Your loneliness is more moving than this world

Chapter 12 The Lover on the Other Side (1)
1.
I have a nostalgia complex, so I never dared to think of myself as a city person.I have always thought that city people should be rebellious, beautiful, and futuristic. They shuttle in groups on overpasses, and run between skyscrapers in splendor, just to drive away the annual rings of their dreams. They don’t need Nostalgia for the past, you can also disdain your own origin.

Four hundred kilometers southwest of Beijing is my humble hometown.Unremarkable, due to its awkward geographical location, it has a provincial capital in the north, an ancient capital in the south, and two neighbors in the north and south, all of which capture the light.It is said that Niucheng used to shine brightly, and the white porcelain fired there was sold [-] miles away in the Western Regions, bright enough to illuminate the soul of a woman.But when the war broke out, everything was lost. The Chinese people have first-class ability to create culture, and the ability to destroy culture is also first-rate. The soldiers only pay attention to women and gold and silver. This decline, until today, not even a monument, museum.

Most of the small towns in the Central Plains are connected to villages, or they are close to each other, or they face each other across the river.Guojia Village is such a village. There is no academic definition for this kind of place. Whether it is an urban or a rural person, they are collectively referred to as "urban village" because it has a standard rural layout - courtyards of different sizes, Messy alleys and perpetually dirty streets.People in Guojia Village never think of themselves as countrymen. They call themselves industrial workers and always emphasize their urban hukou.In the era of planned economy, you can slander a person's virtue, but not his composition. [?

People in the old era valued class status. You can accuse the other party of having a problem with character, but you must never question the other party’s social attributes. For example, if he is a worker, you cannot say that he is a farmer, otherwise the other party will be angry or hold grudges.

]
But all of this ended in the summer 16 years ago. Like Niucheng Baici, the composition of Guojia Village became fragmented with the collapse of an era, and then nothing was left.

"What city people? Remember, we are the real Niucheng people!" Yu's father threw the wine glass on the table, blushing and said, "Stop talking to me about how your classmates' homes are doing. Okay, what happened in the city? Let me tell you, the children you know who live in high-rise buildings all moved here after the founding of New China. Come out and scare them to death!"

"Xiao Yu!" Yu's mother shouted from the kitchen, "Come here and help mom tidy up." I put down the TV remote control, glanced at Yu's father, and Yu's father said, "What are you looking at! Hurry up and help your mother!"

I leaned over to Mama Yu, washed the dishes and said, "Mom, I'll go play with Mingming in a while." Mama Yu turned her face and looked at me and said, "Son, your dad has been unhappy these two days, so be careful when you talk to him." Son, don’t mention your classmates’ fathers anymore, do you understand?” I said, “Isn’t it just something about his unit?” Yu’s mother froze for a moment, and said, “Who told you?” I asked He kept his head down and said nothing.Yu's mother said: "Okay, okay, don't do it, go play, remember to come back before ten o'clock."

In the north of Guojia Village, beside the Liuli River, there are people enjoying the shade everywhere.In the era when air-conditioning was not popular, the breeze was the goddess floating in the summer night. Men were shirtless discussing state affairs, and women chased and beat their children with cattail fans.The trees on the bank let go of their restraint, looked down at the chasm and swayed chaotically, sometimes separated and sometimes approached, like a pair of lovers who couldn't tell.

Xiao Ning stood on the embankment and waved at me.I walked over and asked, "What about Mingming?" Xiao Ning said, "Don't mention it, let his father confiscate the house. His father almost scolded me, and the head teacher also went to his house to complain." I said: "Then shall we still go to that game hall?" Xiao Ning said, "Don't go, if you get caught by that head teacher and go to my house to file a complaint, my dad will beat me to death." I blew on the dirt under my feet and sat cross-legged Come down and say: "The old man in our family is going to be laid off, do you know about this?" Xiao Ning said: "What's wrong with being laid off? It's better to be laid off than now. Anyway, they are poor. My dad has many friends and can make troubles. If you are tied to your unit, you might be able to make a lot of money.”

The big money that Xiao Ning talked about is naturally not a righteous way, and Ning's father has never been a righteous person.He is a well-known thorn in the electrical machinery factory. He does not do his job properly and forms gangs. He is questioned by the police at the police station all day long.I once wondered why workers like Papa Ning were not fired by the unit. Papa Yu explained: "You know what, how can it be so easy to fire people from the unit?" So, morally speaking, Papa Yu and Papa Ning's electrical machinery factory deserved it Closed down, such an enterprise has long lost its production capacity, but it is just a welfare home waiting to die.

