"Chapter One by the Weishui River"

? "It's hard to say goodbye when we meet, and the east wind is powerless and all the flowers fade." Yes, in a person's life, there is no meeting that is not cherished, and no parting is not difficult to leave. divided. When he faced the river again, the flawless white snow had already covered the trauma of the past, leaving him with only the beautiful scene. In my diary, [Ode to the Wei River] has already written a distant chapter. From the longing and hesitation of the early years when "the autumn wind misses the Wei River, and the fallen leaves embrace Chang'an" to the current peace and magnanimity of "no green mountains are visible, the lights shine on the fish sleeping", I I think that in his heart, there is no song that does not miss the passionate land, and no song that does not praise the river behind him.

? In his current understanding, there is nothing special about the originally glamorous place. He only misses the distant village. The banks of the Weishui River have become the strongest barrier in the heart. There is a river in everyone's heart, which is endless and endless. The bank of the Weishui River is no longer a geographical landmark in his mind. It is more like Macondo by Marquez, Gaomi Northeast Township by Mo Yan, or Shangluo in the Qinling Mountains by Jia Pingwa. It is the starting point of life, where the hardships of a group of people are buried, and their own glory and youth are also recorded. Migratory birds take off from there and return as scheduled. The banks of the Weishui River are the tacit understanding of life and the true place of ideals.

Chapter 1:

Time flies and everything is changing. The riverside that I had longed for in the past has now changed. The leaves turn green and yellow, the flowers bloom and fade. Life is tired and will eventually be buried under our feet. It seems that only change is the real constant. Yes, but some things don't change easily. What remains unchanged is the solid river embankment, what remains unchanged is the magnificent bridge, and what remains unchanged is the unswerving northwest feelings.

In such an environment, it is inevitable that we are all a little nostalgic. My thoughts are drawn back to the past, looking for myself on a strange road. That was 1988. In rural areas, family planning is still very tight. In order to respond to the country's birth policy at that time and alleviate the major contradiction between the backward spiritual civilization of grassroots rural areas and the physiological needs of the people, the Zhoushan County Government and the Family Planning Station have also organized many voluntary "spiritual civilization food" activities to send to rural areas. Liu Changhai, the town's sub-station director in charge of family planning, was sent to the Zhishui River Basin that year to tour the movie "Huo Yuanjia".

In Sanbei's mind, he still remembers the pain and misfortune his birth brought to this big family, which was not very wealthy in the first place. The year his mother gave birth to him coincided with the climax of rural family planning. Big red slogans are posted on the courtyard wall of the village brigade headquarters and in the lanes of the village. At that time, the country's family planning policy advocated the policy of having fewer children and optimizing the birthrate, and strongly controlled population growth. Couples who had more than one child were fined, their land was reclaimed, and newborns were not allowed to register for residence... Therefore, before Sanbei was six years old, his name was not on the family's household registration book, and he has not been assigned a field yet. Even under such a severe situation, for Erguan Village by the Zhishui River, people here were desperately trying to secretly give birth to children. In rural areas, the idea of ??favoring sons over daughters still dominates the heads of most families who are ignorant or even illiterate. Therefore, their purpose and behavior in this regard is to wait until a boy is born. Only later did Sanbei find out that there was a family named Xu in the village who had been married for ten years and had always wanted to have a boy. They thought that having a boy would help them continue their family life and provide for them until they die. But in the end their thoughts ended with the eighth birth of a girl. The family gave birth to eight girls in their lifetime. Sanbei only remembers the youngest girl in his family. She was his classmate who studied together in elementary school. Now she has just become a mother and has given birth to a beautiful and lovely little girl, as an old classmate once mentioned.

Sanbei is the youngest and fourth child in the family. There are three sisters before him. Whenever he hears his mother talk about their birth experiences, he secretly laughs and feels very lucky. My mother gave birth to her first sister in a haystack while working in the farmland. The family was very excited when she was born. Regardless of whether it is a boy or a girl, the first new life of the Zhang family is worthy of celebration.

In the twelfth lunar month of the next year, my mother took the risk of family planning and gave birth to her second sister. My father was secretly happy at that time, so he took the rabbit gun left by Grandpa Sanbei and went to the grass by the Shuihe River to hunt hares for her. His wife made soup to replenish her health. But Sanbei's grandma was a little unhappy at that time. The misfortune of the second sister also came. Mikita couldn't believe it when she heard her mother's story. She said that when her grandma saw her holding her newborn second sister in her arms and sitting on the bed in the house where Sanbei's second father later used to get married, her grandma didn't like her very much. Feeling that the second child was still a girl, he treated her rudely to the 23-year-old who had been married for less than three years. She didn't even finish her first month of confinement and started following Sanbei's grandfather and father around. Li Lao went to work. I remember one time, when I came back at noon, my mother was going to breastfeed my second sister, but she couldn't find her weak body in the house. In desperation, she began to panic, and looked for her second sister like crazy. Finally, she knelt on the ground, cried, and pulled at the corner of her grandma's clothes, begging Sanbei's grandma to tell her where to hide the child. Grandma seemed to be frightened by her mother's crazy behavior, so she told her where to throw it with difficulty, telling her mother: I threw my dick on the bridge of the ditch behind the house. It was placed in a basket, and now it is probably being harmed by wolves or wild dogs... After hearing this, Sanbei's mother cried and howled and hurried to the place my grandma mentioned. She was finally found and brought home safely. This is the dramatic life experience of the second sister. In the fifth year of his mother's marriage, just after the Lunar New Year, the third sister was born. Listening to Sanbei's mother's memories and observing his mother's behavior of waking up and wiping her tears during countless sleepless nights, he felt I can feel that the third sister will not end well. Often when the third sister is mentioned, the mother's face will show too much regret and remorse. Just after the Spring Festival that year, it was time for my mother to give birth. My father pulled Sanbei's mother to the health center in the town on a trolley, and finally gave birth to the third sister. Although the delivery conditions were very limited, the mother and the third sister All are safe too. During the week of recuperation, Sanbei's grandma stewed a pot of chicken soup and gave it to her as a token gift. However, after she was discharged from the hospital, before she could go home for confinement, she asked her grandma to bring the fifteen-day-old Sanjie to her. After they were sent away, I heard Mr. Sanbei say later that it belonged to some family from another county. In short, at that time, it felt like it was thousands of miles away from Erguan Village.

After the mother gave birth to the third sister, the family reorganization began. Grandma Qin, who was the original head of the family, only gave her mother five porcelain bowls and a mouthful of rice when the family was separated. A jar and some grain. It seemed at the time that the second father was getting married. Perhaps because of this, he felt the burden was getting heavier and heavier, so he urged his father to move out and start a new business. The selfish grandma vacated her mother's wedding room. Later, it truly became the second father's wedding room. Before Sanbei was born, the four members of Sanbei's family lived the same life as other families in the village. Under the northern slope of Hepan Road, in the low-lying land at the edge of the fields, dozens of families live in shelters built with corn poles.

Many years later, these eldest sons who were purged and left home have become the most tacit elders and friends. Zhang Sanbei affectionately calls them Uncle Xiao, Uncle Sun..., their children They are also his best companions.