quail

April [-], Leibo County, Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province.

By the Jinsha River.

Nine past five p.m.

Yang Jian turned on the double flash, put the gear on, pulled out the toolbox from the rear car slot full of corn stalks, and stood in front of the engine again.This is the second time it's turned off tonight.He bit the flashlight, held the tail of the wrench with two fingers, and scratched it from the cylinder head to the camshaft, observed it carefully for a while, and then twisted it again.

About 10 minutes later, Yang Jian returned to the driver's seat, simply wiped off the dust and oil on his hands, put his left hand on the window sill, and continued on the road.

The wind picked up, and the sound of the river climbed to the ears along the airflow, which was chilly and refreshing.The roar coming from the front hood of the car also sounds quite powerful, as if it wasn't the one that went on strike just now.In fact, there is no major problem at all, but the battery is too old, and the performance is unstable, causing low-voltage power failure.But Yang Jian was not sure if he had the chance to replace it with a new one.This is the pickup truck of the government, and it is usually out of reach. The assistant to the mayor in charge of logistics has a good relationship with him, so I lent it to him once in a while, so that he can go to the county town to do things other than Tuesdays when there are buses passing by. Great thing.

For example, to sign up students for an essay competition, or to buy emergency medicine... There is only one young male teacher in the school, and of course all these errands are on his head.

Yang Jian especially remembered that when he borrowed it for the first time, the car was still half-new. It is said that the village had cut the ribbon on the day it was purchased, and the big red flower hanging on the front of the car had not been picked off even though its color had faded.Now that a few years have passed, every time he borrows it, he will find that it has become a layer of old. The original pure white car skin has gradually changed its color, and there are potholes and rust everywhere, and it can't be cleaned even after washing.

How long... from the end of [-] to the present, over three years, right?He has run alone no less than [-] times on this winding mountain road along the river, and he has actually encountered those robbers blocking the road twice in the legend.

The first time was at noon, when the sun was shining, a few dark-faced boys stopped in a row on a mountain road that was only big enough for one car, all of them looked like they were in their early twenties, and each of them held Yi swords in their hands. Waving brightly.As a result, Yang Jian was annoyed in his heart. Once he got up, he didn't slow down at all. He honked the horn and rushed over, but drove them away like chickens, scattered into a ball, and could only be seen in the rearview mirror Show your teeth and claws.

The second time was much more dangerous. In the middle of the night, Yang Jian was in a daze on the roof of the dormitory, when suddenly crying broke into the campus, interrupting his fugue.It was a student in his class who had been at home for more than a week on leave. In the past two days, he had a high fever and lost consciousness, so he was carried out of the house by his mother.Yang Jian couldn't figure out what kind of mentality it was to ask the teacher for help after such a life-or-death matter dragged on for so long, but he still rode a battery car and drove the students to the township health center halfway up the mountain.

He said it was acute pneumonia, and he didn't see it well, so he borrowed the car keys from the assistant of the township chief, and drove to the county overnight.

As a result, just after transitioning to Provincial Highway 301 next to Koukou Township, at a gourdkou in the mountain gorge, two beams of headlights illuminated things blocking the road.It was a big rock with irregular shape, as if it had just rolled down from the mountain, and there were two rows of people standing on both sides of the rock, still with flashing Yi knives, and still with fierce eyes, they rushed up, yelling that Yang Jian could not listen. He understands the language, and even broke his glass when he subconsciously slowed down to avoid the roadblock.A knife came in and almost cut his nose - Yang Jian's breathing was disrupted by the blade, but he still didn't stop, the hand in the window was twisted out of its socket by him, and the knife was snatched away by him , and threw it at the feet of the sleeping student in the co-pilot. He was glad that the window over there was still intact. devour.

The mountain is so high that a half crescent moon is reflected in the rearview mirror.

They rushed to the county hospital before dawn, and the student entered the emergency room, saving his life.

The Yi waist knife with short handle and long body was hidden by Yang Jian, polished and sharpened, and made a scabbard by himself.From then on, he took it with him when he crossed dangerous roads.

