all the way

Three months after Liu Xia started school, the school held a very strict midterm exam.

There are 200 students in the first grade. Liu Xia ranks 35th in the class and 680th in the whole grade.

His physics and chemistry are outstanding, but he still failed in English, with a score of 49; his Chinese score was 69, and his composition was still terrible.

Mr. Jiang, who teaches Chinese, is his homeroom teacher. Although Liu Xia's language is generally biased, he is still very good to Liu Xia because of Liu Xia's amazing pen writing.

Teacher Jiang felt that a child who could calm down and practice calligraphy so well was at least a down-to-earth person, and Liu Xia couldn't dislike him just for this.

This time Liu Hai has 260 students in the whole grade. There are more than 200 people in their grade than Liu Xia and the others, and there are nearly 300 returning students.

A few days after the mid-term exam, when Liu Hai and Liu Xia had dinner together, they were very depressed.

The whole family saved money and let them study in Rongze. With the current grades of the two of them, the probability of being admitted to university can be said to be infinitely close to zero, and they all feel ashamed.

Liu Xia has always felt that he is very, very hardworking. The proof is that he hates going to school so much now, but he still attends classes and does his homework seriously from morning to night every day, and never dares to slack off.

But several of his teachers obviously don't think so. They think that Liu Xia doesn't know what learning is all about. It's useless to just count physics and chemistry. The college entrance examination is based on the total score. It's useless to say anything.

The mid-term exam was very busy, taking up a Sunday, and the school decided to make up for it in the next week, that is to say, Liu Xia could have Sunday, Monday and two days off this week.

In the last class at noon on Saturday when the grades were announced, Liu Xia was the first to rush out of the classroom amidst self-reproach and the teacher's condemnation, and ran to find Liu Hai.

When he saw the cat yelling "Uncle" at the south slope of Shangyao, Liu Xia forgot all his troubles and self-blame, and hugged his little baby singing and howling all the way home.

Liu Ling's medical examination has passed, and the political examination is of course no problem. If there is no accident, Liu Ling will leave home within a month. According to the regulations, if there are no special circumstances, he will be away for three years.

Liu Xia was really reluctant to leave Liu Ling. Although it seemed that Liu Xia was the most noisy child in the family, and Liu Ling was the quietest child in the family, there was an indescribable tacit understanding between him and Liu Ling. Liu Xia couldn't be more precise. It's hard to describe that feeling with words, but both he and Liu Ling understand it.

After dinner, I had a lively conversation with the whole family, and the little brothers and the cat went back to their own cave dwelling.

Liu Yu swears that when it is time to recruit soldiers next year, he will stand on Wangning Street every day. He does not believe that Liu Ling's physique that looks like he will collapse in the wind can be spotted by recruiters. There is no chance, if he is also favored by others, he will definitely have the opportunity to go to Liu Ling's army, and then the brothers can continue to be together.

Liu Xia asked Liu Ling: "You asked those two people, will they definitely let you go to the army in Kyoto?"

Liu Ling teased the cat, and pulled his head out of Liu Xia's neck by pulling his little ears. The cat opened its teeth and claws to bite Liu Ling's hand, but Liu Ling let go with a smile, and the cat immediately hugged him tightly again. He hugged Liu Xia's neck and snuggled his face into Liu Xia's neck.

Liu Ling pinched Mao'er's cheeks: "Little smelly cat, let's just grow on your uncle.

I never saw the two people in Kyoto again. When I went for the medical examination, Xiao Jiao, who was in charge of the commune, said that Company Commander Lu had made an agreement with the person in charge of our county’s armed forces department to assign me to his recruits.

That company commander Lu came here to recruit troops in a serious way, and the other young boy surnamed Chen, he also left after I left. It seems that the phone call from Yuancheng directly called our commune, urging him to go back to the capital. It's not a formal recruitment, it's acquainted with Company Commander Lu, and they come to our poor place to see what's rare.

My uncle told my eldest brother that the capital I am going to is not the city of Kyoto, but the Kyoto Military Region. The mountains are high and the roads are far away. "

Liu Yu immediately answered: "Then what are you going to do? Why don't you let our family teach!"

Liu Xia immediately stretched out his feet and gave Liu Yu a look: "You know what, fifth brother just wants to go out and see what's going on outside. He's always nesting in this ravine. After a long time, we'll really become frogs at the bottom of the well."

The cat raised its head alertly, and stared at Liu Xia suddenly: "Uncle, where do you want to go?"

Liu Xia hurriedly comforted him: "Uncle goes to school in Rongze and doesn't go anywhere. He comes back to see you every week. Uncle Fifth is going to a faraway place to serve as a soldier."

