law to store grain at home.

He Zhongbao didn't beat Carpenter Li at all, nor asked Carpenter Li to keep his things. Instead, he asked him to take the potatoes away, as long as he didn't tell them.It was the craftsman Li who dumped the yams all by himself.

He didn't go through the main entrance, but chose the window, walked down the beams of the pigsty, and disappeared.

(End of this chapter)