First published on June 3, 2008 special edition of West China Metropolis Daily, text/photo: Chen Hu, editor: Wang Hui, editor-in-chief: Peng Ying
He published the second half of August 2008 edition of "Jiangmen Literature and Art", author: Zheng Rong (pen name), editor: Xueyue, editor-in-chief: Guo Weidong
They were trapped underground and bonded, and made a promise: if they can live, they will truly love each other for the rest of their lives......
On May 12, 2008, when the Wenchuan earthquake struck, Liu Wensong, a migrant worker who was installing an air-conditioning unit in the Qushan community of Beichuan County, fell from the air-conditioning bracket on the second floor and dragged a panicked girl into the garbage room next to the building. Houses throughout the neighborhood have collapsed, and they support each other in the dark, fighting against death. They agreed that if they could live out, they would truly love each other for the rest of their lives.
After 96 hours, they were rescued. But this homeless migrant worker who lost 5 relatives in the earthquake did not dare to say love in the face of this beautiful urban girl. The girl did not give up, in order to let Liu Wensong get out of the shadow after the earthquake as soon as possible and send the confidence of the people in the disaster area to overcome difficulties and rebuild their homes, on the afternoon of May 22, she resolutely held a wedding with him on the ruins.
01.
Escape! He picked her up and threw her into the garbage room
Liu Wensong, 29 years old this year, is a native of Piankou Township, Beichuan County, and works as a temporary installer in the after-sales service department of Changhong Air Conditioning Company. On May 12, he installed air conditioning in the Qushan community of the county seat. At 2:28 p.m., he was fixing the air-conditioning bracket outside the second floor, when suddenly, he felt his body shake, hurriedly grabbed the bracket tightly, and when he was about to fasten his seat belt, the whole building also shook violently, and he fell downstairs with a "horn". At this moment, he felt in horror that the earth was shaking violently, and in an instant, bricks, tiles, and rocks struck straight above his head! He understood: it was an earthquake!
The whole community was in a panic. Liu Wensong got up and fell, fell and got up again, and a heavy object hit his helmet, and he obviously felt that he had also been hit by a brick on his back. It was dark all around, there were buildings everywhere, and he knew there was nowhere to run. At this critical juncture, he suddenly thought that there was a garbage room next to the building, and perhaps it was the safest place. He ran over and bumped into a girl who was also terrified.
Liu Wensong didn't say a word, grabbed her, rushed to the door of the garbage room, picked her up, threw her through the hole where the garbage was emptied, and then he quickly got into it himself. At this time, he heard a loud "boom" outside, which was the sound of the house collapsing, and he turned blue with fright, and hurriedly fell on top of the girl. At this time, tiles also fell on the roof of the garbage house, knocking him unconscious.
I don't know how long it took, but the girl woke up. She first smelled a foul odor. When I wanted to move my body, I realized that I was suppressed by a strange man. Trying to open his eyes, it was pitch black all around, and he rubbed his hands to realize that he was not dead. After thinking about it, I realized what had happened: it was the man who pressed on her who saved her. And he hadn't woken up yet.
The girl tried to roll over to wake him up, only to find that she was injured, with multiple bruises all over her body, and the knee joint of her left leg had been dislocated. She was keenly aware that she couldn't just wait for death! She gritted her teeth, turned over Liu Wensong's body with difficulty, sat up, and took out her mobile phone from her pocket, but there was no signal! Extrapolating from the time on the phone, 4 hours have passed, and it is almost dark. With the light of the mobile phone, she found the hard hat Liu Wensong was wearing and the Changhong overalls she was wearing, and she knew his identity, shaking him with both hands and shouting: "Brother Changhong, wake up!" ”
For a long time, Liu Wensong didn't react, and the girl was so anxious that she burst into tears: "Brother Changhong, don't scare me!" She probed Liu Wensong's nostrils with her hand and found that he was still breathing weakly, so she quickly pinched his middle and found that his lips were chapped and hot, so she hurriedly pasted her lips and used her own saliva to help him soak them.
