Chapter 32 Twenty-nine

Sir, have you sent a boy with a bald head and bare feet?Do you have a deranged boy here, sir?Fourteen or five years old, barefoot?Sir, it was delivered yesterday. He has no surname or first name. His name is Xiaodi The next morning, I went out and searched for that idiot all over Taipei.I first went to the third branch office, the fourth branch office, and finally the general office, but I couldn't find out where I was. In the end, I had to rush to the Taipei Mental Sanatorium.The nurse at the gate of the nursing home did not allow me to enter the ward, but only allowed me to watch from outside the iron railing.He told me that there were only two teenage patients in total, but they were both admitted to the hospital more than three months ago.One came out, a fat boy of sixteen or seventeen with tortoiseshell glasses and a face full of pimples. He wore a green cloth nightgown and stretched out a pair of fat arms like pig's feet. As if suffering from nocturnal excursions, he groped forward and walked.

Not this one?The male nurse pointed at the fat boy and asked in a low voice. Not sir I said.He is a white and thin boy with a green monk's head shaved. At noon, Taipei City was covered by the storm radius, and the wind became more and more violent.The tall coconut trees on both sides of Ren'ai Road were blown away by the wind, and the long and long leaves were blown off and fell on the road, rolling rustlingly.A utility pole on Hangzhou South Road was turned upside down at a forty-five-degree angle. Bundles of wires were loose and hung to the ground. The traffic police were blowing whistles to direct vehicles to detour.Pedestrians on the road were shaken by the blowing.A woman's plastic flower umbrella was blown into the air with a swish, like a kite that had been unthreaded, floating up and down.After a heavy rainstorm, Chongqing South Road was immediately submerged, and the yellow and turbid small river was snaking along the road.The shop signs erected on the arcades on both sides of Hengyang Street and Chengdu Road were frightened by the wind, and they all shook in Kuanglang.The big three yuan was blown off, and the signboard frame made of foreign iron rolled over the asphalt road, making a sharp sound.I rushed back to Ximending by bus, but the Silver Carriage was closed for a day and did not open.I feel hungry, but most of the snack bars in Ximending are closed.I braved the wind and walked to Wuchang Street, hoping to find some vendors there.A few fruit sellers were cleaning up their stalls, pushing carts, and going home early.A gust of wind blew in, and several vendors bent over at the same time, desperately resisting the carts full of cantaloupe and guava.The last vendor standing far away was a petite young woman with long hair blown wildly by the wind. She was wearing an earth red sarong, and the skirt was blown up, revealing her blue and white calves.Her cart was full of bright red tomatoes.The woman leaned forward with her shoulders against the cart, but her slender body was no match for the strong wind, and she was forced to stagger back and forth.She let go of her feet, sat down and fell to the ground, the cart bumped back and forth, and a dozen or so tomatoes fell off with a clatter, and the bright red ones rolled all over the floor.I hurried over, grabbed the cart handle, and stabilized the car.The woman got up from the ground.She saw the tomatoes on the ground, some of which were still soaked in the sewage, and sighed with regret:

Ai. She picked up the skirt, bent down, picked up the red persimmons on the ground one by one, and put them in the skirt.She wiped the few undamaged ones with the corner of her skirt, and put them back on the cart. The remaining five or six pieces were broken and the juice dripped out.The woman picked out a particularly large one, handed it to me and said: Let's eat the unsold ones. I'm not too polite, thank you, then took the persimmon, and gnawed on it.The persimmons are ripe and sweet as honey.The woman herself picked one, and we stood in the wind, eating the broken persimmon together.She was about twenty-seven or eight years old, with big deep-set eyes and a pointed chin, and she had probably just exerted herself, and her pale face was flushed.She probably watched me eating happily, her big deep-set eyes stared at me indulgently, and said with a smile:

It's sweet, isn't it? As she spoke, she handed me another persimmon that was injured by the fall.I haven't had these overripe, sweet tomatoes in years.I remember that two days before my mother ran away from home that year, she suddenly became very gentle towards me. That day she bought a few tomatoes and came home, and unexpectedly called me to the patio and sat on a low stool , Peel persimmons with her to eat.Those few tomatoes were already overripe, and the skin would be torn off as soon as they were torn apart.After peeling a persimmon, my mother took a bite first, and exclaimed in surprise:

