Three

Under normal circumstances, Zheng Qiming goes home directly to eat after work in the evening, if there is a social meeting outside, it is difficult to say, it may be nine o'clock, ten o'clock, or eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, before he can drag his legs back home tiredly. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

"Aren't you about to retire, why are you still so busy with work?" Qin Yuefang asked him.

"It's because I'm about to retire that I want to do a good job in my own work and leave a better foundation for my successor."

Qin Yuefang knows her husband's way of life and work attitude, she has said to Zheng Qiming several times: "Your temper can't be changed in this life, you are about to become a retired cadre, and you are still so serious, I still have that sentence for you, I only understand, I don't support you." ”

Zheng Qiming said: "Long live understanding! ”

When Zheng Qiming got off work this afternoon, he called back, only saying that he would not go home for dinner in the evening, but he did not say what time he would come back.

Qin Yuefang watched TV for a while, accompanied the protagonist in the TV series, cried when she should cry, laughed when she should laugh, and still didn't see Zheng Qiming's shadow. She left the couch and sat on the balcony, watching the live news on the road between the buildings until all the lights in the living area went out.

The silence all around, the darkness melts away the hustle and bustle of the road, turning the city into a cradle of sleep.

Qin Yuefang looked up at the sky and remembered the sentence "The stars are the jewels of the poor", as long as it is a cloudless night, anyone can casually enjoy the shining points of light embedded in the sky without spending money. In an inconspicuous small mountain village in the land of Qilu, the young secretary of the Youth League branch and the sisters who had worked all day were lying or sitting, talking or laughing on the wheat field of the production team or next to the firewood stacks of the members' homes, retelling the legends of the old generation about the moon and the stories of the stars.

It was a time of hard life and fantasy.

The night in the city is not as dark as in the countryside, but gray. Tonight, Chang'e and Wu Gang didn't know where to hide to fall in love, and there were only a few stars hidden behind the thin clouds in the night sky, dodging and blinking curious eyes, spying on this city that had fallen asleep.

In Beijing in March, everything recovered, and it was still cold at first glance. Qin Yuefang felt cold in her heart, cold on her body, she looked at the east, missed the stars in her hometown, and also missed the night in her hometown.

Whether it's a night in the city or a night in the country, after a few hours of gestation, they will give birth together to give birth to a bright day, allowing people living in different parts of the same hemisphere to start a new day.

Qin Yuefang has lived in Beijing for more than 20 years, but she still yearns for the rural life of spring sowing and autumn harvest, with four distinct seasons, night covering the red sun, and the morning wind blowing down the stars. Living conditions in Beijing are much better than those in the countryside, but she feels that the climate here is not ideal, as spring is crowded out by summer, and autumn is just arrived and then swept away by winter, and the hot time is long, the cold time is also long, and the lukewarm time is short. She is also very uncomfortable with the life of turning on the air conditioner in the summer and having a dry throat in the winter. There is also the cold air of Siberia and the sandstorms of the Outer Mongolian Desert, which is unbearable if you don't say hello, don't bring your passport, and come to harass you when you're happy. In the words of a joke, during holidays and rush hour, only the skin is left when you carry a bunch of bananas up, when you go up and out with a bag of peanuts, only the kernel is left, and when the fat girl goes out and comes out, she becomes a thin beauty. How good it is in my hometown, catch up with the meeting, visit relatives and friends, on the small four-wheeled tractor, pad the bed quilt in winter, spread out the mat in summer, sit if you want to, lie down if you want to, that is called comfort.

A gentle, familiar knock on the door interrupted Qin Yuefang's reverie.

It was Zheng Qiming who went home.

Qin Yuefang hurriedly opened the door for her husband, she first smelled a smell of alcohol, so she asked him with concern: "Did you drink again, how did you come back?" ”

"I drank some wine today, but I didn't drink too much, and several cadres of the team worked very hard, so I invited them to have a meal at a nearby restaurant."

Zheng Qiming is not tall, sturdy and strong, although he does not look lean, but he is not clumsy. He took off his coat, changed into slippers, sat on the sofa, and talked to his wife with a red face.

"Cadres of other organs often eat at the invitation of others, but you, on the contrary, often invite others to eat." Qin Yuefang handed Zheng Qiming a cup of tea and said.

"Now no one is rare to have a meal, and only those who have feelings for you eat your invitation."

