As soon as Li Xiaocan entered the door, he saw his father sitting at the counter blowing an electric fan.

"Dad, I'm back." When Li Xiaocan saw his skinny father, he couldn't help but feel sad. Dad's skin was dark, and the flesh on his face was tightly pressed against his high protruding cheekbones. His temples were dyed white, as if it had just snowed.

"Girl, you're back!" Dad laughed, and the wrinkles on both cheeks deepened, becoming a large, well-veined flower, like the bark of a pine tree covered with ravines.

"Xiaocan, are you back?" Mom came out of the kitchen when she heard the sound, wiped her two hands on her apron, and broke her face again, "Don't come back, you have to come back!" ”

"I'll come back and see if it's okay, don't worry, your daughter won't be so poor that she doesn't even have the money to pay for the journey." Li Xiaocan put down his duffel bag.

"Dad, are you better?" Li Xiaocan snuggled up to his father like he did when he was a child.

"Much better." Dad said.

"Dad, I'll take you to the city in the afternoon to find an expert to check it out."

"No, I looked for an acquaintance, I was taking Chinese medicine, and now it's much better." Dad refused.

"If your dad doesn't want to go, don't go, save the trouble of running back and forth." Mom said.

When Li Xiaocan heard this, he was anxious: "Dad, you can't take medicine indiscriminately for this disease, the sooner you treat it, the better!" ”

"It's okay, the doctor prescribed medicine, I've been taking it for more than half a month, it's getting better, I don't want to find another doctor to see, it's very troublesome."

"Dad, it's very convenient for me to take you there, I'll borrow a wheelchair to push you, you just have to sit." Li Xiaocan asked again and again. She couldn't bear to watch her father lose weight. Is this thin, short, half-old man the same person I remember as a child, the sturdy young man who held her high above his head and played around? When she was a child, her father wrestled her wrists, and he could lift her to the ground with one hand. But now sitting in front of her, Daddy is like a withered yellow leaf, revealing a declining color.

"Girl, I appreciate your kindness, I'm looking for an old expert, in his 50s, I change the medicine every week, the effect is quite good, you toss me back and forth, it's better to let me recuperate." Several indicators on the examination report have been lowered, but the platelets and white blood cells have not been lowered, and there is still a week of medicine not taken. "Dad insisted on not going.

"Forget it, Xiaocan, your father doesn't want to go, so don't force him." Mom also advised.

Li Xiaocan was helpless, so he had to carefully look at a large package of traditional Chinese medicine and a bunch of incomprehensible data reports, and asked his father in detail about the process of seeing a doctor and the difference between before and after taking medicine, and then he was relieved.

Dad no longer drinks, but his alcohol dependence is still there, and during the meal, his eyes glanced at the large glass container with the pot of medicinal wine.

Li Xiaocan knocked on the edge of the bowl with chopsticks: "I'm still thinking about the wine, it's spicy and bitter, what's so delicious!" ”

The commissary doesn't make much money, it's not a small number of people every day, and during the summer vacation, there are often half-grown children who take one or two yuan to buy snacks and buy popsicles, Li Xiaocan sits at the counter and watches the store, and asks his father to rest.

Since Li Xiaocan got married, he has rarely come back, and even giving birth to children is in other places, wandering outside all the year round, and returning to a familiar place feels extremely cordial.

I remember watching "The True Story of A Fei" before, and there was a line in it - there is a bird in the world, it has no feet, it is born and keeps flying, and when it is tired of flying, it sleeps in the wind. She feels that she is this kind of bird, and only when she returns to her hometown and her parents will she rest, and this sense of security is extremely steady.

There were still rows of camphor trees on the side of the road, and pedestrians on the road would chat with each other in a dialect she could understand, instead of in the south, when others were chatting in Cantonese, she stared blankly, like an alien.

The pace of the town is slow, except for the breakfast shop, the other shops are open at eight or nine o'clock, and the lights are turned off early at night, and the sun rises and the sun sets. It's not like a metropolis, where colorful neon lights and office buildings are lit up day and night all night long. People here walk slowly, not like the rush of traffic in the city.

"Are you going grocery shopping?" "There's another (dialect, there) supermarket over there that has just opened, and it's so cheap to play activities, you can look at Hazi quickly." Aunt Zhang next door walked into the door next door with a bag of vegetables and chatted with her mother.

This kind of familiar and intimate relationship between neighbors and the countryside is more primitive and intimate than closing the security door as soon as you enter the city.

If you don't consider the practical problems of medical education, small town life is actually more in line with health preservation, not impatient or impatient. You can meet acquaintances when you play soy sauce in a small town, and this kind of comfortable living atmosphere seems to be more in line with human instinct, rather than being wary of guarding and fighting for me.

It would be nice if you lived an ordinary life in this town where the smell of camphor wafts in the air all year round. But the reality is cruel, a big problem in front of Li's father and mother is that his son is not married, and once he gets married, he will have to buy a house, buy a car, and have a bride price, which will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars at every turn, so that Li's father and Li mother dare not relax.

When my sister learned that Li Xiaocan had returned to her hometown, she proposed to buy a house first: "When the house is bought, the stones in my parents' hearts can land, and I can treat and recuperate with peace of mind." ”

When Li Xiaocan heard this, he immediately voted against: "Sister, it's not difficult to buy a house with a down payment, but who will repay the loan?" In addition, if you want to treat a disease, you don't have enough money in your hand, how can you treat it? ”

Dad just took more than 2,000 Chinese medicine, and spent more than 5,000 on examination fees such as filming, blood drawing, and B ultrasound, and the monthly income of the commissary was gone.

