Jujube

The night my brother carried me home across the rice fields made me doubt the ground for the first time.

My brother put me down at the door of the house, and my feet stepped on the ground that was more solid than his shoulders, but at that moment I suddenly felt uneasy.Just like a baby with a broken navel wants to retract into its mother's womb, I want to climb back on my brother's back immediately, as if Lu Xinyao's thin shoulders in his youth were stronger than the earth.

Everything that happened later confirmed my suspicion at the time. After Meng Guanghui died and my family collapsed, my brother used his thin shoulders and his own strength to prop up the collapsed world again.

After I got home, Meng Guanghui scolded me because I lost my beer. I have a good memory since I was a child, but I can’t remember a word of what Meng Guanghui scolded that day. I only remember that Lu Xinyao was not far away. He hooked his hand at me.He brought a bucket of water from the well, and like a real brother, he helped me wash off the stains and blood on my body.

I think of Big Peng and Xiao Peng. In the past, I used to see these twin brothers sitting by the well in front of their house, watering each other's back with a big wooden ladle.When Lu Xinyao pressed his wet hand on the back of my neck, and his long and strong fingers ran through my hair, I knew I didn't have to envy them anymore.

After taking a shower, I went back to the house alone. The autumn night was especially long, and Pan Guizhi didn't let me go easily.In the dream, he drove the shadow of the scarecrow and harvested the crops rustlingly. I dreamed that I was also a crop, with my feet caught by the ground and unable to move. I saw Pan Guizhi rustling towards me to harvest.

I woke up from the dream with nowhere to go, and found the direction of Lu Xinyao's back in the darkness——

My brother's bed is next to the window, no matter how dark the sky is, there is always a little light from the sky, as long as there is a little light, I can see him.

But all I saw was darkness.

Lu Xinyao was not there.

My heartbeat suddenly accelerated, and my brother's bed was like a shrine without the statue. My fear had no place to rest, and I couldn't help but shouted "Brother" to the empty bed, but no one responded to me.

Avalokitesvara didn't hear me, so I called out again.When I yelled the seventh sound, there was a "squeak" sound from the door, and I sat up suddenly from the bed, and saw my brother standing at the door wearing an undershirt and half-wet hair.I rubbed my eyes, raised my eyelids and looked at him blankly.

"Why did you call me?" He had just taken a shower, and his voice was as cool as the water that had just been pulled from the well.

My mind was at a loss, and I subconsciously shook my head at him, and then I remembered that the light was not turned on in the room, and I didn't know if he saw it.

Lu Xinyao's footsteps approached the window. When he turned his back to me, I squeezed the corner of the quilt and couldn't help calling "Brother".I heard his footsteps stop.

I opened my eyes in the dark and dared not close them, and stared at Lu Xinyao without blinking, fearing that if I closed my eyes, Pan Guizhi's nine-yin white bone claws would stretch out and grab me.

"Brother," I said to Lu Xinyao in a muffled voice, "I can't sleep... Will Pan Guizhi seek revenge on me tomorrow?"

My brother said: "No."

I pressed him, "What about the day after tomorrow?"

"Neither."

"Then... what about later?"

This time he didn't answer me right away.

Lu Xinyao's eyes were as dark as the sky outside the window. I couldn't see his expression, but I could feel his gaze.That gaze seemed to pierce the darkness and see through me.

After a moment of silence, my brother looked at me and said, "No more."

At that time, I didn't know what my last questioning meant to my brother. I only knew that Pan Guizhi was a man who would take revenge, and he would definitely lie in ambush at the bridgehead to take revenge on me.So I asked my brother if I could wait for him at school after school tomorrow.

Lu Xinyao asked me to wait for him by the bridge.

I trust my brother, but I'm still scared.However, when I walked to the bridge anxiously after school the next day, Pan Guizhi did not appear for a long time. I squatted at the bridge and waited for a long time, but what I waited for was not Pan Guizhi's revenge, but my brother's figure.

I still remember the sky that evening, the setting sun on the bridge of my brother's nose, and the creaking of a bicycle selling old-fashioned steamed buns passing by my brother. A bright bloodstain.

I immediately thought of Pan Guizhi's Nine Yin White Bone Claws.

My eyelids jumped involuntarily.For a moment, I seemed to see Pan Guizhi's claws on my brother's body, and suddenly I didn't dare to peek at my brother's wound quietly anymore.It's so strange, different blood flowed in our bodies, but at that time I clearly felt a tingling pain connected by blood.

