Chapter 14: Singing in the Future

Li Dafa: It's me. Little Sichuan.

Earlier, my cousin came back to her hometown and I met her. Her son is getting married on National Day. Time flies. My own daughter has grown up and went to Shenzhen to work. I also asked my cousin about you, and she said you are still living alone. I know that with your conditions, many women want to be with you, you just have a stubborn temper.

As for me, there have been a lot of changes. The children went out to work, and the father left two years ago. There are not many people in my husband's family. The conditions here are a little better. The road out of the mountain has been built, and it is not like in the past. But the road to Shu is still difficult to walk, and there was an earthquake, and the mountain road collapsed a little, which is incomparable to your place.

I want to go to Shandong before National Day to attend the wedding of my cousin's son. After all, I came out to live with their family. If you are willing, I will go to see you by the way.

I will prepare some bacon and sausage for you. You like to eat meat, and you always couldn't bear to eat it at that time, so you gave it to me. I remember you liked to smoke Little Goldfish cigarettes. I'll bring you our local cigarettes. Now that living conditions are better, cigarettes from all over the country can be bought everywhere, but the ones I brought are from our local cigarette factory. But you should smoke less with cigarettes, because they are not good.

Is your house still in the same place? I remember there is a big sycamore tree in the yard.

But I'm a little worried that you will close the door and not see me. I came all the way here, and you must let me in to drink some water. I won't cause you any trouble.

Wait for me.

The second sister put the letter back to its original place, sneered, and then continued her statistical work.

Her notebook recorded: an elm box, a wall clock, a photo frame...

After finishing the statistics and walking out of the inner room, the second sister said to the eldest sister: "Do you remember what the blind man said?"

The eldest sister asked: "The blind man said a lot of nonsense, which one is it?"

The second sister said: "The blind man said that the southwest corner of our house has a lot of yin energy. It suppressed the yang energy of Lao Wu. I thought this southwest corner was the front door of our house. There are many people coming in and out of the front door of our house. I don't know which muscle was tilted. Now, I finally understand: the southwest corner refers to Sichuan. Sichuan is in the southwest direction of our house, do you know?"

The eldest sister didn't know which direction Sichuan was, but after listening to the second sister's letter, she suddenly realized it.

The eldest sister asked: "Didn't you say you would come on National Day? Why haven't you seen me for so many days?"

The second sister said: "Can that little Sichuan mouse tell the truth? He left without saying anything last time. Is it true that he said he would come back this time? It's better to say something that a blind man tells a lie. The fifth child in our family probably took it seriously. He didn't even want to cover the new quilt and kept it for her. He refused to go even when the King of Hell came to invite him. It turns out that he was waiting for the little mouse."

The eldest sister said: "Oh, it's been so long. He must have come by ox cart. It should be time. It's probably another lie."

The second sister said: "Even if he comes, we won't welcome him! He will be kicked out!"

It is said that the cicada monkeys in Mount Emei are small and delicate, with the magical ability to climb trees. They always transform into cicadas before people catch them. The cicada monkeys in Mount Tai are big and round, silly and stupid, just like the locals. They always climb trees slowly. If you are not careful, they will be caught alive and become dishes on the wine table.

Different soil and water breed different cicada monkeys. The same three years of loneliness eating soil underground, just for one day to sing on the branches.

For this day, there may be some twists and turns.

The train whistle burped in the night before dawn, and then stopped after eating and strolling. The door opened, and a basket of buns got off the train, and then squeezed into another basket of new buns.

The buns went to the exit from the underground passage one by one. The elevator at the exit was broken, and they rushed forward from the pedestrian passage.

There were too many buns and the cages were crowded. It was a disaster in crowded places.

A thin woman carried a snakeskin bag on her right shoulder and a black cloth bag on her left shoulder. A red plum blossom was like a drop of blood piercing the cloth. She was drowned in the crowd, swimming like a fish.

Suddenly someone in the crowd shouted: "My bag, my bag."

When the woman looked back, a man and his bag rolled down the steps like a rolling ball. The ball was lying on its back, and his bag was torn into pieces.

The woman was almost swimming to the top of the passage, so she turned back and went down. Amid the shoving and scolding, the woman broke through the crowd and walked down the steps, throwing down her things and helping the man who fell down.

The ball returned to its place, and the man said in a crying voice: "I'm fine, my bag."

The stuffing was exposed in the scattered bags not far away: a few clothes, a pack of snacks, and a white bundle. The man, who was still quite sturdy, suddenly became paper-mache, and some parts were pierced and he couldn't move. So she helped the man pick up the scattered things in the bag.

