all the way

The water of Fengxi River is crystal clear, flowing slowly eastward, with sparse vegetation and mottled light and shadow.

A small patched mattress was spread on a very large mat. The cat stretched its limbs naturally like a big frog, with a cotton jacket covering its stomach. It slept like a cat full of mice, very satisfied; its small head Now he is bald, Liu Kui shaved him after he came back from the hospital. Liu Kui himself has a pair of clippers, and he cuts almost all the hair of the young people in Liujialing. The feeling is about the same.

Xiaowei and Xiaorui stood at the foot of the mountain with their faces upturned, looking at the uncle who was picking apricots from the crooked apricot tree in the crevice of the cliff seven or eight meters high.

Liu Xia tucked the shirt into his trousers, picked Xing'er, and stuffed it into the shirt. His stomach is already bulging and bigger than a full-term pregnant woman, and he is still picking up a big, yellow and soft apricot picking.

Xiaorui couldn't help it: "Uncle, Uncle Qi, I want to eat."

Liu Xia plucked a very big and red apricot from a very thin fruit branch and stuffed it in, and said "Okay, I'll come right away." Like a dexterous monkey, he retreated to the root of the tree after grabbing the branch a few times , and then grabbed the exposed roots of other wild trees on the cliff, rubbed them a few times, and with a light jerk, he landed in front of Xiaowei and Xiaorui, reached out and took out a few apricots from his clothes: "Here , eat, uncle first go and see the cat."

Mao'er seemed to sense that Liu Xia was coming, stretched his waist, yawned and opened his eyes.

Liu Xia unbuttoned it, and the apricot fell to the ground. He picked up the cat and walked to the riverside: "The cat is awake, pee." Then he whistled.

The cat rubbed his eyes and urinated a lot, Liu Xia turned his arm, and the cat lay on his shoulder, just waking up, the cat had to babble for a while.

Xiaowei and Xiaorui came over, they had already eaten the apricot in their hands, and when they saw a large piece of Xinger sprinkled on the ground, they jumped on it happily.

Liu Xia sat on the mat with the cat in his arms, and said to Xiaowei and Xiaorui: "One person can eat up to three more, if you dare to eat one more, you will be spanked."

The two nodded in succession.

Peach fills the belly, apricot hurts people, peaches can be eaten casually, if you eat too much, you will feel bloated, and if you eat too much apricot, you will get sick.

Liu Xia and the others are on 'wheat leave'.

Learning

The school will have a holiday every year when harvesting wheat and corn. The wheat holiday time is relatively short, usually one week to ten days, because harvesting wheat is a very urgent job. Burning wheat and frying beans for three or two days, when wheat and beans are ripe The speed is very fast, if it is not collected in time, it will fall into the ground and cannot be collected.

The autumn vacation is usually half a month, because the autumn harvest is a continuous harvest, harvesting corn, sorghum, cotton, and planting wheat, the battle line is very long.

Although the land has been divided this year, the wheat was still planted by the previous production team.

The busiest and most important time in the countryside is that all those who can participate in labor must go to the fields to work.

Liu Ling and Liu Hai went to the ground with the adults in the family early every morning, because the cat would not be held by others, so Liu Xia stayed to take care of him, Liu Wei, and Liu Rui.

The board on Liu Changqing's leg has been removed, but Wu Yuni asked him to rest for at least another month. Weight-bearing and long-term walking may leave hidden dangers in his legs. Liu Changqing followed her advice. In fact, he is considering resigning as brigade secretary He is already in his early fifties and feels that he is a bit out of work.

Liu Xia felt that the cat was almost in a daze, so he put him on the small mattress and covered him again: "Wait for uncle obediently, uncle will get you some milk."

The cat stretched its little feet, and said "ahhh" twice, Liu Xiaquan took it as his consent, got up and ran to the upper reaches of the river, about 30 meters away, the river had a bend to form a small semi-circular pool , there is a semicircle surrounded by several relatively large stones, and a few large leaves are spread underneath. Inside the semicircle are two bottles of milk in [-]ml high-temperature bottles, one of which is half full.