Mao'er felt relieved and shook Liu Xia's neck again.

The kerosene lamp cast a shadow on the wall, and because the little head on it was blocked by my uncle's neck, there was only a small furry semicircle, shaking with my uncle's head.

Cats like to look at shadows. When my uncle is doing his homework, he lies on his back. When he is drinking milk, his uncle holds him. The uncle is shaking gently all the time. He tilts his head and looks at the wall and grows bigger. The shadows of one big and one small are shaking, which is very beautiful.

Mao'er doesn't know yet, the feeling he feels now is called peace of mind.

Liu Ling said: "I really want to see what the outside world is like, and how people outside Wangning live. As for other things, no matter how difficult the place is, it is no better than when my uncle was lying in the ice and snow on the Korean battlefield. Is it more uncomfortable to not be able to eat or drink for a few days? Our uncle can endure such days, and so can I!"

That night, the brothers said that it was almost dawn.

After waking up the next morning, Liu Xia found that Mao'er was afraid that he would sneak away again, and followed him closely, not daring to leave for a second.

He told Mao'er several times that he would take two days off this time, but Mao'er didn't believe it.

He knew it was because he had lied to the cat a lot in the past. He had no choice but to play with the cat desperately to make him happy. The cat looks bewildered.

Liu Xia didn't know, because the harvest in the field this year was very poor, and the application for relief food has never been certain. In fact, the adults in the family also have a big stone in their hearts.

Liu Changqing never burdens the children because of the things adults should worry about. Liu Kui also inherited his character, he will do it by himself when the sky is falling, and he will never spoil the fun when the family is happy.

Now is the happiest time after lunch. The early winter sun is warm and warm. The whole family is in the yard, peeling corn, breaking stones, or picking up shoe soles, watching a group of monkeys jumping up and down on the tree looking for persimmons to drink, happy Playfulness and laughter filled the home.

Mao'er was the first to notice the two people on the mountain road in the distance. He felt very strange, so he asked Liu Xia: "Uncle, why are there people there?"

Except for the brothers of the Liu family who go out of the mountains every day because they have to go to school, most of the family in Liujialing seldom go out except once a year to visit Ningla for food relief.

There are also quite a few families who have not walked out of Liujialing for several years: they have no clothes to go out, and no family has a pair of pants that can completely cover their bodies.

That's why Mao'er was puzzled by the fact that Liu Xia and the others were all at home and there were people on the road leading to the outside of the mountain.

Liu Xia followed Mao'er's fingers and saw two wobbly figures carrying large packages: "Huh? Really, who could it be?"

Liu Kui stood at the slope and looked at it for a while, then said to Liu Changqing in disbelief, "Why does one of them look like Uncle Zeng?"

The whole family stood up, and Liu Kui and Liu Changqing ran out.

Zeng Guangtong came back with his second son Zeng Huaichen.

As if he was still living here yesterday, as soon as he entered the yard, he came over and sat on a tree bump. When he saw Liu Ling and Liu Xia planning to climb down from the tree, he said with a smile: "Go on, let's play." Uncle is just about to watch you grandsons touch the persimmon monkey, skin monkey, are you carrying a cat? Liu An?"

Liu Xia stood on the tree branch and turned the cat on his back upside down: "Well, uncle, do you still remember me?"

Zeng Guangtong made a very shocked look: "Yaoer, do you think that uncle is going to suffer from amnesia? Well, Liu Xia, Liu Ling, Liu Yu, Liu Hai, Liu Wei, Liu Rui, little cat, right? ?” He pointed to a group of children and called them one by one, and he called no one wrong.

The whole family laughed. Zeng Huaichen followed Liu Kui to deliver the things to the cave. He couldn't help but look back and said to Liu Kui: "When the slugger put down our package on Shangyao Ridge, I I was afraid that my dad would not be able to bear it, who knew that he would become more energetic as he walked."

Liu Kui looked at Zeng Guangtong who was joking and joking: "Uncle Zeng is different from the intellectuals we used to think, he is stronger and more optimistic than those people."

Zeng Guangtong looked at a tree of persimmons that looked like little red lanterns and said, "Who will pick two persimmons for uncle to drink? I haven't drank them for several years. I'm so flustered!"

Before he finished speaking, Liu Xia jumped onto a higher branch with the cat on his back. The persimmons on it were even better. He picked one and threw it down. A soft and big persimmon fell apart.