Who knew that the white bundle was tripped by a hoof and was thrown out all of a sudden, revealing a gap, and several bones were thrown out. The woman was stunned. At this time, the man got up, staggered over, picked up the bones one by one, put them back in the bundle, and then put the other things one by one.

Then, the man suddenly knelt down at the place where the bones were scattered just now, and kowtowed three times deeply.

The zipper of the bag had been completely broken, and the woman swiftly tied the two straps together, temporarily returning the bag intact.

After this wave of people passed, the passage was temporarily quiet. The man leaned against the wall, like a declining vine in autumn, trying to support his upward posture. He said: "Sister, thanks to meeting you. I tried my best to protect the things but still failed. Did you see the bones just now? To be honest, they are my mother's bones. I went back to my hometown in Shandong this time to let my parents be buried together. I lost my mother when I was three years old. My mother died in Hanzhong. When I grew up, I started a family in Hanzhong. My father took my two sisters back to Shandong and finally died in my hometown. I wanted to complete the task beautifully this time and even fooled the security check. I didn't expect something to go wrong here."

The woman was confused by this story. She sat with the person who got on the bus from Hanzhong. The man sat down with his buttocks, like a sorghum, and the wind couldn't blow him away. Among the passengers who were staggering in the car, he looked like a senior official who was attending a meeting at the State Council. At first, the two ignored each other. Later, the conductor came to check the tickets. The State Council official sat in an abnormally straight posture. When he spoke, his accent had the flavor of pancakes with green onions. After the conductor left, the man seemed to relax a little. The woman at the same table asked him where he was going. When she learned that he was also going to Shandong, she chatted about some topics about Qi and Lu. I didn't expect that the person who was traveling with me all the way would have such a deep secret. No wonder others put their bags on the frame, but he kept them under his feet, even carrying them to the toilet. When he carried his bag to the toilet, he seemed to walk a little lame, because sorghum stalks are not naturally straight.

The people traveling with me all the way are not only Shandong sorghum, which is our common destination, but also an old soul that has been dead for decades!

The woman felt a bird flying up in her heart and was startled. Soon her stomach started to chirp. She suggested that Shandong sorghum buy a ticket for the reverse train first, and then have breakfast together.

As she spoke, she remembered to look for the bag she had just put down. The big snakeskin bag was still there, but the small bag of red plum blossoms was missing.

Another wave of people came and swallowed them up. When the crowd receded, she looked around and saw that the underground passage was sparsely populated. Not far away, an old man was sleeping on a few tattered newspapers with his clothes on. He was curled up and looked dead from a distance.

Who took my red plum blossoms?

She ran back and forth in the underground passage twice. After confirming that the cloth bag of red plum blossoms was nowhere to be found, she stood there, without tears, with a dull expression. For a long time, she repeated: "My two thousand yuan! Two thousand yuan! I sold the rice I had stored for two years."

The paper-made man stood up with the help of the wall, propped up his reinforced concrete frame, and kept blaming himself: "It's all my fault. If my bag hadn't been squeezed down, your things would not be missing. If I hadn't left the place where I put the bag, others wouldn't dare to take it. Let's put it this way, I still have enough money in my pocket to buy a train ticket back to Shandong. I'll buy you a ticket, and we'll go back first."

The woman lowered her head in infinite frustration. She blamed him a little! But, a poor guy can't suck blood from another poor guy. After warming up her brain for three seconds, she said coldly: "Forget it! Even if I go back, I don't have a penny on me, and I can't do anything I should do. It's not shameful enough. It's better to stay here first and see what to do. There is always a way out."

They walked out of the station exit, and the morning light stretched out. Someone caught up with him, as if repeating a machine saying: "One-day chartered tour of Terracotta Warriors and Huaqing Pool, cheaper for couples. One-day chartered tour of Terracotta Warriors and Huaqing Pool, cheaper for couples..."

Someone was selling a stack of maps: "The most detailed map of Xi'an, three yuan a piece."

The city has not woken up yet, and Xi'an Railway Station has never slept.

The two went their separate ways. Shandong Gaoliang limped to the ticket hall to buy a train ticket to Shandong, and the woman walked out of the train station in small steps, with a snakeskin bag covering most of her body.

The clock hands of Xi'an Railway Station kept going day and night, and went non-stop until six o'clock.

