Crying with laughter, living with the accompaniment of death - Yu Hua, "Alive".
He dreamed that he was very young, five or six years old, sitting on the end of a bed with a hot radiator on one side and a woman leaning on the other.
The woman's belly, he did not dare to lean solidly, only to put his crooked head vainly on her arm, creating a kind of intimate dependence on the illusion to.
That woman is really pretty, not bad compared to those big stars on TV, goose egg face, white, eyebrows flush.
She had a tattered old book in her hand and was carefully reading the story from it.
The woman seemed to be poorly educated, her reading ability was very limited, and she stumbled through fairy tales with simple words, often with confusing breaks in the sentences, but she seemed to be rather self-satisfied, holding the book in one hand and resting it on her stomach, her tones sweet and crisp, her expression calm and beautiful.
"...... The children went together to the other side of the mountain and found a brook, which ran merrily from east to west, clattering and saying 'O foolish children, here are fragrant pastries, golden roasted chickens, and countless sweets, hanging colorfully from the trees, like stars in the sky, which cannot be plucked enough, and here are man-eating demons waiting to raise you as round little lambs and swallow you in one mouthful'."
"At first the boys were too stunned to cross over a step, and they lived on this side of the creek, subsisting on wild mushrooms and wild strawberries, which were nourishless and tasteless, and wild strawberries were sour and green. At last one day the oldest boy said to himself, 'I can't stand it any longer; how wonderful it would be if I could eat the pastries and roast chicken on the other side of the river, and countless sweets.'"
"He was the first to jump over the brook, and had his fill of the beautiful forest, and at night jumped back to this side of the stream, and said to everybody that there were no man-eating demons in the forest. So the next day the oldest girl also said to herself, 'How wonderful it would be if I could eat the pastries and roasted chickens on the other side of the river, and countless sweets.' That day she followed the first boy and jumped over the stream to the beautiful forest and ate her fill, and in the evening the two returned in company, claiming that they still had not come across any man-eating demons."
"One by one the boys and girls jumped over the stream to enjoy the beautiful food on the other side, and a day went by without the man-eating demon coming out, and a month went by, and still the man-eating demon did not come out. They laughed loudly at the rushing stream and then lived together on that side of the stream, free to travel through the beautiful forest every day, consuming fine food and countless sweets. Only one of the youngest boys stayed where he was, insisting that he wouldn't come a step closer, no matter how much his growing-fat companions yelled from the other side."
"The children who had survived the stream shouted to their little friend every day: 'Hey, come here, the stream is lying, there are no man-eating monsters here, and life here is like living in paradise!' But the youngest boy was unmoved, and he continued to pick mushrooms and wild strawberries for a living. He remembered what his grandmother had told him when he left home, that there is no free lunch in the world, and that comfort without reason is the worst trap in the jungle."
"Suddenly one night the youngest boy heard a sharp roaring sound; he was awakened with fright, and opening his eyes, he found that the stream had risen so violently that it had split the earth in two and turned it into an ocean."
"The woofers were singing: 'Little sheep, little sheep, round and round, Oooh a mouthful to eat, and don't run away, not one of them!' The smallest boy rubbed his eyes and realized that his companions were being chased by a monster the size of a mountain, but they were too fat to run fast, and before they reached the water's edge, they were caught up and eaten one by one. They all fell into the most dangerous trap, and only the youngest boy escaped and passed the story down."
The yellowed pages turned over, the story without a beginning and end finished, the woman seemed to have completed a big project, breathed out, carelessly said to Wei Qian who leaned on her, "So, people can not live too comfortable, when you are full of fat, every day you eat and mix with the sky, it is not far from the hiccups and cold... ..."
Her nice and vulgar voice was interrupted by the sharp ringing of a bell, and Wei Qian, as if startled, jerked his eyes open and bounced off the bed.
It was 5:30 in the morning, and it wasn't quite light yet.
Wei Qian was still immersed in the party's dream, which was both a beautiful dream and a nightmare.
