The small steamer sailed unhurriedly in the river. The last quarter moon has not yet risen, and a few half-bright stars have faintly appeared. The gray, snow-covered fields of cottages on both sides slowly receded.

Pailou Village is gradually moving away. Four broken huts by the pond, mothers, brothers and sisters struggling in suffering, fathers sleeping in the bushes of the river, I am deeply attached to you!

He leaned back in his chair with his hands crossed over his head, letting the tears flow silently, and he couldn't wait to cry bitterly!

The sky was bright, and the small steamer was moored at the Haocheng River Wharf. Take the bus to the port of Yuejiang and board the "Jiangshen" ferry to Shanghai. After getting off the boat, he got off the bus and boarded the boat, and thanks to his fellow bearded man who helped carry his luggage, he was given four pumpkin pies for breakfast.

The bearded man asked: You haven't been far away, have you? With so much luggage, you should check it in. You don't understand consignment? It is to hand over the luggage to the dock station, and they will give you a slip, and you will get your luggage at the destination with a slip. He approached Jiang Lesheng and asked quietly: Do you have food in your bag? This thing belongs to the national class of materials, and it is not allowed to be carried, let alone consigned. Don't expose it, you won't be killed by bad guys!

The words made Jiang Lesheng creepy. He nodded gratefully and confessed: Just a little rice, for my sister to eat during confinement, when I arrived in Shanghai, I checked my clothes and books, and this bit of rice was not separated from me.

"Not only do you not leave your body, but you can't go to places with few people!" The bearded man threw the cigarette butt through the crack in the window into the river.

The steamer marched to the foot of Wolf Mountain, and the melodious sound of bells drifted from the clouds, and the scene of climbing the mountain last July is still fresh in my memory. If Guanyin enjoyed his worship, but did not bless him, the sign of "seeing a gold ingot across the river in vain" was fulfilled. Now I have left my homeland and become a fallen person!

As the ship headed down the river in a southeasterly direction, he figured out where to go in Shanghai. It would be nice to catch the boat to Dalian. When he returned to Shanghai, he wanted to see this world-famous city, but he could still walk - he did not have the leisure and elegance of sightseeing, the prosperity and beauty of Shanghai had nothing to do with him, and he had to run to a distant and strange foreign land to find a way to survive. ――What if you can't make it?

Several of my classmates were admitted to universities in Shanghai last year, including Fudan Jiaotong University, East China Political Science and Law. He wanted to go to the university and see what the higher education institutions were like. Even if you take a walk in the quiet campus and sit in the library with a sea of books, you can forget it. But he couldn't go! He was ashamed of himself, and his only remaining self-esteem prevented him from accepting a look of contempt or pity, and perhaps they would not have received this hapless high school classmate.

My friend Huang Xinguan's brother's family lives in Shanghai, and he has the address there. At the end of the college entrance examination last year, Huang Xinguan followed Li Du's example to visit famous mountains and rivers and spent 200 yuan on 100 catties of food stamps funded by his brother. His brother supported him in realizing his dream of being home.

The sky is unpredictable. After the autumn, her brother was imprisoned in Tilanqiao and sentenced to be sent to Qinghai Chumar Farm for labor reform.

Huang Xinguan lost his financial resources, and he was even more worried about his weak brother. Chu Mar had a temporary job, so Huang Xinguan went there to support himself with the income from his labor, while accompanying his brother through a long prison sentence. The letter from the "poet" is still romantic: I have started a new journey of collecting style, and the source of the three rivers is my university.

The only relative in Shanghai is my cousin Qu Yun, who lives in Haichao City, Xiaonanmen, and is said to be very close to the 16th shop.

Jiang Lesheng's uncle took drugs and gambled, and ruined the family business in a few years. Lao Wangfa refused to allow this relative to come to the door, for fear of tarnishing his own door. There are only two acres of land left in my uncle's house, and he collected some grain to make ends meet, and he was divided into middle peasants. Jiang's farm property was killed by Lao Wangfa, and his uncle gloated and scolded him for deserving it, retribution!