The sanitation workers began to clean every street. Xi'an at the end of September was like a gorgeous young woman, with leaves on the branches slightly red, and a few leaves of Sophora japonica had fallen. The sanitation worker's broom swept past, and the woman sleeping on the recliner was still lying, but she was awake. When the horns of the vehicles intertwined, the woman on the recliner got up. Carrying her snakeskin bag, she turned into a nearby alley called Zhuque Lane. From afar, the hustle and bustle of life was in sight. She passed several steaming shops, secretly swallowing her saliva. She felt bone-chilling cold. Some of these shops sold roujiamo, some sold baozi, some sold cold noodles, and some sold biangbiang noodles. Finally, the woman stopped in front of a door plaque with the words "Laowu" written on it. She looked at the word "Laowu" for a long time.

There were two big pots at the door of Laowu Noodle House. One pot was filled with white soup, bubbling and white mist rising. The other pot was filled with red soup, with red chili oil floating on it and green garlic sprouts floating on it, motionless. A man in a dirty white coat was pulling the dough back and forth like a rubber band, and the noodles were getting thinner and thinner, as thin as hair.

People who eat noodles sit down one after another, shouting: "Boss, Mao Xi!"

"Boss, Er Xi!"

"Boss, Jiu Ye Zi!"

The boss picked up the noodles of different thicknesses and threw them into the long-handled iron strainer, then grabbed a handful of crisp green bean sprouts, sank them into the boiling white soup, and shook them leisurely. The boss's gestures are very beautiful, his wrists move up and down, but his arms do not rise and fall. After a few minutes, he raises his small arms, and the iron strainer draws a small arc in the air, and the noodles fall steadily into the bowl, and then add red soup. If you like spicy food, the boss will give you an extra spoonful of chili oil. At this time, the boss's wife comes over and brings them to the table.

Is this man the old five who walked down from the door plaque?

The store is full, and the woman finds an empty seat outside the door and sits down. She puts the snakeskin bag under her feet and shouts confidently like the locals: "Boss, Jiu Ye Zi, add more chili!"

She guessed that Jiu Ye Zi was wide noodles. She clearly raised her voice, but it was still not loud. She said it loudly for the second time, and the proprietress noticed this.

The ramen came up after a long time, with a spoonful of chili oil floating on it. With a stir of chopsticks, the ramen and soup were joyfully combined, a bright red. She was anxious to drink a mouthful of soup, which was too hot, so she had a mouthful of noodles first, soft, tough, and spicy, with a crackling sound, the spicy smell went down from the root of the tongue, fell into the heart, turned into a warm ball, and then slowly spread. She tried to take a sip of the soup carefully, and then swallowed it carefully. At this moment, the warm current began to spread rapidly, wave after wave, her whole body was hot, and fine beads of sweat quietly oozed out on her forehead. She ate the ramen very slowly, almost one by one, and drank the soup in small sips, leaving a few thin slices of beef for the last entrée.

A bowl of ramen survived the three thousand prosperous breakfasts, and the diners of Laowu Noodle House began to sparse. The woman drank the last drop of ramen soup, just like a broken car filled with gas.

The boss's wife had come to wait for the bill. The woman did not rush to take money out of her pocket, but said to the boss's wife: "Boss, your business is really good, you look very busy. Are you short of manpower? I can wash dishes, mop the floor, make noodles, and serve dishes. It's all fine. You decide the price. It would be better if I have a place to stay."

As she said that, she took out her ID card. The ID card and a little change were on her body, fortunately they were not stolen. Otherwise, how could she pretend to be so powerful in the ramen restaurant.

The boss's wife looked at the photo on the ID card and looked at her again. The woman was wearing a black-bottomed blue flowered top, which was a bit old. Except for the slightly protruding mouth, she looked pretty, but she looked older than her ID card.

The boss's wife asked: "Are you from Sichuan? Ya'an? The place where the earthquake happened a while ago?"

The Sichuan woman nodded.

The boss's wife ran to the ramen boss and shouted in a hoarse voice: "Lao Wu..." As expected, he was Lao Wu. Lao Wu was temporarily free, and he lit a cigarette and puffed on it. The two leaders of the ramen restaurant exchanged opinions in authentic Shaanxi dialect, and the Sichuan woman listened to it as if it were a foreign language. The boss lady came over and asked: "Long-term or short-term?" The Sichuan woman was thinking in her heart that if she had a thousand yuan, she could get things done in Shandong. Now, she has less than a hundred yuan left. She said honestly: "I will work for a month, and I can't wait any longer." The boss lady said: "You are quite honest. Originally, we don't hire short-term workers. Isn't it the National Day? Business will be busier than usual. How about this, try it for three days first to see if you are efficient. During these three days, you will not be provided with accommodation or money, but food. After the three-day trial period, food and accommodation will be provided, and you will be paid thirty yuan a day. You must work for a full month to get your wages. What do you think?"

