After traveling through half of China, I deeply feel that the landscape in the south is too beautiful, only suitable for enjoyment. The sound of the water of the Li River is as touching as the mountain song of Liu Sanjie, but it is only a village girl like Liu Sanjie. And when I really sat in a small boat in the Yellow River in the wind and waves, in the Yellow River flood waves, I clearly heard countless throats in the cry.
This cry has been echoing from ancient times to today. There was the roar of Pangu when he opened the sky and opened the earth, and there was the song of Shennong when he harvested the first grain of rice; there was the labor cry of Dayu when he cured the water, and there was the cry of millions of corpses and bones at the foot of the Great Wall; there was Su Qin’s combined columns, and Zhang Yi’s linked columns; there was the song of the coronation of the First Emperor of Qin, and there was the thunder of that stormy night in the township of Dazhaxiang; there was the wind of Liu Bang, and there was the song of Cao Cao; there was Fu Jian’s ambitions, and there was the drum of the An Shi rebels; there was Zong Ze’s three calls to cross the river, and there was the stamping of the hooves of the Mongol army; there was “the king of intruders, and the drums of the Mongolian army. There was the ambition of Fu Jian, and the drums of the An Shi rebels; there was the grief of Zong Ze’s three cries to cross the river, and the stamping of the iron hooves of the Mongol army; there was the nursery rhyme of “the king of intruders doesn’t pay for grain”, and the barbaric proclamation of “keep your head but not your hair, keep your hair but not your head”. There were also the gunshots of Xinhai, the shelling of the Northern Expedition, the howling of the Eastern devil, and the roar of the wind and the neighing of the horses in the green tents in the thousands of mountains on both sides of the Yellow River.
Boating on the Yellow River, I often feel as if I were boating in the long river of history, upstream, five thousand years of songs are accumulated in the thick sediment at the bottom of the river, by the bronze-skinned boatmen with the most rough throat roar out of the story of this nation of great joys and great sorrows.
This was my sixth visit to the Yellow River. Each time I was supported by the same person – an old boatman in his seventies, and this time was no exception. The wrinkles crisscrossing his face were reminiscent of Luo Zhongli’s oil painting “Father”, with the characteristic mark of the Chinese nation, and the rough skin tightly strangling the rippling sinews of his arms. His boat is worn out, but it gives people an inexplicable sense of security, even if it is a shocking wave you can rest assured that your life will be entrusted to him.
The boat is traveling against the water, the river is huge, the mountains are magnificent. Looking at the two sides of the rolling loess plateau, I feel as if the ancestors of the Chinese people have been incarnated in this plateau, is looking down at me, a kind of history and the years of awe.
The boat traveled to the mouth of the gorge, the water current is rapid, the wave foam splash. The old boatman struggled to hold the yawl, the boat in the repeated impacts are still tenacious to meet the waves, avoiding the reefs and shoals, showing that they will not go with the flow of the will. The river pounced on the boat gang, crashed to pieces, was blown by the wind to my face, cool, with water and earth. The Yellow River, mother river ah, could this be the flavor of mother’s milk?
A long yell from Manticore rang through the hazy sky, echoing across the river and valley:
“Going up a high mountain, I see a flat river, and my second sister is in the bay. The Yellow River flows to the East Sea. My brother misses my sister, but can’t get to her.”
I looked up and followed the sound, a figure in an old sheepskin jacket and a few goats disappeared behind a dead tree at the top of the cliff, while the sound of his song curled up. By this time the boat had rushed through the gorge, and there was again a wide expanse of soothing water in front of me.
“That’s nice.” I said softly.
As if he had heard my words, the unknown shepherd gave a loud and crunchy shake of his sheep-whip, and all of a sudden there was an echo in heaven and earth, and then he sang another tune out of sight, and the old boatman standing at the stern and sculling the boat sang in response.
This time they sang lyrics full of local dialect, I listened to half understand, only feel the tune is bleak and high, full of endless bitterness. The two of you a section, I a section, as two lonely geese in the air circling each other, fighting the wind through the clouds, finally flying higher and higher, higher and farther away, and finally the shepherd’s song disappeared far away in the sky, drifting away from the trail.
The journey was speechless, and near the destination, the old boatman who had been silently supporting the boat invited me to his home as a guest. He said that when people get old, they will have a very spiritual premonition, and he had a premonition that when I came to the Yellow River next time, he might have left this world, and I came to the Yellow River six times, and six times I was ferried by him, which is a kind of destiny. At the time of parting, go to his house to sit and drink some wine, it is not in vain of these years of acquaintance.
“Seventy-three, eighty-four, Hades doesn’t call itself.” He said calmly.
This is exactly what I want, just now that part of the folk song combines the two styles of “Albatross” and “Flowers”, which I have never heard before in my life, I subconsciously imagined myself to be an ancient poetry collector, this romantic profession needs to go to all possible places to collect the wealth of art, but I am not a bee that spreads pollen, I’m just a butterfly that sucks pollen and is insatiable. pollen-sucking butterfly, and insatiable.
It was nearly dusk when the boat docked, and we could see a sparse light in the distance, which was the village. The old boatman tied the boat in a bay, we jumped ashore, stepping on the wet countryside mud road to the lights. Rugged mountain roads often give people a very strong illusion, obviously the lights are in front of the eyes, but can not go in front of it, more than half an hour later, we walked into the village, when the black sky has completely covered the earth, a dog smelled the smell of living people, behind the high walls of the barking wildly more than one, led to the whole village of the dogs are barking.
Passing by the village grocery store, the old boatman bought wine, peanut rice, and half a catty of pork, said he wanted to drink a little with me, although I do not win the wine, but at this time to refuse is tantamount to an insult to the host, so I have to harden my heart and pretend to be boozy and reluctantly agreed to do so.
The old shipwright’s home is two dilapidated tiled houses, the adobe courtyard wall has collapsed in half over the years of wind and rain, and there is a large pile of soil against the wall. The yard was cluttered with piles of things. His wife had died many years ago and he had no children, but the house was neatly cleaned up, without the mess and filth of a normal bachelor’s house.
The old boatman drank a bowl of cold water, greeted me on the bed, brought out an old red lacquer square table and put it on the bed, took out the bowls and chopsticks, cut up the pork and put it in two big coarse porcelain bowls with peanuts, put it on the table, and poured wine in the other two bowls. He crossed his legs on the bed, raised the bowl and said, “Older brother, we have known each other for so many years on the Yellow River, I know that you are not ordinary, so let’s dry this bowl first, and then we can talk slowly.”
I also raised my bowl and said, “Older brother, you think highly of me, if I don’t do it, I’m not giving you face, I’ll give up my life today to drink with you to the end!”
These words were right up his alley, and with his thumbs up, he said, “Alright, I’ll drink first!” Tilting his neck, he gulped down the bowl of wine.
I put the bowl just to my mouth, a strong smell of alcohol went straight to my head, and I wanted to vomit, I clenched my teeth, and poured the bowl of wine into my mouth, it was as if a line of fire was burning my esophagus and stomach, and I choked and coughed loudly, and in the end, the bowl of wine still let me drink, and after a few moments, the blood boiled all over my body.
I wiped away the tears and snot from my cough, but I saw the old boatman sitting on the opposite side of the boat looking at me with a smile on his face, saying, “Older brother, I’ve been on this Yellow River for several decades, and I’ve seen a lot of people. There is no one in the world who can’t drink, only those who dare to drink, and only those who have the guts to drink can be considered to have guts. Just now that bowl of wine I just want to see your guts, you do not drink, I will not make you a friend today, I can see that you are a man. Feel free to do as you wish below, I won’t force myself.”