Zheng Qiming saw that Qin Yuefang's face was solemn, and she didn't have the cheerful look she used to have, so she took two sips of water and asked her with concern: "I saw downstairs that only the lights in our house were still on, what were you thinking, why didn't you sleep?" ”

Qin Yuefang added some water to her husband's cup, sat down on the sofa, and said in a deep voice: "I feel aggrieved and panicked at home alone, and I am not used to this kind of life of eating and sleeping stupidly. ”

Zheng Qiming took another sip of tea and said with a smile: "I already knew that you would have such a day, when you go to work, you always look forward to weekends and holidays, but when you can really rest at home every day, you are not used to it." Am I right, what new ideas do you have now? ”

"I want to go back to my hometown for a few days!"

Zheng Qiming put the cup on the coffee table and said happily: "I have had this idea for a long time, but I am worried that you don't, because my parents are still alive, and your parents have passed away, I am afraid that you are not willing to return to your hometown now." ”

"Your parents are alive and well, and now they are living with Xiaoli's second uncle, I can bring them tea and water when I go back; My parents are also there, but they are buried in the land of my hometown, and I can go back and add graves to them. Of course, I still like the rural life of working in the fields when the sun comes out and going home at sunset. ”

Zheng Qiming listened to Qin Yuefang's words and said appreciatively: "I can't imagine that you can still say such a level of words from your mouth." ”

"You mean to say that my mouth is only going to hurt people?"

Zheng Qiming hurriedly waved his hand: "I didn't mean that." To tell the truth, I have always felt very guilty about the old people in my family, who have been in the army for so many years, and only go back once in a few years, not to mention honoring them, and I can't even see them a few times, although they have to come to Beijing almost every year, but they often stay for three or five days and leave. Sometimes I think about it, parents can let their own blood when they are really thirsty, and cut their own flesh when they are hungry, but how much can children give their parents in return! I have thought many times that when I can leave work, I will go back to my hometown with you to live with my parents for a period of time, pay off my emotional debts, and do my best for my children. However, my job position is quite special, first, it is not convenient to leave usually, and second, it is not convenient to replace others after leaving. The leader considered that I was about to retire, so I asked me to find a chance to go back to my hometown this year, but I really can't go now, the new driver training is coming to an end, and I will go to the driver training team in a few days to select the drivers who need to be replenished by the agency fleet. The two old people in the family are still in good health, usually taken care of by the second brother's family, I am very relieved, they need more of our spiritual comfort, if you go back to your hometown to live for a while, they will be very happy to be able to talk and chat with the elderly. ”

"Whether it is your parents or my parents, they are both parents of the two of us, and in front of them, we are the same children and have the same responsibilities and obligations." Qin Yuefang said sincerely.

Zheng Qiming nodded gratefully, and then said: "There are two things that have been buried in my heart for many years, and I never want to mention them to others. One is that when I was a child, I had a high fever and fell asleep for two days and two nights, and when I was a little awake, my mother asked me what I wanted to eat, and I said I wanted to eat apples. You know, although apples are produced in our hometown, our village is not suitable for planting apple trees, and I have only seen people in the neighborhood pulling apples on board carts to deliver them to the city. My mother listened to me and went out for most of the day, and when it was almost dark, she wrapped three small apples in her headscarf and ran back from outside, sweating profusely. Later, I learned that because my family had no money to buy apples, my mother ran to the slope of the highway from our commune to the county seat to help someone push a cart, and pushed the cart to find someone to ask for an apple. That time was the first time in my life that I tasted the sweetness of apples, and it was also the first time in my life that I tasted the bitterness of the world. You should now understand why every time the elderly come to Beijing, I have to buy a lot of apples to keep at home. The second thing is that when I was in junior high school in Xialiangwan, one afternoon after the last class, a classmate said to me that there was a person outside the school gate who asked for food and said that he knew you and asked you to go out for a while. I hurried out to see that it was my father, carrying a basket and bareback, waiting for me behind a big tree outside the school gate. He said that I didn't eat well at school, and I often couldn't eat enough, and the sweet potatoes in my own field were ripe, and my mother scavenged a few pieces and asked him to bring them to me. He was afraid that the sweet potatoes would be cold on the road, so he took off his coat and wrapped the sweet potatoes, and carried them to school in his arms. I thought of the words that my classmates mistook him for a child, felt that my self-esteem was hurt, and reprimanded my father who was shivering with cold and said, "Don't come to school like this in the future, it will affect my studies!" My father hurriedly handed me the sweet potatoes, put on his coat, and hurried away with the empty basket like a child who had done something wrong. I held the sweet potato that still had my father's body temperature and looked at his distant back, with mixed feelings, and I couldn't tell what it was like. For many years, I didn't say a word of apology to my father for this incident, but every time I think of it, I feel a deeper sense of guilt for the old man. ”

Zheng Qiming said, bowing his head.

Qin Yuefang's eyes were also red on the side, and she comforted her husband and said, "Don't talk about it, I'll go back and repay your filial piety!" ”