Creative talk
Xiao Su is a professor at the College of Literature of Central China Normal University and a doctoral supervisor. He is a member of the Chinese Writers Association and a first-class writer. Vice Chairman of Hubei Writers Association. Counselor of Hubei Provincial People's Government. He has published more than 5 million words of novels in "People's Literature", "Harvest", "Writer", "Zhong Shan", "Huacheng", "Tianya", "Everyone", "October", "Beijing Literature", "Chinese Writers", "Shanghai Literature" and other publications. He has won the Hubei Provincial Literary and Art Star Award, the Hundred Flowers Literature Award, the Wang Zengqi Literature Award, the Hubei Literature Award and other awards. Several works have been translated into English, German, French and Spanish.
Xiao Su 'Spring Back to the Earth' - Creation Talk
Spring returns to the land
Xiao Su
One
On this evening, thirteen years after leaving the village, Chen Guzi finally returned to the rape slope. At this time, the cold winter is about to pass, and the earth is rejuvenating. When the car reached the mouth of the village, he suddenly stopped and stuck his head out of the window, just when he was greeted by a gust of evening wind. Strangely, not only did he not feel the slightest chill, but he felt a heat on his face, as if he had been licked by a gentle cat's tongue.
Although it was nearly dusk, the night had not yet fallen, and the village could still be seen clearly. After escaping that year, Chen Guzi never returned. Looking around, the village has changed a lot, adobe houses have become brick houses, mud roads have become cement roads, thatched grass has become tea tree gardens, and everything has become dazzling to him, almost unrecognizable. However, he himself has changed dramatically. When he went out, he went out to avoid his uncle Chen Kou's forced debts, and when he left, he was penniless and begged all the way to Huizhou, Guangdong. When he returned today, he drove his BMW sedan, and in addition to two or three bank cards, he also had hundreds of thousands of yuan in cash.
Night fell slowly from the sky, and the village gradually lit up. Chen Guzi was not in a hurry to leave the village. He wanted to stay here a little longer and reminisce about the past. He tucked his head into the window, closed the glass, leaned back on the back of the seat, and closed his eyes. As soon as he closed his eyelids, the past came flooding in.
Chen Guzi first thought of the scene where Chen Kou forced him to pay off his debts. The debt he owed for his father's medical treatment. When he was in his sophomore year of high school, his father suddenly fell ill and went to the hospital to check it out, only to find that he had a brain tumor. The patient must be operated quickly, and the doctor said that he would die. But the operation must first pay the operation fee, otherwise even the hospital will not be able to live in. In order to save his father's life, he had to go to Chen Kou to borrow money. Chen Kou has always been miserly, and he is afraid of his wife, so he refuses to borrow at first. He couldn't help it, so he knelt down for Chen Kou. Chen Kou saw that he was pitiful, hesitated again and again, and finally borrowed a thousand yuan for him, and asked him to make an IOU on the spot. Unfortunately, the thousand yuan was spent without a penny, but my father's life was not saved, and he left the next day after the operation. Although his father was not saved, the money he borrowed could not be repaid. Chen Kou was in a hurry to collect debts, and he did not wait for his father to force him to pay him back. At that time, he was not yet seventeen years old and had no money to pay off his debts. In desperation, he could only tear down the east wall to make up for the west wall, and find someone else to borrow money to return to Chen Kou. However, the roof leaked and rained, he had not yet paid off his debts, and his mother died of illness. As soon as his mother left, Chen Kou's debt collection was even tighter, and every two days he had to come to the door, holding an IOU, and standing at the door, like a hypnotist. Cornered, he left his hometown and went south.
When he first fled from the village, Chen Guzi did not expect to go out for so long. He planned to go out for a maximum of two years, and as soon as he earned enough money to pay off his debts, he would come back and return the money to others in time. To say that the debt he owed at that time was not too much, in addition to Chen Kou's five hundred yuan not paid off, he also owed Zhao Tiankai one hundred and fifty yuan, sesame sister-in-law one hundred and fifty yuan, and yao De, the village director, two hundred yuan, adding up to a total of one thousand yuan. In fact, the few sums of money he borrowed from Zhao Tiankai, Sesame Sister-in-law, and Yao De all paid off Chen Kou's debts. Fortunately, he was lucky enough to enter a construction company as soon as he arrived in Huizhou. There is a decoration team under the company, which is short of manpower and is recruiting. He was young and strong, had been in high school for two more years, and was hired as soon as he signed up for an interview. At the beginning, he ran errands in the team and did not pay much. Later, the captain let him learn to measure and draw, gradually participated in the design of the program, and the income gradually increased. In less than a year, he saved more than 10,000 yuan. On the eve of New Year's Day that year, he had decided to return to his hometown with his savings to pay off his debts, and was just about to go to the railway station to buy tickets, when the captain suddenly talked to him and said that he would promote him to vice captain and increase his monthly salary by two thousand yuan. He then changed his mind and stayed in Huizhou. Half a year later, the captain was promoted to vice president of the construction company, and he was promoted to the captain of the renovation team. After another six months, the renovation team expanded into a decoration company under the construction company, and he was appointed as the manager of the company. In this way, he could not leave Huizhou for a while and a half, and unconsciously stayed there for thirteen years. If he hadn't received a sudden phone call, he would definitely still be in Huizhou at the moment, at least not now.
The phone call that Chen Guzi received was from Yao De, the village chief. After thirteen years of no contact, he actually heard Yao De's voice at once. Yao De's nasal voice is still very heavy, but it is not as confident as before, and it sounds slow and leisurely on the phone, which seems to be a bit difficult. Hearing Yao De's voice, he felt incomparably kind, his heart trembled with excitement, and he almost cried for a moment. But he didn't squeak for half a day, not knowing what to say. After a long silence, he said, "Village chief, I'm sorry for you." I have not repaid the money I owe you, but I have never forgotten it. Rest assured, when I go back one day, I will repay it twice. Yao De quickly interrupted and said, Guzi, you have misunderstood. I made this call not to ask you to pay you back, but to ask you to come back and discuss an important matter with you. He asked, what's the matter? Just say it on the phone. Yao De thought about it and said, the phone is not clear, I will wait for you to come back, and then talk to you face to face. When Yao De said this, he coughed suddenly, coughing very badly, as if he couldn't breathe. He asked worriedly, "Village chief, what's wrong with you?" Yao De coughed again and said weakly, I am old, and I am about to become the director of the village. Speaking of this, Yao De coughed again and hung up the phone. The day after receiving the call, he asked the head office for a week's leave and hurriedly embarked on a journey back to the village.
Suddenly, a nightingale's cry came from outside the car, waking Chen Guzi awake and pulling him out of his memory. By this time, the night had covered the village tightly, and the lights were getting brighter and brighter. He straightened up, restarted the car, and drove slowly toward the west end of the village.
There is a tall and thick white fruit tree at the west end of the village, and Chen Guzi's home is located under that tree. When he left in debt, there were three tattered earthen houses under the trees. The two rooms by the tree belong to him, and the other one lives the single five-insured Huber. Thirteen years had passed, the wind and rain had blown, the snow had frozen, and he did not know whether the three mud huts were still there. They may have collapsed long ago, turned into a ruined land, and if they were still there, they must have been in ruins. However, whether they are there or not, they are absolutely uninhabitable now. Thinking like this, his heart suddenly hurt, and then he gave birth to an inexplicable sadness. In fact, when he passed through Laoya Town in the afternoon, he had already considered where to stay tonight. He first wanted to stay in a hotel in the town, and it was easy to eat and stay in the hotel. Then, he planned to live in Yao De's house, in addition to visiting, just to return the money, and then Yao De asked him to come back. But he finally decided to go home and live, which was after all where he was born and grew up, and if the earthen house collapsed, he parked the car under the white fruit tree and slept in the car for the night.
It took about twenty minutes for Chen Guzi to drive the car under the white fruit tree. Surprisingly, the white fruit tree was still the same tree, and the three earthen houses under the tree were turned into a row of brick houses. The bricks are green bricks and the tiles are red tiles, which look antique in the light of the headlights. The row of houses had two gates and looked like two families. One of the houses over there had lights on, and the doors and windows of one on this side were closed, and there seemed to be no one living there. As he wondered, he opened the door and got out of the car, and as soon as his feet landed on the ground, a lame old man came out of the room with the lights on. This old man is the five-insured Huber. He recognized it at a glance, hurriedly took a step forward, shook Huber's hand and asked, What is this brick and tile house? Huber said happily that this was the resettlement house built by the village last year for you and my two houseless families, and you were not at home when the house was divided, and the village director put your keys with me. Chen Guzi was very touched to hear this, and he groaned for a while and asked, What about the previous earthen houses? Huber said that he had already collapsed and could not live at all. If it weren't for the accurate poverty alleviation, I don't know where I live now, and you wouldn't have a place to stay when you came back.
Huber said as he turned around and limped into his room. When he came out again, Chen Guzi saw him holding a key in one hand and a quilt in the other. After receiving the key, Chen Guzi did not pick up the quilt for a long time, and asked with wide eyes, why is there still a quilt? Huber said that this was bought for you by the village chief yesterday, and I was afraid that you would not be able to go to the street to buy it for a while after you returned. Chen Guzi listened to the heat, changed his voice and said, The village director is really good! After speaking, Chen Guzi took the quilt with both hands, and then held it tightly in his arms.
That night, Chen Guzi slept in a brand-new brick and tile house, covered with a quilt newly bought for him by the village chief Yao De, and like drinking strong tea, he could not sleep for a long time. It wasn't until the clock turned in the middle of the night that he thought that he would have to run a lot tomorrow, see a lot of people, and do a lot of things, that he forced himself to close his eyes and go to sleep.
/End of Trial Reading/
Novel Monthly, No. 1, 2022
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record
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