The children of the Qiao family

Chapter 6

5
Er Qiang took his younger sister Sanli to take the first step of doing business fearlessly, but this brave attempt ended in failure unfortunately.

The two children sneaked all the way to the vegetable market, and when they saw a figure, Er Qiang pushed his sister to the corner and said: You retreat first, and I will cover.

They imagined that they were Xiaobalu during the Anti-Japanese War.However, Xiaobalu Erqiang's stomach growled, and the eggs hidden in his pocket were warmed by warming. Xiaobalu Erqiang thought, after selling the eggs to buy something to eat, it is better to eat an egg first, to save money. I will sell the next one, my stomach will be full, and I will have pocket money.The top two slapped their heads, such a good idea, why didn't they think of it earlier?
So Xiaobalu No. [-] Qiang knocked an egg on the corner of the wall, making a small hole, and couldn't wait to suck it up with his sharp mouth. He used all his strength to suck, but nothing was sucked.Er Qiang made up his mind to knock the egg on the corner of the wall again, and sucked it again, this time it worked, the egg white mixed with the egg yolk slipped down the throat and went down.

When Sanli saw her, she grabbed Er Qiang's clothes and asked, "Second brother, what are you eating? What are you eating?"

Er Qiang said: "I didn't eat anything."

Sanli said in a high-pitched voice: Liar, I saw it!

Erqiang said: I have eaten in my stomach, but not in my mouth. Really, I won’t lie to you.

Sanli said that I want to eat too.

So Erqiang shared another raw egg with Sanli.This time the two of them ate a mouthful of fishy smell.

For the remaining two eggs, the two children really sold them in the back alley of the vegetable market.

But he didn't sell it, and was caught by the defense.

The joint defense is also a neighbor, and they will not really arrest the two children as speculators, but just send them home, saying that the city cannot raise chickens, and the child is not sensible and will not be held accountable, but the chicken cannot be kept.

An enthusiastic neighbor, Uncle, helped butcher the chicken.

It was too late when Er Qiang came to his senses and rushed forward to grab his reed flower. The reed flower had already had its neck cut, and fell vigorously to the corner of the wall.

Er Qiang was stunned for a while, then wept bitterly at the top of his throat, smeared his face with tears and snot, and cried while crying: I am a reed that has grown up with feces and urine!

The defenders and neighbors couldn't help laughing when they heard this, what a heartless child said!

Qiao Zuwang heard about it when he came back, but he didn't say anything, and asked Qiao Yicheng to stew the chicken in a pot of soup.

The casserole is one that has been used for many years. It is said that it is one of the dowry that my mother brought from her natal family when she got married.Qiao Yicheng washed the casserole thoroughly, and chicken soup, as if he hadn't eaten it in eight lifetimes.

After a while, the soup boiled, and the whole small kitchen was flooded with aroma.

Qiao Yicheng and Sanli Simi felt that this palm-sized place was like a ship floating in an ocean of fragrance.

Qiao Yicheng put an iron partition on the stove and sealed the coal fire to make the soup more fragrant and thicker. This was taught by his second aunt.

Finally unable to bear it anymore, Qiao Yicheng lifted the lid of the casserole. In the golden soup, there were still green scallions and a chicken gizzard.

The ups and downs of the chicken gizzard brought Qiao Yicheng and his sisters an incomparable temptation.

He finally made up his mind and quickly put his fingers into the hot soup, picked up the chicken gizzard, took a bite, Sanli came over and took a bite, and Simei also took a bite.

The three children shared the chicken gizzard with a tacit understanding without saying a word.

Almost at the same time as he swallowed the last bite of chicken gizzard, Qiao Yicheng remembered, it's broken, it's a catastrophe!

Dad likes to serve wine with chicken gizzards the most.

Qiao Yicheng was stunned by this awakening.

The three children reached an agreement, if Dad asked, he would never admit it!
Sure enough, when the chicken soup was on the dinner table, Qiao Zuwang scooped it up first, and then scooped it up again, but he didn't find the chicken gizzard, so he asked Qiao Yicheng: Did you steal it?
Qiao Yicheng gritted his teeth and said no.

Sanli and Simei also said no.

No.

Qiao Zuwang believed it, and said that Du Guozi, who helped kill chickens and disembowel them, must have passed away!
Qiao Zuwang jumped into the yard and started cursing, and his neighbor Du Guozi also jumped out and scolded back, saying that he fed the liver and lungs of the donkey out of good intentions, and it must have been eaten by some gluttonous cats in Qiao's family.

Qiao Yicheng also jumped out to help Dad scold, you are the only greedy cat, your family is greedy cat!
For this matter, Du Guozi's family and Qiao's family did not talk to each other for several years, and they came and went like black corns.

