At about two o'clock in the morning on January 13, 2008, my eldest sister saw the seventh sister Yumiao in a dream, and Sister Yumiao said to the eldest sister, I am sick, it is very difficult, and there will be nothing in the future. At 7 o'clock in the morning of the same day, the eldest sister, who was about to have breakfast, received a call from Yumiao's relatives, saying that Yumiao was sick and was being rescued in the People's Hospital. By the time the eldest sister and brother-in-law rushed to the hospital, the doctor had already returned to the sky, and my Yumiao sister had gone west at the age of 42!

(a)

It was very cold that day, and I don't know when it started to get cold. Later, we learned that this cold weather, which had not been seen in decades, began on that day and lasted for more than a month, until I am now writing this article in mid-February, and it has not ended, and the whole country was shocked. In the morning, after receiving a call from my seventh brother-in-law, I hurriedly called my eldest brother in Wuzhou and my younger brother in Beihai, and hurried back from Nanning with my seventh brother-in-law who worked in Nanning.

The four-hour journey felt like a long and long way. On the way, my eldest brother, who arrived at the hospital first, told me on the phone that the situation was very bad! Due to cerebral hemorrhage, because it was not detected in time, there was no spontaneous breathing, and it was basically maintained by a ventilator. At the end, he added another sentence, saying, "It's hard." As soon as I heard this, my tears flowed involuntarily, and I could no longer speak, allowing the tears to flow.

In the ICU ward of the hospital, I finally met Sister Yumiao, whom I hadn't seen for many days, her short, thin body lying on the hospital bed, as if she was asleep. The seventh brother-in-law took her cracked and old hand, helpless. I stepped forward and shouted, "Yumiao! Yumiao! There was no response, and I called her nickname again: Jinshui! Golden water! Still nothing happened, and tears welled up in my eyes.

Doctors from the People's Hospital and the Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine were all called by me to consult her condition. However, in the face of this situation, my friends also had red eyes and shook their heads at me. At this time, I realized that my sister Yumiao, who was so kind to me, was about to leave me forever and leave this world of suffering! It was so sudden that I didn't have any mental preparation, and my heart went numb.

Time to go. We discussed with the seventh brother-in-law and decided to send her back to her hometown for burial. My seventh brother-in-law and my third brother-in-law and I lifted her out of the hospital bed and put her on a narrow trolley. Her long-suffering body was light. For a considerable period of her life, she has been related to the trolley, she used to push bricks with a reverse truck in a brick factory, she used to push raw materials with a reverse truck in a factory, she used to be a cleaner, collected garbage every day in a residential building and transported it away with a trolley, she used to be a cleaner in a kindergarten, a broom, a small cart! The seventh brother-in-law said, Yumiao, I'll go home with you! Let's go home! Along the corridor of the ward, we slowly pushed. The eldest sister was already crying and couldn't stand steadily, and her two nephews were holding her. When we lifted Sister Yu Miao into an ambulance, I couldn't hold back any longer, pulling her messy hair, stroking and slapping her face, tears gushing out, in the cold wind of the empty playground of the hospital, I cried loudly as if there was no one around.

(b)

Sister Yu Miao was born two years before me, and I am two years older than my brother. Therefore, when the three of us were studying, we basically got together in the same time period. Sister Yumiao is in the second year of high school, I am in the third year of junior high school, and my younger brother is in the first year of junior high school, which is very difficult for a rural family to bear, not to mention, by the time I was in the first year of high school, my father gradually lost his ability to work, relying on his weak mother, no matter what, it was impossible to provide three people to study.

Sister Yumiao finished high school and began to work at home at the age of 18. Her former idea of repeating the university entrance examination turned into a dream; Even, it was impossible for her to think of working outside - at that time, almost all the young people in the village had run out to work, and she really wanted to go out! What's more serious is that marrying someone has become an extravagant hope, if she gets married, who will run the family? Therefore, she can only help the family with farm work at home, earn money for her two younger brothers to study, and manage the declining family. In addition to farm work, the village's paper workshop – which had not yet been demolished by the government – was an old profession that specialized in the production of paper money, a superstitious item, and became a place to bury her youth and dreams.

What kind of job is that? It has been described in many of my works, but it is actually very difficult to describe this hard, heavy, mechanical, tedious work, you can imagine it like this: it requires soaking your hands in lime water all day long, even in the middle of winter; It has to carry a weight of almost 50 kilograms every day for eight hours. When Sister Yumiao was in her third year of high school, I once took a year off from school to go home and do such a job, and I was frightened by that kind of hardship, so that I vowed to be admitted to college and stay away from such a life. So, I became the first university student in my village ever. The younger brother was also afraid, he also gritted his teeth and studied, and then went to the police academy and taught himself a junior college, which was in the 80s of the last century.

