Liu Lingzhong's Selected Short Stories Serialized (1135)

杀死鸽子(5)

I went to look at the pigeons on the roof, and it became more and more obvious that the pigeons had an inexplicable fear. It's a pity that the carrier pigeon can't speak, and it can't understand my nagging to it. I guess there will be any mission that has not been completed, or I miss my friends in my hometown. I assured it that Nie Tong had promised not to take the pigeon to steam the gastrodia, and when the injury was completely healed and his body became stronger, he would release it. Nie Tong spent most of his time in the room where he rented books, as if he was waiting for guests.

"If you release it now, the carrier pigeon will not live until the sun rises tomorrow. ”

"I trust your judgment. I smiled wryly.

Maybe it's the contact person waiting to find his parents, the former liaison of the underground organization. The young girl who often comes to borrow books is even more proficient, as if her heart is not on borrowing books, I feel that she obviously came here many times just to see Nie Tong, or to tease him. We didn't know where the girl's family lived.

"Is she trying to steal the book?" I asked deliberately.

"Maybe I'm just looking for a book I like. Nie Tong said.

"I still think she's too mysterious. "I'll say something.

Every time she enters the house through the door, including collecting an umbrella under the eaves outside on a rainy day, the movement of shaking the water is very elegant. There is a relatively long aisle from the street to the room where the book is placed, and I have never asked if the family next door is a relative of Nie Tong, but from the perspective of my station, the gray and bright light outside looks like a hole, and the street lamp is not turned on, and any guests come to the backlight, and their faces are often not clear to see. Only for Nie Tong, the girl and we feel the most like paper-cutting people.

"They're a bit like animals homing. I said.

"Maybe the partisans returned to the camp. Nie Tong replied.

"You should keep your distance from her as much as possible. ”

"Actually, I like her to break down the blurred boundaries. ”

I immediately looked at Nie Tong, he didn't have a special reaction, that is, he was not enthusiastic, and he didn't seem to need to deliberately show disgust. That would be too exalting for her, and she is not a connector of the underground party. Many years ago, Nie Tong and his father were targeted by Kuomintang agents because of his participation in a literary group that was later characterized as having liberal tendencies. The excuse for arresting him is quite hilarious, and it is not even for actively participating in the anti-hunger, anti-civil war student movement. After he came out of prison, his original superiors had died, and other familiar comrades had been rescued and gone up the mountain through secret channels, and Nie Bo had not planned to go back to the university in the southern suburbs to continue his studies. He wanted to go out of the city to find the guerrillas. He met Nie Tong's mother during his recuperation, and he was introduced by others, and the introducer said that he was the girl who set up a fruit stall at the corner of their street. It was later confirmed that the girl was a member of the underground resistance and had long wanted to develop him. Nie Tong's mother's name is Su Xuemei, who was also in college back then, and there was a bookstore on that street, which was actually a liaison station for underground organizations. She often goes to the bookstore and knows the girl who sells fruit on the street, but they don't belong to the same line, so they don't know each other's true identities. Nie Tong's father heard from the fruit seller that the bookstore owner wanted to recruit a literate clerk, so she persuaded him to work in the bookstore, and said that she would go if she was educated.

Nie Tong and his father couldn't contact the organization, so he had to temporarily go to the bookstore to work as a clerk. The young girl who came to the bookstore was happier, but it was inconvenient for her to laugh as much as he did. Those terrible experiences in the enemy's prison slowly faded away, and the wounds on his body that were tortured had long since been completely healed. His father was really happy in his heart, and he thought that the girl who often came to the bookstore to read books was very interesting and funny. That's how his parents met. His dad was friends with the fruit girl, and he didn't know why she really seemed to have a little argument with someone for no reason, and he knew that guy, who was a spy with a nose bigger than the dog Turin. He stepped forward to relieve the fruit girl, and only arrested Nie Tong and his father. When he came out of prison for the second time, the bookstore said that he would not dare to use him anymore, so he stayed at home. As a result, the two girls came to Nie's house to see the guy.