In the blink of an eye, the two bowls were filled with wine, I ate a few bites of food, the wine turned up, a little dizzy. With the strength of alcohol, I talked about my years of wandering, the local customs, and my own experience: fighting in Xinjiang, sheep herding in Inner Mongolia, cheating in Beijing, Shanghai, and even in the border trafficked a bit of white powder, under the action of alcohol, the memory is surprisingly clear, and those many years ago, as if the old things are still vivid in my mind. The old shipwright drank and listened, from time to time to add in a section of his own experience, but also let me listen to the God.
After three rounds of wine, a bottle of wine has seen the bottom, the old shipwright unscrewed the lid of another bottle of wine. At this time I happen to talk about my teenage follow the carpenter master traveled the world days, through the wine, I pat put wine and food dark red lacquer square table, said: “old brother, don’t blame my brother to be honest, your family is really nothing valuable things, this table is not bad, wood, workmanship, and this paint, no one work is not a good handicraft. I tell you, this carpenter and cook, the more simple things, the more to see the real skill. Do this table on the hands of the person at least have more than ten years of skill, my master to be in the year, also do not see can make such a one to.”
The old shipwright hemmed and hawed and said, “I’ll count on you to be right, it’s the best carpenter under the sky, give him such a piece of wood, he may not be able to make it for me. Guess who made this table?”
I asked drunkenly, “Who did that?”
“I do.”
“Blow it off your old brother, if you had this skill you’d still be here holding the boat? You’d be rich by now.”
“Don’t believe me?” The old shipwright took a sip of wine and said, “It’s true that I have no carpentry skills, but it’s also true that I made this table.”
“Really?” I leaned forward and said, “Tell me how you did it?”
Instead, he fell silent, the smile disappeared from his face, picked up the bowl of wine, and sipped it one mouthful at a time. In the middle of the day, he sighed, put down the empty wine bowl, refilled it again, brought it up, and said, “Older brother, if you really want to know, then dry this bowl of wine with me.”
I vaguely felt that there seemed to be something unusual behind this table, so I forced myself to pour a bowl of wine, and strangely instead, I was much more sober. I only heard him sigh, “More than fifty years …… I have one leg in the coffin, what else can not see? Told you, I can still feel a little pain in my heart.”
So I heard the following story. The old boatman’s thick dialect accent forced me to retell the story in my own words. And with every word I typed, a tremor ran through my hand.
＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊
“Seventy-six years ago, I was born in a small village on the banks of the Yellow River, not here, of course; my old home is far, far away, farther than you can imagine.”
“My home was close to the Yellow River, and its rushing roar was the lullaby of my childhood. My father was a well-known boatman from near and far, and I was his only son. During his many years of stormy career, he had walked in front of the ghost gate more than once, and he couldn’t afford to let me go to hold the boat again, and even forbade me to go on his boat, to see and touch it. So instead of following in my father’s footsteps, as is usual in the family, I have been working in the fields since I was six years old, and by the time I was fifteen I was a good hand in the land.”
“Fifteen is a very strange age, and people call a postulant at this time a half-grown man, which means, plainly, a half-grown man. It’s a time when people start to understand a little bit about everything, but not too much, and are curious about everything. Like sex, like women and men.”
“The morning after my first spermatozoa, I went to work in the field listlessly, and when I sat down on the field to rest, Yin Laoshi, who was next to my field, came over to me to borrow a fire to smoke a dry cigarette. He was three years older than me, had been married for a long time, and had just had a son a few months before, and we were usually on good terms, so I told him with anxiety about the strange things I had found when I got up in the morning. He laughed heartily at this, and then, in a curl of green smoke, told me all about being a real man.”
“The shock I felt at that moment was indescribable, that the world hidden behind morality and chastity was like this, that there were such things in the world, such wonderful things that could make one lose one’s mind and all thought.”
“I began to remember everything from last night’s dream, and yes, the sensation was so mind-blowing that I could just feel the blood racing around my body. My penis involuntarily swelled up, bulging out of my crotch, stubbornly trying to burst through the rough pants that bound it. Yin Laoshi noticed my abnormality, smiled, tapped his tobacco poker on the shaft of my penis, and got up to leave.”
“I sat alone in the field until dusk, when I slowly returned home carrying my hoe. Mother was preparing supper, and seeing me looking disoriented, she pressed me to ask what had happened, and I dealt with it vaguely, stretching out my arms and legs and lying down on the kang to rest.”
“Mother stood on tiptoe, busy on the ground. It was summer, and her sweat-soaked shirt clearly outlined the contours of her full breasts, which quivered slightly as she walked. Watching her slightly bloated waist and hips wriggle under her pants, I suddenly realized for the first time that she wasn’t just my mother, she was a woman. Her body suddenly became attractive in a flash in a very strong way, making my eyes stay on her for a long time and not want to move away.”
“I remembered the things Old Four had said to me during the day, and the strange noises I had heard countless nights; could it be, that she and my father did such things in the darkness? I can’t restrain myself from imagining what happens in that darkness.”
“The question was soon answered. In the evening, after a hasty meal, the poor could not afford to light a lamp, so they had to go to bed early. There were three people sleeping on one bed. I lay on the kang, tossing and turning, unable to sleep, feeling as if I were waiting for something, but not knowing exactly what I was waiting for. Time gradually passed, and I began to get sleepy in a daze, my mind was confused, and I slowly sank toward my dreams.”
“Suddenly, I heard my father whisper, ‘Is Bao Wa asleep yet?’ With a jolt, I came to my senses and was busy pretending to snore.”
“‘Falling asleep, all snoring.’ It was Mother who spoke. Father ‘oh’d,’ and after a few moments there was a slight stirring sound in the darkness, as if rats were scurrying. Father’s breathing became steeply ragged.”
“‘Save your strength, you have work to do tomorrow.’ Mother said to Father, and suddenly she was heard to grunt and gasp softly.”
“I opened my eyes, and the faint moonlight filtered through the windowpane, and saw two blurred figures overlapping and tumbling in the darkness, casting blue shadows on the wall. I could even tell that Mother was at the bottom and Father was at the top, strong, sturdy arms pressing against Mother, one hand grasping at her breasts as if kneading a ball of dough. Mother’s body was wrapped around Father’s like a snake, her legs spread unashamedly wide, exposing the fat field inside to the heavens outside, where Father ploughed, plowing deep into it with every drop of the hoe.”
“The commotion grew louder and louder, and the two men’s breathing became more and more rapid. Niang could not restrain herself from crying out in a low voice: ‘Kissing brother…kissing hanzi …… day to the sister good to live …… sister does not live … …dying ……'”
“Dad gasping thick breath, make the movement can lift the roof, I was surprised to clearly hear the skin and flesh touching the popping sound! Mother desperately holding her voice, throat issued a crying voice, ‘ah …… ah …… brother …… pinch me here! …… give me a rub …… pro brother…good brother …… give sister a rub… …ah …… ah … big stick stabbed sister to death …… stabbed …… inward stabbing …… ah …… ah ……'”
“I’m going crazy: this is my mother! This is my own mother! This is coming from my own mother who usually barely speaks to other men in the village! So slutty, so prodigal, so shameless! The feeling of being hot in the ground during the day returned once again, and my penis jumped out of its pocket cloth, swollen and uncomfortable. I held it in my hand and realized it was much bigger, thicker, harder, and hotter than usual.”
“I don’t know what kind of force drove me, but I subconsciously stroked it a few times, and at once a sensation I’d never felt before came from my glans, like a cone straight up to the top of my head, slamming into my heart, and all of a sudden I lashed out frantically. Yes, this is what I felt in my dream last night, like a bird flying free and galloping in the sky, and as if dipping in a river flowing with hot water and going with the flow, this is what I was waiting for!”