Liu Xia took out the two bottles and held them in his arms, then came back and hugged the cat in one arm, and asked Liu Rui to follow him, and said to Liu Wei, "Don't go to the river."

Liu Wei nodded sensiblely: "Then let me have another apricot."

Liu Xia nodded helplessly, jumped up and took Liu Rui home together, Liu Rui was young and didn't understand what danger was, he was afraid that Liu Rui would go to the riverside when he was not around, in case something happened, it would be terrible.

Liu Changqing was sitting in the shade of the trees on the Banpo and knocking on stones. When everyone else was busy, sitting and resting made him feel like he had committed a crime. He pried a few stones up, and he planned to build two kilns. The door still had to be arched with stones. He had to slowly prepare regular stones, and the knocked corners would be paved on the road. In the past few years, He has paved a stone road more than one meter wide in front of the five-hole kiln, and paved a narrow road from the entrance of the cave in the main room to the slope, so that when it rains or snows, you will not get muddy when you go to the next door. up.

But there are dirt roads all the way down from the slope, and he can’t walk even if it rains lightly. He plans to pave as much as he can. He knows that he will never be able to pave the road leading to the outside of his house with stones. , but more is always better.

Seeing Liu Xia holding the bottle and pulling Liu Rui over, Liu Changqing confessed: "Cook for 2 more minutes."

Liu Xia said, "I see, Uncle, may I bring you a bowl of water?"

Liu Changqing continued to knock on the stone: "I'm not thirsty, Xiao Rui, come and sit here with me."

Liu Xia put the cat on the kang, then added five scoops of water to the pot, lit the fire to burn firewood, poured the milk into a large porcelain bowl, then put it into the water in a large iron pot, and started fanning the fire with a broken fan .

He now goes to milk the cat three times a day and does not let the milk stay overnight, but what the cat drinks in the middle of the day will be put in the Fengxi River for two hours. Before he came back, he asked Wang Junyu specifically that the water in the Fengxi River is a mountain. Yanshui, when they were here, was freezing cold even in summer. As long as the milk bottle was boiled for a few minutes in advance, it should be fine to keep it in the river for a day after returning. Liu Xia dared not let it exceed even half a day just to be on the safe side.

The milk in the big porcelain bowl soon rolled over. Liu Xia silently counted four hundred in his heart, stopped fanning the fire, took the big porcelain bowl out of the pot with a rag, poured half of the milk in the other place Put it in a bowl, put it in a washbasin half filled with cold water and start to freeze.

When he felt that the temperature was about the same, he took it out and drank it himself, then poured the other half bowl of warm milk into the cat's fat doll feeding bottle, rinsed the high-temperature bottle containing the milk twice with cold water, and then put it in In the big iron pot where the milk was boiled just now, cover it, and it is boiled and sterilized.

No one in Liujialing has extra pots. They are all two large iron pots, which are still fixed on the stove. One is dedicated to cooking and steaming buns, and the other is for cooking rice.

Liu Xia went back to the river, and Liu Wei was sitting on the ground looking at a bunch of yellow apricots worrying, eating, not daring, not eating, panicked.

Liu Xia sat on the mat and asked the cat to jump on him, and the cat cried happily: "Ahhhh!"

Liu Xia rubbed his head against his belly: "Ahhhhh!"

Cat

The son happily 'giggled' and jumped even more vigorously: "Ahhhh!"

Liu Xia pressed his forehead against his forehead: "Ahhh!"

The two quarreled for about [-] minutes. Liu Xia touched the bottle and found that the temperature was just right. He carefully felt his stomach, which was very comfortable. He let the cat sit in his arms, and the cat started to drink while holding the bottle.

This is another step he took after returning from the health center to prevent food poisoning in cats: try to drink half a bowl first, and after half an hour it feels normal, and then let the cat drink it.