At this time, the knife was also quietly lying on the passenger seat, but the third robbery... This trip still didn't happen.

In fact, Yang Jian was looking forward to it. His life needs stimulation, and he has always had a firm intuition that his life will not end here, will not be murdered by others, and will not die of old age, so it is not possible to talk about it. fear.But he was going to die anyway, that is to say, he was going to leave anyway, as for why he hadn't left yet, maybe it wasn't time yet.

After all, Yang Jian didn't have any place he wanted to go after detouring from these mountains and returning to the human world.The first half of life was cut off with a single knife, and the rest of it has been simplified to the extreme, like a piece of compressed mushroom. To make it almost as full as the mud on the tree, it needs to be soaked in water for a day.And soaking in water is not necessary. For Yang Jian, people and things in distant cities are farther away than cities. If he doesn't think about it and remember it, it seems that he will have nothing to do with it in this life.

Isn't that the truth?

After such a smooth and boring journey through the mountain pass, Yang Jian drove away from the rugged river bank and drove onto the flat road in the county town.

At a quarter to ten o'clock, Yang Jian stood at the gate of the county post office - in front of the small supermarket next to it.

The boss is a simple young man who graduated from a junior college and went home to support his mother. He has a baby face and loves to smile. He is two years younger than Yang Jian. He once longed to go to the capital to work. Enthusiasm is like fire, every time Yang Jian comes to buy things, he has to talk to him, and he successfully mixed with him a year ago.Since buying chalk can wipe off the change, and buying snacks can give you a few more "drool" candies that students love, Yang Jian is also happy to make such a friend, and now he has developed to the point where he can help collect mail on his behalf.

The post office closed at 05:30. At this moment, the "five large boxes" in the phone are all stored on the pallet truck in front of the supermarket.

"Sichuan Province--Liangshan Prefecture--Leibo County--Qinggang Middle School, received by Mr. Yang Jian," the little boss read word by word, babbling in Mandarin with an accent, "I moved just now, and every box weighed as much as my mother I don’t even know what it’s pretending to be!”

"I don't know." Yang Jian squatted down in front of the box and raised his left hand.

The little boss stuffed a pair of scissors knowingly.

"No one has sent me anything before." Yang Jian smiled, slashed at the seal, and tore off the tape, "How is the business recently?"

"Oh, that's what it looks like." The little boss obviously didn't want to discuss this topic, he bent down to support his knees with interest, and squinted at his side.

Yang Jian didn't ask for words anymore, and scratched the tape without saying a word.

The first box is the heaviest, and it is full of homework books. Several specifications are ready, and there must be hundreds of books at least.

The second box was filled with boxes of Chinese pencils and odd stationery.

The third box is the biggest. When I opened it, I found two footballs, two basketballs, one pump, four pairs of Double Happiness rackets, and two boxes of table tennis.

The fourth box is even more unbelievable. The big cardboard box used to hold apples is full of stuff, most of which are commonly used medicines such as Banlangen Band-Aid and iodophor. The small pile in the corner is a girl. Dysmenorrhea stickers and sanitary napkins.

"Donation is very considerate." The little boss picked up a bag like tally, and looked at it. "What kind of aid project is it? Blessed are those girls!"

Yang Jian didn't answer, his eyebrows were slightly frowned, and he looked over it several times. There was indeed no words on the outside of the box except for the delivery label. As for the inside of the box, there was no card with a word written among the items.

Who donated it?Was it donated?Subsidies applied for by students are screened out by layers of officials, and they have to wait until the year of the monkey to get them. If donations from non-profit organizations go through the process...

Anyway, there are so many non-governmental student aid projects and it has been done for so long. As a front-line teacher, this is the first time Yang Jian has received a real object.

He opened the fifth box.

This box is the lightest and the smallest. When it is cut open, it is stuffed with thick sponge, as if it is afraid of breaking the contents inside. This is the treatment that the other four don't have.

Open the sponge again, and by the light from the door of the supermarket, Yang Jian saw a line of words: Wutheris.

Wuthering Heights.

He often read it in college.

