To enter Yamaguchi Village, you first have to pass through a small forest at the entrance of the village.

The grove is densely packed with a variety of trees.

In the middle of the woods, in the hollow, a small stream winds and coils.

The spring water gushing from the mountain gathers here, and flows merrily over the stones in the stream to the wide river at the entrance of the village.

When the water from the mountain falls into the stream, it collides with the large stones in the stream, making a clanging sound.

Li Li's home is two or three hundred meters away from the grove, and it is just next to Lin Na's house.

From the direction of his house, you can see the warblers in the grove and the willows by the stream.

Occasionally, you can hear the tinkling sound of mountain spring water hitting rocks in the stream.

Like Zhang Ze, he is also the youngest child in the family, ranking seventh.

He has five older brothers and one older sister.

Because he has many brothers and sisters, he also has the experience of not having enough to eat and occasionally going hungry.

Fortunately, there is a lot of labor at home, and he is the youngest one, his parents dote on him, and his brothers and sisters maintain him, he doesn't have to be like Lin Na, who works at sunrise and rests at sunset.

The easiest job at home is to watch the cows!

This task naturally fell to him.

In his childhood, the most he did was watch cows.

It is also necessary to get up early to see the cows, especially if the cattle are hungry.

After breakfast, put on a hat, grab a cow rope, wave a whip, and load a pot of white porridge.

Go to the cattle pen, put a rope around the cow's neck, lead the cow out of the cow pen, and drive it to the lawn, in the field, at the foot of the mountain, and in the woods to graze.

After driving more times, there was a tacit understanding between Niu and him.

Every morning, as soon as he opened the door of the cattle pen, he raised the whip in his hand and shouted at the cow: "Go, go and graze!" ”

The ox lifts its hooves and walks away.

In the past, when walking through the crop field, it would open its mouth to eat the vegetables and seedlings of the villagers, and after being beaten several times by Li Li with a whip, after passing through the crop field, the cow did not squint, and just walked forward with his head down.

If, the night before, Li Li put less grass, or forgot to cut the grass and put it in the cattle pen, the next day the cow was hungry, and as soon as he opened the door, he would raise his legs and run.

It ran until it went to the place where Li Li had rushed it in the past, stopped, and grazing quietly there.

This time is the most comfortable moment of Li Li's day.

He liked to drive the cattle into the grove at the entrance of the village, where the grass grew so fat and green that the cows could not eat it even for a day.

When the cow finds his favorite, he can play with confidence.

In spring, wildflowers bloom in a variety of colors, including red, green, yellow, purple, and white.

He likes to pick a flower called fried sauce grass the most.

The stems of this flower are crystal clear.

After picking it off, wash it with mountain spring water and put it in your mouth to eat, it tastes sweet and sour.

In the summer, the roots of the jajangweso grow fruits that look like small versions of daikon radish.

The fruit can also be eaten, and the taste is similar to that of the stem.

In the summer, in addition to digging weeds and grass roots, his favorite thing to do is to go to the rivers and streams to catch fish and shrimp.

He used to get up in the morning, drive the cattle to the grove, and then carry a bucket with a net and a harpoon to catch fish and shrimp.

There are some small fish and shrimp in the creek, and if you are fast enough, you can catch some with a net.

Occasionally, he would come across one or two larger carp or grass carp, and he would not be able to stop them with a net, so he had to use a harpoon.

He caught a lot of fish, and if he found big fish in the stream, he would be able to fork them, put them in a bucket, take them home and fry them.

When the river was dry, his brothers would take him in a dinghy with a four-cornered fishing net to the outside of the woods, where the river was narrow.

They tied the whole net across the river, and the water could flow through the net, but the fish couldn't.

When the net is harvested the next day, a few catties of fish and shrimp that are trapped in the net can always be harvested.

If there is a flood, the brothers will make a large kite net out of bamboo and wood, and people will guard the embankment, and the net will be set up every ten or twenty minutes.

In autumn, like Zhang Ze, Li Li also likes to use firewood knives and sticks in the grove to find wild fruits to eat.

In winter, the brothers who were busy with farm work had significantly more free time, and they took Li Li to stay on the riverbank on the side of the grove all day long: fishing.

In the winter of when Li Li was 12 years old, near noon, his brothers hung a carp weighing more than ten catties when they lifted the net, which made the whole family very happy.

The fish was too big to fit in a bucket, and the brothers knocked it out and carried it home.

Such a big fish, their family can't eat it all.

The eldest brother cut a large piece of fish meat and asked Li Li to send it to Lin Na's family.

The so-called distant relatives are not as good as close neighbors, and it is natural for everyone to isolate their neighbors and take care of each other.

Knowing that Lin Na's mother is pregnant again, there is less labor in the family, and she has eaten the last meal without the next meal.

If there are too many fish and shrimp caught, my father and mother always ask my brothers to call Li Li to take them to Lin Na's house.

That day, when he went to Lin Na's house, he found that she was wiping her face with her little hands.

The little hand was black, and he had just boiled water with firewood.

The water in the pot is already boiling.

She doesn't care,

She couldn't tell whether it was tears or snot on her face, or if the evaporated vapor washed onto her little face when the boiling water boiled.

There was a wisp of black on her cheeks, a wisp of skin color, and no matter how much she wiped it with her hands, she couldn't wipe it clean.

Several younger brothers stood in the yard, crying in vain, asking for their mother.

Lin Na's father sat on the bench under the eaves, his dry face without any expression.

Li Li put the fish in a large bowl on the kitchen stove that had not been cleaned, and asked Lin Na what happened?

But no matter how he asked, Lin Na just didn't say it, so he had no choice but to go home.

Later, he heard from his mother that on that day, a few hours before he delivered the fish to Linna, Linna's mother died in childbirth.