Hejiacun is halfway up the mountain, so it's not easy to find it. After asking the tea shops along the way, it was easy to find the way. I don't know if it was an illusion, but the tea sellers who carried the poles changed their faces when they heard the words Hejiacun.
As we walked up, the sky gradually became dark, and the twilight shrouded down, like an upside-down mud bowl.
The top of the mountain is cooler than the bottom, and the snow along the way has not yet melted. The more you go inside, the more messy the snow piles up. There is also a layer of slippery ice on the road. There are only a few footprints and ruts. No one communicates.
Mr. Tu walked with his trousers, the layers of padded trousers were exposed and tucked into wool socks. It wasn't too cold, but the leather shoes were very laborious to walk, and there were several deep streaks.
He remembered the days when he was walking on the streets and alleys. In the cold weather, the cotton shoes were cracked and he was reluctant to throw them away. Sister Tu repaired and repaired them, but he couldn't tell the original material. The cowhide is also not distressed.
He glanced at Li Shiyi next to him. The good days started from here. He was not used to talking about gratitude. But he knew very well that if he and his mother-in-law were still nesting in the alleys of Beijing as before, and now the war is raging, he would not know if he would still be alive, let alone live in the concession.
In this world, even life is not expensive, and nothing is extravagant. Ansheng is a luxury.
He didn't have the ability to paint the youngest fart, but he got the most expensive gift in the world. He didn't know how to repay it, so he followed Li Shiyi shamelessly.
When Li Shiyi saw Youngest Tu staring at her, he felt a little uncomfortable, his eyelids twitched, and he asked him, "What?"
Mr. Tu blinked his eyes, "ah", his eyes passed Li Shiyi and cast his eyes behind him, and he said, "The top of the mountain is so reflective, I'm afraid it's snow all the year round?"
Li Shiyi glanced at him, "um", and then looked at him again, seeing that he was talking without a brain, as if he didn't want to talk, so he didn't have the leisure to ask questions.
Going around half of the mountain, there are gradually a few old cows returning home on both sides. In front of them is a small village. Half a piece of old wood is inserted in the snow by the roadside, and the coal has a vague character "He".
The village is a typical Hui-style building, with blue tiles and white walls. The eaves are high and low, and the paintings are stacked. From a distance, it looks like an ink-wash landscape painting. good scene.
Li Shiyi slowed down her steps, her shoes were still stained with unmelted ice ballast, and the toes of the toes were a little wet, showing some dust from the long journey. She thought about it, she didn't need to worry about her clothes, she just took off her hat. He came down, smoothed his hair, peeled off the rotten skin, rubbed his slightly red cheeks with the back of his hand, and packed up the burden before heading inside.
Mr. Tu looked at her unhurried movements and gave birth to overlapping illusions. The first time he saw Li Shiyi, she was also tidying up things in an orderly manner. At that time, she climbed over the wall to dig out the stove, and moved neatly and again. Clean, but her expression is lazy, as if as long as you are not too loud, she will not even lift her eyelids.
Now she is once again getting dressed in front of him, but her slow movements are filled with indecision like a lotus root, and her eyes are fanning and fanning, as if she is thinking.
"Actually, you don't have to be too nervous." Mr. Tu comforted her, "Maybe, Shijiu left early?"
Li Shiyi paused and glanced at him.
Youngest Tu almost bit his tongue and committed suicide.
He bit the tip of his tongue and looked left and right, but his heart was full of doubts: "Why is this village so unpopular?"
Everywhere the doors are closed, all businesses are closed, there is not even a dog in the courtyard, and the leaves of the vegetables are wilted. Occasionally, there is a family that is watered today. There are no pedestrians on the trail, but there is one in the alley. This brazier was not looked after, it was only burning on its own, and the youngest Tu took a closer look and saw that it was burning a few pieces of clothes.
He glanced at his hands: "What a waste."
Li Shiyi said, "Sick Village."
She suddenly understood why the people on the way looked different, and also understood why the path was covered with snow.