Qiao Yicheng's heart was beating wildly while arguing. It turned out that a louder quarrel could distort the facts. This kind of knowledge scared him, and he secretly made up his mind that he would never do such a thing in the future.

Tired of arguing, Qiao Zuwang gave up and slapped Yicheng on the head: "Go home, get me a bowl of soup and put it away for me tomorrow!"Eat, eat, eat!You guys, eat as much as you have!
This time Qiao Zuwang wronged his second son.

Qiao Erqiang didn't even take a sip of the chicken soup.He huddled up and lay on the corner of the bed, thinking of the reeds he raised with his own hands.

Qiao Yicheng is 13 years old this year.

Qiao Yicheng is a good student.

The whole school is recognized from Primary to Junior High.

He is a neat kid, and in this third-rate elementary school, he is an outlier.

Every day in class, he listened carefully, got good grades, and did his homework well. Every night after finishing the housework, he would lie on the dinner table and write and write.At that time, children did not have much entertainment, just listen to the radio.

Qiao Yicheng likes to listen to small speaker programs, and while doing things while listening, he doesn't get too tired or annoyed.He listened to a story told by an old man named Sun Jingxiu, and he was fascinated. He imagined in his mind what kind of old man he was, so magical.Qiao Yicheng has no impression of his grandfather or grandpa. For many years, when the word "grandpa" was mentioned, what Qiao Yicheng thought of was Sun Jingxiu in his imagination.

At night, Qiao Yicheng loved to lie on the bed and listen to the radio, listening to the song "Embroidered Gold Plaque" over and over again.

As you listen, tears will fall, and a small piece of skin on the face near the corner of the eye will feel a little tight, like the tightness of a wound closing.

Qiao Yicheng has a lot of children in his family, and his father has no heart for children, and his income is very limited, but Qiao Yicheng's shirt is always clean, and it is actually a light gray shirt of good quality!It was changed by my mother with my father's old shirt.This made Qiao Yicheng even more extraordinary among his classmates.

He has a serious expression, his brows are slightly frowned, and his eyes are full of sadness.The teachers said that this kid, Qiao Yicheng, would be promising in the future.

In fact, only two years ago, Qiao Yicheng was not like this.At that time, like many children in this third-rate elementary school, he ran wildly in the streets and alleys after school, with his little brother or sister on his back, and bought a few candies for two cents in the small shop. It stuck to the candy, and the impatient child tore it up in a hurry, and put the paper in his mouth together, and waited for the paper to be wet with saliva before spitting it out, never thinking about the grades For the problem, being able to go to a middle school close to home is enough.

The teachers never think of asking the children how to study hard. When they grow up, they will just be unemployed first. If they are lucky, they will enter a state-owned unit. It is considered lucky to jump in the queue in the township, and it is a good time to be born.

The teachers would take advantage of the break time to go to a nearby small vegetable market to buy vegetables, and then arrange them in the office so that they can be put into the pot after returning home after get off work. Discuss appearance.Sometimes I also read newspapers.

In [-], when Qiao Yicheng was in the fourth grade, he met the first important person in his life.

A substitute teacher named Wen Qinghua.

The first time he saw Teacher Wen, Qiao Yicheng was so shocked that he couldn't move for a long time. Only then did he realize that there really are such men in the world.

A man unlike any man he'd ever met.

Unlike his father, who enjoys gambling every day; nor his neighbor, who is shirtless in June, wearing big pants and flip-flops, laughing and arguing loudly in the yard; The second uncle only knows how to work in silence; he is not like other male teachers, who wear dusty clothes, have a dull face, complain frequently, and teach in dialect.

Wen Qinghua was wearing a white shirt, a beige Lenin suit, blue cloth trousers, and half-new cloth shoes. The clothes and trousers were all worn out, but they were so neat and tidy.His facial features are actually not handsome, but there is a strange aura about him that makes Qiao Yicheng feel strange, and Qiao Yicheng slowly understands that it is called bookish.Teacher Wen wore wide-rimmed glasses, smiled gently, and greeted the students with a slightly hoarse voice.Qiao Yicheng felt that he was as clean as water drawn from a well, facing him, he would often feel dizzy when looking at the water for a long time.Wen Qinghua made Qiao Yicheng suddenly understand that men can be like this too.

In fact, Qiao Yicheng didn't know that Wen Qinghua might not be considered a man, he was just a big boy, not yet 20 years old.However, the age of eighteen or nineteen was still quite a distant age for Qiao Yicheng, who was just over ten years old at the time, and he seldom thought about what he would look like when he grew up to that age.

