Although Li Xiaoqing and Zhang Yanzi are already seventeen years old, they look very young, and their household registration books and ID cards are written at the age of sixteen, so this is naturally from the second year of high school.

There were more than 50 people in their class, and almost half of them came from the agency compound. Li Xiaoqing made a simple self-introduction as soon as he entered school today, Li Xiaoqing's appearance did not attract everyone's attention, but Zhang Yanzi's appearance made everyone scream, a long hair is rare in this era, everyone sees the hairstyle of the army, the girl's hair is not over the shoulder, Zhang Yanzi's beautiful face and fluttering long hair seem to arouse the longing of all the boys present for their first love.

Li Xiaoqing and Zhang Yanzi sat together, and the newly moved desks and chairs were placed at the back of the classroom, but everyone just stayed for a while, Li Xiaoqing and Zhang Yanzi also knew that this school was reported in vain, and this high school was a two-year system. ”

And it looks like the New Year is coming, so these people are back, the teacher doesn't talk much, but the classmates talk a lot, and they are all high-spirited, it seems that they are a group of donkeys who have seen blood, and they are all crazy.

Moreover, Mr. Cui's house is next to the school library, and now there is no one in the fourth middle school, but the library is well placed there, and there are so many books and novels in it, Li Xiaoqing stayed there for half a day, and he was simply a substitute librarian.

On the eve of the Spring Festival, that Zhang Zhen came back from the Guangyue Military Region, and he recognized Li Xiaoqing just by looking at his appearance, this person is the same as the old Taoist priest, thin and tall, and his chin is meatless, and his nose is wide and long. That Zhang Zhen saw Li Xiaoqing tears of joy at first sight, Li Xiaoqing listened to the senior brother tell about the past few years, only to know that since the old man Hui left him, he has been accumulating wishes for him everywhere, but now there are too few people who believe in Buddhism and Taoism, everyone believes in Marxism these years, and the first sentence that people's Marxist philosophy tells you is: The world is material, and this materialism makes the old Taoist really useless.

The old Taoist priest had nothing to do and thought that he might be going to cross the catastrophe and ascend at any time, so he could only go to the Guangdong Provincial Military Region to see the son who was commanding the war there, the father and son who had not seen him for decades, but he was very excited to see each other this time, and the old Taoist priest lived for several days. There the old Taoist priest also found that not far from this side of the Hong Kong and Macao region is still very believe in the things left by the ancestors, buy a house or something and pay attention to look at feng shui, he thought of Li Xiaoqing, who was not full of wisdom, the old man said hello to his eldest son and smuggled over there, and there has been no news since then.

After listening to his senior brother's narration, Li Xiaoqing couldn't help but burst into tears, and then Li Xiaoqing and Zhang Yanzi also told Zhang Zhen about the failure of Zhang Xuanhe's ascension, Zhang Zhen's emotions fluctuated even more, in fact, cultivators have long been able to talk about things calmly, but there are too few cultivators like Li Xiaoqing and Zhang Zhen who still maintain their pure hearts.

Speaking of this, Li Xiaoqing was crying, and the two brothers were hugging their heads and crying! This big year is called a sad feeling, but this year is the most youthful time Li Xiaoqing, a room is a family behind closed doors, whatever you say and what you want, you can cry and laugh, and you don't have to care about other people's eyes, this is the role of home.

After the Chinese New Year, Li Xiaoqing and Zhang Yanzi accepted the call and prepared to go to the countryside, the place they were going to was western Liaoning, which was next to Inner Mongolia, and they were going to an autonomous county below the heavy industrial city, and a rural brigade under the autonomous county.

In March of that year, Li Xiaoqing and his classmates took the train out of Shanhaiguan, and then took a train for about ten hours to arrive in Liao Province, and the Northeast March can only be regarded as passing most of the winter, and it can only be completely warmed up in mid-to-late March.

This group of half-grown sons was full of blood, and they really regarded themselves as the successors of the revolution, and they all had their own unique heads, high enthusiasm, sitting on tractors, singing songs, shouting slogans, and drove from this autonomous county to the village production brigade.

The location of the countryside, starting from this city by long-distance bus to the Mongolian Autonomous County to the west for more than 50 kilometers to reach the Nafu Xingdi Village Brigade, this section of the road is in bad condition, not only through the rural dirt road, but also through a sandy meadow.

This place is close to Inner Mongolia and was originally a grassland, but later engaged in industrial Daqing and agricultural Dazhai, and too many sheep were put into ruin. Now it has become a sandy meadow, and the wind and sand are strong in the spring here in Liaoxi, and a gust of wind can roll up three or two sands. So after eating a few mouthfuls of wind and sand along the way, this is finally the victory of matter over consciousness, and no one shouts slogans and sings red songs anymore, this mouth is a mouthful of sand, how much water do you have to drink when you go back?

