3. Wake up

Yang Shulin called Li Baiwang and Li Minqiang to his home.

There was a small square table on the earthen kang in the inner room of Yang Shulin's house, and Yang Shulin and Li Baiwang sat on the edge of the kang on both sides of the small square table. Yang Shulin's wrinkled face had a worried and anxious expression. He took the small box of cigarettes on the table again, filled his copper tobacco pouch and pot with the cigarettes, lit them with matches, and smoked them one by one, making a squeaky sound. Li Baiwang lowered his head, mourned his face, and said nothing. Li Minqiang sat on the wooden bench next to the kang, also with his head down, his eyebrows locked and thinking about something. The three men in the room were silent, and the smoke swirled above their heads, wafting and diffusing the room, covering the whole room in a gray mist. It seems that the conversation between the three has been going on for some time.

Yang Shulin took a puff of cigarette and said to Li Baiwang: "What's wrong with Qiangzi coming back to build our village?" Not only did you not support it, but you also poured cold water on him, this and that! The old man's voice trembled a little, he was so excited, how he hoped that his old man's descendants would follow in his footsteps and contribute to changing the poor appearance of Shagang Village! In order to help Li Baiwang, he said a lot of words, and his mouth was a little dry, but he was as strong as a donkey and couldn't turn a corner.

Li Baiwang didn't raise his head or squeak. Because, the old man sitting in front of him was his elder, a prestigious person in Shagang Village, and he respected this old man from the bottom of his heart. Because whenever you find someone in trouble, you would rather tighten your belt yourself than help others. When Xiuqin was born and Minqiang was strong, he had a difficult birth and hemorrhage, and he was just in time for the big spring, and he was not in a hurry, and Baiwang was sitting in the hospital and making trouble. Yang Shulin didn't say a word, and sold his pig that had not grown up to him and brought him five hundred yuan, and the two of them were moved to tears. Li Baiwang is also afraid of him from the heart, because Yang Shulin likes to call Zhen'er when he does things, and he finds something wrong, no matter who it is, no matter the occasion, whether you are happy or not, he is always like a person choking on fried chili peppers. Li Baiwang usually suffers from his snoring.

Yang Shulin continued: "I can see it, Baiwang, you are still beating your own Xiao Jiujiu, forget about the whole village, you have to think about it." ”

Li Baiwang tilted his head and defended: "I always think that going to work in the city is more profitable than working in the countryside. ”

Yang Shulin was on fire, and knocked on the table in front of him with a cigarette pouch and pot and said, "You are talking nonsense, what do you mean by being promising?" According to you, the people who grow crops under the world are unproductive people! ”

Li Baiwang was choked by the old man's words, blinked his eyes for a long time and said: "I think it is better to be a police officer in the Public Security Bureau than a farmer." ”

Yang Shulin saw Li Baiwang's uncompetitive appearance, selfish thoughts, and anger only hit his brain. He wanted to smack him hard. But when he found Li Minqiang's peaceful demeanor, he pressed his anger down hard, and the angry words on his lips changed again: "The people take food as the sky, and this will never change." People in the city are better fed and better dressed than people in the countryside. But have you thought about it? Three hundred and sixty lines, walking to eat and wear clothes. If there are no peasants to grow grain and cotton, what will the people in the city eat and wear? Now the young people are running to the city, and our village is about to become an elderly village, and if it goes on like this, let alone getting rich, in the end there will be no family affection. ”

Li Minqiang took the old man's words and said: "In terms of living conditions, there is indeed a gap between rural and urban areas. But we should find a way to close the gap. It is an old concept to think that the countryside is hard, that there is no interest in agriculture, and that there is no future, and that it is the old concept that going away and flying high, becoming a dragon and becoming a tiger, returning to the hometown in fine clothes, and honoring the ancestors is the only way to be promising. ”

Li Minqiang's words completely touched Yang Shulin's heart, and he said happily: "The house is afraid of instability, and people are afraid of forgetting their roots." People who were born and grew up in the countryside but don't love the countryside are forgetting their roots! Piovan, have you forgotten what your father said when he was seriously ill? ”

As soon as Li Baiwang heard this, his legs slipped off the edge of the kang, raised his head suddenly, and with a sigh, he drooped down again, and he hung even lower, and his head almost went into the crotch of his pants.