“Father made it harder, mother could not even speak, just intermittent grunts and strange screams, legs stirring on the bed, kicking off the broken quilt. Dad balled up the quilt and padded it underneath Niang’s waist, cushioning Niang’s fat white buttocks, one hand reaching in between her legs, Niang trying to push it away with her hand, ‘Don’t …… don’t pick at it there … dirty … …’Dad shook off her hand and stubbornly reached into that place. Suddenly she let out a scream that pierced through the roof tiles and straight out into the night sky outside, no longer caring whether I heard or not.”
“She let her voice loose and howled, like a bitch in heat, her legs up, the soles of her feet to the sky, her arms around Dad’s neck. Dad slammed his prick into her hard like a pile driver, his throat cackling. I rimmed my cock and my hand sped up, my head spinning, the whole thing like a dream, but knowing distinctly that it wasn’t a dream. I wanted to stop, but my hand wouldn’t obey me, instead I got faster and faster, as if a big car without a driver was racing wildly toward a cliff, and finally fell off unstoppably.”
“The moment of collapse came, a huge wave of pleasure hit me and overwhelmed me completely, my testicles shuddered and I shivered as semen erupted from my body in a raging spurt, spraying a sticky mess all over the comforter.”
“Just then, suddenly Dad stifled a yell, and Mother screamed out in spite of herself: ‘Don’t draw it out …… wait for me ……’ Dad did his best to go on and on. Finally, it wasn’t long before Mother got it right too. The two hugged each other, stiffening. The cackling sound of teeth clenching together rang out in the darkness. Slowly, they went limp. Mother drew the quilt from underneath her and covered the two men tightly.”
“After the orgasm comes exhaustion, and after the initial wave of excitement passes, the mind sinks into a thick sleep. I was so weak that I lay under the covers with my eyes closed before realizing that I had broken out in a sweat. I was about to fall asleep when I suddenly heard Mother talking to Father.”
“‘Brother, your body is not what it used to be. You’re tired from supporting the boat during the day, so let’s do it a few times less at night from now on; your health is important.'”
“‘Flower, I’m not afraid, I’m afraid you won’t make it through. Thirty is like a wolf and forty is like a tiger and fifty can suck dirt when sitting on the ground. You’ll want it more than ever, can I stand by and watch you suffer?'”
“‘I’m not afraid of suffering a little. You are alone outside in the wind and rain, suffer a lot. The two of us have been running out for so many years, how much suffering have we endured to support such a family, if you have any health problems,…… how can I live? I’m not sure how I’m going to survive if you have any health problems. That day if not I have to pester you to get let father see, father will not live to die ……’ mother whimpered up.”
“‘Don’t cry, Hana, don’t cry. It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I forced you first. It’s been twenty years, why can’t you get over it? I’m a big animal, and if a blood brother had raped his own sister, what father wouldn’t be angry. It’s been more than twenty years, and we’re about to meet our parents in the ground, so I’ll take care of it for you, whether it’s in the frying pan or pulling out your tongue. Go to sleep, don’t think about it.'”
“‘No, should I take the burden for you, that day is to take advantage of the parents are not there, I deliberately changed good clothes to seduce you to let you day, pro sister seduced pro brother, I am more shameless than Pan Jinlian. Brother, you must take care of your body and bones, when it is time to go down I will go down first, and beg for mercy with the king of Yan …… ” Niang’s voice came to a crashing halt, as if Dad had covered her mouth with his hand.”
“‘Don’t talk about it. Go to sleep. There’s still a long way to go. Bao Wa hasn’t gotten married yet. If we’re going to leave, we have to wait until we see our grandchildren, okay?'”
“Mother didn’t say anything, probably nodded. The room went quiet, and before long there was the sound of Dad’s even snoring, interspersed with Mother’s sniffles, coming and going as if a husband and wife were singing together.”
“I didn’t come back to my senses for a long time, and what was revealed in their repartee didn’t bring me out of my shock until the day was white: my father and mother, they were actually brother and sister!”
“This fact gave me no less of a shock than when I first learned about men and women. My parents, they turned out to be an incestuous brother and sister, and I, the product of that incest! I never slept again, and the entire next day, I was sleepwalking. When I went down to work, when I was dry, I would stop and freeze there on my hoe, thinking about everything that had happened during the night, thinking about the words of my mother and father: ‘Pro-brother sunned pro-sister,’ ‘Pro-sister seduced pro-brother.'”
“For the next few days, it was like that every day. I couldn’t accept the fact that my father and mother seemed so much stranger to me; they were no longer the strict father and mother they once were, but like an adulterous couple, filled with the blur of their naked bodies entwined together at night. Even though they were no different from before, their words and behavior became indescribably strange in my eyes.”
“While my bedtime remained early each day, I fell asleep later and later, waiting to eavesdrop on yet another passion between my father and mother, not every day, of course, but every time I heard it I was unusually aroused, and the pleasure I felt when I masturbated was much more intense than usual, and I don’t know why, perhaps it was because of my innate ability, as a product of incest, to have a keen empathy with, and identification with, the act of incest. “
“I began to pay attention to Niang’s every move. Niang’s body was as voluptuous as any woman’s at that age, especially her tits and ass, and every quivering of her tits and ass caused by her work and walking gave me visual stimulation. I often had images in my mind of Niang stripped naked, her snow-white flesh dazzlingly wiggling and twisting her ample tits and ass before my eyes.”
“Soon, Mother sensed something strange about me – a trance and a darkening of my face caused by chronic stress and lack of sleep. Perhaps she had guessed that I had heard their room service, but didn’t realize that I had heard something more insidious. She began to discuss with Father that it was time to get me a daughter-in-law.”
“After the fall harvest that year, my parents began to arrange a marriage for me. The matchmaker swore on the edge of the bed that she would take care of it, but a poor family’s daughter-in-law is not that easy to talk about! After running all over the countryside, I finally found a family willing to marry me off at the beginning of winter, from a village 30 miles away. The girl wasn’t bad-looking and could work, but most importantly, she didn’t ask for too much in the way of a bride price. After drinking the engagement wine, it was agreed that the wedding would take place in the New Year.”
“Since then, the weather was colder every day, the Yellow River froze, and Dad couldn’t go out to prop up the boat, so he and Mother made preparations for my marriage at home.”
“Dad propped up more than 20 years boat, more or less saved a little money, but used to do the wedding, still stretched to the limit, Dad had to scramble to borrow money, in order to borrow a little money to run dozens of miles. Even so, to the time after the eighth day of the month, there is still a sum of money is not settled, and this money is in any case can not get out, father anxious worry white dozens of hair, in order to this money anxiety, running around, but the result is all around the wall.”
“One day he went out and didn’t come back for the whole night. My mother and I were so worried that we feared something had happened to him that we sat on the bed the whole night without daring to close our eyes and waited for Dad. When morning came, he came back, his hair and face disheveled, his eyes darkened, but his face full of joy. Mother greeted him, patted the dust on his clothes, and asked with concern where he had been all night. Father shivered and fumbled a cloth bag out of his arms, opened it layer by layer, and when he lifted the last layer, my mother and I saw a bright light in front of our eyes.”
“‘Taiyo!’ Mother exclaimed. Not bad, wrapped in the cloth bag in his father’s hand was none other than a silver shaking piece of ocean. ‘His father, where did you get it?’ Mother asked eagerly, ‘You haven’t done anything to hurt the world, have you!'”
“Father proudly re-wrapped the ocean, handed over to the mother’s hand, could not restrain the joy in his heart, said: ‘Where do you want to go, we are poor, but can not hurt the things of heaven and earth, this money do you know how to come? I won it at Boss Qiao’s house, one night, one piece of ocean, one piece of ocean ah! Mother held the piece of ocean, her hand trembling unceasingly.”
