Introduction:

What is home?

Home is not four walls, not cold clothes, hungry bowls, sleepy beds, and keys to open doors!

Home is the incessant smoke that rises from the stove, not only filling our hungry stomachs and dissipating the cold frost, but it also ignites our whole world and illuminates our path to great success.

The world is huge, and it is surrounded by countless homes full of fireworks.

The home is also very large, and it carries the whole world we are fighting for.

Struggle in the midst of suffering, and move forward in unyielding. In the changes of the times and the unfortunate fate, it tells the vicissitudes of life and the history of struggle experienced by an ordinary family representing the vast land of northwest China, and records our original simple life and Chinese-style drama life.

Those unique emotions of the times and precious historical imprints that have been carved out by the magnificent and majestic power of the times are the torrents of mountains and rivers rooted in our souls and integrated into our blood, and they are a memorandum of the times that miss our parents, witness our past, and hope for our descendants.

Holding a handful of fireworks, not afraid of mountains and seas;

Listen to time like a song, sigh the years.

The backbone of struggle, standing majestic;

The former boy is as firm as yesterday.

The wind and sand are sweeping, swaying the poplars of the Gobi.

Sweat flows, watering the starlight of hope.

Smoke curling,

That's the direction of home,

Hometown to never forget.

Winter goes to spring and comes again, turning around and mottled with gray hair.

The long road is full of twists and turns, and it is brave and persistent.

The hustle and bustle of the red dust, the misery,

The fireworks on Long, joys and sorrows.

The hot galaxy, flowing with the longing of the past,

Persistently follow the steps and chase ordinary dreams.

The lead is washed away,

The face of the ravine depiction,

That's what the years have been.

The camel bell of the ancient road, and then tell the stubbornness of the vicissitudes of life.

A young back, an upright and unyielding backbone.

O fireworks in the world,

Looking back from afar,

That's the glory that never ends.

01

1976 year.

Northwest, the northern foot of Qilian Mountain.

In this desolate land, in addition to the endless yellow sand Gobi, the Qilian Mountains standing majestically in the distance may be the only scenery that can make people feel pleasing to the eye.

This winding vein is connected to Liupan Mountain and Qinling Mountains in the east and Altun Mountain in the west, just like Mother Earth wrapping a strong arm around the thousands of miles of red land, firmly blocking the raging sand and dust in her chest.

The white magnificence above its head turned into a sweet trickle, slowly seeping into the ground, like a sweet spring like milk, desperately nourishing this hungry and thirsty land.

On the edge of the Gobi Desert, on the outskirts of Ganquan Prefecture, the sand and dust raised from time to time in winter hide the already cold dirt roads into faint paths, and even dead grass is rare.

There is not even a single hair on the poplar trees on both sides, and the bare branches are swaying without pulling a few bites, and I imagine a mighty and majestic man standing tall, but no matter how hard I try to dig the root system into the deepest part of the barren yellow sand, I can't absorb a trace of water to breathe, and I can only barely sway some of my body with the cold wind, which complements the ancient beacon towers that have been eroded by the wind and sand for many years not far away, and the same wilting and desolate.

Carrying a military canvas bag full of patches, Cheng Jia'an, who was covered with dust, looked down at the pair of yellow cloth liberation shoes with raw edges under his feet, which repeatedly burrowed into some fine sand, even if he grinded his teeth, he didn't bother to squat down and take off his shoes and dump them.

it!

Anyway, the calluses on the soles of the feet that have been grinding for many years can still deal with walking.

Compared with the melancholy in my heart, the little diaphragm under my feet should be uncomfortable and nothing.

This should be the second time that the young left home, and the second time the "boss returned", and there has been a gap of 20 years in between.

Twenty years!

How many twenty years are there in life?

"Hey......"

Looking at the lonely figure before and after, like an ant alone in the world, Cheng Jia'an let out a melancholy sigh, and there was no drooping child pointing at him, and he said "Where does the smile come from?" ”

As far as the eye can see, although the scene on the Gobi Desert is still desolate and cold, it seems to have changed somewhat from many years ago.

If in the fifties and sixties this land was poor only with stones and yellow sand, and even birds did not want to pull more, now there are at least many signs of hope.

In the past years, the eternal desolation on the barren beach and the unyielding people of the destiny of heaven have a fierce collision, but there is such a group of people who do not believe in evil, there are foolish books and the world has Jingwei, even if it is a mayfly shaking the tree, but also stubbornly shouting with God, insisting on relying on a pair of hands to fight against the great power of nature, building the longed-for "plugging the south of the Yangtze River", and completely changing the sad status quo of thousands of miles of red land and wind blowing stones and running.

Cheng Jia'an used to be one of these "tendons".

The young Cheng Jia'an followed his father who was a barefoot doctor in the old society and learned the medical knowledge of three knives, which was barely a craft that could be used by his body.

When he was a soldier, he intermittently barely supplemented the cultural knowledge of primary and secondary schools, and became a surgeon who could be of considerable use in the army.

In the fifties, Cheng Jia'an, like many fighters from all over the world, plunged headlong into the desolate northwest. Adhering to the blazing slogan and great vision of the pioneer army of "fighting with the sky and the earth" and "daring to change the sun and the moon".

Build grass sheds, live in nests, pick up broken copper and rotten iron to build production tools, open canals to divert water, fix sand and make fields, and passionately throw his youth on that barren and longing land. I hope to dig out the legendary golden nest from this hot and dry yellow sand and earth ball, and give back to their lovely and hateful mother earth, the Great Northwest.

Just because of this, the two brothers and a sister who are farming in their hometown don't know how glorious their faces are.

