Chapter 15: Live like an animal

Liu You's wife poked her head out of the door and ran home to report to Liu You at lightning speed: "Even movies are not this good-looking. Do you know who came to Li Dafa's house?" Liu You was drinking a little wine. His lunchtime wine always lasted from noon to afternoon. Accustomed to his wife's surprise, he picked up a peanut, which fell to the ground in a disobedient manner. He picked up another peanut and finally put it into his mouth steadily. He heard a crunch and his cheeks moved a few times. When the peanut was steadily in his stomach, he said: "Many people went to his house. Didn't they all go to see when he would die?" Liu You's wife said: "No matter how many people went, they couldn't catch up with this person. The Sichuan woman is back again. I just saw her carrying a lot of bags. Why did she come at this time?" Liu You just took a sip of wine, his face was full of light: "Oh, there is really a good show to watch!" The door of Li Dafa's house was ajar. The big red couplets posted on the door during the Spring Festival had become patches of colorless patches after three seasons of destruction. From these mottled patches, it can be seen that one door is blessing and the other door is prosperous. The two iron bolts are now rusty. The Sichuan woman put her hands on the door, flicking her fingers slightly, sighed, and then gently pushed the door open.

Walking into the yard, the big stupid dog was still running around excitedly. The puppy back then was now an old dog. The sycamore tree was like a big palm, and the dead branches were like dead hands. The sunlight leaked through the dead hands, combing the time of most of the yard.

Li Dafa's second sister heard that the big stupid dog's voice was not right and had already walked out of the house.

The second sister habitually greeted with a warm tone: "I'm here---ah." Suddenly, she braked.

She had been full of hatred and was ready to sweep out the door, but suddenly she had a short circuit. This woman, really came!

The Sichuan woman called out: "Second sister."

I haven't seen the second sister for almost ten years. She really looks like an old lady. The dyed hair parted in the middle reveals the color of snow, and there are wefts on her face. The only thing that hasn't changed is that she is still thin and exudes a sense of agility.

The Sichuan woman in the eyes of the second sister is also thin, like the little hen she always talks about. The little hen was not that young back then, and it doesn't matter that she is still not young after so many years.

In my imagination, the second sister is going to pick up the big broom by the wall and sweep the fallen leaves in the autumn wind towards the place where the Sichuan woman is standing. However, she put away her enthusiastic tone and said lightly: "Come on. Sit inside."

The eldest sister is taking a nap. She didn't sleep well last night. Li Dafa's breathing was not right in the middle of the night. She kept watching nervously. Later, he fell asleep steadily, but the eldest sister couldn't sleep. She woke up with a splitting headache in the morning. Even after taking antihypertensive drugs, she felt foggy all morning. She thought to herself: "Old Five, if you don't die, I will die first."

The second sister said lightly: "A great nobleman has come."

The eldest sister opened her eyes and saw the Sichuan woman. A trace of surprise flashed across her face, but soon there was nothing. She bowed and said: "Come on, sit down, drink some water."

The Sichuan woman said: "I'm not thirsty. I had lunch at my cousin's house and drank a lot of water."

The eldest sister asked again: "Did you come all the way to visit your cousin's relatives?"

The Sichuan woman said: "Yes, my cousin's son is getting married, and I wanted to attend the wedding. But there was an accident on the way, which delayed me for a few days."

The Sichuan woman obviously didn't want to explain why she was late. Others were not interested in listening.

Everyone was silent for a while.

The Sichuan woman scanned the room called the living room. The wooden sofa in the room was still the same as before. There was still a stove in the corner, and the fire was not too strong. An iron kettle sat steadily on the stove, with a coal-black face like Bao Gong. She asked timidly, "Is Lao Wu okay? Did he go out to work? Can you two elder sisters help to watch the door?"

Her two elder sisters who were watching over Li Dafa had always called Lao Wu. Now, when they said the word Lao Wu, they felt a little awkward. When she worked in Xi'an, the boss of the ramen shop was also called Lao Wu, but it was his wife's right to call him Lao Wu, so she always called him boss respectfully.

The second sister spoke at this time: "Fortunately, Lao Wu is fine thanks to you. He is not worried now and is sleeping soundly. I don't know when he will wake up. Come in and take a look."

Her resentment was like a steamed bun with old dough. It didn't move at first, but when it got hot enough, it fermented.