Bankruptcy, in that era, was also called dismounting, which was essentially bankruptcy.No one buys the motors produced in the factory anymore. The large and small workshops stop work one after another. The workers still go to work according to the schedule, but play chess or drink tea in the corner of the workshop to pass the time.Half a year, a year, and another half a year passed, and there was no improvement. The bank couldn't stand it anymore, and appeared to collect debts, and moved out local officials to judge the case, which caused the whole factory to be in panic all day long.Finally, when the building was about to collapse, the fat director of the electrical machinery factory bravely stood up. He drank liquor, settled his wife and children, opened the bank, counted the balance, and ran away with the young female accountant.

After the last staff meeting of the electrical machinery factory, the gates of all workshops were chained.That night, Mama Yu didn't eat a single meal, she stared at Papa Yu and said, "20 years of work, this is over? Will you be resettled? Even if you don't, we can't buy out the length of service in a daze." Papa Yu said : "There are thousands of people in the factory, who is different, you have something to say? Besides, I have offered to buy it out, so what is there to do?" Mama Yu burst into tears and muttered: "I didn't have a formal job, and now you don't have any, and I don't even have a place to grow vegetables at home. How will I live in the future? Isn't this a joke?" Father Yu put down his chopsticks and said, "Hey, Hey, why are you crying in front of the child? God can't starve to death. Blind house sparrows, whoever likes to read jokes, will read them. It's like this everywhere now, and it's not our family. Didn't you see Niu Ye's recent fuss? What? Come down Don't you want to live?"

"Son," Yu's father wiped his mouth and said, "Stop eating, get your mother a hot towel."

The Niuye mentioned by Yu's father, that is, Niucheng Metallurgical Plant, is a state-owned enterprise across the river from Guojia Village, and its scale is much larger than that of Yu's father's electrical factory.A giant like Niu Ye would naturally not dismount, but would only reform. Ming's father was the first batch of old employees to be dismissed.Of course, there is a conceptual difference between Ming's father's layoff and Yu's father's layoff. In Yu's father's words, the layoff of the electric motor factory is a life and death, while Niu Ye's layoff is a chaos and abandonment. Compared with a life and death, The only advantage of being in chaos and abandoning is that there will be an extra [-] yuan in unemployment subsidies every month.

But in the eyes of us children, there is no difference between the parents being laid off. They are all abandoned by the times, and they are all incompetent people. No one will support them anymore, but they will support us.Being laid off made the families of workers in Guojia Village lose their sense of security for the first time.

Facts have proved that women in this country are always stronger than their men.In order to prevent her family from becoming a joke, Mama Yu quickly found another housewife, Mama Ning. The two discussed for an afternoon, and the next day they pedaled bicycles to a plate factory more than ten miles away to learn plate rolling technology.And the laid-off Papa Yu and Papa Ning refused any kind of manual labor. They nestled in the palm-sized yard to bask in the sun every day, or walked around the streets playing chess and chatting. Soft rice.

When the first autumn rain fell, Papa Yu and Papa Ning returned to the electric motor factory to help out in the factory for the last time.They insisted on taking their son with them, saying to see the world.

In the overgrown square, people whispered around the weighbridge.Guo Fatty from the Guojia Village Waste Collection Station stood on the edge of the scale, raised a stack of big bills with his left hand, waved the air with his right hand, and smiled like a distorted ball of dung. He opened his mouth and shouted: "Everyone, let's talk first. When the price is called later, I will listen to the deputy factory director. The deputy factory director counts to three, and whoever shoots it will be counted. Let's follow the rules." The people around laughed and booed: "Get off, get off. " Fatty Guo's dung dumpling face was even more distorted, and he grinned and said: "Well, then let's make an agreement, and everyone can't grab it later. I, Fatty Guo, are here to buy wrought iron this time. I don't care about pig iron. , wrought iron, we have to follow the rules." The people around continued to laugh: "Get off, get off."

The deputy factory manager showed up and brought people from the creditor agency and the auction agency over. Everyone stopped playing and huh-la-la got out of the way.The deputy factory manager walked up to the table and coughed twice, straightened the collar of his shirt and said, "Pig iron is fifty cents, wrought iron is seven cents, let's get on the scale."

