Jujube

The first scar was on the hand.

That was when I was about to graduate from elementary school. The dogs in Pan Guizhi's family had lost their prestige. One was poisoned to death, and the other disappeared inexplicably. There was only one old black dog lying half dead at the door every day.

I no longer follow Lu Xinyao every day, and I no longer squat on the bridge to wait for him after school.Lu Xinyao didn't care about me either, he left early and returned late, like Meng Guanghui back then, and gave me some money for breakfast every day.I never knew where my brother's money came from. From the age of 14 to [-] or [-], Lu Xinyao seemed to have been reborn and learned to make money without a teacher.As he promised, he didn't need Sun Yuemei, and supported the two of us with only one person.

Zhang Buyu and I got back together again. During that time we were walking to school together, a man who swept the street often smiled at me.The man was dark and strong, tall and burly, with a sweat towel around his neck, and every morning he pushed the garbage truck around the school gate.

He smiled at me, and sometimes he whistled at me, a long, upward-pitched whistle.Zhang Buyu looked at him, then at me, and asked strangely, "Little Lizi, do you know him?"

I shook my head.

I don't know him, but he is smiling at me, and when I shake my head, he is also looking at me and smiling.Zhang Buyu suspected that I was lying, and he asked suspiciously: "You don't know him, why does he always smile at you? Look, I don't know him, so he won't stare at me and smile."

Zhang Buyu's analysis was clear and logical. I don't know why, I was a little guilty by what he said, as if I was really hiding something, I said, "How do you know he is smiling at me?"

Zhang Buyu couldn't find evidence, but insisted: "It's you! I'm not blind, I can see it!"

I retorted: "I can also see that he is obviously laughing at you."

Zhang Buyu is a person who likes to get into the wrong place. He looked at me and said bitterly: "Then let's not go together next time. Look at who he is smiling at!"

I didn't speak, Zhang Buyu rolled his eyes, leaned closer and said, "Little Lizi, don't you dare?"

I was stimulated by Zhang Buyu's words, and I blurted out the words against my will: "Who said no!"

A coward who has lied is still a coward, no matter how daring the lie.The next day I separated from Zhang Buyu, and when I walked to the school alone, I panickedly prayed in my heart that the man pushing the garbage truck would not show up. rubbish truck.

The man was standing next to the garbage truck, but this time he didn't smile at me.Holding a tube of cucurbit silk in both hands, he was puffing his cheeks and squinting his eyes while blowing.

I noticed that he was still laughing, the cucurbit silk was making a beeping sound, and his eyes were laughing.

I just glanced over there, afraid that he would suddenly stop playing and smile at me like before. Zhang Buyu caught up from behind, patted me on the shoulder, and complained in bewilderment: "It's boring, why doesn't he smile today? La?"

My lie was not exposed, but I also began to suspect that maybe I really knew that man, maybe when I was very young, I just forgot.

One day when Zhang Buyu was not around, when he was blowing cucurbit silk and smiling at me with his eyes, I didn't ignore him as usual.I walked towards him slowly, he looked at me with a smile, when I stopped in front of him, he put down the cucurbit silk, his mouth smiled like his eyes, just smiled, but didn't speak.

I thought about it for a while, and finally asked him bluntly if we knew each other, and he still smiled.

He smiled and said, now we know each other.

This is true.

It was the first time I heard him speak, his voice was low and thick, with an accent that did not belong to Baiquedang.

After my elder brother Lu Xinyao's voice change period, his voice has also become lower than before, but unlike the man in front of him, Lu Xinyao's voice is so low that it can sink into the cochlea and make the heartbeat flutter like a butterfly.

He stretched out his hand holding the cucurbit silk, pointed at me with the mouth of the cucurbit, and asked, "Want to play?"

I shook my head at him: "I won't."

He said he could teach me, but I still shook my head: "I don't learn."

He smiled at the cucurbit flute, and began to play again.

After that day, he not only smiled at me, sometimes he would wave to me and greet me when he saw me on the road.Zhang Buyu witnessed this scene and firmly believed that I had deceived him, so he asked me to treat him to a bunch of fried bananas.But I am a stingy man, so I put my hand into my pocket, tightly grasping the money that Lu Xinyao gave me, and shook my head at Zhang Buyu: "I won't invite you."

Zhang Buyu "hummed" at me angrily, turned his head and left.Later, I wrote about Zhang Buyu in the composition of a final exam, and I said he was my wine and meat friend.My brother found it during a parent-teacher meeting and came back and asked me, "Did I give you too little money?" I said no, I was stingy.My brother laughed without warning.

I like to tell the truth to my brother, only the truth can make him laugh.

