One day a year before I was rescued by the river, under a crooked dwarf elm tree at the mouth of the alley, I kept rubbing the back of my hand back and forth with the back of my hand, and gently grabbed the back of my second sister Xiao Ge'er's coat with one hand, and begged her cautiously with a cowering look. "Little Ge'er, let's go."

……

"Let's go, little Ge'er."

……

"Hide aside, go up and stand over there!"

With a "snap", my second sister slapped my hand on her clothes. Tears rolled down my face, and I walked quickly in the direction she pointed me to the other side of the alley, and a wave of fear hit my young heart.

In comparison, my fear is deeper than that of the neighbor Zhai Jianguo in the Houlu Hutong in front of my second sister, who is bigger than both of us. Because I don't know what kind of punishment my second sister will bring to myself after beating him again this time, and what kind of punishment I will bring to my second sister after being treated as an informer. Facts have proved that the flesh and skin suffering suffered by the second sister at home will basically be recovered in a certain proportion of my body.

Under the elm tree, my second sister pinched her waist with one hand, raised her arm with the other hand, pointed at the tip of Zhai Jianguo's nose, and said in her immature voice: "If your mother goes to my house to tell my mother again, I will discount your dog legs!" The last time I cleaned you up, I saw that you were not pleasing to the eye, and in the future, if you are pleasing to the eye, I will not beat you. I'll teach you martial arts in the future, if you don't learn it again, I'll beat you, if you dare to tell your mother, I'll discount your legs! ”

The second sister discounted his legs several times one after another, announcing the end of the reprimand for Zhai Jianguo. Zhai Jianguo was lucky that he was not beaten this time, and at the same time, I was also relieved for myself.

After Zhai Jianguo was released, I was also released.

I bowed my head and followed my second sister nervously in the alley home, and the noon sun made me upset. I knew that I was about to be reprimanded by my second sister, and every time she got into trouble, she didn't forget to warn me not to tell my parents. Sure enough, the second sister seemed to suddenly remember something, suddenly turned around and stopped, stared at her single pair of almonds under her thick eyebrows, pointed at my chest and said angrily: "If you dare to tell our father and mother, I will discount your legs!" Once again, I burst into tears, and I looked up at her noncommittally, sobbing. She didn't care if I said yes or not, turned around and walked away with her triumphant head held high, and walked on her own with horizontal steps. I looked at her leggings-wrapped pants from behind, thinking about the number of times she had just said that she was going to break our legs, and I couldn't help but think that my legs should be wrapped around a few laps of that cloth strap.

My second sister was born like a boy, and when she was born, it was said that she weighed nine pounds, and when the midwife wrapped her up and hung it to weigh it, she actually lifted the quilt and stood down, and fell on the kang with a thud. With the help of everyone, the midwife re-packed a total of three times before she barely weighed the second sister who was crying and continued to stand up, but it was just under the chaos of her desperate struggle to break free, and she roughly gave the number of catties, nine catties. Everyone says that this is a kid at all, where is the girl, and you won't be able to grow up to be your brother Song Dongli at home in the future!

Song Dongli is my brother, and when my second sister was born, I already had two children at home, my eldest sister and my brother. So her parents casually named her "Little Brother" at that time. Later, "Little Brother" was called "Little Ge'er" by Aunt Liu in the East Courtyard in dialect, and gradually everyone called it like this, and even the parents almost forgot that the second sister was actually called "Brother" at the beginning. And the fourth child after "Little Brother", that is, me, although I am a boy, was born quiet and obedient, and I did not have the characteristics of a boy at all. My parents wanted me to be more masculine than my little brother, so they named me Song Dongqiang.

But when I was a child, I was disappointed by my parents, not only did I not beat Xiao Ge'er, but I was more and more cowardly by her momentum. Because the second sister's physique is much stronger and more active than ordinary children of the same age, she was sent to the neighborhood to learn martial arts when she was seven years old. When I was apprenticing, my parents invited the master to my home and set up a banquet, and the house was very lively. At that time, I sat in the far corner of the room, quietly watching my second sister Song Yuqun, my brother Song Dongli, Chen Hui, the son of Uncle Chen's family in the backyard, and the son of the neighbor in the east courtyard, a total of four children kneeling in a row to kowtow to a dark-faced master, the oldest of whom was my brother Song Dongli, who was nine years old. I have been frail and sickly since I was a child, and I have always been ordered not to run, not to jump, not to lean forward in everything, and my limited memory has carved many scenes of being placed behind me and not allowed to move, so this time I just obediently sat alone in the corner from beginning to end, watching the ceremony that seemed unusually solemn to me. Until the end of the banquet, the adults drank and drank proudly, and the children squatted with passion, and no one thought to come to see me.