The ID card is the last pass for the poor.

From then on, the Laowu Noodle House in Zhuque Lane had a busy figure, and the Sichuan woman soon became like a fish in water. But fish live in the bottom of the water, and she has no place to live.

The ancient capital on the eve of National Day is gorgeous in autumn, and the sky is as cool as water at night. Every morning, the sanitation worker saw a petite body sleeping on a recliner, wrapped in a thin blanket. The sanitation worker thought: Whose child is so pitiful. But there are so many pitiful people that I don't know how to pity them.

The Sichuan woman was pitied by the sanitation worker as a child for three mornings. On the fourth morning, a disheveled beggar was replaced on the recliner. The sanitation worker really no longer pitied them, because beggars are frequent visitors here.

The woman on the recliner had a nest. After the store closed, the tables and chairs were neatly arranged, covered with a layer of plastic cloth, and then the old bedding given by the boss's wife. The Sichuan woman got into the quilt every night, like a mouse entering a safe cave, and in the room with the lingering smell of ramen soup, the dream was very sweet.

Every morning, the most important thing for her to do when she gets up early is to knead the dough according to the proportions prepared by Lao Wu last night. Lao Wu's ramen restaurant does not have a dough mixer. In the past, the boss lady did it herself. One of the secrets of delicious ramen is to knead the dough by hand without using a machine. The Sichuan woman kneaded the dough in front of the large panel, just like a little monkey jumping up and down, playing with the large dough. It seemed that it was not enough, so she simply divided the large dough into many small pieces, just like a little monkey picking fruits from a tree, and the fruits were not only evenly covered by rain and dew, but also deeply trapped.

When the rolling door was pulled, Lao Wu's black face and the boss lady's red face were both exposed. The black-faced Lao Wu stepped in and changed into a much cleaner white coat, and the red-faced boss lady always carried the newly bought coriander or garlic sprouts in her hands. The boss lady ordered: "Little Sichuan, bring the pot!"

The boss lady carried a pot out steadily, and the Sichuan woman behind her lifted another large iron pot over her head. The large iron pot was like a canopy, firmly locking the woman's body inside.

When the water in the pot boils, the steam rises, and the red oil in another pot smells fragrant, the business of the day begins.

It is three or four o'clock in the afternoon, a rare quiet moment of the day. The boss's wife and Lao Wu take a nap on the chair, sometimes even snoring. The Sichuan woman who was kneading the noodles turned around and saw that the boss's wife snored louder than Lao Wu. She made slightly more noodles than in the morning. Because for most hurried city people, dinner, even a bowl of noodles, must be eaten with a grand and long sense of ritual.

The seeds of wild grass can be green wherever they are scattered. Years of hard life have trained Sichuan women to be content with what they have. However, the most painful thing about living in the store is getting up every night. Her stomach has always been not very good, especially when she moved to another place, which is why she has not grown a little fat for many years.

The public toilet is deep in the alley, diagonally opposite a youth hostel. On the first night, when she came out of the public toilet, she looked up and saw two warriors in armor standing in front of the youth hostel. The street lights in the alley were dim. The warriors held spears and stared at her with bloodshot eyes, as if they were ready to rush over at any time and take her back for trial. The Sichuan woman was frightened, and when she looked again, she found that there were two bronze warriors imitating the Terracotta Warriors standing at the door. The youth hostel creatively put the light bulbs in the warriors' eyes. At night, avant-garde people praised the creativity, while people with poor imagination thought it was too weird.

After that, every time she got up at night, she felt a little bit of intimacy when she saw the two Qin warriors, and felt that they were simply the guardians of the night.

After working in the noodle shop for more than ten days, the Sichuan woman followed the boss's wife to the nearby market to buy beef, which meant that she entered the core leadership of Laowu Noodle Shop. The market was next to the city wall, and the stalls selling beef were independent. Looking at the white hats on their heads, they must be Hui people. Hui people look fierce, unlike Han people who do business with a few jokes, and occasionally have some dirty jokes. But the boss lady is obviously willing to buy Hui people's beef. The boss lady said: "They are not adulterated, they are real."

At the market, Huxian grapes are still purple, and imitation terracotta warriors are densely placed. Meat, eggs, vegetables, fruits and snacks are rewarding the eyes one after another. Going further, the Hami melon stall owner and an old lady quarreled with a red-faced cockfight. Erhu and Qinqiang float in the chaotic market. Close to the city wall, an old man wrapped in white cloth showed his head with half of his hair shaved. The barber's razor swept past, and the hair was like the fallen leaves of Sophora japonica.