After liberation, my uncle had no drugs, no money to gamble, but he was still idle, lazy and lazy. He didn't want to work, shook the bamboo bone black paper fan, and claimed that the poor middle peasants had come to enjoy the life of happiness. He didn't eat for five or nine years, his aunt and cousin ruthlessly separated from him, and the big smoker starved to death.

In the area of Shanghai Shiliupu Wharf, tens of thousands of countrymen from northern Jiangsu gathered before and after liberation, and poured dung buckets to pull rickshaws to do miscellaneous labor for a living, and were called "Jiangbei pigs" by the locals.

Cousin-in-law Zhang Er is a Jiangbei pig. He came to Shanghai at the age of 16 to pull a rickshaw and was blinded by a thug who took the car and didn't pay him. After the liberation, the street took care of him with a disability, arranged to cook in a factory, and became a regular worker in a state-owned enterprise.

Zhang is still single in his twenties and thirties. Maybe there was fate in his previous life, and a flower in his hometown in the countryside was inserted into his pile of cow dung. He married his cousin Qu Yun and loved him very much, and he was not allowed to help others wash clothes when he was embarrassed, he just hoped to give birth to a boy and a girl as soon as possible, and it didn't matter if his household registration fell in the countryside with his cousin, just treat it as if he didn't come to Shanghai.

Jiang Lesheng took out the note with the address of his cousin's house and read it. If you want to leave, you can't live in her house, after all, it's her cousin's uncle.

At noon, the steamer turned right and turned into the Huangpu River. The whistle blew, and the drowsy people in the cabin woke up one after another, and the children who had not been crazy all morning were scurrying around in the cabin. The river swirled backwards, and the waves on the wings fanned out. A flock of gray-and-white seagulls chase the waves and make a groo of cooing.

A middle-aged man with gold teeth pointed to the buildings on the shore and introduced them to the people around him in pidgin Shanghainese: the lighthouse, the Waibaidu Bridge, the Shanghai Building, the customs clock, and the municipal government building, showing off his knowledge. Jiang Lesheng inquired about where to sail the ship to Dalian? The gold-toothed traveler thought for a while and said: Qinhuangdao Road. The ticket is quite tight, don't you know if Nong can buy it?

The 16th shop wharf of the "Jiangshen" came to a halt, and the passengers rushed out of the cabin. The bearded man picked up Jiang Lesheng's luggage and smiled: I'll come, you can give the money, from your hometown.

The sea ship that drove Dalian did dock at the Qinhuangdao Road wharf. Jiang Lesheng ran to the ticket office, wanting to buy a fifth-class ticket for Harbin via Dalian. The conductor said that all the tickets in three days have been sold out, and they will be sold on the 26th at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning.

It's going to take three and a half days! How good is that?

The conductor was a kind old man with reading glasses. Seeing that he was so anxious that he was about to cry, let him register his name and the ticket he wanted, and look at it at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, and sell the refund ticket to him first.

Jiang Lesheng had to take a tricycle to his cousin's house. The coachman asked for the address and said: That place is small, and it is a small place, and it is three cents.

Tricycles navigate through the gaps between pedestrians and vehicles. After a short time, I turned into an alley, and the coachman rang the bell and shouted: Lane 35 No. 7 is coming, No. 7!

The whole alley is in tatters, and it is an old bungalow, with a pigeon-cage-like attic on top of it. The gravel slab ground sewage flows horizontally, and the wires are as dense as spider webs. Cement poles are tied with wires, and quilts, batting, and colorful diapers are dried. There is an open red lacquered toilet in front of the house, like a welcoming doorman.

The glass-inlaid wooden door was pushed open, and a young woman walked out with her hands on her waist behind her and a shy belly, carefully identifying her cousin Qu Yun. I haven't seen it for many years, and my appearance hasn't changed much, but my skin is much fairer. My cousin's eyes widened, and she asked with a puzzled look on her face: Who are you looking for? Jiang Lesheng replied affectionately: Cousin, I am Lesheng!

The cousin was not enthusiastic about his arrival, and was even a little indifferent. At this moment, just after lunch, I should have asked the visitors from afar if they had eaten, even if it was a polite sentence, my cousin did not ask. At this time, he was hungry, and he had only eaten two small pumpkin pies in the morning.

