Chapter 8 sixth day

Even though Xiao knew that Sanshun had disappeared in the village, yesterday afternoon he took a pistol and walked around the red wall where Xing used to live.The courtyard is still empty.Just as he was about to leave the red house that smelled of kiwi fruit, he noticed a figure flashing in the bamboo forest, and he subconsciously squeezed his pistol tightly.There were six bullets in the gun, and he became extremely irritable now, and he wanted to find someone to shoot the six bullets out.The dense leaves of the bamboo forest moved as if shivering, and the guard came out from inside, Xiao let out a long sigh of relief.

When they returned home, the guard reminded Xiao carefully whether it was time to return to Qishan, because the big battle was about to start.Xiao angrily slammed the handle of the pistol on the table.The mother was startled by the sound in the room, opened the door and walked in.She already knew everything that happened in the village, and she wanted to find a chance to talk to her son.She was horrified to see Xiao glaring at the guard angrily. She went to the table and grabbed the pistol and stuffed it into the drawer closest to her. Xiao stood up and walked out without saying a word.Mother followed carefully.She felt that she must have a talk with her son, because she believed that since Sanshun threatened to kill her son, he would definitely do it.She is well aware of the nature of this offspring of a heterosexual family.Sanshun's father was also a dutiful fisherman. He once provoked a fight of thirty or forty people over a trivial quarrel.Xiao didn't realize that his mother was following him.He walked into his father's study and closed the door.

No one had ever entered the dark, dusty room after my father's funeral.Xiao lit the oil lamp on the table and picked out the wick, which was covered with dust.Xiao sat at his father's writing desk, staring at the bust of his father hanging on the wall.A black frame was pasted around the edge of the portrait.The black frame is carefully cut from a square of drapery.He seems to have seen the figure of his mother sewing carefully under the oil lamp.The people in this village didn't know that photography had already been invented in the world. His father's portrait was painted by a doctor who sold plasters. This quack painter made his father's eye sockets shallower.The mandarin jacket also seemed too ill-fitting.He could tell from the distorted portrait that the artist had taken great care in his father's eyes.He was very familiar with this deep and calm look. On the eve of his departure from home, his father was lying on a wicker chair in the yard reading a poem written by an ancient troubadour surnamed Mei.For the rest of his life, my father picked up this poem almost every day.He knew that his elder brother had received his father's silent approval when he went to the Whampoa Military Academy, and he hoped that his father could see through his intention to join the army as before and give him advice.He wandered around his father for a long time that day.Father didn't notice him.At this time, from the courtyard door, he saw the distant Lianshui River dazzled by the sun, the ocher sand on the river beach, and the boat stranded on the sand. A companion who went to join the army with him was waving to him.It was dusk.He never found out whether his father acquiesced when he served as an orderly for one of Sun Chuanfang's men.Later, in frequent battles, he became more and more suspicious of whether he had unintentionally violated his father's wishes.

Father's maroon chair has been worn down to light yellow, and the tall bookshelf made of carved mahogany is still so clear that he can see his figure.He casually picked up a manuscript of his father's deathbed on the table and flipped through it. The manuscript was pressed under an inkstone engraved with waxy ink.The moment he was flipping through, he suddenly saw a letter written by his father to his elder brother in the rough-edged paper notebook that his father used to copy the Han and Wei inscriptions.Because the brush does not absorb much ink, the handwriting appears too vigorous and rough.Xiao found his name in the last few lines of the letter.

As for what Xiao’s father wrote: I no longer expect to see him. His army will soon be wiped out. Now I am not as worried as before, worried about hearing the news of his death. Xiao felt as if his spine had been pricked by a needle.Although his father didn't read much to blame him.He still felt the shame.He sat blankly at his father's desk.The afternoon passed like sand.His natural arrogance and stubbornness made him force himself to calm down. It was the first time he had woken up from the muddled nightmare of Xiaohe these days. At first, he no longer expected anything, but now, the strong desire to win made him Want to rush back to the troops immediately.He recalled a front-line battle report he saw not long ago. Sun Chuanfang's troops were on the verge of complete collapse under the attack of the Northern Expedition.The surrender of the 72nd and 31st Divisions without a fight cast an indelible shadow on the already dispirited soldiers.Xiao seemed to sense an ominous premonition coming over him, but this feeling quickly disappeared, and his willful and fantasy-inspired nature made him pin his hopes on the battle that would begin soon.He thought that since he had no other way out, he had no choice but to take the risk.He didn't know whether this absurd wish was out of resentment and ridicule towards his father, or begging his father's spirit in heaven to forgive him for his wrong choice.He decided to rush back to Qishan immediately.