The people in the village are quite simple, but no one is willing to recruit young people who have just gone to the countryside, first, it is really difficult to serve these young masters and ladies from the capital; second, they are afraid that their children will be infected with the stinky problems of these people, and they will shout all day long and do not do their jobs. So the people in the village spontaneously built two rows of prefabricated houses in the east, which were quite sturdy and spacious, and it was not a problem for five or six people to live in one room, Li Xiaoqing and Zhang Yanzi and eight other classmates stayed in this village, and the rest were distributed to other villages.

The mayor also said that Li Xiaoqing and they were lucky, this village was better than those villages in the west, and when the classmates were separated, it was quite uncomfortable to cry and die one by one, Li Xiaoqing and Zhang Yanzi didn't feel this way, while they were crying, they went back to the house in advance to wash up and go to bed.

This group of people slept quite well today, no one bothered them, and the next morning the group began to divide labor, because Li Xiaoqing had just been transferred to this class, so he had no popularity, so he was assigned to herd sheep, this sheep herding is tiring work, get up early in the morning to herd sheep, and he will go wherever the sheep go? At night, he has to drive the sheep back, and he has not been missing. It's not like farming, it's hard to be tired, it's a big deal to be lazy, anyway, everyone works together, and others have to help you do the work that you can't finish yourself.

Before this, the sheep herding was an old man surnamed Han, his father was originally a landlord, and later took the initiative to divide the land, but within a few years, the family was still pulled out to criticize. People say that it is not easy for an old man, people's land is opened up one acre of land, and his ancestors are all farmers who do their duty, and he is also honest, so he did not arrange such a heavy job as herding sheep for him. A few years ago, a group of educated youths came, and a few of them were not good at stubble, and the waste legs of herding sheep were easy to fall into the work of complaining, so no one was willing to do it, and found the village chief and asked if there were any black five categories in the village, and the two of them in the village added up to the black five categories.

One is Zhang Baoquan, whose ancestor was a dart master, his father participated in the National Army and fought with the People's Liberation Army, and the other is this old Han man. This group of educated youths went to Zhang Baoquan's house to see, and saw that Zhang Baoquan was more than one meter nine tall, and he was still the captain of the first production brigade in the village.

Look at the old man Han again, who is sloppy, and spends him to be reliable, so this group of educated youths went to the village chief and said, "The village chief's revolutionary stance is not firm, he has forgotten the class struggle, he gives preferential treatment to the landlord class, he does not distinguish between friend and foe, and treats the educated youth who go to the countryside as no person." The village chief had never seen the world and was frightened by this group of "educated people", so the poor Han Laohan in the village was sent to herd sheep. Han Laohan should be unlucky, let it go for three years, the last year had an accident, this winter Han Laohan herded sheep in Daqinggou in the east of the village, let the wolf bite the sheep, the group of educated youths also knew that they couldn't stay in this village for long, how to make a career.

The next day, he took the lead in opening a criticism meeting, it stands to reason that in winter, the wolves in Inner Mongolia have nothing to eat, there are always a few lone wolves out of the wolves and scurrying, this place is next to the Keshiketeng flag, it is also a bit of grassland, and the sheep are bitten by wolves in winter, which is very difficult to avoid.

But the educated youth held on to this matter, and the person who took the lead hadn't touched oil and water for a year, and killed the injured sheep when Han Laohan was locked up in the cowshed. The next day, everyone grabbed Han Laohan and criticized him on stage, and didn't let Lao Han speak, so how to say it, it was called "You are only allowed to be honest, and you are not allowed to talk nonsense." In this way, Lao Han was deducted with a big hat of "dissatisfied with the tasks sent by the organization and destroying collective property", and the group of cucumber eggs was not light or heavy, and the old man's right calf was broken, and it was difficult to walk in the aisle, let alone herd sheep.

Li Xiaoqing, who is not very clever in his brain, is still happy about this hard work, but Zhang Yanzi is frowning, doesn't this show bullying people? Everyone comes from the same school, how can they still be so calculating. However, he knew that Li Xiaoqing's cultivation was far higher than her, and he would have been able to open the valley a long time ago, but this guy was still greedy, and he deserved to be arranged to go out to herd sheep.

Zhang Yanzi's work is okay, mainly helping in the canteen of the village brigade, and then taking turns with several other girls to go to the field. After assigning the task, Hu Zhenyu, the best among the ten people, was elected as the leader of the educated youth team, this Hu Zhenyu's son was a close comrade-in-arms of Minister Xie of the Ministry of Public Security at that time, Minister Xie died a few years ago, so he made up for the vacancy, and his father was promoted, and after a few years, the minister who filled the position died inexplicably, and his father was promoted again, so his identity was also promoted.

After the short meeting in the morning, Li Xiaoqing went to Han Laohan's place, and he didn't knock on the door as soon as he entered the house, but he startled Han Laohan a lot, and his crutches fell to the ground.

