Lush grass seedlings need water; Growing teenagers need to learn.

- Europa proverb

Time is like an arrow.

In the struggle game of adult discipline and disobedience, Niu Jianxin gradually grew up. Play is no longer his main task. Because it's time for him to go to school.

Niu Jianxin's body is relatively thin. The school is a few kilometers away from the 15th Company. Niu Wanshan was worried that he would be bullied by others when he arrived at school, and planned to wait until the spring of 1973, when he was eight and a half years old. Who knows, this year, the education reform was introduced, and the time for new students to enter the school was changed from March in the spring to September in the fall. Niu Jianxin was 9 years old when he went to school.

When Niu Jianxin reported to the 15th Company Primary School, he happened to meet Yu Dachuan, who was the principal. After he heard Niu Jianxin's name on the newspaper, he instructed the teacher who registered his name to pause, thought for a while, and said in a consultative tone: "There are too many names like Jianxin among students now, and they don't have their own characteristics. Your sister's name is Niu Mulan, so you should simply call Niu Mulin. You all have a wooden character in the middle of your name. People will know that you are brothers and sisters at a glance. Your sister is a girl, and an orchid is an orchid. You are a boy, and the last word is forest, and I hope you can thrive and become a dense forest. ”

Niu Jianxin felt that what Principal Yu said was very reasonable, so he agreed. He returned home and told Niu Wanshan and Gong Lamei about Yu Dachuan's name change.

Niu Wanshan thought for a moment, nodded and said, "It's okay." Mulin is very close to Mumin, which is in line with the actual situation of our family. It seems that our family and this Teacher Yu are really fateful. ”

Since then, Niu Jianxin has changed his name to Niu Mulin.

Under the guidance of his sister Niu Mulan, Niu Mulin had already learned all the knowledge in the first-grade textbook before going to school. When he arrived at school, he memorized the texts fluently, and his academic performance was naturally at the top of the class, and he also became a member of the study committee.

Sun Bingying, a native of Houma, Shanxi Province, is Niu Mulin's first-grade math teacher. She was wearing a white-washed military civilian uniform, with short black hair that covered her ears, fair skin, good facial features, and elegant posture. At all times, she has a faint smile on her face, which makes people feel very comfortable.

Mr. Sun spoke softly and softly with a Shanxi accent, which was particularly good, and he was unique among the rugged company employees. She has a gentle temperament, speaks and does things in a good way, and has never heard her speak loudly, let alone quarrel with others with a red face.

Mr. Sun's son is called Hou Xiangdong, which means that his heart is towards Mao Zedong. He grew up in his hometown in Shanxi since he was a child, and only returned to Xinjiang when he was of school age, his skin was white and delicate, his clothes were clean and neat, and his whole body was full of foreign air and arrogance that ordinary children did not have. He is in the same class as Niu Mulin and is also good friends.

Because the relationship between Niu Wanshan and Teacher Sun is very good, Niu Mulin is free in front of Teacher Sun, and there is no restraint between ordinary teachers and students.

Every day after school at noon, Niu Mulin followed Hou Xiangdong to their home and competed with him to write homework to see who could write quickly and correctly.

Teacher Sun was cooking for them. After they finished their lunch, Mr. Sun picked up the pen filled with red ink and corrected their homework.

At that time, Niu Mulin's self-esteem was particularly strong, and he did not allow the red eight-pronged mark that was judged to be wrong on his homework book. If he made a mistake and was marked with a red prong, he would hide to the side, quietly dip his saliva with an eraser, wipe off the red prong, and then write the correct answer, and then ask Mr. Sun to mark the red tick correctly.

When Mr. Sun saw the homework book that he had almost erased through, he immediately put away his signature smile: "Hey, don't cheat." ”

In 1974, in order to let their children go to school nearby and no longer run around in the wind and snow, Niu Wanshan and Gong Lamei were transferred to the 15th Company after asking the leaders of the 3rd Battalion for instructions.

In the companies where the Niu family lived successively, except for the early 14 companies where ethnic minorities were concentrated, more than 95% of the other companies were Han workers, and only 4 or 5 were ethnic minorities. There are 3 Hui families and 1 Salar family in the 15th Company.

The other two, the first one said that it was Tibetan two days ago, and then said that it was Han nationality; The man in the second family is an authentic Han Chinese, but his wife has deep eye sockets and a high nose bridge, which is a bit like a foreigner.

At that time, Niu Mulin just felt that the appearance of these two families was different from others, and he was not very neat when he spoke Chinese, and he didn't know what nationality they were.

In Niu Mulin's memory, he was no different from those Han classmates who went to school and played together. It's just that when he wants to go to his classmates' houses to play, his parents will tell him, "You can't eat your classmates' food." Because we are Hui. ”

Niu Wanshan's neighbor, Wang Xueqiang, a native of Shandong, is a skilled craftsman, not only driving a tractor very professionally, but also doing beautiful carpentry work.

