When Grandma Li heard her grandson's decisive words, she had mixed feelings in her heart, and complex emotions filled her heart. She couldn't help but turn red.
She silently lowered her head and wiped it.
She even remembered clearly in her mind the giggling and crisp laughter of Sister Ye, who was not deaf back then. Her voice was like that of a cheerful little Bailing, and everyone loved to tease her.
He Songbai turned his head and tied the stack of money with a rope. He weighed it and held the thick banknotes in his hand, giving people a sense of security.
He said, "I said I wanted you all to have a good time."
After he finished speaking, he turned and left the grandmother's room, leaving her room to clean up her emotions.
Grandma Li's blindfolded eyes became more and more blurred, and her face was full of wrinkled and ravines, and she was full of old tears.
…
Soon, taking advantage of the slack season when the autumn harvest was over, He Songbai took the eldest sister to the hospital.
At first, Sister He thought that her husband had not recovered, so she followed her younger brother to the hospital. When she arrived at the hospital, He Songbai pushed her into the examination room. With those broad and powerful hands, he closed the door for her without hesitation. .
The doctor inside asked her to sit down with a smile, and turned on the dazzling light to hit her ear. Big Sister He looked at the doctor in a bewildered and bewildered way, and then looked at the younger brother standing outside the door.
In the end, she seemed to understand something, and couldn't help the tears in her eyes.
After a while, the doctor who finished the examination discussed several treatment options with He Songbai. He Songbai paid the money and stood in the corridor of the hospital. He felt a lot of deflated pockets and felt that the road to saving the bride price was getting longer. After he paid the surgery fee, he almost didn't dare to look into Zhao Lanxiang's eyes. .
Zhao Lanxiang was waiting for him on the first floor of the hospital, saw him and asked, "What's the matter, the doctor said it's hard to treat or something?"
He Songbai shook his head and only said sorry to her.
"The money I earned this time will be used to treat my eldest sister's ears. Her illness can't be delayed. I will try my best to keep saving for the bride price."
Zhao Lanxiang caught a trace of guilt in the man's eyes.
She couldn't help laughing and said carefully, "Do you have any misunderstanding about the betrothal gift? Although the people in the city may ask for more money for the betrothal gift, they are not selling their daughters. The betrothal gift is just a passing scene."
"Maybe the bride price is less than that of the daughter-in-law in the countryside!"
Zhao Lanxiang spoke to the country bumpkin in front of him with his thumbs on science, "Now the lesbians in the city also have jobs. We pay attention to equality between men and women, and the dowry and betrothal gifts are equal."
"When two people enter into a marriage, they focus on congenial hearts and personalities, and live together from then on. The amount of the betrothal gift is a matter of decency, but if the hearts don't match, no amount of betrothal gift is just a show. Parents who truly love their daughters are reluctant to embarrass their son-in-law like that. Yes, you have to give too much, and my parents probably wouldn't dare to take it."
"Do you understand it?"
She tilted her head and looked straight at him.
He Songbai's heart suddenly surged with heat, which was hot and scalding like molten lava, so hot that his heart couldn't help trembling. He touched her head, "You are so kind."
"Your parents are fine too."
Zhao Lanxiang smiled smugly, and she urged him to go see the eldest sister.
On the second floor, Li Dali stood outside his wife's ward and asked his uncle, "How much will this operation cost?"
"We've saved some money here too."
His dark eyes showed a hint of her husband's responsibility. He said, "We don't want you to spend any money. We sold the grain for the autumn harvest for a small sum, as well as the money we saved by making clothes."
He also made a long call.
He Songbai leaned against the white-painted wall in a trance and listened to his brother-in-law with a smile.
"Okay, let me lend it to you."
The subject's dowry money is back.
Early August.
He Songye had an operation in the city hospital and stayed in the hospital for two weeks after the operation. During the past two weeks, Li Dali took care of her in a saddle-back manner. This familiar scene seems to have been reversed a year ago.
He Songye mentioned this, and Li Dali said jokingly, "How can it be."
"At that time, I was a paralyzed man. I was so exhausted that I was sweating profusely, and my feces and urine became dirty and smelly. Now that you have healthy hands and feet, I will bring you a meal."
He spoke slowly, word by word, so that his lip-reading wife could listen.
He Songye's ears were covered with gauze, but it had been removed a lot, and only a thin layer of gauze was covered to prevent infection. The subtle voice pierced into her ears, and the moment He Songye heard it, the sound was like a bursting silver bottle, and her brain burst into a brilliant light.
She covered Li Dali's wriggling lips with her hand and listened intently with her ear turned to the side.
The golden wind in autumn blew the sycamore trees outside the window rustling, the bicycle bells from across the street, the clanging of the iron, and the life-like shouts, "My own brooms, brooms for sale—"
Li Dali made a deep and slow voice.
"Sister Ye, can you hear me?"
That sound was like a budding sprout, prying open the hard shell, and the head came out crisply. He Songye seemed to hear the sound of the seeds sprouting, soft and beautiful.
She couldn't help touching her ears and looked at Li Dali in astonishment and surprise.
"I heard."
Li Dali was stunned when he saw his wife's gesture.
…
He Songye's surgery was successful and his recovery went smoothly. However, because he has been deaf for too many years, his hearing must be weaker than ordinary people, but Rao is also very happy.
Grandma Li touched the shoulder of her granddaughter who came back from the hospital and kept talking to her.