Liu Wei is also quite good at climbing trees now, so he jumped onto another persimmon tree, found a big persimmon and plucked it, hooked the branch with his foot, hung the golden hook upside down, and handed the persimmon to Liu Changchun below.

Liu Wei and Liu Rui were grown up and knew how to be shy. They didn't feel shy when they were naughty on the tree. When they got off the tree, they just watched Zeng Guangtong from a distance but didn't dare to go over.

Mao'er was not yet shy. He was curious about Zeng Guangtong's cigarette, so Liu Xia hugged him to see what happened.

Zeng Guangtong wanted to hug the cat to his lap, but the cat refused, so he gave the cigarette pouch to the cat to let him have a closer look.

Zeng Guangtong drank persimmons and said to Liu Changqing and the others: "Liu'an is a good name, poetic but not soft, and it also has the artistic conception of turning a corner into another village.

The life of this child should generally be smooth. Although he lost his mother at birth, he is not a widow. . "

He turned his head and looked at Liu Xia again: "Yao'er, the name you chose is quite high-level. Uncle wants to give himself a name now, and learn from the poets and poets in the past. If you are elegant, you can give Uncle one too."

Sun Chang'e hurriedly said: "Brother Zeng, you are joking. The name he named the cat was just a figment of the imagination. People in the village didn't think it sounded good. You are a gentleman with a lot of knowledge. How can you call him that name?" ?”

Zeng Guangtong said with a smile: "Yes, brother and sister, why not, just treat it as a nickname for cats. Yaoer, come on, you are a young boy with strong wind and yang, let me borrow your pure yang spirit , Give Uncle a good life to suppress evil spirits."

Liu Xia was six years old when Zeng Guangtong left, and he still had a relatively clear impression of Zeng Guangtong. Zeng Guangtong still maintains the calm and humorous way he used to live here, so Liu Xia immediately relaxed after the first few minutes of restraint.

Just now he understood what Zeng Guangtong said meant that Mao'er's life should be pretty good in this life, so he was very upset, so he nodded ignorantly: "Well, I'll think about it, and I'll tell you when I think about it." No After a 20-second pause, he said, "Xifengren, um——I don't understand what it means, but I think this name is good, and it fits uncle very well."

The whole family looked at Zeng Guangtong and Liu Xia, and they all felt that Liu Xia was a bit of a fool, and he would treat it as a needle if he gave him a stick.

Liu Xia didn't feel overwhelmed at all. He heard Liu Changqing say that some well-known literati used aliases in the past, and he never felt that there was any great meaning.

Zeng Guangtong squinted his eyes and looked at the mountains, rivers and wild trees in front of him, and at the quietly flowing Fengxi River, a smile slowly appeared on the corner of his mouth: "Fengxi man, Feng...hehe, Fengxi mountain, Fengxi river, opera Fengren..." He turned his head and nodded vigorously at Liu Xia and the rest of the family: "That's it, Xifengren, Huai Chen, what do you think of the nickname Xiaoxia gave me?"

Zeng Huaichen, who had just put his things away and came out of the cave together with Liu Kui, pondered for a few seconds: "Well, I think it's quite good, especially suitable for your situation, Dad."

Since then, all of Zeng Guangtong's paintings and calligraphy works have been signed "Phoenix Opera".

Zeng Guangtong's two parcels, except for his painting tools and a few novels, are almost all clothes, and everyone in the Liu family has a suit from the eldest to the youngest.

Sun Chang'e put away all the clothes in a very precious way. They can't wear them until the Chinese New Year. Their family lives the best in Liujialing and the nearby brigades, and they often can't give them to the children for three to five years. Make new clothes once.

The whole family felt that Zeng Guangtong's gift was too expensive.

Zeng Guangtong knew that in terms of the basic living conditions, it was more difficult to wear clothes than to eat in Liujialing. Some food could still be produced here, and the country would also provide relief food.

But for clothes, even if many people here have issued cloth tickets, they don't have the money to tear the poor few feet of cloth.

What made Liu Xia happiest was the fruit candies, biscuits and ten bags of milk powder brought by Zeng Guangtong.

The cow in Guanjiayao is running out of milk now, and these ten bags of "three yuan" milk powder are almost enough for the cat to drink until the production time of the big yellow cow in his production team catches up.

After dinner in the evening, the whole family sat in the main room and chatted, only then did the Liu family know that Zeng Guangtong's situation was not as good as he said in his previous letter.

His wife Tao Fanghua filed for divorce half a year after he left Kyoto, and now has a teenage daughter with someone else.

After returning to Kyoto, Zeng Guangtong has been trying to find the whereabouts of the children. The youngest son, Zeng Huaichen, has been in contact with him the most.