At one point, he was doing carpentry work in the open space in front of his dormitory, which was sprinkled with paper-thin, white wood shavings.

Niu Mulin was the same size as Wang Xueqiang's son Wang Qiuming, and ran over to watch Wang Xueqiang do carpentry work. They picked up the white shavings on the ground and used them as paper, and used pencils to draw and write on them.

Wang Xueqiang stopped the manual work, wiped the sweat on his face, and said to Niu Mulin: "Mulin, do you know why you can't eat our family's food?" ”

Niu Mulin replied without hesitation: "Because your family eats pork." ”

Wang Xueqiang smiled and said: "Our family can eat pork, why can't your family eat it?" I recently read a book about the Hui people. Because you believe in Islam. The man who founded Islam was called Muhammad. Pork is not allowed in Islam. ”

As he spoke, Wang Xueqiang wrote the words Islam and Muhammad on a white wooden board with a pencil.

At that time, Niu Mulin was skeptical. He returned home and told his parents what Uncle Wang had said.

Niu Wanshan said: "Father Tyumen is right. ”

This was the first time Niu Mulin had heard of Islam and Muhammad, and it was from a Han elder. At that time, during the 10-year Cultural Revolution, all religious beliefs were classified as feudal superstitions and psychotropic drugs, and worship was not allowed, let alone the dissemination of religious teachings. Not eating pork was retained as an exception for the Hui people. Therefore, Niu Wanshan had no way to teach the children about religion, so he could only ask them not to eat pork.

When he was in the second grade, Niu Mulin heard that Mr. Sun was in charge of running a poster for the school to welcome Children's Day, so he volunteered to say to Mr. Sun: "Mr. Sun, I will write a poem, okay?" ”

Teacher Sun smiled and said, "Of course! ”

In fact, Niu Mulin has never written poetry, and he can't write it at all, and his understanding of poetry is only to read the poems criticizing Lin Biao and Confucius in the "Altay Daily" and "Beitun Daily" and the company's wall newspaper, and he has never even heard of any Tang and Song poems. One of his characteristics is that he dares to think and do.

In the evening, Niu Mulin finished his homework and walked out of the house, wandering alone by the weedy canal, frowning and thinking:

"Sixty-one arrived, sixty-one arrived,

The red soldiers laughed in unison.

……”

What's next? He's a little poor in donkey skills. A few small blooming flowers in the grass under his nose sparked his inspiration:

"Flowers to school,

Let's celebrate Juneteenth. ”

Niu Mulin spread his feet and ran home, jotting down these few lines of poetry in his homework book.

The next day, he came to the teacher's office beaming and solemnly handed his debut novel to Mr. Sun.

Teacher Sun glanced at it quickly, and a smile gradually appeared on the corner of his mouth.

On Children's Day, Niu Mulin was the first to run to the corridor of the classroom to read the poster. He looked up at the poster that stood tall alof. I saw that on the masthead of the upper center of the poster, a few smiling red soldiers with flowers in their hands were drawn with watercolor pens, and the poem "Red Little Soldiers Laughing Together" written by Niu Mulin was distributed below.

Since the composition class does not start until the third grade, this is the first literary work created by Niu Mulin. He was content to read the poster over and over again, and his heart was as sweet as eating fruit candy.

Soon, several Han and Kazakh students from local fishing farms came to the class. These Kazakh students are not fluent in Chinese, and it is difficult to listen to the teacher's lectures in Chinese.

Teachers deliberately slow down their speech to make them as clear as possible and understandable.

A Kazakh student named Ahsan, in order to complete his homework in good quality and quantity, brought milk gnocchi made of fermented milk and flour from home and gave it to his Han table. In exchange, this Han classmate helped him with his homework.

Niu Mulin was very angry when he saw it. He believes that ethnic minorities should be self-reliant and self-reliant, and should not be lazy. Han classmates should not delay others for a few milk lumps. He realized that he was a member of the study committee and had a responsibility to help every student in his class.

He rushed forward, snatched the homework book from the classmate's hand, took Ahsan to a corner of the classroom with a straight face, explained to him how to write his homework seriously, and then stayed by his side until he finished his homework correctly.

During the New Year's holidays, Niu Wanshan and Gong Lamei would take their children to the 14th Company to visit Ma Hairen, Ma Yumin and other fellow villagers. They claim to be relatives, but in fact they do move around each other like relatives.

Once, Ma Yumin proudly told Niu Wanshan: "My younger brother Ma Yuliang is now a famous poet in the country." ”

Niu Wanshan nodded and praised sincerely: "Yuliang is really a powerful person. I saw it when I was in Lanzhou. We also need to train our dolls to become capable people. ”

Ma Yumin's aunt is also from the Dongxiang tribe in Linxia. She is petite and kind-eyed, and is a standard grandmother image. The surrounding Hui and Dongxiang villagers all call her Nana. Nana most likely meant auntie.