02.
Hang on! In a desperate situation, the two hugged each other tightly
A few minutes later, Liu Wensong woke up. The girl said to him, "If it weren't for you, I'd be dead." The thrilling scene flashed through her mind, and she trembled with horror. Liu Wensong hugged her tightly and said to her, to be strong, we must find a way to get out alive!
The garbage room is 2 meters high, giving them plenty of space to survive. By the faint light of their mobile phones, they could see that the roof of the garbage room had been crushed by the collapsed building, but fortunately there were several cement pillars and cement slabs crossing the roof, otherwise, they would have been crushed into meat sauce!
After settling down, Liu Wensong went to pull the girl up, and the girl cried out in pain: "My legs! Liu Wensong lay down, held her knee with one hand, held her left leg with the other, pulled hard, and with a scream, the girl's knee joint was reset. Then, Liu Wensong massaged her knee joints again. The girl said gratefully, "I didn't expect you to have this hand!" Liu Wensong said: "Installing air conditioning is a dangerous operation in itself, and this knowledge is available. ”
The girl told Liu Wensong that her name is Ye Xiaopei, 28 years old, who lives in Jianshe Street, Mianyang City, and is the financial director of a construction company in Beichuan County. The company's office building is in Qushan Community, this afternoon she just arrived at work in the unit, the earthquake happened, she was scared when she was at a loss, was dragged to the garbage room by Liu Wensong, picked up a life. After reporting each other's ages, Ye Xiaobei called Liu Wensong "Brother Song".
There is no problem with their breathing, proving that there is a gap on the outside. They decided to climb onto the roof of the garbage room to see if there was a way out. Ye Xiaopei slowly straightened up, grabbed a steel bar, and looked out, it was pitch black all around, and all he could touch with his hands was the hard cement pillar and cement board, and they were defenseless, and there was nothing they could do.
By the way, didn't we come in through the hole in the garbage room? Liu Wensong patted his head, he turned over and squatted at the entrance of the hole, but when he touched it with his hand, there was only about a foot of space, which was the distance between the eaves of the garbage room and the wall. Liu Wensong leaned down gently, and there was a surprise in his heart, he stepped on the wrench he had dropped on the ground. He clamped the wrench between his toes, trying to use the wrench to make an escape.
Liu Wensong squatted at the entrance of the cave and desperately hit the cement slab outside with a wrench, and the cement slab that had been cracked fell in large chunks with his beating. "We're going to open the passage of life like a rat burrowing!" Liu Wensong is full of confidence.
Just then, a strong aftershock struck again! Liu Wensong was thrown down, and the corner of the garbage room was crushed. The way to escape is blocked! But staying in the garbage room, when an aftershock occurs, the heavy objects outside are squeezed, and it is difficult to ensure that the garbage room is not crushed!
Thinking of this, Ye Xiaopei was so nervous that he couldn't speak, and his whole body kept trembling. Liu Wensong forced himself to calm down, and he hugged her tightly: "Don't be afraid, such a big thing has happened, the government must be organizing a rescue, we must preserve our strength and wait for rescue!" Liu Wensong's words reassured Ye Xiaopei, and she slowly regained her composure.
At 2 a.m. the next morning, they were so hungry that they couldn't stand it. It seems that only pickpocketing in the stinking garbage. The garbage room had just been cleaned up not long before the earthquake, there was not much garbage, Liu Wensong lay on the ground, searched for garbage bags one by one, and kept giving Ye Xiaopei the good news: "Heh, there is bread, the milk is thrown away before it is finished, there is an apple core, it is not gnawed, it can be eaten." When he handed the food he picked up to Ye Xiaopei, Ye Xiaopei insisted that he was not hungry, and Liu Wensong was reluctant to eat it, so he collected it in his helmet. He must be prepared for a protracted battle.