It was easy for him to stop laughing, sit upright, and suddenly changed to a serious face and said to Miss Su: "Tell you a secret, Miss Xie is embarrassed to come to my house again." ”

Miss Xie is a fruit seller. "Why?" Su Xuemei was shocked. They suddenly thought of the sinister and cunning face of the bookstore owner, and the most disturbing thing was the disunity within the urban underground itself, so that the resistance would be dangerous. Nie Tong and his father didn't expect things to come suddenly, so quickly, which caught him off guard.

"Do you want to go out of town to find the guerrillas?" she asked.

"Will anyone else want me?" he asked.

Nie Tong's father didn't expect this at all, and he was still blindly optimistic. He said very casually: "Here's what happened, Miss Xie cut a watermelon for the spy, but that guy didn't make watermelons, and the two of them quarreled at the fruit stand." I stood in the bookstore and saw it, and quickly ran out to help her out, but Miss Xie ran away at that time, and the spy said that we were a gang and arrested me. ”

"You are lucky that they didn't beat you," Su Xuemei said, "Do you dare to be a hero to save the United States in the future." ”

"Do you think the bookstore owner will be an underground party?"

"Where did I see it, there was no writing on the door of my head. ”

"We said in advance that we would get the same pants to wear, and look for the underground party organization separately, Miss Xie may have found it, but it turned out to be cold next to us, what's the matter!"

"There's nothing to say about it, anyway, sooner or later we'll also go outside the city to look for the guerrillas, and she will find the same first. The point is that she shouldn't leave you at the fruit stand and run away by herself, not righteous. ”

"Miss Xie knows the guerrillas, but she doesn't take us with them. ”

Nie Tong's father hid the most crucial truth about the fact that the girl who sold fruit from his future wife actually found him afterwards.

"Here's the trouble!" Nie Tong said to me.

Miss Xie turned out to be from the Kuomintang side, and after she was caught sabotaging the power plant in 1952, she confessed that she had a special relationship with Nie Tong, his father, and Su Xuemei in her early years.

"Miss Xie was shot, and she also killed the bookstore owner. ”

As a result, Nie Tong's parents were imprisoned in the Communist Party's own prison for 13 years, although they said that they survived, their superior bookstore owner was shot and rehabilitated.

I suspect that Nie Tong's brother at the power station is either Miss Xie's son or the bookstore owner's son. Nie Tong didn't say.

After a moment of silence, I finally said, "Nie Tong, I want to tell you, when will the carrier pigeon in the iron cage on the roof be released, it is very scared when it sees me." ”

"Tian Sen, you know that I used to love that carrier pigeon very much. You can see it, I don't know why it's afraid of you, in fact you've always been afraid of me killing pigeons. ”

"Maybe it can sense dangers that we don't know about. ”

As long as Nie Tong is alone, he will keep trying to find a partner for Bao, and in order to pass the loneliness, he will go to the roof to guard the carrier pigeon. His parents returned, and they were in charge of waiting for the book-renting customer to come to the door, or more precisely, for the person who might find the bookstore owner. Back then, as Nie's father and Nie's mother's superiors, maybe they would deliberately talk about them to his liaison, perhaps including Miss Xie, a fruit seller. The bookstore owner never found out that Miss Xie was a poisonous snake, because in fact he had planned to send them to the guerrillas?

Nie Tong will think of every action and facial expression of his partner in finding treasure. Including the sounds, even the sound of my walking footsteps.

"Tian Sen, I also want to think about all your habits. He said.

I sighed and said, "I thought it would be enough to leave you and just go to the cold drink shop in Maguan Town to drink orange soda, find a cat cemetery in the adolescent forest, and wait for Mu Tangjie at the exit of the train station, just like another person." Probably not. ”

"I can't live without you. Nie Tong said.

