# Cao Kou, born in 1977, is a contracted writer of the first phase of the "Youth Literature Talent Program" in Nanjing, and one of the 100 outstanding cultural talents in Nanjing. He has published a number of novels such as "Song of the Golden Chain Man", "In the County Town", "Like To Die", "More and More", "A Tree Growing on the Roof", two volumes of essay collections "Life Film" and "My Skeleton", and a long "Seventeen Chronology". In addition, the screenwriter has the film work "Film Police Baoyin". He has won the Charm Character Award of Southern People Weekly and the Novella Award of Novel Selection.
dragon
Text | Cao Kou
Whoever knows me, is it in the midst of The Green Forest?
--Pu Songling
There is no word of mouth to prove that my cousin Zhang Degui is extremely talented. My aunt emphasized more than once in her later years that when Wilder was in the house, she had neither dreams nor other anomalies. Even when the midwife Ding Dai niang took Degui out of her body, the so-called "red light filled the room, and the fragrance lasted for a long time" never happened. However, because the first child gave birth (and the only one) was lengthy and felt too bitter, the aunt fell asleep without even having time to look at Degui after giving birth. However, the aunt added that before falling asleep, she actually heard the big rooster of the Zhang family barking. "You know, Degui was born after lunch, and the rooster shouldn't bark at this time." This is not unusual in my opinion, of course, crying morning is the profession of the rooster, but it is its habit and instinct to have no shouting twice. It is worth noting that the aunt has always had the bad habit of distinguishing between the family name of the mother's family and her husband's family name, and such words as "I have suffered for your Zhang family all my life" are all over her unhappy marriage with her uncle, especially in her later years.
That is to say, my aunt, as a good fertility machine (if you have seen my aunt with a big ass and a big chest and a big voice), unfortunately caught up with the "only one good" fertility policy. She and her uncle were both rural teachers, and as public officials in those years, they did not dare to risk the world to become a supernatural guerrilla, that is, to be expelled from public office. She expressed her admiration for my mother, who was a rural woman, because my mother had given birth to my eldest brother, eldest sister and me in one fell swoop before she was ordered not to have any more children. Even if my fabled brother was dragged to the hospital by the cadres and forcibly induced labor (supposedly using a plastic bucket filled with water, my brother stirred up the bucket like a fish for a while, making a loud noise), in my aunt's opinion, my mother was "enough".
Back to Degui. The unusualness of Degui did not appear at first, we played together, went to elementary school together, walked far along the river bank barefoot in the hot sun, and the childhood memories of stealing grapes from a grape field are still haunting my mind. I remember that there were a lot of grass piles on the riverbank (farmers cut these grasses and put them in the rice fields to fertilize), and the feet were very strong, and along the way, there were small village animals such as field chickens and frogs that pounced and jumped into the water. And the grape field we yearn for, we have long expected that our scorched children who are roasted by the scorching sun will appear sneakily sooner or later, so we have a loud wolf dog. The strong daylight, the dense vineyard, we can not see where the big wolfhound is, it can also be understood as it is all over the grapefield. That is to say, it is not so much the wolfhound barking as the grape field barking. The old man in the straw hat who looked at the grape field also often jumped out of places we did not expect, frightening us to stand where we were and did not know what to do. However, given that Degui and I are not only the same age, but also the relationship between the old cousins and the elderly cousins makes us look very similar; in addition, the aunt who loves her mother's family always likes to buy me a set when she buys clothes for Degui. So, the old man who looked at the grape field saw two identical children, and he was suddenly confused and did not know who to arrest.
