(xiv)

It often rains in the mountains, and it lasts for two or three days at a time. It's wet everywhere, and you can't go crazy in the wild at this time, and it's boring to stay at home.

At this time, the comic books of my second uncle's house became a good thing for me to pass the afternoon.

The second uncle regarded those comic books as treasures, and took them out and flipped them whenever he had time. He looked very closely, and pondered as he looked.

I was amazed that my second uncle, who had never gone to school, was able to tell the stories of Xue Rengui and Qin Shubao in the comic book vividly every time, interspersed with some of his views. Maybe it's because it's been a long time and I've watched it more times.

After the death of the third uncle, I often saw the second uncle and my father scolding and arguing in Miao dialect after drinking, often arguing so that their faces were red and their necks were thick, and no one would let anyone, but they never saw their fists moved. Many times, after arguing and arguing, the two brothers reconciled again.

More often, by the fire, my father and my second uncle could often talk in the middle of the night, and there was always something to say. They quarreled in Miao dialect, and they also used Miao dialect in Kan Dialect, but we didn't listen to a word.

Wendou is a Miao village, and basically all of his father's generation can still speak fluent Miao dialect. In my generation, there are very few Miao dialects left. However, some of the most basic daily vocabulary can still be understood half-understood.

In the conversation between my father and my second uncle, there were occasional words and phrases that could not be expressed in Hmong, and they would also use Chinese instead, so I could know what they were talking about.

The second uncle doesn't like to drink tea, but he doesn't leave his cigarette.

I didn't care what they were talking about, but I especially liked to watch with a pair of eyes timidly as my second uncle poked his long bamboo whip tobacco pouch with a bamboo stick, and then loaded a bag of leaf cigarettes, lit them close to the stove, and took a beautiful puff.

In the double swirl of stove smoke and leaf smoke, the long night in the mountains passed like this.

I often listened and listened, and I fell asleep on my father's lap, and my saliva flowed down my father's pants. So when the second uncle went home with a torch, I don't know.

The small bag that the second uncle used to pack leaf cigarettes has turned black, and it has probably not been changed for many years. The bag is always full of tobacco leaves, and it seems that it will never be finished.

My father didn't like to smoke leaf cigarettes, so he always bought back the cheapest "Cooperation" and "Blue Goose" brand cigarettes one by one, and occasionally smoked a pack of "Wujiang" or "Jiaxiu", which was also willing to take out when guests came.

In contrast, I prefer to smell the leaf smoke coming out of my second uncle's cigarette pouch, which is spicy but has a faint fragrance.

Every time I was sick, my father borrowed eye bags from my second uncle, hooked a cotton thread with a small bamboo girl, and after pulling the thread, he would remove the cotton thread and print a "ten" on the door of my head.

Smoke feces is also a medicine.

At that time, the only thing I could find and understand was comic books. A comic book, read it once, and after a while you can look at it again from the beginning. After reading too much, some of the stories and plots in the comic strip are all put into my mind. Many times, I will compare the scenes in the comic book with the life in front of me, but I can't find an answer.

The second uncle often smoked leaf cigarettes while reading comic books, so that the later tattered and unbroken comic strips were also stained with the smell of leaf smoke.

Many years later, I even thought that the taste of my hometown was the smell of leaf smoke.