After a few days of traveling, I felt so tired that I fell asleep while lying on the bed and closing my eyes.

After a long time, I felt sweaty, so I opened my eyes and got up and smelled my armpits, and there was already a strong smell of sweat. My clothes were soaking wet and sticking to my body, and it was already dark outside, so I could see everything in the room.

The room was a variety of furnishings that I had never seen before, antique calligraphy and paintings hung all over the walls, and a mahogany sword hanging on the beam, the funny thing was that the sword was clearly pasted with a small piece of paper, I looked up, and it took a long time to see the words on it: five yuan.

There was a desk by the window, on which were placed long strips of paper of different colors, the kind of paper that Master used to draw symbols, the only difference was that there were no symbolic strokes on these papers. Three brushes hung on the pen stand, the ink on the nibs was obvious, and there was a small dish containing some red cinnabar, and next to it was an inkstone, which I recognized as having one for my father, who practiced calligraphy all the time.

I put on my shoes and walked to the door, the doors and windows are very old, open the empty door, there is no one outside, the high roof is full of cyan tiles, the room is connected one by one in the old pavilion corridor, the long corridor encircles the periphery of the courtyard, there is a green brick path in the middle part, on both sides are all kinds of flowers and plants, there are several rockeries in the middle of the flowers and plants, and on the edge of the rockery is an independent small house, only later I learned that it is a thatched house.

?“ You're awake, little brother. A voice sounded behind me, and I turned around to see that it was the senior brother of the Dharma friend from yesterday.

?“ Well, I'm up and a little hungry. ”

?“ Are you hungry? Then come with me. ”

?“ I haven't eaten here yet, so I don't know if it's going to taste like home. "I said in a deep voice.

The little brother turned his head and smiled at me, for some reason, that smile seemed to be imprinted in my mind, and I still remember it vividly.

??“ Let's eat, I'm going to worship the master later, the porridge is hot, eat slowly, there's still time to eat. ”

Looking at the rice soup in front of me, for some reason, I suddenly felt the urge to feel homesick. It's too hard, the white rice soup has a few grains of rice that have been boiled and can't see clearly, stirring with chopsticks, and the few rice grains rotate with the whirlpool after stirring, very beautiful, and my eyes are full of gold stars. I was thinking, even if you are as beautiful as a fairy, you can't fill your stomach.

?“ Eat quickly, the senior brothers will be up in a while. ”

?“ Oh, good. I drank all the rice soup in the bowl in one go, and sure enough, there were no rice grains left at the bottom of the bowl.

?“ You sit here first, and I'll go and tell them to get up, and we'll go to Master together after they've finished eating. ”

?? I was left alone in the empty room, and I was still reminiscing about the rice soup just now, and there was clearly a salty smell, how could these people eat it?

I never imagined that in the days to come, the scene of us sitting around a table talking and laughing and drinking rice soup is still unforgettable.

?“ Little brother, why do you get up so early? Is the food here delicious?" and a rough voice came into my ears, and I judged that it was said to me.

I looked up and saw that there were six people in total, all of different ages, and the one who asked me was a man about the same age as my father, and the rest of the five people were only Brother Fayou and I were about the same age, and the rest seemed to be all young.

?“ Well, get up, hello brothers. "With my right hand up, I gave them a standard Young Pioneer salute.

I could clearly see and hear the man's embarrassed expression and the uncontrollable laughter of the few people behind him.

Carefully observing the six people in front of me, each holding a bowl of rice soup in front of a slightly larger round table next to me, drinking bitterly with a bitter face, one of them was full of sadness, and opened his mouth to say: "Little Liu, the taste of your meal today is wrong, why is it a fishy smell?"

I also looked at the little brother who was called "Little Six" with a puzzled face, and I saw him say with an embarrassed face: "Fourth brother, I'm sorry, the day before yesterday, the fifth brother didn't wash the pot when he boiled fish soup." ”

I looked around for the "fifth brother", only to see a brother in his twenties who spoke Mandarin from other places lowered his head and said nonchalantly: "Who wants to get this fishy smell to be clean? He looked up, and his eyes fell on me, and the thief looked at me unnaturally.

I turned around and looked behind me, there was no one, was he talking to me? Could it be that I was the "old seven"?