“Boss Qiao is a famous dilettante, his house is a gambling den, every day there are many gamblers in there all night wild gambling, overnight loss of wealth of a few. Often people lost so much that they bet their house, land, and wife. I didn’t think that my father, who has always been simple and hardworking, would go down to the casino and actually win money.”
“Mother’s face but not much joy, put the money away, said to father: ‘his father, we really can not get money, and that side to say, I see they are also sensible people, not too difficult for us. This Qiao Lao everyone, or don t go, in case of loss, that …… ‘”
“Father interrupted her with a wave of his hand and said, ‘I’m sure I can’t lose; our family is poor, but we can’t lose face by marrying a daughter-in-law.’ Mother wanted to say something else, but Father had already gone into the inner room and fallen asleep on the bed.”
“For several nights in a row, my father came back at dawn with a tired body, carrying one or two pieces of ocean in a cloth bag in his arms. The look of sorrow was swept from his face, and every day he excitedly counted with his mother how much he still lacked, and how many days were left before he could make it all up, as if life had steeped up into something infinitely more beautiful, with a look of happiness such as I had never seen in the past fifteen years.”
“But on the morning of the seventh day, when father came back, his lips were purple with cold, and as soon as he entered the door, he rushed to the stove and squatted down shivering and roasting the fire, and the old sheepskin jacket on his body did not know where it had gone. Mother rushed to add firewood to the stove, and carried a quilt to father around, after a long time, father only slowed down.”
“‘What’s the matter with you, his father? Where is your fur coat?’ Mother asked anxiously.”
“‘Lost…’ Dad spat out those two words in frustration after drinking half a ladle of hot water and never spoke again.”
“After Dad warmed up, he collapsed on the kang and slept for the whole day, and Mother told him to eat, but he didn’t. When the sun went down, Dad got up from the kang, and with a sullen face, he put two pieces of cold bread in his pocket, and then he was going to go out again. Mother stopped him at the door, ‘His father, don’t go, I’ve seen enough money, the money won by playing money won’t last long, how can you win every day.’
“I also followed Mother to stop Father, said: ‘Father, tomorrow I go to talk to the Lan Cao family, let them grace grace …… ‘ sentence did not finish, Father roared: ‘You a little brat know nothing! ‘ Reaching out to push me away toward the door on the go, mother went up to tug on one of his arms, was he threw aside, a stagger fell into my arms, father did not look back out the door, disappeared in the vast night.”
“I held my mother, her head resting against my firm chest, and for the first time I felt a man’s innate desire to be protective of a woman, even though this woman was my mother, but she was a woman first and foremost. This desire made me just want to hold her like this, to let her lean against me for as long as possible. She didn’t say a word, just stared blankly out the door, tears gradually roaming out of her eyes and crawling all over her face. When it was finally all dark, I helped Mother into the house, and she sat frozen on the bed; no matter how I tried to persuade her, she just didn’t speak.”
“After fifteen years, her brother, her husband never bothered to hit her or scold her, so you can imagine how hurt she was this time. I saw that Mother could not be persuaded, so I wanted to go to Qiaolu’s house to drag Father back. Mother refused to let me go, saying, ‘Let your father go, suffer a loss and learn a good lesson; if he doesn’t suffer a loss he’ll never turn back, and that’s a good thing.'”
“That night, Dad lost two more pieces of ocean, and when he came back, he robbed the only jewelry that Mother had brought out of her mother’s house that year, the silver ring that he was going to give to his new daughter-in-law, and went to exchange it for alcohol, and got very drunk. It was the first time I had ever seen him drink. When he woke up, Dad rummaged through the cupboards to find out the mother hid the ocean and went to the casino. Mother had hoped that Dad would learn a lesson and didn’t try to stop him, but she was wrong.”
“Dad’s face became more and more ugly every day since then when he came back, his eyes became more and more bloodshot, and his temper became worse and worse. This once poor but warm home became so unpleasant in his eyes. He began to become inseparable from alcohol, and every day he was always covered with the smell of alcohol, and when he drank too much, he went crazy with alcohol, quarreled with his mother for an excuse, and sometimes even hit her with his hands, and when he had drunk enough, he went to the casino to gamble.”
“Mother hid the money, he went through the box and looked for it, and turned the house upside down. Really can not find the money to take the family to prepare for the New Year’s Eve to do the New Year’s goods in exchange for money to gamble, the more you lose the more you gamble, the more you gamble the more you lose, and finally the more you lose more and more. The New Year’s goods were sold off by Dad, and on New Year’s Eve my mother and I could only drink gluten soup.”
“Not only the New Year’s goods, as long as the value of some money things were taken by the father to exchange for alcohol, gambling capital, the original little furnishings of the family gradually revealed the four walls. My marriage naturally fell through. The woman’s family returned the bride price and left word that as long as my father quit gambling, there was room for maneuver within a year.”
“As soon as the woman’s family left, Dad took the bride price and exchanged it for alcohol, then plunged headlong into the casino. He lost money faster and faster, from a dollar a day, or at most two dollars a day, to at least three dollars a day. In a few days’ time, he lost all the money he had saved and borrowed. Then he began to cheat everyone he could, borrowing money from them. Because of Dad’s once-good reputation, he was able to borrow money at first, but soon people all knew about his gambling, and money could not be borrowed, and he began to steal from them.”
“Father began seldom to spend the night at home, and when he did it was with a whimper, and I could no longer hear him and Mother making love. On moonlit nights I often heard Mother’s sighs and low sobs, and it was hard to sleep after tossing and turning on the bed, and when I got up the next day I saw her with swollen eyes. Sometimes I could hear Mother’s soft, sharp gasps and moans, running like a mouse at the end of the bed. I had an urge to crawl the short distance to her side, to hold her and comfort her. The urge seemed like a fire burning me, and every night I fought it.”
“Mother and I were in great pain. Father lost the money after the mother as a punching bag, often in a drunken looking for a small thing to beat her up, the ruthlessness of the hand as if that is not and he did more than ten years of husband and wife pillow people, but a and he has a deep hatred of the enemy. Shoes, through the bar, spade handle …… copied what is what, often beat the mother to death, after beating the mother still have to cook for him, if there is no wine at dinner time, the mother will have to take a beating again.”
“Although I am strong, but after all, I am only fifteen years old, and father has been supporting the boat for twenty years, I still can’t stop father’s fists, and I can only watch my mother suffer, and the screams of my mother when she is being beaten are like knives plucking out my heart and lungs. I hate why I can’t be stronger so I can protect Mother.”
“That day I went out to borrow some rice for the pot, and when I came back I saw my mother lying on the kang moaning, bleeding from the corners of her mouth, and in pain with tears in her eyes, obviously beaten by my father. I hurriedly put down the rice and climbed onto the bed to Mother’s side. Just when I wanted to say something, my mother grabbed my hand tightly. She was in excruciating pain and wanted to find something to hold on to so that she could psychologically ease the pain, perhaps unconsciously, while for me, the moment my two hands touched, it was as if I had been struck by lightning.”
“My hand trembled, and my mother moaned, ‘Let my mother hold it for a while.’ Suddenly, the woman I had longed for day and night made herself dependent on me, and a sense of manly pride and responsibility came over me. I held Mother’s hand with both of mine, as if that was her whole body being held in the palm of my hand, protected tightly with both hands, and the tighter the grip, the safer Mother would be.”
“It wasn’t until dark that Mother slowed down, let go of my hand, and said strenuously, ‘Bao Wa, boil some water for Mother and put a compress on it, Mother’s body hurts so much.’ “
“I answered, and in a short time a pot of boiling water was boiled, put into a wooden basin, and placed on the potstand in front of the kang. Niang told me to turn my back and took off her clothes, leaving only a red belly-band. I turned my face and froze at the sight of Niang’s nearly half-naked body and her actual plump breasts and fat ass. When Niang saw me looking straight at her, as if she realized what was going on, her face reddened and she was busy lying on the bed, asking me to hurry and give her a hot compress with a hand towel.”