Zeng Huaichen and Liu Kui belong to the same zodiac sign. Zeng Guangtong was under 14 years old when he was sent back.

Tao Fanghua remarried, and his children refused to follow him. After all his brothers and sisters went to the countryside to jump in the queue, Zeng Huaichen lived a life of a near-vagrant orphan for several years. After he turned 16, he went to the remote northwest grassland to jump in the queue.

Knowing that Zeng Guangtong had returned to Kyoto, Zeng Huaichen applied to return to the city due to illness. He returned to Kyoto two years ago, but the procedures have not been completed yet.

The eldest son, Zeng Huaijue, had his right leg broken by the Red Guards more than three months after Zeng Guangtong left. After he was able to walk, he signed up to join the queue in a province in the far north of China. He married a local woman and now has a five-year-old son. .

Zeng Guangtong went to find Zeng Huaijue, who said that he would never set foot in Kyoto again in his life.

The most distressing thing was Zeng Guangtong's daughter, Zeng Qiongyao. She signed up to join the queue in a southern border province at the age of 16 one year after Zeng Guangtong was deported back to her original place. She committed suicide in [-].

After Zeng Huaichen came back, Zeng Guangtong began to go all out to find his daughter's whereabouts. He never believed that his well-behaved and sensible daughter was really dead.

In March this year, he went to the place where Zeng Qiongyao went to the countryside. Two months later, he returned home sadly with his daughter's bones.

Liu Changqing's family all remembered that they had sent many letters for Zeng Guangtong, but Zeng Qiongyao only replied to one letter, which was in the early summer of [-].

Zeng Guangtong was very excited after receiving the letter from his daughter, but immediately became very anxious after reading the letter. He paced the yard all night. He even wanted to find Zeng Qiongyao desperately, but Liu Changqing and his wife asked him what happened to the child. When it happened, he refused to say anything.

Liu Changqing was really worried about Zeng Guangtong's situation at the time, thinking that it was impossible for him to leave Wangning because of his identity, so he wanted to go for him, but in the end it didn't work.

Traveling far away requires not only money, but also national food stamps, and he has neither. After leaving Wangning, Liu Changqing is definitely unable to move a single step.

Unexpectedly, the only letter Zeng Guangtong received from his daughter turned out to be a last letter.

Zeng Qiongyao committed suicide by taking poison half a month before Zeng Guangtong received the letter. Except for the letter to Zeng Guangtong, she did not leave a word to anyone else.

At first, Xiumei was still gnashing her teeth for Tao Fanghua's divorce when her husband was in trouble. Later, when she heard about Zeng Qiongyao's death, she couldn't believe it: she always thought that people who knew about it from big cities to the countryside were protected and pampered by people who jumped in line. As usual, Liujialing is almost like this, why did Zeng Qiongyao commit suicide?

The question in Xiumei's heart belonged to the whole family, but they didn't ask it. Zeng Guangtong must have his reasons if he didn't say it.

The Liu family all thought in their hearts, let their father and son live here and take good care of their hearts. It seems that everything in Kyoto is not good.

That night, Liu Xia put his arms around the sleeping cat, thinking about the situation of Zeng Guangtong's family, and once again felt: It turns out that our life like this is not the worst.

In the afternoon of the next day, it was time to set off, but the cat still held Liu Xia's neck tightly.

Liu Xia has been discussing with him: "Mao'er, my uncle is going to study, and if he doesn't go to school, my uncle will become a fool."

Mao'er nodded obediently: "Yeah." But the little arms hugged him even tighter.

Liu Xia kissed his little face: "The cat said goodbye to my uncle."

Mao'er kissed Liu Xia's face: "Goodbye, uncle." But the calf was wrapped around Liu Xia's waist, and his face was buried in the hollow of his neck.

Sun Chang'e knew that the two people could not come to any conclusion after discussing until dark, so she sighed, came over and reached out to hug the cat.

Mao'er now knows that he can't stop his uncle from leaving every time, so he doesn't cry anymore, but just looks at Liu Xia, tears rolling in his eyes.

Zeng Guangtong was a little moved while watching, and took out a few brushes and waved them in front of Mao'er: "Cat, come on, grandpa will teach you how to draw, let your uncle go to school."

The cat didn't look at him, tears streaming down his face, but there was no sound, his eyes were glued to Liu Xia's face.

Liu Xia grabbed his schoolbag and ran downhill, forgetting to say hello to Zeng Guangtong.

Liu Xia and Liu Hai did not expect that when they returned home next time, they would have to make a choice that would affect their entire lives.