My brother didn't care about those scratches, and I didn't dare to ask him. It wasn't until Meng Guanghui returned home angrily with a dark face that I learned the truth belatedly.

My brother beat up Pan Guizhi.

At that time, I heard Meng Guanghui's voice shouting in the room: "Lu Xinyao! Come out!"

I looked at my brother uneasily, but Lu Xinyao remained expressionless, as if he didn't hear him.

Meng Guanghui walked from the yard to the house while shouting. He is an impatient person. When he knocked on the door, he no longer asked my brother to come out, but told him to "get out".Meng Guanghui slapped the door so hard that a piece of wall covering by the door fell off. It first fell on my head, then slid down again, falling apart at my feet.

At this time, I saw Lu Xinyao kicked the stool and stood up.

I suddenly felt frightened, so I put my back against the door and said to my brother, "Brother, don't go out."

"Get out of the way." Lu Xinyao frowned.

I still pressed against the door and shook my head at him: "Don't go."

Lu Xinyao looked down at me, then stretched out his hand to break my shoulders, pushed me aside, and swiftly opened the door.

As soon as my brother opened the door, I saw Meng Guanghui's slap.He had a dark face, and that slap looked like it was about to land on my brother's face.

Perhaps because of Sun Yuemei's face, Meng Guanghui stared at my brother for a few seconds with gloomy eyes, and finally held back the slap.He put down his hand, and scolded my brother loudly: "Who are you hitting so well? If you are full, you insist on causing trouble for me! Go, come with me to Pan's house and apologize!"

My brother ignored Meng Guanghui and said, "Apologize, right? You let him come to me by himself."

This was the first confrontation between my brother and Meng Guanghui. My father was furious. He was never a magnanimous person, not to mention that my brother was just his son raised for others.

Lu Xinyao's disobedience to him made him feel a kind of provocation. That night, Meng Guanghui pulled out an old belt and pulled it at my brother.My brother was only in his teens and a junior high school student, but he grabbed Meng Guanghui's belt.I still remember the look in Lu Xinyao's eyes at that time, which made my father's back feel cold. When Meng Guanghui dropped the belt later, he still had lingering fears, and said to Sun Yuemei over and over again: "I kept something at home!"

He whipped my brother with a belt, but he didn't look like a winner at all. Meng Guanghui pointed at Lu Xinyao and said angrily, "Lu Xinyao, you're a good kid!"

My brother angered Meng Guanghui because of me, I hurt my brother, I clamped myself behind the door, tears rolled down from the gap between the door panel and my cheek, and scratched my face like a wooden splinter.

Lu Xinyao knew that I was behind the door, but he ignored me. He took off his shirt and went to the well to fetch water for a bath. I saw my brother's naked back through the crack of the door.

At that moment, my nose suddenly twitched violently, and then there was a fierce sour feeling, and tears came out again.I clearly saw the cracks behind the Avalokitesvara statue through my tearful eyes.

"Brother...I'm sorry." When my brother passed by the door, I choked up and said to him.

My brother's footsteps paused, but he didn't stop. Hearing his footsteps gradually walking out, I couldn't help crying sadly.

I'm a villain, I caused my brother to be scratched by Pan Guizhi's Nine Yin White Bone Claw, and I also caused him to be pulled by Meng Guanghui's belt. Lu Xinyao definitely doesn't want to be my brother.

I squatted down behind the door panel, tears fell drop by drop on the ground, I dipped my fingers into the tears on the ground, and wrote my brother's name over and over - I only wrote one Lu Xinyao, and the rest were all "brother", every time Every brother is followed by a sentence of sorry.

When I wrote 34 sorry, my brother opened the door.He looked down at me and said nothing for a long time, "Brother" dried up in front of him.

"Get up," he said.

I buried my face in my arms, wiped my tears with the back of my hand, and whispered to my brother, "I'm sorry..."

I couldn't see my brother's reaction, I just felt him walk away, and after a while I felt a hand on my hair, the hand pushed the hair from my forehead and forced me to look up.

My brother squatted in front of me, his eyes fell on my face, and he wiped the wet corners of my eyes with a tissue.For the first time, I was so close to my brother face to face, close enough to see his eyelashes clearly, close enough to feel his slight snort - so close that I could see the traces of the nine-yin white bone claws on his neck when I lowered my eyes .

So my eyelids drooped again. There is no blood is thicker than water between me and my brother, but when my brother bleeds, I will shed tears.

My initial affection for my brother and my future lust and love were born in tears.