Hunger for a hundred years

Chapter 62 (19)
The vegetable root removes the soil and rocks from the head of the Jue tree, digs out a hole, and places a stone trough like a millstone under the hole, and then inserts a thick, peeled cypress tree into the hole, and the oil mill becomes up.Which family wants to extract oil from rapeseed, and carry it down to the Jue tree, put the scorched rapeseed in the protruding part of the stone trough, press it down with a tree bar, and then hang a few at the end of the tree bar Putting a heavy stone on it, the clear oil gurgles and flows into the stone trough.The strong aroma of vegetable oil permeated the whole village.Extracting oil in this way is of course not as good as using a machine. The machine can squeeze all the oil out of the rapeseed, and the tools for vegetable roots can squeeze out [-]% of the oil.However, there is a great advantage of extracting oil from the root of the vegetable, that is, the vegetable cake can be recovered.Vegetable cakes are good feed for pigs.Today's Hejiapo people no longer care about the oil yield of rapeseed.

It's just that the Jue tree is suffering.Its bottom was not only hollowed out, but also endured a thousand catties of bending force.

In those days, He Da often went down to the tree.When the vegetable roots were being pressed for oil, he sat beside him, squinting his eyes, looking at the suffering yellow jue tree with all his heart.People who have reached a certain age on the slope all remember the scene when He Da was tied to a tree.The tree had protected him, and he had protected the tree with his own dignity, but now, he was powerless, he could only squint his eyes, sit beside the tree, and suffer with it.

After the land and the forest were settled, everything had an owner, except for the weir pond and this yellow jue tree.They are the public property of He Jiapo, so they have no owner.

One evening, a thick root of the Juice tree was snapped off with a bang.

At that time, He Da was there.

The people around were laughing, only He Da silently went to support the broken root, and then dug a pile of black, oily fertile soil from the walnut grove outside his cowshed, and carefully covered the root of the break.People stopped laughing, as if overwhelmed by something mysterious.It is said that the Jue tree can become a spirit. Has this ancient Jue tree also become a spirit?Probably yes, it has absorbed He Da's soul.When there is not a single sparrow in the forest, the dark gray life that has survived the catastrophe has already gathered among the branches of the Jue tree!Up to now, morning and night, people in Hejiapo can see the spectacle of "sparrows disturbing the forest" and hear the vast chorus of life.At this moment, they are singing in chorus. In the pure singing, there is no resentment, no arrogance, only deep gratitude to the earth that allows them to live and the sky that allows them to fly.

Early the next morning, people on the slopes discovered that Caigen had demolished the oil mill.Hu Mian carried a large load of soil and was filling the hole.

Immediately afterwards, Cai Gen bought a small rice thresher to beat rice for the slope, and charged two yuan for a bag of rice (weighing about one hundred catties).

Since the invention of the rice threshing machine, the stone mill used by generations of He Dadangmen has ended its mission.The descendants of He Jiapo will no longer hear its dreamlike creaking singing
Whether He Zhongcai's sales shop or Caigen's oil mill, the freshness is fresh, but not particularly fresh. What's particularly fresh is: there are girls on the slopes wearing skirts!They were wearing green cloth skirts with a long white zipper that flowed down their buttocks like a ditch.Several generations of people in Hejiapo wore trousers, all of them were "waist trousers". Later, some people used "chicken sausage belts". Although it was a bit inconvenient, they were all tied around the waist after all. , Put the waistband of the trousers on the buttocks?The first ones who wore skirts were the ones who came back from part-time jobs. The people on Poshang looked at that outfit and were so disdainful that they were "humming" all over their bodies, and guessed from this that they must be "Miss" outside.Unexpectedly, after a few days, all the young girls on the slope will wear skirts, and if you "hum", you won't have so much energy.

The most frightening thing was that the people who came back from their jobs despised Hejiapo's dialect and began to chatter outside the dialect!For hundreds of years, Hejiapo has formed its own dialect. The side sounds and nasal sounds have never been distinguished. The side sounds are all pronounced as nasal sounds. In addition, there are some distinctive and expressive sayings, such as "shouting" instead of "taking" when taking things. The dialect of Hejiapo is like the flowers, plants, trees, mountains, rivers and waters here. It is her blood, her Flesh and flesh are He Jiapo's endless rhythm of life, possessing magical powers.However, those who come back from migrant workers feel that it is rustic and are ashamed to speak it in dialect; those children who were taken out by their parents to study in other places, especially those who have lived in a foreign place since their birth, He Jiapo’s dialect is ashamed to say: Nor would they say that the Hejiapo people asked their parents to translate when they spoke to them!
There are several couples on the slope who only have daughters but not boys. The families need labor and do not want to marry off their daughters.Now, several families have given birth to children, and the children born all have the man's surname, that is to say, no more surnames! ——He Jiapo's blood is no longer pure.The bloodline of the He family, which He Jiapo's ancestors had gone through hardships, was not broken in the unbearable famine years, but now it has been violently, even completely shaken.

