Seed beans

The last ray of light in the sky was gradually swallowed up, and only a small black spot could be vaguely seen beating in the distance on the winding mountain road.

This day is the first day of school for eight-year-old Bian Chunhan, and he is also the latest among his brothers who are already in school.At this time, most of the rural areas had not yet implemented the requirement to go to primary school at the age of seven, and they could go to school after paying the tuition fee.Bian Chunhan is the sixth child in the family, right in the middle.

In [-], the eighth year of reform and opening up, the central government implemented the policy of assigning land to households for eight years. Lulin Village, which includes dozens of mountain peaks and consists of [-] or [-] households, just divided up the land yesterday. The old village head and party secretary in the village ran for six full days before notifying every household of this matter.People who have never been to such a mountain village will never imagine that a brigade of less than one hundred households is divided into more than a dozen places and scattered at the foot of the mountain. Girls married in the same village may have to go back to their natal homes from morning to afternoon. People who belong to the same village in the household registration book may have never met in a lifetime.

Even so, Bian Chunhan's family is well-known in Lulin Village, for no other reason than the son of the leader of the entire football team.After Bian Chunhan's mother returned home with his father at the age of 20, from the second year to the present 20 years, she gave birth to eleven sons to the old Bian's family. In such a place where almost the whole village has one surname, even the entire village There is only one family named Bian in the village, and no one dares to underestimate Bian Chunhan's father. This is one of the most important reasons.

The older brothers of Bian Chunhan all went to primary school when they were five or six years old. The nearest primary school in Lulin Village is a five-year school. When Bian Chunhan was five years old, his third brother was 11 years old and just graduated from primary school. A person admitted to the middle school in the town center.

"Father, even if we can't go out with bare buttocks, we have to send San'er to the town to go to school!" The 17-year-old elder brother said firmly to Father Bian who was sitting silently in the shadow of the candlelight.

In Lulin Village and dozens of nearby mountain villages, there is only one junior high school consisting of a crumbling two-story building. There are less than fifty students in the whole school, and none of them have been admitted to high school for several years.

Eldest brother Bian Yuan used to be unable to get even a single grain out of his family, not to mention bringing him two catties of grain a week. At that time, the whole family could not afford to eat all year round, and the tuition and other expenses were far higher than those in the mountains; two years The second elder brother, Bian Hao, was also admitted to No. 80 Middle School of Huji Town with the top score in the graduation examination. The family saved seven or eight catties of food by wearing their belts, and borrowed from more than a dozen nearby families to scrape together seven or eighty yuan. Tuition and miscellaneous fees, but there is no way to buy two more complete sets of clothes for the second brother.

Bian Cunzhi pondered for a moment, "This year your mothers have fed a few chickens and saved money from selling eggs. The sixth son can wait for a year to go to elementary school. We will go to fight against half a year before the autumn harvest. Monthly package, that's it."

The eldest brother and the second brother both passed the senior high school entrance examination in the junior high school near the village, and they didn't even pass the entrance examination for the worst high school in the town.

Therefore, Bian Chunhan continued to help take care of the younger brothers at home for a year.

Last year, the third brother, Bian Jun, had excellent grades, so the teacher helped him apply for a partial tuition and miscellaneous tuition exemption for the poor students. Bian Jun went to the town every day to pick up waste and saved the other part, but Bian’s mother gave birth to the tenth child and there was not enough milk. Most of them changed to white rice and came back to cook rice paste. Bian Chunhan stayed at home for another year and hugged his tenth brother who cried because he had no milk.

"No matter what happens this year, the sixth child has to go to school, and he will go to school first if he owes his IOU." Bian Cunzhi finished the sentence while Bian Chunhan was eating noodles for his eighth birthday.

But the fifth brother Bian Ming, who is three years older than Bian Chunhan, also entered the town's junior high school with the No.

In the first year of the town's No. [-] Middle School, two students were enrolled in Lulin Village Central Primary School.

The fourth brother, Bian Hu, didn't like reading since he was a child. He went to school with Bian Ming. He passed the primary school entrance examination with two goals, and he had to stay at home to dig scorpions and sell them.

At that time, although this closed mountain village was still in the period of collective labor, and although the living was too scattered, the whole brigade did not burn the cauldron, but it was divided into pieces according to the village party secretary. There is no way to calculate the working days, and the work is divided according to the harvest. There are no paddy fields in the area where Bian's family lives, and there is even little yellow soil. , There is not enough food in any year.But outside, even if the terrain is more flat and the roads are a little easier to walk, even dozens of miles away, there are markets. There are half-sized people who have the courage to dig through the scorpion holes everywhere, and there are even people who don't know the heights of the sky and the earth have dug half of their ancestors' graves.

The eldest brother chased half the mountain with a firewood stick and forced the fourth brother who was crying and howling into the village's junior high school.

"You must read all the books. After finishing junior high school, you all rely on your own ability. If you don't pass the high school, you can earn rations on your own. As long as you pass the high school, your father will tell you to read it." Bian Cunzhi often used this sentence Talk about it.

The old man of the Bian family used to be a teacher in a private school, and he said earlier that he had been a professor. When he was young, he was handed out to Lulin Village with Father Bian. What made the old man completely disheartened was that all his life's collections were burned. Lu Lin Village gave up within a few years.

