The sun always comes out too late in the mountain village, and when the sun's rays penetrate the east hill in front of the village, the people in the village have been busy with two jobs in the field, just in the autumn season, because it is located in the northern mountainous area, so the crops are like an irregular map, the east and west are located at the foot of the mountain, and the village is more like a child who has just woken up, surrounded by the surrounding mountains. Because of geographical reasons, although it is backed by the mountain, it cannot rely on the mountain to eat the mountain, and the water is a stream that winds down in the deep mountains, and the fish run through the shuttle between the village and the mountain, so it is not dependent on the water to draft. The people here can only survive on the thin land, and the better people go out to work, and only during the New Year's festival will the people from other places return to this familiar and unfamiliar village. Due to the remoteness, traffic congestion, sparse population, in the reality of the poor countryside, it seems to be very backward.

The village is not big, that is, about 40 households, the village is surrounded by mountains, and the only road that connects with the outside world is a three-meter widening dirt road, which starts from the archway at the entrance of the south village and runs through the village and extends to the north. Because of this unknown archway at the entrance of the village, it is not known when it was built, and it is extremely desolate due to disrepair. The village is called Gaojialou, as for the origin of the name of the village, I think it should be related to this archway.

"Liu Wuye, I heard that the lock of Widow Li's house in the east of the village was broken last night, as if someone saw you walking around her house in the middle of the night."

"Fifth master, fifth master, come and rest for a while, and sing two voices to everyone."

A few women on the side of the road talked non-stop.

I saw a man carrying a bundle of soybean seedlings coming from afar, this man was in his early sixties, wearing a shabby dogskin hat, this hat looked like it was some years old, the edge of the hat was seriously worn, the sun was shining, under the hat was a sallow face, the towering cheekbones were full of wrinkles all around, but the eyes seemed to be out of place with the face full of vicissitudes, the gaze was deep and powerful, like the light that could pass through the night, and the mouth held a copper rod cigarette pouch pot, At the tip of the pipe was a lambskin pouch, black and polished like a pulp, and swaying irregularly as he walked.

The man went up to him, looked up at the women in the field, and took the pipe from his mouth with his right hand, and saw that his right hand seemed to be different, and that his right hand had a broken little thumb. didn't speak, just a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, and he squeezed a far-fetched smile, and the surrounding of his face was squeezed by this smile, which made the wrinkles appear deeper. Then he walked over with his head down.

This person is the fifth master in people's mouths, surnamed Liu, with a single name and a pronoun, but the people in the village seem to have forgotten his name for a long time, and they all call him Liu Wuye. He was a single man in the village, with no children and no relatives, and I heard that his elders had fled from other places in the early years, and no one knew exactly where, except that his father died of illness when he was a teenager, and he was the only one left. This man was a very neat person when he was young, since his father died, he learned a skill of mending pots and pots from a person who ran his life, that is, the folk said mending the craftsman, this craft in the past in the older generation, it is indeed a technical work, walking the streets and alleys, running around, these craftsmen are also collectively known as "nine and eighteen craftsmen". "Nine Guys" refers to the nine professions of casting pigs, killing pigs, gelding, hitting walls, squeezing, shaving heads, mending pots, pedicures, and drummers; The "Eighteen Craftsmen" include goldsmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, hoop makers, carpenters, hammer makers, bullet makers, shavers, leathermen, umbrella makers, carvers, weighers, pot makers, pot tinkers, weavers, sharpeners, cutters, cutters, stonemasons, seal carvers, and spinners. And Liu Wuye's work is the pot maker and pot tinker referred to here.

And this pot tinker is divided into two categories, the first type is specially designed for the officials, princes, nobles, and children of the Eight Banners to serve the pleasure of curium porcelain fine work, that is, "when the work", also called "show work", the work is also wonderful, delicate and meticulous. The other type is Liu Wuye's category, that is, it is necessary to walk the streets and alleys, and the curium porcelain restoration technology based on repairing folk daily necessities is called "work".

In those years, Liu Wuye did suffer some hardships, accompanied by "curium pots" every day...... Curium Bowl ...... Curium vat ......" the shout, began a day's life, this line has its own special tools, and put them all in a small wooden box or cloth bag tied at both ends of the flat shoulder, and then picked on the shoulder, and then began to walk village by village, a family by skewer, although hard, but also rely on the craft to eat, can barely solve the problem of food and clothing.