More and more people left Hejiapo.

It was quite an astonishing feat.

Its spectacular scene is almost no less than the scene of people moving to Hejiapo hundreds of years ago with the help of the old and the young.

The difference is that the last time there was blood, this time there was no blood, but this time without blood, the soul of Po Shang was taken away.

Young people, middle-aged people and even some old people went out to work one after another. Some went to far away places like the pioneers of Hejiapo, and some went to Yongle City to buy a three-wheeled motorcycle and start a passenger transport business.There are as many as [-] tricycles in the small city of Yongle, [-] of which belong to Hejiapo people.They abandoned He Jiapo.Full of excitement, they embarked on another battlefield of life, which is a battlefield far away from their homeland, so it must also be a battlefield full of bitterness and blood and tears.They are not ignorant of this, but in that new battlefield, it is possible to open a window for them to get rid of poverty.In order to get rid of poverty, they would rather lose their hometown!

More than [-] people went to Xinjiang, which is where He Guanghui went.They went to contract land for planting, some with dozens of acres, some with hundreds of acres.Cai Gen and Hu Mian sold the rice threshing machine at a discount, and the couple also went to Xinjiang together.Hu Mian was tired of wandering, but after waking up, she realized that He Jiapo had written all her sorrows and bitterness. When Cai Gen asked the two of them to go to Xinjiang together, she agreed with a little hesitation.They have contracted more than [-] acres of cotton land.It is said that He Guanghui helped them a lot when they went to encroach on the land, and for a while, He Guanghui also solved many of their difficulties in life.Only half a year later, all those who went to Xinjiang moved their household registrations, and those who got married took their wives and children away with them.Cai Gen and Hu Mian also took He Bi over. Before picking them up, the three of them went up to Mount Mingdo together. This time, they met Jianshen, who was Monk Huijue. After his son and daughter-in-law went to live in Xinjiang, Huijue clasped his hands together: "Amitabha, monks don't care about worldly affairs, Amitabha." After speaking, he quickly walked into another Dharma hall.
In the middle of the night not long after Cai Gen and Hu Mian picked up their mother, a strange person climbed up from Lai Chao Bay.Under the stern moonlight, this man was gloomy like a ghost, his long hair covered his face, making his whole body form a huge shadow on the mountain road.Although there was no one in the field, every time he took a step forward, he wandered around. The sound of a sleeping bird or the slight breeze would make him tremble in fright, and he would instinctively curl up his tall body.He walked to the edge of the weir pond, hesitated for a long time, and then continued to move forward.The dog didn't bark, but when he reached the edge of the courtyard, he crawled forward on all fours.He disguised himself as the dog's kind to arouse the dog's sympathy.He crawled all the way to the outside of the broken house left by Hu Mian before throwing himself down, silent as a corpse.

Before dawn, the man disappeared again.

No one in He Jiapo knew what happened that night.

Some days later, people on Poshang heard that He Tuanjie couldn't bear the pain of homesickness and returned to China, and wanted to go back to Hejiapo, but was caught by the police and shot in another place.

A few years ago, the people of Hejiapo would have sighed for a long time, but now, they no longer regard He Tuanjie as a person on the slope; besides, there are so many wonderful things in the outside world that attract them, there are so many Money is waiting for them to earn, and they are too busy with their own affairs, how can they have time to lament for others!

After all, He Tuanjie disappeared from Hejiapo without a sound
People continue to flow away.Today's Hejiapo, except for children, is mostly elderly people over 60 years old.

Those who went out to work went door to door and asked, "Do you want my land?"
"I don't want everyone's!" The person who was asked replied.

"White race! Do you want it?"
The person who was asked almost broke his belly with laughter: If you donate land to others in this year, if it is not white, it may not be returned to you as food?

