Yu Qiuyu's prose recitation Xinke

Text of "Xinke": 1. There is a Xinke in the village next to my home. He is quite old and has been traveling long distances for twenty or thirty years. He went to a private school, and when he was older, he went out to work on the docks. He ran into several obstacles and became too poor to make a living. He came back to work as a letterman. There is another reason why he is a letter guest. It turned out that there was an old letter guest in the village. Once, a girl from a family in the village was getting married. The girl's father, who was making a living in Shanghai, asked an old letterman to bring him two pieces of red silk. The old letter customer just wanted to give a gift to a distant relative, so he cut a narrow strip of red silk to tie the gift. It looked pretty. Unexpectedly, the person in Shanghai asked another person to bring a message home, saying that after receiving the red silk, he would check whether there were small circles drawn on both ends to prevent the letter from being tampered with. This time, Xinke fell into trouble, and his scandal immediately spread around the countryside. Every family that had asked him to bring things before was recalling the doubts, as if everything in his family was due to deductions. But his home was dilapidated and gloomy, with nothing of value left. The old letter guest couldn't explain clearly, his face was full of sadness, he picked up the pair of scissors for cutting red silk and stabbed his hand directly. The next day, he held his scarred hand and found a young man from the same village who had just returned from Shanghai. When he entered the door, he said, "My reputation has been ruined, but this country cannot live without its guests." For two days, Lao Xin The guest told him in a slow voice who was out in the surrounding villages, how to find the door of each house in the countryside, and how to find a way to make a living in the city. It was very difficult to talk about the routes in several cities, and I kept drawing pictures on paper. This young man didn't even know most of the people who went out to make a living. The old believers talked and compared and compared, and even introduced their temperaments and habits. After finishing all this, the old letter guest told him which small hotels he could stay in along the way and which waiter in the hotel he could trust. There are also places to eat, which stall has the thickest flatbreads, and which small shop can only buy rice without vegetables. From beginning to end, young people never promised to take over. But after hearing the old man talk so much and in detail, he no longer refused. The old man's last instruction was to raise his pricked hand and say, "Xinke Xinke means letter. Don't imitate me." The young man thought of the old man's future life and said that he would help him after making money. he. The old man said: "No. I go to the cemetery to make a living. I stink, and if you are next to me, I will make you stink." Old Xinke was single and never returned to the village. After the young believers set out on the road, they encountered inquiries about the old believers along the way. I have been traveling hard for most of my life, and I have known him all along the way. Wanderers living abroad are waiting for the sound of his footsteps year after year. Now, he was hiding in a shabby thatched hut next to a mountain cemetery, suffering from insomnia every night. He kept his eyes open in the darkness and confusedly recalled the piers, the ships, and the faces. When it was windy or raining, he would stand up, hold his hand on the door frame and stand for a while, secretly telling the young pilgrims to be careful along the way.

Two

The young believers are gradually getting older. He often suffered from stomach ailments and rheumatism, and when he did, he would think of Lao Xinke. The old man had said everything, but why didn't he mention these two ailments? By the way, please ask your family to take some time to bring some food to the cemetery. He himself had been there several times, and the old man forced him to talk about the changes and news at each dock. There have always been more bad things than good things, so they lamented together. If their conversation could be recorded, it would definitely be a historical record of the changes in urban and rural areas in modern China that historians are extremely interested in. Unfortunately, this place is in the mountains, and just the two of them drifted away as soon as they spoke. Outside the hut, there were only strong mountains. wind. Letter customers cannot visit the elderly often. He was really too busy and spent too much time on the road. As soon as he got home, he was busy sending out letters and things, and also receiving the things he would bring out next time. He had to be present and check everything with his own hands. Once he saw the old man, he would make others wait. Whenever Xinke returns to the village, his house is always crowded. Most of them are not here to send or receive letters or gifts, but just to watch the fun and see what kind of people are coming from each house and what rare items they have brought with them. In the eyes of farmers, there is envy and jealousy; in comparison, there is also contempt and ridicule. These looks are how rural China rates its adventurers. These eyes are the exploration of the city from the hometown for thousands of years.