Xi'an is a pot of all kinds of people. She has passed through this pot like a bullet more than once in her life. Now she can slow down and walk in to feel this hot life. The scene of the city in front of her suddenly made her feel like the big market in Shandong.

The Sichuan woman thought of the big market in Shandong. She remembered the flowered cloth that another Lao Wu had pulled for her, a corduroy cloth with blue flowers on a black background, and made a coat. Because she was thin, she had to carry a lot of cloth. She took the remaining cloth back and made a pillow skin. The pillow skin was filled with rice bran, and this pillow accompanied Lao Wu to sleep every night. The coat from ten years ago was still on her body, and the pillow skin must have returned to dust long ago, right? The dough was pulled into a hair, and Lao Wu's craftsmanship was really good. The Sophora japonica tree has dropped a lot of leaves again, and many people come and go in the tourist city. Lao Wu's ramen restaurant business is still booming. Seeing that a month is coming, the day of paying money is also coming.

The proprietress sat up from her afternoon nap and said, "It would be nice if you stayed here. It would save Lao Wu and me a lot of trouble."

The Sichuan woman said, "I'm going back to Shandong to see my cousin. My cousin's son got married and I missed the wedding, but I called my cousin to tell her. I have another very important thing to do in Shandong, which is to see another relative."

While Lao Wu smoked half a cigarette, the proprietress cut a lot of beef. The thin slices of beef with red veins were scattered on the cutting board, which looked very beautiful. The Sichuan woman had washed all the bowls from the morning and piled them up with empty water.

At this time, two men in wide-brimmed hats came in, one fat and one thin. Lao Wu put out his cigarette, wiped his hands on his white coat, and asked respectfully: "Want a bowl of beef noodles? The freshly braised beef smells delicious."

The man in the wide-brimmed hat didn't answer, and the fat man in the wide-brimmed hat asked: "You are the boss, how many people are there in the store?"

Lao Wu said: "You saw it, three people."

The fat man in the wide-brimmed hat said: "Take out your ID card."

The boss lady didn't know what was going on, so she took out the ID cards of all three people and handed them to the man in the wide-brimmed hat. The Sichuan woman's ID card was still there.

The fat man in the wide-brimmed hat picked out the Sichuan woman's ID card, like picking a thorn: "You are from another place, do you have a temporary residence permit?"

After doing business for more than ten years, this is the first time someone came to check the temporary residence permit. Although Lao Wu and his wife are from Xianyang, they are still from Xi'an. In the past few years, I have been dealing with the wide-brimmed hats, what health certificates and health certificates, and now they are asking for temporary residence permits, which is troublesome.

The Sichuan woman said, "I have a temporary residence permit, but I don't have it with me. I'll bring it to you some other day."

The thin man in the big brim hat said disdainfully, "Some other day? What day? When will it be? We'll come to check tomorrow. If you don't have a temporary residence permit, be prepared to pay a fine."

At this time, the fat man in the big brim hat saw the cooked beef on the chopping board, picked up a few slices and stuffed them into his mouth, chewing and saying, "Not bad, not bad. We'll come to check the temporary residence permit tomorrow and eat ramen together."

The rolling door was slammed shut, and the lights in the room were on after closing. The proprietress said, "It's so messy! I was reluctant to let you go, but now you have to go."

The Sichuan woman's little abacus was clacking in her mind: there were still three days to go before the full month, and the three-day trial period was not counted as money. She would definitely not get the 900 yuan she wanted, and she couldn't even get 1,000 yuan with the change on hand. Ideals are like a smooth ladle. Once you cut it open, you'll find the black flesh of reality! Frustration spread all of a sudden.

Lao Wu said after smoking a cigarette: "It's nothing! You can do the work here, one person can do the work of the two we hired, so we'll pay you one month's salary, plus the three-day probation period, to make up a total of one thousand, it's not a big deal."

The Sichuan woman said: "People in Xi'an are really kind, I met a good person. Let's do this, boss, you prepare the baking soda, I'll make the dough tonight, anyway, the weather is getting colder, knead the dough early and you won't be afraid of it rising. I'll get up early tomorrow morning and clean every corner of the store, and leave before the big-brimmed hat arrives."

The old sycamore in Li Dafa's yard still has a few sparse leaves on its branches, withering and curling, as if waiting for the starting gun of winter to sound, falling down in unison, entering the winter with a bare posture.

That day, the old and stupid dog under the old sycamore tree suddenly jumped up out of character, and the iron chain rattled. The dog barked a few times, then barked softly and jumped toward the door again.

At the door stood a woman wearing a black top with blue flowers.