The person who asked also laughed and said: "Don't count the ball, let it go unused, and I will come back later to cut down the fir tree and burn it!"
They have underestimated the land.

An inch of land is worth an inch of gold,
The field is the lifeblood!
Who else among the descendants of He Jiapo can sing this ancient ballad that condenses the blood, sweat and dignity of the ancestors?
In this way, a large area of ​​land was barren, and the land reclaimed by the Hejiapo people for generations was full of weeds.The Songlin Bend where my mother Chen Yuexiang died was far away from the village, so no one cares about it.

It was midsummer—the season when Hejiapo’s millet was growing into ears. On a bright and clear day, He Da walked out slowly.

He hasn't been out for a long time, and all his fields are planted by the eldest son.He didn't even have the strength to pick up a hoe.

He went up the big field ridge, took two steps, stopped again, stood with his hands on his hips, and stood for a long time before walking.His back hurt like a blunt saw.

He Da kept going up, inspecting the fields one by one.He clearly remembered in which field he stole soybeans and in which rock cut he escaped the rain when he was a child.He walked to the field where He Kou stole the wheat, sat down and wrapped himself in a cigarette, and smoked slowly. The smoke, like the grass in the field, was messed up by the wind.After smoking, he stood up, picked a small path, crossed it obliquely, and arrived at Pine Forest Bend.The weeds all over the sky covered his short figure.He knelt down with difficulty, picked up a handful of loess, put it in front of his eyes, looked suspiciously for a long time, then poured it from his left hand into his right hand, and then poured it from his right hand into his left hand, sucking his mouth, blowing away the dry grass in the soil, and putting it in In a plastic bag for cigarettes.He saw a pine sapling growing in the grass and carefully pulled out the weeds around it.This is the home of pine trees, and they have a reason to openly absorb the sunlight that falls on this land.Finally, He Da took a look at the barren grassland, and walked down the mountain step by step.Walking to the field where Bai'er participated in the competition, he picked up another handful of soil and put it in his purse.Afterwards, he turned to the edge of the weir pond, took out his cigarette pouch, carefully scattered the handful of loess on Chen Yuexiang's grave, then took out the soil in his purse, and sprinkled it on Bai'er's grave.Then, he walked around the pond, a road from ridge to ridge, leading directly to Zhailiang without an ancient village.

He wanted to go up Zhailiang for a walk.

When he stood on the vent of Zhailiang, he saw He Zhongbao at a glance!

Not far away, He Zhongbao turned his back to him, hunched over and looked at the Leichao Bay under the beam.

He Da wants to leave.

He didn't want He Zhongbao to find out at this time.

However, He Zhongbao turned around and saw He Da.

"Brother Ho!"
The wind brought He Zhongbao's voice over and into He Da's eardrums.

"Uh."
He Daben didn't want to answer like this, but he couldn't help but let out an "uh".

"What are you doing here?" He Da asked.

He Zhongbao slowly moved towards him, "I'm looking around. What about you?"
"I'm walking around too."
He Zhongbao has moved to He Da's side, looking up at He Da.

He is shorter than He Da, and his waist is already severely bent, so he is half a head shorter.

The two stared at each other for a moment.

"Let's smoke a pipe." He Zhongbao said.

"Smoking a bag of cigarettes." He Da said.

Seeing He Dajiang put his hands on his waist, as if he was enduring pain, He Zhongbao went to help him sit down.The two face each other.

He Da stretched out his hand to take out a cigarette, and He Zhongbao said, "You can't grow cigarettes, you smoke mine."
He wrapped a bag, lit it, twirled the bamboo pipe in his palm, and handed it to He Da.

He Da took a sip, and after the wet and heavy smoke came out of his nostrils, he smacked his lips and said, "The oil is heavier, and it is more fragrant than mine."
He Zhongbao laughed.His face was covered with dark spots, and his eyelashes fell out at some point.

He Da returned the tobacco rod to He Zhongbao, took a thick and shiny tobacco leaf from He Zhongbao, and wrapped it up.

Smoke rose, flickeringly, covering the heads of the two people.

The mountains and rivers of Hejiapo swirled in front of their eyes, desolate and distant, like the endless years.

He Zhongbao coughed a few times, and said in a trembling voice, "Brother He, we are the only ones guarding Hejiapo."
He Da also said: "Zhongbao, we are the only ones guarding Hejiapo."
Cloudy tears rolled out of the deep-set eye sockets of the two of them at the same time and slowly.
(End of this chapter)