The miracle happened in the summer of the third grade of elementary school. The reason I remember it so clearly is that my aunt (who was our language teacher) had already assigned us to write at that time. Elementary school students have to write essays in the third grade, and I don't know why. I wrote a propositional essay "Full of Treasure", in this masterpiece, I praised my pig affectionately, I said, my pig is so good, meat can be eaten, skin can be made into leather shoes, hair can be made into brushes, intestines can also be filled with sausages, and even the bladder can be blown up as a leather ball to kick. Degui's essay on the same topic also wrote about pigs, and the content was roughly the same, but he was scolded by his mother. Why? My aunt's reason was that I did have pigs in my house, and at the end of the year I would indeed brutally kill the pigs that had been fed for a whole year. And her family, that is, degui's family, their family is non-agricultural, there is no pig pen, and there is no pig. I want to defend Degui, the fact is that every year my family kills pigs, aunts and couples will take their son Degui back to their mother's house to eat a fresh pig-killing dish. Even usually, Degui came to my house to play, and he was also keen to stab the pig's ass with a stick under my teaching. That is to say, the relationship between this pig and Degui is not more distant than mine. But considering that my masterpiece came from the inspiration of Degui (I wrote it after he finished writing it for me), I chose to be silent and schadenfreude.
Shortly after the composition storm, it was summer vacation, and Degui ran to my house with summer vacation homework in the hot sun and wrote a book in the cold bed with me. In addition to appearance, we also had a surprisingly consistent idea, and we felt that the sooner we finished our summer vacation homework, the more grapes we could steal. Only to see us fiercely writing summer vacation homework, supplemented by the noise of cicadas and the scorching sun outside, we sweated like a farmer working in the field at this time and a migrant worker who would appear on the construction site more than a decade later. We occasionally look up at each other, apparently to see ourselves and the state of our work. Really, the struggle with summer homework has touched us a lot. We're such good kids. We can't help but ask each other: Is this a happy childhood?
Later, the sky suddenly changed, the wind began to blow, and frightening dark clouds gathered in the far north of the east. On weekdays, Degui would happily run out with me to stand on the high slopes to enjoy the fierce winds and rain, and occasionally run to the tall birch trees to summon thunder and lightning. But on this day, he just tilted his head and looked cautiously outside the house, revealing a mature expression that was extremely inappropriate for his age, and then rolled up the book in a panic and asked to go home. He explained to me that the windows of his house were all open, and the clothes he had to change for tonight's bath were still drying outside; if he did not arrive home in time, the window glass would be shattered in the wind, and the clothes that had been dried would be swept into the muddy water under the influence of the storm. "In the evening, Teacher Cao (Whoa is keen to call his mother in front of others) comes back and sees this, and you know what will happen to me." I understand, because this has happened more than once, including the rainstorm that is coming when we are writing our homework, and the "end" mentioned by Degui.
In fact, as Degui expected, in that storm, the window glass of his house was almost completely broken, his clothes not only flowed in the muddy water, but his own blue sweatpants (with two white bars on the left and right) were blown away by the wind, and have not been seen so far (as of this writing). But after all, I did not see this in person, it was all a paraphrase of my aunt and uncle. They said that degui still did not return after they arrived home. Although they were very angry, they were somewhat relieved to think that Degui should be in my house as before. They even mentioned that on their way home they had seen a stone mill drifting through the ravines of the ground. After they took a shower and changed into clean clothes, the torrential rain subsided for a while, and Degui still did not return. Then they began to clean the broken glass and re-knead their clothes, and only then did Degui enter the house. The two found that Degui was covered in muddy water and was holding something tightly in his hand (it was a summer vacation homework that had been soaked in rain afterwards). What's more, Degui not only has no shame in his face, turning a blind eye to the disaster situation at home, but is emotional and his eyes are shining. He eagerly stepped forward and tried to grab his parents with his dirty little hands, who were experienced and avoided, and Degui had to turn around and run to the threshold, pointing in the direction of his return and repeatedly saying, "Dragon, there is a dragon, I saw the dragon!" ”