Not far to the west of the square is the dormitory of the electrical machinery factory. Under the wall, there is a row of old workers from Beijing standing behind the factory. The ivy disappeared like an old oil painting.These old workers are obviously very conflicted. They are eager to get a sum of money to return to their hometowns to provide for the elderly, but they cannot accept this sad way of getting money from the bottom of their hearts.They watched the machines and steel that had accompanied them for half their lives being pushed onto the scales by a group of bumpkins from the countryside one by one. They couldn't hide their disappointment, as if their own daughters were married to illiterate hooligans, and as if their entire lives had been sold at a low price.

After the auction was over, Papa Ning and Papa Yu successfully got their seniority payment and the factory’s repayment to employees for raising money, and went home to continue to eat soft food; A large piece of land was built to build a larger waste collection station; the deputy director of the electrical machinery factory who presided over the auction returned to his hometown in the south. to my hometown in Beijing.It is said that in this auction, Papa Ning and Papa Yu also obtained a large amount of introduction fees from various scrap buyers, but they will never mention such shameful things again in their lifetime.

Yu's father gave all the rust-stained money to his wife, and told her to open a hotel next to the national highway when he got another sum of money, so that the whole family would have no worries about food and drink.Mama Yu slightly objected, but the money belonged to her husband after all, and it was rare for him to have some ambition, so she nodded in agreement, and then she took Mama Ning to work in the board factory.

Ning's father never told his family how much money he got. As soon as the Mid-Autumn Festival was over, he left Guojia Village with a few friends and went to other places to make a living. He never came back.According to the person who spread the word, Ning's father was doing "red business" outside.The so-called "red thing business" is to bribe farmers in the poor areas of the west with low-priced grain, marry their daughters to the eastern plains, and then demand ten times the introduction fee from the married family.Regarding Papa Ning's "red business", people in the whole family have the same opinion, thinking that he is abducting and trafficking people in disguise, and sooner or later there will be a big change.But Ning's mother can't say anything, because the family is too difficult. With her monthly salary of [-] yuan in the board factory, she definitely can't afford to support two school children and a sick father. No matter how messy her man is, he will embarrass her. Also count on him to send money back.The poor are not unreasonable, they just have no confidence in front of reason.

2.
At dusk, Mingming, Xiaoning and I were sitting on the steps of Gonggong Road eating popsicles. Niu Ye’s commuting crowd passed in front of us. The whole road was filled with the crash of bicycle chains and the roar of motorcycle motors.At that time, Xiao Ning was the richest of the three of us. Almost every day after school, he took Mingming and me to the street to eat snacks. After eating and drinking, we went back to Guojia Village together.I asked Xiao Ning where the hundred-yuan bills in his pocket came from, but he refused to answer, blushing and begging us not to tell anyone in the family about the money.Mingming refused to let go, and said: "We just want to know where you got so much money, and can we be stupid enough to tell our family?" Xiao Ning said: "Anyway, I can't tell now, but you will know later." Mingming said: "It's really boring, my brother is still hiding it."

Xiao Ning looked at Mingming, revealing a trace of guilt.He suddenly glanced into the distance, threw away the popsicle and said, "Hurry up, Er Paozi is here!"

We picked up our schoolbags and ran across the road, only to be blocked by Er Paozi's men.Er Paozi took off his sunglasses and came over, pushed Xiao Ning and said, "Why are you running?" Xiao Ning retreated to the wall tremblingly, and said, "We didn't say leave, my cousin was over there just now. Call me, there may be something urgent, let’s go over and have a look.” Er Paozi waved his hand and slapped Xiao Ning across the face, saying, “Stop pretending to me! Guo Xiaoning, aren’t you awesome? Why this time?” Xiao Ning stretched out his hand Touching his face, he drooped his eyelids and dared not answer.Erpaozi then slapped me and Mingming twice, and said, "I heard that the three of you beat up a child in our yard until he got stitches. You are capable enough. Come to our Niu Ye family yard in the future, remember." Hit me, don't just pick soft persimmons, do you hear me?" Xiao Ning said, "Listen...you heard me." Er Paozi slapped Xiao Ning again and said, "I heard you, I heard you. !" Mingming became angry, and threw a fist at Er Paozi, cursing: "×Your uncle!"

