"From a very young age, I knew that if my fate was not in my own hands, then all life was useless. Jiao Shuyin used this sentence as the beginning of the story of the Jiao family.

Jiao Shuyin vaguely remembers some clips when she was three or four years old, the Jiao family at that time could still be regarded as happy, at that time, Jiao's mother was still pregnant with her second brother Jiao Shuhuan, she lay on Jiao's mother's round belly, shouting "I want my brother" While listening to whether there was any movement inside, Jiao's mother looked at her with loving eyes, Jiao's father, who went out to work, returned home, carrying a hot bean curd that was hot in a white transparent plastic bag, picked her up and tied her with her beard, Jiao Shuyin laughed and went to grab the bean curd, and the family was carefree as if living in a paradise.

When he was young, Jiao's father was still very capable, he obviously carried the characteristics of a man who grew up in that era, he was good at everything, nothing was a problem, he had dropped out of school to work in the first year of junior high school, water, electricity, carpentry, interior decoration, cement worker, construction, what forklift forklift will be used as soon as he got started, he traveled to many cities, worked a lot, in Jiao Shuyin's early impression, Jiao's father has always been a very great image, but Jiao's father has a low education, and the other has no big ambitions, the former is not a big problem for that era, but the latter often determines how far a person can go, Jiao's father went back to his hometown to marry Jiao's mother at the age of twenty-six, and then gave birth to Jiao Shuyin, because Grandpa Jiao and Grandma Jiao disliked her as a girl, and planned to throw her into the river and wash her away with the river, and let Jiao's mother have another one.

Because of dragging the family, it was obviously much harder to go out this time, Jiao's father took them all the way, and they went to do work everywhere, and only after traveling to most of the provincial capitals did they pick a place to rent a house and settle down temporarily because of Jiao's mother's pregnancy again, this residence was to live until Jiao Shuyin was seven years old, and those years were probably the most peaceful years for their family.

In the past few years, the second brother Jiao Shuhuan and the third sister Jiao Shuyuan were born one after another, in fact, when I was a child, Jiao Shuyin didn't like them very much, because Jiao Shuhuan was the only male, so he was naturally more valued, and Jiao Shuyuan was the youngest, Jiao's father and Jiao's mother both spoiled her, Jiao Shuyin was basically either ignored for a long time or scolded for not taking good care of the two of them, and for a while, the young Jiao Shuyin even thought that it would be good if she was an only child, but she gradually forgot about it when she grew up.

In fact, according to Jiao's father's income at the time, they could have worked hard in that county for a few years and then bought a house and a car, but Jiao's father still insisted on returning to Lingxiao Town with the family's savings, because the Redwood Inn at that time was still managed by Grandpa Jiao and Grandma Jiao, Jiao's father ranked second, and was always disgusted by his parents for no reason, and the eldest brother and third brother were more favored than him, so they were able to stay in the inn to help, but Jiao's father had to take his small family to plough the fields and raise chickens and grow vegetables, but also because he went out to work and saved a lot of money, so he built a small house behind the mahogany inn and bought color TV furniture, and is ready to open his own shop, which can be regarded as a relatively promising person in Lingxiao Town.

Jiao Shuyin also started preschool because of the stability of the family, if there is no accident, she should be like most children in Lingxiao Town, read casually, drop out of junior high school to work, come back at the age of eighteen or nineteen to get married and have a baby, and when they are in their twenties, the children are crawling all over the ground, but less than a year after they returned to Lingxiao Town, Jiao's father suffered a sudden car accident and was paralyzed for half a year, which completely rewrote the fate of her family.

The so-called wall fell down and everyone pushed, people were poor and bullied, the original scenery of Jiao's father fell down all of a sudden, leaving Jiao's mother a few orphans and widows, today Jiao's grandfather and Jiao's grandmother asked her to give money to let them play mahjong, tomorrow this concubine and that concubine ran over and said that she wanted to pick up some oil, and the day after tomorrow what uncle and uncle came to borrow money again, their behavior made Jiao's father and family, who had collapsed because of the large amount of treatment costs, even more stretched, Jiao Shuyin remembered that in the past six months, there was no meat on their table except for the lard for stir-frying, and all the chickens, ducks and eggs raised were either sold for money or deceived by other people in the Jiao family, Jiao Shuyin's three sisters and brothers were so hungry that they almost wanted to eat all the tables, and for two months, there was only a plate of dried radishes on the table besides green vegetables, so that Jiao Shuyin didn't want to touch this kind of food for more than ten years in the future.