The white cursive characters, printed on the oil painting girl Ruyun's bun, are the original English version that could not be afforded back then.Yang Jian took a breath and picked it up, only to see that there were also books under it, including Asimov's science fiction, Higashino Keigo's reasoning, Einstein's lonely autobiography about worldview...

The pages of the book are brand new and the spine is even, but every book is old to Yang Jian.What a coincidence, he has read each of the eight books, and he is even familiar with them.

Coincidentally, it is also here.

Although most of them are dubbed "bestsellers", the book "Siddhartha", which has fascinated Yang Jian for a whole semester, shouldn't be among them, right?At that time, there was only one copy in the library, and it was so new that it seemed that it had never been translated. It was written by a German writer and was translated into English. Yang Jian felt that the translation was extremely poor, and even had the idea of ​​choosing German to find the original version himself. .

Now that the Chinese translations are out, what will happen?

The past just keeps rolling in without turning the pages.But Yang Jian's heart suddenly felt very stable, he was basically sure that this smallest box had nothing to do with the students, it was just for him.

It's for yourself.

He found a small tea box in the foam paper next to the book, and opened it again, but there was still no writing. Five boxes of Golden Throat and two bottles of vitamin B12 were lying in it, quietly squeezing each other, stuck together.

"Oh," the little boss rubbed his palms excitedly, "Mr. Yang, what is the use of this vitamin, it nourishes the brain?"

He seemed very much looking forward to it.

But I heard Yang Jian say: "cure anemia."

The little boss's eyes flashed, and he was a little resentful: "This is also a gift of throat... It's someone you know!"

"Maybe." Yang Jian said simply, obviously impatient to say more.He cleared a space for the car trough, moved four large boxes up, and used several bundles of corn stalks to prevent it from rolling over.The small box was placed on the co-pilot, and it was pressed with a Yi knife.

"If it weren't for me, you would have closed early. Thank you so much today." After packing up his things, he jumped off the front compartment again, turned around and smiled at the little boss, and softened his tone, "I'll treat you when you call it a day. Want to eat mutton noodles?"

Hearing this, the little boss didn't ask any more questions, took out a bottle of beer and soda from his refrigerator, and happily went to the banquet.

Yang Jian returned to Qinggang Township at about two o'clock in the morning. He had to go to school during the day on weekdays, and visited homes on weekends to persuade people to send their children back to school. This hour is quite common.Usually, he couldn't fall asleep like this, and he didn't usually feel strongly drowsy. After unloading the goods, he returned the car at the gate of the township government, left the keys in the security room, and then strolled slowly along the mountain road back to school.

The road is not short, and it takes about 10 minutes to walk uphill and downhill.This road is silent and boring, only the leaves of the trees are illuminated by the moonlight, and the shadows of people are printed on the land, clear and rich.Yang Jian likes this road very much. Whenever he wears the weight of a Yi knife around his waist and looks up at Liu Yun and the vast Milky Way, he will suddenly think that his species and definitions have been erased and become Be a villager, or a beast.Become the people who walked here decades and hundreds of years ago.He doesn't care about anything anymore.The road is next to the mountain wall, only a few feet wide, and the river below is a man-eating river. It is still possible to walk, and there is still nothing to worry about.

Oh, by the way, get rid of the drowsiness of not visiting until dawn.

If that person really knows himself, he thought, he'd better send over some sleeping pills.

As for cigarettes, forget it, I can buy them myself, and I set a strict rule for myself that I can smoke no more than five cigarettes in one night no matter how bored I am.That night, he relied on five cigarettes until the wake-up bell rang. When several other teachers organized the students to have breakfast, he arranged four cardboard boxes on the playground by himself, and waited quietly for Xu Li to bring the students to pick up the things.

Xu Li is half a year older than Yang Jian, and also came half a year earlier than him. She studied Chinese at a university in Chengdu. She is a local, and is in charge of Chinese, music and art for all students in Qinggang Middle School.Compared with Yang Jian's mathematics, physics, chemistry and English, these three subjects seem to be more likable, and the female teacher with a sweet smile and a gentle voice who can speak the authentic dialect seems to be more than half a sentence every day except for the content of the class and some incomprehensible jokes. There are not many cold-faced men who are better to get close to.

