In the south of China, a small village in the south of the Yangtze River

It is July, which is the season when the early rice in the south of the Yangtze River is ripe.

In the layers of chaotic and orderly terraces, the golden rice has all turned into one-storey straw piles.

And the rice, after people have been harvesting it day and night, has been all loaded into the small granaries they have built.

In the small village, there is a two-storey house.

The walls of the building, the brick-red bare walls, are pale orange in the ten o'clock sun.

In this small village in the south of the Yangtze River, there are very few buildings like this, and the entire building is made of red bricks and bare walls.

Most of them, are pasted with tiles of various colors.

In this building, which is all bare-walled, there is a small room, plastered with solid and moisture-proof cement.

This is exactly the room that the family used as a granary.

At this time

At the entrance of the room, there is a middle-aged couple, and at their feet, there is an iron bucket filled with water, and the iron bucket has bottomed out at this moment.

"Old man, it's almost."

The old woman's wrinkled face showed a hint of concern.

"It's not enough, old woman, let's go and get through the water again."

The man's eyes were fixed on the rice in the granary, and there was a hint of hoarseness in his voice.

"But ......"

A hint of struggle flashed across the old woman's face.

All her life, she has been a responsible person and has never done anything wrong.

Mixing water into rice, such a lack of morality, she had never thought about it before.

"If you want to go, you will go, women's family, what do you know."

The man turned his head and glared at the old woman fiercely.

His face was also full of wrinkles, and his skin was dark black.

It is a skin color formed by a long period of exposure to the sun, which is the skin color of a farmer facing the loess with his back to the sky.

"Old man, can you ...... This is hurtful to the sky, and it will thunder and thunder. ”

The old woman's loyal face showed remorse. She tried to persuade her husband to let him carry the paddy out to dry.

"Do you think I don't understand? But he has a girlfriend. ”

Looking at the old woman's wrinkled cheeks, the man had a complicated look on his face.

The old woman shuddered, and she didn't say anything more.

Leaning down, he silently picked up the bucket on the ground and walked to the back of the house.

There, there is a communal well.

"It's all useless to me, God, if I don't have a way, I don't want to do this, don't blame me, don't blame me."

It wasn't until his wife left that the man sat down in a granary full of rice.

Ten minutes later, the old woman came back with a bucket full of well water.

Then, the husband and wife silently picked up a spoon of water, scooped up a scoop of well water, and poured it on the golden rice.

The whole morning flew by in a flash.

It wasn't until the old woman went in and out ten times that the couple stopped moving.

At noon, they simply had lunch, and without even taking a lunch break, they then found sacks one by one and began to fill them with rice.

Tomorrow, the man who specializes in harvesting rice will come.

They must pack all the thousands of pounds of rice in front of them before today. In this way, it will be possible to catch tomorrow's sale day.

……

In the sky, the golden sun slowly set, and the blood-red sunset in the west gradually faded. The night full of stars, from far to near, began to envelop the small village in the south of the Yangtze River with a population of fifty or sixty households.

The middle-aged couple's home, piled up like a mountain of rice, has disappeared at this moment.

Instead, there were thirteen sacks full of paddy.

Here, the rice they are going to sell tomorrow.

At this time, the wrinkles on the faces of the husband and wife slowly bloomed into two happy smiles, like two children.

"Old man, when you finish selling rice in the morning, you will go to the village and send the money to your son. By the way, you also eat something good in the township, and this time you are not allowed to save it and deliberately skip eating. ”

The old woman touched the black hair on the top of her head.

"Old woman, don't worry, I will definitely eat a lot of fish and meat, don't envy me, I won't bring you something to eat."

The man dragged the old woman out of the granary.

At home, 10-watt energy-saving light bulbs begin to glow white.

This energy-saving lamp was specially brought back from Shendong by his strong son last year. I don't know how many people in the village are envious.

"You're so beautiful, the ghost envy you, go take a bath, look at you, it's all stinky to death."

The old woman chuckled, her face was full of wrinkles, but the man couldn't get enough of it.

……

The next day, June 30th

Before dawn, the rooster in the small village was already standing on a high slope and raised his neck and began to crow.

The old woman had now gotten up and started her day's work.

Today, she needs to take the clothes she changed yesterday to the creek to wash.

Nine o'clock in the morning

On the sheep intestine path in the small mountain village, there was a sudden sound of an engine.

In the river, the women who were washing their clothes were shaken.

They knew that the small traders who were harvesting the rice had come.

The old woman picked up a bucket of clothes, said goodbye to the other women, and hurried home.

"Cuilan, you slow down......"

Behind him, the voices of the other women slowly faded into a blur.

They didn't notice that Cuilan, who was running on their backs, had a trace of worry and fear on her face.

That's the first time I do something bad as an honest person, and I feel uneasy.

"Old man, here, here. When the rice harvester comes, what will he do, and what if he is found later. ”

When she returned home, she saw her husband carrying a sack of rice out of the house, and she looked panicked.

"What are you like? Isn't there still me? Forget it, don't come out later, otherwise people will know that there is a problem when they look at it. ”

The man scolded the old woman. He is also afraid and worried, but as the head of the family, he must calm down at this time.

At this moment, even if he regrets it, it is too late, so he can only bite the bullet.

Soon, the characteristic engine sound of the tractor got closer and closer, and finally the sound was forbidden to move at the entrance to the village.

"Old woman, you go in, here I am."

The man waved his hand, and his body was slightly hunched, but at this time, he showed a vigorous manhood.

"That'...... Then I'll go dry my clothes. ”

The old woman carried a bucket of clothes, turned around, and walked towards the stairs of the red brick building.

As she turned around, the tears on her face dripped down as if she didn't want money, and all of them dripped into the bucket in her hand.

The man stood at the door of the house and waited, which was half an hour.

Finally, a middle-aged man holding an electronic scale and wearing a straw hat walked towards him.

This man was about the same age as him, but his face was much whiter and much younger.

The two of them stood together, almost like they were in their twenties.

"Long way, long time no see."

"Old money, this year's rice, how much is a catty, has there been an increase in price?"

The man called out to the man who was walking by.

"Lao He, this year's rice is not easy to sell, other provinces, now they are all machine planting, the price of this rice, it would be good if it didn't fall."

The man called Lao Qian had a sad face.

"Old Qian, don't cheat me, my son is a graduate student, you can deceive me, but you can't deceive my son. To put it bluntly, how much is a pound this year. ”

As soon as He Changdao talked about his graduate son, a proud look appeared on his face.

(End of chapter)