Their poverty and embarrassment did not make Grandpa Jiao's family rein in, and in the end, even the color TV that Jiao Shuyin and his three sisters and brothers had to watch was moved away, and when Jiao's father got better, what he saw was a room with four walls, but Jiao's father was a relatively stupid and filial person, Grandpa Jiao said that everyone is a family, don't mind the money, Jiao's father saw his wife and children with yellow faces and thin muscles, and he acquiesced

It was probably the first large-scale quarrel between Jiao's father and Jiao's mother, and a big battle broke out between the two in front of Jiao Shuyin's three sisters and brothers, Jiao Shuyin watched her father push her mother to the ground and shook her fist fiercely, except for hugging her younger brothers and sisters for fear of being beaten by Jiao's father together, she couldn't do anything.

That is also the first time in her life that she is less than eight years old to feel what is called powerless, maybe the opportunity to become stronger is probably from her own incompetence, since then, she began to study hard, in addition to the simple Chinese and mathematics in the classroom, she also ran to the only library in the town every week to hold one book after another with a Xinhua dictionary word by word to learn to understand, and when she was nine years old, she had read half of the more than 10,000 books in the library, never went out to play with her friends, and never followed Jiao's father and mother to be coquettish, All the children thought she was too cold-although they didn't know what it meant to be cold-even Jiao Shuhuan and Jiao Shuyuan felt that it was too boring to stay with her, so they left her out of the house, only Li Yingsheng, who was also ostracized, often came to play with her, and the two of them stayed quietly in the narrow and old library, basically the only little guest here, at that time, Qingbo was in charge of the dilapidated library, and the two of them formed an indissoluble bond.

And in the past two years, the conflict in the Jiao family has become more and more intense, Jiao's father is not a mud pinch, he began to break out when he paid to a certain extent, the entire Jiao family has become a burning battlefield, any friction can cause a huge explosion, they quarrel, they throw things, they accuse each other and resent each other, brothers and sisters complain about each other, father and son turn against each other, and even children pinch each other, if they can't fight, they will smash the pot and door and splash kerosene, threatening to burn each other, Jiao Shuyin numbly looked at everyone's faces like evil ghosts, almost feeling that they are no longer humans, but a group of unknown creatures are snatching limited resources, when they can't grab it, they will kill each other ruthlessly, poverty, disputes, depravity, deception, hatred, almost all entrenched in this small inn...... At that moment, Jiao Shuyin couldn't help but turn around and run out of this suffocating place, ran to the foot of the uninhabited mountain, and bowed down to the mountain, she was begging the heavens, if there was no way to calm this battle, then let her leave this home completely.

That's right, Jiao Shuyin had been disgusted with this family for a long time, and she sometimes felt that death might be more comfortable than living here.

It's a pity that Jiao Shuyin's prayers have failed again and again, and she has become more indifferent again and again, sometimes Jiao's father and Jiao's mother fight after quarreling, she can calmly hold the book and sit aside, if they haven't finished arguing after reading the book, she will take Jiao Shuhuan and Jiao Shuyuan to leave the house to dig something in the mountains to eat, and go back in the dead of night after eating, at that moment, the family may be calm, she looked at the dark night, and suddenly felt that she was no longer afraid of ghosts and gods.

"It's not like I haven't begged for gods and Buddhas," Jiao Shuyin said to Yiling and Hanlu, there was no special expression on his face, and his eyes were full of holes left after the vicissitudes of life, "It's just that I found out later that in fact, in the end, I gritted my teeth and walked alone." ”

Only the endless quarrel was maintained until Jiao Shuyin's first year of high school, because Jiao's grandfather's eldest son died of cancer, this conflict was temporarily stopped, Jiao Shuyin's uncle committed suicide, the reason is that Grandpa Jiao felt that the cancer could not be cured, so there was no need to treat the disease, the uncle of the Jiao family was tormented by the pain, and one drank the pesticide and died, the third and fourth sons of the Jiao family were very cold, so they simply swept away a sum of money, said hello and flew away, and did not come back for several years, nor did they contact the family, and Grandpa Jiao also shouted that let them not come back, the mahogany inn will definitely not have their share, but Jiao's father stayed as the second son to take on the responsibility of the eldest son, Grandpa Jiao and Grandma Jiao still looked at him as a nose and eyes were not eyes, and asked Jiao's father, who ploughed the fields for a living, to pay them how much alimony they paid every month, Jiao's father thought that other younger brothers and sisters refused to give money, so he tightened his belt, sometimes the family really had no money, Jiao's mother gave him money to buy a pack of sanitary napkins, and they had to beat him to solve it.

"I don't even know how my mother survived," Jiao Shuyin's eyes couldn't help but redden, "She always said that she didn't leave for the sake of our three sisters and brothers, but sometimes I can't help but think that maybe she left, and the three of us wouldn't live in such an environment all year round...... It was a relief for her, and it was a relief for us. ”