For many days after Jiang Sheng left, I often dreamed of some strange scenes, dreaming that I was in danger, and Jiang Sheng stood by and watched, he called my name, and I called his brother.

Sometimes when I open my eyes at night, I see him sleeping on the bed opposite me and sobbing faintly, I call out to my brother, get up and shake him awake, he turns around, but it is a stranger I have never seen before.

I was afraid that when I saw him again one day, he would change his appearance, which made me inexplicably frightened.

In the past, when I was in Sanlitun, I always liked to chase children younger than me, bullying them to make them cry, but I haven't bullied anyone since Jiang Sheng came.

Jiang Sheng often stood outside a group of children, like a little adult, and after years I learned that children who are sensible too early always have a lot less childhood joy than others, and that kind of innocent time will accompany them for a lifetime and suffer for a lifetime.

One day on the way to school, I stood in front of the farmhouse on the outskirts of Qiantang Town, looked at the pomegranate flowers in May bloom in the farmhouse, looked stunned, and blurted out: "The pomegranate flowers have bloomed." ”

Xiao Wu suddenly cried regardless of others, and he said, "Why am I so familiar with this sentence, why hasn't Jiang Sheng come back yet." ”

That year's grain harvest was much worse than in previous years, inflation had lasted for a year, and the door-to-door life was particularly poor.

During the period when the new grain entered the warehouse, the mother still went out to weave cloaks, fish cages, and bamboo baskets every day, and now everyone in this world can't afford to eat, how many people will use a wad of money to buy these irrelevant things, and my mother has been thinking about whether to quit her job, but I don't know what to do after quitting.

In the first days, he would pick some horse vegetables and shepherd's cabbage near Sanlitun and go home to dry, and then all the villagers in Sanlitun went out to pick horse vegetables and shepherd's cabbage, and a piece of land nearby was dried up in a few days, and some of the newly grown vegetable teeth were gouged out.

There has never been such a scene in the spring of Sanlitun, a green field in the past, now a green piece is bald, every kind of edible wild vegetables have been dug up by the villagers back home, wild vegetables are boiled out with water, put a little salt, and then put in the sun for a few days, you can save it, and it will not be bad for half a year.

At that time, the wild vegetables in the surrounding fields were dug up, so the villagers began to catch fish to eat, the ditch was full of fish and shrimp in the past, and only the children of Sanlitun would catch it, but now the river is dry, and the loaches in the silt do not know how many times they have been turned over by the villagers.

At that time, there were many cicadas in the countryside, and when the young cicadas had not yet crawled out of the ground, the villagers scrambled to dig up the larvae with hoes and shovels to eat, but if the thing was not fried in oil and salted, it tasted like a lump of wood.

Last year's grain in my granary had been eaten at the beginning of the year, my mother was busy with preparation, my father couldn't work, our family didn't have much land, there was not enough food at all, and the rice was bought at the rice shop in the town, and now the price of rice has risen, and the price of rice in the rice shop has been raised very high, even then it will still be sold out, and some shops will refuse to accept paper money at all.

Fortunately, Lao Jiang can receive a bag of rice from the town every month, and the family can barely get by.

At that time, many people in Sanlitun couldn't open the pot at home, but the landlord Zhao Fugui's house was full of granaries, his house was already large, and the courtyard wall was higher than the roof of other people's houses, although Zhao Fugui occasionally sold some grain to the people in the village, but after all, there were still some villagers who were not hungry for a long time, and their eating disorders led to edema.

At that time, edema disease was difficult to cure, mainly relying on food therapy and nourishment, but the cause of the patient's illness was hunger, and every family could not even eat enough, how could there be extra food for others to eat for treatment?

Lao Jiang collected a lot of Chinese herbs for more than a year, and he boiled some herbs for the villagers who suffered from edema to drink, but the villagers' illness dragged on for too long, because of the invasion of external evils, the dampness in the body entered the lungs, the mouth and tongue sores, the whole body was swollen, and he died in a few days.

Shen A-Niang learned that some villagers were suffering from diseases caused by starvation, so she asked Zhao Fugui to open a warehouse and release grain to help the villagers.