"How do you know?" Mr. Tu was surprised.
Li Shiyi sniffed: "Did you smell the medicine?"
The youngest Tu sniffed like a dog, raised his hand and pinched his nose and rubbed his nose from side to side: "I'm afraid I have rhinitis again."
He discerned it carefully, and there were a few vague coughs. Li Shiyi took out a piece of cloth from his bag and handed it to him: "Cover your nose and mouth."
After he finished speaking, he stepped forward, while Mr. Tu was tying the cloth strips, he wanted to remind Li Shiyi, but suddenly remembered something important, and said to himself that Sister Eleven is an enlightened Bodhisattva, so there is no need to be afraid.
Li Shiyi didn't look sideways, and walked deeper in the direction of the stronger medicinal smell. Her steps were a little hurried, da da da, as if a small drum was beating in her heart. It stopped like a power outage, and then there was the lingering sound of zizi electric current, "喑—" sticking out from her ear.
She panted slightly and looked ahead. She could hear the bubbling sound of a medicine stove on the street, the popping sound of the fan, and the little boy who was squatting beside him endorsed sentence after sentence. A little girl closed the door with a creak, took out a small pot of charcoal fire from inside, bent over and handed it to the stove.
What's more, she could hear the "rustling" of the heavy snow pressing down on the branches on the top of the distant mountain, the "squeaky" sound of the flames under the stove, and the "rustling" sound of the skirt of the person holding the fan boiling the medicine rubbing the ground. And the sound of his own heartbeat like waves hitting the reef.
In fact, there are louder noises, such as Mr. Tu's chirping in her ear, which a dog would dislike, and Chunping's "Yah" surprise greeting after handing out the charcoal basin, but her ears can't tolerate too much noise. Now, she was allowed to walk over slowly, looking at Song Nineteen who stopped the cooking of the medicine and looked at her from the side.
The beauty of the word "finally" is that you don't know it until you use it.
For example, Li Shiyi finally found Song Shijiu.
The youngest Tu covered his face with a strip of cloth, revealing only a pair of smiling eyes, stretched out his arms and index fingers and said, "Nineteen!"
He turned around and smiled at Li Shiyi again: "Nineteen, nineteen!"
He saw that Li Shiyi gave him a rather calm look, as if to say - I don't know if it was 19 or not
But Mr. Tu didn't take back the action. He saw the slight smile and shyness in Li Shiyi's eyes. She was not used to being excited, so Mr. Tu was excited for her.
So he trotted forward, his voice even louder, for fear that Song Nineteen couldn't hear because his mouth was covered: "It's really you. You've really grown a lot."
Song Nineteen stood up, put the fan down, and smiled back to Mr. Tu: "How did you grow?"
The youngest Tu smiled and said, "I used to be a girl, but now I'm like a sister."
It's not a small nineteen, it's a big nineteen.
Song Nineteen didn't say anything, he just laughed, and the youngest's eyes were shining brightly. He has the proud look of a young girl in my family, and he doesn't know where this pride comes from.
He looked back at Li Shiyi, who was approaching, but she didn't say a word, didn't even look at Song Shijiu seriously, but only looked at the fan Song Shijiu put down, but Chunping stepped forward and wrapped the You have to be as strict as the youngest Tu, pulling her sleeve and calling her: "Eleventh sister."
After a while, Chunping seemed to have grown a little bit taller, and she was not as defensive as she was at first, and even took the initiative to say hello.
Li Shiyi responded with a smile and touched the top of her head.
She was suddenly a little sad, sad for the little bit of Chunping growing taller, and sad for the little bit of Chunping's liveliness. Song Nineteen has not changed, but Chunping's change has justified the "absence" she had thought before.
Li Shiyi raised his head and shouted softly, "Nineteen."
Song Nineteen paused and nodded, "Yes."
After glancing at her, he turned to look at the stove again, as if it were of great importance.