At noon, Liu Kui, Liu Ling, Liu Yu, and Liu Hai put their sickles and water pots at home and came to the river. They took off their clothes, leaving only a pair of trousers, washed them in the river, and then came to lie down on the river. They don’t move on the big mat, and they go to the field before dawn. Adults cut wheat, and students pick wheat ears. Harvesting wheat is a physical labor.

The mats were woven from sorghum stalks by Liu Changchun, who was the best at weaving mats in the Liujialing Brigade.

Mats, straw hats, and braids of wheat straw for weaving straw hats used to be the only things that could be exchanged for money by the supply and marketing cooperatives in the mountainous areas of their area.

The quality of the mat depends not only on the weaving technique, but also on the quality of the raw material. The raw material of the mat is sorghum stalks. If the sorghum stalks are tall and well-proportioned, the mats woven from the sorghum stalks will not have so many nodules. And broken heads, it looks flat and beautiful, and when you go to the supply and marketing agency to sell it, the grade is high, and the grade is high, and the price is high.

But the land in Liujialing is not good. In years with a lot of rain, the crops on the slopes will be washed away, and there may be no harvest. In dry years, except for a few first-level slopes near the Fengxi River The crops can be kept basically normal by watering manually, and most of the crops are very low and thin.

The sorghum is low, so the sorghum stalks are very short. Drought will cause the crops to mature early or die from drought.

Straw hats and wheat stalks have the same fate.The mats here were sold twice as third-class mats at the best time, and most of them were second-class mats. Later, the supply and marketing cooperatives thought it was too bad, so they simply refused to accept it.

The supply and marketing cooperative refused to accept their mats, straw hats and wheat straws, which meant that they cut off their only chance to get cash.

From grain production to by-products brought by crops, they are slightly worse than other places outside, and the addition of these points has become a huge gap between the rich and the poor.

Liujialing is poor, not because the people here are lazy, but because God favors them.

Now, most of the straw hats woven by Xiumei are brought to the family, and most of the mats woven by Liu Changchun are used by their own family and people in the village.

The consequences of the rain a few days ago were not as serious as Liu Kui and the others feared. Thirty miles apart, the rain in Liujialing was much smaller than that in Wangning. Only part of the wheat above the four slopes was destroyed, and the rest The wheat in the field has been preserved, and the best land is estimated to be able to harvest about [-] to [-] catties per mu. This is a very good harvest in Liujialing.

Liu Kui lay down, stretched his body comfortably, and then put his legs up, Liu Wei and Liu Rui ran over, Liu Wei sat next to his head, Liu Rui went to sit on his feet, hugging his legs, Liu Kui swayed his legs, and Liu Rui smiled happily.

Liu Kui took Mao'er from Liu Xia's arms and let him sit on his chest. After Mao'er came back from the hospital, he was closer to Liu Kui than Sun Chang'e. Liu Kui always liked to let Mao'er stand on his big hand, Hold him up high, and the cat will giggle. The cat likes this game now, so he will let Liu Kui hug him during the day, but at dusk, he still only recognizes Liu Xia.

Liu Kui picked up his feet, and Liu Rui crawled along his legs, and sat on Liu Kui's chest, hugging the cat from behind.

The cat laughed happily on Liu Kui's chest buttocks.

Liu Xia picked up a large handful of apricots on the ground, ran to the river for a rush, came over and stuffed them into the mouths of Liu Kui, Liu Ling, and Liu Yu one by one, Liu Wei saw it, and insisted on doing it herself This interesting errand.

Liu Xia put Xing'er on the mat and let Liu Wei feed him next to him, he waved to Liu Hai: "Let's go."

Liu Hai, who was still shouting about backache just now, immediately jumped up and followed Liu Xia to the cliff on the south bank of the river. They had seen it yesterday, and there was a mulberry tree with very large mulberries, but they were not yet red. It should be fine today.

Sure enough, they saw the purple-red fruits on the old mulberry tree that were plumper than their thumbs from a long distance away. Liu Xia ran a few steps, jumped up and grabbed a tall branch. The mulberries near the treetops are the largest and darkest, almost black. At this time, the mulberries are the most delicious.

