Erquan Yingyue (short story) Zhang Baotong

For those who are rich, the days can be described as rich and leisure; But for the poor, every day is spent in poverty and sorrow. www.biquge.info A Bing is still wandering all day long in the streets and alleys of Wuxi to play the piano and sell art, but with the increase of age and the weakening of his physique, the situation of life is not better year by year. Once, while walking on the street, he was hit by a speeding rickshaw that knocked a person on his back and carried him back to his home, where he couldn't get out of bed for several days. But in order to see a doctor and eat, without waiting for his injury to recover, he forcibly got out of bed and walked the streets and alleys with crutches to earn money. A few days later, while walking in a suburban alley, he stepped on the air and fell into the ditch on the side of the road, not only getting covered with sewage, but also spraining his waist. When a rich person is injured or sick, he always has to spend a lot of money to get the best treatment, but when a person who has no money is injured or sick, he can only hide quietly and lie down for a while in a place where no one cares and no one asks, like a sick puppy. Ah Bing is like this, he has no relatives and no support, no one hurts and no one asks, so he can only lie alone in bed. However, the days of lying alone in the hut were very boring and boring, even very depressing, but more importantly, he had to earn money to make ends meet, so he didn't wait for his back injury to heal, he supported his body and went out with an erhu.

Walking outside, he felt that his eyes were bright, and his mood felt much brighter. He walked towards the dock step by step, holding his stick. However, as soon as I walked to the pier on the street of Qingning, I was startled by the flow of people and panic that had just come to the shore. When you hear it, it's like a crowd of people fleeing disaster or war. Ah Bing couldn't play the piano anymore, so he grabbed the placket of a passerby's shirt and asked, "What's wrong?" The pedestrian said, "The Japanese have entered the city of Nanjing, killing the Chinese with rivers of blood and corpses everywhere." Ah Bing was taken aback, and then asked, "Can't the national army stop it?" The man said, "The Japanese are like the devil, rushing in thousands of people, and the national army can't stop them." I heard that more than 100,000 captured Nationalist soldiers were all taken up by the Japanese and taken to the barren fields in the suburbs and buried alive. Ah Bing said, "Why are the Japanese so evil? The man said, "No, the Japanese are more fierce than the devil and beast, and when they see a woman, they rape them, they cut off the heads of men, they burn houses when they see them, and they rob them when they see food." The people on the other side of Nanjing City ran out, and those who couldn't run were all killed by the Japanese. I heard that the Japanese are going to kill me soon, so run quickly, if you don't run, you will die. So saying, the man hurried away.

As soon as Ah Bing heard this, he didn't have the heart to play the piano anymore, so he stood in the winter sun, listening to the panicked noise of pedestrians and the sound of fleeing, he wanted to hear more news about the Japanese occupation of Nanjing City and the coming of the killing, but the news was scattered and intermittent, not detailed and complete at all. At this time, a newsboy shouted, "Selling newspapers and selling newspapers, the Japanese have washed the city of Nanjing in blood, and hundreds of thousands of compatriots have been slaughtered." Ah Bing immediately shouted to the newsboy, "Sell me a newspaper." The newsboy came over and said, "Uncle Bing, you are illiterate and your eyes can't see, what's the use of selling newspapers?" Ah Bing took the newspaper and asked the newsboy to read it to him, but the newsboy said that he could not read. There was no way, Ah Bing had to take the newspaper and walk back, trying to find a literate person or businessman to help him read it.

When he walked to the middle of the street, he heard Yang Laoqi shouting and walking towards him from a distance. He asked Mr. Yang what was the matter. Yang Laoqi said, "Ah Bing, it's not easy for you to walk through the streets and alleys all day long, and it's time to start a family, so there is a woman to help take care of it." The word home seemed to him as if it didn't exist. His father is a Taoist, and Taoists cannot get married, so Ah Bing is just the illegitimate son of his father and mother. Even this nameless and unrecognized home is extremely short-lived. Since the death of his mother, the family has been in tatters, and since then, his father has also died, and the family has ceased to exist. Therefore, the concept of home is really as unattainable to him as the moon palace in the sky.

He thought that Yang Laoqi was amusing him, so he said seriously, "What time is it, the Japanese are about to call, and you still have the heart to joke." Yang Laoqi said, "What am I kidding you?" I'm talking to me about business. Ah Bing still didn't believe it, and said, "I'm a poor and blind person, and I'm in my forties, how can any woman be willing to follow me?" I'm afraid that the woman is also blind? Yang Laoqi said seriously, "Other women are not deaf or blind, this year is forty years old, she is a serious woman, and she has some relatives with me." Her home is in the suburbs of Nanjing, and after the Japanese occupied Nanjing, they killed people when they saw them, and burned their houses when they saw them, and her family and house were also killed and burned down by the Japanese. Fortunately, she went to her mother's house in another place and escaped a disaster, but now her mother's house is also occupied by the Japanese. She had no choice but to come here to join me. But I'm a single man, I'm in my sixties, and there's a slap-sized place in the house, so why should she always follow me? You are honest and decent, and you are alone, I think it is better to marry her to you, so that I can help you take care of your life. ”

As soon as Ah Bing heard this, he hurriedly shook his head and said, "Such a woman, why do you say that you should also find a good master for others?" Yang Laoqi said, "Now there are people fleeing the famine everywhere, and I am still afraid that I will not be able to escape, who will find a burden for myself?" Besides, there are so many people fleeing now, and there are many women who are younger than her and more handsome than her, and the good master of the family can see a young and beautiful woman and not look for her, and want her to be such an old and decrepit, rustic woman? Ah Bing pondered for a while and said, "I don't know if other women are willing?" Yang Laoqi said, "She is a woman's family, she can escape the swords and guns of the Japanese, it is enough to die, and now the escape has reached this point, as long as there is food and a place to live, it is considered to be satisfied, what else is not happy." When he saw that Ah Bing was silent, he said, "The matter is settled, and I will go and bring people." With that, he walked deeper into the alley.

In the evening, Ah Bing came back from outside as usual, and as soon as he entered the small courtyard, he felt a strong warmth and the tempting aroma of food coming to him, and he wondered if he had not noticed that he had strayed into someone else's courtyard. Yes, this kind of warmth and aroma full of homely atmosphere has been so long ago that his memory is vague and vague. For a single person who lives alone, this warm and wonderful breath of life is always desirable and intoxicating, but it is also out of reach.

At this moment, a soft, kind voice said to him, "I'm back." Then, he took the erhu in his hand with one hand, led him to the house with the other, and sat down at the small table. Then the woman began to serve the food, placed it in front of him, and put a pair of chopsticks in his hand. Although Ah Bing is in his own home, he always feels that he is being hospitably entertained by a woman. The rice exudes a faint aroma, and the dish is a water spinach, a large plate, which seems to have a lot of oil in it, and it is fragrant and refreshing to eat. He felt it was the most delicious meal he had ever had.

(Please pay attention to Zhang Baotong's signed work "Poetic Emotion" documentary, short prose, life essays and short stories, and "Spring in the South of the Yangtze River" is being uploaded.)