How could Zhao Fugui agree to give his things to others, but he has always relied on the smart Shen A-Niang, and finally discussed and decided to lend grain to the villagers first, because this matter is not trivial, food is the basis of everyone's life, so Zhao Fugui asked the villagers not to tell people from other villages.

At that time, except for the two families who did not borrow grain from Zhao Fugui's family, all the other villagers signed and drew a pledge, and each carried a bag of grain home, barely surviving for a few months.

And the two families who did not borrow grain from Zhao Fugui's family, one is our family, and the other is Zhao Shugen's family.

Zhao Shugen's son Zhao Zhuang killed Liu Lanying, the ex-wife of the landlord Zhao Fugui, although Zhao Zhuang deserved to die, but if Zhao Fugui had not insisted on Zhao Zhuang's death, Zhao Zhuang would not have broken the jar and admitted everything he had done.

Therefore, Zhao Shugen still couldn't let go of his heart in the past two years, and he hated Zhao Fugui to the core, and he would not borrow food from Zhao Fugui at all.

Zhao Shugen carried a bamboo basket to a far away place to dig wild vegetables almost every day in those days, and sometimes he could hunt a bird and a weasel or something to satisfy his hunger, so that the grain that barely survived the ground was ripe, and he put it in a pot to cook together with the ears of wheat and rice bran, and finally he could eat a full meal.

After the wheat in the field was ripe, the school had a special holiday to let the students go home to help harvest the wheat, and in those days, Xiao Wu and I also watched the wheat field all day long, and slept under the ox cart at night, with mosquito nets on both sides, and sleeping under it was cooler than sleeping at home.

During the day, the adults go to the fields to cut the wheat, and we children bundle the wheat into bundles in the back, and sometimes when we are really tired, we sit on the ground with saliva and sleep all day.

At that time, almost everyone passed on straw sandals, wearing cloth shoes to eat the soles of the shoes, no one was reluctant, the mother had quit the job of the weaver, and the father could not go down to the field, so he looked at the wheat on the wheat field, and the work of the family was all done by the mother and Lao Jiang.

Sometimes Lao Jiang wants to go to the town for a meeting, and his mother can only be alone.

Once the mother's foot was accidentally cut with a sickle, she washed it with water, bandaged it briefly and continued to work, and the mother's limping appearance was seen by Lao Jiang at dinner, Lao Jiang gave his mother medicine, but because the farm work could not be delayed, so the mother had to work in the field the next day, so the torture went back and forth, and the skin on the mother's leg was rotten, leaving a clearly visible scar.

Xiao Wu once wore straw sandals when he went to work in the field, he was accidentally pierced by wheat stubble, Niu Aihua was so distressed that he had to help Xiao Wu bandage the wound, and then let him watch the field in the wheat field.

The wheat field of the little five family and the wheat field of my family are close together, there is actually no problem with the father, although the father has bad legs, but others do not dare to come to our Sanlitun to steal grain, there are sparrows and poultry to eat the grain when he will also run away in time.

Niu Aihua leaned on Xiao Wu's ear and said secretly: "When you go to the show, pay attention to Jiang Rong's father, don't let this dead cripple steal our wheat." ”

"Mom, I'm hungry." Xiao Wu ignored Niu Aihua's advice and muttered while holding his stomach.

Niu Aihua said: "You watch the scene at home, drink more water when you are hungry, and your mother will give you scrambled eggs to eat at night." ”

"Where do we get our eggs?" Xiao Wu asked.

Niu Aihua said: "You don't have to worry about this. ”

So in the evening, when my mother went to the backyard to pick up eggs as usual, she found that the eggs in the chicken coop were gone, so she asked, "Jiang Rong, why haven't the chickens laid eggs in the past two days?" ”

"How do I know, I'm not a chicken." I said in the yard.

"It's weird, this chicken can lay eggs for four or five years, why is it only two years old?" Mother wondered.

One night it suddenly rained lightly, and every family was busy shoveling the wheat together, and then covering it with snakeskin bags and straw mats, because my father's leg would attack on a rainy day, and the pain was unbearable, so my mother helped my father back home, and before leaving, I was specially told to sleep under the ox cart at night and not to run around.