In this way, those heavy jobs are all up to 18-year-old Sister Yumiao. The immature shoulders gradually became hunched, and her hands became rough. She did this hard work until I graduated from college, which was 1992. At that time, Sister Yu Miao was already 26 years old, and a woman who had not yet married at such an old age was very rare in the countryside.

I thought that my graduation would bring her relief, at least she would not have to pay for my brother and me. And, at that time, I naively thought, maybe, I can find her a job so that she can live in the city like me. In the autumn of 1993, my father fell ill, and when he was dying, he told me that he wanted me to help Sister Yumiao find a job and repay her kindness. I still remember my father's words very clearly, he said, you and Ah Dong (my brother's nickname) have been studying for so many years, she has earned the money, as long as you receive your letter asking for money, the next day, no matter how windy or rainy, she will definitely go to the town to remit money to you - at that time, the transportation was inconvenient, and it took more than two or three hours to walk to the town.

However, until she died, I was never able to help her find a job without a background. There was an opportunity, in 1994, after I worked in the Animal Husbandry Bureau for two years, the county cultural center wanted me, a poor writer, to be transferred, and I put forward my only condition to give Sister Yumiao a contract job. They quickly agreed—the Cultural Center had a big playground in the downtown plaza at the time—and almost everyone older knew about it. However, after I was transferred, individual leaders in the city, despite the opposition of the vast majority of citizens, gave the square of the playground to a businessman surnamed Qin for real estate development free of charge, and built a Tianyuan Building with more than 30 floors, which was said to be the "first floor of Guidong" (later only four floors were built, and it became an unfinished building project)! The playground was demolished, and the contractors were in vain. The damage caused to me by the aborted real estate project has not yet been healed. In one of my articles "33 Rules for Mr. Zhu Zhi", the second sentence is: I heard that Deputy Secretary Liao of the Liuzhou Prefectural Party Committee was sentenced for accepting bribes, and I am not happy! Because he was a ******** with us, and the square was given to others, I cursed him. However, later, through an open campaign, he also became the leader of this unit, and he had a few empty arrangements on hand, but he couldn't solve his sister's work, but he kept having a lot of people who had connections and kept absorbing them.

She has been suffering, and every job she has done is a job that no one wants to do at the bottom of society. While living at the bottom of society. Especially when I was a garbage collector, it was unimaginably hard. In 2004, I wrote an article called "Three Tearful Moments at the Age of 36", which wrote about a chance encounter between me and her, which is now searchable on the Internet. However, despite this, her helpful personality has not changed. My brother and I were separated from each other, and for a long time, my 70-year-old mother was taken care of by her. More than a dozen nephews, with no acquaintances and no relatives, basically used her home as a point of contact. Even, the people in her village, who are studying, will often ask him for help because they have no money for the time being. Hearing the news of her death, all her nephews over the age of 15 wept silently. The eldest sister's third son said that the aunt was like another mother to me.

In fact, she should have gone to Nanning with her husband a long time ago to make a living, after all, with two children, life is very inconvenient. I also thought that if she went to Nanning, I could help her do some small business (which is the only thing I can help her at the moment) and live a plain life. Now the tree wants to be quiet and the wind does not stop, and the younger brother wants to repay but the sister does not wait! However, because her mother-in-law is old, she usually can't even go out to buy vegetables by herself, and she vomits to death after a ten-minute ride, so the trip to Nanning has never been possible. I had to stay at home every day, while working, with two children, and serving my mother-in-law who was unable to take care of herself, and slowly became exhausted.

In the evening, I went to Sister Yumiao's home before her death, on the eighth floor. Knocking on the door, I still fantasized that, as before, it was Sister Yu Miao who opened the door and came out to greet me. However, no. The sister of the seventh brother-in-law shuffled out and opened the door. When I went in, I really didn't have the familiar figure and voice of my sister Yumiao! As soon as his mother-in-law saw me, tears rolled down, and she choked up and said: "Fourth uncle (fourth in line), I can't stand you...... The two nephews sat there quietly, the daughter was 10 years old and the son was 5 years old, maybe they didn't understand their mother's departure very well, and they were at a loss. This is a miserable man, this miserable family! Many thoughts suddenly crossed my mind: if I didn't study, I wouldn't let her do so much heavy farm work; If I fight for it, help my sister find a good job; If she can follow her brother-in-law to Nanning and live together; If...... There are no ifs now! I hugged my little nephew, but he didn't speak, but I couldn't help it, hugged my nephew tightly, and cried loudly.