Niu Mulin compared her with her grandmother Wang Tianying, preferring this grandmother who is not related to herself, and every time she saw her grandmother, she followed the adults to call her Nana, which made the adults laugh.

Someone quipped: "Mu Lin, the person is our Nana, it should be your grandmother." Why did you call Grandma Nana? ”

Niu Mulin replied solemnly: "I think the name Nana is good. ”

The adults burst into laughter again

Nana is very good to Niu Mulin, and will leave him with anything delicious. Nana has several grandchildren. The eldest grandson is called Nuhai, the second grandson is called Lacey, the third grandson is called Idris, and the only granddaughter is called Minel. These grandchildren are all fair complexion, golden hair, and their eyes are either yellow or gray, and the characteristics of the nation are very obvious.

Niu Mulin has always been puzzled by one thing at home.

Every time the family bought a chicken to be slaughtered, Niu Wanshan always asked Niu Mulin to take the live chicken to a Salar tribe named Han Baode and ask him to help slaughter it. Then, Niu Mulin took the slaughtered chickens home.

Gong Lamei plucks the chicken feathers, disembowels and washes them, chops them into small pieces, and stir-fries them with red and green peppers.

After the chicken was cooked, Niu Wanshan first asked Gong Lamei to serve a bowl of chicken and sent Niu Mulin to Han Baode's home.

At this time, Niu Jianxin was very unhappy: we finally ate a meal of chicken, and we had to give a small half to others. Give it to others, and we don't have enough to eat.

At the beginning, Niu Mulin sent the chicken as it was. Later, he became bolder, and when he was halfway down, he hid behind a pile of firewood and secretly ate a piece of chicken from a bowl.

Niu Mulin finally couldn't help it, and asked Gong Lamei very unhappily: "Mom, why do you want Uncle Han to slaughter chickens every time?" So a little bit of chicken, our family doesn't have enough to eat, and we have to send them a bowl! ”

Gong Lamei gave a piece of chicken in her bowl to Niu Mulin, and then said, "We can only eat the animals that have been slaughtered." Besides, good things can't be eaten by themselves, they must be shared with everyone. ”

Niu Mulin's academic performance has always been very good, and he has been rated as a good student every year. He also took an active part in various activities of the school, participated in the criticism meeting to criticize Lin and Kong, and countered the right-leaning style of overturning the case, boldly stepped onto the podium, and read aloud the criticism notice he wrote aloud in imitation of adults.

Niu Mulin's excellence caught the attention of Su Manli, the best math teacher in the school.

Su Manli and her husband Xu Zhengxin are both young intellectuals in Shanghai. She often said frankly: "Mr. Xu is an authentic Shanghainese. I am from Anhui Province, because I studied high school in Shanghai, and after graduation, I came to the Xinjiang Construction Corps as an intellectual youth. ”

Sometimes, Su Manli met Niu Mulin on the road, and always asked him with interest what books he had read recently, what problems he had in mathematics, and so on.

Niu Mulin answered all her questions one by one.

On the afternoon of September 18, 1976, the 15th Company's radio suddenly heard low and sad music. The announcer announced in an extremely sad tone: "The great leader Chairman Mao Zedong died in Beijing due to ineffective medical treatment. ”

When the workers of the company heard the news, they wept bitterly and deeply cherished the revolutionary achievements of the great man. They wrote affectionately: "If you take the trees of the world as a pen and the sea water of the world as ink, you can't finish writing Chairman Mao's great achievements!" ”

Niu Mulin only knew that Chairman Mao was the red sun in the sky. I never thought that this sun in the hearts of the people would fall. He looked up in horror to see what had happened to the sun in the sky. He was puzzled, now that Chairman Mao has died, why does the sun rise as usual and is so good in the sky?

It didn't take long for the wise leader to unleash the "Gang of Four" and save the Chinese people and the revolutionary cause.

Niu Mulin and his classmates participated in the celebration parade organized by the school. While shouting slogans along with the teacher, he wondered in his heart: The woman with the man's hat and glasses was Chairman Mao's wife. Why did she oppose and murder her husband?

One fine afternoon, he came alone to a field not far from his home. The fields are covered with alfalfa grass with small purple flowers. He lay comfortably on the grass with his arms behind his head, looking up at the sky in distraction.

On the blue sky, large white clouds flowed gently, constantly changing various shapes, slowly drifting into the distance. Another large white cloud came again, and continued to roll and drift.

Unknown insects squeaked beneath the green blades of grass, giving him an inexplicable sense of worry.

A fresh breeze passed by.

The leaves of the alfalfa make a rustling sound, like a hypnotic serenade.

Niu Mulin looked at the blue sky and white clouds in confusion, and couldn't help but ask himself: What is my future like? Where do I belong?