My cousin poured half a glass of warm water and asked bluntly what was the matter with her house? I heard that I was going to the Northeast by boat, and I was busy asking when I bought the ticket? It seems that this is what she cares about the most. In those days, everyone was hungry, and relatives did not show affection for each other.

Knowing that the tickets were not bought and that the tickets were sold for three days, my cousin blushed and complained that he was not reliable for such an adult.

Lesheng said that he had registered on the dock and that he would be given priority to sell him a refund ticket tomorrow. My cousin's attitude improved slightly, and she muttered in a low voice: I'm afraid that I won't be able to leave tomorrow without a refund.

Lesheng wanted to confide in his predicament in order to gain his cousin's tolerance and understanding: he had no way out to go to her—squatting on the dock for fear of losing things, and staying in a hotel cost money and had to prove it, so how could the fleeing people have proof?

At the beginning of the words, my cousin had no intention of listening to his sighs: You are not the only one who can't go to college, and you are not the only one who has a hard time. Don't blame others for bad ingredients, just blame your grandfather for being stubborn. Buying land and wanting to make a fortune is to create evil for children and grandchildren! The old stubborn man goes to the underworld to enjoy happiness, and causes you to suffer in the yang world. What's the solution? Take your time!

The uncle's hatred of the grandfather could not but affect the cousin's attitude.

My cousin didn't even have the least amount of sympathy. Talking about his family's difficulties, he kept talking: a small cottage and a small attic, and the rent accounted for one-third of Zhang Er's salary. Broken houses die of heat in summer and freeze to death in winter; She doesn't earn a job in the countryside, she lives by eating black market grain, and the black market grain gets half of her salary; The child was born in the countryside with a household registration, and he opened his mouth to eat black market grain. Life is inseparable from money, how much money does Zhang Er earn by cooking? The implication is that her life is more difficult than in the country. That expression and tone, how is it like playing with a cousin who hasn't seen each other for a long time? Instead, he applied to the neighborhood committee for relief. Jiang Lesheng is not standing or sitting, and he can't wait to leave!

She went to the alley to call her husband and asked him to buy some cooked vegetables from the canteen and bring them back. Tomorrow, I will take a leave of absence, and send the people away no matter what.

Zhang Er brought home a box of rice and four cooked vegetables: pork head meat, fried hairtail, fried shredded tofu and cold mung bean sprouts. He took out a bottle of liquor from under the bed, bit the lid with his teeth and poured a glass for Lesheng. Seeing that the guests were eating stiffly and didn't drink much, he found a wine glass to fill it for himself, and raised it in front of Le Sheng to invite: Cousin, I have eaten, your cousin is pregnant, I will accompany you. The cousin didn't care about the blame and said: Isn't he an outsider who wants you to accompany him? I know you're hungry at the sight of wine. Today you will eat your own home, and tomorrow you will save the factory, and the whole 'Hong Kong Du' (fool)!

Zhang Er didn't care about his wife's robbery, and after drinking a glass, he filled it up to his cousin and himself, and grinned: How can a man not be hungry for alcohol? I've been buying this wine for half a year, and I only have a chance to open it today. Come on, cousin, I'll make a toast for your cousin. His cousin glared at him viciously, but he pretended not to see it.

Jiang Lesheng had never drunk liquor and had an empty stomach, and his stomach was dizzy after two glasses of wine, so he resolutely refused to pour Zhang Er any more wine. The cousin's eyes revealed regret for the wine and anger for Zhang Er, he was afraid that the couple would do something to grab the wine bottle.

Zhang Er drank to the upside, took advantage of his cousin's visit to the common kitchen to heat the meal, poured himself another cup, and talked more: Cousin, you just eat a lot, don't be embarrassed. I won't tell you that my life is okay. It's good to be a cook, and I don't have to worry about not having enough to eat when others are hungry. There was a happy light in one of his good eyes: The squad leader saw that I was loyal and honest, and sympathized with your cousin's rural household registration, I only charged half price for cooked vegetables, and I didn't even receive food stamps for today's food. Your cousin is going to be confined next month, and the secretary promised to give me a three-pound egg ticket. Cousin, I have summed up my experience, people in the world depend on popularity.

