Chucheng

Ping broke off a dead branch as thick as an arm from a tree by the river, "You two will use this stick to carry the bucket home, okay?" Looking at his daughter, the wrinkles between the brows also relaxed at this moment, making them less obvious.

"Hey, okay! Dad, do you still want to plow the fields?" Chen Min's voice was very crisp, with a little childlike voice still in it.From her petite figure, you can't tell that she is already a student of a technical secondary school, and since she started her second year in Chucheng Middle School three years ago, she has been able to live in the school, all laundry and so on I can do all the housework well by myself.Usually, she can only go home once a week on days like today (Sunday). Compared with other people's children, she has the appearance of a young and sensible little adult.At this time, Chen Jie had climbed up from the ditch, knelt on the ridge of the field, and was reaching into the bucket to touch the fish. The fish was nimble and slippery in the water, and he couldn't catch it with his little hands. The water in the bucket was stirred up and rattled.

"I've plowed a small field over there, and I can go back. You go back first. Remember to ask Uncle San when you get home. If you want to use cattle, ask him to come and lead them as soon as possible. I can finish plowing right away. Little brother! You got up quickly and knelt on the ground again, soiling your clothes, can you still wear them to school tomorrow?" Father Chen patted Chen Jie on the head lightly while talking: "Get up, and carry the fish home with my sister!"

"Okay, Dad, I'm going to eat fish tonight, okay? I caught this fish, so I'm going to eat this fish." Chen Jie replied innocently, on his round head, A pair of big black eyes were full of begging.

"Okay—you just eat," his dad said angrily.

As a result, the yelling of driving cattle sounded again in the field, and Chen Zhuping led the cattle to plow the last small piece of land.Chen Min and Chen Jie danglingly carried the small bucket containing fish with dead tree trunks. Chen Min walked behind, holding a round basket in the other hand, which contained bowls and chopsticks and picked purple clouds. Ying; Chen Jie held a large porcelain bowl upside down on his head, beat rhythmically with chopsticks in the other hand, and kept his mouth open, reciting a poem like singing: Fangfei in April At the end of the day, the peach blossoms in the mountain temple began to bloom.I often hate the return of spring and have nowhere to look, and I don't know where to turn.The immature child's voice floats in the wind over the quiet village.

farmyard

In the evening, the Chen family in the drizzle.

This is a very standard small courtyard in the Yangtze River Valley: three adobe brick houses lined up, the main room is in the middle, there is a bedroom on the left and right sides, and the west end is a slightly shorter row facing east. Cottage - Cottages usually consist of a kitchen, a utility room and a pigsty for the pigs. In the 90s, in the villages where the walls were generally turned into bricks, the Chen family still maintained the adobe brick houses of a certain age.

Now the sky is getting dark, and it is raining again in March, so it gets dark very early, and the peasants have finished their meals early, and went to watch TV under the quilt.Now at six or seven o'clock, most of the houses are lit with electric lights, and the light yellow light shines through the windows, which makes people feel warm on the rainy night.

The lights in Chen's kitchen and west bedroom were still on.

"It's my sister, which made me not even eat fish at night." Chen Jie's voice from the kitchen was still full of grievances.

"Little brother, what your sister means is to raise the fish and eat big fish during the Chinese New Year." This is Chen Min and Chen Jie's mother. She is in her 30s, with a faint smile on her face all the time, washing The bowl in the pot, while answering Chen Jie who was complaining.She said this to Chen Jie. Everyone in the team knew that Chen Min would cry when she heard that she wanted to kill fish since she was a child. She said that fish are alive, and they should be kept alive.Every time the family wants to eat fish, they can only secretly kill the fish behind her back, or the fish is dead when they are bought, so that she will not shed tears because of this, and is willing to eat a little bit of fish.

"But she even let go of the fish I caught. I caught it with great difficulty. Mom, she dumped them all into the fish pond in front of the door." Chen Jie was still unhappy, and he sat down. In front of the stove, the embers in the stove illuminated his face for a while, and he held a big yellow cat in his arms, and he stroked its head gently with his hand.

"Little brother—come on, the cartoon has started..." Chen Min's drawn out pleasant voice came from the bedroom.

