After his father left, the eldest brother, who had not yet graduated from elementary school, dropped out of school and took on the burden of his father's pottery and porcelain.

Father's name is Liu Dawan, he lives up to his name, Taozhen is a hundred miles away from his bowl burned the best, the carcass is light and thin, the glaze is transparent, the pattern is exquisite, how big is not a little deformed, when it comes to Taozhen's bowl, everyone knows Liu Dawan, and the kung fu is a must. The eldest brother has been with his father for more than three years, and has learned his father's craft, although his father is gone, but the shop of "big bowl porcelain" is still there, and some old customers see that the porcelain made by the eldest brother is the same as that made by his father, and they are also relieved to continue to order, so life is still passable.

On weekdays, my mother took me to guard the shop at home, the second and third brothers went to school, and the eldest brother was busy in the cave alone. Once, the town hospital canteen ordered fifty pairs of dishes, fortunately, during the summer vacation, the second brother did not have to go to school, and could go to the cave together to help. That day, the eldest brother and the second brother were busy until it was almost dark before returning home, and their mother told them to hurry to the river to bathe and go home for dinner.

East Street is near Jiuhe, most of the men go to bathe under the Jiudong Bridge, and in the summer evening, the Jiudong Bridge is always as lively as the market. The water level under the Jiudong Bridge is deep, and the boys are not as watery as adults, and they are not afraid of bare feet anyway, they can wash anywhere by the river, and they are not afraid of far, and they can also go to the Liujiang River in the southwest. The second brother came to rely on his good water nature, and secondly, he was also in junior high school, and he was half a small person, naked by the crowded river, and he began to feel a little embarrassed, so he followed the eldest brother to wash under the bridge.

The nine-hole bridge, as the name suggests, has nine bridge holes, the hole on the east street is paved with a high stone slab, which is specially used for changing clothes, and a few stone benches are built on the stone slab to put clothes and soap or something for everyone. The eldest brother and the second brother arrived late, and many people had already washed up and were ready to go back. The second brother is an anxious son, the eldest brother just found a place, put down the clothes and soap, the second brother had already stripped himself of himself, and was about to jump into the water urgently, and a head melon happened to emerge from below, the second brother hurriedly stopped his hands and feet, and looked at it, it was actually his enemy Zhao Jiancheng.

Zhao Jiancheng was originally a classmate of the eldest brother, who looked white and clean, and his classmates gave him a nickname: Zhao Erniang. Once, on the way home from school, Zhao Jiancheng laughed at my father as a cripple, and imitated my father walking with one foot high and one foot low, which caused other classmates to laugh. The second brother was angry, and threatened Zhao Jiancheng and said: "Zhao Erniang, do you dare to call it again, do it again, believe it or not, I will beat you?" "That Zhao Jiancheng is two or three years older than the second brother, and he is much taller than him, of course he is not afraid of him, he called Liu Da lame three times in a row, and like a marionette, he took a step and shook his shoulder, shortened his right foot by two inches and exaggerated a semicircle in the air, although the action was contrived, it accurately captured the essence, and it was a pity not to act. The second brother was furious and kicked Zhao Jiancheng's calf, but he didn't expect him to be a mid-sighted person, so he fell to his knees at once, but unfortunately his right leg happened to pounce on a pointed stone, and his knee was suddenly poked out of a hole, bleeding nonstop, and almost turned him into a "Zhao Da lame". Later, Zhao Jiancheng's father and mother made trouble at home, and his father lost money and apologized, so the matter was settled.

