The calendar turned to the eighth day of the lunar month, and the snowflakes floating in the sky in the afternoon still did not stop any signs, they had already covered the empty fields, vertical and horizontal roads, and frozen potholes, and the heavens and the earth became vast, and the trees, houses, and firewood stacks standing in the cold put on white hats early, and looked from afar, standing there quietly like night sentries of different shapes. It is the time of the first quarter moon, the sky is gray, although you can't see Chang'e in the cold palace moon, but you can reflect the white snow on the ground, and this snowy night is armed into a silver world.

When people were immersed in the tranquility brought by that winter day, appreciating that the winter snow had brought a good harvest, Lao Mu did not have the heart to enjoy the scenery of this winter snowy night, as usual, he sat with his son in front of the old-fashioned broken wooden table supported by four legs, and watched intently as his son Mu Zhen calculated the math exercises that had been calculated several times.

"It's so simple, and it's wrong, where is the brain?" and the old wooden lattice with dark red light came out again, and Lao Mu's low roar came again. This roar carried three points of true qi, seven points of hope, mixed with a little helplessness, through the snowy night sky outside the window, piercing the lonely snow, making those who heard it feel a little cold.

A few minutes of silence followed.

"Look, what's going on!" Lao Mu pressed a formula on the paper with his right thumb and questioned his son, who didn't say anything, just stared blankly at the thumb on the paper that was pressed next to the equation.

"It's not a miscalculation, it's a miswriting!" Mu Zhen said.

"It's sloppy like this!" After speaking, he continued to look at the following homework, and there was a silence inside and outside the house.

"Make another one. Lao Mu said and took out a copy of "Primary School Mathematics 5000 Questions" from the drawer, and turned directly to the page he folded yesterday, Mu Zhen lowered his head, just looked at the open book, although there were ten thousand reluctances in his heart, but for a while, he didn't dare to say the first half of the sentence. Lao Mu stared at Mu Zhen, who lowered his head to do the question, and suddenly woke up, he took out a paper cigarette from his jacket pocket, sniffed it on his nose, slowly put it on his mouth, leaned the other end of the cigarette towards the red flame of the kerosene lamp, took a few puffs, and immediately smoked, the child smelled the pungent smell of smoke, coughed dryly twice, and continued to calculate the arithmetic formula without raising his head.

Maybe it's because his son is really smart, maybe it's because Mu Zhen has long been familiar with these calculations, Lao Mu's cigarette hasn't burned out yet, and dozens of questions have been completed. After doing this, Mu Zhen still didn't look up, checking there for errors.

"Is it over?" Lao Mu looked at the quick finish, and a hint of comfort appeared on his face.

"It's over. Mu Zhen replied in a low voice.

Lao Mu picked up the red pen for the students to correct the homework and marked the "√" number after each question, perhaps it was Mu Zhen's carelessness, another small mistake appeared on the paper, Lao Mu's face immediately showed that the sun turned cloudy, "I made the same mistake again, I made it three times in one night! If it goes on like this, what can I do?" Lao Mu's tone became heavier and heavier, and the more he talked, the more angry he became, he grabbed the homework book on the side, "Boom, boom" twice, the book was torn in half by Lao Mu's gravity, and then raised his slap "Pop, pop" Covered Mu Zhen's belly twice, and roared angrily while fighting: "Study like this, and you still want to be admitted to university?"

"I don't have the ability, why are you angry with the child?" said Lao Mu's wife, who was sitting on the bed and coaxing the child to sleep.

Perhaps it was this unintentional confession that aroused Lao Mu's pain, and bruises suddenly burst on his forehead, pointing at Mu Zhen, who was bowing his head and sobbing, and said fiercely: "If you can't go to school, either you die or I die!"

"How old is the child, just force the child like this, hoping that there is no artemisia on the ancestral grave, and you still want to become a character?" Lao Mu's wife retorted. Lao Mu wanted to say something, but his throat moved, but he didn't say it, maybe he knew that he was talking a little heavily, maybe he felt that his wife was reasonable, and he didn't respond.

"Ignore him, Jane, come and go to bed. As she spoke, her wife jumped out of bed and took two steps to pull Mu Zhen over.

Lao Mu's home is close to the east wall of Xiaowangzhuang School, which is located in the east of Xiaowangzhuang Village, separated by more than 100 meters from the village, and there is a drying field for grain in the middle. In addition to Lao Mu's family living around the school, in front of his courtyard, two adobe thatched houses were built in the village, and Wang Sanyuan, the village caretaker, lived. Wang Sanyuan has long been familiar with the voice of this sect, and when he heard this shout, Sanyuan had already become commonplace, and he was too lazy to listen. However, today is different, from the very beginning, Sanyuan pricked up his ears and listened to the truth.

Wang Sanyuan has studied in a private school for two years, a little culture, the village people respect him very much, because his wife died of illness at an early age, the two children are married and live alone, he has become the best choice for the village school watchman. Every winter, he often set up the roots of the trees he dug by the river in the middle of the house, and made a fire to keep warm, and often attracted a few idle old people in the village to come and chat with him. Today, because the heavy snow has not stopped, the old people chatting in the village are sleeping prematurely, and no one in the village comes to accompany the fire, but welcomes a guest from afar. This guest is a merchant, because the snow is too far home, forced to stay in the village, and Sanyuan talked, stay here, this merchant lives in the north of the Yellow River, self-proclaimed Zhang Sheng, fifty six, is also single at home, out of leisure to eat. The two of them were around the fire, chatting about those interesting things in the village near and far, and were interrupted by a few muffled roars of Lao Mu, and the merchant listened with bated breath, and Sanyuan did not speak, until Lao Mu's family had no sound, and the merchant was curious about it, so he talked about the reason for the sound.

