If there is an afterlife (novella) Zhang Baotong

When he reached junior high school, Li Xiaole had to live because the school was still in the township. The township is also about 20 miles away from Lingquan Village. Mother and son have never been separated. Therefore, when it was time to send her children to school in the township, Li Xiuying was uncomfortable for several days, and sometimes she couldn't help crying.

The night before leaving home, Li Xiuying was tearing while sewing autumn pants for the child, and said to the child, "Lele, you go to school over there, and your mother is not there, will you cook by yourself?" Li Xiaole said, "I will, I will cook porridge and roll noodles." Mom, don't worry, I won't go hungry. After a while, Li Xiuying said again, "Lele, the clothes are dirty, so you can save up the clothes and bring them back together on Friday." Li Xiaole said, "I can wash my own clothes." Li Xiuying said, "You study hard, and I will wash the clothes when you bring them back." ”

The next day, Li Xiuying took her children, carrying a large pile of bedding and daily necessities, and took a motorized tricycle to Baishan Town Middle School. As soon as they report to the school, the school asks the parents to find a place for the student to live, because the school does not have a dormitory and does not have a canteen. Through the introduction of the school, Li Xiuying came to the village next to the school to rent a house. The village on the edge of the township is not large, but it is home to hundreds of students who rent a house. So, when you walk through the path in the village, you can see students coming and going. Lee so-young found the house that the school introduced to parents. These houses were vacated after the junior high school students left. The house is not big, only 12 or 3 square meters, the rent is 50 yuan a month, in order to save money, a room to live for two people. There was nothing in the room except for two small beds. Li Xiuying helped the child lay out the futon. At this time, another classmate from the same class also came. So, the two shared this house.

In front of the house there was a kitchen with four or five small wood-burning stoves and two sturdy little wooden tables. On the table are two small wooden planks for cutting vegetables and rolling noodles, which may have been left over from the previous students. Li Xiuying grabbed a wooden board first and began to teach her son to roll noodles and stir-fry. Actually, my son will also have some, but he will not do very well. But no matter what he said, Li Xiaole still rolled out the noodles and fried the dishes.

After lunch, Li Xiuying called the child named Xu Jiachen together and said to him, "You and I will be brothers in the future, the two of them should help each other and don't quarrel with each other." Xu Jiachen's mother also said to Li Xiuying and Li Xiaole, "I heard that you are good at studying at Lele, so I asked Chenchen to live with Lele." Lele, you have to help my family Chenchen a lot. Li Xiaole said, "Auntie, please rest assured." We're going to get along well together. ”

Before leaving, Li Xiuying took her son to the street to buy some living and school supplies, and also bought a bag of cakes for the child. The reason why she bought cakes for her children is because she never forgets that the middle-aged man gave them a few pieces of cake when the children were hanging bottles in the county hospital. The child loves to eat very much, and he wants to give it to her. At that time, she really wanted to eat, but she still didn't want to eat it. So, she has always regarded cake as the best thing in the world.

In the past, the child was always by her side, and when she returned home after a busy day, when she saw the child, her heart rejoiced, and the tiredness and troubles of her body and mind suddenly disappeared. However, now that the child was no longer around, she returned to the house and felt that it was deserted and not angry at all. Sometimes, she just felt like she had lost something, distraught and listless. When I got back to the house, I didn't want to cook, so I sat at the table and lived for a long time, only to slowly reminisce, thinking that my son had just gone to school in the town and would be back in a few days. After thinking about it like this, I felt that my heart suddenly brightened, so I went into the kitchen and began to cook for myself.

After eating, she usually has to talk to the children, ask them about their studies and school, and then turn off the lights and go to bed. Now, however, as soon as she had eaten, she went to bed and lay on the bed, but she could not sleep for half a day. Thinking about how the child's food is eaten, whether he is tired from homework, and whether there will be students bullying him. She knows that her son is different from other people's children, he was abandoned since he was a child, he didn't know his biological parents, and he grew up with her, which is really pitiful. Thinking of this, she couldn't help but cry again.

The week passed so slowly, day by day, for a long time, and finally on Friday, the child was going back from school. That afternoon, Li Xiuying was picking up the rubbish by the garbage heap, but she kept thinking about when the child would be home and what kind of food she should cook for the child at night. However, the door was still locked.

When she went into the house, she began to roll out the noodles, and when she had finished rolling the noodles, she picked two tomatoes and a few red peppers from the ground, cut the potatoes into small cubes, poured some more oil, and made them into vegetarian noodles for her son. When everything was done, the child hadn't come back yet. She stood on the edge of the canal in front of the door and kept looking towards the village, but after looking for a while, she did not see the child come back.

