There is a kind of love called dependence on each other for life

1

When I first met Brother Liangzi, he was twelve years old and I was nine. He was in the fourth grade and I was in the second grade. He was a whole head taller than me, and his dirty look was extremely uncomfortable.

Brother Liangzi calls me sister, but I never call him brother. I call him by his name, Li Guoliang, or simply "Hey". In my heart, he is just a child of my family. Just a homeless person.

My father was the militia company commander in the village at the time. In 1982, Murakami engaged in joint production contracting, and my father and mother jointly contracted an apple orchard in the south of the village. My father was capable and knowledgeable about technology. Our apple production was several times higher than that of other families, and our life was easy in Murakami. Count one or two.

However, the good times did not last long. In the summer of 1984, after my father came back from weeding in the orchard, he went to take a bath in the river west of the village. He plunged into the river and never came back up. Later, a distant relative of the family introduced my stepfather to my mother. The stepfather's family was very poor, and he finally found a wife. However, because the wife couldn't bear the poverty, she ran away with a man from another province who resold grain. So, from that day on, the stepfather and his son began a difficult life.

Because there was a shortage of manpower in the apple orchard, my stepfather came to our house the second month after my father passed away. My mother and I lived in the east room, while my stepfather and Brother Liangzi lived in the west room.

My stepfather is a very hard-working man. He spends all day in the orchard and rarely goes home at night.

When my mother was too busy to take care of things, she would give each of us 50 cents to buy sesame seed cakes to eat in the school canteen. The boss buys the sesame cakes in the canteen from the town. Sometimes they cannot be sold on the same day and become rancid the next night. The boss is so evil that he mixes the sour cakes from the previous day with the new ones that come in that day and sells them together. Because he often bought sour sesame cakes, Brother Liangzi later learned to cook. In the beginning, he would often make them burnt. Even if he gave me all the food that was not burnt, I would not want to eat it myself. Pay attention to him.

The school is more than three miles away from home, and we have to climb a mountain ridge. The mountain is full of lush trees and wormwood half as tall as a man. Sometimes we can hear a few wolf howls not far away. My mother was worried and asked me to go to school with Brother Liangzi, and asked Brother Liangzi to take good care of me. I didn’t want my classmates to laugh at Brother Liangzi’s black face. When Brother Liangzi helped me carry my schoolbag for the first time, I shook him off and walked forward on my own. Therefore, we always stay more than ten meters apart every time we go to school.

2

One day in the summer, after school and I finished my duty, everyone in the village went home early, leaving only Brother Liangzi and me. At school, Brother Liangzi and I walked home one after another carrying our schoolbags. Halfway through, the sky suddenly darkened. The clouds were so low that it was so dark that even the village not far away could not be seen. Brother Liangzi, who had been following me, suddenly ran forward, took my hand and ran towards home. I was so frightened that I couldn't help but follow him.

Just after running more than ten meters, hailstones suddenly fell from the sky. First, hailstones the size of corn kernels fell sparsely, and in the blink of an eye, they became as big as a quail egg. Brother Liangzi pushed me under the rocks on the side of the road, held my head in his hands, rested his chin on my head, and pressed his whole body on top of me. After ten minutes of this, the sky gradually became brighter. After the hailstorm, only rain remained. I struggled up from Liangzi's body and saw hailstones everywhere on the ground, more than ten centimeters thick. I pushed Brother Liangzi, and then I realized that there was blood on the back of his shirt, and the blood mixed with rain kept dripping down from his head. Brother Liangzi was curled up on the ground, his face turned purple, his brows were frowning, and his teeth were chattering.

I was so frightened that I stood in the rain and cried.

After a while, the mother came over wearing a sack. When she saw Brother Liangzi, the mother tore off a large piece of her shirt, hurriedly wrapped it around Liangzi's head, and then tied it to Brother Liangzi's head. The sack was placed on his body, he knelt down and carried Brother Liangzi on his back and ran towards the town.

The four or five miles of mountain road was filled with hailstones. My mother carried Liangzi brother, who was about the same size as her, and ran to the hospital in the town in one breath. She didn't even notice that she lost her shoes on the road.

It was then that my mother’s old cold legs fell off. Until now, every time it is cloudy and rainy, my mother will beat her knees with her fists from time to time. Later, whenever he talked about what happened that day, Brother Liangzi's eyes were red.

That year's hail destroyed all the crops for several kilometers. Looking at the tree trunks broken by hail and the green fruits lying on the ground, my stepfather had no choice but to renovate the orchard and plant soybeans between the trees.

