"Auntie!" I called out politely and softly.

"Yo, what kind of wind is blowing here, I actually got your Amitabha Buddha up!"

The eldest lady pretended to be surprised and shouted, and the spots on her face also shook with the facial muscles that were greatly touched, which looked very funny.

I curled my hands into fists and coughed lightly on my mouth, my eyes fell on the messy corner, and I didn't bother to pay attention to the aunt's ridicule.

"Is Qing'er here?" a crisp and soft voice came from the corridor of the inner hall.

"Cousin!

I'm biased towards the source of the sound, A.

"Come on, come up, I haven't seen you in a long time!"

The hallway again came my cousin's eager and broken Mandarin.

I answered, calmly turned back to the lady next to me and said, "Auntie, then I'll go up first!"

She glanced at me without saying a word, her eyes full of disdain and disgust.

......

The corridor is covered with the green paint that was once all the rage, and now it is mottled, the second floor, this is the first time I have gone up, and my cousin's room has never been seen.

As soon as I climbed to the turn of the stairs, I saw my cousin standing at the entrance of the staircase wearing thick cotton clothes and pants.

"Come up!"

When she saw me, she looked at her in a daze, and urged with a smile.

I walked upstairs with a faint smile, and my cousin took me by the arm affectionately and led me straight into her room.

This is a nostalgic room, with many Hong Kong Star posters from the 70s and 80s pasted on the walls, and old-fashioned solid wood furniture in various corresponding positions.

"Come, look at your nephew!" my cousin dragged me to the bedside.

There was a sleeping baby wrapped in the middle of the solid wood bed, the pink little mouth was slightly open and closed, and there was a cousin's shadow between the delicate eyebrows and eyes, and I casually praised: "It's cute!"

"The baby is born, but ......" The cousin suddenly sat on the edge of the bed in a melancholy manner.

Seeing her sad expression, I bent down and sat beside her, looked at my sleeping nephew and then at my cousin's distressed expression, indifferently took her hand on her lap, and asked, "What's wrong?"

This question asked her cousin's tears, and she sobbed and said: "The baby is born, but there is no money to raise it, this year's harvest is not good, and the fish cannot be sold at a good price, and the tuition fees for the second half of the year are borrowed." ”

Hearing this, I was silent for a while, but still hesitated: "If life is so difficult, why do you want to have another child?"

My cousin was stunned by my question, and paused for a few seconds before saying, "The policy has been opened, and everyone in the village has put it in their stomachs, so I am the same, and ...... The mother-in-law wants a male baby. ”

Hearing this, I was speechless, and a question suddenly popped up in my mind, now giving birth to children is all about going with the flow?

"Where's my brother-in-law?" I didn't know about my cousin's detailed process of giving birth, so I asked another question.

"Playing cards in the teahouse in the county seat every day!" said my cousin with a hatred of iron and steel.

My cousin was only in her early twenties when she got married, and I didn't attend her wedding or the birth of the eldest baby, and I was living in dire straits at that time, and I didn't know what kind of species this brother-in-law was.

I patted the back of my cousin's hand to show relief, even though I got up to plug the door bolt, and then took out the bundle of garbage bags from the inner pocket of my clothes, leisurely uncovered the cash inside, I counted a thousand yuan and stuffed it into my cousin's hand, and whispered: "You take this money, don't let the uncle know, otherwise you will be dug up and subsidized again." ”

My cousin pushed the money back into my hands and refused, "It's not easy for you to make money, according to me, my father has picked a lot on you over the years, how can I ask for your money again!"

"Cousin, take it, if you hadn't secretly sent me food when I was a child, maybe I would ......"

The painful words stuck in my throat and I couldn't say them for a long time.

"Qing'er, after all, it was our family who treated you badly......"

Speaking of this, my cousin's tears flowed down my eyes.

I shoved the money into my cousin's hand, looked at the sleeping cutie of Zhengxiang, and said, "It's all about buying food for my nephew!"

The cousin wiped the tears from her cheeks and nodded insistently.

Looking at her difficult appearance, I couldn't help but say more: "The two thousand yuan is a share, and when the time comes, you remember to ask the uncle to give it to you, so that it can more or less relieve some economic pressure." ”

The cousin nodded, and the "thank you" in her mouth was only half spit out before she was interrupted by the sound of a knock on the door that pierced the eardrum.

"Open the door, open the door!" a rough smoke voice rose angrily.

"Brother is here, quickly collect the money. The cousin said anxiously in her throat.

After we had quickly cleaned up, my cousin opened the door, and a thin man in a fancy jacket and dyed yellow hair swaggered in, his eyes constantly glancing at me.

His hand holding the cigarette butt lay at the corner of his mouth, squinted, took a deep breath and spit it out, followed by circles of smoke coming out of his nostrils, "My mother called, saying that Sister Qing'er came back I still don't believe it, I didn't expect it to be real!"

I glanced at him indifferently, coughed and said, "There are children in the room, so I snuff out my cigarette." ”

"Yo! It's not a loss that the big city is coming back, and it's quite a lot of exquisiteness, so I'll suck it today, what do you want to do?" he arrogantly provoked.

I watched him sharply for a few seconds, then dropped the word "whatever" and got up to walk around him.

"The villagers all say that Sister Qing'er is unkind, and it really drops! Yangzi (Shenyang) committed suicide by jumping off the building for you, and you want him to die quickly, but it has spread all over the village! Not to mention this nephew who is not related by blood to Diga," he sneered and chased out.

I paused when I heard the sound, turned my head with a cold face and continued to stare at him, raised my eyebrows gloomily, and said, "Hmph! I dare to drown you as a cousin, and what else is it!"

He knew very well that I had done such a thing, and he couldn't help but be stunned when he heard me say it word by word.

Seeing that the paper tiger was not threatening, I was about to turn around and walk downstairs.

At this time, my cousin called "Qing'er" and made me pause.

Her face, which was about to stop talking, made me wonder for a moment, presumably there was something to say secretly, and I changed my sharp gaze to my cousin, and faintly threatened: "If you don't leave, I don't mind helping you relive the memories of your dying struggle!"

Speaking of this, my cousin was in a panic, and his eyes of fear and resentment instantly dodged me, and he was unwilling to explode at me when he left.

When there were no footsteps in the stairwell, my cousin walked up to me and sighed, "Brother, I'm still afraid of you." ”

I tugged at the corners of my mouth and sneered: "He's not afraid of me, he's afraid of death." ”

"If he hadn't been the first to play tricks when he was a child, you wouldn't have pushed him into the river by mistake, then ......"

"Cousin, stop here, don't talk about it", I twisted my eyebrows and interrupted my cousin's angry speech.

The cousin lowered her head in lamentation, not speaking.

"Do you have something to say to me?" I reminded indifferently.

"Oh, by the way, you'd better take some time to go to the county hospital, your grandmother's condition is not very good!"

My cousin's words suddenly made my heart startle, and I was silent for a while before I barely squeezed it out, "Thank you!"

I gritted my teeth and forced my composure to turn around and go downstairs.

As soon as he stepped down the first step, his cousin quickly asked, "Will you come to the main table tomorrow?"

"No!"