The autumn breeze was bleak, and the pale sky revealed endless desolation. At noon, the adults of Chenjia Village often see a five- or six-year-old child holding a tree in a pile of graves, slowly turning in circles. The autumn wind blew his torn pants up, revealing a piece of white flesh on his buttocks. The boy didn't seem to notice that his pants were broken, and his eyes often wandered over the wild fruit in the trees. Is he hungry?

This child is none other than the son of a poor peasant family in Chenjia Village, his nickname is Ah Xiang, the fifth in the family, the top few are elder brothers, and there is a younger sister below. At that time, his parents couldn't support him and were reluctant to give him away, so they threw him to his grandparents to take him.

Ah Xiang's grandfather gambles all the year round and rarely returns home, so Ah Xiang actually followed his grandmother. I don't know why this grandma doesn't like her grandchildren, but she only likes her grandchildren, when Ah Xiang is here, grandma will inevitably hide the food, and only wait for her grandchildren to come, and grandma will take out food from the rice jar or the stove to entertain the girls and the babies. The child is small, but it is an extremely sensitive animal, Ah Xiang is puzzled but can deeply feel his grandmother's dislike of himself, and every day when it is time to eat, Ah Xiang will be taken home by his grandmother to eat.

Ah Xiang was not very close to his parents and brothers, and did not dare to go back, so there was a picture that people often see: at noon time, there was a little boy holding the tree in a circle in the grave forest, staring at the wild fruit on the tree.

Sometimes it was because he got information from his neighbors, and sometimes it was Ah Xiang's mother who passed by the forest and saw Ah Xiang, and called Ah Xiang to come over and ask if the baby had eaten, and Ah Xiang shed tears of grievance. Immediately, he heard his mother scolding his grandmother. However, such things are always repeated, and for some reason, Ah Xiang's mother did not take Ah Xiang home, but only insisted that he live with his grandmother. Ah Xiang could only eat some leftover cold dishes after the meal.

After a few years, Xiao Ah Xiang was seven or eight years old in a blink of an eye, and he stayed in the grave for a long time, and his temperament slowly became wild. Slowly take the other children in the village to dig up the grave together. Rural superstition, you can pick up anything, this grave must not be picked up. It's just that the adults don't dare to imagine that the grave is picked up by a child, thinking that there is a grudge against the family, and they are mischievous, so they scolded in the village: "Whose family is mad, and the children and grandchildren have picked up my grave!" ”

After scolding, the adults rebuilt the grave that had been removed. After Ah Xiang was scolded, he was angry, and took the naughty children to pick up the graves again.

He had long passed the age of going to school, and when Ah Xiang was almost 9 years old, his parents finally brought him home and sent him to the village-run primary school in the village. From then on, Ah Xiang did not have to "hide from the meal" in the woods lined with graves, he could take a bowl with his other brothers and sisters and eat it in his own pot with his other brothers and sisters.

It's just that Ah Xiang came back late, just like "raw ducks are difficult to get alike", his family eats in line, everyone else squeezes forward, he can only line up to the end, and when it is his turn to serve rice, there are often pots or empty soup left in the pot. However, it is better than the taste of wild fruit and starvation.

Ah Xiang is bigger than his classmates, no wonder, he is two or three years older than the children in his class. On the first day of school, Ah Xiang was elected by the teacher as the class president and became the "child king" and "little leader" of the class.

Ah Xiang's brain opened up late, and he didn't feel that he was older than the children in the same class, except for listening to the lectures in class, he played crazy with the children in the same class in the village after class. However, crazy play is only limited to after school classes, and after school, he must hurry home and accept the "task". His "task" is usually to mow the grass for the donkey. A large dustpan and a sickle that he picked up and were still a little stiff were his "tools" to complete the task.

If the dustpan is not full, you can't go home to eat. Strange to say, since Ah Xiang returned to his father and mother, and returned to his big family, the brain synapses have developed very rapidly, and soon he understands a lot of things, and he will look at his father's face and act.

He even came up with ideas to solve the "trouble", for example, Ah Xiang was 9 years old and still wetted the bed, and every time he wetted the bed, his father beat him violently. Slowly, Ah Xiang came up with a strange trick: before going to bed, find a rope to tie the little cock, so that when he dreams of peeing at night, he will be awakened. After a period of time, he stopped dreaming of peeing, and he could wake up naturally when it was time to pee, so that Ah Xiang would not be beaten for bedwetting. Of course, there were other reasons for the beating, which he could not solve and understand at that age.

When he was young, Ah Xiang's intelligence was not stimulated by the environment, and he developed late, but this time he went to school and read books, and after school, he was able to integrate into the big family, and his intelligence improved by leaps and bounds. I always get the first place in my class in the exam. However, excellent test scores did not make it easy for him to do some housework. At home, he had to get up early every day to mow the grass and at night after school. After mowing the grass and doing the rest, Ah Xiang was tired of the endless housework that made his back ache and legs.

Since he was a child, Ah Xiang has felt that his joy comes from the recess of school, the home is just for him to eat and sleep, and even a place that makes him feel scared and does not want to go back. Therefore, he liked the dilapidated campus more than the house.

However, no matter whether it is suffering or happiness, time will always make the child grow up, and in the blink of an eye, Ah Xiang is in junior high school. Some of the boys in junior high school are just beginning to fall in love, and some are starting to form gangs, which is funny. For Ah Xiang, fighting is like playing, and it is also a way to reflect "status". Strangely, he was at home, silent, and became an active member of the class or even the entire grade as soon as he arrived at school.

When Chen Xiang was in junior high school, in another corner of the world, there was a little girl who was two or three years younger than him was weeding in the crop field, a one-horned pigtail stood behind her head, sweat dripping from her forehead, she seemed to be unaware of it, diligent and happy, put the grass pulled down one by one, in the basket behind her.

"Swallow, it's time to go home for dinner." A young mother shouted on the ridge.

"Hey—it's coming." The little girl replied in a loud voice.

Ah Xiang was so tired of the grass, he never thought that there were still people in this world who would like to beat pigweed. No one would have thought that these two children, who grew up in two different places in the same time and space, and seemed to have nothing to do with each other, would meet ten years later. Perhaps this is the magic of fate, which uses a pair of invisible hands, or pushes or hinders the speed of people's progress, just to let them meet and know each other at a certain point.