“I wet a towel, wrung it out, and put it on the green and black bruises on my mother’s body, and my hand inadvertently touched her armpits near her tits, and she shivered and rubbed her legs together gently a few times.”
“I noticed this reaction in Niang, and when the towel was cooled and changed, I deliberately tried the spot again, and another shudder ran through Niang’s body. There were no bruises there, it couldn’t have been painful, the only possibility was that Niang’s body had become unusually sensitive from her long hunger and thirst. This discovery sent a wave of inexplicable excitement through me, and the third time I changed the towel, I had the audacity to undo the straps of Niang’s belly-band at the back, under the pretext of dressing the wound. Niang’s head tilted as if she wanted to say something, but finally fell silent.”
“The entirety of Niang’s back was exposed to me, and the smoothness and otherworldly tingling sensation coming from my hands made my heart beat wildly and my chest tingle. Niang’s body also became hot under my hands, and not just because of the hot towel. I suppressed my urge to make further moves, finished dressing Niang’s bruises with the hot towel, tied her belly band and cleaned up before blowing out the light and going to bed. Neither Niang nor I slept well that night, and from Niang’s side came soft, long sighs from time to time.”
“I don’t know if Mother felt my psyche or not, but since that day she’s been asking me to give her hot compresses often and for longer and longer periods of time. From the back, to the arms, to the thighs. Mother is still beaten, but not in tears like she used to be.”
“Dad’s addiction to alcohol and gambling is getting worse. Sometimes he could win some money back, but more often he lost. In order to pay off his gambling and drinking debts, Dad sold almost everything in the house, and by March of that year, the house was completely empty. By this time the Yellow River had thawed, but Dad had no intention of going to prop up the boat to earn money, nor did he and I go down to the ground to accumulate fertilizer and turn over the land in preparation for spring plowing, and was still struggling with gambling and drinking.”
“That night, I came back from the field, just into the yard, I heard my mother’s cries, I thought it was bad, put down the hoe and rushed into the house, only to see my father carrying a bag of cornmeal on his shoulder, going out, my mother pulled him back and cried: ‘You sold the grain, what are we going to eat, Brother! “
“Hearing this brother, father’s body shook, how many past events came to mind, stopped in his tracks, I took the opportunity to go up and snatch the cornmeal down, put it back to the original place, stood to the side of mother. The muscles of my father’s face twitched, and a myriad of expressions flashed across it in a flash, and I looked at his face: dark, thin, tired, old, wrinkled, with stubble, and sunken eye sockets, and I suddenly felt a great, great distance from this man, as if this were not my father, but a stranger I had never known.”
“Father stood there for a while, then suddenly stamped his foot, let out a heavy sigh, rushed to the front of the kang, pulled over the only remaining quilt, rolled it up into a roll and held it under his arm as he walked out the door. I was startled and went up to stop him, saying, ‘Father, if you sell the quilt, how will you let us mother and son sleep at night.'”
“Dad glared and said, ‘It’s not winter, why do you need a quilt?’ Get out of the way!'”
“I got anxious and said, ‘Father, stop gambling, let’s live a good life, you support the boat and I’ll work the land, and feed my mother well.’ Our family is already in such a state, if you continue to gamble, our family can’t live.'”
“Dad fire even bigger, roared: ‘You a nuisance goods, all day nuisance me, I can not win, back to beat you this little bastard.’ Said the hard charge towards the outside, I went forward to pull his arm back, dad backhanded punch in my face, my mind a dizzy, pent-up anger suddenly erupted, according to the dad’s stomach is a foot, dad staggered, almost fell, screaming and cursing, threw away the quilt, pounced on me and I tore up.”
“Mother exclaimed, rushing between the two of us and trying to pull us apart. But the strength of a woman trying to separate two men who were fighting red-hot was a dream. The result of her doing so was that in the confusion Dad punched her in the jaw and she fainted without a word.”
“I was so startled that I let go of Dad to check on my mother’s injuries, and Dad took the opportunity to kick me in the back, knocking me down beside my mother, and rolled up the quilt on the floor and ran out of the house in a huff.”
“I couldn’t be bothered to go after Dad, and withstood the pain to carry my mother to the bed, give her a bowl of hot water, and pinch her middle. Father snatched away the quilt, so I had to put a piece of torn clothing over her. After a short while, Mother let out a ‘hmm~’ sound, exhaled a breath, moved her body, and opened her eyes. I lifted her head and put the broken ceramic bowl to her mouth so she could drink.”
“Mother shook her head, pushed the bowl away and blew out the oil lamp, and in the darkness she said, ‘Go to sleep.'”
“I was lying on a cold bed, and the ragged mat with no mattress sucked every ounce of heat out of my body without mercy. I thought of that quilt, which gave off a musty odor of old age, not because my mother was too lazy to take it apart and wash it, but because it could not be taken apart and washed at all, and as soon as it got out of the water, it was bound to rot. It was worn out and musty, but it was a quilt after all.”
“In the middle of the night in the inverted spring, I pulled all my clothes over my body, hugged myself into a ball, and shivered in the cold wind that leaked in from all sides of the broken house. A few times I fell asleep, a few times I woke up freezing. I could even hear my teeth grating.”
“My own teeth were not the only ones rattling in this house; I heard them distinctly from the other end of the bed, and Mother was also cold and unable to sleep. There was a low sobbing mixed in with the banging of teeth, and it wasn’t just from the cold. Mother’s cries clawed at my heart like a cat’s paw, making me so upset I wanted to rip my own chest open. I didn’t want to listen to Mother cry any longer, because then my heart would literally break, and I lifted the clothes off my body and crawled toward the darkness on the other side of the bed.”
“‘Bao Wa, aren’t you asleep?’ Mother stopped crying when she heard the noise over here.”
“‘Mother, are you cold?’ I answered.”
“‘Mother is not cold; go to sleep, you have to go down to-morrow.'”
“‘Mother, I’ll come to you, I’m afraid you’ll catch cold. I’m young and strong, so we won’t be cold if we squeeze together.’ As I said this, I had already climbed over half of the bed and put my pillow next to Mother’s and lay down, and a warm scent of a woman’s body hit my face. Mother moved to the side, stopped sobbing, and covered me with a few more pieces of clothing, and Mother’s body heat was transmitted to me through the clothing, and my body was instantly warm. This heat stirred up my sleepiness and tumbled up, and I fell asleep in a daze without realizing it.”
“After I don’t know how long, it was as if I felt something arching in my arms, and I was suddenly startled, and opened my eyes to the darkness that still surrounded me. But the feeling in my arms became more and more real. Soft, warm a body, arching in my arms, and still keep to compact!”
“I realized with a jolt that I was on my own bed, and that this body, then, must be my mother! One could tell that she had given me all her clothes to cover me, but she herself was freezing to death, cold and sleepy, and her consciousness was already blurred, so that when she felt a living person with a hot body beside her, she instinctively came over to me and tried to warm herself, forgetting that it was her son at all.”
“My heart skipped a beat and a million thoughts went through my head in a flash, should I warn her? Then this soft, warm body would have to leave my arms. No, absolutely not. What I should do is hold on a little tighter. I reached out an arm and wrapped Niang’s body into my own arms a little tighter. But to my surprise, Mother reached out an arm and hugged me too!”
“As if a stone had stirred up a thousand waves, my mental defenses collapsed. Mother breathed softly in my arms, her body squirming in my arms like a warm piece of jade. ”Brother, brother.” Niang mumbled dreamily, and I knew she was mistaking me for my father. I was almost about to hold on and make the mistake of becoming this good with Mother. But deep down, there always seemed to be a sliver of reason telling me that I couldn’t do it.”
