(xi)

The lights of the city are lit up, the pedestrians on the streets have gradually become scarce, and the street lamps on both sides of the road are dim. Zhong Shulin was riding a bicycle, and his wife Li Chunhua was sitting in the back seat. They rarely travel together like this, and her memory of sitting on the back seat of her bicycle is still stuck in the year when she took Xiaoshanzi to the hospital to see a doctor.

Li Chunhua has no education, her body is thin and small, she only worked in the carton factory on the street for three years, and then the carton factory closed down, she never found a suitable job, taking the children to laundry and cooking is all her life, naturally she rarely has the opportunity to go out with Zhong Shulin.

They returned home first, and the three rooms were still quiet, and there was no sign of their son.

The couple walked out the door again and walked endlessly through every road in the city.

The department store was closed, and it was deserted in front of it, and the villain's bookstall had already been closed, leaving behind a few scrap newspapers and four or five broken bricks.

There were a lot of people in the train station, and the people queuing up to get on the train were next to each other, and the people waiting for the train sat crookedly and fell asleep, checking one by one, but there was no trace of their son.

By the small river on the outskirts of the city, the sky was full of stars, and the river was glowing with a pale white light, and nothing could be seen clearly, except for the insects in the grass chirping happily, and occasionally a toad plopping into the water.

The two shouted "Xiaoshanzi" a few times, and the sound came far away, but there was no response.

At this time, Zhong Shulin was already sweating on his back, put the bicycle down by the river, and sat on the ground. Li Chunhua stood next to her and cried profusely, her voice suppressed, just like the night of the candles in the cave room more than twenty years ago. This cry touched the softest part of Zhong Shulin's heart at once, his nose was sore, and tears came down. After a while, Zhong Shulin stood up, helped his wife's shoulder and said, "I'll send you back first, maybe the child will come back in a while, I can't leave someone at home, I'll look for it outside." ”

When they opened the door, their son still did not return, so the husband turned and walked out. Hearing her husband ride a bicycle away, Li Chunhua threw herself on the kang and cried "wow", the voice was miserable, only that year she slept in a family's firewood and straw stack on the way to beg, and when she woke up, she cried bitterly that early in the morning when she found that her mother had died.

Zhong Shulin was like a headless fly, stumbling in the streets and alleys of the city, and when he saw people, he asked if he had seen a twelve- or thirteen-year-old half-year-old, carrying a yellow schoolbag. Later, there were no more pedestrians on the road, so he just walked along the road pushing his bicycle endlessly, hoping that there would be a sleeping child under a big tree in the corner of the wall.

Zhong Shulin's mind was full of Zhong Shan's shadow. When he came back from the orphanage, Zhong Shan always urinated on the kang, changed diapers several times a night, and got up in the middle of the night to flush condensed milk, and for more than a year, the couple hardly slept for a night. Although it is hard work, the husband and wife enjoy it, and like all parents, they are happy that their children are growing day by day.

The son opened his mouth to call his father, and when he came home from work and kicked the door in and out of the door, he was so happy that he picked up his son and rode on the neck stalk, and turned around in the middle of the ground. The son giggled, and the father happily hummed "Blow the little trumpet, tick tick, raise the little gong, the middle of winter"......

His son was in elementary school, and like many fathers, he held his son on the beam of his bicycle, and his son's furry little head was under his nose, which tickled his heart, and something called fatherly love climbed into his heart and spread little by little in his body.

Since Zhong Shan entered the house, he felt that life had begun to have a taste, and he was more energetic, and his family relationship with Chunhua was getting stronger day by day. However, it was a few slaps last night that he beat his son away. He regretted it, regretted his impulsiveness, regretted that he wanted to pull his hair. He shouted over and over again in his heart, "Son come back", he will never move his son's finger again, no matter how anxious, he wants to reason with him, he believes that his son can listen to his reasoning, the comrades in the department all say that he has a level of speech, listening to people's hearts warm, the big truth becomes simple and easy to understand as soon as he explains, he will definitely be able to educate his son well, without force, with only one mouth. But where is my son now?

I don't know how long I walked, the eastern sky has been brightened, the sound of "whooshing" sweeping the road came from the street, Zhong Shulin pushed the bicycle and drooped his head into the courtyard gate, Li Chunhua pushed the door open when she heard the sound, and saw that it was only her husband who came back, and she couldn't help but burst into tears again. Zhong Shulin parked the bicycle and put his hands around his wife's thin shoulders, whose eyes were red and swollen and trembling. His heart was also crying, but in the face of his wife, he had to show strength.

In the morning, Zhong Shulin went to the police station to report the case, but he didn't go to work and returned home. All morning, the couple sat in the house without eating or drinking, weeping and mourning, without speaking, their hearts like boiling oil, listening to the noise outside the house, anxiously waiting for news from their son.

In the evening, there was a knock at the courtyard door, and the couple ran out of the house together. It is Zhong Danian, the eldest brother in the countryside, and the depressed child behind him is the baby son they want to be anxious and heartbroken.