That bay that month that man | left a blank couplet

Text | Yang Aiwu

When I was a kid, I barely walked, lifted my legs, and either ran or jumped. Grandma said I was full of monkeys.

One day in the winter of that year, my grandmother instructed me to take the hot eggs that my hens had just laid to change for salt, and I grabbed an egg in one hand and jumped to the supply and marketing agency as usual. The supply and marketing agency installed two green, folio doors, the middle of each door is inlaid with glass, through the middle of the glass, the outside people can see the inside, the inside can also see the outside, so that two people can see each other when entering and leaving at the same time, convenient courtesy. Every winter, in order to keep warm, two thick curtains are hung outside the door, the curtain blocks the wind and cold outside, but also blocks each other's line of sight, so that people have to be careful when entering and leaving, first tentatively lift the curtain to see if there is anyone outside the door (inside) to open the door again.

That day, I jumped to the door of the supply and marketing agency, just jumped on the steps in front of the door, as the curtain was lifted, the door opened at once, I saw just right, did not need to brake, I rushed in with wind and fire. One foot stepped in, collided head-on with Bin Brother, who had already bought something and was preparing to go out, only to hear him scream, and then heard the sound of paper tearing, I turned my head to see, how is it so coincidental? I actually ripped a hole in the blank couplet he had just bought. When I saw what had destroyed him, I was somewhat genuinely afraid.

He walked back to the counter and opened the couplet, only to see that the tears were as uneven as a dog's teeth. He asked the salesman for a paper cutter to find the tear, and when he rolled up the paper again, he muttered: This child, there is no girl. Then he strode away.

In those days, couplets were handwritten. The difference is that if you know someone who writes, you can ask him to write for you; if you don't know someone who writes, you can only go to the market and buy words from strangers.

In the village where I lived at that time, Principal Liu's words in lianhe were countable, and his writing and pen were dragons and snakes, the strength of the back of the paper, the separation was endless, and the bones were penetrating, and it was pleasing to the eye. Some people with heads and faces in the village often rush to find Principal Liu after the first snow falls every year, hand over the couplet paper that has been prepared to Principal Liu, and implore Principal Liu to write a couplet for himself. Among these people, some of them really like Principal Liu's words, and some of them take the opportunity to close the relationship with Principal Liu, after all, everyone has a baby who goes to school.

After the encounter with Bin Ge, I quickly forgot about it. One day, I was playing with a group of friends in the school yard, Principal Liu shouted at me loudly, I ran like an enclave, he pointed to the couplet paper that had been spread out on the ping-pong table and said to me: Please do me a favor, help me press the paper, I will write a couplet for people.

Dare I, the principal used me as an anvil paper.

Not daring to be idle, I walked to the edge of the ping-pong table, and I just wanted to see the headmaster splashing ink.

My father wrote well with a brush, and he used to practice writing at home. From a young age, I have a natural fondness for brush characters. Every Spring Festival, my father wrote couplets, and he not only wrote about us, but also for neighbors. When my father wrote couplets, I often went over to observe them, and the black characters were written on the red paper, dignified and atmospheric. In the afternoon of Chinese New Year's Eve, every household pasted the couplet on the scrubbed door, and the lintel was affixed with a hanging sign, and the family was as abrupt and energetic as the person in the new clothes. That was when my curiosity was very heavy, the content of the couplets from every household strongly attracted me, especially after recognizing a few words, I often asked my friends to go door to door to read people's couplets, some wrote "loyal to the family for a long time, poetry and books have been passed down for a long time", some wrote "Spring wind and willows, 600 million Shenzhou Shunyao"... Through the couplet, people express the New Year's wishes of "happiness and longevity, talents and prosperity" and the home and country feelings of "the country is not old, shenzhou yongchun".

One year Chinese New Year's Eve, there was snow in the sky, and when I looked at the couplet through the snow, I could still faintly smell the ink. Unfortunately, my father never asked me to learn to write with a brush, nor did I take the initiative to ask for it. In the past, our school would start a brush class in the third grade, and the star who was two levels higher than me often showed me the brush characters she wrote, the meter grid paper, the black characters and the red pen outlined by the teacher, which looked good. I often imagine myself splashing ink, free, handsome, and completely like a female talent. Unfortunately, when I finally reached the third grade, the school suddenly decided to cancel the course from that year onwards.

At that time, when I saw the couplets lying on the ping-pong table, I was stunned: among them was the pair of couplets that I had inadvertently torn off the blank space.

The headmaster also felt something strange, he looked at the paper for a while, as if to say to me and as if to say to himself, this person is really strange, why did you process the couplet paper like this?

I wanted to explain the situation to the principal, and considering that I was not very familiar with the principal, and that I was in awe of him, I was even more restrained, so I tried to open my mouth several times and swallowed it back.

Seeing the principal's depressed expression and thinking of the innocence of the person who was misunderstood by the principal, I wanted to laugh and didn't dare to laugh. Just when the headmaster was about to write, probably because he really felt incomprehensible, he muttered another sentence "This person is really weird", I finally couldn't help it, laughed out loud.....

About the author: Yang Aiwu, pen name Ami. He is a member of the Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party, a member of the Chinese Essay Literature Society, a member of the Provincial Youth Writers Association, an executive vice chairman of the Municipal Youth Writers Association, and a columnist of Zibo Evening News. The articles have been scattered in "Zibo Financial and Economics New Daily", "Ten Years of Literary Scene", "Zibo Sound screen newspaper", "Qingdao Morning Post", "Beijing Youth Daily", "China Discipline Inspection and Supervision Daily", "Shandong Pictorial", "Rural Public" and other newspapers and periodicals inside and outside the province, and have won awards at all levels of essays for many times, and the essay collection "Pomegranate Blossom" has been published. Over the years, I like to wander in famous works, record my life in words, and continue to practice in writing, hoping to gradually perfect myself.

One point no. Shandong financial literature