Hunger for a hundred years

Chapter 44 (1)
Understanding and saving one's own destiny is the strongest desire of human beings, but in the face of nature, the fragility of human beings as a whole is fully revealed.In the concept of our ancestors, "heaven, earth, and man" are a trinity, but in the end, no philosophy can make us believe in the unity of nature; we would rather deify man, thinking that in this way we can see God We can also hear the voice of God, and we can boldly pursue the flowery happiness under the shroud of God.However, when the irresistible drought comes again, why are we still in panic?At this time, who will save our restless soul?Why does the God we need always fail to reach our hearts in time?No one came forward to answer these questions.

Whether it is disappointment or hope, the endless struggle for survival is our most essential destiny.

The seedlings have been planted, but the farmers can't be idle. As usual, the people of Hejiapo work for half a day, either working in the private plot while calculating, or spilling their sweat into the mountains and forests.

Although Hejiapo is not like Jinyinkou, which is full of red sand and stones, it is also covered with mountains and rocks, the soil layer is thin, and there is not much land. Naturally, there are even fewer private plots for households. They only need to carry a potty one morning and one night , Go to the palm-sized land to serve peppers, loofah, eggplant and other vegetables. Most of the time, I am busy on the mountain.In the mountains and forests, there are birch bark and wild palm that can be turned into money, dry branches that can be used to cook pig food or food, half-length cattle ropes left by careless people, and dog excrement and cow dung scattered on the roadside (use Pick a hoe and hook it into the scorpion and bring it to your own field), even if you don’t do anything, you have to go wandering in the mountains and forests.They spent such a long time on the mountain, which does not prove that they can gain anything on the mountain, but they do not want to leave the land they depend on for a moment.After some time, after the weeds in the seedling field grow up, they will work together to gather the seedlings again. They must gather the first time, and then the second time, a total of three times or even four times and five times, which can withstand the hunger. The ears will come out.As soon as the ears of grain are pulled out, the tares must be cleared away.In those days, chemical fertilizers and pesticides were rarely used, and most of the fertilizer that nourished the rice fields was cow dung. Although it was pure, it was particularly willing to grow weeds and weeds.

This year's cow dung is heavy, and the seedlings turn green as soon as they are planted, and the wind blows away, making a soft and moist green sound.He Jiapo shook his head in a lively and peaceful atmosphere.Only farmers can experience the wonderful feeling when pulling seedlings. Slippery black mud, croaking, croaking emerges from between the toes, making the toes itchy and spreading all over the body.It was an indescribably comfortable itch.When the soil rolled from the insteps into the water piece by piece, the weeds that competed with the rice seedlings for sunlight were buried by the soil.At this time, the seedlings are still very tender. Looking from the tip of the seedlings, you can still see the white water spots in the field.Farmers wait for the second time to pluck the seedlings. By then, the seedlings will be tall and dense.The farmers said that the first seedling is a little girl raised in her natal family, and the second seedling is a girl who can be married.

The weather was mildly sunny, and the cloudless sky allowed the sun to pour down unobstructed.But there is no shortage of rain. In the middle of the night, you can hear the rustling of the bamboo forest outside the house.After daybreak, the mountain forest is filled with a cloud of dampness, and the soil on the ground is granular and has small holes like a honeycomb.These small holes are made by crickets. "It will rain when the crickets roll the sand", which proves that the rain will continue to moisten the rice seedlings.In those days, the stone ladles on the eaves of every household were sweating without incident. People on the slopes said: "The stone ladles are sweating, and the water rises to the river bank." They thought it was going to rain heavily.However, heavy rain at this time will not harm the crops at all. When the heavy rain comes, you will wear a coir raincoat and a bamboo hat, and carry a hoe to dig a hole in the field. When the rain stops, go and close the hole. , The good water in that field can be used for rice seedlings to drink for several days.

What a good year!

The heavy rain did not fall, and almost no one noticed when the rain stopped at night. Only when the seedlings were harvested twice, the farmers sighed: It has not rained for a long time.

Yes, it hasn't rained for a long time.In the field soaked by spring water, there is only a thin layer of water splashes left. In the field without spring water, although the soil is moist, there is no water star. If you separate the rice seedlings, you can clearly tell who left them toe prints.Some of the small fishes put into the field by the playboy hung their corpses to dry on the dry slope. Some were headless, some had an empty stomach, and they all gave off a foul smell of water.

But this is the season when we need water!Without water, all this year's work would be in vain.Older people have clear memories of the drought more than ten years ago, but they would rather think about the good, and never believe that the Dragon King took a nap once, and this year he took a nap again.They said: Wait for another three days, there must be a good rain!
But not only did it not rain after three days, but it also did not rain after 30 days.

This year, the drought in Hejiapo lasted 96 days!