The eldest sister said kindly, "Go in and take a look. He is asleep."

The table was still the same table, but it was old. The TV was not the same TV back then, but it was in color. The old wall clock had stopped swinging, and the time was stopped at 8:56. The elm box was placed at the end of the bed without moving, and the copper lock was closed. However, the big kang of that year was gone, and now there was a wooden bed. The paint on the headboard had fallen off in spots, as if it had been knocked off by something. The person on the bed was covered with a quilt, and a military coat was covering the quilt, sleeping. There was a strange smell in the air.

Who was the sleeping person?

The sleeping person was a skeleton. There were two terrifying tumors on the skeleton.

The Sichuan woman saw the thick eyebrows, big eyes, and strong body of the year from this skeleton. The handsome man she occasionally glanced at during the night of embroidery, the lover she had been thinking about day and night for ten years, is now a skeleton! A skeleton made her understand what he had been through. She stood there blankly for a while, and the body that had supported her for so long collapsed. She knelt in front of the bed, tears flowing like a stream.

When her man was terminally ill, she was still counting the days for a thousand yuan while carrying ramen. If she had known earlier, she would have walked back over the mountains and ridges to accompany him even if she had to walk on her own feet.

He gave her the best love for three years. He sold grain for rice. When he ate dumplings, he always ate the exposed ones first and left the good ones for her. If there was a piece of meat in the bowl, he would say that his teeth would get angry and he couldn't eat anything with strings. The way he expressed his love for her was to suddenly stop eating, touch her little face with his big hand, and say, "How many freckles do you have? Well, like bird droppings on the ground, countless." He was a man with temper and anger, but he never got angry with women. She lied to him for three years. If he had told him the real life experience earlier, would he still take her in? Poverty and fear made her have no courage to open up to her true self. She was full of humility in her bones. For three years, her body needed a support. After three years of endless years, her body left, but her heart was left there. She remembered the last night before she left, he was still so energetic and lively. That kind of thing was an unfinished flower for her. Many times, survival suppressed primitive indulgence. She wanted to repay him with her body, but he gave her the most perfect bloom in her life. In the few years since then, she has been ruminating like a cow, bending over to work in the rice fields, picking herbs with a bamboo basket in the mountains, serving the paralyzed man in his spare time, avoiding the fear of earthquakes and floods... Live, live like an animal.

Sometimes, people live like animals, not because of faith and cultivation, but because they have someone worth thinking about in their hearts.

She remembered the mountain behind the village, when they went to cut grass together, he pointed to a forest not far away and said that his parents' graves were there, and he would go there when he got old.

Now, he is not old yet, why does he look like a skeleton about to die!

She cried silently in deep self-blame. She saved up tears for nearly half her life just to squander them casually on this day?

A hand gently touched her hair, and she felt the temperature of the hand, and then the temperature disappeared.

She raised her head and saw a hand of dead branches outside the quilt, and Li Dafa woke up.

Li Dafa, who woke up, looked at the woman in front of him. He smiled after not smiling for a long time. The smile on a face that was about to wither was like a half-opened flower that had no strength to bloom, which made people feel distressed. He began to speak, but his breath was weak, and he no longer had the momentum of his voice as loud as a bell.

She heard clearly that he said: "I saw the flowered jacket, and I knew you would come..."

The kettle of Bao Gong sitting firmly on the stove began to gurgle and emit white steam, and the lid of the kettle rose and fell. The second sister poured the boiling water into the thermos, added cold water again, added a piece of charcoal to the stove, and poked it with an iron rod. The charcoal fire suddenly jumped up and flamed, and Bao Gong sat firmly on the stove again to suppress the flame.

The Sichuan woman walked out of the inner room. Before she could speak, the second sister's old dough steamed buns were fermenting: "I see, she is in such a state. She has advanced lymphoma and will not have many days of good life. Let's go and live your good life." The old dough steamed buns continued to ferment: "Do you know why people get terminal illnesses at a young age? Terminal illnesses are caused by a knot in their hearts. When you died without a word, Lao Wu must have felt ashamed. He was sincere to others, but they tricked him. The villagers must have laughed at him to death. This is why he didn't want to touch women later. Women are too terrible." After saying "women are too terrible", she immediately felt that it was a loss to the title of scholar's wife. Thinking that she was also a woman and could not be equated with Sichuan women, she said: "Some women are too terrible. They have no sense of benevolence, righteousness, integrity and shame. When they need you, they treat you as a treasure, and when they don't need you, they treat you as a weed. They get into men's beds for a little profit. The crotch is too worthless." The old dough steamed bun fermented to infinity, and the second sister's years of resentment finally vented out. However, in order to take into account the glorious title of the scholar's wife, she did not curse like ordinary peasant women, casually talking about women's privacy. She restrained herself and used the crotch.

