My willfulness has done great harm to my relatives. My parents and sister can't eat, so I go to Lacrimosa all day. Grandpa quit smoking for a few years and started smoking again. I came to Beijing in the dark. I asked as I walked with the address on the envelope. I was directed to the police station, which directed me to the police. Two patrolmen didn't know the place, so they asked someone to borrow a map to find the route and took me to my brother's unit by car. Seeing that I dare not criticize, my brother arranged me in the single dormitory of Li Chun, an electrician, and crowded with Lao Han, an electrician.
At dawn in MengMeng, there was a "tinkling" sound on the construction site, and the workers began to work. There are many people running on the road, and the weather is still very cold. Some people are running in shorts, while others are humming while running. I am curious about everything here. My brother asked Comrade Geng to take me to cross talk. My brother's way of hurting people is to find fault with me every day, with a look of hating iron and not turning into steel. Sometimes he talks too much, and Geng advises, "She is still young! I will be sensible when I grow up! " My brother came again: "Look at people's eyebrows, they bend over when they walk!" " Look at the girls whispering, and then look at your loud voice. I don't know who you think you are quarrelling with! "
My brother invited Chen Xueqin to play with me. I know my brother asked me to learn girl manners from Chen Xueqin. Chen Xueqin is from Wuhu, Anhui. She is not tall, delicate, clever and gentle. In my brother's eyes, she is a serious girl image. I'm tall and strong, and I can act as Chen Xueqin's escort.
In the western suburbs of Beijing, there are still large areas of uncultivated land on the edge of the Third Ring Road. There are high and low dry chrysanthemum and new grass in early spring everywhere, and people dig wild vegetables in twos and threes. Chen Xueqin and I often play here with her little cousin. Chen Xueqin's uncle is the director of a newspaper, and her aunt is a famous writer. Once she took me to her aunt's house to play, and I was stunned by the books on one wall of the living room. Books are rare in my hometown. A new book is passed around by everyone and returned to its owner. It must be in tatters. Xueqin kept telling me about her hometown. It is surrounded by mountains on three sides, water on one side and flowers everywhere. The air is fine, unlike Beijing, where you can't see anything. Qin Xue's childhood boyfriend was admitted to medical university. Qin Xue felt that he was not good enough for him. He didn't want to delay his boyfriend's future, so he broke up. My boyfriend doesn't agree. She writes every week and asks her to wait for him to graduate. He said that he would witness their love with his actions. Qin Xue didn't reply, and she didn't know what to do.
Li Chun is from Zhangjiakou, Hebei, and Lao Han is from Luoyang, Henan. One is taciturn, one loves talking and singing, and the other is fat and thin. They are a pair of stooges. Lao Han always gives people a nickname, Zhao Yong, a policeman of 18 years old, Lao Zhao. When he sees me, he calls him Little Fatty. Li Chun is short and fat, and is directly called a panda. I am surprised that Lao Han sings happily every day. Lao Han touched my forehead with his finger: "Do you know that women cry and men sing?" Lao Han added: "When you grow up, you will know that life is too long and too difficult! Brother Li Chun and I are both soldiers. When we transferred to this company, more than one million people transferred together! I just sent my sister away before you came. I can't find her a job. I do this job on the construction site every day, and I can only take care of myself. Can you do it if you don't do it? There are wives and children waiting for dinner at home! Beggars in the street don't have to reach out and let you do it. Do you want to go? It's too easy to live a good life and save face! " Just then, the loudspeaker at the scene called an electrician, and Li Chun and Lao Han picked up their kits and left in a hurry.
Spring is coming soon, and many unknown flowers are blooming in the wild. There is a very beautiful lilac. I picked it up and put it in a water bottle on the table. At noon, Lao Han and Li Chun cook with an electric stove in Li Chun's room. Lao Han was surprised to see the wild flowers and took a few deep breaths close to his nose: "Ha! It smells good! " These men who have been working on the construction site all day have not smelled the flowers for too long.
Li Chun's dormitory is next to the canteen on the construction site. Master Liu, who cooks, comes to talk to me when he is free. When he entered the room, he reached out and turned on the light switch. I don't understand: "The light is still on in broad daylight?" He said, "Hey, do you still save public electricity?" Once, he asked me to cut his hair with scissors, saying just cut it short, whether it looks good or not. I smiled and really picked up scissors to help him cut his hair, which attracted several migrant workers to come and watch. Li Chun just came back to get something. When he saw several men in the room, he was just a little girl. His face darkened at once and all the migrant workers were blown away. He is still lecturing to Master Liu in the canteen. Master Liu left before he finished cutting his hair. Li Chun told me calmly: "If you do this again, I will tell your brother!" I don't quite understand his Zhangjiakou dialect. I think he is probably worried about my poor study.
A month passed quickly, and my brother decided to send me back to my hometown so that I could reflect on the consequences of not going to school. Before I left, Xueqin gave me a notebook and pen, saying that it was bought by her aunt. I asked Lao Han, Li Chun and Zhao Yong, the policeman on duty, to leave messages in their notebooks. Lao Han wrote a few lyrics: "You can't live like this anymore, and you can't live like that anymore. You have to think about life before you do it. " Life is like climbing a mountain, and life is like crossing a river, step by step, step by step, step by step. "The signature name is written backwards. I picked it up and looked at it: "Han Shuigang (Yong Gang)! "Hearing this, LaoHan smiled at my desk for a long time. Zhao Yong, a policeman, plans to study painting after retirement, which he says is his ideal. Li Chun sat on the bed, just watching us laugh.
After returning home, I wrote several letters to Lao Han and others. In my hometown, it just rained in the spring rain all night. The fields are green with wheat seedlings, the rivers are overgrown with weeds, the black bean eyes of chickens in the yard, the sound of willow flutes of children all over the street and so on. I wrote to Lao Han and told them these letters. Lao Han wrote back with flying words: "We were reading your prose-like words, and Lao Zhao took a sip of water and smiled!"
Later, I heard from my brother that Geng died of uremia in the late 1990s. Li Chun suffers from epilepsy and loses the ability to work. Zhao Yong has been wandering in Beijing and has no fixed place to live; Chen Xueqin lost contact; Han Yonggang lost contact.
About the author: Zhu Shandong, a native of Shanxian County, likes writing for many years. His series of essays, such as Memories of Hometown, Traces of Years, Country Stories, and Medium-length Migrant Workers, are mainly realistic in style, recording the past, leaving tiny characters with little marks in the years and preserving them as text images.