The children of the Qiao family

Chapter 68

Er Qiang finally went to the Northeast at the end of the year, saying that he wanted to bring Ma Suqin back for the New Year and go with Zhiyong.

Simei's daughter, Qi Qiaoqiao, was admitted by the city's Little Red Flower Art Troupe.

This little girl has dark eyes, a light body, and a beautiful face. Her arms are stretched out to be much longer than her height, and her legs are close together without a gap. She is a natural dancer, and she is also very quiet. She always smiles, even when she is standing. In corners, it's just as glamorous.Simei sent her to learn to dance since she was four years old. Her sense of music and physical sense are particularly good. Speaking of which, Chang Xingyu's younger brother often accidentally discovered this.

After her daughter lived in school, Simei suddenly became extremely free.So she took a big vacation and told Sanli that she was going to Tibet. Now that she has taken the train to Lhasa, it is much more convenient than before.

Sanli looked at her in surprise, and Simei laughed: Sis, I know what you mean.Don't worry, I won't be confused again.

Sanli pondered for a long time and said: Actually, it is not impossible, the child has a good future now, and he is not young, so he should change it.

Simei smiled: Sister, once in a lifetime is enough to be stupid.I just went to see the place.

Look at the thousands of mountains and rivers that have been traveled for one person.

This is the end of [-].

It was such a coincidence that the second day after Er Qiang and Si Mei returned to Nanjing, it began to snow.

At the beginning of [-], there was a heavy snowfall in the south that never happened in a century.

This city is silvery white.

6
Beginning in [-], the children of Qiao's family have lived the most stable and practical life in all these years.

Since Ma Suqin came back, Er Qiang has redecorated his small restaurant.Originally, Er Qiang said, make it a bit more upscale, and replace it with a Western-style countertop of the same color, a small square table with a tablecloth on it, a small vase, and candles or something.Ma Suqin disagreed, saying, our store is close to the school, and the students come to eat for cheap and good taste, and the restaurant is not rustic, which scares away the customers.It's better to just go home to the end.

So the decoration of the small shop took a very common way, the tables, chairs and stools are old, the walls are made of blue bricks, paper lanterns, and a few bunches of chili and garlic are hung on the roof beams. With rice included, business is getting better and better.

Er Qiang left Qu Aying's son to help in the store, and the two became serious friends.Originally Er Qiang was also willing to let Qu Aying's daughter-in-law do it in the shop, but the young woman refused to die and found a job by herself, cleaning windows in a car shop.Simei met her on the street once, a shameful smile flashed across her rosy face, and she greeted Simei generously, telling Simei that Qu Aying has now hired a newsstand to sell newspapers and magazines, and life is still good of.Qu Aying's daughter-in-law said again: Sister Simei, thank Brother Qiao for me.It was he who found someone to book the newsstand for my mother, and our family thanked him.

Simei was slightly surprised, she didn't expect her elder brother to do this behind their backs.

Simei felt that elder brother was like a hot water bottle, cold outside but hot inside.Then again, this kind of person is not flattering, these days, how many people do you think are still using hot water bottles?Change to drinking pure water.Simei tells Sanli what she said, and Sanli laughs that she has started to think philosophically now.

The two sisters laughed.

Recently someone told Simei about a partner who was over 50 years old and had children abroad. He set up a factory by himself, specializing in the processing of outerwear and sports shoes. payment.I don't look shabby, I'm over [-], my back is not hunched, my stomach is not swollen like a drum, and I look like a decent man after tidying up.He is very satisfied with Simei. Simei has only one young daughter. The child is beautiful and worry-free. She has no parents. The brothers and sisters have their own families and jobs, so there is no burden.But after seeing him once or twice, Simei turned down the relative.The brothers and sisters were a little puzzled, the second strong said jokingly: Big money, are you kidding me?A set of Bieye is in the suburbs, and there is a car when you go out. You don’t have to calculate what kind of clothes you want to buy, you just buy it without blinking an eye.

Simei giggled and said, second brother, you have read the villa as Bieye since you were a child, and you haven't changed it to this day.Let me tell you, marrying a rich man is like robbing a bank. The money comes quickly, but there will be endless troubles.What's wrong with being the person I am now?My daughter is raised by the state. I save some money every year and go out for a trip. Seeing mountains and rivers is much better than watching a man all day long.

This made the whole room laugh.Qiao Yicheng thought, unexpectedly, Qiao Simei would one day become the most open-minded person among the children of Qiao's family. It can be seen that it doesn't matter if people are stupid, as long as they are not stupid for a lifetime.