(c)

The night in the mountain village is very cold, very cold. On the 15th, we, the eldest brother, the younger brother, the third sister, and the eldest sister's third son, the fourth cousin, the eighth cousin, and several relatives, went to the sister's hometown, a small mountain village at the end of the famous scenic spot Jitai Rafting - Jundong Village. In their family's ancestral house, my sister Yumiao lay quietly in a pitch-black coffin. The Taoist priests were doing the Fa, surpassing her soul, and the crisp sound of gongs floated in the cold night sky, extremely desolate. I sat quietly next to the coffin, the cold wind was blowing in the middle of the night, I was cold, Sister Yumiao, are you cold?

There are no more people in the village – the young people have gone to work, and those who are left behind are the old, the weak, the sick and the disabled, and this is the current situation in rural China. A villager in charge of making incense carries a fire cage (a tool for baking fire), wears sandals, and has no socks. The ten-year-old niece, under the guidance of the Taoist priest and under the leadership of her father, walked around holding her mother's spirit card. I asked her, are you cold? She didn't speak, shook her head, and a few tears flowed down her eyes—the first time I've seen her weep since she was born—and this stubborn little girl, no matter how much she scolded her, she wouldn't cry easily. I don't cry, my tears seem to have dried up, in the past few days, I have not shed tears for so many years, how much I have suffered, how many grievances, it seems that all of them have been vented in these two days.

The villagers gathered around the fire, chatting about their daily routines, and their words made people feel as cold as the air: the government ordered that all paper workshops could not produce because of the need to "protect the environment", and the handmade papermaking process that had been passed down for thousands of years was lost. The villagers' main source of livelihood is gone. Not only that, but fat cutting will also be banned, because many pine trees have died inexplicably during this time, and if no one goes out to work in the future, it will be sad to earn money to buy salt (the government strictly prohibits paper workshops, but it does not think of finding a way out for the villagers' bamboo and other raw materials, and does not open up new channels for the villagers to increase their income, on this basis, these officials are very unworthy). Due to the lack of teachers, the village primary schools have also been dismantled, and students from the fourth grade and above have to go to boarding places far away, which has increased the burden on the villagers. In rural areas, many 80-year-old people still have to work! We're sick, and we don't have the money to see a doctor! Why can't you, the officials, see this? Fourth (my nickname), you're a reporter, you have to talk to us!

This is the countryside, and this is the current situation in China. I didn't say anything, what can I say? Over the years, the rush and struggle of life have made me see the strong carnivorous, the hot and cold world, and many people in the world that no one wants to see, or pretend not to see the suffering! At that time, I thought of my mother, an old mother in her 70s, who lived with her brother in Beihai, but we did not tell her about this cruel thing (after all the things were dealt with, we five siblings went to Beihai together, and slowly told her the truth, and she told us in great grief that in those days, her face was so hot that she couldn't sleep). My brother and I sat quietly by Sister Yumiao's coffin, listening to the cold wind howling outside, and the sound of gongs in the silent night, far and wide. I think back to a lot of past events with Sister Yu Miao, bit by bit, her voice and smile, as if it was right in front of me! The thought of this made my heart ache – for the first time, I understood what it felt like to have a heartache.

Sister Yu Miao, in your short and long life, you have been running all your life, working hard all your life, and have never had a moment of peace, only now, you can rest without worry, no work, no sorrow, no pressure of life, and finally lie here quietly! I said to her: Sister Yumiao, I'm really sorry for you! Thinking that I, a "cadre" who studied by her blood and sweat, could not give her any help in her work and life, I, a so-called writer who grew up with the help of my sister, could only write a cold sacrifice for her! The mountain village in the middle of the night was very cold, very cold, but my heart was even colder, looking at the dark coffin, my dear Sister Yu Miao was lying inside, and she was eternally cut off from us forever! Once again, I was sad, tears were streaming down my face, and I couldn't help myself!

(iv)

On the 16th, we followed the winding road and left this small mountain village that made us infinitely sad. Standing halfway up the mountainside, as far as the eye can see, the tall, verdant mountains are rolling and rolling to the horizon. There were bursts of firecrackers under the mountain village, and I knew that after the funeral, my sister Yumiao would be buried in a piece of land in this green mountain! I don't know, under Jiuquan, will she still be so busy, will she still be so hard!

The faint sunlight actually leaked through the clouds, and the thin river at the foot of the mountain loomed in the mist, this river that attracted countless people to come for rafting adventures deeply pierced my eyes and heart. Since it was not rafting season, everything seemed deserted. However, in the near future, there will be countless tourists who will come here and have fun here. Here, I ask those who can see this article of mine, if one day, you also drift through that small village, passing by that rolling green hills, then, please bow to the rolling green hills, or, just look at it, express my infinite thoughts for my sister Yu Miao, and tell her that I will always miss her!

Liu Ruoying said in the article "Uncle Zhang": If I am young, I don't know how to cherish life, and I can't appreciate the urgency of the passage of time, until my relatives no longer take it for granted. That heart-wrenching feeling was my state of mind at that time.

Sister Yumiao, rest in peace!