At night, at Mingming’s house, Ming’s father looked at the swollen dark circles of the three of us with a dark face, and complained: “You little bastards, you are really promising, you go to school, your grades are low, you mess around on the street, and you are beaten all day long. Can you cause these things by studying in peace?" With tears in my eyes, I said, "It was Niu Ye's Second Pao who beat us. Last time on the river bank, several children in their yard beat us three, and we ran away. Sometimes I threw a brick at random, and it hit one of the children in the head, so they asked the Second Paozi to block us on the workers' road." Ming's father said: "There are several villages by the Liuli River, and the children passing by the workers after school There are too many, and I have never heard of other people fighting with the children of Niu Ye's family, and you are not allowed to provoke Niu Ye's children in the future, come home after school, and stop wandering across the river for me!" Papa Yu came out from the back room, Reaching out his hand to Ming's father, he said: "Okay, third brother, it's not a day or two for these bastards to make troubles. It's good to beat them one by one, so that they can have a long memory. Let's go into the room and talk about our affairs."

Grandma Ming grabbed a piece of soap-colored ointment and put it on our eyes one by one. Out of distress, she didn't say a word, and Dad Ming shouted in the back room: "Mom, don't take care of them, it's all because of you! "

After applying the ointment, Grandma Ming slowly walked back to her room, and Mother Ming came out from the other side of the room, handed me and Xiao Ning two cloth pouches the size of thumbs, and said, "For you two, hang it around your neck. In the future, learn better and don’t cause trouble for adults anymore, do you understand?” Xiao Ning and I said, “Got it.” After Ming’s mother returned to the house, Xiao Ning smiled at Ming Ming with a cloth bag and said, “This is your home. What’s in it?” Mingming said, “There’s nothing in it, it was cut and sewed by my mother when she was young with the cloth that wrapped the Buddha statue at home, everyone in our family wears it, there are not many left, here it is Just wear it."

In the southern suburbs of Niucheng more than ten years ago, the folk customs were relatively simple, and there were basically two camps. The family members of the factories on the north bank of the Liuli River were mostly Niu Ye’s leaders, engineers and other intellectual families, and those living in the villages on the south bank of the Liuli River Basically, it is a family of workers or temporary workers.Since the banks of the Liuli River are national highways, there are many people traveling from north to south to do business, and some small traders from other places have gradually settled in the village.

As for why Papa Ming, an old foreman who has been burning boilers in Niuye for 20 years, was taken down, he must have offended the people on the other side of the river, so Grandma Ming’s silence that night was not just out of respect for us. Distressed, but also out of pity for his son.

Yu's father said loudly in the back room: "Third brother, do you know why you have been having a bad life these years, because you are too single-minded. You can't fight against anger in everything. That Zheng's character is not very good, but I'd rather offend a gentleman than a villain. How about you make trouble with others? They will knock you down with one word. Now my sister-in-law is also facing layoffs. The only one who can speak for us is Zheng. Besides, he also I didn’t ask us to do anything, just to give in and apologize. You’ve been in Niu Ye for more than ten years, so why don’t you just give him a face if you don’t understand this? What’s his status? What is our identity!" Father Ming said: "What do you mean? His face is valuable, but Lao Tzu's is not? Even if I die, I won't ask him. What is he? If he becomes the chairman of a poor trade union, he will be in charge of it. Well, I apologized once, and I already gave him face, do you want me to give all my face to this bastard?" Yu's father said: "Okay, okay, you want face, and you are going to kill the whole family just by looking at it." The old and the young are starving to death, look at how handsome you are." Ming's mother smoothed things over and said, "Why are you in a hurry, is this the appearance of discussing things?" Ming's father said, "Anyway, I won't beg for this bastard again."

The "bad guy" Ming's father was talking about was a leader named Zheng from the fifth district of Niuye. Some female workshop workers or family members reported him.The conflict between Ming's father and the person surnamed Zheng is an old one. It originated from Mingming's mother. At that time, Ming's mother was known as the flower of the five districts. Almost every young man who saw her beauty wanted to pursue her, including the one surnamed Zheng. , Papa Ming, Papa Ning and others.Ming's mother had a relationship with a young engineer. Later, in order to transfer back to Beijing to work, the engineer did not hesitate to abandon Ming's mother and fell in love with another female technician with a background in the same workshop.Ming's mother was pregnant with the engineer's child, and in order to hide her embarrassment, she quickly married Ming's father, who built the boiler, and had a miscarriage in the hospital the following year.This man surnamed Zheng was originally a workshop employee. After he made his fortune, he worked in the production management department. After that, he frequently harassed Ming's mother in the area under his jurisdiction. Ming's father was not angry and took his wife to the trade union to report. Next, ask Shang Ning's father to block Zheng Zheng in the alley and beat him up.The person surnamed Zheng was a man of the scene, and he didn't say anything about it, and he didn't dare to be disrespectful to Ming's mother again, but the root of the disaster was planted here.

(End of this chapter)