Due to the previous grudges, although the second brother and Zhao Jiancheng did not meet each other, it was definitely better to see each other. Zhao Jiancheng turned his head and swam to the left, and the second brother didn't give a single eye, took two steps to the right, plunged into the water, and slipped away like a released loach, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

A remnant sun spread in the water, like a large patch of orange orange juice, and the river was shining brightly. On the river, an old boatman with a hat on his back stood on a high-canopy fishing boat, paddling from the other side of the nine mountains slowly towards the town, and a gray cormorant standing on the bow of the boat made the way for the boatman. Under the nine-hole bridge, a small head melon is like a floating ball, which gets into the water for a while, and surfaces for a while, so that the loop goes back and forth, and in a moment, it has swam from one hole to nine holes. The river water is cool in the evening, soak in it, stretch your hands and feet, and brush away the fatigue and sweat of the day in an instant, which is refreshing. The eldest brother did not go to the side of Jiushan, but he also swam around the second and third caves a few times, and was about to go back to a hole to get soap to wash his sloppiness, the second brother had already returned from the nine caves, he was too lazy to float on his back on the water, and his limbs were opened to make a "big" word. The eldest brother patted his arm and said, "I'll go up and apply soap first, you should hurry up, my mother will wait for us to go home for dinner!" The second brother snorted, still motionless.

Suddenly, a voice came from a cave: "Who took my soap?" No one cared, and he raised his voice again, "The soap is on the side of my clothes, why is it gone?" Who took it? ”

The second brother turned over, looked at the eldest brother, and followed everyone on the slate. Although Tao Town is a poor and remote place, this kind of stealing chickens and dogs is rare. The person who spoke was a forest carpenter, who did a good job of carpentry, and he didn't dare to talk about it within a radius of several miles from Tao Town, at least in this town, half of the furniture was from his hands.

"Are you mistaken?" The big bowl of porcelain said to the old king who sold tofu at the door.

"I will not be mistaken, just put it on the side of my clothes." The woodworker said firmly.

The tofu old king thought for a moment and said, "What is it?" Everyone is helping to find it, just so big, can it still walk on its own legs? ”

"Green soap box, light honeysuckle soap, I just bought it today, I haven't used it yet!"

The eldest brother and the second brother couldn't have imagined that the soapbox really had grown legs and hid in their clothes, and what was worse was that the box contained sulfur soap wrapped in lotus leaves. With solid evidence, even if the two of them have a thousand mouths, they can't tell clearly, the second brother's temper is bursting, where can he stand such grievances, and he is also ruthless at the moment, blushing and saying roughly: "We didn't take it!" If you say no, you don't! Who is rare in this broken box! As he spoke, he grabbed the emerald green soap box and threw it on the ground, but fortunately, the plastic box was resistant to falling, and bounced on the ground like a fish out of water for a while before lying flat.

The forest carpenter jumped to his feet in anger, "I'll tell you Erhuzi, so many pairs of eyes are watching!" No matter how hard you are, it's useless to be tough with me! Today, you have to pay for this soap, and you have to pay if you don't! ”

There was a pot of porridge under the bridge, and I don't know who called my mother here, and a bunch of bare-chested and bare-chested old men hurriedly got dressed.

The carpenter told his mother about the matter, and the mother turned her head and asked the eldest brother, "Have you taken your uncle's soap?" The eldest brother shook his head, she asked the second brother again, the second brother still had red bloodshot in his eyes, pointed to the place where they put their clothes, and choked his throat and said: "I put my things there with my eldest brother and went down to the river, and I heard him say that before he lost the soap, we were still in the water, and we haven't come up at all." ”

After hearing this, the mother turned back to the carpenter and said, "His uncle, they both said they didn't take it." ”

Just a sentence to send away? Carpenter Lin naturally didn't buy it, "They didn't say no, didn't they?" Then why did the soap box run into their piles of clothes? ”

Didn't they say? They don't know which immoral person did it. The mother replied calmly.

The carpenter snorted and said, "Big sister, it's not right for you to say that, they are just two hairy boys, do you believe what you say?" Why are you so sure they're telling the truth? ”

"Just because they are my sons!" The mother raised her voice suddenly, and the sound was so loud that even the bridge hole shook.

This matter is a headless unsolved case, both sides have their own reasons, and the mother's position is very clear: although Liu Dawan is gone, she can still afford a piece of soap, and the old neighborhoods of the big guy for decades, it is not impossible for her to send a piece of soap to the forest carpenter, but the two children can't afford the crime of stealing, and she will never bear it as a mother!