When my cousin heard Zhang Er's words outside the door and inside the door, she was so angry that she scolded him for bragging if she drank two cups of cat urine! snatched the lid of the wine bottle and urged: Which wine do you accompany if the guests don't drink it? Cousin, eat quickly, I'm going to clean up.

Jiang Lesheng was arranged to sleep in the attic where the miscellaneous items were piled up. There was no extra bed at his cousin's house, so he opened his quilt and found two books to use as pillows to lie down. Stimulated by alcohol in the raw place, my head is dizzy and my heart is hot, and I can't sleep. Through the gray window panes, it was dark outside, and several neon lights were shining in the distance. I don't know who had a fierce fight, there was the sound of smashing glass, and the man's Subei accent scolding was mixed with the woman's sharp crying. The whistle came from the river not far away, was the ship anchoring or anchoring into the distance?

The sky was bright, and he was thinking about going to the dock to buy a refund ticket, but he woke up and tiptoed to pack his luggage. Last night, Zhang Er said that he would take a break today and help him go to the dock to get a ticket. He was grateful to his kind-hearted cousin-in-law.

The little alley woke up. The creaking of the door opening, the chaotic footsteps, the sound of the tricycle bell ringing in unison. "Pour the toilet-" "Pour the toilet-" early in the morning, the first thing is to pour the toilet dirt into the big dung truck that collects feces, and then go to the gutter to put water to rinse, the next procedure is to brush: hold a bamboo brush to brush the toilet bowl, brush the counterclockwise brush, brush the bottom of the bucket to brush the bucket gang, the right hand is tired to change the left hand, the black-haired and white-haired women are hunched one by one, the body is rhythmically shaking, and the sound of brushing the toilet comes and goes, which is better than the autumn night textile girl ensemble. After brushing, rinsing and brushing, repeat the cycle many times, and then soak in clean water and let it dry at the door of your home.

There was a sound of talking downstairs, and Jiang Lesheng hurriedly went downstairs. The cousin leaned on the bed with fluffy hair, and it was Zhang Er who was cleaning the toilet outside the door, and he was reluctant to let his pregnant wife suffer. After a night, my cousin's attitude improved significantly: You are not familiar with life, I asked Zhang Er to accompany you to buy a ticket and send it to the boat. If you don't refund the ticket, you can buy a ticket for sale, it doesn't matter if you stay for two days, you don't know what Chenguang will come next time. Lesheng guessed that she had been enlightened by her husband. Zhang Er has been in the city for a long time, and he is not as selfish and stingy as his cousin.

After breakfast, Jiang Lesheng thanked his cousin and ran to the Qinhuangdao Road wharf with Zhang Er by trolleybus. The conductor wearing reading glasses said happily when he saw him: Little brother, Nong is lucky, there is just a refund ticket to Harbin today, fourth class, help Nong keep it! Jiang Lesheng hurriedly asked how much it was? The conductor said that it was sixteen yuan and eight, which was only four yuan more expensive than the fifth-class cabin, and there were also bedding. Buy it now, and wait three days for the ticket sale! He hurriedly paid for it.

If you have a ticket, you can check in your luggage. The beard was right, food was not allowed to be consigned, he checked books and clothes together, and brought rice and erhu boxes with him, so it was much easier to get on and off the car.

There were still six hours to go from the ship, and Zhang Er insisted on leading him to visit a few prosperous areas. The two of them took a trackless ride to the Bund first, then went to Nanjing Road to turn around, and finally came to the tallest building, the International Hotel, and took the elevator to the top floor.

In the mist, a bird's-eye view of the jungle of buildings divided into squares by the road, the traffic lights at the intersection change colors, the colorful cars stop and go, and the pedestrians squirm like busy ants, everything is like being in a dream.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, the bell echoed over the Huangpu River. The giant ship "Changhe" lifted anchor and slowly sailed away from the dock. The stern turbine stirred the river like a pot of boiling muddy soup. Jiang Lesheng stood on the deck on the second floor and waved his hands to say goodbye to his cousin-in-law in the crowd of send-offs.