Xu Yaoda has been living with his sister since he can remember.

In the second year of his life, while digging a reservoir in the town, his father fell from the embankment and died. Due to the background of the times, the matter was ended with a symbolic loss of some food stamps.

His mother fell ill and died when he was four years old.

At the end of the 70s, a thirteen-year-old girl with her five-year-old brother struggled to make a living from God's teeth.

From the age of thirteen, my sister would follow the adults in the town to work in the fields, and she would send her younger brother to her uncle's house next door.

After the death of his parents, there were not many relatives who were unwilling to help take care of the two oil bottles, Xu Ru did not blame them, after all, it was not easy for anyone, and it was really a fatal thing to open more mouths to eat.

Only the uncle's family would occasionally help them.

In fact, it is said that it is an uncle, but it is only a little related to many generations ago.

Retrospectively, the people surnamed Xu in Xujiazhen have pushed forward a few generations, and many of them can have some kinship.

The uncle's family has a son and a daughter, the daughter is named Xu Lan, and the son is called Xu Guang.

Xu Lan and Xu Ru are of the same age, only two years apart, and the two are good playmates.

However, fate set the two girls on very different paths. Eleven-year-old Xu Lan is still in elementary school, and thirteen-year-old Xu Ru has already gone up to the mountains to chop firewood and go to the fields to farm.

In a barren and backward town, there are many girls like her who work in the fields, but there are no girls who work hard like her.

The next year, Xu Ru's body and bones were badly empty, and she had a serious illness and almost didn't survive.

Some relatives who ignored the sister and brother couldn't stand it, and persuaded Xu Ru to give his younger brother away. Boys are popular in any era, and there will always be people who want it.

Alone, no matter how hard you work, you can live a peaceful life.

But Xu Ru didn't agree and scolded her relatives away. said that even if he died, he would not send his younger brother away, otherwise what kind of face would he have to meet his parents underground?

It is said that the eldest sister is like a mother, and she is not bad at all.

In this era of poverty, the siblings depended on each other.

Knowledge can change destiny, and knowledge can create wealth.

Reading is the only way out.

Xu Ru dropped out of primary school after finishing school, and it was normal in that era.

His younger brother Xu Yao is a seed of reading and is very smart, and no one can read him in the primary school built of three tiled houses in the town.

So she hopes that her younger brother will have a future and can change his fate, and the biggest desire of the poor and crazy is to change his fate.

When Xu Yao was thirteen years old, he had no money to go to junior high school, so Xu Ru asked the people in the town to borrow money, and knocked them out one by one.

It was raining lightly that day, Xu Ru knelt in front of her cousin's house, the door was closed, and she couldn't ask for tuition.

She kowtowed, one after another, when Xu Yao stood beside her, looking at her sister's pants covered with rain and sludge, and said with a stalk around her neck: "Sister, I don't read anymore, it's a big deal to farm." ”

It's so tired, really tired.

He didn't want to be a burden to his sister all the time, and he didn't want to continue studying, when the college entrance examination system had just been restored, and the theory of the uselessness of reading was popular everywhere.

The terrible theory of the uselessness of reading has been circulating for half a century.

Xu Yao didn't want to waste time in class, he wanted to be like Xu Guang, fishing for three days and drying nets for two days, but Xu Guang skipped class and went out to play, and he wanted to go to the field to help his sister farm.

But Xu Ru slapped his younger brother hard and said sharply: "If you don't study, what is your way out, how can you change your fate if you don't study, if you don't study, you will be muddy all your life." ”

People with a bit of knowledge and culture have seen a lot of reckless rise, but instead promote the uselessness of reading.

People who have no culture, but always keep in mind that reading changes their fate, I have to say that it is a kind of irony.

"That..... How much do you owe for Ah Rong's tuition?"

A gentle voice came from the rain, and Xu Lan stood not far away with an umbrella.

"I only have a piece of five cents here, and I saved five cents, and I asked for one dollar from Ah Guang. Xu Lan said: "No more, there really isn't." ”

Xu Yao studied in the best junior high school in the county, and the tuition and miscellaneous fees added up to eight yuan.

Xu Yao can imagine Xu Guang's aggrieved and resentful face when his sister robbed him of his savings.

Xu Yao didn't go to pick up the money, but stared at Xu Lan, "Xiaolan, when are you leaving." ”

Xu Lan approached, held an umbrella with her right hand, knocked Xu Yao's head with her left hand, and said angrily: "You want to call Sister Lan, little fart child." ”

"I'll leave tomorrow, my dad was transferred to Shanghai, where there is an assigned house, and the family will go together. She said.