The crowd dispersed, and the incident should have come to an end, but they didn't expect that the big thing was still to come. There was a slender bend under the bridge on the connecting bridge, and it was dark that I couldn't see the road clearly, and my mother was mixed with something on the soles of her feet, and after a sudden fall, she rolled down the bank of the river nearly two meters high all the way and fell into the river. Unexpectedly, the person who jumped into the water and rescued his mother at the first time was actually a forest carpenter.

Afterwards, the second brother brought a honeysuckle soap to the woodworker's house to thank him, but the second brother repeatedly insisted that the woodworker's soap was really not stolen by him and the eldest brother, he thought for a long time, and guessed that maybe it was done by a sissy guy who looked like a woman, but he really couldn't come up with any conclusive evidence. The carpenter thought about it for a moment, and said that he seemed to have seen a boy with fine skin and tender flesh pausing next to his clothes.

The older person was the least stumped, and the mother's fall was not serious, and the doctor only prescribed some skin trauma medicine and let her stay in bed for a few days to recuperate, however, the family could not imagine that she never got up again after lying down. One night three months later, my mother was lying on a cool bed, with a high-legged glass kerosene lamp on the bedside table, and a gourd-shaped transparent green glass base with a relief of the word Double Happiness, and the wick was freshly cut and coiled in urine-yellow kerosene, like freshly brewed viper wine. It was late at night, a little windy, and the orange flames pulled everything in the room into a slender black shadow, which stuck to the cracked wall, and looked like a three-dimensional painting.

Since his mother was sick in bed, the eldest brother and the second brother took turns to keep vigil in front of the bed to take care of her. At 1:50 a.m., the second brother got up to change the eldest brother's class, and as soon as the eldest brother left, the mother suddenly woke up and was in an unusually good spirit. The second brother asked her if she was hungry and if she wanted to drink some porridge, her mother shook her head and said that she was thirsty and wanted to drink saliva. After the mother finished drinking, she gently held the second brother's hand and said, "Second tiger! Your eldest brother is honest, and my mother is worried that he will be bullied, so you have to help him more in the future, you know? ”

The second brother nodded and said he understood.

"The third and fifteenth are still young, you can help your mother take good care of them, okay?"

Only then did the second brother hear that his mother was explaining the aftermath, he was stunned for a moment, and said with red eyes: "Mother will be fine." ”

The mother shook her head and said, "Mother is leaving, and this family will be handed over to you." ”

The second brother cried, sobbing and saying, "It's all my fault, if I don't fight with someone, I won't be framed, and my mother won't fall." ”

The mother raised her hand and touched the second brother's head, smiled and said, "Silly boy! It has nothing to do with you, it's your mother who is old, and it's time to accompany your father. ”

The second brother kept crying, and his mouth was full of the same sentence: "It's my fault!" It's all my fault! ”

The mother wiped away her tears for the second brother and said, "Our two tigers are manly husbands, don't cry!" Promise my mother, I must take good care of this family! ”

The second brother cried and agreed.

The mother seemed to have a matter on her mind, and she breathed a long sigh of relief, and her voice suddenly became weak: "Second tiger! Your dad is coming to pick me up! You go and call your eldest brother and them over, and before my mother leaves, I want to see them again. ”

The second brother nodded, raised his sleeve to wipe away his tears, and turned to go.

"Lame old man! The most correct thing you've ever done in your life is to adopt these sons. The mother looked at the back of the second brother leaving and said with great relief.

For some reason, I snuggled into my mother's arms, yawning in my mouth. The three elder brothers stood by the bed in unison, and they watched as the light emanating from their mother's eyes became fainter and fainter, and in less than a minute, there was only a point of light the size of a spark left, and at the end, even the spark was extinguished, and my mother smiled at us for the last time, and then closed her eyes.

In that era of scarcity, believe it or not, a bar of soap took a human life.