The old house where Sanli and Wang Yiding lived was expropriated by the government. They received a housing subsidy and their savings. They bought a new house and are currently renovating it.The couple took their children and made a temporary transition in the old house to keep Simei company.What surprised Qiao Yicheng was that the house Sanli and the others picked was actually in the same community as the newly bought house in the south, separated by three buildings.

Among the several children of the Qiao family, the one who is most unhappy right now is Qiao Qiqi.

Qiqi's daughter, a little girl named Qiao Yunzhi, has a strange disease.

In fact, two years earlier, Qiqi discovered her problem. When the little girl went to the supermarket with her mother, she would occasionally bring back a little stuff in her pocket, sometimes it was a small piece of rubber, sometimes it was a small bag of hair rope.At that time, the husband and wife only scolded their daughter a few words, but didn't pay much attention to it. The little girl was frightened twice, so she didn't take things indiscriminately.After Lingzi left, the little girl's problem started to show up. Once she was caught on the spot in the supermarket, Qiqi paid her money and apologized, but not long after, she committed a crime in school. There was a celebration party on the playground, and they stole things from six classes in one go, including some valuable digital products and cash, which totaled thousands of dollars.The school found the parents, and the principal personally came forward and had a serious talk with Qiao Qiqi, hoping that he would pay attention to the child's problem, and if necessary, he could take the child to see a psychiatrist.Otherwise, the school will consider removing Qiao Yunzhi.

Two days after this incident, Qiao Qiqi received a call from the school one afternoon. She was so frightened that her legs shook so badly that she couldn't walk, so she called a car and rushed to the school.

Qiao Qiqi saw his daughter, a 12-year-old girl, Qiao Yunzhi, sitting on the edge of the platform on the top floor of the school, with her legs hanging outside, her long hair blown away in the wind, covering her head and face. .Qiao Qiqi couldn't see her daughter's appearance clearly, she could only hear her shrill, crying voice: "Don't come here any of you!"I'll jump off whoever comes over!I jump down!
At that moment, Qiao Qiqi recalled the night before Qiao Zuwang's death, the feeling of his cold, dry and hard hand stroking her face, the rotten, warm, smelly, dead smell on his own face.

That was the first time Qiao Qiqi was so close to death.Qiao Qiqi was only in his thirties, he had never thought about death, that thing was far away, at the end of the long road, he didn't know how long he would have to walk to get there, and he didn't want to know.Qiao Qiqi has lived so long, it seems that he has never concentrated on thinking about anything, he is just alive, with a living person's head on his head, but he never thinks about it.

On this day, Qiao Qiqi was suffering from a bit of a cold, and his whole body was burning hot, but his mind was exceptionally clear at this moment. He walked towards his daughter and called her by her nickname, Zhizhi, Zhizhi, come down to Dad Come on.

He opened his hands, and the word "Dad" came out of his mouth, like a real thing, spinning around in his mouth.He tasted the taste of these two words, and remembered how many years he had been hairy for a while, not understanding the little thing at home, the little girl with braids and floral dress, who was going back and forth in the house. Where did it come from, what is going on.

Qiao Yunzhi ignored her father and poked her head down, causing a suppressed exclamation.

Suddenly, a figure flew past Qiao Qiqi, and rushed to the edge of the platform alone, sitting beside Qiao Yunzhi.The wind was very strong, and Qiao Qiqi's ears were filled with whirring and roaring voices. He couldn't hear what the man said to his daughter, but only saw his mouth moving. Then, he saw the young boy He grabbed Qiao Yunzhi's wrist and pulled her down.People around rushed up to hug the little girl Qiao Yunzhi who had fallen to the ground, and some cried softly.

Qiao Qiqi froze on the spot and didn't move. He felt that there was something in his body, and it flew towards the blue-white winter sky. Part of his body disappeared, but his body became strangely stronger. Heaviness, just like his past 30 years, swished by, and the remaining days were longer and endless.But what was even more strange was that he seemed to have seen the end. His little daughter was standing there just now, and he could clearly see her flying long hair and cold eyes.

The one who rescued Qiao Yunzhi was her young homeroom teacher, whom Qiao Qiqi knew, a very young person.The little teacher was also quite frightened, but he still stayed with Qiao Qiqi to finish the matter and sent the father and daughter back home.

Qiao Qiqi didn't tell Qi Weimin about this.It was the first time he had anything to hide from him.

Qi Weimin's mother, Qiao Qiqi's second aunt passed away.

She suffered from diabetes, which dragged on for many years. After two days of rescue in the hospital, the old lady suddenly woke up. Looking at her son, daughter-in-law and grandson, she asked, where is Qi Qi?He didn't wait for an answer, and didn't see Qiao Qiqi rushing over, so he just closed his eyes.

