Jujube

In April, apricot blossoms are angry, in May, peaches are rouge, and in June, pomegranates give birth.

My elder brother was born in May, and his half brother June was born from Sun Yuemei's belly.Sun Yuemei named her youngest son Sun Yanming, whose surname was Sun but not Meng. She said that Sun Yanming was not Meng Guanghui's son.

Sun Yuemei couldn't control my brother when she was pregnant, and she couldn't control her after confinement.Lu Xinyao did not follow Sun Yuemei's wish to go to high school. He stubbornly went to a technical secondary school, just like most of his peers in Baiquedang.

During the long summer vacation after the senior high school entrance examination, the long-closed printing factory in Baiquedang was demolished, and an ice skating rink was rebuilt on the broken bricks and tiles.Lu Xinyao frequently haunted the skating rink and the pool table, and often stayed until evening. He only took me there once, and then he stopped letting me go with him.

During the day, Sun Yuemei called me into the room, and I smelled a strong milky smell. I couldn't tell whether it was fishy or fragrant.My younger brother Sun Yanming slept in the smell of milk with saliva hanging from the corner of his mouth.

Sun Yuemei told me that she was angry last time, and what she told Lu Xinyao was not the truth.Only one sentence is true-she did help the family when she was younger than me, and she married when she was older.I don't know if she's telling me the truth now that she's not angry, but it doesn't matter.

Sun Yuemei asked me: "Who is the youngest in the family?"

I said it was Sun Yanming, and Sun Yuemei nodded: "Yes, it's my younger brother." Then she told me seriously: "Meng Li, you are not young anymore."

I suspect that my brother is not actually Sun Yuemei's biological child. Sun Yuemei always says that I am not young, but my brother says that I am only seven years old.They clearly have a close blood, but they are saying the opposite.

I wanted to believe my brother, but Sun Yuemei interrupted me, she said: "This family can't support two young ones."

I didn't fully understand Sun Yuemei's words, but the look on her face and the cold tone when she spoke reminded me of a sharp knife, which was pressed against my back.I heard her order me: Meng Li, you have grown up.

I grew up quietly behind my back during the days when my brother left early and returned late.

When I was seven years old, I was still not much taller than when I first saw my brother when I was five years old. I stood on tiptoe by the stove to see the bottom of the pot, but under the order of Sun Yuemei, I started to learn how to cook meal.

The first dish I will make is soy beans, and it is also the first dish I cook for my brother.I remember that it was raining that night, I went out with an umbrella and saw Lu Xinyao in front of the suspension bridge.

I ran towards my brother, ignoring the splash of muddy water on the suspension bridge, and ran in front of him.My brother took the umbrella in my hand, held the back of my neck and pushed me to his side. I was next to my brother, my nose buried in his clothes, and I could smell the damp smoke on his body.This is the smoke from the billiard hall, and it smells like my brother. I hate the smell of smoke, but I don't hate the smell of my brother.

My brother held an umbrella and asked me why I ran out. I have never been calm in front of him. I heard myself claiming credit and saying: "I made dinner and waited for you to come back." ——I waited for a long time and I didn’t wait for you to come back, no Be careful to wait until it rains. This rain is really annoying. I am afraid that you will not come back until the rain stops.

"You know how to cook?" My brother's dark eyebrows raised slightly, his eyes swept over my head, as if he hesitated for a moment because of my height, then he looked at me and asked, "What did you do?" ?”

I shook my head to my brother: "Don't say it."

My brother didn't guess either, he rarely seemed to be in a good mood.Ever since he moved into my house with Sun Yuemei, there were very few happy moments, especially after Meng Guanghui's death.My brother's temper matched his face just as a rose must be full of thorns, his badness must match his beauty.

After a while he asked, "Do you want to eat ice cream?"

Before answering, I looked at my brother and couldn't help swallowing, my brother must have seen it.

This time it wasn't in Peng Heipi's store. I haven't stepped into his store since the game currency incident.My brother bought me an ice cream with jujube paste as the filling. When you bite into it, there will be jujube paste with a runny heart, which is sparkling and sweet.I wanted my brother to eat jujube paste, so I lifted the ice cream to his mouth, and then I remembered that I had bitten the ice cream, so my brother might not eat it.

But my brother just lowered his eyes, bowed his head and took a bite.I felt a drop of melted ice cream flow down and land on my finger holding the ice cream stick, it was sticky and cold.

When I got home, the soy beans were also cold. My brother thought it was troublesome not to let them heat up. He pressed the cold beans into the half-warm rice and licked them off one bite at a time.I suddenly don't want to make soy beans for my brother anymore, and I don't want to cook white rice anymore. I want to make better things for him.