Liu Xia picked a large handful, both hands were occupied, he couldn't grasp the trunk to get down from the tree, Liu Hai held a handful of mulberries in his left hand, and jumped down with one hand hanging from the branch.

Mulberry is a very delicate fruit that is not easy to preserve. If it is thrown on the ground and smashed into a paste and cannot be picked up, Liu Xia is reluctant. He looked at the thick leaves below, estimated the distance, and jumped down.

"Yaoer, you dare to jump from such a high place, so that our uncle won't beat your butt into eight petals." Xiumei came down from the slope with a big tray, just in time to see Liu Xia jumping from the tree, scared yell at him.

Liu Xia squatted on the ground, none of the mulberries fell out of his hand, he giggled, ran to the riverside with Liu Hai and washed the mulberries.

Xiumei brought over four bowls of lo mein in garlic sauce on a tray, and Liu Xia asked the four brothers who were working in the fields to eat first. He put the mulberries on the tray, and went home with Xiumei to serve his own meal.

Liu Changqing, Liu Changchun, and Liu Mao were sitting in the yard under the shade of a tree eating noodles. Liu Mao had been back for two days, and Liu Xia hadn’t heard a word from him. He walked over and put the mulberries on the tray on the stone table , said to Liu Changchun, "Uncle, you eat mulberry", ignored Liu Mao, and went back to the house with the tray.

When Liu Xia was carrying the noodles and going downhill, he saw Liu Fulai walking towards the river with a bowl. Not far behind him was his daughter, six-year-old Liu Mudan, who was reluctantly dragged back by his wife Niu Sannier. Go, while walking, scolding Liu Mudan: "Can't you have a longer memory? That Sangmen star is considered unlucky for others to walk around all the way, and you still have a dead face to come forward, so you are not afraid of him." kill you?"

Liu Fulai cursed and cursed: "Women, if you keep yelling, I won't kill you, don't tell us, Mudan, to play with other cats, and they don't want us, peony, to hug other cats... ...Hey? Yaoer? You also eat noodles today?"

Liu Xia let out a 'huh', and turned to look in the direction of Liu Fulai's house. Niu Sannier was still scolding Liu Mudan for not knowing why she died.

Liu Fulai smiled awkwardly at Liu Xia: "I'm eating noodles today, it's almost in time for the Chinese New Year, hehe, so what, your sister-in-law is not talkative, and there is nothing in her heart, you don't have to talk to her, I will I really beat her up a while ago."

Liu Xia sniffed twice, but said nothing.

Niu Sannier's natal family is from Niujiazhai. When she was young, she suffered from an illness and her right leg became lame. Her right eye is still a bit weak, with white eyes. Otherwise, she would not be able to marry Liujialing, which is more mountainous than her village.Niu Sannier is a very typical rural woman who has never seen the world but has a strong personality. She likes to get together and gossip about any small matter in the village. What she just said let Liu Xia know that other families in the village are wary of cats, and they all I think the cat is a dead star.

Liu Xia let the cat sit in his arms, and fed him some soft noodles. The cat ate with relish, swallowed a mouthful, and immediately opened his mouth to wait for Liu Xia to feed him.

Noodles mixed with half white flour are very luxurious for them. The new wheat is about to come down. Sun Chang'e has a little bit of confidence in her heart. In addition, it is really tiring to cut the wheat. Liu Kui and Liu Ling She has had nosebleeds twice in the past few days, she hardened her heart and rolled out the last white flour at home today.

Liu Xia left two of the few shredded cucumbers in his bowl to feed the cat, and picked the rest into Liu Kui's bowl.

Liu Kui hid the bowl aside: "Eat it yourself, I have it in the bowl."

Liu Xia said: "I don't work, but I'll win if I eat some pancakes. Brother, eat more."

Liu Kui picked a few more and put them into Liu Ling's bowl. Liu Ling held the bowl and looked at the people around him. Liu Yu and Liu Hai immediately turned around holding their own bowls: They usually try to make Liu Ling eat more if they are delicious. Mouth, not to mention the things that big brother picked for Liu Ling.

