Tao Xiaodong took three sticks in total.
The alcoholic is irrational, and if someone smokes, he will not stop and leave. He intentionally wants to give Tao Xiaodong a few strokes, and before he can stand up straight, Tao Xiaodong will fall down again with a stick.
The old lady cried and yelled to stop Tao Xiaodong again, calling him "Tao's boy" and telling him not to beat him.
Later, the drunkard and the old lady left, and when they left, they picked up a brick and threw it towards the yard, where it broke in half on the ground. After walking quite a distance, he picked up a brick and came back and smashed it on the courtyard door. The sound of "dang" sounded abrupt and startling at night.
Tao Xiaodong entered the room before he could hit it again, and turned on the light to see his brother.
Tao Huainan fumbled into his little sweater and was squatting on the ground touching his shoes. I heard someone come in and raised his face: "Brother?"
Tao Xiaodong picked him up, patted him on the back and said, "It's okay."
"Who is it..." Tao Huainan blinked his empty eyes, and touched his brother's face with his hands from both sides, the palms of which were moist and hot, "Did you hit you?"
"No." Tao Xiaodong's face was cold, and his coat was also cold. He put Tao Huainan back on the kang, and stroked his head twice, "Are you scared?"
"I'm afraid someone will hit you." Tao Huainan whispered.
"I can't beat you, I can't beat your brother." Tao Xiaodong coaxed him.
The sweater on his body was put on backwards, and Tao Xiaodong took it off for him again. The uncle from the hometown next door got dressed and walked in after listening to the movement, asking what was going on.
Tao Xiaodong poured some hot water from the kettle and threw a towel, and was wiping Tao Huainan's feet. Just now his bare feet were dirty and the soles of his feet were cold. Tao Xiaodong wiped his feet and said, "It's okay, Chi Zhide came here to play drunk."
"Zuo came here in the middle of the night?" The old uncle scolded and said, "Have Xiao Nan been startled? Why don't you take Xiao Nan to sleep in my room? Live with his aunt."
Tao Xiaodong said no, Tao Huainan also shook his head.
"Here," Tao Xiaodong wiped his feet, patted the soles of his feet and told him to lie down, "Anyway, I'm outside."
Tao Huainan obediently went back to lie down under the quilt and covered his back tightly.
The old uncle sat for a while and went back when he saw that there was nothing wrong. Tao Xiaodong turned his head and looked around the house, but he didn't see the child from Chi's family.
"Brother won't turn off the light, I'll leave it on for you." Tao Xiaodong said.
Tao Huainan nodded and said yes.
Tao Xiaodong found Tao Huainan's clothes that had been splashed with milk during the day, and took them outside.
The child crouched in a ball by the brazier, the brazier had been extinguished long ago, and he was holding the outer ring of the brazier with both hands, trembling like a small animal that had been shot and crippled in the snow.
Tao Xiaodong put the clothes beside him and said, "Put it on."
The boy looked up at him, and the "click" sound of the teeth knocking out was very fast. His movements of reaching out were stiff, skinny, and even a little creepy to look at.
Tao Xiaodong glanced at him a few times, then went over to pick him up, and picked up the clothes on the ground along the way. The child struggled a bit, Tao Xiaodong frowned and said "don't move", the child probably didn't have the strength to struggle anymore, Tao Xiaodong held his waist with one arm, his arms and legs were hanging down, he was half dead.
Tao Huainan lay still, when he heard his brother open the door and come in again.
Tao Huainan heard his brother put something on the other side of the kang, and then heard the sound of teeth cracking, it was an exaggerated and uncontrollable sound.
At that time, Tao Huainan thought his brother had brought back a cold dog.
"Lie down and take it easy." Brother said.
"Your father was like you when he was a child, and he is like his father when he grows up." Tao Xiaodong looked at the dirty child lying on the kang to feel the temperature. "It has been passed down from generation to generation, and it is a crime."
Hearing this, Tao Huainan felt that he was not a dog again. It sounds like the kid who snatched his milk during the day.
The child didn't speak, but twitched while leaning against the kang with his face sideways, his teeth were chattering like this, so he probably couldn't speak.
There is only one set of quilts at home, which was brought by my uncle in my hometown. Now Tao Huainan is covering it, and Tao Xiaodong took off his military overcoat and threw it on the dirty boy to cover it.
"You can sleep here tonight." Tao Xiaodong dropped a sentence.
The child didn't make a sound, didn't say anything, only chattered his teeth.
Tao Xiaodong went out to watch the night, and the sound of teeth clicking could last for an hour. Tao Huainan had been lying on the other side of the kang with his eyes open, listening to his clicks, the frequency was getting slower and slower, and then he fell silent and fell asleep.
Only then did Tao Huainan quietly turn over, he was too timid, he didn't dare to move when he was in the same room with a child who was a complete stranger who robbed him of milk during the day.
Turning over and facing away, Tao Huainan pulled up the blanket covering his body, hiding his face in half.
