The middle of April in the lunar calendar is the best time of the year for the original and uncharted plains. The warm weather makes people feel soft all over the body. The smell of the wheat that grows and grows resembles the taste. The colorful flowers of the poppy are reminiscent of the beauty of the cauliflower snake......

Bai Xiaowen and his wife returned to the original and finally made the trip, and the two of them each took a horse and were led by two regiments. Bai Xiaowen wears a robe and a top hat, with an elegant and benevolent demeanor. The wife wore clothes and pants with a good texture and a plain color, which made her look more gentle and elegant. Half a mile away from the village, Xiaowen and his wife got off the horse one after another, and then walked into the village, walked through the village alley, and walked to the bottom of their own gatehouse, and their hearts naturally welled up with the sigh of "I am back". The younger brother Xiaowu happened to greet the door, clasped his fists and said, "Brother, you're back!" Bai Xiaowen got the opportunity to pour out the sigh in his heart: "I'm back!" When he entered the Ming Hall of the upper room, his father did not use crutches, bent over and raised his head to wait for his arrival, Bai Xiaowen called "Dad" and knelt down to his father's knees, and his wife immediately knelt down and kowtowed. Bai Jiaxuan picked up Xiaowen and sat down on the chair. Bai Xiaowen led his wife to bow to his mother-in-law Bai Zhao, and then led his wife to meet and recognize his two younger brothers and two brothers-in-law. Bai Zhao pushed the two great-grandsons to Xiaowen: "This is your father." The child shrank back shyly. When Bai Xiaowen reached out to stroke the child's head, the two babies ran behind Bai Zhao and hid. Bai Jiaxuan said to Xiaowu: "Bring the food, let's have a reunion dinner today." As soon as he finished speaking, he remembered another thing: "Xiaowen, you take the people in your house and go to worship your third uncle." ”

The ceremony of paying homage to the ancestors is scheduled after lunch. Because of the orderliness of the elders and young, Bai Xiaowu could not preside over this ceremony, but only did specific affairs, and Bai Jiaxuan came to the ancestral hall to preside over it. As soon as the adult men and women surnamed Bailu heard the sound of the gong, they rushed into the ancestral hall early to see the demeanor of the prodigal son who turned back, and the inconvenient interest was even more in his bride. Bai Xiaowen led his wife into the gate of the ancestral hall accompanied by Xiaowu's guidance, and saw the thickened locust tree, and the scene of him presiding over the punishment of Xiao'e and his younger brother presiding over the punishment of himself suddenly appeared in his mind. He felt a tremble in his heart, and then he looked away, walked straight across the courtyard, stepped up the steps, and stood in front of the sacrificial table where the ancestors of the White Deer Clan and the ancestors of the Hundred Deer Clan were worshipped. Bai Xiaowu lit two red wooden candles filled with clear oil, and then stepped aside. Bai Jiaxuan stood in front of the sacrificial table with his waist bent, and made a loud voice like a bell ringing in front of everyone: "The ancestors are generous and kind. The unfilial man Bai Xiaowen returned to his hometown to worship his ancestors, and his ancestors were tolerant. Incense-" Bai Xiaowen took out five purple incense sticks from the incense tube and lit them on the candle, put his hands into the incense burner, took a step back and stood in a row with his wife, bowed down after a long bow, and his wife also bowed three turns. Bai Jiaxuan recited the next ceremony: "Worship the Township Party-" Bai Xiaowen and his wife turned around and faced the black and oppressive male and female villagers inside and outside the ancestral hall, clasped their fists, and the township party also returned the favor.

Another important activity after ancestor worship is to go to the grave, which is still accompanied by filial piety. Xiaoyi carried a bamboo cage filled with yin paper and yin coins and accompanied his eldest brother to the ancestral tomb to pay respects. The three brothers stood in front of their mother's grave closest to them, Bai Xiaowen called "Mom", and fell to the grave, and only then did he move his true feelings. He wept heartily and returned home with dry tear stains in his nose before he felt the hard next door between himself and the family begin to dismantle. His mother's weaving machine and his father's old chair, his grandmother's twine-twisting twine and stacks of coarse porcelain yellow bowls, the spider webs hanging from the wooden beams of the old house, and the smell of the old house all revived the distant memories that he had hidden in his heart. Especially the taste of the noodles at noon, which can not be made by any famous chef, only a large iron pot with wheat straw and cotton stalks can cook this taste. Bai Xiaowen soberly found that these resurrected feelings can only arouse nostalgic interest, but he doesn't want to receive them at all, just like a rooster with a red crown and a bloody tail discovering the eggshell that once nursed him, but he can no longer curl up in it again to experience all the beauty of the eggshell, it still prefers to jump on the wall and jump on the top of the firewood stack to lead the neck and sing. Bai Xiaowen asked his wife to distribute the gifts she brought back to everyone, including a large bag of various famous points. For his father, he gave him an authentic Lanzhou hookah, for his mother-in-law a Ningxia leather jacket, for his two younger brothers and sister-in-law, and for Lu San, he gave him a handful of Sichuan Shifang cigarettes. But he went to Bailucang alone to visit Tian Fuxian. Tian Fuxian sent someone to send an invitation shortly after he entered the house. Bai Xiaowen's visit to Bailucang was purely courtesy, and he left after walking away. Tian Fuxian had already ordered a meal at a restaurant in the town, but Bai Xiaowen still refused, and he had to return to the county security regiment after dark. He was afraid that Tian Fuxian would be suspicious, so he said very happily: "Mr. Tian, whenever you come to the county seat, I will pick you up as soon as you say hello, and I will invite you." Bai Xiaowen also wanted to pay a visit to Lu Zilin, who introduced him to the security group. Lu Zilin was not at home, so he asked his younger brother Xiaowu to give him a handful of Shifang cigarettes.