"Of course it's good to wake up naturally," I said, looking up at my partner, "I always thought you didn't like me that much." ”

Nie Tong didn't answer my words, and continued: "I know the treasure hunters in the world, although I never go to the cold drink shop, occasionally deliberately, more by mistake, there will be such people who come to the rental book house casually, I can immediately identify them, like the liaison of the underground organization, the atmosphere of the room is completely different, Tian Sen, you understand his eyes." I knew I had lost my protective barrier, I didn't hide, I never took the initiative. Looking for treasures is actually very weak, and subjectively he wants to have something to rely on. ”

"Of course, then you won't be afraid of anything. I said.

"But I'm curious, I want to find out who I feel safe with," Nie Tong looked at me and said, "because the treasure hunting game is quite unreal." I find you weaker than I am!"

I said, "No, no." I guessed that you don't just have me in your heart, but there will be many other treasure partners. ”

Nie Tong was so angry that his cheeks were red, and his neck was flushed: "Looking for the collusion between the treasurers, is there no real friendship except for the facial features and the guide cat, and even directly meeting Mu Tangjie?"

"There will be strange boys. I warned Nie Tong.

"I can't believe you're such a person. He said.

"Ah, I'm sorry, Nie Tong. I have to go to work. ”

I stood next to the iron cage on the roof to say goodbye to my treasure hunting partner, and we got along very well as ordinary friends.

"How hard it would have been for me without you. Nie Tong asked me to wait a little longer, and he thought about it carefully, "Tian Sen, don't you want to know why the carrier pigeon in the iron cage is afraid, let me tell you now, because there is a big snake nearby, I have seen it with my own eyes, the whole body is black, and there is a jade belt on its back, which is lighter than yellow and not completely white." I don't know what kind of snake it is, it's poisonous or not, last time I drove it away with a bamboo stick. ”

"It means that the pigeon knows that the snake is eyeing the neighborhood. ”

"It's definitely looking for a chance. Nie Tong said.

One of the biggest mistakes we may have made was to provoke each other. Actually, I originally wanted my partner to show the courage of a real man for me. But we were both wrong, and by the time we knew it was self-defeating, it was too late.

"But I really love that pigeon. Nie Tong said.

He said: "I dare say I love you more than pigeons!"

"I was reluctant to give up the treasure hunt game. ”

The mountain road from the Adolescent Forest Iron Works Hotel to the Cat Cemetery is also being renovated, which reminds me of Ortai, the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, a middle-aged general who rebuilt the ancient post road and set up many post stations along the way. After the two of us took that section of the connection, it was said that we were able to reach the old guerrilla camp in the hinterland of the plateau.

On either side of the ravines are dense primeval forests shrouded in tranquil mist. The sun was still shining above our heads, the mountains were high and the roads were far away, and the air in the southern jujube forest was also slimy and thick. The ancient post road was empty. As we walked slowly, we felt a little weak, hoping for a group of cats wearing wooden shell masks, and worried that the Kamen Riders dancing in the square at the entrance of the castle were unreliable, and that strangers were trying to get closer.

"I wouldn't be like a female fruit seller digging a big hole for the bookstore owner and pushing it in with my friend Miss Su. ”

"The secret services may be more interested in the people behind your mother, and they want to catch them all because of her noble disciples. ”

"My dad actually loves her as a person. Nie Tong said.

"There are habits that you have developed since childhood, and it is hard to change. ”

"You mean my dad's character, it's really hard to change!"

"Now that you know the truth, your mother should forgive him. ”

"My mom forgave my dad a long time ago, the bookstore was destroyed, and the bookstore owner was arrested and betrayed, and it wasn't all my dad's fault. ”

"Only your brother has a pimple in his heart and doesn't intend to forgive. ”

"He thought that my dad was responsible for the death of his parents. ”

"Forget it, they're not on the same level after all. ”

"Because it has nothing to do with me. I don't want to get involved either. ”

Nie Tong desperately suppressed the pain in his heart and said to me.