I asked tentatively, "Are you asking me?", and he replied stunned: "It's you, we will all be brothers in the same sect in the future, I am your fifth brother, you are the seventh apprentice accepted by the master, and we will call you the seventh in the future." ”

After breakfast, I walked into the main hall with all the senior brothers, and the master was already sitting on the futon, and after we saluted him, we all found a place and sat down.

Today, the master seems to be drunk, and Liu Siyun, who is a fairy wind and a bone of the fairy wind and bones, I can't help but wander.

Master sat there cross-legged, far away I could still smell the smell of wine on him, he seemed to be babbling to himself, his voice getting weaker and weaker, and finally after hearing his thunderous snoring and then there was a "bang" on the ground and his slump, he continued, only this time, I didn't dare not listen to it. Because the moment he woke up, I actually laughed loudly, and the senior brothers were also depressed, and I saw with my own eyes that the fifth brother lowered his head and blushed like me. Master glared at me viciously, and I bowed my head in shame.

"Falu, now I'm going to introduce you to these senior brothers. ”

??“ Yes, Master. ”

??“ Your senior brother is the heir, boss, you will bring more of your seventh junior brother in the future, now you will experience first, and you will take over my class later. "Following the direction of Master's finger, I saw the senior brother who was smiling awkwardly in the morning, and it turned out that he was the senior brother.

?? The sixth senior brother told me that it is estimated that the master drank too much and wanted to sleep, I was thinking, didn't he wake up when he fell just now?

Senior brother Fa Tong, 46 years old, a monk disciple, his ancestral home is Shenyang, Liaoning, not far from Dalian, on the edge of Jinping County. He entered the Tao at the age of 17, regarded the Tao as his life, honest and honest, and was the first disciple of his generation to have a position, serving as a supervisor, and he was the number one when the master was away, as if his father had said that he would pass on the position of abbot to him after a hundred years.

The second senior brother Fa Jie, 32 years old, a monk disciple, his ancestral home is Zaozhuang, Shandong, his family thought he ate too much, so he threw him away when he was a child, and was accepted as an apprentice by the master by chance. At present, he is in charge of the number room in Guanli, and is also in charge of Zhongliao, which is to welcome Taoist priests or tourists from the visiting side, including arranging food and accommodation for Taoist friends who have placed orders.

The third senior brother Fa Yong, 31 years old, is a monk and a disciple of Xiangtan, Hunan. I worked hard all day long holding the "Yellow Pavilion Sutra" or the "Golden Sutra of the Great Cave", but there were some forbidden books in it. Once the master asked him to recite the scriptures, but he didn't recite them, and the master picked up the copper gossip and threw it at him, in fact, if he didn't dodge it at that time, he couldn't hit him, because the master didn't want to hit him at all, in short, the scar on his face after that time was very deep. He was in charge of assisting the second senior brother in the work.

The fourth senior brother Fa Ping, 25 years old, a converted disciple, whose ancestral home is Huangshi, Hubei, was temporarily sent here for family reasons because he "has aura and is suitable for cultivation". The fourth senior brother is always so smiling, no matter what happens, he will smile, but his only flaw is that he loves to grind his teeth when he sleeps, which is not counted, I heard that it is because he has sleepwalking disorder and made some unforgivable mistakes in his sleep at home, so he was given to the master by his parents in horror and anger.

The fifth senior brother Fayang, 21 years old, converted to a disciple, ancestral home in Chongqing. Like the elder brother, he was too obsessed with cultivating the Tao, so he quit his studies and tried his best to worship the master. It is said that more than half of the money for the construction of this Taoist temple was paid by the parents of the fifth brother. Master was very tolerant of him, and turned a blind eye to his mistakes.

?? Sixth Senior Brother Fa You, 12 years old, local.

It is said that he was the illegitimate son of the master.

Master messed around in Kaiyuanguan in Qinglong Mountain many years ago and hooked up with a Taoist aunt, I don't know how they did it, anyway, in the end, the sixth senior brother was born. The master had no choice but to take him by his side in the name of an apprentice.

Master loves him very much, every day he will secretly go to Master's room, every time he comes out, his mouth will be oily, and he is also the only one among several senior brothers who uses a toothpick every day.

In the blink of an eye, it has been three days since I came to this Taoist temple, and I have only drunk one bowl of rice soup and one dinner in three days, because Master has stipulated that these disciples have one meal every two days.