Li Xiaocan suddenly remembered medical insurance, turned his head and asked his mother: "Mom, isn't there rural cooperative medical care?" I think I'll be able to reimburse part of my father's expenses this time. ”

"How can there be any reimbursement, last year the secretary asked me to buy it, pay three hundred a year, and six hundred for two people, it's too expensive, I didn't buy it." Mom said with her head down.

"Mom, you're so short-sighted!" When Li Xiaocan heard this, he was speechless in his heart. There is no medical insurance, every penny has to be paid by yourself, where can you afford it, medical insurance is welfare, for a mere 600 yuan, my mother didn't buy it! You must know that a CT is more than 600.

"Can I buy it again?" Li Xiaocan asked again.

"The medical insurance is bought by the village secretary during the Chinese New Year, I'm afraid I can't, it's all paid once a year, and it will be next year at the earliest." Mom said.

Li Xiaocan had no choice but to consult a few insurance sellers in the circle of friends, and as soon as Li Xiaocan reported his age, the other party asked for a physical examination, and the premium was more than 10,000 yuan a year. Commercial insurance can't be bought, and can't afford it, Li Xiaocan sighed, feeling that the burden on his shoulders was heavy, and a sense of powerlessness arose. People, you can have anything, but you can't be sick!

Poverty not only makes people suffer materially, but what is even more terrible is that long-term poverty will not only limit imagination, but also easily form a mindset of being sadistic and masochistic.

In the morning, Li Xiaocan asked his mother before going out: "Mom, I'm going to buy breakfast, do you eat soup powder or soup noodles?" ”

Mom hurriedly shook her head: "I have leftover vegetables last night, I will heat it up, and it will be wasted if I don't eat it." ”

Li Xiaocan knew that in order to save money, her mother didn't eat out too early for four yuan.

"Good. Dad, what do you eat? Li Xiaocan deliberately ignored her mother, she knew that persuading her mother again would only cause a controversy.

"Noodle soup." Dad said. Dad must have suffered a lot with this kind of mother who was eager to sell blood, otherwise why would he have lost weight like this.

After a while, Li Xiaocan came back with a bowl of hot dry noodles and a bowl of noodle soup. My mother was eating a bowl of brown and black cabbage in the kitchen, and the kitchen was not well lit, so my mother was reluctant to turn on the light and sat in a dark corner eating. Li Xiaocan looked at her mother's shrunken back, feeling sad and helpless.

Li Xiaocan walked to the hall and took a bite of hot dry noodles, his eyebrows wrinkled, the taste was not the taste in his memory, and the pickled beans were already a little stinky. Li Xiaocan couldn't eat, there was half a bowl left, and there were guests buying something, so she went to the cash register.

After working for a while and wiping the shelves, Li Xiaocan went into the kitchen to pour water and drink, and found that his mother was eating his remaining half a bowl of hot dry noodles. ”

Mom wiped her mouth with a worn-out linen cloth: "Why can't you eat it?" It tastes good. ”

Li Xiaocan was even more angry: "Mom, the rag is so dirty, don't you have a tissue?!" Your family is so poor that like a beggar, you eat what you throw away! ”

The mother smiled casually, and began to recite the sutra again: "Now is not as good as before, I don't know why I was so poor before, I didn't have food or clothing, what kind of life I lived!" You can't afford to pay the school tuition, so I had to send rice to the teacher to pay for the tuition, and plead everywhere. You don't have a notebook to write, I'll use the paper to wrap the noodles to make you a ......."

Li Xiaocan felt that her mother had regressed again, and she also had the memories of these sufferings, but there was no need to live like this because of this.

Li Xiaocan had a big discussion with his mother, trying to change his mother's backward and outdated concept of spending money and life, but his mother, who has always been not good at words, can cite countless examples at any time to prove that "thrift is glorious and spending money is shameful", Li Xiaocan licked his lips that were dry due to talking too much, and felt that he had spent four yuan to buy hot dry noodles in the morning, which was really a heinous crime.

The next day, Li Xiaocan bought three servings of hot dry noodles, porridge and xiaolongbao, and his mother stubbornly ate the leftovers from last night, and then saved the cold noodles and porridge buns for lunch, and carried out a profound ideological education for Li Xiaocan from theory to practice.

On the third day, Li Xiaocan simply didn't buy anything and ate leftovers with his mother. This is the power of stubbornness, Li Xiaocan has no choice in front of his extreme mother.

Maybe it was because he hadn't adapted to the climate, Li Xiaocan was constipated, and said to his mother: "Mom, buy some bananas when you buy vegetables." As a result, my mother only bought a pitiful three bananas. Li Xiaocan admired his mother for being able to withstand the surprised and disgusted gaze of the cashier and the waiter who weighed and hit the price.

Li Xiaocan handed a banana to his mother: "Mom, you can eat it too." Mom pushed her hand: "I don't like to eat." ”

Li Xiaocan stuffed the banana into his mother's hand. Mom put it down again. Li Xiaocan had to peel it off: "Mom, it's already peeled off, and if you don't eat it, it'll be broken." Mom still pushed out, Li Xiaoqiang had no choice but to put down the banana, and her mother couldn't eat it if she didn't eat it. Three bananas, just like that, were rotten.

It wasn't until the third day, when the once golden banana peel was covered with black spots, that my mother peeled it and ate it. Li Xiaocan hurriedly stopped: "Mom, the bananas are rotten, you can't eat them!" ”

But my mother said, "I can eat it, but the skin is rotten, and the inside is still very sweet!" And solved two in one go.

Li Xiaocan felt that her mother was a little unreasonable, but what made Li Xiaocan even more unexpected was that in order to save money, her mother actually didn't take medicine.