In the end, it was still skinny, the child didn't freeze out of the cold with his bare buttocks frozen for a whole day. Tao Xiaodong let him wear Tao Huainan's dirty clothes, but he didn't hear a word from him, so he couldn't say "thank you". When Tao Xiaodong fed Tao Huainan porridge, he also served a bowl for him, the second big bowl used for vegetables, he looked up at Tao Xiaodong, reached out to take it, and went to drink directly from the bowl.
Tao Xiaodong blew on the porridge in the blowing spoon, and asked casually, "Your father always beats you?"
The child raised his head from the bowl, looked this way, his eyelids drooped and he didn't say a word.
He didn't speak and Tao Xiaodong didn't bother to ask any more.
Tao Huainan was always thinking that there was someone over there, and his invisible eyes glanced over there from time to time. Tao Xiaodong tapped the side of his face with his knuckles to make him turn back.
The Chi family's ancestral traditions are not popular. Normally, if a child of this age has such a father in such a family, the adults in the village will take care of them no matter how cold-hearted they are. But this kid never speaks to anyone, and he doesn't say anything when anyone asks him. No one cares anymore, at most, when he ran out of the house naked like this, he was allowed to enter the house to keep warm and give him something to eat.
He is like a dirty dog in the village. He eats leftovers and wears old clothes. He still has to go home after hiding, and he still has to beat his father when he drinks.
Tao Xiaodong didn't even think about taking care of it, he couldn't do it. In this world, other than your own family's affairs, they are other people's affairs. There are too many other people's family affairs, and you can't take care of them, and you don't have so much time to take care of them. He just said to the boy: "You can stay here for a few days, don't go back when your father is at home."
Tao Huainan glanced over there again, with the timid curiosity of a child in his empty gaze.
Tao Xiaodong asked him to stay here, and the child really stayed there for several days. Going home when it was dark at night, and coming at dawn in the morning, he didn't make a sound when he came, he shrank to a corner, he didn't have a sense of presence, and no one noticed him. When eating, Tao Xiaodong would usually bring him some food from a bowl, and he would take a bowl to eat.
He has been wearing Tao Huainan's suit all the time, as well as the milk stain on his chest. The sleeves and front are a bit dirty, and he hasn't changed it.
Apart from the fear of the unknown at the beginning, Tao Huainan also got used to the presence of such a silent presence around him. The child was always far away from him, leaning against the wall. Occasionally, when Tao Xiaodong couldn't take care of him outside, Tao Huainan would squat with the child. Although he didn't have any sense of belonging, it was better than standing alone in an unknown place.
One is really blind, one is fake dumb, and they keep silent as companions.
Tao Huainan had a big glass of milk every morning and had to urinate several times in the morning. The ashes of his parents were buried on this day, and Tao Huainan was carried to the cemetery early in the morning. When the coffin fell to the ground, Tao Huainan was dragged by his brother and kowtowed a total of nine heads. It was too cold in the morning, so Tao Xiaodong didn't let him follow the tedious process and sent him back.
Tao Huainan was wearing a small sweater and sitting on the kang waiting. He was sitting awkwardly, moving his buttocks several times, waiting left and right but not waiting for his brother to come back.
The mute child was standing against the wall opposite him, looking at him.
Tao Huainan frowned, turning his head from time to time to listen to the sound. The big iron gate outside rang once, Tao Huainan listened carefully, but he didn't hear anyone coming in, so he asked in front of him, "Is that my brother?"
His voice is quite soft, small, and milky.
The child on the other side glanced at the window, and spoke for the first time, his voice was not as soft as Tao Huainan's, and he said "no".
Tao Huainan opened his mouth and said "Ah". He sat still with his head bowed, his lips pursed, and his fingers kept scratching gently on the Kang leather.
There was no movement outside, and after a while, Tao Huainan said again: "Help me find a bottle..."
He blinked his empty eyes and sounded like he was about to cry this time: "...I want to pee."
Blindness is such a waste, an eight-year-old boy can't even urinate by himself if there is no one around him.
The boy on the opposite side also blinked, then raised his drooping eyelids to look around, turned over the half-hanging curtain and went to the outer room.
When he came back again, he held a rice bowl in his hand, which was a circle larger than the second bowl. Tao Xiaodong sometimes used this bowl to serve him rice. The aluminum basin knocked against the edge of the wooden kang, and he swung his long sleeve and pushed it forward, then turned his head back to the wall where he was standing before.
Tao Huainan moved forward and touched the cold round basin. He didn't use this thing to take it, but he didn't hesitate, because he couldn't hold it anymore.
Half a day later, I pulled up my trousers and gently pushed the rice bowl forward, and the voice became softer: "You helped me pour it..."
The cement floor was not that flat, and the boy dragged on cotton shoes that didn't fit so well, and the sound of the soles rubbing against the ground was even more pronounced. Tao Huainan heard him coming, and he heard him open the door to go out, and then the door rang again, and the aluminum basin landed on the side of the pot table in the outer room with a "dang". When the sound of the friction between the soles of the cotton shoes and the concrete floor came back step by step, Tao Huainan, who was comfortable peeing, smiled shyly towards the base of the wall.
The adults were not at home, and the two children secretly did bad things, peeing in the food bowl.
Feeling ashamed after urinating, Tao Huainan was still picking at the Kang leather, without looking up, he hummed softly: "... let's not talk about it?"