In addition to this eating skill, this Liu Wuye has a good courage because he travels south and north, eats and sleeps in the open, so he has a special errand in the village. At that time, it was the era of famine in the past six years, and the broad masses of the people actively responded to the great leader's great call of "people are productive forces", and did not know what the so-called family planning was, so every family was desperate to have children, large and small families were more than ten people, and the population was more than ten people, and eating a large population became a practical problem of opening their eyes every day, and the medical facilities were extremely backward at that time, so the mortality rate of children was extremely high. Probably the final result is premature death, and if such an adult child dies, he cannot enter the ancestral grave, nor can he enjoy the peace of being in the earth, the only way is to carry it to the mountains and burn it with fire, but because the child died too much, if they are burned, it is time-consuming and laborious. Therefore, many children were simply carried directly into the mountains, and the straw mats were broken, and the better ones were wrapped in broken quilts, and thrown directly into the ravines, allowing the beasts to eat. Of course, their parents can't bear to carry their dead children and throw them away, because this is not only unbearable, but more importantly, such a thing is detrimental to Yang Shou or the act of cutting off children and grandchildren. So at that time, if a child died in the village, Liu Wuye, who was a bachelor, became the best candidate to throw the corpse.

Whenever Liu Wuye appears in which house, just like the plague god, the master often gives the fifth master a few leaves of sweat and smoke, and then wraps the child's corpse, and briefly explains a few words to the fifth master, the fifth master easily wraps the broken quilt wrapped in the child's corpse into the elbow, turns around and leaves, and then walks directly to the north of the village, out of the north of the village, and then to the mountain is a big ditch, usually people call the north ditch, into the north ditch, the fifth master threw the child's body into the ditch, even if the funeral ceremony is too simple to be simple.

For that experience, the fifth master often kept his mouth shut, and if he mentioned it, he always buried his head very deeply, constantly shaking his head, and kept muttering in his mouth, "Evil, evil!" "I know that this kind of thing is also forced by life for Liu Wuye, and it is difficult to hide, but once, because the fifth master drank a few more glasses, he talked to me about the past, and he said it completely different from the demeanor when he usually told the story, which seemed serious and dull.

I forgot that it was that year, the Sun family in the village, at that time, was also a big family, because the door was large, naturally there were more children, I remember that it was an extremely cold winter, Sun Laoga knocked on Liu Wuye's door in the middle of the night, because it was the middle of the night, and the fifth master also knew that it was definitely not an ordinary thing, so he put on his coat and opened the door.

When Sun Laoga saw the fifth master lighting the oil lamp, he said, "Liu Dai, I have to trouble you, it's the middle of the night, hey, the family is unfortunate,"

The fifth master didn't wait for Sun Laoga to finish speaking, and he probably understood seven or eight points in his heart, so he said, "Is it that the baby at home is not very good!" ”

Sun Laoga then sighed and said, "It's not what's wrong, the day before yesterday I was still alive, yesterday I said that my stomach hurts, there are many children in the family, and I didn't take it seriously, but it suddenly didn't work tonight, poor baby!" ”

After hearing this, Liu Wuye said, "Okay, don't worry, catch up with this year, what's the way, I'll go with you."

With that, the two went out and went straight to Sun Laoga's house. When I arrived at Sun Laoga's house, I entered the West House, and saw that the child was covered with a broken quilt, lying motionless, and it seemed that it was no longer possible, and the sound of a woman sobbing softly came from the East House. Sun Laoga stepped forward and wrapped the child vigorously with the torn cotton jacket, and Liu Wuye didn't speak, but clamped it with a squeak. Then he walked out of Sun Laoga's house and went straight to Beigou as usual.