Xu Lan, who has just grown into a girl, is delicate and beautiful, with a slender figure, and a pair of dark eyes that are particularly outstanding.

Xu Yao said abruptly: "Haven't you come back yet?"

"I don't know. Xu Lan squinted and smiled: "Shanghai is too far away from Xujia Town, and it may take many years before I come back." ”

He was a head shorter than Xu Lan, and he looked away from that delicate face, only to feel that his heart was empty.

When he was a teenager, Xu Yao always liked Xu Lan, who was much older than him, liked to pretend to be deep in front of her, chanted a few poems with big hair, and looked like a poet with melancholy and vicissitudes, in fact, the corner of his eye was peeking at her reaction, eager to see worship and appreciation from her face.

He pretended to be an adult, and learned from his sister to call her Xiaolan, just to ignore the age gap between the two parties, and wanted to tell himself that this was nothing.

I longed to meet a lilac-like, grumpy girl, who was alone with an oil-paper umbrella, wandering in the lonely rainy alley.......

Xu Yao's poem came to mind.

Xu Lan is the girl he longs for, a lilac-like girl.

But just like the lilac girl in the poem, she gradually drifted away, and finally only a back remained.

On the day Xu Lan left, Xu Yao stood outside Xujia Town, watching their family take a tricycle to the county seat, and suddenly wanted to smoke.

After many years, there was no meeting, no contact, and when we met again, the original lilac girl was already married to a wife.

......

Xu Yao squatted in front of his sister's grave, smoking cigarette after cigarette, talking about his past, with no expression on his face, no sighs, no emotion, only regret, deep regret.

Qin Zexin said, Nima, it turns out that you love my mother so deeply.

My mom is Lilac, so what is me and my sister.

My sister is a rose, and I am a dog's tail grass?

When the uncle heard that someone coveted his sister, he looked calm, obviously knowing it a long time ago.

My uncle has a really big heart, and if anyone dares to covet my sister, I will definitely let him know how to write the four words "The Power of the Wilderness."

"And what happened later?" Qin Ze asked.

"Later, it was my sister who knelt in front of my cousin's house for the night and forced herself to gather the rest of the money. When I was also seriously ill, I also went to school as I wished. As my grades got better and better, I was admitted to high school, and the tuition fees became more expensive, and my sister thought that she would not be able to afford me to study if she continued to farm. She took me out of Xujia Town and went to the county seat to work, sweeping the floor, washing dishes, washing clothes, doing coolies, and doing all kinds of work. It wasn't until my junior year of high school that she suddenly got pregnant and had you. ”

This is inexplicable, and I came out?

Qin Ze asked, "Who has she come into contact with, and what has she encountered?"

Xu Yao smiled bitterly: "How do I know, I know that I will die to study, and she only wants me to die studying." For so many years, she has never married, and she has never even had a partner. Farming to raise me, working to support me, she has been paying for me and always eager for me to be successful. You say that such a person, how can he suddenly get pregnant? ”

"Be careful. Qin Ze frowned.

He had a lot of doubts in his heart, a woman can't go from falling in love to giving birth without warning, unless she was raped.

In that case, Aunt Xu has no need to hide it, even if she is ashamed to export it, but at least she will not hide it from her only brother.

Besides, why was I given away.

Well, combined with the social background at that time, it is not incomprehensible to give away illegitimate children.

The old man wrote in his diary that his mother fled back to Xujia Town to avoid the poisonous hands of the Family Planning Office in order to give birth to "me".

Where did that "me" go?

There is no need to doubt the authenticity of "me", he must exist, otherwise the old man would not have recorded it in his diary.

Xu Yao's attitude towards him is also very strange, and the self-blame, remorse, and guilt he shows far exceed the emotions that an uncle should have.

He is my uncle, and those who don't know think he is my son.

This point can't be explained at all, even if Xu Yao and Aunt Xu depend on each other and have a deep relationship, he hates that man at most, and maybe hates the house and the house hates me.

Finally, there is another question, why did my mother prevent him from looking at me, just because she didn't want to be disturbed in her quiet life?

I'm not a child, I'm a thoughtful and rational adult, and I won't easily collapse because of this kind of thing.

Maybe I'm happy to take my sister's hand and walk into the Civil Affairs Bureau.

There are too many things that Xu Yao hasn't said yet.

Xu Yao lit a cigarette and looked at his sister's tombstone: "Actually, I have a point in my heart, I have been thinking about it for so many years, I have been thinking about it, I always feel that I should have seen that man, it was in the nineties." ”

That year......