With the low pressure of sleep deprivation in his head, he climbed up like a dead dog, picked up his slippers, slapped a cockroach that had been crawling majestically on the head of his bed, and then hopped on one leg under the water pipe, rinsed the soles of his shoes, and stepped on his footsteps to wash his hands and cook the rice in a small, deformed pot. and then hopped under the hose on one leg, rinsed off the soles of his shoes, and with a "pitter-patter" and a "pitter-patter", washed his hands, washed the rice, and cooked the porridge in the deformed pot.
Then he poked his head out the window and saw that downstairs the breakfast stand at Asako's had been set up and was warming up the frying pan.
Wei Qian blew a long whistle downstairs, not minding at all about waking up the neighbors, and yelled downstairs, "Pocky, give brother three doughnuts!"
Just as he finished screaming, the upstairs window opened and a fat man with a toothbrush said vaguely, "I want six, pick me a big, thick one!"
Shouting is the upstairs three fat, this thing has been fat into a ball, still unrelenting in the "rice bucket" as a trait of pride, the height of its thinking is simply extraordinary.
Wei Qian felt that Three Roots was rather unheroic compared to Six Roots, so he tilted his head and rushed at Three Fatty and said, "Pig, out of the pen out of the pen is really positive, there is ideological awareness!"
Three fat is full of foaming mouth, can not take care of him, only in the busy time to stretch out a pig paw, dialing the time to punch Wei Qian than a middle finger.
Pocky's dad died a long time ago, he was an orphan following his widowed mother, who sells breakfast for a living, Pocky has to get up every morning to help his mom fry doughnuts, and hears his friends dogfighting early in the morning, but also very accustomed to it.
He wiped his hand on his apron without uttering a word, and smilingly waved his hand at the two gentlemen upstairs to show that he had heard them-oh, hemp was a stammerer, and generally he did not talk highly in public.
With breakfast in hand, Wei Qian turned to the restroom to brush his teeth and wash his face like a battle and began his busy and miserable day.
He let the cooked porridge cool while picking himself up, jogged downstairs with the change to get the doughnuts, then came back to wake up his sister, Xiaobao, stared at her after breakfast, ran upstairs with her in his arms and left her in the care of SanFat's mom, and on his way out, he smacked away Xiaobao's hand that was going to her mouth again.
And then Wei Qian pedaled his worn-out bicycle to the school.
It was the day Wei Qian took the middle school exam.
Wei Qian never knew who his dad was, nor did he know how many noses and eyes he had, and the only concept he had of him was that he was a scumbag son of a bitch - this came from Wei Qian's mom repeating in his ear for ten years and a day.
Legend has it that the old shameless one is still squatting in the number, with an honorable title of "forcible/adulterer", I don't know how long it will take for him to come out - of course, Weiqian doesn't expect him to come out, a fart will not be a burden to the society. An old laborer who doesn't know shit is also a burden to society.
Wei Qian thought that it would be best if that old bastard could be beaten to death in prison by other inmates before his sentence was completed.
One of the victims created by the old labor reformer is Wei Qian s mom ...... Oh yes, there is also Wei Qian, the indirect victim.
When his mother was young, her brain was a piece of paste, when she did not learn, every day with a gang of hooligans to mix, drunk in the middle of the night to wander outside, unfortunately was the old labor convicts stared at, became a confused victim, and then even more confused pregnancy and gave birth to Wei Qian.
Therefore rationally speaking, Wei Qian understands why his mother did not treat him since childhood, and he feels that when he was born, she did not directly strangle herself to death, it is already the effect of hormones ...... hormones is the miracle of human life.
Not to mention the fact that she barely managed to bring him up.
But despite this, Wei Qian still hates her from the bottom of his heart.
Hated it every day, clocked in at regular intervals, hated it enough to eat her flesh and drink her blood.
However ...... he will again heartily expect her to give herself a little warmth, and occasionally she really gives it, Wei Qian will feel great happiness, so he also hates himself, and he thinks that he is genetically bad and born with such a cheap bone.
Women are always out at night and day, and the work she does for a living is ancient and traditional, with thousands of years of shameful history in our country. This is a job that has brought Wei Qian a lot of "honor" - a fucking "chicken", to use this bitch's shameless words, the advantage of this job is that she whored out men for nothing, but also the men paid her money. The men pay her money.
Wei Qian, the rapist/adulterer's dad, ended her entire teenage years, making her black from the inside out and more and more unashamed.