“It cried out to me, ‘If you do things with your mother as your father, then she will surely regret it when she comes to her senses, and the only way to keep her from regretting it is for her to come to her senses and realize that she is accomplishing good things with you.’ Because if awake she does things with you, it means that she truly loves you, her own son, as a man!” Yes, I’m a man too, so why should I use another man’s name to make the woman I love happy?”
“I made up my mind and pushed my mother in my arms: ‘Mother, mother, wake up, I am Bao Wa. Mother, wake up.’ Niang seemed to have become delirious, and it was only after I had pushed her halfway that she gradually came to her senses, suddenly realizing that she was clinging to her son on the kang, Niang’s body shivered, and she reached out and tried to push me away. But my arms wrapped tighter and tighter around her, her warm and plump flesh made my blood flow faster, and I was already oblivious to the cold, and my lower body, which was rapidly erect due to its close proximity to her body, pushed strongly against the underside of her belly.”
“Mother was a little alarmed, and tried to push away the arm that I had around her, and as she pushed me, she said, ‘Bowa, let go of Mother.'”
“I plucked her hand away, put my head to her ear, and, having regulated my breathing as well as I could, said, trembling, ‘Mother, it’s cold; I’ll hold you and be warm.'”
“Mother gasped and said, ‘I’m not cold, let go.'”
“I said, ‘Mother, you’re cold, I know you’re cold, and Father’s away, and you want someone to hold you, that’s what warms you up.’ Said, and put one hand under her dress.”
“All at once my mother struggled up and exclaimed, ‘Wa, I am your mother.'”
“‘My father is your brother.’ I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth, but it was too late. Mother shuddered and stopped struggling, and I stopped myself. There was an unbearable dead silence in the house.”
“In the middle of the day, Mother spoke up to break the silence, and she asked, trembling, ‘Who …… who …… who told you that? said?'”
“‘It is you.’ I said, ‘Mother, I heard what you said to Father in the middle of the night.'”
“Niang was silent again. I said, ‘Mother, I know you want Hanzi to come and hold you and touch you ……'”
“‘Nonsense!’ Mother interrupted me and was about to say something else when I snatched it up and said, ‘Mother, stop lying to yourself, if you didn’t want someone to hold you, would you secretly sigh in the middle of the night? Do you think I don’t know why you keep asking me to give you hot compresses?'”
“Mother was momentarily speechless, fearing that I had made my point. I continued, ‘Mother, I’m your son, but you’ve already been married to your own brother, so you’re afraid to do it again? Father has become that way, he beats you and scolds you, he has long since stopped treating you as his own mother-in-law, he is not the same brother you had twenty years ago. Now, your son wants to love you, wants to love you, can’t you see that? What’s the difference between being good to your own brother and being good to your own son? ”Mother, I don’t want to be your son, I want to be your hansom. I know you want to too.’ Saying that, I bravely put my mouth over and kissed her on the cheek.”
“To my surprise, Mother didn’t resist, and I continued, ‘Mother, didn’t you also say that Father’s body is failing? You can’t suffer so much on your own. You weren’t afraid a long time ago, so I can just help father share some of the burden. Mother, do you think you’re lying to yourself? You clearly wanted it long ago, didn’t you?'”
“Mother did not speak, but began to whimper again. I didn’t dare to make any further movements and just held Mother, but she didn’t struggle out of my arms again.”
“After hugging like this for a while, suddenly a gust of wind blew from outside, and suddenly the house was chilly, and Niang’s body moved, and I immediately felt that she was moving into my arms, and I was stunned, only to hear Niang in my arms say: ‘Bao Wa, Niang is cold, Niang and Bao Wa hugged together, and it was warm.’ “
“It took me about a few seconds before I realized what that meant, and a wave of ecstasy so steeply flooded me that I was surprised to be at a loss for words. Mother gasped sharply and her body became hot in my arms.”
“In the darkness, by instinct, I found my mother’s mouth. Holding my mother’s head, I put my own mouth dolefully up to it, and the breath exhaled from her mouth smelled so good. My mouth first touched her nose, and then went down to find her mouth. As soon as the four wet lips touched, they stuck firmly together, and Niang’s tongue, like a small snake, came between the two rows of teeth, twisted my tongue, and rolled it around in my mouth, the juices being sent along it, gurgling down my throat.”
“I rolled over and pinned Niang down, one hand fumbling to undress her. Where my fingers passed, the cotton jacket came undone, the midriff came undone, and the sweatshirt came undone, leaving only a piece of the bellyband in the way, which Niang undid herself and tossed aside.”
“I lay on my mother’s breasts, greedily breathing in her body odor, with one hand, grasping her big white tits, gripping her nipples, soft and tender, wanting to bite down hard, the whole thing in my mouth and chewing on it, and I literally opened my mouth and gnawed on her tits, drooling all over her breasts, and she grunted and grunted and grunted.”
“I got up and stripped my own top off, revealing a solid muscular body, and crouched over Mother. Both shuddered as their flesh touched, next to each other, desperate to melt into each other. Soft against hard, smooth against brown, vigorous against gentle.”
“‘Mother, you love to have a man rub you, I’ll rub you!’ My voice was muffled. So I rubbed up, my hands clutching Niang’s tits in a death grip, the flesh spilling out of my fingers. Those two globs of flesh sloshed around like water, and my hand always slipped away, grabbed it again, and rubbed it up again, the heat from my hand reaching my heart.”
“Mother moaned in a small voice, her legs clenching and rubbing back and forth, while her hand reached into my pants and, somehow, unbuckled the belt of my red pants and pulled them down to the hilt. The furiously rising faucet jumped out, as if hissing, and was trying to find an available opponent to attack, when it was gently gripped by a small, cool hand, and tamely enjoyed the caress of the small hand. As if splashing water into burning hot oil, my whole body exploded, all the power of my body focused on a single point, but I couldn’t find a channel to vent it.”
“I shivered and went to undo my mother’s pants, but I couldn’t undo the knot in her pantaloons, and she reached up with one hand and with a few deft strokes, opened the last barrier. A woman’s pants are always tied tight, but sometimes they are loose.”
“Mother’s pants were loose, too, for I was not the only one picking at them; she was picking at them herself, and they easily reached below her knees. An unseen force guided me, touching a place where the mountains were high, where the water was long, where the grass was unbelievably soft and lush, and where Mother’s water flowed all over the kang mat. Mother’s pussy was fatter than her tits, wrapped into a thin slit and bulging. My thing was about to burst in Mother’s hand, and she guided it and led it to the spring.”
“‘Quickly …… take a big stick and stab Mother ……’ Mother cried in a trembling voice.”
“But the rod was too big, and after stabbing it in several times, it wouldn’t go in, ‘Mother can’t stand it, stab it… stab it…’ Mother cried out in agony, stomped off her pants around her ankles, and spread both her legs toward the sky, so wide that they couldn’t get any wider, and I still couldn’t get in. I used my hand to break Mother’s hole, and felt the water in my hand, so slippery that there was no place to start, but I pulled off a few of Mother’s hairs, and Mother’s hole flesh trembled, and the slit opened wider again.”
“I have an idea, put the head of the stick up, put the mother’s leg on the shoulder, rubbing the mother’s tits in my hand, one hand pinched the mother’s hair, while the mother did not pay attention, suddenly dead, the mother owed, the pain of the tits shaking up, scolded: ‘bastard calf pull your mother’s pussy …’ …’ Without waiting for her to finish a sentence, I have already taken advantage of the moment of opening, and rushed in with all my strength, no matter what happens to the person underneath me, I am bound to go in.”