The eldest sister couldn't listen anymore, and her head hurt even more. She pulled the second sister's sleeve and said, "Okay, sit down when you've said enough."

The second sister didn't say enough, and the old dough steamed bun still had some power. The second sister had to vent: "Some women are really thick-skinned. They come and go as they please, and treat other people's homes as hotels. You come to see the patient in the afternoon, don't you know that seeing the patient in the slanting sun is equivalent to cursing others, how can you be so kind."

According to local customs, visiting patients must be done in the morning. If you visit in the afternoon, it means bad luck. When Sichuan women are around, they rarely interact with others and don't know this rule. The old rules are no longer so particular in the new era, and the second sister just took advantage of the topic.

The Sichuan woman was like a child who had made a mistake. She felt that Li Dafa's illness was caused by her. She was guilty of visiting at the wrong time. She whispered, "I don't know the rules. I'll go back to my cousin's place to get some clothes and come back. Let me take care of him."

The second sister said, "What's there to take care of? He won't live for a few days. You should go back to where you should go. Don't try to steal the credit."

The Sichuan woman said, "It is said that a husband and wife will be grateful for a hundred days after a day. Although Lao Wu and I are not husband and wife, we have lived together for three years. If I don't serve him by his bed for a day, I will feel guilty for the rest of my life. I was wrong in the past and can't make the same mistake again. What the second sister said makes sense."

She lowered her posture very low, as if she wanted to follow the setting sun to the other side of the mountain.

The second sister's tone softened a little, but her tone still maintained the high spirit of the winner: "No need. With our two old bones, Lao Wu won't be like others who attract maggots."

The second sister was talking about the old man who died in the hot summer after enduring for seventeen days.

Li Dafa heard his second sister's words vaguely in the room. He felt a little dizzy and confused. He wanted to hit the bed with a wooden stick, but he had no strength.

He heard the footsteps of the Sichuan woman walking out of the room. Her footsteps were as light as a cat's paw, but his ears still caught them.

The second sister said to the eldest sister: "Just wait and see, that woman will not come back. When Lao Wu was fine, she ran away. Now in this situation, she wants to run away. It's nice to say that she will stay to take care of Lao Wu. Otherwise, why would she rush home to get clothes and change clothes every day for which man to see?" The eldest sister said: "You are so talkative. What if she really comes back?" The second sister said: "If she comes back, it's 100% for things. What else is left in Lao Wu's family? Let me see..." As she said that, she took out the small notebook she brought with her, flipped through the pages, and said: "By the way, the TV in the room is still worth a few dollars, but it's not worth much. Now it's popular to have dozens of inches. The set-top box cost several hundred yuan. I wonder how much it is worth? And... that elm box is something left by our grandma. The grandma must have a grandma. Grandma once Generation after generation, oh, there is not even a worm hole in it for so many years. Is it elm or rosewood? Rosewood or camphor wood? In short, it is a cultural relic and valuable! "

The eldest sister's headache suddenly stopped, and her mind was as clear as a breeze. She looked at the second sister and suddenly realized: "You are talking about that elm box, why did I forget it? Our mother said that it was not left by her mother, but by her grandmother. Maybe it was not left by her grandmother, but by her grandmother's grandmother. Oh, no matter which grandmother, she is already very old. Oh, look at the nose of the copper lock, it has not rusted yet, and the carvings are so beautiful, it must be valuable. How could I forget it with my elm head?"

The second sister had already smelled the value of cultural relics, and had her own little tricks in her mind. Unexpectedly, she told the secret of the elm box on impulse, and the eldest sister's elm head was suddenly enlightened. It will be very troublesome to divide the property in the future. She thought about the mouth causing trouble, about happiness leading to sorrow, about getting carried away, about the mantis stalking the cicada while the oriole is behind, and she didn't know which scholar taught her to describe her slip of the tongue.

She regretted it so much.

Just like the advertising salesman who was talking a lot on TV and suddenly encountered a power outage, the second sister shut up.