The aunt said that she didn't think anything was wrong at first, and reached out and slapped her son. She roared at the disaster in her home, and without any doubt blaming Degui, and then made a heartfelt suggestion: "Why didn't the water wash you away?" "The always loyal uncle just signaled his son with his eyes not to speak, child, the status quo is so tragic, you should show a mature side, not nonsense, do you know what a dragon is?" According to the tacit understanding reached by his uncle and son for many years, Degui should shut up in time, quickly wipe away his mud with a full bucket of water that his mother took under the eaves of the house, change his clothes, sit at the writing desk and casually spread out a book waiting for his mother's next disposal. This is also the family system and fixed ritual formed after degui was reprimanded and scolded by his mother for many years. But I didn't expect that Degui was unaware of his mother's slap on this day, and continued to repeat the sentence "Dragon, there is a dragon, I saw the dragon". My aunt had to add a few more slaps. When the son hugged his uncle and said, "Dragon, there is a dragon, I saw the dragon", the latter felt the strength of Degui's body to pull himself into the heavy rain, and at the same time, he also saw a trace of blood on the edge of the word "dragon", that is, the corner of Degui's mouth. The uncle could not help but feel pity for his son, he freed his hands to press his son's violently trembling shoulders, and then touched his son's forehead - just like in a movie, just touched his son's forehead, the uncle exaggeratedly retracted his hand: "Ah, so hot!" ”
In this way, my dear brother Zhang Degui had a fever for a few days. After recovering from a serious illness, he received the reward he deserved, a brand new summer homework. The change was first revealed here, and in the past, Degui would be ashamed to take it with both hands, and then work overtime to write from the beginning. But now, he claims that the summer vacation homework has long been written almost, and if he must write it, Degui is only willing to selectively write a small part of it. He specifically mentioned me, and Cao Kou could testify. That's right, I said, we're on the same page. I even lyrically said that if it weren't for this heavy rain, our summer vacation homework would have been completed long ago, but my aunt obviously didn't want to believe it. As an excellent rural teacher, she has not allowed any students' homework to be completed for many years. What's more, Degui, as her son, belongs to the category of strict self-discipline. However, my view is inclined to say "Dragon, there is a dragon, I see the dragon" after degui is well. This sentence seemed provocative to my aunt. In short, whether the summer vacation homework was completed or not, I don't know. I just heard that the uncle of the math teacher, history teacher and nature teacher, appeared in front of the bed in time to explain to his son that there is no dragon in this world, the dragon is a mythical animal, its snake body, fish scales, chicken feet, horns, etc. are integrated images, and a specific animal cannot look like this.
"But I saw it." Degui said.
"It's just an illusion." The uncle said, looked up at himself in the mirror, and nodded to himself.
"I really saw it."
"Oh, go to sleep." The uncle had to get up, help his son tuck the mosquito net, and return to his room with his aunt. The aunt looked at him, only to see him shake his head again.
Because of my illness, I visited Degui at the bedside under the guidance of my parents. According to custom, you can't visit the sick empty-handed, the time should be in the morning, but my mother is bitter that there are only seven eggs in the family, and even if the number is small, the number is not auspicious enough. So she decided to wait until the old hen who laid the eggs had laid her eggs in the afternoon. I still remember the scenes early in the morning when we sat dressed up at the chicken coop waiting for the hens to lay their eggs. Probably shy and nervous, the hen laid eggs much later than usual. When it finally laid the egg, we wiped the sweat from our foreheads with relief, not noticing the hen's ashamed look. So when my dad stretched out three fingers to grab the egg, he didn't think about it, and the egg broke between his fingers, and the yolk was dripping and he couldn't clean it up. The shell was not hard, it was a soft egg, I didn't use any force at all, my dad quickly explained. How is this possible? My mom was furious. Then she waited for her to reach out to verify it before she had to acquiesce to my dad's statement. But she was angry and kicked at the hen, and the hen poured a harrier to turn over and dodge, and she kicked my dad.
Regarding eggs, I would like to add that I have not had the impression of eating my own eggs at my own home. The aunt's family always gave us this and gave us that, and we had to give the only egg in the family that was worth getting our hands on to give to the aunt, so that the aunt had nothing to do with scrambling an egg with leeks or toon eggs or simply scrambled eggs. I mean, I can only eat my eggs at my aunt's house.