“‘Ow!’ Niang cried out miserably, almost crying out, her body twisting about. I hardened my heart, my waist arched forward, and slowly pushed the half of the rod that didn’t go in outside all the way in, until the balls pressed against the flesh of Niang’s pussy. Mother’s inside was slippery and full of water, tightly wrapping me around it, as if a force was sucking it inside.”
“I pushed against Niang, but I didn’t know what to do underneath, at that moment Niang endured the pain and held my buttocks up and down a few times, I suddenly understood what was going on, and my waist involuntarily moved back and forth, bringing the rod in and out of Niang’s pussy, I couldn’t control my body, and the faster I fucked, the faster I fucked. Niang was howling frantically and babbling underneath me. Both legs struggling on the bed mat and stirring about.”
“My whole body seemed to fly, and Mother was the auspicious cloud under my feet, holding me upward. Niang and I hugged each other naked, ascending into our own heaven in the cold wind that leaked in through countless cracks. Our naked bodies were on fire in the spring cold, rolling in beads of sweat, pounding and melting into each other. Eventually we forgot that we had bodies, and felt only that all consciousness was surrounded by pleasure coming from somewhere, like fish swimming in rolling water.”
“When it all reached its peak, my mind went blank, and all I heard was Niang’s heart-breaking cry, ‘Fuck me!’ My lower body was then flooded with a great flood of water, and with a convulsion of my newly recovered loins, a raging wave erupted from within my body, lashing me hard on every nerve, knocking me unconscious.”
“It was dawn when I awoke, and I opened my eyes to see that I was neatly dressed. The wind had been blowing all night last night, but at the moment there was a clean blue sky outside the window, the sun was shining brightly, and I could even hear the sparrows and woodpeckers. I rolled over and saw my mother, who was cooking on the potsherd beside the bed, and she was lifting the lid to see if the water had rolled. In the dense white air, I suddenly realized that her face had never been as beautiful as it was now, her body had never been as voluptuous as it was now, and her look had never been as contented and happy as it was now.”
“‘Mother!’ I leapt up from the kang and jumped to the floor to hug her, and Mother dropped the spoon she was holding and hugged me, her shoulders shrugging as she crouched against my sturdy, broad chest and cried silently. At some point I found myself in tears too.”
“Mother whispered in my ear, ‘Bao Wa, you’re right, Mother has always wanted you to hold her. Ever since the first time your father beat me and the first time you protected me, Mother has wanted you to hold me.'”
“Is there anything in this world more exciting than a man and a woman falling in love? Is there anything more fulfilling than conquering Mother and being conquered by Mother? When I finally realized that I wasn’t just attracted to Mother’s flesh, but that I really loved her from the start, I had a feeling of happiness for the first time in my life. Yes, happiness is being able to embrace your favorite person for as long as you want.”
“We embraced like that, and the water in the pot just gurgled and rolled, and the white air that rose up floated all over the house. It wasn’t until the yard door creaked that we realized Father was coming home and hurriedly let go of each other to straighten ourselves.”
“Father came back, with a tired, dejected face; he had lost again, which did not surprise me. But he also brought back a piece of paper, a deed instrument, and a man-the old showman from the private school at the head of the village-and for the first time there was guilt in his eyes, which was a surprise to me.”
“And when I understood what was written on the deed, I pounced forward and punched Dad so hard that I pushed the old showman who came up to pull the fight aside and almost touched his head, while Dad shrank into a ball and cowered in a corner, letting me punch and kick him without returning the favor. Until I was tired of beating, really have no strength to fight again when, dad only with all the dirt, stand up, wipe the corner of the mouth of the blood, walked to the mother in front of, flopped down on his knees.”
“‘Hana, I’m sorry for you ……’ he cried, crying so, so hard.”
“The old showman began to read the indenture, slowly and clearly.”
“‘There is hereby a villager Bai Qing of Gaojia Pingzhuang, Nanyu County, who voluntarily gives up his wife Bai to a fellow villager, Wang Erxi, as his wife to cover a gambling debt of thirty dollars in full, with no proof of an empty promise, in triplicate, with three copies of the covenant: Bai Qing, Wang Erxi, and the middleman, Qiao Zhanyuan.'”
“Mother looked at father in a daze, the expression on her face changed from shock to sadness, from sadness to disappointment, from disappointment to confusion. She really couldn’t imagine fifteen years of husband and wife, brother and sister who were able to share the same hardships for the sake of love in the first place, such a relationship, but in the end it was only worth thirty pieces of ocean! The love that had fled against the pressure of the world was only worth thirty dollars in the end! She sat down dejectedly on the bed, did not say a word, her and father’s feelings, in this moment has died. Seeing the awkwardness of the situation, the old showman walked away at some point.”
“Old bachelor Wang Erxi, over fifty years old, eats, drinks, whores and gambles all five drugs, so no woman is willing to marry him, including those broken shoes who can hitch a ride with fellows and string door-to-door. He’s getting on in years and has been trying to find a woman to leave him a boy and a girl.”
“Dad ended up losing everything he had in Boss Joe’s casino, and I didn’t want to beat him anymore because he was no longer my tall, strong father, but just a pathetic man. He is also no longer Mother’s hansom because he has long since lost the ability to protect her and take care of her. When I slept with my mother last night, I had already considered myself as her husband in my heart, I want to protect her, I can’t let Wang Erxi come to possess her! Thinking of this, I held my mother and said: ‘Mother, we can’t sit around and wait for death, let’s run away before Wang Erxi comes!'”
“Before the words left my mouth, I heard someone outside say, ‘Run? Run where?’ Saying that, several people have entered the door, the leader is Wang Erxi. This old man is black and thin, sharp-tongued and monkey-cheeked, a scoundrel’s master, whoever messes with him, he will endlessly torment until the other party is completely finished. He arched his hand at dad and said: ”Brother Bai Qing, it’s not that my old brother is in a hurry, it’s really because I’m afraid of a long night’s sleep, I’m going to finish this today, I’ve brought all the people with me. Do you think it’s okay?'”
“Father said with a lewd smile, ‘OK, OK, haven’t we all made a note, do whatever you say.'”
“Then I’ll have someone go and prepare it,” said Wang Erxi. “With a wave of his hand, a man behind him came up and placed a wooden tray on the kang, and when he uncovered the masking cloth, it turned out to be a set of red wedding clothes and several pieces of jewelry.”
“Wang Erxi walked up to my mother, and I stepped in the way, saying, ‘Don’t touch my mother.'”
“The old bachelor hemmed and hawed and laughed wickedly a few times, and said, ‘Wa-zi, you are still called to drink the wedding wine in the morning.'”
“I said coldly, ‘I don’t drink.'”
“The old bachelor no longer cared about me, and said to his mother: ‘Meizi, my brother has a good heart for you; follow my brother, and save yourself the trouble of suffering in this poor house.’ Put on the household goods, and in the morning my brother will bring a sedan chair to fetch you.’ When he finished speaking, he gave a wink to the men he had brought with him, and they began to clean up the house with their own hands and feet. An old woman in her sixties sat down on the kang and chattered to my mother about the advantages of this happy event, and she sat on the kang with her head bowed and did not say a word. Wang Erxi glanced at me and turned to go out.”
“I felt a strong pang of sadness: how many children in this world can watch their mothers get married? Just now the man was full of vigor, but at this moment only feel the slightest powerlessness. The house was quickly cleaned up, the windowpane was plastered with happy words, but those people did not go, I know they are afraid that my mother ran away, I can not beat so many of them alone. But I must not let Wang Erxi possess my mother either, for she belongs to me!”
“In the middle of the morning, Mother seemed to have been moved by them at last, and changed into a red wedding garment and sat on the kang. Father had already run to Wang Erxi’s house to wait for a drink. Although it was a remarriage, it was made to look like a big girl coming out of the palace, a few grannies dressed up my mother not much longer, the trumpets of the drummers sounded outside, and my mother covered her head and sat quietly waiting for Wang Erxi to come to welcome her.”
