Tianlun (short story)

Chen Min

All year round, Lao Zhong sells fruits in the first-floor façade house of the Happiness Jiayuan Community. There is a row of rental shops, and there is a small stall rented by the old clock, pineapple in spring, watermelon in summer, oranges in autumn, apples in winter, mixed with mangosteen, mangos, jackfruit, longan, rambutan airlifted from the south, although the life is hard, the income is stable, barely able to provide the family's living needs.

Lao Zhong left his homeland with his wife and children three years ago, walked into the city, started a fruit business, and rented a small suite of thirty square meters in a house in the suburbs.

In fact, the old bell is not old, just in his early forties, but he has been working hard in the morning and dark all year round, so that his face is prematurely carved with deep ravines. He is not tall, his figure is strong, his legs and feet are sharp, his thick lips, and his face is thick and simple, so that many people are willing to get close to him.

The people in the community came and went, for a long time, most of them were familiar with each other, and for those elderly people who were elderly and their legs and feet were not flexible, as long as they waved to him upstairs and shouted a few voices, the old bell would immediately send the fruits they needed.

One day, he was summoned to deliver fruit to the family, No. 701 on the 7th floor, and was about to turn around and go downstairs, when he happened to find the door of the next door half open, No. 702, an old man lying on the floor groaning.

How did things come so coincidentally. A year ago, he had no less to do with the old man.

The old man's surname is Jiang, and people who know him well call him Jiang Laohan, but Lao Zhong has always called him Uncle Jiang.

Jiang Laohan is more than eighty years old and alone takes care of his mentally handicapped son, who is over sixty years old. In the past, there were old partners and children to help, and life was a little easier, but then the old wife and children went, and the situation of father and son became more and more bleak. One day at the end of last year, Jiang Laohan found that his son had some abnormalities: breathing difficulties, vomiting, cold sweat, pale face, he called several relatives in the same city for help, but failed to summon a person who was willing to help him, they all gave excuses under various excuses: I'm sorry, I have an urgent matter at this time, I can't leave; Yikes! I happen to be out, you find someone else to help! I'm sorry, I can't leave with my baby... I am sorry......

Who wants to help a disabled person! A piece of crap that parents have fed in vain for more than sixty years, should have died a long time ago! Jiang Laohan could almost hear the curse on the other end of the phone. Even if the mental retardation is also a life, how can the father be indifferent and watch him die! Helplessly, Jiang Laohan had to go downstairs to ask for help from Old Zhong. Old Zhong arrived in time to help Jiang Laohan send his mentally handicapped son to the hospital, unfortunately, the mentally resilient son was not rescued in the end, and he died. Old Zhong sent his mentally handicapped son to the funeral home and took care of his affairs.

Jiang Laohan was grateful to Shu Zero, he had been chanting the old bell for good, but he did not know how to repay. He paid the old bell, but the old bell refused one by one, and a potential feeling vaguely arose between them.

At this moment, at the critical juncture of his own life' life, he let the old bell hit it again, making people have to believe that this is the fate of fate - the old bell must be jiang Laohan's benefactor in the past life, or maybe the heavens deliberately sent him to save the angel! Jiang Laohan and his mentally handicapped son suffered from the same disease, chest pain, difficulty breathing, cold sweat, pale face... Precursor to acute myocardial infarction.

Fortunately, compared with his mentally handicapped son, Jiang Laohan was much luckier, and Lao Zhong dialed 120, accompanied him to the hospital for treatment and did half a month's escort. Jiang Laohan retrieved a life.

What moved Jiang Laohan unusually was the moment he returned home from the hospital: the once dirty house was cleaned spotlessly by Lao Zhong's daughter-in-law, who cleaned the room that the old man had not cleaned for many years, washed his long-accumulated clothes, sorted out his old newspapers scattered everywhere, and boiled a pot of eight treasure porridge with minced meat for him.

For years, fireworks that had never been seen before suddenly returned! Jiang Laohan was in a dream, as if he didn't believe everything in front of him, he leaned on the door and froze, and then, suddenly choking up and losing his voice, opening his mouth and whimpering loudly, crying like a child.

Passionate porridge, warm stomach and warm heart, the three people sat together, drinking porridge, chatting about family affairs, Jiang Laohan has never experienced such warmth in his life, although he has fantasized countless times in his mind, he suddenly feels that he has found a reassuring junior, found the last reliance of life, this may be what people often call "the past life"! For the first time, he understood what bliss was.

At this point, this underlying feeling has become a kind of affection, an emotion that goes deep into the marrow.

"Children, from now on, you are my children, your children are my grandchildren, move here!" The old man's eyes shone with sparkling tears.

Afraid that they would not believe in their promises, Jiang Laohan took Lao Zhong and his two sons a few days later, went to the notary office to transfer his house and family property, and received a notarial certificate.