So sweet! I handed the remaining half to me, I took two bites, it was really sweet, but with a little astringent taste of persimmon. Is it delicious?Mother smiled. She took off her handkerchief and wiped the persimmon juice from the corner of my mouth.Probably because my mother had never been so intimate with me before, I was flattered and puzzled by her sudden caress, so that I became a little embarrassed. Hei Zi, do you know?Your mother sold persimmons when she was young!Mother recalled thoughtfully.Mother seldom mentioned her life at her adoptive parents' house in the Taoyuan countryside, and when she mentioned it occasionally, she was full of resentment.In our country garden, there are more than a dozen persimmon trees by the pond.The persimmons are ripe and I can’t finish them, so your grandma asked me to sell them in the town. If I can’t sell them, I will eat them all by myself. My mother giggled and said, eating too much, my stomach hurts!

The mother leaned forward and back with a smile, and her long black hair waved like a black satin.I saw my mother smiling so happily, like a little girl, and I also laughed with her.That was the only time that our mother and son laughed so ecstatically together.Two days later, the mother disappeared. I want to buy two catties of persimmons.I said to the vendor woman. Fifteen yuan a catty, she looked at me and said, and then picked four of the largest and brightest red ones, weighed them with a scale, and handed them to me, and the wind blew the scales into the air. Two catties and two taels, let’s count you as two catties.she said kindly.

Thank you. I thanked her and slipped a thirty-dollar bill to her. She put the money into the pocket of her skirt, pushed up her car, and walked hard against the wind, her hair fluttered high in the wind.When I turned around, she looked at me, but smiled again. I held the bag of persimmons, got on the bus, and headed for the South Airport.I want to take that bag of red and big tomatoes to my mother. When I arrived at the dark and damp concrete building where my mother lived in a bunker-like building on Kenan Road, South Airport, the person who opened the door was the same old woman with white scars on her forehead from last time. said:

You are Ali's eldest son, Ah Qing, aren't you? I'll bring something to my mother, Abasan, I replied. The old woman let me in, and when I walked into the dim hall, she stopped me and said: You wait a moment. As she said that, she went inside, took out a cage made of bamboo strips, threw it on the ground with a slam, lifted the lid, pointed to the cage and said, panting: Everything left by Ali is here. The bamboo cage was filled with tattered clothes, and the medicine-smelling black fleece sweater my mother wore last time was also covered inside.The old woman bent down, reached into the cage and flipped it over for a while, pulling out the mother's two spotted and yellowed underwear, and there was a pungent smell in the cage.

There is nothing valuable, if you want, just take a few.The old woman looked up and said to me. What time is it? I asked quietly. when was the last time you cameThe old woman turned her head, squinted her eyes and thought for a while and asked, the sparse bun hanging on the back of her head seemed to fall off at any moment. It's the Hungry Ghost Festival, July 15th. That's right, the next day, in the middle of the night, I lost my breath. I held the bag of persimmons tightly with both hands, and watched the old woman squatting on the ground, turning left and right the rags in the cage. After a while, she stood up, clapped her hands, and chattered:

Ali has been ill for so long and slept in bed for more than three months. Do you know how much it cost?We are not rich people, it is very difficult.This time, the cremation fee was 3,000 yuan, which was paid by Ali herself, and we fulfilled her wish.To be honest, my son can be considered worthy of her. The old woman smacked her lips and sighed, and counted to me. When she saw that I didn't answer, but kept looking at the pile of rags in the bamboo cage, she sneered and said: Her gold ring?How much is it worth?I paid for it early.You came today, just in time.Your mother left a message: In any case, you should send her ashes back to your home and bury her next to her youngest son.

