At half past two in the morning the next day, my eldest brother and I got up quietly, daring to alarm my sister-in-law who was sleeping in the back room, and was ready to go out.

We've never been before, so we had to do it sooner.

Wearing a thick cotton coat, a mask and gloves around my neck, I threw those shovels and hooks into a few noodle bags, and there was no light, so I found a half-old flashlight, wrapped a few steamed buns in cotton cloth and pickle gnocchi, threw them into the basket of the bicycle, and set off.

It was dark outside, so I sat in the back seat of my eldest brother's car, who rode quickly in the cold wind. Big brother didn't talk much, but I still felt at ease with him.

The location of the gangue mountain is very far away, and it is all about to the suburbs.

We walked along the railroad as Aunt Fang told us, and after nearly an hour, we finally saw a high mountain of black stones, the gangue in that place was as high as a five-story building, nearly a thousand meters in range, full of big stones, I don't know how many years it had accumulated.

We arrived early enough, but by the time we were over there, someone was already picking it up.

A few people squatted there with bags and searched carefully among the stones, but they couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman.

Some people moved quickly, swept up the soot on the ground with a broom and threw it into their pockets, and some squatted on the ground and smashed the stones with a little coal with a hammer and put them in their pockets. There were also a few young and strong men standing halfway up the mountain, rudely turning the stones with shovels, bringing up a large patch of gray sand and dust, and the stones that had been turned rolled down were very dangerous.

I saw a stone flying directly over an old lady's flying head, less than ten centimeters away. The old lady didn't care at all, so she glanced at it and continued to pick it up.

The eldest brother took the bag and walked forward: "Qiao'er! You stand for a while, I'll look for it. ”

"I'll go with you!" I quickly followed.

Under our feet and in front of us, the mountains were full of stones, some as big as millstones, some as big as potatoes, most of them were gray-black stones, only some of the stones had a little bit of coal on them, and I found those stones with coal and smashed the coal off and threw them into my pocket.

It was the first time for both of us, and the light of the flashlight was not very good, so we were sorting very slowly. There was nothing to burn, so I used a broom to carefully sweep the coal surface from the cracks in the stone into the shovel.

After looking for a long time, it was dawn, and I swept less than a third of the bags, and all of them were of particularly bad quality, and I watched a big man walk over with two baskets of coal of quite good quality, and we were also very envious.

At this moment, someone shouted: "Get out of the way, overturned!" ”

As soon as he finished speaking, he heard the rumbling of trucks on the top of the mountain, which had brought some new waste stones to unload and throw down the newly found gangue.

The eldest brother hurriedly pulled me to the side.

At the moment when the truck was unloaded, a scene that surprised us happened.

Almost all of them not only did not hide, but all of them rushed up, some of them used their hands and feet, and quickly climbed to the top of the stone mountain, and a whole car of gangue and coal residue on their heads leaped past the heads and feet of these people, and it seemed that there were countless times that someone was going to be stoned to death, but they continued to climb up without blinking their eyes, and they didn't care that the stones rolled down from their side.

The eldest brother was so frightened that he shouted: "Aren't they afraid of death?" I rushed straight up! ”

"Big brother, look!" I grabbed my eldest brother. It turned out that a large chunk of half-coal and half-stone gangue fell from it, which was the size of the small table at home, and the two young men flew over and grabbed it directly.

Their heads and faces were covered in soot, and small stones had all hit their shoulders and thighs, but the two men didn't care. Directly carrying the stone and throwing it aside, a woman dressed in black waited there, lowered her head and smashed the coal down with a hammer and put it into the basket.

The others were the same, just below the cart closest to it, desperately grabbing the stones that had just fallen.

The eldest brother said: "There are good things here, I will also go over and grab them, you wait for me!" He sprang up as fast as he could.

"Big brother, you wait for me!" I struggled to go up, too.

We couldn't snatch the good coals, but we had no problem finding some of the worse ones that could be burned, and in a short time we had a bag full.

At this time, there was a shout from above, and another cart of gangue fell from the sky. My eldest brother and I were standing halfway up the mountain, it was impossible to dodge, and my eldest brother protected me with his clothes, and bent down to avoid the stones like everyone else. Countless flew over, and the coal surface choked my tears, and I couldn't breathe at all. What a sin!

The eldest brother shouted, and I hurriedly grabbed him: "What's the matter, you were hit?" ”

"No, it's not me!" He pointed behind me, and I looked back to see a middle-aged woman crouching there with her forehead covered, a stone on her blood.

At this time, it was estimated that it was her husband's man, and shouted loudly: "Hurry up, what are you doing!" He took a large piece of gangue and threw it in her direction, not even noticing that his wife was injured, and the woman wrapped her scarf around her head indiscriminately, gritted her teeth and stood up and walked over to smash the coal.

I suddenly felt sour, all these people at the bottom were not having a good time.

The eldest brother said, "Let's go, Qiao'er, we have a piece of wood in front of us." ”

My eldest brother and I hurried over, and the eldest brother grabbed a piece of yellow wood about a foot from the coal pile and threw it to me, and I put it in a bag.

As said on the body, in addition to coal, wood, and even wire chains in this gangue pile, these things are those who pick up even if they sleep, and if they find it, they must quickly throw it into their pockets, otherwise they will be snatched away if they hesitate a little. We saw a big lock, but before we could do it, it was snatched away by a middle-aged man.

We stopped talking, and we didn't lift our heads to pick up what was in front of us.

I was picking up a large piece of gangue of good quality when my finger was poked by a man's shovel, but I didn't have time to pay attention to it, and threw the gangue into my pocket, and I didn't even have time to look up at who did it.

Originally, we were all wearing thick ones, but after a while, we felt soaked all over.

I reluctantly packed another bag, and when I walked, I almost fell to my knees, and my hungry heart kept beating.

The eldest brother stood up and said, "Okay, Qiao'er, take a break, I can't do it either." ”

His sweat was running down the river, mixed with soot, and his face was like a ghost's drawing, and I didn't think I looked much better, and we both returned to the car with two bags of coal.

Wiped his hands with the nearby snow, sat on the ground and ate a large amount of pickles.

As I ate it, I heard a creaking sound, and the steamed buns were all covered with black coal noodles.

I wiped my mouth with snow and continued to eat, because I was so hungry that I thought it would be a delicacy to eat something like this. The eldest brother wiped his sweat and said, "Qiao'er, let's pick up another bag and we'll go home, I'll just go by myself, don't move." ”

"No, let's do it together, we can hurry up."

The eldest brother was just about to speak, only to hear another rumbling sound from above, knowing that the car was about to overturn again, and the eldest brother and I couldn't care about eating, so we threw the steamed buns on the ground and ran over quickly.

The law of gangue mountain is to unload four cars in a row in the morning, so after this car is unloaded, the things inside are almost picked up, and people leave one after another. My eldest brother and I were all tired and couldn't speak, we rested for a while, gritted our teeth and carried back four bags of gangue, when I put a bag on the bicycle, the bag suddenly tore and pulled, and it was directly burst, and all the coal hula was scattered on the ground, and one of the coal pieces hit the face of my feet. The eldest brother hurriedly grabbed me: "Don't hurt you!" ”

"It's okay, my shoes are thick, but what about these coals?" I looked at the gangue on the ground and said, "You can't just throw it here." ”

The eldest brother looked around, and there were no tools to hold, so I thought about it and grabbed the headscarf off my head and put it in piece by piece. You can't just let these gangue be left here.