I am the Odd One Out Chapter 1

There is a man in Xi Town whose property spans thousands of acres. It was more than a thousand acres of fertile fields. The tributaries of the river covered his land like lush tree roots. Rice and wheat, corn and sweet potatoes, cotton and Fcuk flowers, reeds and bamboos, as well as green grass and trees, were there. In his land, the sun rises and sets like one after another, without interruption all year round, and it is prosperous for 365 days. The woodware club he opened is famous far and wide, producing all kinds of woodware. Beds, tables, chairs, stools, wardrobes, boxes, cases, wooden basins and toilets can be found in homes hundreds of miles away. There are also sedans for weddings and coffins for funerals, and the performance of suona troupes and band operas. The drum music jumped out.

On the land and water roads from Xi Town to Shendian, everyone knew about this man named Leo Lin. They all said that he was a rich man. But no one knows about his origins. His foreign accent had a strong northern accent, which was the only clue to his life experience. From this, people concluded that he came to Xizhen from north to south. Many people believe that he came here during the snow freeze seventeen years ago. At that time, his daughter, who was under one year old, often appeared in the snow and went from house to house begging for milk. He looked like a clumsy white bear, lost in the ice and snow.

At that time, almost all the breastfeeding women in Xizhen had seen Leo Lin. These young women had a common memory: he always knocked on the door when their children were crying. They still remembered the scene when he knocked on the door, as if he was knocking with his fingernails. After a slight sound, there would be a pause, and then another slight sound. They could still clearly recall how this tired-looking man walked through the door. They said his right hand was always stretched out in front of him, with a penny in his open palm. His tearless eyes are unforgettable, and he always says in a hoarse voice:

"Have mercy on my daughter, give her some milk."

His lips were chapped like potato peels, and his outstretched hands were covered with dark red scars after being cracked by the cold. He stood motionless in their house, with a dull expression as if he was far away from the world. If someone handed him a bowl of hot water, he seemed to return to the world, and a look of gratitude showed in his eyes. When someone asked him where he was from, he immediately became hesitant and softly said the word "Shendian". That is another town sixty miles north of Xi Town. It is a water and land transportation hub and the prosperity there is better than that of Xi Town.

They found it hard to believe him; his accent made them think he came from further north. He was unwilling to reveal where he came from or his life experience. Unlike the men, the women in Xizhen care about the mother of the baby. When they ask about the mother of the child, a blank look will appear on his face, just like the scenery of Xizhen when the snow is freezing, and his lips After being together, they will never be separated again, as if they have never asked such a question.

This was the initial impression Leo Lin left on them. He was a man covered in snowflakes with his hair and beard covering his face. He was as humble as a weeping willow and as taciturn as a field.

One person knew that he did not come during that snow freeze. This person was convinced that Leo Lin appeared in Leo Lin after the earlier tornado. This man’s name was Charlie Chen. At that time, he was working as a foreman at the Xishan Gold Mine in Xizhen. He remembered that the morning after the tornado passed, this foreigner walked up the desolate street. At that time, Charlie Chen was walking in the direction of Xishan. He was going to see the damage to the gold mine after the tornado. He walked out of his home that had lost its roof, and then he saw that the entire Xi Town had no roofs; perhaps due to the narrowness of the streets and the dense density of houses, some of the trees in Xi Town had survived, and they were swaying after being devastated, but The trees all lost their leaves, and the leaves followed the tiles of Xi Town in the tornado and flew away. Xi Town seemed to have been shaved and became a bald town.

It was at this time that Leo Lin walked into Xizhen. He walked towards the light of the sunrise, his eyes narrowed and he held a baby in his arms, and passed Charlie Chen face to face. Leo Lin at that time left a deep impression on Charlie Chen. His face did not have the depressed expression after the disaster, but was filled with relief. When Charlie Chen approached, he stopped and asked in a thick northern accent:

"Is this Wencheng?"

This is a place name that Charlie Chen has never heard of. He shook his head and said:

"This is Brook Town."

Then Charlie Chen saw a pair of baby's eyes. When this foreign man looked thoughtful and repeated "Xizhen" in his mouth, Charlie Chen saw his daughter in his arms. Her pair of black and shiny eyes looked at everything around her in amazement, and her lips were biting together tightly. , it seems that only by exerting such effort can she be with her father.

Leo Lin left Charlie Chen with a huge burden. This is a white coarse cloth woven on a creaky loom in the north, not a muslin bag with blue patterns printed on it in the south. The bundle wrapped in white coarse cloth has turned yellow and is full of stains. Charlie Chen had never seen such a huge baggage before. It was swaying left and right behind the burly northerner, as if he had packed a home inside.

This northerner who left his hometown came from the north of the Yellow River, thousands of miles away, where large areas of sorghum, corn and wheat are grown on the land. In winter, the yellow soil stretches as far as the eye can see. His childhood and youth were spent running out of the lush green gauze tent, and the sky where he grew up was covered with sorghum leaves; when he sat in front of the kerosene lamp, fingering the abacus, and calculating the year's harvest, he had grown up aldult.

Leo Lin was born in a wealthy family. His father was the only scholar in the township, and his mother was the daughter of a prominent scholar in a neighboring county. Although her family was in poverty when she was born, she was well-read in poetry and had a sharp mind and hands. When Leo Lin was five years old, his father died suddenly. At that time, his father, who was very fond of carpentry, had just finished making a small table and a small stool for him. He put down his tools and called his name. The last few calls no longer contained his name, but turned into a cry of ahhh. , he covered his chest with his hands and fell to the ground. Leo Lin, who was only five years old, came to the threshold of the carpentry room. The sight of his father struggling on the ground made him giggle. It was not until his mother ran over and knelt on the ground and let out a series of screams that he stopped laughing, and then Fear made him cry loudly.

