In the 1960s and 1970s, the mulberry tree was stationed in the northeast corner of our army compound, high in the discharge wall, about the diameter of a tank gun barrel. This is not uncommon. What is rare is that it grows in a pile of rocks at the root of the wall, the roots must be rooted in the stone crevices, and the body is obliquely inclined at a 25-degree angle.
Who would do that! wild? Windswept? Or did the birds come?
Suppose it had the right to choose, and wouldn't it want to guard us in that dry, barren and messy place?
Year after year, no one was seen pruning and fertilizing, and it even had the posture of branching leaves and groaning. Willow on the edge of the city, green and strange on the mulberry. The cuckoo sounded, and when the wind of early summer blew on our foreheads, its branches of mulberries fluttered slightly with the wind. Within a few days, the mulberries shone from cyan to red to purple, followed by our picking.
The newborn calves and cardamom children of the compound can be assembled to have a reinforced platoon. When the mulberries were red that year, we reorganized ourselves into a "corps." When the small army was young, he worshipped the combat heroes, and when he grew up writing essays, he was either the commander of the tank corps or the leader of the independent regiment; he loved to read "Memories and Thoughts", "In the Battle to Defend the Capital" and "In the Direction of Berlin", how much he understood, anyway, speaking of Zhukov, he gushed a lot of arrogance. Xiao Jun is still the leader of the "three musketeers" in the compound, for this no matter which child breaks in, the adults always only ask Xiao Jun, his father, who is the deputy division commander, never asks whether the intelligence is reliable, replies to the second word, picks up the stick, beats, picks up the belt and smokes. From childhood to adulthood, Xiao Jun's beatings for the children in the compound were difficult to say, and he became the commander of the "Corps", one by one!
That day, Xiao Jun circled the mulberry tree three times, and then stared meaningfully at the roots of the tree for half a day, saying: Indomitable, it is a brave person.
"Brave" thus became the name of our "Corps". All actions are under the command, and the pace is unanimous, and Xiaojun says that this is the 23rd military rule of the "brave". Mulberry picking has since been formalized and has become a festival in our hospital.
The festival lasts at least three days. Lining up and making a slight note is a ritual that must be completed every day. After the ceremony, Xiao Jun gave an order, and then the boy flew over the wall to the tree, and the girl craned her neck under the tree to watch. This is the platoon we picked.
Clouds pass between the leaves, ants circle the trunks, spiders pull their nets gleefully, and the flower cow eats half a leaf with calmness... It was our laughter that drew the birds in. The birds pecked east and west twice, and they were even more busy. Xiao Jun's heart was actually very soft, he did not let us catch the birds, saying that maybe his grandfather got this mulberry tree, drinking water and thinking about the source of the grass ring, we have to fight righteousness.
The bird thus became the "special soldier" of the "brave" corps, and we let it shoot one shot and change the place to carry out guerrilla warfare. It didn't know that the ripe mulberry could fall off with a light touch, and that the mulberry was delicious.
When we were in a good fight, uncles of the cooking squad or uncles of guards would watch from a distance, and when we could not reach the wah-wah-wah-
When the harvest was over, we ate the mulberries on the spot. There is also a ritual for eating mulberries. Sit in a circle, first sing "Really happy to die", and then do not distinguish, do not grab, do not make trouble, at most unexpectedly attack each other to smear a big red and purple face; eat enough, all purple tongues, sing "sunset West Mountain Red Xia Fly", go home.
For three days, we were so bloody and romantic every day until dusk, even if the bloody tooth plate became a "vampire", even if we dyed the father's generals purple, the adults did not scold. Why not scold? We kept forgetting to ask.
We also forgot to ask, the mulberries we left on the tree, when did they make mulberry wine?
On the day that xiaojun and a few of them left the compound, they drank mulberry wine. After they left, the Brave Corps disbanded and the compound began to fall silent. Another year, when the mulberries were red, a few of us sat alone on the tall trees and listened to the mulberries tell the story of the past. (Xu Ping)