After being abandoned by Zhang Buyu, I walked out of the school gate alone, and saw that man again.He didn't blow the cucurbit flute, and he stopped waving at me, but bent his fingers and hooked me.I walked over and asked, "You called me?"

His smile was different from usual, it was a mysterious smile.

"I have something good, do you want to eat it?" he asked me.

I asked what it was, but he didn't say anything, but just let me go with him, and I knew it after I told him.

I stood there without moving, he saw my hesitation, and said regretfully: "If you don't dare to go, forget it."

Children at my age somewhat care about face, I immediately retorted: "Who says I dare not?"

So he laughed again, and I followed him across the grass and a gravel road to a courtyard wall.Only then did he stop, turned around and asked me to wait at the door, and he went home to get it for me.

I saw his back disappearing by the courtyard wall, and only then did I know that this street sweeper lived here.

This place is not far from my house, so I was discovered by my brother.

I waited at the door for a while, and the man brought down the "good thing" as promised, which was a piece of dried eggplant.There is no such thing in Baiquedang, I have never eaten it back then, but I don’t know why I was bewitched, and in order not to look like a bumpkin, I didn’t ask him what it was, but calmly opened the package and bit Take a sip.

I heard that Pan Guizhi's dog was poisoned to death by a meat bun. —I suddenly thought as the dried eggplant gave off a strange taste in my mouth.But I didn't spit it out. The man's encouraging and approving eyes made me both uneasy and lucky.

He's not like a bad guy.I told myself in my heart.

For me back then, the abducted children and the dogs killed by drugs only existed in the conversations of the villagers, as if there was a layer of separation from the reality around me, which was something between the real and the fake.I always thought it wouldn't happen to me.Little did I know at the time that it was this innocent innocence that often put a child who was lucky enough to be in danger.

Lu Xinyao is also a child, but he is by no means an innocent child.At that time, he was walking home from the "smoky place" that Sun Yuemei called, when he happened to bump into this scene: his cheap brother was chewing food given by a stranger with relish.

This embarrassing scene must have given my brother a deep stimulus.

He is obviously not Meng Guanghui's own son, but he is as violent as Meng Guanghui.He violently took what was in my hand, threw it aside, then grabbed my hand and pulled it aside, scolding me in front of the man.

"Spit it out for me!" Lu Xinyao was very similar to Meng Guanghui when he was angry. Like Meng Guanghui, he called himself "Lao Tzu".

It was too late, the dried eggplant was too hard to chew, I swallowed it without biting twice.

But my brother's expression at that time was too scary, I murmured and didn't dare to make a sound, so my brother became even more angry, he roughly pinched my chin, and opened my mouth.Seeing my empty mouth, he froze for two seconds in disbelief.

Two seconds later, he changed from a human to a mad dog. His fingers pushed away my teeth and squeezed directly into my mouth. At that moment, I suddenly understood-the "good thing" he wanted to swallow me "Cut it out.

The street sweeper is still there!

Embarrassed by my shame, I bit my brother's hand recklessly.At that time, my teeth were sharp and my mouth was sharp and I didn't know the severity. I couldn't serve him comfortably like I gave it to my brother later. When I took a bite, there was a bloody smell in my mouth.

My brother gasped, but he was my brother after all, he didn't pay attention to my attack, he just stared at me fiercely with cannibalistic eyes, and the movements of his hands became more ferocious.

I was tossed and vomited by him without any accident.

I spit out tears, my brother looked at me coldly like a victor, and then threatened the man with an arrogance beyond his age: "If you dare to provoke him again, I will make you unable to bear it." !"

What Meng Guanghui said was right, my brother has the guts, he managed to kill my ambition and grow his prestige.

My brother's hand was bleeding, which was bitten out by me. The blood got into my teeth, flowed into his nails, dripped down, and fell to the ground. That tall man was bitten by my brother. Threatened, but dare not say a word for a while.

My brother grabbed my arm with the bleeding hand and carried me home.He was training me in the yard, pinching my cheeks with bloody hands, and forced me to ask, "Who made you eat it?"

I didn't dare to speak, my brother used more force, he stared at me: "Speak!"

"...I, myself." I twitched my nose.

"Are you a beggar and haven't eaten?"

My brother seldom scolded me like this, I was a little scared, I apologized and said: "I'm sorry...brother..."

"And next time, you just go out and beg for food and don't come back." He finally said to me.

I didn't dare to raise my eyes to look at him directly, and I didn't dare to lower my eyes to look at the blood stains from my bite on his hands. These blood stains dried up and left a scar on my brother's hands.

I forgot the original taste of dried eggplant, I just remember my brother's bloody hands crushed my teeth and lips heavily, leaving my mouth full of blood.