Weekend, Beiping.

Chen Dexin made breakfast and shouted to the back room: "Xiao Jue, Xiao Yan, get up and eat!" ”

"It's coming!" A girl's confused voice came from the bedroom.

Ma Yuzao came downstairs in a long shirt and opened his newspaper box. In addition to the few newspapers to which I usually subscribe, there were two letters, and a thick magazine.

He first looked at the letters carefully, one was written by his old friend Qian Xuantong, and the other was addressed by his daughter Ma Jue.

"How can this be justified, what nonsense!" Ma Yuzao was so angry that he scolded directly.

Judging from the sender's address of the second letter, it was obviously sent from the campus of Peking University. Then this letter is easy to guess, it must be a love letter sent by Peking University students to their daughter.

Ma Yuzao's current nickname is "Peking University Father-in-law", and I don't know how many male students quietly call him like this. Even some teachers at school often use the title of "father-in-law" to joke with Ma Yuzao.

Those little rabbit cubs are annoying enough to mess around at school, and now they dare to send love letters to his house, which makes Ma Yuzao so angry that his lungs are about to explode.

Back in the living room, his wife Chen Dexin had already put breakfast on the table, and the two daughters had also washed up and waited for the meal.

Ma Yuzao still has basic self-cultivation, he will not open his daughter's letters privately, let alone throw them away quietly. He handed the letter over and said, "Xiao Jue, yours." ”

"Oh, thank you, Dad." Ma Jue opened the letter with his hand.

Ma Yan hurriedly came over to see the excitement: "Sister, let me take a look!" ”

Ma Jue unfolded the letter paper and commented while reading: "The writing is not bad, it is a lyrical prose, but it is a pity that it is too rhetorical." ”

Ma Jue has maintained correspondence with Zhou Hexuan and Lu Xun all the year round, and her literary vision is frighteningly high, so she naturally looks down on ordinary articles. Moreover, she is no longer the girl who pursued gorgeous writing back then, and her style of writing was gradually influenced by Zhou Hexuan and Lu Xun.

"It's very well written, this boy is very talented." Ma Yan commented.

Ma Jue smiled: "If you like it, take it." ”

Ma Yan pouted and said, "I don't want your love letters, I have received a lot of them myself." ”

"Ahem," Ma Yuzao coughed, "Eat!" ”

The sisters quickly silenced.

Ma Yuzao drank porridge and ate fried dough sticks while picking up the newspaper and browsing the news.

Ma Jue picked up the magazine on the table and said curiously: "Hey, this magazine is so thick, and the name is also very strange." ”

Ma Yan suddenly pointed to the cover and exclaimed: "Sister, look, there is a guide title on the cover, Mr. Zhou's new work "Black Soil" is officially serialized!" ”

When Ma Jue heard this, he hurriedly turned to the catalog page, and then quickly followed the number of pages and went straight to "Black Soil". I saw that under the title it was written: "This is a story that takes place in the black soil of Northeast China, and the whole story has five parts: Breaking through the Guandong, Russo-Japanese War, Xinhai Fengyun, May Fourth Reform, and 918." ”

Seeing this, Ma Jue thought it was history. As a result, after reading part of the text, she realized that it was a story that happened in the folk.

The magazine "Non-Offensive" is a monthly magazine, and the number of pages in each issue is very thick, because the serialized "Black Soil" alone is as many as 25,000 words.

Ma Jue forgot to eat breakfast, completely immersed himself in the story, and read the more than 20,000 words at the beginning of "Black Soil" in one go, and then his heart was extremely heavy.

Because the tone of the story is too dark, it just begins with the Shandong disaster. The Qing government's very high-profile grain transfer for disaster relief resulted in corruption from the central to local levels, and the disaster relief grain went into the pockets of corrupt officials and businessmen.

Not only that, but the landlords and gentry also united with unscrupulous businessmen to take the opportunity to raise the price of rice, forcing the common people to sell their children, daughters, houses and land. A tragic natural disaster has turned into an even uglier man-made disaster, and the suffering of the people has become a gluttonous feast for corrupt officials, landlords and businessmen.

The hard-earned money of the common people can only buy a little food. The land that our ancestors have worked hard for generations has been seized by the landlords and gentry, and the whole of Shandong has become a hell on earth.

What is even more devastating of Ma Yu's three views is that the low-level people who are victims also expose all kinds of ugliness of human nature.

For example, the Zhong family, as the protagonist, brutally killed the two brothers of the neighbor's Ma family on the way to the east of the country for dozens of copper coins and three catties of millet.

The Zhong family's next gold rush was also full of all kinds of blood and brutality. They were first oppressed by the mine owner and the foreman, and shed bitter blood and tears, but once they had the opportunity to resist, they immediately joined forces with the gold diggers to kill the mine owner. The Zhong family has changed from being exploited to being exploited. And they have become even more brutal than the previous mine owners, often beating and maiming the gold diggers to death.

The content of this serialization ends with the orphan and widow of the Ma family, who was rescued by the leader of the horse bandits and became a wife and adopted son.

"Whew!"

Ma Jue breathed a long sigh of relief, as if he wanted to spit out all the depression in his heart. She is very much looking forward to the next plot, maybe the horse bandits will do the right thing for the heavens and kill the Zhong family to avenge the Ma brothers. Or maybe the surviving young son of the Ma family is the protagonist, and he will become a hero when he grows up.

Fortunately, this story is not all dark, and there are some flashes of humanity. For example, a supporting character chooses to commit suicide after falling ill in order to save rations for his wife and children; Another example is a mining disaster, a worker resolutely sacrificed himself in order to save his friend; There are also a few farmers who have broken into the eastern part of the country to support each other, cultivate land among the poor mountains and bad waters, and become rich little by little.

What Ma Jue saw was the state of the world in the late Qing Dynasty, a picture of the blood and tears of the poor people at the bottom seeking to survive in death.

"Dad, look at this, Mr. Zhou's new work." Ma Jue handed the magazine to his father.

Ma Yuzao took it over and read it carefully, his life experience was far richer than that of his daughter, and he naturally thought more and deeper when he read it. Many storylines are like a sharp knife piercing the heart, after reading the serialized content, Ma Yuzao sighed: "Zhou Mingcheng is going to write a masterpiece." ”

"Black Soil" is not only about the story of three families, but also interspersed with countless historical backgrounds and supporting characters from all walks of life. These events and characters are vividly written, making people feel as if they were in Shandong and Northeast China in the 1850s, as if those stories really happened.

In fact, the stories of the little people written by Zhou Hexuan are all derived from reality. Through various inquiries, inquiries, and records of the exiles in Northeast China, he wrote 200,000 or 300,000 words of various true stories, which were all materials for his creation, and he wrote them with slight changes.

This time it was only serialized for 25,000 words, and the story had not yet fully unfolded, and the Guan family had not had time to appear, which was enough to shock people.

Tears, sweat and blood have watered the black soil under people's feet, staging a drama of joys and sorrows and grievances.