She was a little worried, so she walked towards the village, wanting to see if the Donglin family's children had returned. However, she came to Dong Lin's house, and Dong Lin said that their daughter did not come back either. Li Xiuying thought that maybe the children were getting out of school later. Just as she was walking back from Dong Lin's house, she heard someone shouting from behind, "Mom, I'm back." ”

Li Xiuying looked behind and saw that her son had come back with a cloth bag and a schoolbag. After only a week of not seeing her, she felt that the child had grown a lot taller. She took the cloth bag in the child's hand and said, "Why did I come back so late that I went to Donglin's house?" Li Xiaole said, "The school ended late, and later, we waited for the bus at the entrance of the town for half a day, so we came back late." ”

Li Xiuying asked, "Are you still used to living over there?" Li Xiaole said, "Anyway, doing anything outside is not as good as being at home." At home, you can eat as soon as you get home from school. But over there, after school, I have to cook my own meals when I go back to the dormitory. When cooking, the smoke of the fire makes people unable to open their eyes. I finally finished the meal, but the noodles were either too soft or too hard. Anyway, it's not as delicious as the food at home. Especially at night, when I go to bed, the students live together, some sing, some play music, and some talk loudly, so noisy that people can't sleep. Li Xiuying said, "Otherwise, people say that the golden nest and the silver nest are not as good as their own soil nest." ”

As soon as Li Xiuying entered the house, let the child rest in the house, and began to boil water for the child below, and at the same time, she also fried two poached eggs in a small iron pot. The eggs were laid by the hen in the house, and she didn't want to eat any of them, so she saved them all so that she could improve her son's life. She finished the noodles, put two fried poached eggs in her son's bowl, and then put the finished noodles and noodles in the child's bowl and served them on the small table for the child to eat while they were hot.

Li Xiaole ate the noodles and said, "It's still delicious at home." As he ate, he saw two poached eggs in the bowl and wanted to give one to his mother. However, Li Xiuying said, "Eat quickly, you study all day long, spend your brain, and make up for it." Li Xiaole saw his mother speak to him in a commanding tone, so he ate the two poached eggs.

After eating, Li Xiuying kept asking about her son's study and life at school. Li Xiaole told her mother all kinds of new things that happened in the class. The mother and son seemed to have not seen each other for many years, and they talked until late before going to bed.

The next morning, Li Xiuying still got up early, she saw that her son also woke up, and when she wanted to get up, she asked her son not to get up and asked him to sleep for a while. When she picked up some rags and came back to cook for her son, she found that her son had already cooked rice, cooking rice porridge, distilling steamed buns, and fried shredded potatoes. This is the first time Li Xiuying has eaten her son's cooking, so she is naturally very happy, but she also does not forget to boil an egg for her son to make up for his brain.

The two days passed quickly, and my son had to go back to school on Sunday afternoon and report before the evening self-study. Li Xiuying returned home early in the afternoon and cooked for her son, and the meal was still two poached eggs. When her son was leaving, she packed her son's clothes, a dozen steamed buns, a few eggs, and a large bottle of fried pickles with soybeans in that cloth bag. Originally, the son had to bring a small bag of flour and a large bundle of firewood. However, Li Xiuying felt that her son couldn't take these things, so she said to her son, "You don't have to bring grain and firewood, I will go to the market town to sell waste products in two days and bring these things to you." ”

After her son left, Lee so-young began to prepare the items he needed for his son. She packed her son's grain in a cloth bag and prepared the firewood he wanted. She had picked up all the firewood from the garbage heap, chopped it into small pieces with an axe, and carried it in a large snakeskin bag. On that day, she took half a bag of scrap copper and rotten iron, packed the food and firewood sent to her son, and took a ride to the market town. Usually, she always came to the market town early, sold the scrap, and then took a ride back. However, on this day, she left the scrap yard and went to the door of her son's dormitory, found the key from the frame of the door and window, opened the door, entered the house, put the things she had brought into the house, helped clean up the beds and the house of the two children, and then went into the kitchen and began to roll noodles and make noodles for the two children, waiting for the children to get out of school.

Li Xiaole came back from school and was very happy to see that his mother had already cooked his and Xu Jiachen's meal. Li Xiuying also had lunch with the child, washed the pot, brushed the bowl, and left in a hurry.

In the blink of an eye, autumn came, and the corn in the field was ripe. At this time of the year, rural schools are busy with holidays, usually about ten days. Originally, Li Xiuying didn't want her son to work in the field, but the school specially asked the child to come back to help harvest the autumn during the school holiday, so she couldn't help but let the child help.

In the golden autumn season, as soon as the sky dawns, you can see that people are busy in the fields, some people are making corn cobs, some people are cutting corn stalks, some people are loading and pulling carts, and even small tractors can be seen plowing and plowing the fields. Li Xiuying also took her son to the ground as soon as it was dawn, and she asked her son to hold the corn cob, and she followed behind and chopped the corn stalk with a machete. Then, he borrowed a rack cart and pulled the harvested corn cobs and corn stalks to his door. At this time, those who ploughed the land would come over and ask Li Xiuying if she wanted to plow the land, and one acre of land with a plow and rake was a total of 70 yuan. Li Xiuying asked the family to plow the ground and rake it, ready to plant wheat again.