The speed of speech is always faster than usual, and He Songye, who was reading lip language, must have missed words. However, after she listened to it, she was able to communicate with Grandma Li unimpeded by gestures.
Only then did Grandma Li believe that her granddaughter had indeed recovered a little of her hearing.
But she looked at her granddaughter's constant gestures, frowned slightly, and said to Li Dali, "Teach Sister Ye to learn to speak slowly while she has no work to do."
Li Dali answered in a timely manner: "I have been teaching her to speak!"
"It's just that she's shy and thinks she's speaking inappropriately and makes people laugh."
So Zhao Lanxiang asked He Songye to talk about simple words such as eating, sleeping, and work. When He Songye said these words slowly and jerkily with a big tongue, the whole family laughed.
Sanya jumped up to her side and took her hand, "It just so happened that the teacher taught me a lot of words this semester."
"I'll teach the eldest sister to speak!"
This even made everyone laugh.
He Songye said slowly and seriously: "Okay, ah."
Zhao Lanxiang remembered that there was a Red Star radio in her house, which she bought from S City to earn some money, but was "redeemed" by He Songbai. Every night she turns on the Central Radio to listen to the news.
She took the big, bulky guy out, patted its head and said, "Eldest sister, listen to the radio and learn to speak on the radio!"
He Songbai simply laughed at this naughty object.
"Thank you for thinking about it."
The whole family cares about her so much, which made He Songye speechless. She said thank you to Zhao Lanxiang, and thank you to her brother, thanking him one by one.
Grandma Li blamed her, "The whole family said thank you, why don't you learn to speak quickly, and chat with Grandma more in the future."
"Let a presbyopic old man watch your gestures all day long, and his eyes are tired."
In this way, every day after He Songye's farm work, he would turn on the radio and listen to the radio for a while, and sew clothes while listening to the radio. The busy days are like running water.
One day in October, the Red Star Radio was tuned to the Central Radio Station on time, and the sound of zizi electric current came from the speaker, and He Songye adjusted the antenna of the radio.
"From August 4th to 8th, 1977, Comrade D, the national leader, held a seminar on science education work in City B... Comrade D made a speech at the meeting, proposing that 'the recruitment of universities is the first priority to cultivate talents' An important link' point of view, emphasizing that the sixteen-character policy must be overthrown, and the restoration of the unified college entrance examination will begin this year..."
When He Songye heard the news, he was ignorant.
However, Grandma Li, who was watching her granddaughter sewing clothes and handing her needles and thread, was shocked when she heard it.
The movements in her hands suddenly froze in the air, she held her breath and continued listening, the old man's turbid eyes filled with tears at that moment, and she said, "Sister Ye, did you hear anything? "
The host's fluent Mandarin was faithfully spread on the radio: "The talk mentioned whether the children of 'the rich and the right' meet the requirements for the political examination of the college entrance examination. Comrade D said, 'In order to achieve socialist equality in China, we must first realize the knowledge equality of education, equality of rights to education.'”
He Songye said: "Education is equal."
"Am I right?" she asked quickly.
"What else did it say, I can't quite hear it."
Granny Li pursed her lips seriously, listening intently to the eloquent voice coming from the Red Star radio, her eyes staring at the big black guy, as if staring at the most important thing in her life .
She picked up the energy she had never had before, and listened to the broadcast of the day without saying a word.
"It's education equality, that's right!"
She happily told her granddaughter, "The news says that we, the country, have resumed the college entrance examination!"
She was so excited that she could barely speak, "The local, the rich, the anti, the bad, the right, and the elements also have the opportunity. You, you, and Brother Bo can all take the college entrance examination. The country's policies have completely changed, and everything will be fine..."
The country remembers them, they are accepted by the policy of tolerance, and the rich and rightists can also have a fair education! They can be educated with everyone under the sun, no longer like dingy mice!
As Grandma Li said, tears rushed down her face, flowing down her old face full of ravines. The turbid tears flowed into her mouth, salty and astringent.
She was so happy that she was speechless, and she was so sad that she burst into tears. This kind of inexplicable and complicated emotions flooded her heart, causing the old man who was about to die and burst into tears. He Songye was immediately terrified, she put down the needle and thread in her hand, and wiped the tears of the old grandmother.
She said, "It's a good thing. If grandma wants to be happy, I'll go tell Brother Bo right away."
Grandma Li told her granddaughter to go quickly, but she put her face next to the radio, trying to hear more news about the resumption of the college entrance examination. Unfortunately, after the news was over, she continued to broadcast other news. Rao is like this, Grandma Li, who has always had a good memory, still remembers this news deeply in her heart.
On the other side, He Songbai had just finished loosening the soil and pouring urine and fertilizer from the field, and came back in the hot sun.
Soon he heard the eldest sister shouting at him excitedly, "Brother Bo-Brother Bo-"
She rushed in front of him, using her non-standard and slow speech speed to cover her face, curled her tongue and said, "Grandma said, said, the country..."
"The college entrance examination is resumed!"
The author has something to say: *
small theater:
Pingshengjun: Xiangxiang, you made grandma so happy
You who screwed to the Central Radio Station on time that day had hidden merit and fame.
Xiangxiang: Calm and calm.
Writing here, I want to say that my male god is Comrade D, and I can only mark him with an abbreviation because of the subject matter.
I would like to thank him for his contributions to the country and education.
Let us eat and clothe ourselves and go to university.