Compared with the native Nanjing, the Northeast was more than a little worse in terms of economic level and people's visibility in that era. What's more, the southern talks two years later pushed reform and opening up to a new stage and widened the gap between the rich and the poor.

Aunt Wu saw my mother's angry appearance, although she kept muttering in her mouth, her momentum obviously weakened a little. Although my mother is not fat, the pungent energy of the Northeast people in her bones is still in place.

Although my mother has been here in Nanjing for a long time, she really can't learn Wu Nong's soft language, so she can only simply say a few lame sentences that she hears on the streets.

I kept lying in the crack of the door and looking out as if I was out of the way. I saw my mother's forehead burst out with excitement! I saw the disdain on my mother's card friends! When I saw the cramped and cramped room, my mother raised her hand and came across a clothesline full of clothes, which was full of clean but stale clothes, large and small, swaying up and down, and I was afraid that the rope would suddenly break, and then the clothes scattered all over the place, and fell on the table where my mother was playing cards, and on the heads of several neighbors and aunts.

My mother wasn't a shrew, and I rarely saw her spitting foul words, but her aura when she was angry was enough to terrify the locals who were used to hearing the soft dialect. The mother's voice became louder and louder, and when Aunt Wu went down the stairs, she was still muttering: "It's really a hysterical (disgusting) death, what's wrong (bluffing), tearing the slippery (finding faults) very much!" ”

The mother followed her to the staircase. In that old house, the stairs were very narrow, and Aunt Wu looked sideways at the stairs while going downstairs, for fear that one would roll down if she didn't pay attention. Seeing this, my mother's poker friends played a color with each other and left.

When it was quiet outside, I pushed open the door and rushed to the staircase to see my mother beckoning some card players to come back tomorrow. Just as I was looking through the window with my head stretched out to look at the stairs, my mother dragged me back into the room by the ear with one hand, and then slammed the door shut!

My mother wrung my ears so hard that I burst into tears. My mother kept asking me, why did I take the money from Aunt Wu'er's children? What did you buy with the money? I couldn't stop crying. My mother didn't seem to give up scolding me because I cried. I kept denying it, and my mother kept fighting.

Later, it seemed that my mother was tired, she sat in the card playing chair and gasped, and I gradually calmed down.

I just stood quietly at the door of my bedroom with tears on my face that had not yet dried.

Mother, what I left was a side face. I remember it was afternoon, and the clothes that were drying in the house blocked half of the sunlight on my mother's face, and she pulled up her hair in a bun at the back of her head, and a few strands of it loosened from the beating on me.

That day, I found out that my mother was old.

I was too young to have any idea of age. From now on, my mother was 38 years old.

I just looked at my mother's slightly clumsy silhouette and saw it.

After a long time, my mother tilted her head to look at me and held out her hand to tell me to come past her. I was just beaten, and I was cowardly. When my mother saw my trembling appearance, she immediately stood up: "Mu Xi, you come." The voice was noticeably softer, as if the woman who had just stood at the top of the stairs and was not her. I took a few steps forward, and my mother dragged me over.

She looked at me for a moment, reached out and took a towel from the clothesline, wiped my face, and then asked me very formally, "Do you want to go to school like them?" "My chick nodded like a peck of rice. Although I was still young at that time, I already knew that I didn't want to stay in this pedantic place for the rest of my life, because I had seen the beautiful dresses of girls of the same age, and I had also seen their colorful stationery boxes, and I knew how beautiful the outside world was, so it was not how much I loved to learn, it was the environment at that time, and I wanted to get rid of everything, only knowledge.

I don't know how people my age came about when they were younger. All I know is that I was snubbed, bullied, and ridiculed since I was a child. The kind of unwillingness that comes from the depths of the soul must only be understood by those who have experienced it.

When my mother saw me nodding, her expression suddenly became strange, as if she was happy? It's like a loss again. It wasn't until much later that I could read my mother's state of mind, but alas, it was too late.

After all, I was a child, and on the night I was beaten by my mother, I was alone with everything I thought I could play. In the evening of the same day, my mother told me to be alone at home and not to open the door casually, so I hurried out. I don't know what my mother is doing, and I'm not interested in adult things, but I know that before my mother went out, she changed into one of her clothes that was relatively good. Of course, it's still full of wrinkles.

I wandered around the huge room boredly, staring at the window where I could see the entrance of the alley, hoping that my mother would come back soon.

It was already dark. The lights in the room were dim, and the old-fashioned light bulbs could not illuminate the dark wooden floors underfoot, but reflected the shadows of people on the opposite wall. Curious, I made hand shadows on the wall. Now that I think about it, the gesture of my projection on the wall in those few hours gave a vivid soul to all the objects I had made with my hands. At the same time, my mother also exchanged the second half of her life for another life for me.

Thankfully, with the shadow of my company, I was able to get through those few hours. Just as I was concentrating on playing, my mother was interrupted by the sound of my mother hurrying upstairs. I saw my mother turn the doorknob and come back with a cloth bag. When he entered the house, he sat on a chair by the door, but his hands never let go of what he had brought back.

Mother's eyes were a little wooden. I don't dare to ask more. After a long time, my mother said, "Give me water." Pour me a glass of water! ”

The sudden sound startled me. I opened the large enamel teapot on the table and handed it to my mother. Mother hurriedly took it and drank it without stopping. The moonlight and the light intertwined, and I followed the side flame of the light to see the fine beads of sweat on my mother's forehead and the traces of water left on the corners of her mouth. The water flowed up the mother's neck and down the Adam's apple. After I drank it all, I was startled again by the sound of my mother putting the quilt on the table and colliding with it.

The mother gasped for air. After a while, he turned his head to me and said, "Money, money, money for your school." ”

When my mother said this, her tone was surprisingly ordinary. As a 6-year-old, I don't care where the money comes from, even if it's stolen or robbed, it doesn't matter, it's just that I'm going to school.

I happily ran around the table twice. When I was about to get close to my mother on the second lap, my mother's words almost made me fall.

"However, from today onwards, you will no longer be called Liu Muxi, but surnamed Cao, Cao Muxi!"