Quincy's Quiet Contemplation Chapter 45

Of course, our reporting team only found out about this after we arrived at Guofenglou Commune. On the day we went there, Lao Pi first sent a tomb boy to wait at the mouth of the Daoliu River, asking him to report to him as soon as he discovered us. But we had already arrived at the commune compound, and the tomb student ran over sweating profusely, holding a peach in his hand, and reported that he had not seen anyone wearing four pockets. He saw it in the peach grove by the river. After I got a big peach, I picked it back for the secretary. Lao Pi threw the peach away, kicked him, and cursed: Get out! I hurriedly explained that we had not passed through He'ankou, but had come from the county town to Chaling Commune, and came over the mountains from Chaling Commune. I saw the tomb student raise his head, blink his eyes, and give me a smile. He had a nice smile, with a small dimple showing on the right corner of his mouth. I said: Who are you? He said: My name is Tomb Sheng. I said: What, grave life? Lao Pi said: When his father and mother were shot, his mother was already lying in the sand pit but she gave birth to him. I said oh and asked again: How old are you this year? The tomb student said: Seventeen. I said: Why do you look like an eight or nine-year-old child when you are seventeen? ! Tomb student said: I am not long. Is it because he has not grown up or because he has not grown up? I want to ask him again, but Lao Pi becomes impatient and says: There is no place for you to talk here! Tomb Sheng remained silent and stepped aside. Lao Pi said again: No matter how far! The tomb student hid behind the tree.

This is the first time I have been to Fenglou. When I came here, I realized that there are no buildings in Fenglou. There are two cliffs three miles east of the town, which look like buildings. In the middle is the road into the town, and the road becomes a wind tunnel. . Because of the strong wind, when the chickens crossing the wind tower pinched each other, their feathers all turned over, like two balls of hair rolling back and forth. Sheep also like to fight. Often when the owner leads the sheep and they meet each other on the road, they will start fighting. They will each step back a few steps in the wind, and then run towards each other with their heads down, and the two sheep will hit each other with their heads. The wind made a loud noise. The people leading the sheep were old, but they were happy to watch. The wind blew the dust into their mouths and nostrils, and they didn't care. When one sheep was knocked to the ground with blood on its head, it got up again and rushed upward. The owner next to me said, "You still fight against the bloody sheep?" The master here didn't like to hear it, so the two started to quarrel, and finally got entangled and tampered with each other. When the strangers passing by saw it, they sighed: Two bad guys have grown up! Guofeng Tower is really not a good place for Feng Shui. The crops are low and the trees are less than three feet tall. When they grow to more than ten feet high, they will grow horizontal branches, or when they grow thicker, the tree will crack and let out a kind of flow. Blackwater. Therefore, a Taoist temple was built on the highest hill in the town to suppress the evil spirit of the wind coming from the cliff tower. But there has been no Taoist priest living in the Taoist temple for more than ten years, only Lao Pi. Lao Pi still has to ring the iron bell. As long as the bell rings together, the towns and villages at the foot of the mountain and the villages in the surrounding ravines will no longer hear the crow of cocks and dogs, and the tomb students will rush up the stone steps of the hillside in a hurry. run.

Tomb Sheng has a small head but big eyes. He has seen everything, except his father and mother. Others say that his father is a blacksmith. After liberation, several families in Donglinggou got into a fight with the director of the peasant association, and it was his father who gave him the knife. . After the director of the Peasants Association was beaten to death, those families were classified as a counter-revolutionary riot, and of course his father and mother were also involved. During the execution, his father begged for mercy, saying that he had no idea what someone was doing with a knife. He was just a blacksmith. If he and his wife were not killed, they would work as cattle and horses to support the family of the director of the peasant association. But his father and mother were still shot, and his uncle adopted him. When he was twelve years old, his uncle passed away and he became an orphan. People in Guofeng Tower thought that he survived to pay off the sins of his father and mother, saying: Are you a cow or a horse? You scream! He really barked, and it was the sound of a cow, which made all the bulls and cows in the nearby cowshed bray. He imitated a cow's braying so well that everyone who met him asked him to imitate a cow's braying. After he had done so, he asked: "Should you imitate a cow's braying?" He said: Yes. Looks very good. Because he was good, people gradually stopped thinking that he was the son of a counterrevolutionary and liked to boss him around and make fun of him.