After a while, they became sleepy and began to nap. At around 4 a.m. on the 13th, they woke up from their dreams, and there was the sound of water flowing everywhere. It was raining, water was dripping from the top of their heads, and the water on the ground was rising higher and higher, and they were both wet.
Liu Wensong wanted to get up in a trance and accidentally slipped on the ground. When Ye Xiaopei pulled him up, he found that he was cold and still shivering! He has a wound on his body, and he can't see water! She silently helped him take off his coat, hugged him tightly and tried to give him heat, and gradually, in Ye Xiaopei's arms, Liu Wensong had heat on his body, as if he had walked back to reality from a dream.
At this time, he really felt that Ye Xiaopei was stripping off his clothes, hugging him, and using the warmth of his body to pull him back from the death passage.
In such a desperate situation, feeling the breath of a man so closely, Ye Xiaopei felt that it was so close, and this feeling made her feel a strong sense of dependence. She muttered, "Brother Song, we must go out!" ”
Liu Wensong said: "Yes, we must go out!" ”
03.
Meet! If you go out alive, you will stay for the rest of your life
The rain outside was getting heavier and heavier, and the water in the garbage room was getting deeper and deeper. Liu Wensong said: "We must not drown inside! He tore his coat into strips of cloth, and with the faint light of his mobile phone, he threw it on a broken steel bar on the roof, using the skills of climbing over the wall of the house when installing air conditioners, and gently used his strength to go up.
He grabbed the steel bar with both hands, and then pulled Ye Xiaopei up with a strip of cloth, both of them hung the steel bar, and Liu Wensong freed up another hand and tied him and Ye Xiaopei together with a strip of cloth. He thought that if Ye Xiaopei couldn't hold on, he would hang her with his body, and he would never let her fall into the water. When hunger struck again, they drank the rainwater. Once you've drunk enough water, talk about a variety of topics to prevent you from falling off while napping.
At around 3 p.m. on May 13, the water in the garbage room slowly receded. They hung in the air for more than 10 hours, and when they let go and fell to the ground, their hands were bent for a long time and could not recover, and they were so tired that they could no longer open their eyes.
At 7 a.m. on the 14th, the two woke up. Ye Xiaopei asked, "Hasn't anyone come to save us yet?" Liu Wensong said: "Don't worry, someone will come."
Ye Xiaopei's mood fell into a trough all of a sudden, but when Liu Wensong squeezed the residual juice from the milk bag onto her dry lips, her eyes moistened - at the last moment of her life, it is also a kind of happiness to be able to get the company and love of this man!
She sat up and called softly: "Brother Song! Liu Wensong hurriedly asked, "Do you want anything?" Ye Xiaopei nodded: "After you go out, will you be my boyfriend?" Liu Wensong was stunned: "I, I'm just a migrant worker!" Ye Xiaopei said: "Do you know? When disaster struck, my boyfriend, who had been in love with me for three years, ran away, not caring whether I lived or died. In the face of such a disaster, no matter how much money, no matter how high the status, no matter how good the future, it is so vulnerable! And you and I have never known each other, but you have tied us together with love, isn't this kind of marriage worth cherishing? ”
Seeing that Ye Xiaopei said sincerely, Liu Wensong hugged her: "You are right, we have to rely on each other for life and death!" ”
They no longer dare to sleep, and when they are hungry, they eat the garbage on the ground; When you're tired, sit down and rest; When the sleepy insect came, it pulled its nose fiercely. It wasn't until 5 p.m. on May 15 that they were pleasantly surprised to hear the rumbling sound of machines outside!
The rescuers have arrived! Liu Wensong tightly grabbed Ye Xiaopei and shouted for help together! However, there was only the rumble of a forklift outside, no one responded to them, and the other party didn't hear it at all! What to do? Ye Xiaopei was so anxious that she was about to cry! "They're cleaning up this ruin, they're going to find us!" Liu Wensong comforted. So, they began to wait quietly again.
04.
