Marriage Counselor (Part II) Zhang Baotong

Listening to Li Tieniu tell about Xiuqin, Wu Qian had a deep sympathy and pity for Xiuqin, and felt that it was not easy for Xiuqin to come out of the ravine as a woman, and it was not easy to mix in the big city of Xi'an to this day. Even if she lives with Dong Laishun, it is much better than being with her husband. However, he wanted to get her away from Dong Laishun as soon as possible. Because he took other people's money, he had to do things for others. For this reason, he decided to go to Xiuqin's hometown in person.

Early the next morning, Wu Qian came to Xi'an West Bus Station and took a minibus to Jujia Town in Changwu. Before getting off the bus, he asked a local farmer sitting next to him how to get from Jujia Town to the river stream. He told Wu Qian that it is not far from Jujia Town to the river stream, that is, more than ten miles of road, people generally walk there, if they take a car, there will be a minibus to go there at 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. every day. It was 9 o'clock when I got off the bus, and if I got on the bus, I had to wait until 1 p.m. However, Wu Qian felt that if he had to wait until 1 o'clock, he would have already walked there. So, he carried a pair of backpacks on his back and walked towards the side of the road leading to the river stream.

It belongs to the hilly and gully area of the Loess Plateau, which is the junction of Weibei and Longdong Plateau, with little rain all year round, continuous wind and drought, dry land and less fertilizer, and crops are not prosperous. Wu Qian has been here many years ago, and the deepest impression is that every morning, he sees many people pulling rack cars with large gasoline drums to the water station to pull water. It takes at least three to five days to pull a large bucket of water, so the water here is very expensive. Some people here say that people here would rather give you a bun than give you a glass of water.

The May sun is very bright, and the fields and roads are full of golden light. Looking into the distance from the road, you can see patches of newly built houses. The wheat in the wheat field is half yellow and half green, apparently ripening later than the wheat in Guanzhong. But the scenery on the side of the road is still beautiful, the air is fresh, the sky is clear, and there is a delightful light in the sun.

After walking a long way, I saw a dazzling and eye-catching red light on the side of the road, judging from the shaking posture, it was obviously a young daughter-in-law in red. This kind of red and green clothes will be particularly eye-catching in the city, but they are very bright and beautiful in the countryside. Wu Qian walked quickly to the woman's side. It turned out to be a woman in her early thirties hoeing weeds on the edge of the field. The woman is not only eye-catching, but also handsome, which makes people have a very inexplicable good feeling. Wu Qian walked up to her and knowingly asked her how to go to the river stream. The young woman looked at Wu Qian, put down the hoe in her hand, walked up to Wu Qian, and pointed to him in detail while pointing at it.

After listening to the narration, Wu Qian didn't want to leave immediately, he wanted to talk to the woman for a while, and took out a bag of raisins from his backpack for the woman to eat. The woman asked Wu Qian what he was doing here while eating. Wu Qian said that he came here to play, and there happened to be an acquaintance on the other side of the river stream who wanted to go and see.

The two chatted for a while, and the woman looked at him with gentle eyes, and said boldly, "Why don't you stay at my house for two days?"

Wu Qian said, "Does your husband agree that I live in your house?"

The woman said, "My husband works in Xi'an, and I am the only one at home with my son." ”

Of course, Wu Qian understood what the woman meant, which young woman who stayed at home all the year round didn't think about and look forward to a man? He did want to stay with the woman for two or three days, but he had to do things in a hurry and couldn't delay, so he said, "When I'm free, can you come back?"

The woman looked disappointed and lost, so she watched him leave. Although this incident made him feel a little regretful, it also made him have a deep affection for the Changwu woman, and felt that the Changwu woman was beautiful and amorous.

Originally, he thought that the ten miles were not far, and it would take him an hour at most, but he walked briskly all the way to 1 o'clock in the afternoon, and then came to a fork in the road. An old man passing by pointed to the fork in the road and said to him, "Walk another three or five miles from here to Hejian Village." At this time, he realized that the mileage of rural people is different from that of urban people. Urban people understand mileage by measurement, while rural people understand mileage by feeling. If it is estimated in the way of city people, this distance of more than ten miles is at least more than 20 kilometers.

When we reached the fork in the road and continued to walk inside, there was no one on the road, and there was a dense jungle on both sides of the road, and there was silence except for the sound of birds. After walking for another hour, he came to a small river. On either side of the creek is a large area of flat river alluvial water. Traces of alluvial accumulation appear like monuments on both sides of the wide riverbed. On both sides of the Pingchuan River are the high slopes of loess more than 100 meters high. Patches of wheat are planted on the dry riverbed, but when it rains heavily, the river swells and the wheat fields are washed away. However, the wheat on the high slopes of the loess grows sparsely and sparsely, half-dead, like lack of water and fertilizer and malnutrition.