We talked for a while while my brother was eating.I told my brother that Aunt Yin came to the house today.

I paused and asked her what she was doing here.

This is not the first time I saw Yin Gu. At noon, I squatted in the yard with my rice bowl to eat, and I often saw her passing by my door with a small embroidered cloth bag.Yin Gu is in her 50s, unmarried and has no children. People in the village say that she was cheated by a man before, and she has refused to marry since then.Everyone in Baiquedang has seen Yin Gu's back with an embroidered cloth bag and a blue turban. Some people say that she is not Yin Gu, but a nun.

Yin Gu looked at me and smiled when she walked into my house. Her hair was combed neatly under her blue kerchief, and two gold earrings dangled from her earlobes.

She smiled and said a few words to me, and then Sun Yuemei came out, and she greeted Yin Gu into the room with a smile.I saw Yin Gu take out a ball of blue wool from the small embroidered cloth bag, the same blue as her blue turban, and a few bamboo sticks and needles.

So I said to my brother: "Knit woolen socks for Sun Yanming." I also told him that Aunt Yin wanted to make one for me, but I shook my head if I didn't want it.

My brother put down his chopsticks after eating, and asked casually, "Why?"

Why did Aunt Yin knit wool for me?Or why don't I?My brother didn't make it clear, I thought it was the second type, so I replied, "Because you don't have...brother, do you want it?"

My brother seemed to smile a bit, but he didn't seem to. In short, he didn't have a smile at all when he was talking. He said, "I don't want it."

I immediately followed my brother and said, "I don't want it either."

My brother smiled clearly this time, and I laughed with him. If my brother wants to be the same in everything and do everything together, I am willing to be my brother's follower. I know my brother doesn't hate followers.

Because she wanted to make woolen socks for Sun Yanming, Aunt Yin began to come in and out of my house frequently. I could see her light figure almost every afternoon, like a blue turban flying in lightly.Sun Yuemei sometimes asked me to sit next to Yin Gu and talk with her. Yin Gu was always knitting quietly, raising her eyes from the gap between the wool and the bamboo needles from time to time, and looked at me with a smile.

"Meng Li, your eyes are watery, like a girl's." Yin Gu said to me when I was leaving.

That day she left the embroidered cloth bag and woolen socks at my house, and Sun Yuemei yelled "Oh!" and took out a sweater from the bulging cloth bag, which was the same blue as Yin Gu's blue turban.

Sun Yuemei stretched out the sweater in front of my eyes, stared at it for a while, and suddenly said: "Gu Yin is very poor, lonely, now that she is old, she always wants a girl to accompany her."

Then she said, "Meng Li, Gu Yin likes you very much."

When Sun Yuemei spoke, she looked at me with a smile on her face, but her smiling gaze made me feel scared.I think I'm not a girl, why would Yin Gu like me.

A long time later, I watched "Farewell My Concubine", and I heard Xiaodouzi repeating the phrase "I am a man, not a girl", until I was smashed by a copper smoking pot until my mouth was full of blood. The cowardly Meng Li at the age of seven Still occupying my body, I want to hide in my brother's arms and cry, but my brother is not there.

On the day of my younger brother Sun Yanming's full moon, Sun Yuemei took him to Aunt Yin's house in her arms.

Yin Gu's house is at the east end of a row of small bungalows, and there are grape vines on the top of the yard.Yin Gu was already waiting at the door, standing under a small bunch of grapes, she smiled at me: "You guys are here."

Sun Yuemei pushed me to Yin Gu, and said to me: "Meng Li, Yin Gu made you a sweater, you have to thank Yin Gu."

I didn't want that blue sweater, but Sun Yuemei accepted it for me.

Under Sun Yuemei's gaze, I hesitated and said to Yin Gu: "...Thank you."

Grandma said that what comes out of the heart is called the truth, and what comes out of the brain is called a lie.I'm lying, the voice is very small, like a mosquito.

Sun Yuemei chatted with Yin Gu for a while, and Sun Yanming in her arms suddenly woke up, crying with his toothless mouth open.I heard Sun Yuemei coaxing him and saying to Yin Gu: "Someone brought it for you, I'll go back first."

Then Sun Yuemei called me in front of her, patted my head, and confessed: "Meng Li, you have to be good and stay here with Yin Gu. My brother is crying, so I'll take him home first."

The instinctive sense of crisis made me grab Sun Yuemei's clothes, and I called "Aunt Mei" in a panic.