Chen Jie didn't move at all, and the cartoon that usually attracted him the most didn't work today, which showed that he was really angry with Chen Min's actions. "She let all the fish go. My Ding Dong didn't eat tonight." Ding Dong is the name of the cat. Chen Jie has a very good relationship with it. It will secretly take out the fish in its own bowl and give it to eat.Since the Japanese cartoon "Doraemon" was playing on TV, Chen Jie gave his cat the same name as Doraemon.

"Ding Dong is not hungry at all." Mother Chen saw that he was still muttering, so she said to Chen Jie seriously, "I was at home today, and I saw that it caught a big mouse! ——Little brother , your sister only comes back once a week, and you have to quarrel with her every time she comes back. You see, you are at home every day, and you have fish to eat every day, and this is the only day your sister comes back. She may not even have hot food at school. If you can't even eat, can't you treat your sister better and stop arguing with him?"

When Chen Jie heard that Ding Dong had caught a mouse, he was so happy that he didn't even listen to what his mother said. As soon as his mother stopped talking, he immediately asked, "Is there really one? How big a mouse did it catch?"

Seeing that he didn't mention the fish anymore, Mother Chen changed her tone: "Of course it's true. That mouse, um, should be as big as your pencil." In order to pretend to convince Chen Jie, she added: " I've seen it eat rats clean with my own eyes."

As soon as Chen Jie heard that he had caught such a big mouse with his jingle, he immediately became overjoyed and shook the cat in his arms until it screamed "meow" and escaped from his arms. Chen Jie hooked it He brought it back again—this time he put his face on the cat's head in joy.

Seeing how happy he was, Mother Chen also laughed: "Hey, little brother, how is your new school? Is it big? Who are you sitting with this year?"

"Our school has a new courtyard wall now, it's bigger, and there are ceiling fans in the classroom, Mom." Now there is no trace of unhappiness in his voice, "I don't sit with Wang Weiwei anymore. , sitting with Lin Yi from the second team." After a while he said, "Mom, neither Yang Ju nor Li Yiming in our class went to school this year." Some students don’t go to school. Like his parents, they guard a few acres of land and provide for their two children to study. After a year’s expenses, they live a tight life, so there is no way to replace the brick wall of the house. Some farmers Seeing that the children's academic performance is not good, and they will be expected to be farmers in the future, they simply don't let them continue to go to school, so as to reduce the family's expenses a little.

"Little brother, come quickly, the cartoon has really started..." Chen Min's voice came again.

"Mom, I'm going to watch TV." Chen Jie jumped up from the stool and ran out.The jingle in his arms jumped to the ground with a "meow", bowed and stretched, and went back to its nest in the haystack in the corner of the house.

There was only Chen Min in the bedroom, and he was covering his legs with a quilt and leaning against a small bed on the west wall. There was a big bed in the middle of the room, and a wooden table was placed on the east wall in front of the big bed. There is a black and white TV set.Their dad is washing some of today's used plows in the back yard right now.

Chen Jie looked at the TV screen, where the advertisement was playing, and knew that the cartoon of Doraemon was over.He sat down on the big bed angrily, ignoring his sister.At this time, Chen Min said with a smile: "It's a pity, little brother, you are late, the robot cat is so afraid of mice, it's a pity you didn't see it."

Chen Jie curled her lips and said, "I don't care about you!" Immediately, she said proudly, "What's so interesting about a doraemon that is afraid of mice? My jingle cat even caught a big mouse today!"

Chen Min probably annoyed her younger brother by letting go of the fish. At this time, she wanted to comfort her younger brother, so she asked him to watch TV. When she heard this, she was also surprised and asked: "Is it true? Brother, where is the mouse, how do you know?"

"Mom told me, she also said that she saw Dingdang eat up the mouse. That mouse is so big." Chen Jie showed his sister with her hands while talking, probably because she wanted to be angry. Chen Min, his gesture is more than a foot long.

A look of disbelief immediately appeared on Chen Min's face: "Fool, Mom is lying to you. Where did such a big mouse come from? If there is a real one, it should be that the mouse ate your jingle."

Chen Jie blushed anxiously and argued: "It's true, mother is not lying, that mouse is as long as a pencil!" He almost cried when he heard that the mouse was going to eat his jingle.At this time, his mother came in from the outside with a basin of hot water, and Chen Jie said to his sister, "If you don't believe me, ask mom!"

"Yes, yes, what my brother said is true." Mom said slightly.