From the high slope down to the river, a path winds to a small village on the shore. There are only seven or eight families in the village. The house I live in is still one of those low huts.

When I came to the village, I saw an old man, and the old man asked Wu Qian, "Who are you looking for?"

Wu Qian said, "I'm here to find Xiuqin. ”

The old man said, "The Xiuqin family has left relatives, and I am afraid that I will not be able to come back later." ”

Wu Qian looked at his mobile phone, it was not yet three o'clock, so he had to go around the neighborhood first. He walked up and down the nearby hills, and in a short time he turned to another small village not far away. The village is even smaller, with only three or four households. He chatted with an old man for a while. Seeing that the sky was about to get dark, he felt that the people of the Xiuqin family should also come back, so he hurried back to Hejian Village. However, the door of Xiuqin's mother-in-law's house is still closed. So, he went to the house of the village chief who lived next door.

The village chief is a man in his thirties who runs a small shop at home. However, the small shops only have foods such as dry noodles and nutrition fast. Wu Qian felt that he couldn't go to someone's house empty-handed, so he took out a hundred yuan to buy something as a meeting gift. He wanted to buy some milk powder and fruit, but there was no here, he wanted to buy some cakes and cigarettes, but there was still none. The village chief told him that there was only dry noodles and a nutritious express line. So, he had to buy ten packets of dry noodles and ten bottles of Nutrition Express. gave the money to the village chief, who looked at the money for a while, but couldn't figure out whether the money was real or fake, and he didn't dare to accept it. Because no one from outside has ever come to him to buy anything. Wu Qian asked the village chief to find someone to mess with the money, but the village chief said that others couldn't mess with it. There was no way, Wu Qian didn't want to send anything, so he directly gave two hundred yuan to others as a meeting gift.

It was already dark, and the people here ate two meals a day, but Wu Qian just ate a loaf of bread in a hurry, did not eat at noon, only ate a loaf of bread, drank a bottle of water, and walked all day, and was already hungry. However, Xiuqin's family still did not return.

When it got dark, it was pitch black in the mountains. Seven or eight eleven or twelve-year-old children, armed with calcium carbide lamps and small shovels, began to dig for scorpions on the surrounding dirt slopes. The purchase price of a pound of scorpions is more than ten yuan. If a child does it well, he can dig up a pound of scorpions in one night and sell them for ten yuan. Therefore, the children here do not do their homework at night, but are busy digging scorpions to earn money.

It was about nine o'clock in the evening that Xiuqin's father came back from outside. At this time, the village chief may have told them about Wu Qian's coming. Therefore, as soon as Wu Qian entered the door of Xiuqin's mother-in-law's house, the two old men stared at Wu Qian with very vigilant and disgusted eyes, and asked, "Who asked you to come here?"

Wu Qian said, "It was Li Tieniu who introduced me. He ignored that Xiuqin was deceived and taken away by Li Tieniu from here. Therefore, as soon as he said Li Tieniu's name, the two old men immediately scolded, "He kidnapped Xiuqin away, why are you here again?"

Xiuqin's man came over from nowhere, waving his fist at him and shouting fiercely, "Get out of here, get out of the way, don't let me see you." ”

Looking at Xiuqin's man's savage face and waving fists, Wu Qian was frightened and hurriedly retreated from the house. He really regretted that he shouldn't have mentioned Li Tieniu's name. By this time the night was already a little dark, and he remembered how much the woman in the bright red dress by the roadside was to him, and begged him to stay at her house. However, it is impossible to find her again. At this time, the night was already dark, except for the lights of digging scorpions in the whole mountain, and there was boundless darkness and silence in the rivers and mountains within a radius of dozens of miles. The wind by the river is a bit strong, and it makes people feel a chill. It was too late, and it was impossible for him to leave the place again.

He had no choice but to knock on the door of the village chief's house and ask for a place to spend the night at his house. The village chief looked embarrassed because he didn't want to offend Xiuqin's family. Wu Qian said to the village chief, "I'm really not a bad person, I just met Li Tieniu once, and he recommended to me that you have a good scenery here, and there is an acquaintance here, let me come over to play." As he spoke, he took out his ID card and showed it to him.

When the village chief looked at the ID card at the electric light, Wu Qian stuffed two red tickets into his hand. The village chief hesitated for a moment, then said, "I will only let you stay for one night, and you will leave as soon as it is dawn tomorrow." ”

Wu Qian nodded with gratitude and said, "Absolutely no problem." ”

So the village chief opened a small storehouse, threw a door panel on two benches, took a quilt and a mattress from the house, laid it on the door panel, and left.