Therefore, I have no curiosity about Degui seeing the dragon. My desires were focused on those seven eggs.
There is nothing magical about the dragon described by Degui, which is exactly the same as what we see on television on the picture, which is what my uncle summed up.
"Didn't see Sun Wukong?" I asked hungrily.
"Nothing. It's a dragon, just one, black, black dragon. ”
"Where did you see it?" I seemed to hear the sound of eggshells breaking along the edge of the white porcelain bowl.
"It was in the lotus pond, and I went there, and it flew out of the pond, into the sky, into the clouds."
Lotus Pond is a pond between our village and the primary school, it can be said that all the ponds we have there are fish and shrimp, only this pond is full of lotus flowers. I still don't know why this is, nor do I know whose family the lotus pond belongs to. What I can be sure of is that I often go to the lotus pond to pick lotus leaves, lotus flowers, lotuses, and even step on lotus roots, but I have never seen a dragon. By the way, I haven't seen snakes either. I mean I used to see snakes in my childhood, water snakes, earth snakes, red chain snakes, but I don't remember seeing them in Lotus Pond. I once found a nest of eggs in the grass on the shore of the lotus pond, but they were not my eggs. My family's eggs were now wafting through the iron pot of my aunt's house.
Degui insisted that he saw the dragon, which was nothing to me, and I also dreamed that I was like a kitchen knife that fell into the water and swung left and right to sink to the bottom of the river. But he always asked me to believe that he had gone a little too far when he saw the dragon. In order to make me believe that there was a dragon in the lotus pond, he pulled me to the squat more than once. It was indeed crouching, crouching in the grass, for Degui was afraid that our presence would make the black dragon embarrassed to swim out. Needless to say, of course, the dragon could not appear again. My attention was focused on the grass itself, there were too many mosquitoes, and there were toads, and as for the grass, it began to yellow. Autumn is here.
Degui obviously realized the problem and asked me with a puzzled expression, is it only the same storm that day that the dragon will appear? And now that it's autumn, are we coming back next year? I had to shake my head in opposition like an adult, and I told him, "If you really saw the dragon that day, I mean if it was true, then the dragon flew away that day, what is flying away?" Just never come back. ”
Your feelings at this time may be consistent with my feelings at that time, my cousin Zhang Degui may have suffered an unknown misfortune in that heavy rain, which caused him to become abnormal since then, and the image of "dragon" may be due to his visual illusion (from the images in the painting and TV series "Journey to the West"), or it may be that he focused the strange encounter of the day on a foreign object that does not exist. His subsequent chatter about seeing the dragon seemed to contradict all this. In short, he was crazy and there was something wrong with his brain. Whether it was caused by a fever or struck by some lightning bolt, no one can say.
The doctor told Degui's worried parents that this mental illness was not an isolated case, but could have originated from a distant ancestor (it is said that his uncle's sister was a fool who died in a 1967 martial arts battle), and that the acquired factors could not be ignored. The change of clouds and sunshine, light and shadow, the convection of hot and cold, and the fluctuations of natural phenomena often easily break a person's mind. "Some children are still scared to cry by the clothes hanging on the balcony." His advice is to give the child more warmth, talk to him more, give him less pressure, pay attention to keep warm, pay attention to nutrition, should, hope will be fine.
The aunt and uncle apparently obeyed the doctor's advice, and they (especially the aunt) changed their harsh faces and became models of loving motherhood. She no longer asked Degui to write summer vacation homework, and when it came to the winter vacation, she did not make any requirements for a thin winter vacation homework. Degui is still talking about the dragon's problem. The aunt followed the rules, or avoided talking, and she felt that only by driving the "dragon" out of her son's mind completely, his son would return to his former appearance—or my appearance.