Having said that, since my second sister Xiao Ge'er learned martial arts, not only has she not restrained her previous aggressive nature, but with her self-considered strong martial arts, she has intensified her efforts to rob the Tao and claim hegemony near her home. Zhai Jianguo was unsuccessful in her insistence on accepting her as an apprentice, and since then she has been unpleasant to her sideways and upright.

And I've suffered from her flesh and skin repeatedly. Because my parents are busy with work every day, and my eldest sister and my brother go to school by themselves, the family should "entrust" me to the second sister, so I have lived under the obscenity of the second sister since I was a child.

In fact, my parents have not seen the second sister's rampant domineering with their own eyes, because she is smart and knows that she can't do anything wrong in front of her parents. However, every once in a while, there will always be parents who lead their beaten children to complain, and they cannot but attract the attention of parents. One night after being sued by my neighbors many times, my parents had to sit down and seriously discuss how to discipline their "little brother".

That summer evening, when there was no light in the house, my dad sat in the middle of the floor by a pile of lit mugwort bushes, gently using a small stick to penetrate the stalks, and at the same time using a fan to blow the light smoke so that the smoke could fill the room to smoke away the mosquitoes.

The second sister obediently sat on the windowsill on the kang, looking at my mother sitting on the edge of the kang with her ears. She had already heard her parents talk about her not being able to go on like this at dinner, so knowing that her parents were discussing things so seriously, they must have something to do with her, and any decision would interfere with or even hinder her future career of "bullying and dominating the market", so no matter whether the ending was good or bad, it was enough to make her extremely look forward to it.

With a feeling of almost schadenfreude, I lay on the desk where my eldest sister, who was eight years older than me, and secretly followed my parents' conversation, hoping that this would restrain Xiao Ge'er, at least she would not pose a threat to me in the future.

Although my second sister can't do anything really bad at a young age, but she has become a little pest in the alley, my mother feels that she can't get over her face, and she has never had the upper hand in conversations with others, but because of every time Xiao Ge'er gets into trouble, she has to be choked by the neighbors and have nothing to say, because although she has a loud voice, she is still a reasonable person after all. And in the eyes of my parents, every time they beat Xiao Ge'er, they will get more and more depressed and unhappy, and unfortunately, they always thought that they scared me when they beat Xiao Ge'er, but they didn't know that I was afraid that Xiao Ge'er would immediately find me to divert the pain.

"Every day, you say I can't take her with me to work, right? As long as she is at home, she will always cause trouble like this! This neighbor has offended her all over the place! My mom said with her hands on her knees on her propped left leg and her head held high with a sad face.

"Well, that can't be helped, you can't beat her to death, can you? Besides, the neighbors don't really know each other like children. Dad sighed.

"No, send it to my mother, where she was born, I guess she will be a little bolder."

"Mom, where can I see it, I still have to work in the fields."

"What's so good, just take care of her food, it's big in the countryside, and you can't run around and play."

"You said this kid too, how can he cause trouble like this! Alas! My dad sighed again.

In the midst of my father's sighs, my mother, the merchant, announced her decision in her usual tough style without negotiability, that is, to send Xiao Ge'er to my grandmother's house in the countryside of Linxian County to go to school. Usually she is in charge of most things at home, and this time is no exception, my dad only participates in the discussion, and has no decision-making power. It is said that my mom will only listen to my dad when there is a big event, but I don't seem to remember anything big happening in the family. So, on that evening, it was undisputed that my mother personally drew the starting line of Xiao Ge'er's life.

After Little Ge'er went to my grandmother's house, I became a burden to the family, and in order to take care of me, my mother went to school and forcibly transferred my brother to a class that could be separated from my eldest sister. In those days, school was divided into morning and afternoon, and two classes shared a classroom, and the school was attended once a week in the morning and afternoon. My mom transferred my brother to a class where he could get away with my eldest sister, so that every half day, my eldest sister and my brother could basically make sure that one of them was not at school at home, and then they would look at me. However, it is more secure to be inseparable without my second sister Song Yuqun's all-weather inseparability, my second sister takes care of me as a full-time job, and my eldest sister and my brother have never been able to take responsibility with peace of mind in this handover.