Liu Fulai said enviously: "I see your brothers are very excited, my turtles are all going to grab it from other bowls, no one will let anyone else, alas, after so many years, I used to envy Uncle Changchun, my Uncle Changqing was so kind to him, now, I envy you again, your eldest brother really has nothing to say to you, but you are also sensible, alas, I Those from my family also go to your house to play all day long, so why can't they learn."

Liu Kui smiled and said, "Zhaosen and others are not bad, brother Fulai, you can be content, today is cutting wheat in the field, Zhaosen will soon be a great laborer."

Liu Fulai smiled, with obvious pride in his expression, but then it dimmed, and muttered: "What's the use, nothing grows in the field, and there is no way to use it if you have strength. In the future, you will even marry a daughter-in-law." I'm sorry." Suddenly remembered something, he was suddenly happy again, and said to Liu Xia: "Yao'er, in another month at most, you won't have to go to Zhangjiabao three times a day, and our team's cattle will soon give birth. Well, when the time comes, the cat will drink only the milk it expresses, and it will definitely not be poisoned. The cow we are pregnant this time is very big, at least it can produce twelve or three catties of milk a day, and I will milk you three or four catties every day. "Liu Fulai is the breeder of Liujialing.

Liu Xia nodded, and kissed Mao'er's bald head: "When the time comes, my uncle will hold you and drink the cow's milk every day to see if he still deteriorates."

After Liu Ling came back from the original city, he was not in a good mood. He concealed it very well, but his family could still see it. Liu Xia asked him, and he said he was fine. Later, after Liu Changqing and Liu Kui asked for a long time, he said that he The composition is off topic.

Work

The topic of the essay competition was "My Ideal". Liu Ling was nervous and couldn't remember what ideal he usually had, so he made it up. On a good day, his ideal is to be a mountain village doctor with excellent medical skills, so that the folks in the village will not have accidents or die because of minor illnesses or because of going over mountains and mountains to see a doctor. His ideal is to be the best breeder They can raise the best cows, so that they can have milk all year round, so that children without mothers can always have fresh milk to drink... etc. Liu Ling smeared all these messy ideas on the test paper of the composition competition.

The teacher said: "The theme is not clear, the center is not prominent, and the realm is not noble."

Xiumei said, "It sounds strange to me, what's not noble?"

Liu Hai said: "The teacher said that he should write about being a scientist, or he should be a world-renowned medical scientist or a doctor in the valley. The teacher said that it was written by a mountain person who had never seen the world, and he was stingy. "

The whole family didn't know what to say.

Liu Ling's mood improved a lot after telling his family, but he was still uneasy. He wanted to go to Shangxian High School, he wanted to go to college, and he wanted to earn dozens of yuan a month to pay off his family's debts quickly. Still, he wants to go out and see the outside world.

Liu Xia now goes to Zhangjiabao three times a day, one and a half bottles of milk in the morning, one and a half bottles of milk in the afternoon, two bottles of milk in the evening, about three bottles for cats, and two bottles for him.

On

During the few days when Maoer was hospitalized, Liu Wei and Liu Rui celebrated their birthdays. Liu Wei was five years old, and Liu Rui was two years old. The eggs on their birthdays made the two children addicted. Yesterday Liu Rui shit by the river , Liu Xia asked Liu Wei to lead him to a farther place, and when Liu Rui came back, he complained that the stone Liu Wei wiped his butt hurt him so much.

Liu Wei said aggrievedly: "He refused to use the round stone I found, saying it was like an egg, so he wanted to keep it, but he insisted on using the round stone.

Wipe your head, you can't blame me. "

Xiaorui was passively weaned during the few days when Maoer was hospitalized and Xiumei was in Wangning. There are very few children here who are actively weaned. It is normal for the youngest child to breastfeed until the age of six or seven. Now, Xiumei feels sorry for her youngest son.