The paper horn, which had been broken for more than two years, has been restored. In addition to the names of the central leaders that must be read every day, the speakers report the disaster situation in various places.People in Hejiapo know that this drought has almost spread across the entire south of China, including Anhui Province, which is said to have lasted for more than four months!The drought there started from the winter with little snow last year. The winter with little snow is called "warm winter". "Warm winter" is the prelude to the fire. He also fell to the ground and died because he could not find a drop of water. Under the red sun, the hot wind took advantage of the void, and the underground water evaporated rapidly.
People have nothing left but the fear of the scorching sun and the memory of the disaster year.In the last drought, the people of Hejiapo thought of asking the Dragon King for rain, but now no one thinks so, because they have heard that it is useless to ask the Dragon King for rain. Last time, Xiaojiawan in the lower reaches of the Qingxi River was in On June [-]th, I went to a faraway place to borrow a Dragon King God, and placed it in the ancestral hall. The whole village knelt down to the Dragon King God for several days and nights, and invited Taoist priests to practice and recite scriptures. Counting, half of the people in Xiaojiawan almost starved to death; on June [-], the people of Majiagou collectively went to the Dragon King Temple, thirty miles away, to pray for rain. They beat gongs and drums all the way. A woman passed by riding a bull with a parasol (the woman was riding on the back of the bull because she was seven months pregnant and had a two-year-old child in her arms). The woman picked up rocks and clods on the side of the road and angrily ran forward to chase them, because in their opinion, holding an umbrella would cause more serious heavenly stems.Before the chasers got close, the woman and the child in front of her fell off the back of the bull in fright. The child was stabbed to death on the spot by a sharp stone, and the woman was carried back by her family who had heard the news. , After two days of treatment, he died without treatment.The rain-seeking army didn't care about the dead, and continued to go to the Dragon King Temple to pray for rain. As a result, more people died of starvation in Majiagou than in Xiaojiawan.Now, no one in the Qingxi River Basin believes in that anymore.

On the mountains and fields of Hejiapo, the dense leaves suddenly thinned out, and the rice seedlings in the field were vigorously alive, and their thin bodies trembled like disaster victims.Standing on this side of the field, you can clearly see the rice roots on the other side.

From time to time, a few clouds drifted across the sky, thin and gray.People who were frightened by the drought regarded this cloud as a savior. Men, women, relatives, and enemies all flocked to the yard and stretched their necks to see which way it would go.The cloud seemed to be playing tricks on people on purpose, drifting away, or gradually dissipating, or simply turning into dazzling white clouds again.Every day there is a glow, but it is not the morning glow but the sunset glow. People on the slopes even children know: the glow in the morning waits for water to make tea, and the glow in the evening kills toads.

Is He Jiapo going to be skinned by God again?
In those days, people from Hejiapo always gathered in Zhongyuanba to listen to news from the eccentric He Kuiyuan.Where does it rain.Previously, He Kuiyuan once convinced Poshang people to make a fortune-telling: that day he and Cai Gen went to inspect the public firewood mountain to see if anyone was stealing firewood.After Caigen had breakfast, he went to ask him out. Kui Yuan said, "Don't worry, the firewood thief has just set out. He came from Wanggu Tower. No matter how fast he walks, I will catch him after I smoke a few bags of cigarettes." I can't miss it." Cai Gen didn't believe it, Kui Yuan said: "I can hear voices dozens of miles away.

"Caigen said: "Fart your mother! "Although Cai Gen is of the same generation as Kui Yuan, he is much younger than Kui Yuan. It is reasonable to say that such rude words should not be said. However, when people on Poshang talk to Kui Yuan, they should not talk about their peers, but one or two generations below him. Don't talk about Cai Gen. Even a three- or five-year-old child can scold his ancestors, and Kui Yuan never gets angry about it. At this moment, he smiles and takes out the tobacco leaves from his pocket, wrapping them up inconveniently. Cai is a greedy person at all. Besides, his father is the vice-captain, so what is he afraid of? . As soon as they walked up the mountain pass of Wopuliang, they heard the sound of chopping firewood. The two sneaked into the depths of the dense forest, and when they saw the man's back, Kui Yuan yelled, and the scimitar in the man's hand was released , Cai Gen stepped forward and grabbed him by the back of the collar. When he asked, he was indeed the man who watched the Drum Tower, and when he asked him when he left home, it coincided with the time Kui Yuan said! Cai Gen was very surprised , I believe that Kui Yuan really has some tricks, Kui Yuan didn't kill his parents that time, it was Kui Yuan's mercy.

Regarding the matter of catching firewood thieves, although He Zhongbao said that Kui Yuan was hit by a dog biting a mosquito, but in this long drought and no rain, even he had to ask Kui Yuan: "Where did you hear it was raining?"
"It rained in Madugou last night, and the eaves received eight buckets of water!" He Kuiyuan said.

The rough tongue of the people on the slope curled their dry lips, as if they were licking the imaginary rain.

After a day or two, He Kuiyuan said: "Watching the heavy rain on the Drum Tower, the buffaloes almost drowned!"
After another day or two, He Kuiyuan said: "This morning, it rained in Hongyantou, and the water filled half the field!"
Is it raining in Hongyantou too?Hongyantou is on the slope, and it’s just a drop away. It’s raining there, why doesn’t it rain on Hejiapo?

"God's eyes are blind!"
The people of Hejiapo were angry with God.