Sun Yuemei looked back at me, and said to me again: "Gu Yin likes you very much."

After finishing speaking, she took the clothes out of my hand, hugged Sun Yanming and left without looking back.I looked at their backs, and at that moment I suddenly realized with panic——Sun Yuemei sold me, and she gave me to Yin Gu.

Yin Gu was still smiling slightly, she pointed to the grape vines in the yard, and said kindly: "Meng Li, come and sit with me for a while, and pick grapes for you to eat."

Zhang Buyu said that Yin Gu was fierce and never allowed children to get close to her grapes. Anyone who picked them secretly would be pricked by her bamboo stick.But the vicious Yin Gu led me to the vines and filled a large enamel bowl with grapes for me to eat.

I shook my head at her: "I don't want grapes, I want to go home, I want my brother."

The grapes became wet in my field of vision. Yin Gu handed the sweet and sour grapes to my mouth, but the tears flowed down first, and they flowed into my mouth salty when I was talking.

Yin Gu put down the enamel bowl and wiped my face with a towel: "My poor Bao, you have no mother and no father, where is your home? From today on, Yin Gu's home is your home, don't cry , Aunt Yin treats you well. When it’s cold, I’ll knit you a sweater and make delicious food for you every day, even better than your brother.”

"My brother is the best...I only want my brother." I found that when I mentioned my brother, my tears would become hot, as if flowing from my blood vessels.

"Your brother still has to study, he's going to high school, he can't control you, and he has a younger brother... Gu Yin has no children at home, you live with me, Gu Yin likes you." Gu Yin folded the towel, While walking in the room, she turned her head and said, "Don't cry, Bao, your eyes will hurt when you cry later, eat grapes first, and Gu Yin will cook dinner for you."

Yin Gu's blue turban floated into the dark house, I wiped my nose and tears with my arm, the wind rattled the grape vines on the grape trellis, the stuffy wind, the dead heat wind, couldn't breathe out any vitality In this wind, I heard Gu Yin's voice saying: "The sky has changed, and there is going to be a storm."

I always remember the weather that day, the sky was gray, the ground was gray, only the lightning was white, swaying on the clouds suddenly.When the first thunder rolled down, an unprecedented courage suddenly emerged from my seven-year-old chest like thorns and thorns.

I escaped from Aunt Yin's house.

However, when I ran out of the gate of Aunt Yin's house and on the ridge of the field, my courage was like a leaking ball, and it quickly lost weight. I suddenly remembered Sun Yuemei's eyes and her voice——

Meng Li, you have grown up.Meng Li, you have to be good.Meng Li, Yin Gu likes you.Meng Li...Meng Li...

I want to go home, but I'm afraid to go home.

I belatedly realized that it wasn't my home, it was Sun Yuemei's home, it was Sun Yanming's home, it was Lu Xinyao's home, they were the family connected by blood, only I was not.Yin Gu didn't scare me, I'm homeless.

I didn't run very far when the "storm" Yin Gu mentioned came.Bean-sized raindrops fell from the sky, and soon became dense. The rain poured on the ridges of the fields. I felt like I had become a crop, helpless in the damp and stuffy wind and rain.

Crops... I stared at the crops in the rice fields and thought of my brother.He is not my brother now, he has changed back to Lu Xinyao, the same Lu Xinyao who stood in front of me when I squatted in the corner imitating a dog barking.I hate the name Lu Xinyao, it always makes me cry.I want to cry again now.

But I still held a little luck, which made me hold back my tears.I imagined that Lu Xinyao learned the truth from Sun Yuemei after returning home, and then ran all the way to find me in a hurry, and took me home aggressively.Then the rain can be heavier, and I can be more pitiful.

But he never came.

The person who came first was Yin Gu, who covered my head with Yin Gu's umbrella. When she pulled me up with her warm and dry hands and said "go home with Yin Gu", I heard myself wailing. .

That's not my home.

Yin Gu dragged me to her house under the grape arbor. I squatted on the ground and refused to move, but she dragged me away with brute force like an ox pulling a plow.After a long sawing, Yin Gu lost patience with me. She pulled me up from the ground when I was seven years old. My feet were off the ground, but tears were still falling, falling on the ground with the rain, splashing mud .

At that moment, I sadly thought of my grandmother and my Guanyin.

For the first time, I called out the name of my devout Guanyin in broad daylight, and begged him to save me.

In the past, I always called him quietly under the covers, for fear that he would hear, but now I shouted loudly, but the rain was so loud that I was afraid that he would not hear.