This may be Leo Lin's first memory. A few days later, he saw his father lying motionless on the door panel. A piece of white cloth covered his father's body. The white cloth was short and his father's feet were exposed. These pale and bloodless feet made Leo Lin look at them for a long time in his childhood. , he saw a scratched scar opening on the sole of his father's foot.

His mother put on clothes that he had never seen before. The mourning mother, who was wrapped in linen and held a bowl of water in both hands, walked past him, walked to the door of the house, crossed the threshold and put the water on the ground, and then the mother sat on the threshold. Sit there until the sun sets and darkness comes.

After his father died, he left him more than 400 acres of land, a six-room house, and more than a hundred thread-bound books. His mother's virtues of reading poetry and being diligent and thrifty were also passed on to him. From the time he learned to read, he would pick up his father's last craftsmanship - a small table and a small stool - and sit in front of his mother's loom. . His mother guided him in his studies while weaving. In the squeaking sound of the loom and his mother's gentle words, he learned the History of Han Dynasty from the Three-Character Classic.

When he was thirteen years old, he began to inspect the fields with his housekeeper Theodore Tian. He walked up and down the field ridges with his mud legs like a tenant farmer in his family. Sometimes he would step into the paddy fields with Theodore Tian. When he returned home, he sat down on his mother's weaving When he continued his studies in front of the machine, he still had muddy legs. He inherited his father's passion for carpentry and started working with axes, planes and saws at a young age. He would forget about food and sleep, and would stay in the carpentry room for a long time without coming out. So during the off-season, his mother would take him to learn skills from a carpenter in a neighboring village. He would often live and eat at the carpenter's house for a month or two. The carpenters who taught him his skills all praised him for his intelligence and skill. , praising him for his hard work and hard work, unlike a young master from a wealthy family.

When he was nineteen, his mother fell ill. My mother, who was not yet forty years old at the time, came to the end of her life. Years of hard work and the pain of widowhood had made her hair gray and her face was full of wrinkles. At this time, the mother began to look at her son with eyes she had never seen before. She saw that his son was as strong as his father when he was alive, and a look of relief flowed from her eyes. When the son comes back from field inspections or comes out of the carpentry room, he moves the small table and stool to the kang where the mother is lying, prepares pens, inks, paper and inkstones, opens the books, and continues to receive the mother's guidance. At that time, his carpentry skills were already well-known, and the tables and stools he made had buyers, but while he continued his studies in front of his mother, he still used the small tables and stools left to him by his father.

A picture appeared before the eyes of the dying mother. These pictures showed that the son's body was getting bigger and bigger between the small stool and the table, and the writing brush was getting smaller and smaller in the son's hand. A peaceful smile appeared on her face, as if a life of hard work had finally paid off.

On the last day of October, the mother, who could no longer move, suddenly turned sideways and stared at the open door for a long time. She was expecting her son to appear, but her gaze gradually extinguished in her expectant eyes, and she remained. The last words she gave to her son were two drops of tears hanging in the corners of her eyes, as if she was worried that her son would be walking alone on the road of this world.

Then, the scene that Leo Lin had seen when he was five years old reappeared. His mother was lying on the door panel, covering her body with a piece of white cloth that she had woven during her lifetime. Leo Lin, who was wearing linen and mourning, walked to the door of the house with a bowl of water. He put the water on the ground in front of the door. Like his mother fourteen years ago, he sat down on the threshold and sat until dusk came. He looked at the door from the door. The starting path zigzags forward and enters the main road in the distance. The main road continues to move forward in the open land with floating smoke, stretching towards the burning sunset glow in the sky.

Three days later, Leo Lin buried his mother next to his father. The nineteen-year-old man stood there for a long time with his hands on the shovel. Behind him, the housekeeper Theodore Tian and his four brothers stood silently until night fell. Theodore Tian reminded him, and he returned home slowly, then wiped the tears on his face and continued to repeat his past life.

As usual, he walked to the fields with Theodore Tian every morning to check the growth of the crops in the fields and chat with the tenant farmers working in the fields. Sometimes he would roll up his trousers and go down to the fields to work with the tenant farmers. He was as skilled at farm work as the sharecroppers. When he was free, he sat on the threshold for a long time. There was no sound of his mother weaving, so he stopped reading the thread-bound books. He lived alone for five years and became increasingly taciturn. Only when the Tian brothers came in from the back door of the house and talked to him about the fields and crops, did his voice appear in the house.

Every late autumn, Leo Lin would lead his donkey and take the remaining silver dollars from the previous year's harvest to Juhe Bank in the city, exchange them for a small gold bar, and buy one or two pieces of colorful satin to take home. The gold bars were hidden in wooden boxes on the wall compartments of the home, and the colored satin was placed in the closet in the back room.

This was his mother's habit during her lifetime. The ancestors of the Lin family started accumulating gold bars, and the colored satin was used by their sons for blind dates. In the last year of her life, this disease-ridden woman would always put a piece of colorful satin into her baggage on a sunny morning, sit on the donkey tiredly, Theodore Tian led the donkey, and walked on the dusty road. The road staggered away.

In Leo Lin's memory, his mother went out like this about ten times, and every time she came back, there was no colorful satin in her bag. Leo Lin knew that his mother did not like the woman, so she kept the colorful satin to calm the family of the woman. It has been a custom for many years. When she returned home and handed the donkey to Leo Lin who came to greet her, she would always smile tiredly and say: