writer
new
trunk
Blacked word
On the day of the troops, Daqingshan had a snowstorm on the face of the split head, and the stove in the dormitory was straight smoke, and the fire and the fire wall were cold.
"Seventy-two lines please come and see!" The company commander roared at the squad leader and frowned and left.
After a while, a cadre wearing four pocket jackets came, medium in stature, thick eyebrows, big eyes, and dark skin and a face covered with fine lines, which reminded me of the thousand-year-old tree that had been blown and sunburned for many years, which should be the seventy-two lines said by the company commander.
He knocked here, touched there, and then moved the ladder to the roof, and actually pulled out a bird's nest in the chimney, and as a puff of smoke rose, the fire was baked and burned, and the fire wall and the fire were hot.
The squad leader called for water, seventy-two lines of soap washed his face, and I handed him a towel. When he took the towel, he watched me wipe his face for half a day, returned the towel to me, and went out.
I was used to the life of the army, I didn't eat well for two consecutive days, and on the third day of morning exercise, I just ran a few steps before I sweated, my legs were weak, and my eyes were black and I fell.
In the drowsiness, I heard someone talking, and in addition to the company commander and the squad leader, there was an unfamiliar voice.
I opened my eyes, and seventy-two lines brought a pot of poached egg noodle soup with onion oil and a fragrant smell, and I ate it in one breath.
From this day on, I learned that his name was actually Cui Chengjun, and he was a volunteer soldier in the regiment repair center. The squad leader said that he had two brushes, except that he would not have children, from diesel generators to semiconductor radios, which he could not repair, cars, tongs, washing, planing, and electrical welding were also proficient, so he got a seventy-two line nickname.
The next day on the training ground, I saw him call the squad leader over and muttered for a while, and when I went to bed at night, I found that the bed was much softer than before, and I opened the sheets to see that there was a dog skin mattress underneath.
The squad leader quietly said to me, "Seventy-two lines of this strange person, ordinary people are difficult to approach." But it is really good for you, if the recruit company ends up, if he is assigned to the repair center to become an apprentice, learn a good skill, retire from the army and go home for a few years to become a million yuan household. ”
I don't know why he was so good to me, but my heart was full of gratitude for this ordinary veteran.
Three months passed, and on the day the recruits got off the company, I received the order to report to the division headquarters communications company. The squad leader said that the Seventy-two Lines wanted to leave me behind, and he was about to quarrel with the chief of the military unit and the chief of staff for my business. After I listened, my heart was empty, not a taste.
In the evening, seventy-two called me to his place for dinner, saying that it was an egg dumpling.
I sat by the fire, and he didn't like to talk as usual, and after a long time, he brought the cooked dumplings to me before saying, "I was going to let you taste our Korean sticky bean buns for the New Year, who thought you were leaving." In this way, the construction troops are too guilty. "He didn't eat much at that meal, and kept putting dumplings in my bowl and sitting there watching me.
A few days later, their regiment went to wolf's nest ditch to carry out national defense construction, and when passing by the division headquarters, he took advantage of the rest time to hurriedly find me, dragged me to the photo studio in the town to take a group photo, and he repeatedly said that when the photos were washed out, he must send him two pictures.
The car left, I don't know what happened, I used to call him Captain Cui, but the moment I took off my military hat and waved at him, I shouted: "Brother! The photos must be sent to you, rest assured! ”
He waved his hand at me from afar.
That night I had a dream, dreaming that the thunder and fire in the sky had turned the sky red, and my brother smiled at me and turned to meet the thunder.
When I was a child, I listened to my mother, and I had a nightmare and the dream I told someone before noon the next day was broken. Early in the morning, I heard that the brothers and their group had an accident and died...
On the twenty-eighth day of the 28th month, I received a parcel from Gojilin's hometown, and my tightly hanging heart was put down.
Opening the package, inside was a sticky bean bag of the hard state, and a letter that read:
"Child, I am Cheng Jun's mother, and he wrote to his family before he died, asking me to send you some sticky bean bags." He also said you looked a lot like his brother, exactly the same. I don't know if he told you, his brother also went to the army in the second year of his joining the army, and the recruits just got off the company to catch up with the self-defense counterattack, and on the third day the people were gone, and not even a photo of him wearing a military uniform was left.
Cheng Jun's grandmother is eighty years old, we are all hiding from her, these days she has been nagging, this has been a soldier for a few years, and I don't see a photo to see. Cheng Jun said, you have a photo with him, can you send me one? ”
The last word "I" in the letter was preceded by a blacked out word, which I knew was "Mom."
(This novel was published in The Little Fiction Monthly, No. 10, 2021 (Part 1))
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