Lao Pi used to be a secretary in another commune. In order to change the backward appearance of the Fenglou, the organization specially transferred him here and he lived in the upper courtyard of the commune as soon as he arrived. The upper courtyard is a Taoist temple on the mountain. It is the dormitory of cadres whose homes are not in the town. The office is in the courtyard at the foot of the mountain, which is called the lower courtyard. At night, the wind on the mountain is strong and the woods make waves. The upper courtyard is so noisy that people can't sleep. It is also very cold, so some cadres moved to the lower courtyard. Lao Pi always lived in the upper courtyard. Later, he moved his desk up and worked in the upper courtyard. He was not afraid of the cold. He didn't put a urine bucket in the house at night, and he had to get up twice to go to the toilet. The toilet was in the corner of the backyard. It was a shed made of wood extending from the cliff. People squatted on the wood to urinate, and the feces would not fall down the cliff and scattered. But during the day, if you stand on the steps outside the door and look around, you can see the entire basin of the Gufeng Tower. Lao Pi likes to stand there when he has nothing to do, especially after the bell rings, the sound collides between the cliffs and the woods. He looks down in the buzzing sound, thinks of the Tiananmen Tower in Beijing, takes off his hat, and waves it in his hand.

Lao Pi is indeed a workaholic. He has never had the concept of commuting to and from work, and he doesn't care about Sundays. Often when he suddenly thinks of something in the middle of the night, he will ring the phone to the office in the House of Commons. The office must be manned 24 hours a day, and the cadres must be woken up to come to the upper court for meetings. At every meeting, he would talk about Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, then talk about the leadership of the Communist Party and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and then discuss work arrangements and personnel arrangements. Especially when it comes to personnel arrangements, if everyone's opinions don't go his way, he won't express his opinion. When he eats cigarettes, the smell of cigarettes is very unpleasant. Others are making noises, but he doesn't cough. At the end of the meeting, the meeting was adjourned without any results. The meeting was resumed a day and a half later, and we still discussed Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, then the leadership of the Communist Party and the dictatorship of the proletariat, and continued to discuss personnel arrangements. If he still doesn't get what he wants, he just doesn't express his position, smokes cigarettes, and announces the adjournment of the meeting. After repeating this process over and over again, it finally met his wishes and he said: I agree with everyone’s opinions, so let’s leave it at that. Later, there was another meeting. Whenever there was a decision, the cadres gave a speech, that is, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, the Communist Party’s leadership of the dictatorship of the proletariat. It seemed that these words were in the throat and under the tongue, and they came as soon as they opened their mouths. As for the decision-making, he said: Secretary You decide. At this time, Lao Pi wants to say: Then I will use democratic centralism. After announcing the decision, he was going to distribute cigarettes to everyone. If he thought the smell of cigarettes was too strong to eat, he said: Take it! Put a cigarette in someone's ear and say: Our meeting is serious but also lively! So someone shouted: Tombsheng, Tombsheng, come in and learn how to bray a few times! Sometimes the tomb student would sit outside the courtyard gate and use a piece of glass to scrape the handle of the shovel. He would scrape the old man's shovel handle until it was smooth and could not scratch the secretary's hand. Sometimes the tomb student would go to the foot of the mountain to carry water from the spring and was no longer in the courtyard. outside the door. Unable to learn how to bray, these cadres joked with Lao Pi and said: Secretary, why are you so energetic? When I work with you, I’m so busy that I can’t even pee in the toilet. I’ve never done it in my crotch! Lao Pi laughed, the loose skin on his face trembling.