He Kuiyuan suddenly discovered that the drought could help him re-enter Hejiapo's "mainstream society", so he fabricated all kinds of information about rainwater to whet people's appetites and reflect his value from it.The place where it rains gets closer and closer, from Wanggulou to Hongyantou, from Hongyantou to Baiyanpo, from Baiyanpo to Zhouzisitai, from Zhouzisitai to Anzisi School!

He said, "Aren't you surprised? When it rained in Anzi Temple, it fell into the dam of the school, and the bamboo forest under the ridge outside the dam did not get rainwater!"
He didn't say how much it fell, so he couldn't verify it: if it was light rain, he would have killed it with a sneeze on the ground. Besides, the people of Hejiapo had long been reluctant to go out. They were sweaty and desolate and murderous when they left. They couldn't bear the warning of hunger and didn't dare to look at it.They all believed He Kuiyuan's words, and at the same time, they also thought that when He Di's generation was studying in the temple, they placed the statue of Confucius, which was later destroyed; Before the function was destroyed by fire, there was a Tathagata Buddha statue inside. Two years ago, when the students were digging up wasteland outside the playground, they dug up the two warriors beside the Tathagata Buddha. They were intact, but the students smashed the heads of the warriors off. .This must be God's punishment for He Jiapo.

The people on Poshang also thought about whether He Kuiyuan and the others opened Luo Siju's grave, and Luo Siju punished He Jiapo, but they didn't say this, because it didn't rain in the ancient village, and it didn't rain in the ancient village, which proved that God didn't. Give favors to the tomb raised by Roth.
Pale yellow "seedlings and autumn valleys" (seedlings that do not bear grain) are all over the fields.This is convenient for the children who are worried about not being able to mow the cow grass—the grass is all sun-dried, and even the pine tree has a faint light blue color at the roots of the pine needles, and it is almost sun-dried. Where can I cut the cow grass? —they beat the oxen into the cornfields and ate the seedlings that couldn't conceive; in fact, the seedlings were not counted, they were all yellow grass that was killed by the sun and caught fire.

First of all, there is no water to drink.The springs in the soaked fields have dried up, the water in the weir ponds has dried up, and the big river ditches have stopped flowing!The Dahegou has never stopped flowing, and no matter how severe the drought in the past, you can still hear its thunderous roar when you stand in a long bend.These waters are like the tears of the earth. When it has no strength to mourn, the tears will no longer flow.Those days were really our children’s festivals. The big clam shells in the weir pond weighed several kilograms each, and the shells were covered with green moss. We fished them out from the sour-smelling mud pond and threw them into the boiling water for a while. After boiling, the shell and the meat are separated, the meat is stringy, without oil, it tastes not delicious, but it is fresh; it's just that when you go to catch the clam shells, your feet are often stabbed bloody by unidentified sharp objects.The big river ditch used to flow for many years, and there were no mussels, but there were amazingly large crabs. The crab shell was like a shield, and the claws were like broken tree roots. Now there is no water, and the crabs have no hiding place. We caught them and put them into the fire hall. Burn it and eat it.There is always only joy in the eyes of children, and they will never know the difficulties.

We caught all the mussels in the weir ponds, but most of the crabs in the big river ditches were spared. The reason is that we soon found a few dead bones in the river trenches, and we never dared to go there again.Those few dead bones were dazzlingly white, and the skulls were as hard as steel plates, which were caused by years of running water.

Except for Kuan Huan's grandmother, Liang Shi, almost no one knows the origin of these withered bones.

They were a few bachelors killed by He Min.He Xiangzhan, a bachelor who had helped Xu Lian, and others could clearly see the traces of the sternum being pierced by a stick.At that time, everyone thought that a few innocent souls had been washed into the Qingxi River. Unexpectedly, they were reluctant to leave this land, and they still stubbornly stayed after more than half a century.
At the beginning, people could still scoop out half a load of muddy water from the round pit in the middle of the weir pond. When the mud marks we stepped on when we caught clamshells were as white as sharp knife tips, the dear water disappeared completely. up.

People can go without food for two days, but they cannot go without water for two days.

People from Hejiapo, Wanggulou and the higher Laojun Mountain descended in groups to Qingxi River to carry the water.

If you put it in a bucket, a bucket of water weighs only 150 to [-] catties, and there is no lid, so there will not be much left when you go home. Therefore, someone came up with a way: use a plastic bag to carry the water.Put one bag vertically in the big flower basket, and put another bag horizontally along the mouth, which weighs about [-] catties.

Thus was born a tragedy.

There is a very old lonely old woman in Wanggulou. It took eight hours to carry a bag of water under the poisonous sun. Just as she put it on the table, the plastic bag fell to the ground and burst open, causing the water to overflow. The ground, seeping quickly into the sandy soil.The old woman crawled on the ground, licked the water stains on the ground, and then hit the wall with her head, and died immediately with a broken head.

The death of the old woman caused a great shock in the mountains in this area, and people compared their hearts to each other, immersed in the cloud of sorrow.

Later, someone said that the lonely old woman was the daughter of Sister Xu Lian!

(End of this chapter)