From the teachers' private discussions, Qiao Yicheng gradually learned something about Teacher Wen.

Wen Qinghua came to take the Chinese class of Mr. Li who came home to give birth. His parents were both intellectuals who had returned from studying abroad. His mother was arrogant and stubborn. Finally survived, his family was sent to different places, only he followed his father.When he first returned to the city, Teacher Wen’s father had stayed in Qiao Yicheng’s school for a while. Everyone knew that the old man in shabby clothes and hunched back swept the playground and sat on a very low bench in the cafeteria to help pick vegetables. The janitor is a reactionary academic authority, but no one knows that he was a Ph.D. from an Ivy League school and the former president of a famous university.A year ago, the old man left the elementary school, and his youngest son Wen Qinghua has been unemployed at home, and now comes to the school to substitute for the teacher.

Wen Qinghua is such a special existence, every day he walks into the campus, he will be followed by countless curious and envious eyes, but he himself is not aware of it.

Although Wen Qinghua did not study at a normal school, his lectures were extremely vivid, very standard Mandarin, his voice was low and soft, and he never yelled at anyone.He also told the children Hans Christian Andersen and Grimm's fairy tales, told them about Pippi Longstocking and Emile the Naughty Boy, read Li Bai and Du Fu to them, and recited large sections of Ai Qing's "Da Yanhe—My Nanny" Ogawa's "Autumn in Tuanbowa" recited Pushkin and Lermontov. The children were too young to understand what he was memorizing, but they were all intoxicated by his voice.

Qiao Yicheng flew to the teacher's office after almost every get out of class, and lay on the window sill to watch Teacher Wen.

When there is no class, Wen Qinghua always reads with a book in his hands. He sits near the window, shielding himself from the sun to avoid glare, and concentrates on reading in the shadow cast by his body.Qiao Yicheng could only see his straight back.He was wearing a slightly faded blue shirt and an old light-colored woolen vest over it.Qiao Yicheng had never seen the men around him wear it like this. Most of them wore old sanitary clothes, and their woolen vests were mostly made of variegated wool and were only worn under their coats.

Teacher Wen was probably tired from watching, so he turned his head and saw Qiao Yicheng, who had his face pressed against the glass with his nose squeezed, and happily knocked on the glass to greet him.Before he opened the window, Qiao Yicheng ran away.Qiao Yicheng's grades gradually got better and better, and he became the first in the class, and later became the first in the grade.At that time, he simply liked to listen to Teacher Wen's class, and he was willing to learn from Teacher Wen from the bottom of his heart.Teacher Wen said, you have to study hard, so he will study hard.

The next year, 570, the college entrance examination resumed. In the winter of this year, more than 27 million young or not-so-young people who had struggled through the turmoil took the exam, and more than 30 people were admitted to various universities.Among them, there are Wen Qinghua, his eldest brother and second sister. He and his nearly [-]-year-old sister are actually classmates in the same department.

Teacher Wen was leaving, Qiao Yicheng asked his math teacher: Where is Teacher Wen going?
The math teacher said: Go to college.

Qiao Yicheng asked: Where is the university?

The math teacher said: In Nantah.

Qiao Yicheng asked: That's close, I will go to find Teacher Wen in the future.

The math teacher smiled: That is a university, how many people in the country can enter a university?That is a single-plank bridge with thousands of troops, not to mention that it is a first-class university, and the ancestral graves have to smoke.

When Teacher Wen left, Qiao Yicheng made up his mind and walked up to Teacher Wen, begging him to speak a little foreign language in a low voice.He heard that Mr. Wen could speak foreign languages.

Teacher Wen really said it, and told Qiao Yicheng that it was a foreign poem.

Qiao Yicheng also started to learn foreign languages ​​after attending Wearing Hat Middle School: Long live Chairman Mao.
Teacher Wen said that the poem he read was called "Little Residence by the Forest on a Snowy Night".

Many years later, Qiao Yicheng came to see him.

And miles to go before I sleep.
And miles to go before I sleep.
In the middle of the night when Teacher Wen left, Qiao Yicheng stuck the small radio under his ears, switched countless stations, and finally found a station that was speaking a foreign language.

The strange language flowed in Qiao Yicheng's ears. Qiao Yicheng looked at the dark beams of the roof. On the triangular roof, there was a small transom. Shimmer swears in his heart that from now on, he will study harder and be a good student. In the future, like Teacher Wen, he will go to university, sit in the sun and study, and learn to speak foreign languages.

No matter whether his family's ancestral grave will emit green smoke or not, he must do it, Qiao Yicheng thought.

for sure!
(End of this chapter)