At the moment when he stood up and was about to leave his father's study, an extremely weak thought slipped through the depths of his mind and made him change his original intention again. He thought of Xing. Xing's gentle and bewildered eyes appeared in front of his eyes.It was like a burst of refreshing fruity fragrance wafting past him.He recalled the hot summer in Yuguan, the bamboo building of the pharmacy built near the water.He thought of the moment when her shadow flashed one after another in the raging flames of war, and the disaster he had brought to her these days when he came to Xiaohe.A deep sense of original sin secretly grew in his heart.

In the evening, Xiao told his mother that he was going to Yuguan tonight.The mother was not surprised by her son's words.She knew that ever since Xiao went to Yuguan to study medicine, his soul had been quietly stolen by that uncle's daughter.She sat at the table without speaking, and looked at Xiao blankly, her body trembling a little.The guard was so drunk that he seemed to know that Xiao was going to Yuguan. He struggled to straighten his legs and was about to sit up from the bed, but he just raised his head slightly and fell heavily. On the bed, fell into a deep sleep. Yuguan is 20 miles away from Xiaohe by water, and one night's round trip is enough.When Xiao walked out of the courtyard, it was almost dark.He walked through the empty fan-shaped drying yard in the middle of the village, and saw the sporadic fishing fires by the Lianshui River when the lights were on.He took a deep breath and quickened his pace. In the deepening night, he could hear the sound of rice-pulling stakes hitting stone mortars.

He came to the Lianshui River, and when he was about to untie the ship's cable to the evening camellia bushes sprinkled with night dew, a few black shadows seemed to flash behind him in the dark night.Xiao turned his head and saw Sanshun and a few people he didn't know pressing towards him with butcher's knives. The black shadows moved forward slowly, nine-inch long knives were jumping in their hands.Xiao had already retreated to the river, and he could clearly hear the sound of water flowing quietly in the Lianshui River.He pressed his hand abruptly to the hollow pistol holster at his waist.In his haste, he forgot his pistol when he went out.The six-shot pistol was now closed in the bedroom table drawer.Sanshun didn't come up, he leaned against a thorn tree, chewed the leaves, and watched calmly as his men surrounded Xiao and stabbed him to death.Suddenly, he spit out the chewed broken leaves in his mouth, and quickly walked towards Xiao, as if he suddenly remembered something:

Where's your guard? The black shadows around Xiao also seemed to wake up suddenly, they immediately left Xiao and went into the jungle, searching around carefully.They now believed that the guards seemed to be nearby.Sanshun propped up Xiao's chin with the tip of the knife: Where is that guard of yours? He was drunk Xiao said calmly.Sanshun snorted softly through his nose and didn't say anything more.After a while, the people who had sneaked into the jungle flashed out one by one, covered with cobwebs and dew.At this time, the moon appeared from the clouds, and they could see each other's faces clearly. Sanshun knew that his men hadn't found anything.

He looked at Xiao suspiciously, and he was puzzled that Xiao returned to the army without guards.His eyes were fixed on Xiao's face, and suddenly there was an undetectable expression on the corner of his mouth: Are you going to Yuguan to see that bitch? Xiao didn't answer.He looked at everything that had happened in front of him peacefully, and at the same time, he also understood that the cold and terrifying future had quietly arrived. Silence surrounded them again.After a long time, Xiao heard a slight long sigh. Sanshun had already thrown the butcher's knife in his hand into the Lianshui River, turned around and walked away.He turned his head and waved to several of his men before entering the jungle:

let him go. Perhaps it was Xiao's obsession with a disabled woman that infected him, or perhaps it was the inexplicable moodiness in his heart, Sanshun gave up the idea of ​​killing Xiao. When Xiao thought of all this hazily, those people had already disappeared in the night.