Qi Weimin's stepfather, the old man who had lived with his second aunt for more than twenty years, stood guard in front of the hospital mortuary. He said he would stay with his second aunt for a while before going back.When Qi Weimin and Chang Xingyu came to look for him after completing the formalities, they found him sitting on the bench, not breathing.

Qi Weimin didn't sleep for two days and two nights, and finally made up his mind to bury his mother and stepfather together.

Workers covered the two side-by-side urns with cover boards, and filled the gaps with cement. Qi Weimin looked at the black and fresh names on the tombstone, and then looked to the far southeast corner, where his biological father was buried. there.He felt that his father was looking at them, looking at this brand new, snow-white tombstone. The two women his father loved and lived with were far away from him, far away.The years they experienced were wiped out and never came back.

After Qi Weimin was done with everything, Qiao Qiqi told him that he had entrusted the game room to someone else.

Qiao Qiqi left her daughter at home for a week, the father and daughter didn't even leave the door, and the meals were all ordered by phone.The little girl sat on the floor of her bedroom quietly embroidering cross-stitch. After seven days of embroidering, she embroidered into a pillowcase.Qiao Qiqi lay on this pillow, resting on his daughter's fine stitches, and stayed up all night. From the next day, he accompanied his daughter to school every day, sat in a corner of the classroom, listened to class and finished school with his daughter, and stayed with his daughter Do homework together until the end of the semester.

The Spring Festival is over, and the 15th Lantern Festival is coming.Er Qiang ran to Qiao Qiqi and told him that he must go back to the old house to have a meal with his brothers and sisters on the fifteenth day.

That day, Qiao Yicheng drank a lot of wine, maybe he drank a little too much, Qiao Yicheng felt that the figures of his brothers and sisters sitting beside him were erratic, like their reflections in the water.Simei was worried that he would go back alone, so she forced him to stay in the old house for one night.

Qiao Yicheng slept in a familiar room, this sleep was particularly heavy, without a single dream, a pure darkness, too thick to melt away.The next morning, Qiao Yicheng opened his eyes and saw a woman's figure swaying in the room, and heard her say: Wake up, the sun is shining on the buttocks.

Very soft voice, authentic earth accent.

Qiao Yicheng smiled and called out: Mom.

He remembered that it seemed to be a Sunday, he slept late, and his mother woke him up, and he sat on the bed blankly, thinking about the long dream of the night, dreaming that he had grown up, went to college, and was suffering from poverty. Reading, Fan Jinzhong seemed to be admitted to graduate school; dreamed that he was married more than once; dreamed of his younger siblings, one by one, with long hands and long legs, all of them were getting older, and their faces were no longer the youth he was familiar with. Astringent and immature.In the dream, they cry, they laugh, and they live their lives, in which someone comes and then goes.He also dreamed that he was walking with a woman by the river, the river was splashing on the bank, the warm water vapor, and the lights scattered on the river; he also dreamed of funeral after funeral, some people cried bitterly, but he was not sad at all, Because he believes that it is a dream, he has a kind of calmness of staying out of it, everything has nothing to do with him, it is just a dream.It was a long, long dream. When I woke up, it was a Sunday. He didn’t have to go to school, and he had finished his homework. His mother must be busy cooking breakfast, and his brother was still sleeping, with one leg on his belly. , his younger sisters slept on the small bed next to him, their heads touching their feet.

Satisfied, Qiao Yicheng shrank deeper into the quilt, and called again: Mom.

A little girl's voice sounded: Uncle.

A beautiful little face appeared in Qiao Yicheng's sight, and the soft hair swept across Qiao Yicheng's face.

The little girl asked obediently: Uncle, my mother asked you what you want for breakfast?Porridge or soy milk, do you want fried dough sticks?
Qiao Yicheng slowly aimed at the distance between his eyes, looked again and again, and recognized Qi Qiaoqiao, his niece who was rarely at home on vacation.

Qiao Yicheng sat up slowly, and after a long time, he finally burst out laughing.

Everything, he said to Qi Qiaoqiao.

It was Sunday, and Qiao Yicheng went to his new house in the south in the afternoon.

The decoration has been completed, the style is generous and comfortable, everything is new but with a bit of earthly kindness, it seems that someone left home for a while and came back with luggage.

I saw it in the south and was very satisfied.

Joe Yicheng walked from room to room, feeling a deep weariness in his joy.

Probably because of the hangover.

It was convenient for Qiao Yicheng to go to the bathroom.

A little dizzy, he put his head against the wall, and suddenly there was a sharp stabbing pain in his lower body.

Then, he saw blood red in the toilet bowl.

(End of this chapter)