Now Liu Wei has officially had the task of practicing calligraphy. Uncles write three newspapers on both sides a day, and Liu Wei can write two newspapers on the front and back. He is so excited that he feels like an adult.

Liu Mao harvested wheat at home for five days and then left. During these five days, apart from harvesting wheat, he ate on the kang in the main cave, and went back to sleep at his own home after eating. He hardly spoke, only Liu Changqing and When Sun Chang'e took the initiative to talk to him, he only responded to a few words that he had to say, and he ignored the others.

When Liu Mao left, it was about five o'clock in the afternoon. Liu Xia just came up to boil milk for the cat. He saw Liu Mao standing below in his own house. leave.

Liu Xia suddenly felt very uncomfortable. He remembered that when he first went to Wangning to go to school, his eldest brother Liu Kui picked him up at Shangyaopo every day. Only when Liu Mao came home from rest on Saturday afternoon, the eldest brother could not go because the second brother Liu Mao would wait for them to finish school at the northern slope of Shangyao in advance, and then carry him up the slope until home.

At that time, Liu Mao would play with them, chase down the hillside, howl with them in "Return from Shooting" and "Learning from Lei Feng", and would proudly say, "I want to give you a very beautiful and smart little nephew. Son"………

Liu Xia also misses his second sister-in-law Xu Xiaohong very much, the way she sits on the kang in the main room holding the soles of her shoes, and the way she sews a padded jacket with her stomach stretched out under the shade of the trees in the yard... If the second sister-in-law is still there, there will be more cats happiness.

Liu Xia was very sad. In the past five days, Liu Mao hadn't looked at the cat, at least Liu Xia hadn't seen him look at the cat once.

On the morning when the wheat vacation ended and Liu Xia went to school, the cat cried and cried. Liu Xia had been taking him by himself for the past ten days. After stepping back, he was dragged downhill by Liu Kui in the end.

Liu Ling unexpectedly won the second prize for his composition in the province's composition competition, and a girl from the Gucun Commune won the second prize with him. Both of them were admitted in advance by the county high school. It's the final exam, but this year's final exam made them feel very strange. The teacher said that it was a unified exam for the city, and the exam papers were sealed in advance. When they arrived at the exam room, they could only be opened when the exam bell rang. Before that, the teacher didn't Knowing the content of the exam, it is said that the college entrance examination is like this, which makes all the students very excited and very stressed.

The city's unified exam, and students in the city do the same questions, it must be very difficult, right?Will they not even understand the question?

The papers were handed out on the day of the exam, and Liu Xia was excited by the clean and tidy printed characters. Not only did he have to write the class and name, but also the Wangning Commune of Rongze County, which made him feel an unprecedented emotion. What is this feeling? It seems that the world is too big, and Wang Ning is curled up in an unknown corner of the world. They don't know the joys, sorrows, sorrows and joys of the outside world, and no one outside knows the people in their remote village. birth, old age, sickness and death.

Later Liu Xia recalled his mood at that time, he felt that it was at a loss, a loss of not knowing where he was.

There is also a little novelty in this exam that they have never experienced before: the full score of mathematics is actually 120 points, and after the [-]-point test paper, there is a thinking question, and that question is [-] points.

For the first time, Liu Xia entered the top three in his grade (a total of 140 and 87 in three classes). He scored 20+92 in mathematics, but he was not the highest in front of him. The highest score in his school was [-], but Liu Xia was The only student in Rongze County who did the thinking questions.

Liu Ling took the exam and ranked first in the whole grade. Because he was admitted to the county high school in advance, he did not occupy the three places in the county high school allocated to them by the county education bureau.

Yes, it is the assigned places, because the quality of education here is too poor. After four years of college entrance examination, there is not even a teacher or technical secondary school. The Education Bureau decided to use the temptation of the outside world to stimulate their educational nerves in this backward mountainous area. Wang Ning three places.

Liu Hai also made a breakthrough and entered the top five in the class; Liu Yu also broke out of the bottom three for the first time, ranking No.8 from the bottom.