Hand! We had our wedding on the ruins
At 9 o'clock in the morning on May 16, Ye Xiaopei suddenly heard a familiar voice, it was his mother! Mommy is looking for me! She cried with excitement! She answered her mother's call loudly, and then the rescue team spoke to them, and the people outside encouraged them to hold on!
At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the reinforced concrete pressed on and around the garbage room was finally cleaned up, and the rescuers got into the garbage room, carried them out, put them on a stretcher, carried them onto an ambulance, and sent them to the Mianyang Earthquake Relief Emergency Center. Since then, Liu Wensong and Ye Xiaopei have been fighting in the garbage room for 96 hours!
After being rescued, Ye Xiaopei learned that Liu Wensong's house was destroyed, and his grandparents, parents, and younger brother were all killed! She cried and told her mother to take good care of Liu Wensong.
On the afternoon of May 17, Ye Xiaopei recovered, and when she hurried to find Liu Wensong, her mother told her that Liu Wensong had left, and he brought her a message to say that their agreement was canceled and asked Ye Xiaopei to take care. Ye Xiaopei understands the pain in his heart: his relatives are gone, his home is destroyed, and he has no intention of talking about this. Knowing that his fellow villagers had moved to Mianyang City, Ye Xiaopei immediately went to the two temporary resettlement sites for the victims of the disaster, the Kyushu Gymnasium and the Nanhe Sports Center in Mianyang City, to look for Liu Wensong, but he was nowhere to be found.
By the way, isn't Liu Wensong working in Changhong Company? He called the Changhong air-conditioning after-sales service center and got the news that all the employees of the Mianyang headquarters of Changhong Group are over 18 years old and under the age of 55, and they are all on the front line of earthquake relief, and Liu Wensong is likely to be a volunteer. On May 19, Ye Xiaopei joined the ranks of volunteers.
On May 22, the first day after the end of the National Day of Mourning, the clarion call to wipe away tears and rebuild their homes sounded, and some of the victims began to return to their hometowns, including those in Piankou Township, Beichuan County, where Liu Wensong is located. Hearing the news, Ye Xiaopei immediately rushed to Katakou Township.
The villagers were setting up tents, and Ye Xiaopei saw Liu Wensong busy in Changhong overalls at a glance. She stepped forward to fulfill the promise they had made in a desperate situation. However, Liu Wensong rejected her: "Love in a desperate situation is innocent, but back to reality, we must find our own position." ”
Ye Xiaopei told Liu Wensong that during the earthquake, his boyfriend still failed to rush to the open area and was killed; The company she worked for was gone. She burst into tears: how brave you were in a desperate situation, and why did you become so cowardly when you came back to reality? I want to share your weal and woe, rebuild your home, comfort the deceased with an active lifestyle, and repay those who supported us!
On the first day of rebuilding the home, a beautiful city girl came to the village to be the daughter-in-law of Piankou Township, which was a great joy! "Girl, if you are sincere, do you dare to hold a wedding with Liu Wensong?" Li Xingmin, the village chief who rushed to hear the news, asked.
"Dare, dare now!" Ye Xiaopei said excitedly.
"Have you thought about it? Don't regret it? Liu Wensong cried. Ye Xiaopei wiped away his tears: "We can defeat death, what else can't we defeat?" ”
At 2:28 p.m. that day, at the same time on the tenth day after the catastrophe, Liu Wensong and Ye Xiaopei held a simple but grand wedding amid the applause of the villagers on the ruins of Piankou Township, beside the newly built tent. During the special period, they did not have time to get the marriage certificate, and the more than 300 villagers present were their witnesses. Village chief Li Xingmin held a wedding ceremony, and before paying homage to heaven and earth, they observed a three-minute silence for Liu Wensong, his deceased relatives, and all the victims of the 5.12 earthquake.
After the wedding, Ye Xiaopei's relatives and friends in Mianyang City came and gave them gifts, and Ye Xiaopei donated all the 6,700 yuan in gifts to the local area for rebuilding their homes.