Quincy's Quiet Contemplation Chapter 29

Zhang Gaogui was crying in the room, crying like Liu Bei.

Zhang Gaogui had fifty acres of land, which he bought slowly from one to two acres a year to three or four acres a year. He no longer had the ability to build a new house and still lived in the three old houses. But the backyard of the old house was as big as a grocery store. It was full of junk he had collected, such as all kinds of old wicker baskets, bamboo baskets, long and short hemp ropes, wooden sticks, firewood piles, bottomless Iron basins, tiles, iron wire rings, nails, door bolts, curled sickles, axes, bamboo strips, and cotton covers. In his eyes, nothing is useless. As long as he comes back from the outside, his hands are never empty. The half of bricks he picked up on the roadside are piled up in the corner of the courtyard. When the Peasants Association measured his land, he went to the land in person. He did not know that the land would be divided in the future. When Ma Sheng took the measuring ruler and measured one step to the end of the land, Ma Sheng did not measure it. He said: No. The end. Pursue that step. Later, when he learned that the land was going to be divided, he went to the fields five or six times a day. Especially when he reached the eighteen acres of land on the river bank, he sat there and cried. This eighteen acres of land was originally a rocky beach. The rocks were as big as a hut and the smaller rocks were bigger than dogs. He started to build it when his father was still alive, and it took two years just to blast the rocks. His father was a master at exploding foxes. Instead of exploding foxes when building land, he used large dynamite bags to blast rocks. That is, one time the blast hole did not go off when it got wet, but it went off again when he went to check, killing people. After his father died, he stopped cultivating the earth for two years, and resumed it in the third year. Others laughed at him. He said that he dreamed of his father at night. His father asked him why he didn't cultivate the earth, and scolded him for not knowing how to live, so he It takes a lot of effort to cultivate. It had been repaired for three years. In addition to sometimes asking for help, he was busy on the river beach in winter, winter and summer, carrying gravel out and good soil in. When his back hurt so much that he couldn't stand up, he knelt down to dig sand and gravel and build weirs. There are two calluses on his knees now that were worn out at that time. He was crying in the field, and his family members carried him back. On the way, they saw a half-worn straw sandal and asked his wife to pick it up. He then cried again. After carrying it home, he hung the straw sandal on the wooden peg on the backyard wall, stuffed a ball of hair into the crack in the wall, and cried again. He couldn't stop crying, and his family couldn't persuade him, so they just cried with him. When he cried, his donkeys, pigs, dogs, and cats all cried.

Zhang Gaogui's cat cries like a baby, causing all the cats in the village to cry like babies. They don't even notice it during the day, but at night the sound is particularly sad and can send chills down the spine. Ma Sheng was a little angry. In the name of the farmers' association, he organized Xing Xinglu and Gong Yunshan to kill cats in the village. They took slingshots. Whenever they heard a cat crying, they would squat down to see what happened. There were two dots of green light on the wall and the eaves, and the slingshot would shoot stones. , if there is a cat, it will fall. Cats have nine lives, and they will not die if they are injured. Ma Sheng took the injured cats to the yard of the farmers' association office, pulled three ropes, and hung eighty-seven cats.

Zhang Gaogui fell asleep without eating or drinking at home. The person who went to visit him was Wang Caidong. Wang Caidong was sometimes innocent and confused, but he knew Zhang Gaogui's nature. When he went there, he didn't say he wanted to visit him, but said that he was The stone mill can no longer hold wheat, so it is necessary to use a chisel to clean the grinding trough. Zhang Gaogui had chisels at home, but he did not give Wang Caidong a good chisel. Instead, he got off the kang and led Wang Caidong to the pile of debris in the backyard to look for old chisels. He found a chisel with a blunt head and said: "It can be used." , can still be used. Wang Caidong said: Brother, you want to eat. Zhang Gaogui said: Can't I eat it? Is it easy for me to get the land? Wang Caidong said: Jade Bracelet also advised me, saying that if you are so angry, can this land still be yours? I have also figured it out, let’s just pretend that we are all dead! Zhang Gaogui said: When I die, I will be buried in my land. If anyone wants to plant my land, I will make sure that the crops in the ground will not bear ears!

Wang Caidong came back and told Yu Huan what Zhang Gaogui said. Yu Huan went to the chicken shed, caught five chickens and killed them. He cooked a pot and baked four more chickens. Wang Caidong ate them in the evening, and asked Bai Tu and three others to eat them. Long-term workers eat. The chicken was very fat, and the cooked soup was served in a bowl. There was a layer of oil on top, so it didn't even breathe. Bai Tu picked up the bowl and drank it. The soup burned his throat and he couldn't eat Guokui again. He said: Today is Cai Dong's birthday? The jade bracelet said: It's not your birthday. You have eaten and drank enough. Turn the mill at night to grind out white flour and let's eat dumplings tomorrow. It was not dark yet, and Bai Tu and three other long-term workers had their stomachs bloated like drums. They all touched their bellies against the mill outside the courtyard, thinking that this would help them eat better. When it was time to grind the wheat, they trotted around holding the grinding stick and pushing the stone mill. There was a snoring sound, and my stomach became loose, and I felt it was a ringing in my stomach.