Although the people in the village call him Han Laohan, in fact, this Han Laohan is a middle-aged man about forty-five years old, but his composition is not good, and he made a lot of trouble a few years ago, Han Laohan originally had a daughter, and later married to Daxingzhuang in the suburbs of Beijing, his son-in-law met his daughter when he went to the countryside, and the composition of the young man was not good. When the couple returned to Yanjing in 65 years, in August of the following year, the Red Guards of 13 communes and 48 brigades in Daxing County, on the outskirts of Beijing, successively killed more than 300 people, and 22 families were exterminated, and his son-in-law's family was not spared, and all died.

So this old man Han became a lonely man, and the people in the village also knew about it, and no one dared to tell him, but he knew in his heart that this old man had gray hair overnight, and he was very old.

Li Xiaoqing didn't know about this, but Zhang Yanzi was smart and clever but inquired about it in advance, and told Li Xiaoqing as it was, asking him not to ask his children or anything in front of the old man.

Although Li Xiaoqing's head turns slowly, he still understands the sophistication of human feelings, and he pities Han Laohan from the bottom of his heart.

"Uncle, I'm a new educated youth, I'll leave the work of herding sheep to me in the future, right? Li Xiaoqing didn't say a word, and went to the stove to make a fire.

"Oh, little comrade, you go up on the kang, I'll do this work!" The old man heard that another educated youth was coming a while ago, and he was frightened and hid a few catties of sorghum rice from the villagers under the stove of the sheep shed. When I got up in the morning, I took an empty basin and prepared to get some sorghum rice to cook and eat, who knew that this stupid boy was going to make a fire as soon as he entered the door, and he had a bitter face!

"Ancestors, alas, I just have this little sorghum rice, it's all coarse grains, you can't get used to it. ”

"It's okay, I just finished eating in the brigade cafeteria!" Li Xiaoqing said stupidly.

"You really don't want it?" asked the old man tremblingly.

"Don't eat, I'm full, if you cook too much, I'll be fine with a bite. Li Xiaoqing looked at the old man so "sincerely" and was embarrassed to refuse.

"Okay. So saying, the old man took out a small bag of sorghum rice from under the stove, boiled some sorghum rice in a large pot, and then took out some elm money soaked in salt water (elm money is the seed of the elm tree). The winged fruit obovate or nearly rounded, smooth, with a notched apex) was served on the table.

"Little comrade, I don't have anything to eat, you can make do with it!" The old man looked at Li Xiaoqing pitifully, for fear that he would toss himself again.

"Uncle, are you going to eat this?" Li Xiaoqing looked at the elm money that was still carrying salt grains, and felt a little uncomfortable, picked up the bowl and snapped a few mouthfuls of sorghum rice and rice, and took a sip of elm money.

Li Xiaoqing felt a little uncomfortable, as soon as he finished speaking, he watched the uncle take out a pickle gnocchi from the cabinet and cut it into a small piece, put it in Li Xiaoqing's bowl, licked his fingers, and motioned for Li Xiaoqing to taste it. The brothers in Liaoxi or Chifeng should know what pickle gnocchi is, that is, mustard heads pickled with large grains of salt, and dry pickle gnocchi in some places have to drink a teapot of water if you lick it with your tongue.

Han Laohan herded the sheep by himself, and for more than three years, he had never eaten a mouthful of mutton, never drank a mouthful of mutton soup, and never grabbed a mouthful of goat's milk from the sheep cubs, but was forced to drink sheep urine. The pickle gnocchi in this cabinet was secretly pickled this winter, and he was reluctant to eat it.

"Little comrade, after a while, the toon sprouts, I'll pick more, if you can't eat enough in the brigade canteen, come to me to eat a bite. "Many of the people in the brigade are descendants of the victims of the earthquake in the eastern part of the country, and they brought the toon tree that grows on the Shandong Peninsula in North China to this place. Han Laohan saw that the young man didn't beat himself, didn't bury himself, and was quite easy to speak, so he was relieved, and he wondered how to talk to this young man, and when he criticized and fought in the future, just let those educated youths stop beating people, his old arms and legs can't stand this.

"Uncle, I'm full. Li Xiaoqing knew that the old man was afraid that he would not have enough to eat alone, and he was not hungry himself, so he didn't eat it after a few bites.

"Are you really full?" the old man didn't look like he was pretending, so he slowly cleaned up the dishes and chopsticks, put the rest of the food in the cabinet and locked it.

"Uncle, are you full?" asked Li Xiaoqing suspiciously.

"Save these for the evening and tomorrow morning. The old man said in a whisper.

Li Xiaoqing originally wanted to herd sheep, but the old man was really afraid that he would lose his seventy or eighty sheep, and he would be unlucky again. So the old man was not at ease with crutches and followed Li Xiaoqing to herd sheep, this walk is more than ten miles, and finally arrived at Daqinggou, there is a river in this place, so the water and grass are abundant, but the grass is deep in the field, there are everything, Lao Han's sheep were bitten by wolves here last winter.