The last thing to deal with is the house. Hyo-moon said to his father, "I'm busy, I want to build the gatehouse." Bai Jiaxuan said: "Xiaowu has already prepared the wood. If you want to build a house, set up another courtyard. Three brothers squeezing into a gatehouse will not be successful after all!" Bai Xiaowen said open-mindedly: "This gatehouse is still built by me. "The gatehouse was sold by him and demolished by Lu Zilin, and then built by him means that he wants to wash away his shame and glory. He explained: "Build this house up and settle it down." I don't want it. If I want to build on the plain, I will build another house. Bai Jiaxuan said: "I understand your intentions. It doesn't matter who is whom, you and your brothers and you build up the gatehouse, and the yard will be complete. Bai Xiaowen said: "It's okay." ”

Thanking his mother-in-law and sister-in-law for their sincere retention, Bai Xiaowen and his wife set off for the county seat at the same time, and he insisted on refusing to see off his father on crutches, and Bai Jiaxuan stopped in the streets and alleys in front of the gatehouse. Bai Xiaowen still insisted on walking a long way out of the village before breaking up with his younger brothers who saw him off. He walked silently for a while and then turned around, and saw a tall tower erected on the cliff slope at the east end of the village, and there was the sound of a moth flapping its wings in his ears, and the memory in that cave was as silent as the memory of demolishing houses and selling land, and it was a bit like a rooster facing an eggshell. He lit a white cigarette, took a puff, and said to his wife coldly: "Whoever can't get out of this original will have no interest in his life." The wife smiled warmly: "But you still want to come back." Bai Xiaowen said: "It's another thing to come back!" Bai Xiaowen stopped talking and urged the horse to speed up. Mrs. couldn't taste his feelings, she hadn't tasted the leftovers she begged for, she didn't know what the rotten food tasted like, and she didn't know what Bai Xiaowen was alive at that time. At the moment when he was almost eaten by wild dogs in the moat, he almost completely knew that he had reached the end of his life, and he could no longer muster up a trace of strength or enthusiasm to step out of the moat, and the moat became the last stop of his life. Yes! Lu San's sarcastic and ridiculous words - "You go to eat the house", pushed him in front of the big iron pot boiling with the juice of life! After walking through the moat to the dining house, the journey of death was not a glorious bowl of gruel, but a glorious beginning of life...... Live well! To live is to remember that the most painful and desperate moment of life is the most difficult moment, but it is not the last moment of the end of life; Survive the past and earn the past will start an important turning point and start a new glorious journey; If you can't get through it if you have a soft heart, you will die, and if you die, everything will be over. Bai Xiaowen now calls for the future life with this profound life experience, and has an infinite enthusiasm and desire for life. Once again, he said to his wife, "Live well!" There is hope to live!" The wife pursed her lips and smiled: "You are in a good mood when you return to your hometown!" Bai Xiaowen still felt that his wife couldn't understand his feelings.

What Bai Jiaxuan got from the enthusiastic response of the clansmen was not only a kind of glory, but also a kind of psychological compensation. When he heard people talking about "the dragon seed is the dragon seed after all", he felt that the heart that had been hollowed out by Xiaowen in the past had been enriched by his own compensation, and there was no reason for people to criticize the morality of the patriarch Bai family. He still walked into the house with his cane and bent over his waist, walked out of the streets and alleys, walked into the barn and walked into the fields, inspected the cotton fields and watched the color of the wheat ears, listened to the roar of the tender voice of the filial rabbit baby scolding the livestock, or smoked a bag of dry tobacco in the smoke pot with Lu San, who was becoming more and more clumsy and demented, and chatted with the tribesmen in the village alleys and fields about the quality of the crops and discussed the time of sowing or harvesting, which did not show the arrogance or momentum of the battalion commander Laozi. On the day after the decision to plant cotton, he threw away his crutches and picked up a bamboo cage containing the cotton seeds that had been mixed with ashes, and threw some cotton seeds into the furrow after the rabbit's buttocks. He was not afraid that Xiaowu Xiaoyi would scatter seeds unevenly, but he wanted to take a walk in the wet fields. Instead of giving an example, he continued to work until the cotton field was planted, and then he went home with his sons in the evening. He picked up the millet porridge that his daughter-in-law was waiting for and drank it loudly, and the sound was like tearing a long cloth. Bai Jiaxuan said to his sons in a very comfortable mood: "Man is a. People sit all day and night feeling uncomfortable, eating is not fragrant, sleeping is not real, and they always feel panicked. As soon as people work, eat fragrantly, and sleep steadily, they feel that the emperor is not timid. The sons laughed incomprehensibly. Bai Jiaxuan slept soundly that night, and he didn't wake up until Xiaowu was lost in the courtyard and yelled at him, and when he woke up, he saw the electric light flashing from the window. Bai Jiaxuan heard the panicked and suppressed cry in the yard, which was the frightened cry of his daughter-in-law and grandchildren. He concluded that another bandit had entered the house, but he slowly dressed himself before opening the door. The people outside couldn't wait, they slammed the door and knocked him to the ground, so they searched the house, and someone grabbed him by the collar and picked him up and asked, "Where are the people?"