Leaning on Li Shiyi's Chunping, look at this, then look at that. The same was true for Mr. Tu, who was beside Song Nineteen. He was clearing his throat to talk, but saw a little boy beside him come up, grab Song Nineteen's hand, and ask her, "What's behind 'sex similarity'?"
Song Shijiu was stunned, but before he recovered, he heard Li Shiyi's cold voice answer: "Xi Xiangyuan."
She received it very gently, and her eyes fell on Song Nineteen's side face like dust. It turned out that the important thing was not the medicine stove, it turned out that Nineteen was not unmoved by her arrival, it turned out that she was just in a daze, I was overwhelmed by this common "Three Character Classic" question.
The little boy grinned: "You also recite the Three Character Classic?"
Li Shiyi retracted her gaze at the right time, and a bit of candy filled her heart. She looked at the boy, who had a big head and a small body, and his sparse hair couldn't hide his broad forehead. He looked like a little beanie.
She asked him, "What's your name?"
"Xiaodouding." He replied crisply.
Li Shiyi raised his brows in surprise.
She heard the slight movement of Song Nineteen's breath, and there was a fleeting smile in Li Shiyi's peripheral vision. The smile was somewhat unexpected, as if Song Nineteen heard Xiaodouding's name for the first time. Raising his eyebrows, he sighed inwardly that such a person lives up to his name.
Li Shiyi looked at her sideways, Song Shijiu was still looking at the stove with no expression on his face.
The youngest Tu rolled his eyes and said to Xiaodouding: "What's so difficult about the Three Character Classic? Zhao Qiansun Li's, you and I will do the same with Uncle Tu, you come, Chunping? You come too, let's compare Let's see who has the most back."
He greeted the two dolls into the house in twos and threes, and left the afterglow of the setting sun to Li Shiyi and Song Jiujin.
Seeing that the door was closed, Song Nineteen turned around, smoothed the cheongsam on his thighs with both hands, bent down and sat on the bench, holding up his fan and focusing on the fire.
Li Shiyi pursed his lips and sat next to her, silently counting to ten before he said, "Is it cold?"
As soon as the words came out, she felt a little regret, because her tone was not as gentle as she imagined, and because she said a nonsense.
She's really not good at talking nonsense. Not to mention, if she was "cold" or "not cold" nineteen times, how would she take the next sentence.
"It's not cold." Song Nineteen said as expected.
Li Shiyi said "uh", thought about it, and thought that Song Shijiu was paying attention to her, which was a good thing.
So she was silent for a while, and then asked, "What's the situation in this village?"
Song Nineteen added two more pieces of charcoal and said in a low voice, "The plague has infected most of the village."
It was like this when she came. Several families died, and the villagers didn't know much to survive, so they didn't go down the mountain.
Xiaodouding's parents are gone, and now they live in the third uncle's house next door. The third uncle just fell ill, Song Nineteen helped to cook the medicine, and also helped Xiaodouding to read. The aunt was very grateful, so she gave Song Nineteen a place to stay in the vacant room of Douding's house, and often came over to do it. Cook and chat.
Before Li Shiyi could answer, the aunt from a distance really came. Seeing the stranger, she was stunned for a while, and after a few words of greetings, she carried a vegetable basket into the house.
Seeing that the fire had stabilized, Song Nineteen went into the house to help his aunt to cook. Li Shiyi followed, and wanted to wash his hands to help, but his aunt refused to come out. Li Shiyi arrived at the first time, and he couldn't force himself, so he straightened his sleeves and went to the hall. go inside.
Before taking a few steps, he heard Song Nineteen's small voice: "This is not washed."
The aunt said, "Celery?"
Song Nineteen gave a soft "um" and didn't speak any more.
There was a rush of water inside, and the knife stomped on the cutting board rhythmically.
The corners of Li Shiyi's mouth lifted, and the curvature was shallower than Song Shijiu's words, but it stayed for a long time, as if this smile made her very cherish.
Li Shiyi didn't like to eat celery, even if he was in trouble, Song Shijiu always kept it in his heart.