Winter 1999, Huibei City.

According to the weather forecast, a cold wave will hit Siberia, when the temperature will drop by 5 to 10 degrees, reaching between minus 30 and 40 degrees.

What is even more chilling than this is that this year's corn purchase price has dropped to four cents and two pounds, which is five cents less than the four cents and seven cents that people budgeted, which may sound very little, but for farmers who face the loess and turn their backs to the sky, it means that after removing a series of expenses for seeds and fertilizers, this year is very difficult.

Today is snowing again, and there is a smell of thousands of miles of frozen snow.

Liu Feiyang sat on the threshold, holding an inferior dry cigarette roll in his hand, looking at the goose feather snow outside the door, on the left side of his perspective is a fence of corn, which must be about 10,000 catties, if it is placed in an ordinary year, he can say that it is a bumper harvest year.

The corn was covered with a thick layer of snow, like a blanket on it.

He took a hard puff of cigarette and coughed twice.

I thought that tomorrow would be the thirtieth day of the Chinese New Year's Eve, and what should I do with only a pitiful few dollars in my pocket. In the past, corn has long been exchanged for cash, but this year are waiting for the price to rise, dragging and dragging, and has not risen but has been falling, and now there are no corn dealers, after the snow will increase the moisture of corn, and the price will fall.

He took another puff of his cigarette, and there was already a fire in front of the cigarette butt, and he spat out the smoke and blew it out.

At the age of 19, he was an old smoker, and since the day his parents had a car accident at the age of 16, he has learned to pick up a cigarette and let nicotine stimulate his lungs.

The family has been farmers for generations, and there is no ancestral property, and the only thing left by the parents is these two bungalows and six acres of land.

In front of the door, there are residents who have just returned from the market, all carrying bags, which are essential materials for the New Year, and people's faces are filled with the joy of the New Year, and buying fish and meat is a reward.

He threw away the cigarette butt in his hand, stood up, and turned his head to shout into the room.

"Second child, go, go up the mountain with pliers..."

"What are you doing!" the second child asked, lying on the kang and snorting.

The second child's real name is Zhao Zhigao, is the second child in the family, his parents and his sister were killed in a car accident with Liu Feiyang's parents, seeing him pitiful, he called him to come over and live together, the two have depended on each other for more than three years, and their lives are not happy, at least they can eat well.

"Tomorrow for the New Year, look at the river to catch some fish, the mountain is picking pheasants, we can't be light, open some meat!" Liu Feiyang came in, put on a military coat, and then put on a dogskin hat, and the whole person was bloated.

"What are you doing with that crime during the Chinese New Year, I have money, I'll buy meat for 200 later!" the second child sat up from the kang, but did not get off the ground, and snorted again as he spoke.

"If you have money in your pocket, do you know how to spend it, do you hold it when you don't have money? Money is emergency, you can't use it until you starve to death, hurry down to the ground and get dressed, I'll go get tongs and wait for you..."

Don't look at the difference between the two of them is only two years old, but the difference in maturity in their hearts is not a star and a half, they have to support their families at a young age, and now they talk like a parent.

The parents of the second child were originally factory workers, and the money in his pocket was made up by the workers who saw him pitiful, and he has not moved all these years, and the family house has also been scratched by his aunts and uncles, and he was symbolically given a little.

The driver who caused the accident fled, and Liu Feiyang, whose parents were farmers, did not get any money, so he could only rely on his hands and feet to work hard.

The second child obeyed Liu Feiyang's words, changed into a coat, and walked out with a dogskin hat.

The two deliberately didn't take the big road, they walked the corners of the road, they were not very old, and their self-esteem was very strong, he didn't want people to see that he had lived his home like this, and he had to go up the mountain for the New Year.

The northwest wind hit the face like a knife, blowing so that people's eyes could not open, and even if the urine bubbled on the ground, it would instantly freeze into ice cubes.

Liu Feiyang walked in front, and the second child followed, each carrying a handful of iron tongs made of large steel bars, which was more than 20 catties.

At the beginning, the road was better, the snow was only calf deep, and it was no longer above the knee near the foot of the mountain, and the two could only move forward with difficulty, and the second child took a step and snorted, and did not complain, leaving a long series of footprints behind him.

After half an hour, we finally reached the top of the river.

The river is not big, the widest in summer is only three or four meters, and in winter it is only about two meters, and the depth is less than one meter.

The fish in the river are called "white fish tickets" in the local population, which are five to six centimeters long and fragrant when fried.

"Okay, just here, I'll open it first, and then you can go up when the pit is dug..."Liu Feiyang said, took off his military coat and threw it into the snow next to him.

It takes effort to wear this amplitude of influence.

"Okay... You give me a cigarette to refresh yourself," the second child sat on the ground.

"What kind of cigarette is the little kid smoking, stop staying!"

Liu Feiyang cleared the snow from the river and cleared a vacant land of about two square meters, the river water was very light, and he could see the water flowing under the ice, and he could vaguely see the "white fish ticket" He said to do it, and raised the iron tongs with both hands and smashed it the ice.

"Click..."There was a crisp sound on the surface of the ice, and the knocked down ice splattered in all directions.

It had been freezing here all winter, and a single piece of ice was no less harder than iron, and he had knocked it down less than a centimeter with a single blow just now.

The thickness of the ice here is at least 50 centimeters, and if it is hammered to the conditions for fishing, it must be at least 30 centimeters square, which is a huge project that cannot be completed in two or three hours.

"Look up the hill more, don't let the pheasant pass in front of you, you're quite big and can't see the eyeballs" He just smashed a few times, his arm was already numb from the shock, this kind of pure hard-hitting technique can be regarded as manual work.

"Yesterday I went to the west of the village, and told people that I could go to the construction site in the spring of next year, I will take you to work, we will start by moving bricks, and learn more from the bricklayer when we are idle, I estimate that it will take less than three months for us to be apprentices, and the salary will be half of the regular work, I calculate, the money earned in a year can be used to repair the grave for our parents."

After he finished speaking, he straightened his waist and slowed down, raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, people often say that people who live by the sea are open-minded, but he thinks that he is not bad here, looking at the white and boundless between the world and the world, there will be a sense of pride.

It's a desire to conquer, to cross the snowy fields and see what's on the other side.

Suddenly, a dark shadow flashed in the afterglow.

"Pheasant!"

"Whoosh..."

The second child is fast-legged, and when he heard the words, he bounced up and chased after the pheasant.

Pheasants are similar to ostriches, they don't fly very high, they don't fly far, if they are chased all the time, they will fly until they have no strength, and then they will plunge into the snow, they are not aggressive, they can reach out and pick them up.

Liu Feiyang kept looking over there, he knew that no pheasant could escape from this "mad dog", and smiled with satisfaction.

Retracting his gaze, he took out the tin box from his pocket, which was full of dry tobacco, and took out one and put it in his mouth.

"Zira...", striking a match and lighting a cigarette.

The hands were raised in the air again.