Where are her ashes placed?I cut her off. Dalongdong Dabei Temple, we have already discussed with the teacher and father in the temple, you can get it yourself. Dabei Temple is a dilapidated and desolate temple surrounded by scattered illegal buildings.Some poor old people had nowhere to live, so they squeezed into the monastery to live.When I entered the temple, I saw groups of old men in ragged clothes huddled together.Some were sitting blankly on the benches, and some were whispering among each other.A young novice led me to meet the abbot of the temple. He was an old monk in his seventies, with a frown, a short body, so dry that only a skeleton remained, and the black cassock on his body was dragging. , almost to the ground.I explained to him the purpose of my visit, but the old monk's hearing was impaired, and when I spoke, he covered his ears with his hands, and his bald, sunken mouth opened all the way, murmuring incessantly.I called my mother's name several times in his ear, and he nodded as if he had realized something. Huang Lixia came in more than half a month ago, right?The old monk's voice was trembling and hoarse. Yes, teacher father. They said she was waiting for her son to come and take her home I am her son, Huang Lixia's son, I bent down and said loudly in his ear. cough.The old monk sighed, muttered a few words to himself, then waved his hand at me and said: Come with me, brother. The old monk walked out tremblingly, his cassock was blown up by a gust of strong wind, and his thin body shook several times.I followed him and walked towards the Hall of Bliss on the right side of the temple.The hall is where the spiritual bones are placed. It is dark inside. There is a three-layer wooden frame against the front wall. There are three rows of urns with soy sauce black round bellies. A dim, ever-burning lamp.Labels were pasted on the ashes urns. Some of them were old and no one was buried. A layer of ash had accumulated on the urns, and the labels became burnt yellow, and the surnames on them were blurred. Huang Lixia is here. The old monk walked over, bent down, stretched out his hand tremblingly, and pressed it on the fourth jar from the left in the second row.I hurried over.It was a new jar, in the darkness, still reflecting the light slightly.The label is white with the words Taoyuan Huang Lixia written on it.The urn is about a foot high, and it is made of black pottery with a rough surface. It is squeezed in the middle of several urns. Come and take your mother away. The old monk turned to me and said, I put the bag of persimmons under my arm, bent down, and picked up my mother's urn with both hands. Master, I want to go to the hall to offer a stick of incense.I said to the old monk.The old monk nodded, opened his shriveled mouth twice, and then led me staggeringly through the corridor to the main hall.When he reached the gate of the Great Compassion Hall, he stopped and said to me: Younger brother, put your mother outside the hall. There are Buddhas and Bodhisattvas inside. She cannot enter. I placed my mother's ashes on the ground outside the threshold of the Hall of Great Compassion, and walked into the hall. There was an ebony horizontal plaque hanging above the hall door. The gold paint of the four characters Kuhai Cihang had peeled off, and a crack was opened in the middle of the wooden plaque.The shrine in the hall was dark and covered with dust. The huge Buddha statue in the center of the hall was probably in disrepair for a long time due to lack of incense.There are incense candles and fruits on the altar, and the wind blows in from outside the hall, blowing the cigarettes around.I put those bright red tomatoes in the offering dish on the stage, and asked the old monk for a stick of incense. Because of the strong wind, I struck a match three times before lighting it up. His eyes are hot and sour.I held the stick of incense with both hands, inserted it into a blue porcelain incense basin on the stage, retreated to the center of the hall, and knelt down in front of the huge Buddha statue.I myself have never entered a temple, burned incense and worshiped Buddha.But I remember when I was a child, every year on Guanyin’s birthday, my mother bought incense candles and went to the temple of Guanyin in Banqiao where incense was flourishing.Once she took me and my younger brother together, and asked us to kneel down to worship Guanyin Bodhisattva with her. Her petite body prostrated at the feet of Guanyin Bodhisattva, and her long hair almost fell to the ground.Mother clasped her hands together, murmured in her mouth, begging to talk, her big deep-set eyes were flickering fiercely, emitting an extremely painful light.On the Ghost Festival that day, I went to visit her. She held my hand tightly and asked me to go to the temple to offer a stick of incense for her, begging the Buddha to rebirth, and to forgive her life's sins.At that time, her eyes that had turned into two black holes were also full of fear and panic.Mother must have been afraid of something all her life, that's why her eyes flickered like a pair of frightened fawns, scurrying around.All her life, she was terrified, fleeing, and wandering. She followed her men, one after another, wandering for half her life, but she never found her destination. In the end, she fell into paralysis on her bed full of quilts that smelled of sweat and medicine. On the broken bed, infected with viciousness all over her body, she must be extremely lonely and miserable when she dies.However, her broken body had been burned into ashes and sealed in the rough clay altar outside the temple. Could it be that the ashes in the altar still carried the sins of her life?I kowtowed down towards the Buddha, and pressed my forehead against the cold millstone floor of the Buddha Hall. Brother, send your mother back quickly, a strong wind is coming After praying, the old monk waved to me with a trembling voice. He was standing on the stone steps outside the hall, and the black cassock on his body was trembling eagerly in the wind.