"This is my neighbor Lao Mu is educating children, speaking of this old Mu named Mu Kegui, in fact, the age is not very big, this year is only thirty-five, but he is also a cultural person in the village, the year he graduated from high school, because he was not in good health at the time, he was not admitted to university, I never thought that this person had a strong temper, because he was not admitted to school, he had a pimple in his heart, and then he was a little stunned, sitting in his yard all day long and looking at the pomegranate on the pomegranate tree for a long time. Lao Mu's father died early due to illness, and his mother raised her body to marry to the north of the Yellow River, and there was no news of her, so it is estimated that she will not be very happy. Lao Mu also has a sister named Mu Yingzi, who married into the Zhang family, which is more than ten miles away from our commune, and usually comes to take care of this dazed Lao Mu. Sanyuan said slowly.

"Didn't the team arrange for him to do anything at the time?" asked the merchant, picking up a wooden stick that had just been lit in his hand and pointing it against his dry pipe.

In the blink of an eye, in the middle of winter, it was also such a snowy morning, Lao Mu jumped into the pit next to the village, and was seen by the horse boy who got up early in the same village to pick up dung, and forcibly pulled it up, which was regarded as a life. ”

"Alas!" Wang Sanyuan sighed, and then said, "The next day, Lao Mu's sister Mu Yingzi sent her to a mental hospital for a month, so that Lao Mu could live a normal life again. A year later, there was a shortage of substitute teachers in the village school, so the brigade arranged for him to become a private teacher in the school, and then he married a daughter-in-law. ”

Sanyuan took a puff of dry tobacco and continued to nag: "The daughter-in-law is Xiuhua, the daughter surnamed Yang of Yangliu Village. After speaking, he pointed to the southeast direction, "It's the village you came to today, the Yang family's family background is not good, but this daughter-in-law is good, diligent and thrifty, and her popularity is also good, she gave birth to a son in the second year, named Mu Zhen, who has been very smart and cute since he was a child, is a child who is loved by everyone, can recite many poems at the age of three, and is faster than adults at the age of five." So Lao Mu pinned all his hopes on the child!"

"How old is this kid now?" the merchant interjected.

"Twelve, fifth grade!" Sanyuan replied casually.

"It must be good to learn. The merchant said in an affirmative tone, "The child is so smart, how can he not learn well in such an education?" The merchant muttered to himself without waiting for Sanyuan's answer.

Because of the proximity to the school, the teachers praised the child for his future success. Sanyuan said with a little pride of dry tobacco in two puffs.

"Speaking of the characters from our village, it is really enough to count, although it is called Xiaowangzhuang, adding up to a total of about 300 people, but it is a well-known village, our Wang family first came out of the father and son three shows, known from far and near, and then the Mu family is more powerful, someone was admitted to the lift, and did the Qing Dynasty Daotai, and later returned to the township, became a squire, although it is a squire, but with the same village good neighborliness and friendship, many years later, there is a very accessible wife among the descendants of his family, knowledgeable and courteous, and offered to donate money to build a school, take out their life savings, the current school is where they built a school at that time, the four rooms at the back of the school were built that year, and have been repaired several times, Although it can still be used, but it is not very good, the team said last year that it was going to dismantle him, but someone stopped him and did not dismantle it. The village asked me to look at the school, so I built these two rooms next to the school. When Lao Mu got married, with the help of the villagers, he built three rooms behind me and made a new house. Sanyuan said, stretching his hand to the fire from time to time to roast, and the merchant listened very fascinated, and did not interrupt Sanyuan's words.

The two dry pipes faced each other, facing the red flames, wisps of white smoke came out from time to time, and the fire gradually weakened, and the two did not speak for a long time. Except for the occasional "crackling" sound of burning firewood in the fire, it was the sound of the two smoking and gasping for each other.

Seeing that the flames had been extinguished, Sanyuan stood up, went to the back of the door, took some chopped roots, and gently placed them on the fire. The merchant looked up at Sanyuan, then looked down at the roots of the tree that had just been put on, and said to himself: "There are so many scholars in the village, and there are also many people who do things outside!"

"That's natural, because of this school in our village, the village has one or two students in the exam every year, the eldest brother of Uncle Mu's family, it was at that time that he was admitted, I heard that it was a university in Beijing, and later he was assigned to teach in a university in Gansu, and their whole family moved there!" said the ternary voice significantly higher.

The merchant listened with relish, and asked, "Then these people are also very good outside?"

"Since people who are out of town rarely come back, I really haven't heard of any of them having any names! ”

Sanyuan said, stood up and yawned, "It's not too early, let's get some sleep!"

After speaking, he opened the door, the two walked outside one after the other, the snow outside stopped at some point, the ground had been covered with a thick snow quilt, stepped on it and made a "creaking, creaking" sound, Sanyuan turned the corner of the house and looked at the window of Lao Mu's house, there was no light on, knowing that Lao Mu's family had fallen asleep, so he withdrew his pants at the corner, and then there was a "squeak" peeing sound. The merchant also made it easier, and returned to the house one after another, cleaned up the fire briefly, and the two of them got into the bed one after another, and soon the unhurried snoring of two people broke through the cold night sky.