I'm very indifferent to this, thinking that it's good to eat something. As long as people live, they can't die easily, so they are sorry for their families, and even more sorry for themselves.

I want to live, I want to live well.

In the days that followed, I meditated with my brothers every day, practiced boxing, stood on stakes, memorized scriptures, and went out to sell painted talismans together.

Xing Miao saw me a few times with yellow skin and thin muscles, and secretly stuffed a few pieces of candy for me.

Master is different from my impression of him, now he doesn't come out of the meditation room every day, every time I see him, he is drunk, I regret coming here, but if I go home, I will kill my family, I would rather suffer a little bit myself than my family will be hurt by me.

Today, the drunken master stopped me when I was playing with the sixth senior brother, I walked up to the master tremblingly, bowed my head and waited for the master's lecture, I felt that the master was drunk again today, not to mention the pungent smell of wine, the master's tongue has never deceived people, and when I drank too much, my tongue could not be straightened.

I don't remember what he said now, but that day he handed me a small brown document with a gossip on the cover and five big characters written under the gossip: "Taoist Refuge Certificate".

?“ Seventh, where is your home?" the senior brother suddenly asked.

?“ Longmiao Village is very close to Dalian. ”

?“ Are you going to go home for the Chinese New Year?"

?“ Maybe go back, I don't know if my dad will come to pick me up. ”

I don't know why, after saying this, the young me unconsciously sighed.

The six senior brothers beside him all lowered their heads and did not speak, it was cloudy outside, and the room was very dark, and the atmosphere was so oppressive that it was suffocating. This kind of weather, this kind of atmosphere, is very suitable for homesickness, right?

Will I ever go home for the New Year? This question was finally answered on Chinese New Year's Eve.

?? It's really deserted outside, and after the twenty-third day of the lunar month, the senior brothers have their own places to go one after another.

Master has not been close to me since I came to the Taoist temple, two days before the Chinese New Year, he took the senior brother Sitong and the sixth senior brother and the heir friend I don't know where to go, but in the following days, the sixth senior brother who confided the truth on the wine table said that the Dao aunt who was made big by the master was the sister of the senior brother and the mother of the sixth senior brother.

The senior brother is the master's brother-in-law, the uncle of the sixth senior brother, and the three of them take the train to Shenyang for the New Year every Spring Festival.

The other four brothers were all taken home by their families for the Spring Festival, which is a big festival for family reunions, but I didn't have the direction to go home.

?? The old man who guarded the door also left without saying a word, and it has been two days.

On the twenty-fifth day of the lunar month, there had just been a snowfall, and the weather was even colder.

When there was no water, I came to the well with a bucket to fetch water.

The ice at the mouth of the well was so solid, just like when I was thin and carried the bucket of thirty or forty pounds of water from above and slipped and fell to the ground, I fell so strongly.

The water spilled all over the floor and instantly flowed into my thin trouser legs, which was really biting.

I don't know where a grievance came from, I sat on the ground and cried, while crying, I punched and punched according to the hard shiny ice, the red little hand was unconscious, and the thin arm felt sore: "You also bullied me, even you bullied me!"

My hand hurts, there are a few blood stains on my knuckles, I don't know how many punches I have punched, I just thought, I didn't learn the boxing techniques taught by my master in vain.

Crawling up, he weakly picked up the empty bucket, insisted on fetching another bucket of water and carried it back to the stove with great difficulty.

No way, I want to live, I want to eat.

There is no water in the tank, and the rice bags have bottomed out, and they will not come back until the eighth day of the first month, so I can't get to that time.

Last year, during the Spring Festival, I was still at home to help paste the Spring Festival and make dumplings, and every year on Chinese New Year's Eve, my father would prepare a plate of three fresh dumplings that I loved to eat, and I could take one bite at a time.

Lying on the bed, the room was empty, and I suddenly remembered an idiom taught by my Chinese teacher when I was still in school, which was enough to describe the situation at this moment: lonely and miserable.

They have been gone for three days, how can I guard such a large Taoist temple alone?

Didn't Master promise that Dad would take good care of me? Now that Master is gone, I'm really at a loss.

I am still young, I am only eight and a half years old, I want to eat delicious food, I want to have my father and Aunt Lu by my side to love me, I want someone to put me to sleep at night, I want someone to play with me during the day, I want someone to talk to me, even if I make a mistake and reprimand me.