When Bian Cunzhi was young, although he followed a talented father, he didn't like reading, but the insight and obsession he got from the old man is the biggest difference between him and the native mountain people here.

This year, my family has been worrying since the results of the graduation exam at the end of June came out.

The fearless Bianhu asked Xiezi to pliers, and his swollen hands could not hold the chopsticks. Bian Cunzhi took him to several hills, and found a few people who were said to know the old formula. Applying grass mud and drinking soil lump water made it look less scary. Since then, the elder brother has not allowed his younger brothers to catch scorpions. I had a good meal, and I left half a jar of lard, and added a spoonful of it every time I cooked the pimple soup. I don’t know how delicious the taste is.

Bian Chunhan thought that he would have to wait another year. The second brother who went to serve in the military last year sent a remittance slip back, and the second brother remitted more than 300 yuan of subsidies a year. The staff of the post office with their nostrils turned upside down helped fill out a remittance form, and returned 100 yuan back, which also solved the urgent need at home.

Last year when the village party secretary came to notify him of conscription, the second brother was actually underage. The elder brother insisted that he was the eldest son and should stay at home, so he forced the second brother to sign up.

At this time, the methods of calculating age are different in different places, and some people even falsely count as three or four years old. The second brother is one year behind, and other medical examinations are passed, so it is easy to pass.

Bian Chunhan strode forward vigorously, and the branches and thatch around him retreated quickly, but the mountain road ahead that could not be seen clearly did not seem to shorten at all.Bian Chunhan was a little impatient, secretly regretting that he shouldn't have watched others play glass beads for so long.

But the glass beads are so pretty!

Bian Chunhan couldn't help laughing again, and decided to watch it for a while after school tomorrow.

At the end of August and the beginning of September, it was the time to rush to harvest soybeans and corn. This spring, the land had just been distributed. Apart from paying the agricultural tax, the crops in the field were all their own. The land was distributed according to the head. At this time, the Bian family It can be regarded as the benefit of having more sons. A total of thirteen people should be divided into more than two acres of paddy fields and nearly twenty acres of dry fields.The good land in Lulin Village is scattered all over the mountains, and there is none in the two big mountains where the Bian family lives. If we really want to divide the poor good fields, the fields will all be scattered among more than a dozen mountains. See if it's enough to run back and forth all day, let alone farming well.The old village head and the village party secretary made it clear from door to door that those who are willing to share in this way can do it. If the balance is clear, find a day to draw lots together. The second method is to choose the nearest one, and rank them according to the fields. Those who cannot get a good field Can get a few acres more.

Bian Cunzhi chose the latter option. In addition to the irreplaceable paddy fields, there are [-] acres of mountain land distributed on two nearby mountains, and even the two untouched hillsides at his door should be managed by Bian's family.

The couple Bian Cunzhi and Bian Yuan have been cultivating the fields all day long, and it is not easy to replant all the land with their hands and a handful of strength.

There are only six farming cattle in the village, and those who are not caught by lottery open public warehouses to supplement grain.

When it was dark and out of sight, Bian Cunzhi, Liu Fang'e, and Bian Yuan walked into the courtyard with a basket of soybean stalks piled higher than a head.

"Liu'er, are you hungry?"

Liu Fang'e untied the basket, quickly brought out half a bucket of water from the well, and after washing her hands, walked quickly into the kitchen, yelling.

"Mother, Sixth Brother hasn't come back yet, Brother Yao has been humming for a long time, it's not good to coax!" The old seven, Bian Changji, ran into the kitchen with his arms around the youngest of the Bian family, who was only half a year old.

Liu Fang'e wrapped the youngest child with one hand and unbuttoned her skirt. While breastfeeding, she carefully scooped grain from the grain jar and cooked porridge.

"Sixth brother won't come back once he goes to school today...Eighth brother knows how he won't move when Chongzi asks him to give him a hand...Ninth brother is still playing alone in the village and doesn't want to come back...Tenth brother afternoon I started drooling after half a mile and I don't know why I'm so greedy..." Bian Changji helped to light the fire under the stove, and his mouth didn't stop.

"Mother, I'll go to the top of the mountain to pick up the sixth child."

Bian Yuan vigorously patted the dust off his body and went out the door.

Bian Chunhan stopped a hill away from his home.

The night in the mountains is quiet except for the occasional migratory birds who don’t know where they are hiding in their sleep, and it is quiet on a windless day.

Bian Chunhan followed the faint cry to find the river.

This river, which could not find its source, went around several hills and ended in a naturally formed lake. Not far from the lake, a small wooden basin drifted crookedly along the current, and from time to time Because it hit a protruding place on the shore, it leaned dangerously.

Bian Chunhan didn't care to roll up his pants, splashed into the water, and picked up the tub.

Inside, the baby, whose whole body was already wet by the splashed river water, stopped crying if he felt something, and looked in the direction of the figure with clearer eyes because of the infiltration of tears.

Sometimes the generation of obsession is only in a blink of an eye.

It's not that Bian Chunhan has never seen a baby. On the contrary, he almost started to help take care of his younger brothers after he had the ability to take care of himself, until he started to go to school today.

My mind seemed to be sucked in by those bottomless eyeballs, and I couldn't find the reason most of the time!