Finally, a woman came and whispered to the letterman: "Take care of him and bring things several times and once, and don't take them in pieces."; "Tell him, those things can't be stored in Shanghai? I'm a woman, and robbers come here." What to do if a thief comes?"... Xinke nodded calmly. He had seen too much and fully understood everything. The ups and downs of honor and disgrace in the city shock the rural nervous system that has been dull for a long time. He is the most sensitive nerve ending. A certain person who was making a living in the city suddenly fell ill and died. Such things often happened in those years. When the believers hear the news from their fellow citizens in the city, they will rush there to arrange the funeral arrangements and collect the belongings on behalf of the family members and fellow villagers. When he returned to the countryside, he put on a black umbrella with the handle facing forward and walked towards the deceased's house. Those who report death in the countryside use a black umbrella held upside down as a sign. The villagers will know at a glance that another person has died in a foreign country. When he arrived at the deceased's home, the letterer had a sad face and told the bad news in the euphemistic tone he had thought about for a long time along the way. The poor family members would cry loudly or faint suddenly. He could not leave and helped comfort Zhang Luo. There will even be some peasant women who suddenly become angry after hearing the news of the death. They gnash their teeth and hate the city, hate going out, and also hate the tourists. They regard him as the evil spirit of death and scold him loudly, but he can only listen and tolerate it with a low eyebrow. , kept saying Nono. In the afternoon, he had to deliver the deceased's belongings again, which made the matter even more dangerous. Rural women would regard this pile of simple relics as the price of their husband's life, and almost no one believed that this was all they had. The red eyes were filled with doubts, and Xinke felt uncomfortable all over, as if he had done something wrong. He had no choice but to softly report on the arrangements for his funeral in Shanghai. Rural women were completely ignorant of Shanghai society, and often raised questions that he could not answer. It wasn't until he shed a lot of sweat and made a lot of apology that he walked out of the deceased's house with a gloomy look on his face. Can he stop doing this? cannot. How can I not show some nostalgia and friendship since I am also a fellow countryman? The old believer said that this countryside cannot live without believers. As a letter guest, you have to carry the heavy burden of life and death and travel back and forth. People who went out to make a living in the four towns piled their blood, sweat and tears on his shoulders.

Three

Letter can read and write letters on his behalf. If you have nothing important to do, just leave a message. There is always something ominous about writing a letter. The women complained at the Xinke's house with tears and runny noses, and the Xinke spread paper, polished ink, and thought about the sentences. He always transformed the endless resentments and urgent worries into elegant sentences, solemnly put them into envelopes, and then personally took the broken and anxious hearts to the distance. Once, he walked into a house in the city with a letter full of resentment, and saw that the recipient of the letter, who had made a fortune, was already living with another woman. He advanced and retreated twice, hesitating again and again to see if he should take out the letter. The fellow villager who had made a fortune knew that he would do bad things when he came, so he deliberately pretended not to know him and asked sternly who he was. This made him angry, and he immediately opened the letter and shouted: "This is a letter from your wife!" The fashionable girl opened the letter and cried loudly after reading it. The fellow countryman couldn't get off the stage, so he insisted that he was a thief who broke into people's houses, and that giving out a fake letter was just a way to get away. In order to calm the woman's crying, the fellow villager slapped him twice and sent him to the police station. He explained his identity to the police officer and showed the addresses of many other fellow villagers as proof. The fellow villagers who summoned him raised funds to bail him out and asked him why. He only said that he was confused and went to the wrong house. He didn't want his fellow countrymen living abroad to be cast into a shadow. When he returned home this time, he immediately went to the grave of old Xinke and burned incense. This old man had been dead for many years. He knelt at the grave and asked the old man to forgive him: he would never be a guest again. He said: "This road is getting more and more dangerous, and I can't stand it anymore." He told the villagers that he had a disease in his legs and feet and could no longer travel far. Some of the family members who were away were suddenly panicked and looked around for new believers, but couldn't find them. Only then do people remember all his benefits, and often bring him a few bowls of food and snacks when he has lost his source of livelihood, and then ask him to think of ways to communicate. It seems that the misfortune of these villages is not over yet, the fellow villager who slapped Xinke in the city suddenly became kind-hearted.

The man later made a fortune, and the fashionable girl left him immediately after reading the letter. He also learned from other fellow villagers that the letter had not said anything bad about him, and he also heard that the letter had been idle at home since then. , and all these things moved him deeply. He came back to his hometown once. He first went to the county post office and handed over money to ask them to set up an agency in Xiaonan Goods Store in this township. He also proposed that the letter customer should be responsible for the matter. After finishing all this, he returned home to express condolences to the neighbors. He even went to the letter's home to apologize quietly and asked him to accept the postal service. The letter guest was very respectful to him and asked him not to remember the past. As for the postal service, there is someone at Xiaonan Goods Store who can do it, but I am not in good health so I can’t do it. He did not take any money given to him by his fellow villagers, but only accepted some gifts. After that, a green mailbox was hung at the door of Xiaonan Goods Store, and packages were also sent. These villages were connected to the city again. The letter writer began to make a living by writing letters for him. There were many people who asked him to write letters. His life was average in the countryside.

Four

Two years later, several private schools merged into one elementary school and adopted new teaching materials. There was a shortage of geography teachers, so everyone thought of Xinke. Xinke teaches geography vividly and with great effect. He was originally illiterate, but after decades of traveling around the country and writing countless letters, his actual educational level was among the best among several teachers, and he was able to teach Chinese with ease. He has a broad vision and is able to tolerate all kinds of new knowledge. What's even more valuable is that he has a deep understanding of the world and is very considerate, and he quickly became the backbone of this elementary school. Soon he became the principal of an elementary school. During his tenure as principal, the teaching quality of this primary school was among the best in the county. The proportion of graduates admitted to urban middle schools is also very high. When he died, many people came to express their condolences, many of whom came from other places. According to his last wish, his tomb was built next to the tomb of Lao Xinke. At this time, most of the villagers had no idea who Lao Xinke was and what his relationship was with the principal. In order to look good, I also repaired the shapeless grave.