"Who are you looking for?" Bai Jiaxuan asked.

"What's the matter!"

"I really don't know who you're searching for."

"Where is your ** woman Bai Ling hiding?"

“……”

The whole family was driven out and torn out and gathered in the courtyard, and one person was forced to squat on the ground with a pistol, and about five or six people shook every cabinet and porcelain urn in every room that could be hidden, and the firewood house was also overturned, and the sound of all kinds of farm tools and furniture colliding and falling and overturning continued, and finally all those people came to the courtyard empty-handed and continued to shout: "Hurry up and hand over the people!" Bai Xiaowu plucked up his courage and said: "She hasn't recognized this family for many years!" The searchers still refused to let it go: "We have received information that she has fled back to her hometown in the countryside. Bai Jiaxuan said: "Your news is not accurate. She won't come home if she dies. She didn't recognize me as a son for a long time, and I didn't recognize her as my daughter anymore. The man said a threatening word and ran out of the door. Bai Jiaxuan instructed his family to clean up the messed up furniture as soon as possible, but his son and daughter-in-law all gathered around the house of the ancestor Bai Zhao. Bai Zhao cried loudly, completely losing his mind, and crying loudly, "Linglingwa, I miss you...... which made the two grandchildren and daughters-in-law who were soft-eyed also sobbed and wept. Bai Jiaxuan was impatient with his mother's irrational crying, and said a little stiffly, "What do you still want that sea beast to do?" Bai Zhao became more and more angry: "It's all you...... Take my spirit baby...... Forced to this point......" said that he slipped down from the kang and walked out of the door: "You don't want a daughter, I want a granddaughter!" I'll go to the city to find it!" Bai Zhao is not coercing Bai Jiaxuan, but her true thoughts. Her eldest was young and pointy, and she pounced out with an anxious heart, and Xiaowu Xiaoyi and her two grandchildren and daughters-in-law couldn't move. Bai Jiaxuan changed his compromised tone and begged his mother: "How do you go out in the dark?" Let Xiaowu go to the city early tomorrow morning to find it!" Under the persuasion of everyone, Bai Zhao was helped to the kang again.

The sudden chaos within the family subsided for the time being, but it intensified further by the dawn of the day. Several relatives on the original family entered the door one after another, reporting the same horrific encounter, almost at the same time in the middle of the night, they were all blocked by people in black uniforms at home and rummaging through cabinets for searching, and the tone and words of their words were surprisingly consistent: "Hand over the ** Bai Ling!" Bai Jiaxuan was unable to explain to his relatives the cause of the joint disaster, which only increased his perception of the seriousness of the matter. The last to arrive was Mr. Zhu, whose academy was also searched last night, and after dawn, Zhu Bai urged him to go to the original to ask what was going on. Mr. Zhu turned a corner and walked to the county seat first, and told Xiaowen about the incident of last night, Bai Xiaowen said: "Judging from the situation of those people you said, it must be a military commander." When Mr. Zhu saw Jiaxuan and saw so many panicked relatives, he expected to suffer about the same thing, so he said, "Xiaowen said that those people are military barrels." Bai Jiaxuan's eyes widened in surprise and asked, "What is the military barrel for?" For the first time in his life, Mr. Zhu mistakenly pronounced the white word: "I can't figure out what the military barrel is used for." It wasn't until the dead of night that Bai Xiaowu rushed home from the city and roughly explained the cause of the catastrophe: Minister Tao of the Central Ministry of Education came to the province to give lectures to the students, and was abused and chased by the students. Bai Jiaxuan listened intently, and couldn't help but lose his voice "oh" and tense his face again. Bai Zhao stared in horror, revealing a pitiful stunned look. Bai Xiaowu said that the leather shop of the second aunt's house was smashed, and the second aunt was dragged to torture for three days and three nights. Bai Jiaxuan let out another "oh" and asked, "What else did you hear?" Bai Xiaowu said: "The second uncle only said these situations. This time, the most affected was the second aunt's family. The second uncle was lying on the bed to recuperate, and the leather shop was sealed, saying that he had committed the crime of harboring **......" Bai Jiaxuan said: "I'm really sorry for your second uncle!"