The winter break passed quickly, and it was time to go to school again. After seeing Gu Ming, Zeng Fan's face did not have the happy look he should have after the New Year. Zeng Fan originally had a lot to say to Gu Ming, but after seeing him, he didn't know what to say.

It happened a few years ago, and no one thought that Gu Ming's father would have an accident on the festive day of the upcoming New Year. Gu's father is a well-known carpenter in Dinghe Village, and on the way home after making the last piece of furniture before the Chinese New Year, the tricycle he was riding overturned in a ditch. Several of his companions were crushed under the car, but he was the only one who was seriously injured, crushed in the leg, and could no longer walk.

Later, when Zeng Fan went to Gu Ming's house, he saw this once strong man moving slowly in a wheelchair more than once, and he always liked to greet Zeng Fan with a smile: "Hehe, are you studying hard?" ”

Zeng Fan didn't expect that the bigger blow to Gu Ming was his mother's departure later. At that time, Zeng Fan was already in high school, just when Gu Ming's great-grandmother died. Gu Ming's great-grandmother set a record in Dinghe Village at that time, the record of the highest lifespan.

Gu Ming's great-grandmother was one of the first people to witness the train in the village, and someone sighed at the time: "This guy runs so fast on his stomach, how fast it should be if it stands up!" "This person has never been on a train in his life, and he has never seen a train stand up and run, he is Zeng Fan's great-grandfather.

Zeng Fan, who went to the county seat several times on a green train when he was very young, naturally found it difficult to understand that there were still people in this world who had never seen a train. The little girl in red clothes, lying motionless on the low wall in the backyard and staring at the train, made Zeng Fan difficult to understand. The little girl is a distant relative of Zeng Fan, who lives in one of the thousands of ravines on the Loess Plateau. This is the first time she has come to Zeng Fan's house, and it is also the first time she has seen a train.

The little girl wore two braids, her face was flushed, her mouth was very sweet, and she kept following Zeng Fan to call her brother. Zeng Fan was very proud of being called his brother, so he took her hand to watch the train. Her hands were warm, wet, and a little sticky, it must have been the "foreign sugar" she had taken in her mouth with this hand just now, Zeng Fan thought.

She was reluctant to eat the candy just now, and after holding it in her mouth for a while, she wrapped it in candy wrapper. Candy wrapper is a rigid plastic that comes in a variety of colors. Zeng Fan taught her to use sugar paper to look at the sun, and the sun she saw through the sugar paper was a round cake like a cake eaten during the New Year, which was not dazzling at all; The little girl said that the sun was like his grandfather's teacup.

The backyard of Zeng Fan's house is on the edge of the river, just looking at the train opposite. Zeng Fan couldn't help but be infected by the little girl's serious expression, he also looked at the train seriously, and the sound of the train moving came from afar, boom, boom, boom.

"Where is the train going?" The little girl asked.

"Go to the other side of the mountain."

"What's on the other side of the mountain?"

Zeng Fan was asked, but as an elder brother, he felt that it was really shameless to not be able to answer his sister's question, so he made it up: "The other side of the mountain is the county seat." ”

The little girl immediately showed a look of longing. Zeng Fan waited for the little girl to ask him questions about the county seat, so that he could tell her what he had seen and heard in the county seat, but the little girl did not ask again. Soon the little girl went to the county seat with her mother, because her mother was sick and the doctors in the mountains could not cure her.

It wasn't until later when Zeng Fan went to high school in the county seat that he saw this little girl again, but at this time she was no longer a little girl, but he still called him brother very affectionately. She had long since stopped studying and was helping out at a relative's house.

When Zeng Fan asked her why she didn't study, she suddenly blushed, and Zeng Fan also felt that he was stupid to ask. There are many children in the mountain family, and it is difficult for boys to study, let alone girls, just recognize their own names - sooner or later they will have to get married. Her parents work outside the home all the year round, and they have little interest in providing for their children to go to college, and only hope that she can go to work early to earn money. Zeng Fan felt that it was difficult to face her, and left in a hurry after saying hello.

When Gu Ming's great-grandmother was 90 years old, people in Dinghe Village were speculating about how old she would live, but people in the village died every year, but they didn't see her close her eyes. But she didn't keep the villagers suspicious for long, and four years later, she closed her eyes on the kang where she had been lying for decades. Few people had seen her in the past four years, and according to those who had entered her house, there had been a foul smell coming from it for many years, because no one wanted to set foot in it because their son and daughter-in-law wanted to set foot in it. After that, the people in the village no longer envied the old man's longevity, and even hoped that she would suffer less sin and be freed as soon as possible.