"The third child of our family who went out, that's a cadre in the army!"

"Our family eats imperial grain and gets a salary, and it will be a city hukou in the future, which is for our old Cheng family to glorify their ancestors!"

This is the eldest brother Cheng Jiaguo and the second brother Cheng Jiamin's favorite topic to show off in front of the seven aunts and eight aunts.

What's more, relying on Cheng Jia'an's monthly allowance from the army, compared to those fellow villagers and neighbors who drink cornmeal batter every day, are constipated and can't pull out after eating three or two lower stomachs, and still can't open the pot from time to time, those days are not a little better.

At this point, even Cheng Jia'an, who has a wooden personality, feels that there is light on his face.

But it didn't take long for Cheng Jia'an to change jobs and become a resident doctor in a regimental (farm) health center sixty miles away from Longyou County, southwest of Suzhou.

What kind of identity is that?

At the root, he is a farmer who gets a salary!

Going around, Cheng Jia'an, who was with a halo, was instantly beaten back to his original shape, and when he took off his glamorous coat, he was no different from the brothers who were shaving food in the field!

Although the inability to take off the military uniform can be ignored by Cheng Jia'an, at least it will not affect his passion for devoting himself to the construction of the great northwest. But the two brothers who didn't have much education and only had brains the size of mung beans were completely dumbfounded, and they were still expecting him to get ahead, and by the way, they pulled and pulled their own family to run towards food and clothing at the same time, which became a dream.

Now, if you change jobs, you can change jobs, anyway, you can give yourself a lot of relief money.

The brothers who got the sweetness continued to cheer up their efforts to persuade Cheng Jia'an's mother-in-law who was looking for a city hukou in the group field, so as to get a meal ticket for long-term assistance. I don't know how many letters I wrote for this, but I emphasized one sentence in a backward way: "Jia'an, you want to find a woman with a city hukou as a daughter-in-law, this is the reason why a dragon is a dragon, a phoenix is a phoenix, and a turtle is a king." ”

Sake is red, and wealth is moving.

This is human nature, the philistine and greed forced out by the bitter reality.

Life is like the two ends of the scale, one end is polite, righteous and shameful, and the other is material temptation.

Is it selfishly choosing the needs of survival, or is it a choice of sibling affection with a moral face?

This is not a difficult multiple-choice question to answer in the hearts of the Cheng brothers.

Let's be realistic!

Be sensible!

Live, live better, know etiquette enough, fill your stomach to talk about those unreliable others, isn't it?

But Cheng Jia'an knows that there are many girls and daughters-in-law from big cities in the group, but these mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law are either staring at those high-level intellectuals who come from the mountains and going to the countryside, or they don't plan to stay in this poor northwest for the rest of their lives.

What's more, Cheng Jia'an, who can't figure out half a fart with three legs, although he is Zhou Zheng, he has not given birth to a delicate temperament that pleases women, so it is natural that he is basically ignored for this acre of land.

Don't look at Cheng Jia'an, but his heart is bright.

Those beautiful and delicious cultural young women are by no means their own dish.

In the difficult years, the mother-in-law who found her must be able to resist things and support half of a family for herself. And the vase-style girls are in the northwest of this piece of soil in the Granari, that is, the peony flowers that are not exposed to frost and rain, which is a bit useless, and in the end, it is still themselves who are sad.

can't get out of this group, where can you find your favorite aunt?

So Cheng Jia'an could only drag it hard, and it was delayed again and again, until he was nearly thirty years old, and then he had the idea of returning to his hometown to visit relatives.

That year, he stubbornly faced the strong opposition of his brothers and made an arbitrary decision: to find himself an aunt in the countryside who could hold up half the sky.

Don't say it, a stupid man has a stupid blessing, and he really found it!

Li Xiulan, a neighboring woman, is quite a little Chinese, beautiful in appearance, and there is no "red second group" on her cheeks that is unique to the northwest woman's wind and sun, and even a little natural beauty, the stunning of distant mountain hibiscus, and can endure hardships and run a family, although her personality is stubborn and stubborn, which makes people worry a little.

But in Cheng Jia'an's opinion, such a woman can be called his most "perfect" partner.

So, he hurriedly asked the media to say goodbye, and he recognized this woman with one mind.

According to Cheng Jia'an's conditions at the time, how could he be regarded as a fragrant gluttony in the poor countryside, and after a few rounds, Li Xiulan also fell in love with this simple wooden man and agreed to the marriage.

Faced with this mother-in-law who was led into the house by her "disobedient" brother, the two "paternalistic" brothers called a nose not a nose, a face not a face, and a stomach full of resentment.

More than ten years have passed, although so far, the couple still scoured out money from their fingers, and helped them in poverty regardless of their previous suspicions, but they couldn't exchange each other's understanding and gratitude, and gradually the family relationship between brothers became much more indifferent and embarrassing.

Many times, Cheng Jia'an wanted to go back to his hometown to have a look, but when he thought of facing those two cold and indifferent faces, he dispelled his thoughts.

The winter sun doesn't look warm.

Thinking about his thoughts, Cheng Jia'an took the military hat with the cockade removed, wiped the green oil bubbling out of his head, and looked at Qilian Mountain standing in the distance but seemed to be a stone's throw away, the snow above his head was clearly visible like a crystal clear agate, showing a thick chill.

It stands to reason that after so many years, it should have been a thrilling and exciting thing to be able to go back to his hometown again, but he couldn't lift this spirit, just like those languishing poplars on the side of the road, belonging to the same tune.

But he had to come back, even if it was to face his cold-faced brother.

The reason is simple -

Grave relocation.