Therefore, there is no suspense, no matter whether they are just in the first grade of junior high school or about to graduate, the children prefer Xu Li.

Yang Jian thinks this is called superficiality.

Seeing that, Xu Li came over, followed by a group of children like ducklings. There were only more than 70 children in the whole school, and each of them was as short and thin as a primary school student.I saw the ducks chirping in line, blinking timidly when they took the homework from Yang Jian, saying thank you teacher, and happily taking the pencil from Xu Li.Knowing that they were happy, Yang Jian was also happy to wink with his notebook, so he just smiled in a good-tempered manner, and he would pat the shoulders of those students who were more familiar with him.I have to admit that Xu Li is indeed a careful person. For the sanitary products that make the little girl shy, she took out a box and put it behind her, and covered it with the wrapping paper that was removed from the stationery. She probably planned to give it separately in the future.

"There, what is that," a student suddenly said, as if he had discovered some treasure, "It's written by Teacher Yang!"

Yang Jian heaved a sigh of relief - he thought that the girls' secrets had been uncovered by some bastard.

"That's right, it's a gift for Teacher Yang," Xu Li tempted, "Mr. Yang walked around several mountains in the middle of the night, went to the county town to get these, and then gave them as gifts to everyone, what should we do? "

"Thank you Teacher Yang—" the children said in unison.

The little boy in line in front of Yang Jian—the one who was only in the first grade of junior high school at the age of 15 and couldn’t draw force analysis diagrams all the time, smiled blushingly, and touched Yang Jian’s eyebrows when he was patted on the shoulder.

"The teacher also smiled." He whispered.

Am I not laughing?Yang Jian thought.

Xu Li caught him just in time and said, "Qu Biri, you have been paying attention to your lectures recently. We only learned a poem last week, which was about the ruggedness and ruggedness of our Shu Road, which cannot be surpassed. Let me tell you about it." What did you say in the first sentence?"

Qu Biri's face turned redder, he froze on the spot, and looked at Yang Jian as if asking for help.Yang Jian sighed secretly, after studying for too long, he could only remember the title of the poem for a while, and couldn't remember anything else.

The squad leader shouted to save the scene from the back row: "Hey, the danger is high!"

"The road to Shu is difficult, and it is difficult to go to the blue sky!" The children recited the next sentence together.

Yang Jian was a little surprised, this group of ducklings are really eager to learn Chinese!It is only when they demonstrate experiments or simulate some strange phenomena that they can be so interested in physics.

Physics is obviously a beautiful subject, so beautiful, Einstein learned it better than others, and when it comes to religious feelings, he said that it is "the most profound rationality that is close to our hearts in its most primitive form. And the most brilliant beauty", Asimov certainly used the principles of physics to explain that the weirdness and grandeur of science fiction does not only exist in fantasy... He was thinking about those books again.

The sender cares about his throat, his blood, his brain.

He didn't want to think about it any further.

It seems that last week's progress was only memorized. Xu Li started to introduce the background of this poem, what a magnificent masterpiece of romanticism, what a great romantic poet...

When will I return Journey to the West?If you are afraid of the road, you will not be able to climb the rock.Yang Jian picked up two more sentences.He thought that the winding mountain road hanging over the river was indeed difficult to walk.And then... But I saw the ancient wood of the Mourning Bird, males and females flying around the forest.

what's next?

Hearing Zigui's crowing at the moon again, worrying about the empty mountain——Yang Jian put another exercise book into a pair of immature and expectant hands.

Xu Li is still talking about Li Du, Li Du, Du is Du Fu, and Li is the author of our poem. Who is he?

The question is too simple, and when it comes to this point, there are hundreds of responses.

When Yang Jian heard this name, at the same time, he remembered the next line of the poem: The road to Shu is difficult, and it is difficult to go to the blue sky——

Make people listen to this withered beauty.

I just remembered what I used to talk about backwards.Yeah.

Yang Jian still feels that he is a person with a poor memory.