As an "egg", Weiqian's childhood was a long ordeal.
His mother would go out every night cursing, and would not return until the next morning, and would use her long nails to pinch him alive out of the quilt, and if she was in a good mood, she would scold him together with his father and mother and three uncles and masters all over again, and if she was in a bad mood, she would also smack him in the hand twice, and then all in a drunken mood, she would instruct the little Weiqian, who was not yet as high as the pots and pans, to go and get a mouthful of food for her.
There were so many times that Wei Qian bought all the rat poison and was ready to put it down in the rice and die with her, but in the end it didn't work out, because when that woman occasionally tried to be a mom, she would use her soft arms to hold him and watch TV for a while, and when she was happy, she would even whisper warmly in his ear and say a few words to him.
She also buys two sets of pancake fruits for Weiqian on her way home in the morning if the nightly income is not good enough.
This kind of situation, although precious and unattainable, can always make the young Wei Qian flattered, every time this time, he will not want to kill this woman, because he will also remember that this woman is his own mother.
His own mother was more beautiful than any woman he'd ever seen in his life, yet it didn't bring him the slightest bit of honor.
But after all, there was only one person in the whole world who was his real mom, and if he killed her, she was gone, and he couldn't let go.
And so the two of them survived, hating and relying on each other.
When Wei Qian was five years old, his mother married again, stepfather is an honest man, not much money, not much ability, on this cheap son is not very warm, but also never abused.
Later, probably because he was too much of an eyesore in the house, when Wei Qian had just turned six, his stepfather took the initiative to send him to a small school and drove him to report to the school on a big two-by-eight bicycle.
Wei Qian called him uncle.
After the uncle came, his mother overnight "put down the butcher's knife and become a Buddha", no longer go out to fool around, almost instantly cleaned up the lead, high pulling the long hair, did not dip a drop of alcohol, the temper is also much better.
She shook herself into a normal woman and a normal mother.
That winter, she even hands to Wei Qian knitted a sweater, that sweater he only wore a winter, due to the size of the growth too fast, the next year will not wear, but has been Wei Qian precious and heavy in the cabinet, because that is almost the only gift he received in his childhood.
It is said that six or seven year old children roll around, the dog is too, but Wei Qian six or seven years old when well-behaved like a dog, he did not say a word of nonsense, a request is not to mention, if the adults do not take the initiative to give, he will never ask the adults to ask for money, sometimes a little thing in the school to let the money, Wei Qian is the first borrowed, and then run to the pool hall game room to give a miscellaneous help to earn a few bucks to pay back on the.
He befriended a lot of punks much older than him in the process, and the owner looked at him as small and fun to run around picking up balls and serving dishes, plus having an eye for a good time and being very good at reading people's faces, so he kept him around as an oddball mascot to tease idly.
Wei Qian was happy about this and did not feel any pain, because he learned in school that he was also one of the flower bones of the motherland, and this kind of life, he lived contentedly.
So he was always afraid that his uncle would be upset, that he would divorce his mom and let him live like that again.
Wei Qian was seven and a half years old, not eight years old when his mother gave birth to another girl.
The girl looks like his uncle is carved out of the same mold - oh, that is to say, very ugly meaning, but the whole family is too precious.
She was born in the spring, the parents think what "spring" ah "willow" ah and so on the name is too earthy, not worthy of their baby girl, difficult for his mother and his uncle, the two of them have been educated together is not nine years, get together a full more than a week, finally! The two of them, who have less than nine years of education combined, put their heads together for more than a week and finally came up with a name for the girl that they thought was poetic, "Song Li Li".
His uncle's last name is Song, the "Li Li" in "Grass on the Ground", and his nickname is Xiaobao.
However, Wei Qian hardly ever called his sister by her unlucky name, and until she became an adult, she was always called "Xiaobao".
Instead of "Gathering", it has to be "Leaving". I've never heard of a family naming their child this, it's so auspicious.
His own mom and stepdad, both illiterate, were too busy "wetting" the kid.
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Reading in sections 2
The name is purely for fun.
The unlucky name would stay with the little girl for the rest of her life, and seemed to foretell that life and death would run through her thin life from one to the other.