I was homesick and although I couldn't find home at all, I wanted to leave this place.

Dad had secretly left me a phone number and two addresses on the train, one from Longmiao Village in Jiyang, telling me that if I have something or feel homesick, I can call the village committee to give the third uncle, that number I always remember, every time I think of my father, I will look at it again, today when I went down the mountain, I found a public phone booth, I took the microphone and I thought a lot, I want to tell my father that I am very well-behaved, I miss them very much, I want to go home.

After hesitating for a long time, his heart was beating faster, his breathing was short, and his little cold red hands trembled and pressed the number keys, as if he could take a step closer to going home after dialing the phone, and he was so nervous that he couldn't be more nervous. Dialed, prompted an empty number, I panicked, dialed several times, all empty numbers, empty numbers, empty numbers, I was shouting in my heart, Dad, I just want someone to be by my side and have a lively New Year with me, I don't want to be alone in this place where I can't eat, although I don't want to kill you, but after all, that's my home!

I was thinking in my heart that other senior brothers have a home to go back to for the Spring Festival, have new clothes to wear, and can eat delicious food during the festival, but I don't know who to write a suicide note to when I die.

?? I put down the microphone, I couldn't tell the loss, I didn't know how to walk back to the view, I only knew that I wanted to go home, I stumbled on the small mountain road, returned to the house and fell on the bed and cried bitterly, but no one cared, and I was as cold as death. At this moment, I deeply realized how terrible it is to be abandoned.

I chose this path on my own, and within a few months, I regretted it.

?? I didn't give up and ran to the phone booth to try it again, and the result was the same, and the shop owner looked at me with a complicated look like pity.

I was so hungry that I couldn't walk when I walked to the door of a restaurant, so I didn't know where I got the courage to walk in.

It was the first time in my life that I went to a restaurant, not to consume, but to work.

The owner of the restaurant, a thin black uncle, looked at me, who was only a head above the table, shook his head and smiled and told me not to joke. I lowered my head and bit my lip, and said tremblingly, "Uncle, I don't want money, I'm here to help." ”

The young heart can't stand being lonely, and I don't feel lonely during the two days I was there. I work in the kitchen, but I don't think I'm alone.

Soon, on the twenty-eighth day of the lunar month, the restaurant was also closed, and I returned to Guanli, living a lonely life as a layman.

In the two days of helping in the restaurant, I ate rice, steamed buns, vegetables, and meat for the first time in several months, and these foods were not eaten in the view, and the boss saw me pitiful, and when I left, he gave me half a roast chicken and some croquettes, as well as a jar of wine, for me to take home and drink for my family.

In the view, there is only the same rice soup with red peppers, there is no salty taste, there is no oil and water at all, and the stomach can't bear it, but it still survives. Occasionally, the elder brother would buy back a few fish or a pound of pork from a far away market with his own salary, only occasionally, once a year, just like once a year when I went to work in a restaurant.

?? I slept and woke up dark and dark.

The roast chicken and meatballs I had put in the kitchen were gone, and I guess maybe the uncle who watched the door took them, or maybe anyone could bully me.

The food was taken away, but the wine remained, and I returned to the meditation room with the wine jar.

It was dark, there was a rumbling sound of firecrackers in the distance, I saw some light outside through the window, it was someone setting off fireworks, maybe it was the parents of a certain family with their children laughing and lighting the fireworks, I had red eyes, and I could vaguely hear the laughter of those adults and children.

Maybe the third senior brother read too many forbidden books for me, or pretended to be melancholy, or it was very cold at the moment, so I opened the wine jar tremblingly.

The wine was so bitter and spicy, spicier than the red pepper with the porridge, it choked me straight to tears, I threw a big sip on my neck, and couldn't help but spit it out.

I want to cry, but I want to cry without tears, why should I cry, isn't this my choice? Thinking of this, I smiled bitterly.

?? I looked at the clock on the wall, and it was half past seven.

Looking at the lights of thousands of homes under the mountain, I couldn't help but moisten the corners of my eyes, I turned around and looked at the Chinese New Year's Eve meal prepared for myself on the desk, a bowl of porridge that had already been cold, and a plate of red dried peppers that were spicy enough to tears, and raised my hand to take another sip of white wine into my throat.