“Wang Erxi changed into an old black silk shirt with red flowers on his chest, and rode a big green mule to the door of my house, his face beaming with joy, and the mothers-in-law took my mother out of the door and into the red-topped sedan chair. When Wang Erxi saw me, he laughed and said: ”Wazi, go drink with your mother.” I sneered and ignored him.”
“The drummers blew and beat all the way to the Wang family, and I followed them to the Wang family. Four tables had been set up in the Wang family’s shabby courtyard. In the yelling of the master of ceremonies, Mother and Wang Erxi paid their respects to Heaven and Earth and were sent to the bridal chamber. Wang Erxi came out to drink with the guests, I only drank a few mouthfuls and then deducted the cup, another table, but father drank happily, do not care about others on his turtle irony, as long as there is wine, he does not care about anything. Four months, just four months, and a hard-working, simple shipwright has become a wimp who only drinks.”
“The wine was drunk until the sun was in the west. I didn’t stay to join the people in the bridal chamber; I couldn’t be bothered. I just wandered around the village like a wild wolf, listening to the faint cacophony of laughter coming from the Wang family, thinking about many, many things, remembering many, many things. It wasn’t until the night watchman struck the second watch that I went back outside the walls of the Wang family again, and by this time the people who were haunting the bridal chamber were dispersing.”
“I hid in the darkness until the last person had left the Wang family and Wang Erxi had returned to his cave, then I lightly scaled the courtyard wall and jumped into the yard. My hand reached into my bosom and felt the sharp pig-killing knife, which was already warmed by my body heat.”
“I touched under the window, dipped my finger in saliva and poked a small hole in the windowpaper, and put up one eye to see. The cave room was lit with red candles, a one-foot-tall white jade Goddess of Mercy was offered to her, the walls were plastered with big red happy words, and Mother was sitting on the kang in her red dowry, her face full of sadness, and when she saw Wang Erxi approaching, she raised her head and said in alarm: ‘Don’t come over.'”
“Wang Erxi couldn’t hold it down and smiled lewdly, ‘Sister, brother has wanted you for more than a day or two, so just for the sake of brother’s wanting you, obey me obediently.’ He said and climbed onto the bed.”
“Niang shrank toward the corner of the kang and said in a trembling voice, ‘Don’t come over!’ Wang Erxi was burning with desire, he stripped off his own clothes and pants, revealing his black and thin body, a dragon head underneath was long and thick, Niang let out a cry of shock and instinctively turned her face away. Wang Erxi gasping, like an animal, pounced up, pressed the mother’s arm, down on the mother’s pants. Mother cried, crying out my name: ‘Bao Wa! Mother’s Bao Wa!'”
“This voice is like a needle violently stabbed me, mother ah, in the end you still treat me as your most beloved han! I wanted to go back in and give Wang Erxi a stab while they blacked out the lights, but the situation at hand no longer allowed me to wait, I couldn’t let Mother be bullied even a little bit. I drew my knife, kicked open the two broken wooden doors, and rushed in.”
“The two men on the kang were startled, and looking back, Mother was so surprised that even her voice changed tone: ‘Bao Wa, it’s really you, Mother’s Bao Wa!'”
“Wang Erxi was startled by me and the pig-killing knife in my hand, followed by gnashing of teeth and cursing: ‘Bastard cubs don’t want to live?'”
“I cursed, ‘Old slutty stick, Master is here today to cut off your cock head!’ With that, I jumped onto the bed and raised my knife to stab Wang Erxi violently.”
“I didn’t expect that Wang Erxi was actually a practitioner and knew a bit of boxing and kicking, I missed a few stabs, and when I wasn’t paying attention, he knocked the knife away instead, he pounced on me, pressed me to the bed, his hand tightly choking my neck, his eyes bloodshot, and cursed: ‘If you want to die, I’ll make you whole today!’ “
“I was strangled so much that I could not breathe, my eyes blazed, and I struggled a few times but could not break free. Suddenly Wang Erxi screamed miserably and loosened his hand, I took the opportunity to grab the knife that had fallen on the kang and sent it into his left chest, he screamed again, rolled down on the kang, convulsed a few times, and then opened his eyes and didn’t move.”
“I struggled to get up, but I saw Mother holding a bloody pair of scissors in her hand, looking at her own hand in horror; it was Mother’s cut on Wang Erxi’s back just now that saved me. That shears had been secretly hidden on her body, if I had come in a step later just now, she might have killed herself with this shears to preserve her innocence.”
“When she saw me get up from the bed, she threw away the scissors, jumped into my arms, and cried: ‘Bao Wa, take me with you, and wherever you go, I will go with you, and the two of us will never be separated again.’ I hugged my mother, although I had only been separated from her for less than half a day, it was as if we had been separated for decades, and I never wanted her to leave my side for a moment.”
“I patted Mother’s back and said, ‘Mother, let’s go, we must hurry. Take the waterway, I’ve got Father’s boat on the river.'”
“Mother wiped away her tears and nodded her head, ‘I’ll listen to you.'”
“We got out of the bed, packed up some belongings into a bundle, and were just about to go out, when suddenly I remembered something and said to my mother, ‘Wait!’ Mother was stunned, and I said, ‘We haven’t even gotten married yet!'”
“‘Worship?’ Mother froze.”
“‘Yes, worship, there is a ready-made one here, let’s worship here, and be married, and afterward, be husband and wife for the rest of our lives!'”
“Mother’s tears, which she had already wiped away, flowed again, ‘In life and in death, be husband and wife, and mother and son!'”
“I pulled my mother and went to kneel in front of Guanyin. The red candle in front of Guanyin had not yet been extinguished, reflecting her kind face. I looked at the Goddess of Mercy and prayed, ‘Great compassionate Goddess of Mercy, I, Bai Bao’er, am married to my mother, Bai, and will never be separated from this day and age; if the Goddess of Mercy blames me, I, Bai Bao’er, will bear the blame alone, but if the Goddess of Mercy doesn’t blame me, she will bless my wife and me with many children and grandchildren, and we will have many years of happiness in heaven.’ After saying that, together with Mother, we kowtowed three times deeply to Guanyin and stood up. Mother flung herself into my arms and crouched on my chest, sobbing softly.”
“‘Bao Wa,’ Mother called out to me, and I interrupted her, saying, ‘Don’t call me Bao Wa from now on; I’m already your hanzi, so I can’t call you that anymore. From now on, you call me child-father, and I’ll call you child-mother, okay?'”
“Mother puffed and broke into a smile, I have not seen her smile for a long time, at the moment wearing a red dress mother smiled like a peony, red clothes, red candles, reflecting her face also red color. Niang laughed and said, “Even the child is not yet there, called what child father, child mother ah.'”
“I came up and kissed her on the mouth and said quietly, ‘Isn’t it almost there?’ Mother’s face really reddened this time, blushing with shame, and she put her face away and pushed me a little. I said: ‘How about this, you still call me Bao Wa, I can’t call you Niang anymore, call you by your nickname Hua Er, okay?’ Niang red-faced, gently nodded.”
“We came along the mountain road by moonlight to the Yellow River, which shimmered in the moonlight. I unlocked the boat, jumped on it, and pulled my mother up with me. With a stroke of the bamboo, the boat left the shore and drifted downstream with the current of the Yellow River. I looked at the darkness that had hidden the mountain village, and an inexplicable sadness welled up in my heart: farewell, my old home.”
“I decided to let the boat drift on its own, and wherever it took us we would make our home. Having made up my mind, I put down the Penny and got into the cabin of the broken matting. Mother had already put the cabin original old old sheepskin jacket spread, we embraced each other lying in the boat, listening to the sound of running water under the boat. Gradually, I