At that time, it was nine days, there was goose feather snow in the sky, the north wind was like a blade, and his face hurt, the fifth master lowered his head and held the dead child all the way to the north, because of the heavy snow, the sky was not very dark, and he could vaguely see the dry poplars on both sides of the road, so he walked and walked, and suddenly this broken quilt seemed to move in his elbow, although the fifth master was bold, but his heart was also hairy, thinking that he was frozen and knew that there was a deviation, and he didn't care, so he continued to walk forward with the north of the whirring. Suddenly, I heard a slight moaning sound from the broken quilt, the fifth master stopped, and listened carefully, it was indeed the sound from the quilt, the fifth master settled down, his left hand held the quilt, and his right hand pulled it at the opening of the quilt, and then a pale face leaked out, without a trace of blood through the snow light, and his eyes were deeply closed. It's a 6 or 7-year-old child's face, and all you can see is the chapped lips quivering slightly. Originally, the child was already smoking, through the cold wind blowing, and after a bump in walking, he breathed a sigh of relief, but the breath was like a gossamer, and then only a childish and faint voice was heard, "Uncle, don't throw me, I'm fine,,," The voice was intermittent, although it was not big, but it was clear to hear. The fifth master was shocked, thinking about how this child was alive again. Throwing so many dead children, this is the first time I have encountered such a thing. What's next? The fifth master also muttered in his heart, send it back, it will definitely not survive, if you don't send it back, this child has not yet breathed, and his brain is struggling fiercely. The fifth master put the child on the snow nest, took out the cigarette bag and pot, scooped the pipe into the sheepskin tobacco pouch vigorously, and lit a bag of cigarettes. The wind was still as strong, mixed with snowflakes and whining. At this time, Liu Wuye sank his shoulders and slammed his pipe on the sole of his big scalp. Grabbed the torn cotton jacket and rolled it up vigorously, and walked towards the north wind. Since then, Liu Wuye has never helped others throw away dead children.

With the changes of the times, the continuous improvement of modern living standards, each family has its own surplus money, especially after the reform and opening up, the people's living standards have been improved unprecedentedly, so those slightly damaged pots and pans no longer need to be repaired, they are generally thrown away directly, and then buy new ones, and because of this, their business has slowly disappeared in the long river of history. Because there is no demand, it means that Liu Wuye's craftsmanship is useless, and as he gets older, he can't do too much coolie work, so he packed up his belongings and completely idle at home.

Liu Wuye because the previous generation was considered an outsider, so his generation had neither land nor capital in the village, so he usually relied on carrying work for other families in the village. This only solves the problem of eating, you can also have two sips of wine, and some better families will give him extra change to maintain his daily use, so that he can live the same life year after year. With the development of the times and the smooth flow of news, there are more people going out to work in the village, so every family will naturally have a lot of leftovers, and these leftovers will also be sent to him, and he never dislikes it, after all, eating a full stomach is more important than anything else. Therefore, when the people in the village saw him, they would make a few jokes with him, and he never replied, but just laughed away.

Because of the experience of traveling south and north when he was young, he also saw a lot of strange things, he seemed to know, although he usually didn't like to talk much, but when he mentioned his previous past experience, he instantly came to the spirit, always gushing, as if the words in it could never be finished, and I was also full of infinite interest in these things, and I would find him when I had nothing to do, and listen to his various anecdotes in front of me, which can be regarded as like-minded.

The fifth master carried the bundle of bean seedlings, and slowly came to a vacant lot in the middle of the village, where a pile of stones is usually piled up, and it is also a place for people to rest and play after dinner, he picked up a flat stone slab and sat down, took the bundle of bean seedlings behind him, and took a few deep breaths in his cigarette pouch. I looked at his casual appearance, and walked over in a few steps, sat on the side, and thought about what the fifth master had today, and took it out to talk about it.

As soon as I sat down, I suddenly heard a commotion at the north end of the street, and after a while, Erli hurriedly walked over, and I shouted, "Erli, what's going on in the north of the village, so lively?" Erli stopped, "You don't know yet, the Zhang family's wife is gone, and she didn't breathe for a while." Seeing that I can't go out today during this time, I will be notified door-to-door. ”

As soon as I heard it, I understood, this Zhang family's wife is very popular in the village, especially the children in the village are very fond of her, so they all love to revolve around her, she is almost 90 years old, four generations in the same house, and now the great-grandchildren will run all over the ground. Dying of illness at such an old age can be regarded as a joy and mourning. The house is full of children and grandchildren, and he has not suffered too much illness.

At this time, Liu Wuye was about to get up, and I hurriedly called, "Fifth Master is not busy, it's almost noon today, and the funeral will definitely not be able to go out, sit and nag for a while!" ”

As soon as the fifth master thought about it, he sat down again and smiled at me, saying, "Then I'll talk to you for a while." Then he continued, "Boy, do you know why Mrs. Zhang's wife can't go out of the funeral today?" ”

I am indeed very curious about this, as soon as Liu Wuye mentioned this stubble, I took out the lighter in my pocket, lit Liu Wuye's cigarette pouch and pot, and then said, "Then Wuye will tell me about it today!" ”