There are people in every family who sleep in the wheat field, so it is not dangerous for me to sleep alone in the wheat field.

I fanned the banana fan and raised my feet to pedal the ox cart, mosquitoes buzzed in my ears, and I quickly fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, Xiao Wu suddenly ran over, his hand reached through the mosquito net and scratched my ear and shouted: "Jiang Rong, Jiang Rong, wake up." ”

I opened my eyes and saw that it was Xiao Wu, who was sitting next to the mosquito net with his legs open, not even wearing a pair of obscene pants, I snorted and scolded: "You stinky rascal, get out!" ”

Xiao Wu said with an embarrassed face: "Jiang Rong, I'm so hot and itchy, look at the red bumps on my body, I'm about to be eaten by mosquitoes, we don't have mosquito nets at home, you just let me go in and sleep for a while." ”

"If you don't give it, you can't sleep." I said.

Xiao Wu said: "No, Jiang Rong, you just let me lie down for a while, and I'll leave in a while." ”

I hesitated for a moment and said, "Then you go and put on your pants." ”

Xiao Wu said: "My mother took the pants home and washed them. ”

"Shameless." I scolded, turned my back and ignored Xiao Wu.

Xiao Wu opened the mosquito net and got in by himself, he slept next to me, scratching the mosquito bite on his body while yelling, and soon there was no sound.

In the middle of the night, I suddenly woke up and saw Xiao Wusi lying next to me on his back, one arm pressed against my chest, I took Xiao Wu's arm away, Xiao Wu sighed, and then scratched his legs.

Only then did I realize that Xiao Wu's little monk at this time was upright, like a vicious big insect, so I picked up the banana fan and slapped it.

Xiao Wu curled up beside the little monk with his arms, and he said with a slight cry: "Jiang Rong, why are you beating my little cock?" ”

"I, I thought it was going to bite me." I said with some panic.

Xiao Wu wanted to cry without tears, rubbed it in front of me, and said: "It hurts me to death, no wonder Jiang Sheng said that you can't marry in the future, and you will be abolished sooner or later if you sleep with you." ”

After Xiao Wu finished speaking, he covered his hands and turned his back to continue sleeping.

The next morning, Niu Aihua went to the wheat field to call Xiao Wu to eat and smiled from ear to ear, when her mother was walking behind Niu Aihua, Niu Aihua pretended not to see it, and said loudly: "Son, look at your little cock, you must have been happy last night, right?" ”

Xiao Wu woke up, heard Niu Aihua's words, covered his hands, blushed and said: "Mom, I don't want to marry a girl like Jiang Rong as a wife in the future, she beats my little cock in the middle of the night!" ”

"Yo~" Niu Aihua covered her mouth and laughed. "Jiang Rong will play with a little child, just like his mother!"

Niu Aihua said and looked back at her indifferent mother, who glared at Niu Aihua and said, "Niu Aihua, you won't die if you don't say a few words." ”

Niu Aihua snorted, covered the back of Xiao Wu's head and pulled him home.

After Niu Aihua and Xiao Wu left, her mother asked, "Why do you let Xiao Wu sleep next to her?" ”

I said, "There's a mosquito, and he got in on his own." ”

"Didn't I see that you were kind enough to be treated as a donkey's liver and lungs?"

My mother sulked early in the morning and told me to get dressed and go home first, while she stayed in the wheat field to collect the straw mats and blankets under the ox carts.

When I ran to the house, I heard the clucking of the hen in the distance, and knew that the hen had laid eggs, so I didn't come home and ran straight to the back of the yard.

At that time, Niu Aihua was standing in the chicken pen in a panic, and when she saw me suddenly appear, she jumped out with her legs.

I caught up with Niu Aihua, and saw Niu Aihua panicked and stuffed something into Xiao Wu's hand at the door, and asked Xiao Wu to hurry home.

"Mom?" Xiao Wu looked embarrassed.

"Get inside!" Niu Aihua glared at Xiao Wu and said.

I looked at Niu Aihua angrily, and at this time, my mother also came home from behind the tunzi, and I shouted loudly: "Mom, Niu Aihua stole our eggs!" ”