Yu Jianguo lowered his head and seriously threaded a thin cotton thread into the butt eye of the embroidery needle. The end of the cotton thread is a little loose and it is not threaded at the first time. He stuffed the thread into his mouth and licked it, turning it into a thin, pointed point, and pierced it through the eye of the needle again. This time, probably because the thread became soft and thin after being licked wet, it passed next to the eye of the needle, but it didn't work.

Yu Jianguo picked up the scissors on the table, clicked off the soft tip of the thread, and continued to carefully thread the eye of the needle. This time the thread went through the eye smoothly, and he immediately pinched it with two fingers, and the thread was pulled out of the other end of the needle's eye, and he let out a long breath.

He felt that his eyes were not as good as before, this was in the past, a matter of a second, but now it has been tossed and turned over and over for so long. Fortunately, the discipline did not come to urge, which is very different from when he was in prison more than ten years ago. At that time, if your movements are a little slower, it will be said that you are passive and slacking off, and you will inevitably be reprimanded. If you slow down the progress of the same group, everyone will work overtime, and you will be beaten when you go back.

The conditions in the prisons are much better than in the past, the management is stricter, and the labor and life are much more humane. Go to work on time every day, eat on time, pickle steamed buns in the morning, meat at noon, vegetarian dishes in the evening, and be full. Although there are cell bosses in the prison and bully the weak, they will not beat people at every turn as they did in the past.

Yu Jianguo is guilty of trafficking in human organs, intentional injury, fraud, theft and insulting corpses, and he is punished for several crimes, plus he already has a criminal record, so the sentence is a bit heavy. He knew that at his age, he would definitely not be able to get out. But it's okay if you don't go out, and you don't know what to do when you go out, so you can't still deal with those human traffickers and organ traffickers.

After threading the needle, he picked up a piece of clothing from the basket next to him and began to sew buttons on it. It's the easiest job, but it's not easy to do well. The buttons should be sewn correctly, crooked, too tight and too loose, that is, they should be firm and comfortable. In addition, the position of the needle is also very particular, not only the cross button or tic-tac-toe button on the front of the button should be uniform and beautiful, turn the clothes over, the line on the back of the button can not be messy, the needle needle should be stacked together, the button should have a few eyes, and the back should also have a few eyes, otherwise it will not look good, it is unqualified.

Yu Jianguo didn't do this work on the first day, not to mention the newcomers who had just entered the prison, even the old man who had already served a year or two in prison, and the needlework was far worse than him. This was partly because he had spent three years in prison in the past, and partly because he had worked as an apprentice in a tailor's shop in the city as a young man.

When I was a child, I was very poor, so poor that the whole village never had a grain of rice in the pot for half a year, and the elm bark at the entrance of the village was stripped and boiled to eat. At a very young age, he followed the old people of the village out to ask for food. Originally, asking for food was the most unbearable, if it could survive, who would want to ask for food? But in those days, their group of people who asked for food became the first people to open their eyes to the world.

Yu Jianguo had no culture, and he was young at that time, so he didn't know what reform and opening up was, and what the Third Plenary Session of the CPC Central Committee was, but the earth-shaking changes that were taking place in the whole country from the city to the countryside brought him enough shock. He saw the smoke-smoking chimneys suddenly erected in the vast countryside, the streets of the city suddenly crowded with vendors of all sizes, and the people in rough clothes suddenly became colorful and foreign.

While a group of beggars sat outside the station on their way home arguing fiercely about whether to take the train back or walk back, Hanako, the youngest of his children, said something depressing and exciting:

"I just don't go back, I work, I earn money and then I come back, what is the interest of going back if I want a meal!"

They argued at the station for the rest of the night, until the next morning, when the sun shone on their tired faces, and the warmth made people feel like their mother's chest. Homesickness overcame the determination of the wanderer to make his home from all over the world, and the group walked on the road with shabby bags on their backs, leaving only the stubborn Yu Jianguo and the long shadow under the rising sun standing alone in the station square in the early morning.

"The baby is not old, and her temper is big!"

These are the words they left behind when they left, and at the same time, they also left half a flatbread and seven dimes for Jianguo.

Yu Jianguo decided never to be a beggar again. So, after three days of wandering on half a flatbread and seven dimes, he became an apprentice in a tailor's shop.

At the beginning, the apprenticeship had little to do with real tailoring work, usually cooperating with the master and sister to do some chores, and more often helping with housework, buying groceries, cooking and taking care of the children. Cutting fabrics and pattern-making these jobs are not the turn of the apprentices, at that time it was quite expensive sewing machines naturally not allowed to touch, the master occasionally teaches you a few times to pinch the cloth head of the craft is taught, of course, there is also the meaning of the test. And the most proficient is to sew buttons.

Yu Jianguo remembered that the button styles in those years were much richer than now, and all kinds of materials and styles could not be seen. Sometimes guests come to order clothes, and the style of clothing has not yet been said, so they pick the buttons first.

Yu Jianguo sewed buttons beautifully, and later came out of the apprenticeship, but at that time, he had lost interest in tailoring, and began to start a hardware business with a material manufacturer who often came to order clothes.

The buttons in the prison are very simple, of course, in order to facilitate unified and standardized management, after all, everyone is not professional in doing this. This kind of work is too simple for the founding of the country, and you can sew eight or nine without leaving ten with your eyes closed. As he sewed, he couldn't help but miss the past, the little tailor's shop, and the colorful buttons.

"Yu Jianguo!"

The sudden roar of discipline startled Yu Jianguo. He thought that he had been slow to thread the needle just now, or that his brain had been spotted by desertion, so he instinctively straightened up and responded with a "report to the government", and then waited for the instruction with a blank gaze.

The discipline nodded: "Someone came to see you, please have a family meal." ”

"Family meal?"

Yu Jianguo wondered if he had misheard. He has no relatives and no reason, and it is not the first time he has been imprisoned, the last time he had a junior Zhao Pengcheng who came to see him, this time even Zhao Pengcheng also went in, and he really became a loner, who would come to see him?

He had never eaten a family meal, only heard that it was expensive, not only to meet the inmates during non-visiting hours, but also to enjoy a "hearty" lunch together in a special cell without shouting through the damn glass.

Yu Jianguo really couldn't think of anyone who would invite him to a family meal, he didn't believe that pies would fall from the sky, no matter how he smelled of it, there was a smell of conspiracy. But what kind of conspiracy can there be to get him on the head of a labor prisoner who has nothing? He is barefoot and not afraid to wear shoes, and no matter how bad it is, it will not be worse than the current situation.

In the envious eyes of the other inmates, Yu Jianguo followed another prison guard who came to pick him up.

He walked into the mysterious dining "box", and there were several side dishes with meat and vegetables on the rectangular table, as well as a bottle of Erguotou that had been opened.

Opposite sat a young man, with his hair disheveled, as if he had been scratched by a chicken's paw; a white-washed gray trench coat, which looked older than their prison uniforms; Looking under the table, you can see that he is crossed with Erlang's legs crossed and wearing a pair of pull-up boards on his feet.

When Yu Jianguo approached, the man smiled at him, and Erlang's leg under the table was lowered, making a kicking sound. For some reason, the thumping sound slammed into his chest like an invisible hammer.