In 1990, when I was 15 years old, the contract for the orchard at home expired. Someone gave the village chief a gift, and since my stepfather was a migrant, the village contracted the orchard to someone else. My stepfather was so angry that he couldn't eat for several days. During that time, I often heard my stepfather and mother sighing at night. Without the orchard, my stepfather bought a few sheep from the town market and tended the sheep while farming. Although his life was not as comfortable as before, he could still make do.

In the winter of 1991, my stepfather was tending sheep on the back mountain and accidentally fell and broke his arm. When I went to the county hospital for a CT scan, I found cancer cells in the fractured part of my stepfather’s arm. The doctor said that this disease was caused by infection caused by long-term exposure to pesticides. Thinking of those years when my stepfather carried a bucket of medicine on his back to spray apple trees every day, and sometimes when it was so hot that he didn't even wear a vest, my mother regretted it. The doctor performed an operation on my stepfather, sawing off the diseased bad bone in his arm, and then removed a rib to reattach it. But the operation did not stop my stepfather from leaving. During the wheat harvest the next year, my stepfather still left us.

The death of my stepfather suddenly made my heart feel a lot empty. I know very well that my stepfather's illness has used up all the family's savings. With the current family situation, my mother will definitely not be able to support the two of us in studying at the same time. And Brother Liangzi is about to face the college entrance examination. Once he is admitted to college, my mother will definitely let me drop out of school. I know my mother very well, and she can make such a decision.

However, the reality did not develop as I imagined. The day after the college entrance examination, Brother Liangzi left a letter to his mother and went to work in the provincial capital. In the letter, he said that he took the college entrance examination just to prove his strength; without his father, he had the responsibility to support the family. He also said, sister, you must study hard. Even if I try to sell iron, I will support you through college...

Brother Liangzi’s college entrance examination score is 16 points higher than the admission score. During the time when she came down, my mother frantically inquired about Brother Liangzi's whereabouts. She even took a car to the provincial capital and visited all the construction sites in the provincial capital, but she still couldn't find him. In the end, it all happened, and my mother felt guilty forever for the rest of her life.

Three

In the autumn of 1993, I got my wish and was admitted to Nankai University.

One day in early winter at noon, I came back from reading in the library. People in my dormitory said that my mother asked a fellow villager to bring me winter clothes. I opened the bag and found a pair of woolen trousers and a brand new down jacket. Touching the down jacket, Du Mei, who was sleeping on the bunk above me, exclaimed: "Hey, Shumin, your mother is really willing to spend money on you. This down jacket is really down!" I asked the person who sent the clothes, and they said they had left. I listened and was speechless for a long time. I know that this down jacket must have been bought by Brother Liangzi. At that time, down jackets were just fashionable and very expensive. Not to mention students, even ordinary working people rarely wore this kind of thing. Du Min said, your fellow villager has been asking about this and that since he came here, and he seems to care about you. I said, that's not my fellow countryman, that's my brother. She said, then why did he say he was from your hometown? I pressed my lips and tears welled up.

In my second year of studying in Tianjin, Brother Liangzi married a girl from his village and gave birth to his nephew Xiaoqiang. After graduation, I was assigned to the county seat, got married, and had a child. Brother Liangzi worked on a construction site not far from me.

One day in the early days of 2004, I was sorting out reports in my work unit when I suddenly received a call from my sister-in-law. My sister-in-law cried and told me that Brother Liangzi was painting the exterior wall of a newly built building. The iron wire of the scaffolding was unhooked, and Brother Liangzi and another worker fell from the third-floor scaffolding. They were on their way to the Third People's Hospital.

I threw away the things in my hands and rushed out to take a taxi to the Third People's Hospital. At the entrance of the emergency room, I bumped into two people from the same village. They were lifting Brother Liangzi down from the car. There was blood everywhere on Liangzi's mouth, face, and body. I grabbed his hand and cried while calling him. Hearing my shout, Brother Liangzi tried his best to open his eyes and murmured: "Sister, if brother has a problem, my mother and your nephew will be left to you!" I trembled my lips and said no. As he spoke, tears flowed freely on his face.

Brother Liangzi broke his left leg and two ribs, and one of the ribs was inserted into his lung. The operation lasted for more than six hours. I stood outside the door, feeling confused. When the doctor came out and told me that the patient was out of danger, my legs suddenly gave way and I fell to the ground.

Before this, I had never thought that this person who had no blood relationship with me was so important in my life. At that moment, I suddenly knew that on that summer day 18 years ago, when he blocked the hail that hit me with his body, my life was destined to be separated from him.

People say that blood is thicker than water. However, what is thicker than blood is this kind of family love that depends on each other for life and death. There is a kind of love called mutual dependence. It is the closest to happiness and will not be broken. It is a kind of everlasting mutual penetration and a kind of warmth that blends into each other's lives.