"Now, that's it." Degui actually pulled out a painting of himself from under the book, drawing a lifelike dragon (assuming that the dragon was indeed "born"). The aunt was taken aback and then wept. She collapsed on the ground like a rural woman in despair and cried. No one knows when Degui learned to paint without a teacher. In the days that followed, Degui not only painted dragons on books, but also scribbled on the walls of his home and on the blackboard newspapers on campus. If I remember correctly, almost all the buildings on our way to school later left dragons painted by Degui. Some were painted in chalk, and more were he who drew them with a red brick fragment. The villagers were still amazed at first, and soon no one took it seriously. "Look, that kid's drawing dragons again." They gave each other a look, smiled and left, leaving Degui alone to draw a dragon on the bridge or on the wall of the public toilet.
My aunt's despair was completely understandable. The dragon, spread all over the countryside, declared that the son she and her useless husband had given birth to was indeed mad, or that she had been a madman, born a madman.
Probably in order to cater to people's stereotypes that he is a madman, Degui soon loses the ability to read and learn. His aunt had to take him off from school at home, and she had to find someone to let his uncle retire early in the name of taking care of his crazy son. Not long after, Degui forgot to say anything. It is said that Ding Da Niang's nephew was a painter, and when Ding Da Niang died, he came to attend the funeral and saw dragons all over the walls of the village on the way. He was expected to give a professional opinion to the dragon of Degui, and as a result he claimed that he was an oil painter and had a fondness for nude women and motionless fruits and clay pots, but said to the dragon that he had no right to judge. One can only argue that the dragon painted by Degui is not very good. What I remember vividly is that when I was in the second grade of junior high school, one day when I was riding a bicycle from the most beautiful female classmate in our class to rush home, I saw my uncle and Degui on the edge of a water tower. My uncle's hair was thin, his eyes were cloudy, and he was too old to look good; de gui still maintained the figure and appearance of a child. He couldn't speak, but he smiled at me. This smile made me see that Degui's teeth were all out. His mouth was a dark hole. I only say this to show how I feel under the water tower, we have still walked around my aunt's house a lot over the years, and the strange thing is why I have never carefully observed the changes between father and son.
Probably when I was a junior in high school, I heard that Degui was dead. The college entrance examination is imminent, and I have not returned to my hometown. And when I heard about my uncle's death, I was in bed as a virgin and a virgin sweating from each other to explore sexual experiences. My aunt lived to the first year of the demolition of our village. She was prematurely demented and sent to a nursing home as a five-insured household, unaware of the vigorous construction of the new countryside. Our hometown has changed so much, the grape fields no longer exist, the lotus ponds no longer exist, the layout is rearranged, the bridges are rebuilt to pave the roads, and the houses that were once familiar have been rebuilt by the farmers into beautiful small Western-style buildings. Even if her aunt suddenly woke up from her dementia, she escaped from the nursing home, and returned to her former home with her memory, she would not be able to find her way home. Her biggest discovery would be: Where are the dragons that my son painted on the walls of your house?
My aunt died the following year.
I didn't get a decent job after graduating from college, and I was fortunate that I had a brother-in-law who worked in government and helped me get an errand in government. Then I married a woman who seemed to me to be ugly, and gave birth to a son whom neither the pheasant nor the frog had ever seen. Over the years, our village has been demolished, and now it is a building complex with an average price of 25,000 per square meter. At the time of the demolition, I went to my village as an activist for demolition to do nail household work, and at this time, I was surprised to find that my aunt's house was still the same as before, but it had long been confiscated, and there was no problem of compensation. I went into their dilapidated home and tried to mourn the man who had existed but had never existed. The dirtiness of the house left me with nowhere to put my feet, and I only stood in the doorway for a while and then left. I suspected that I wanted to go in and turn right into Degui's room to look at his bedside table, because I remembered exactly opening the cabinet door and drawing a dragon on the inside of the door. I don't know why I remember the direction so precisely. I even knew that the dragon's eyes were spotted with my aunt's red ink pen for homework. I seriously suspect that I had also passed by the lotus pond and seen the dragon during the summer vacation of the third grade of elementary school, but I came home like a nobody, and grew up like a nobody.
(Published in Youth, No. 10, 2019)
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