In fact, it is difficult to remove the smell in the house before the old man dies. Grandma Zeng Fan's mother had been lying on the kang before she died, and although her mother often helped her change and clean, she still couldn't avoid the smell. Although Zeng Fan was still young at that time, it was still difficult to forget this taste many years later.

Zeng Fan often walked into this room that emitted all kinds of mixed unpleasant smells, sometimes to listen to the old man's stories, and sometimes to serve her food. This kind of "paste" made of cornmeal, bean flour and white flour is called "loose rice" in Dinghe Village, and grandma often said an old saying to Zeng Fan: "Stir the ball, loose rice, the good rice of the doll old man." "Because the doll and the old man have no teeth, they just eat this kind of food.

Zeng's mother told Zeng Fan not to run to that room all the time, but Zeng Fan still liked to go. Grandma gave him the task of serving rice, and he felt very proud and must complete it. The most important thing is that the story told by the old man is so good.

Mom and grandma don't keep telling stories to Zeng Fan because they have too many things to do. The old man would take the trouble to tell him the story, and when he had finished, he would see him leaning forward and backward with a smile from her own toothless cheeks sunken into a "drink" laugh that made her gray-haired and wrinkled head tremble involuntarily, until a cloudy tear flowed from her eyes, which seemed to be covered with a layer of white mist.

Although the smell of this room was unpleasant, the story of the old man was pleasant. But this may only be Zeng Fan's thoughts, because apart from him, there are very few people who are willing to set foot in this room, even if it is just to serve her a bowl of rice.

Many years later, whenever he thought of this kind old man, Zeng Fan felt that she was a child at that time. Grandma told him that this life is a reincarnation in itself, and when he was a child, he became a child, and when he was old, he also became a child. The so-called "old man" is "old man", the older he gets, the older he is, the more he looks like a child.

When Zeng Fan saw Gu Ming, he didn't know that there was another thing tormenting him, and he couldn't see anything from Gu Ming's expression, because Gu Ming just smiled at him, and there was tiredness and impatience in this smile.

After Gu Ming's great-grandmother died, because of her longevity and prolific nature, the relatives who came to mourn formed a long queue outside the door, although most of them did not see a trace of sadness on their faces, but they still came. Some people have not even met this old man - they are too far apart, and the blood relationship is fading. Even Gu Ming, in fact, didn't have too much sadness. The great-grandson's feelings for his great-grandmother, after all, are limited, and he is still a great-grandmother who has lived for more than nineties.

Gu Ming's mother is really a very competent mother, at least in Zeng Fan's eyes. Gu Ming has some cleanliness habits and is a little picky, his clothes are always clean, and the ironing is very smooth, these are all the credit of his mother. When I was in the county No. 1 middle school, the food that Gu Ming's mother entrusted someone to bring to Gu Ming was very exquisite, and the oil cakes were all about the same size and very regular shapes, and anyone would be amazed by such exquisite skills.

Zeng's mother later said to Zeng Fan with some exaggeration that Gu Ming's mother told her that Gu Ming had high requirements for the appearance of the cake, which must be about the same size and regular shape. When she said this, Zeng's mother was always very happy that her son was not Gu Ming, because even if the cake she baked was half-cooked, it was estimated that Zeng Fan would not be able to find it, and even if the cake was burnt, Zeng Fan would eat it correctly. What a housewife is most afraid of is that the chicks and piglets she raises are picky eaters.

When Zeng's mother told Zeng Fan about her pride, Zeng Fan felt that his self-esteem had been hurt, and he was angry for three days, vowing never to eat his mother's cake again. But Zeng Fan's oath only lasted for three days, because Zeng's mother knew her son well. When Zeng's mother gave Zeng Fan a bag of egg meatloaf, he swore that he would not eat anyone except his mother's baked cakes.

Zeng Fan has always been a little envious of Gu Ming and admires his mother, so he has never been able to associate the words "running away from home" with Gu's mother. Gu's mother is very beautiful, Gu Ming inherited her mother's appearance, handsome and fair-skinned, it is rare to see such a fair-skinned boy on the Loess Plateau, so he is always favored by girls. After her mother left, Gu Ming became more and more silent, and she became more and more disgusted with others talking about her appearance.

After Gu's mother left, there was a lot of discussion in the village, and it was rumored that she had followed a man from a neighboring village. Zeng Fan preferred to believe that the fault was on Gu Ming's father's side. The cake that Gu's mother gave to Gu Ming, he didn't eat less.

It didn't take long for the incident to be forgotten, and even the long-tongued women in the village stopped talking about it, and they still had to worry about their chickens being taken away by wild cats, piglets being vaccinated, and so on.