Everyone in the room was silent, all reminiscing about the past:

In August 1948, the battle to liberate Shagang Village began, and all the young men and women of the village joined the stretcher team. The soldiers of the People's Liberation Army fought very bravely, and the enemy they fought was like a king eating a watermelon, rolling and crawling on the ground. A stubborn enemy entered the bunker at the west entrance of the village to put up stubborn resistance, and the enemy's machine guns fired like crazy, and the dense bullets blocked the path of the PLA's advance. Listening to the enemy's machine gunners crying and howling, the soldiers' teeth were about to be crushed, and they all demanded to rush up and pull out the nail. Suddenly, Li Yunxiang ran out of the stretcher team, his eyes were full of sparks of hatred, the company commander didn't hold back, he picked up the explosive bag and flew out of the trench like a loaded bullet. He wittily approached the enemy's bunker, got up sharply and blocked the enemy's gun hole with an explosive bag, and with a boom, the enemy's bunker flew into the sky, and the troops immediately rushed up. Shagang Village was liberated. In 1950, Li Yunxiang became the head of the village.

Later, in order to earn some money to build a small school, the village set up a brick factory. Who would have thought that one evening when the bricks were halfway burned, there was a hula, the front curtain of more than a zhang long collapsed, and the kiln gang exposed the fiery red bricks, Li Yunxiang hurriedly took a few people to step on the kiln body, leaning on the red bricks more than a foot away from the bricks to fill the bricks and mend the mud, and the sparks burst out from the kiln body crackling, splashing on the hot skin and flesh on the body, and the bubbles came out one after another. The sky is bright, the sun is about to come out, and the kiln is about to be repaired, who knows that Li Yunxiang was dazzled for a while and fell off the kiln. When he was about to die, in front of the poplar grove and other villagers who were crying and grieving around him, he took Baiwang's hand and said intermittently: "Son, the land is the lifeblood of the croppers, you have to plant our land well, collect more grain, and repay the party's kindness......"

Yang Shulin wiped his moist eyes with the back of his hand and said, "Baiwang, I don't dare to say that our people in Shagang Village are outstanding people, but the people in our Shagang Village also have backbone." When did we fight the Japanese devils, our village has produced martyrs, and Lao Jiang has produced heroes like your father, if you don't say too much, you are also the descendants of heroes! It is impossible for the descendants of heroes to become heroes, but we must not forget the history of heroes, and we must not lose the tradition of heroes! Countless heroes have used their lives to fight for us not only to defend, but also to build well. In front of our ancestors, we are descendants, in the eyes of our descendants, we are our predecessors, we should be the descendants of heroes, and the heroes of future generations are right! ”

Li Minqiang tried his best to control the excitement in his heart and said: "Dad, think about it, for the liberation of our Chinese people, it is not my grandfather who sacrifices his life to bomb the bunker!" How many people followed the Communist Party, fought in the north and south, and made immortal contributions to the people. Today, they are breaking with old traditions, using the same vigor as they did on the battlefield to declare war on nature. Gan Zuchang, who was seriously wounded in the southern and northern wars, had already become a general and voluntarily left the city to go to the countryside, carrying dung baskets, picking up hoes, and dealing with mud for many years, becoming an ordinary peasant. What is he for? Isn't it so that people can live a good life forever? We should learn from our predecessors very well! Now our village is still very poor, but we can't always be poor like this! My grandfather gave his life for the construction of our Shagang Village, why can't we follow in his footsteps? In order for us in Shagang Village to get rid of poverty, why can't we make some sacrifices? ”

Yang Shulin said excitedly: "Dogs are not poor, and people are not thin." You, a farmer who grew up in Shagang Village, but you don't love it because you are poor here. I don't want to try to build the village well, but try to get out of it. If you are not afraid of the poor of the previous generation, you are afraid of the next generation of bears. Brother Yunxiang, how I hope you can become a man who stands up to the sky! Piovan, are you doing this worthy of your dead father? What we do must be able to comfort the martyrs at the top and benefit the children and grandchildren! ”

Li Baiwang's head was about to explode, he held his head in both hands, lay on the bed roll next to him, and sobbed.