Chapter 251
Autumn has arrived.
The autumn wind is warm and melting, not cold, but if you look down on it, after dark, the sudden cold wind is enough to freeze people sick.
In the middle of nowhere, the original fields are deserted, and there are one or two sporadic cabbages growing in the gutter, growing together with the weeds.
Large clumps of wild orchids and onion orchids grow everywhere, with small white and yellow flowers, emitting fragrance.
There are not many people left in the village, except for the old, the sick and the disabled. Those who can’t leave or run away stay in the village and wait for death.
This morning, the remaining villagers in the village suddenly heard a long, long cry. This long chirp stopped after one cry.
An older man knew it and said to the others who were terrified and afraid to hide, “It’s the noise from the prison, I wonder if another prisoner is about to be sent.”
One of the villagers even said enviously, “Now there is food in the prison, right? It’s damn good! I would like to be arrested for something, so I can at least eat two mouthfuls of dry food.”
Another villager said, “You go in to be beaten, killed, dragged to the back of the prison pit buried, no one knows.”
The first villager who spoke gulped and said, “That’s better than starving.”
Not far from the village, there is a large gray house, which is surrounded by a high fence, the fence also has barbed wire, barbed wire are sprouting spikes, but also electrified it, often hanging above the wild birds electrocuted air-dried corpses.
A small door under the gate of the fence was opened today.
Two gendarmes came out carrying guns and shouted at the back: “Hurry up! Hurry up! Come out!”
Inside, a group of gendarmes opened all the cell doors and drove the prisoners inside out. With the butts of their rifles or Japanese bayonets, they stabbed at the prisoners, who rolled slowly to avoid them, terrified.
“Come out! Come out!”
All the prisoners were driven out, they were drowsy, suddenly coming from the unlighted room to the outdoor, their eyes could not stand the sunlight outside, and were stimulated to shed tears. They were driven to stand in line, not daring to speak.
The gendarmes continued to drive through the cells.
Some prisoners did not want to come out.
“Don’t! I don’t want to die! Don’t kill me! Don’t shoot me!” The prisoners hugged the gendarmes’ legs and cried and begged.
The gendarme kicked and punched, “Get lost! If you don’t get out, grandpa will shoot you now!”
The gendarmes dragged out all the prisoners who refused to come out as well.
Finally, the gendarmes checked all the cells. The last group of gendarmes to come out reported to the captain.
“There are two broken ones.”
The captain said, “Bad luck, what a way to give me a hard time. Drag them over to the cremator and burn them.”
The prisoners stood in line and shivered when they heard it.
The captain asked the gendarme: “There’s no one in there, is there?”
Gendarme: “All driven out.”
Captain: “All right, send them away then.”
The prisoners didn’t know what was going on; some of them had been locked up for months, some for years, and some for much longer. They hadn’t been outside for a long time, and being suddenly herded out into the open wilderness overwhelmed them, making them almost want to hide back in their cells again.
They were more afraid that this was going to kill them all than that they would be free.
As soon as the captain left and the gendarmes all approached with their guns raised, the prisoners all clamored with fear; they cried out, and some tried to rush outside, but they were all forced back by the gendarmes with their guns and bayonets.
“Be honest! Or I’ll beat you to death!”
The gendarme spat, disgusted with the lack of oil in this errand. But it was an order from above, so they could only do as they were told.
The prisoners were driven out one by one, and the gendarmes forced them to leave, then closed the gate behind them.
At first, the prisoners stood outside the prison gates, not daring to move or walk; they were like a flock of quails, used to being raised in cages, and would not run even if they were released.
Until the sun gradually rose, the warm autumn wind blew on their bodies and faces, bringing the scent of grass, flowers, and earth in the wilderness.
One’s senses then gradually wake up.
They are outside.
There is no one to watch.
A man runs away first.
He walks away, goes farther away, and then springs into a wild run.
The inmates see his back as he runs wildly, wooden and frozen.
There were watchtowers in the prisons, and many escapees were shot to death by the gendarmes on the towers.
People would suddenly flop down as if stoned and then never move again.
But this man ran and ran and ran until there was no more shadow, and no gun hit him.
There was a clamor among the prisoners.
More men ran.
Then all of them ran.
Some of them ran aimlessly, in any direction they could find.
Some ran in the direction of the city.
Some ran in the direction of the village.
After a few days, a rumor appeared in the city that a prisoner was said to have escaped from prison.
The streets, which were already deserted, became even more deserted.
The school also closed its gates tightly, and the male students even began to patrol during the day.
Zhu Yuyan had heard many versions of the rumor among her classmates and had learned them all at the dinner table.
Her chopsticks were in her hands, and she didn’t take a bite of food for half a day, her mouth only focused on talking: “Some people say that the inmates in the prison are rioting. Others say that the inmates joined together, killed all the prison police, and ran out with their guns.”
At the long table sat Professor Dai, Zhu Yanshu, Shi Wuwei, Dai Yucan, Zhang Ma, and Su Chunjun and Zhu Yuyan, an unmarried couple.
The people sat full, but there were not many plates on the table, collectively there were only two plates of dishes, a plate of soy sauce fried sauce radish strips, salty on top of salty; a plate of soy sauce fried chili peppers, salty with spicy.
Shi Wuwei’s cooking skills had finally improved, in the past he used to stir fry everything with chili peppers, but now that he had learned to use soy sauce, it became stir fry everything with soy sauce.
Although the quality of the meals had dropped, no one complained because he was the only one in the family who was still willing to cook.
Zhang Ma had thrown down her spatula since moving to Little Red House and added many symptoms. Neck pain, back pain, waist pain, leg pain, and hand pain. As long as she was allowed to sit on the sofa and listen to the radio, it didn’t hurt, but if she was called on to work, it hurt all over.
After the Zhu family’s mother and daughter moved over, even the second Miss Zhu learned to clean up at school, helping to clean the class and campus, Zhu Yanshu also changed her temper after becoming Professor Zhu, no longer the glamorous wife on the poker table, she preferred to become the hardworking and simple Professor Zhu.
There’s no need to mention Dai Yucan, she was the one who was most willing to do the housework in the family.
Although Zhang Ma was still paid twenty-five dollars a month, but she did not work, the Zhu family mother and daughter have no problem, also do not go to make her.
However, the Zhu family mother and daughter trio didn’t go and do it either.
For one thing, it was that they wouldn’t.
Secondly, it was because no one believed they would.
If Second Miss Zhu said that she would cook in the kitchen, all the people in this building were going to stop her.
Lest she burns the kitchen and injures herself.
Zhu Yanshu’s pair of slender jade hands with ten pointed fingers, looking at her nails didn’t look like she would do housework.
From the beginning, Prof. Dai had never thought of letting the Zhu family’s mother and daughter three do the housework, if it wasn’t for Shi Wuwei, a disciple who was too diligent, Prof. Dai was planning to do it himself.
He didn’t feel that women should be born to do housework, nor did he feel that when a man got married, it was the same as having a lifelong servant. What he was looking for was not a servant, but a lover. Zhu Yanshu was a lover that he had found with great difficulty and cherished, so how could he be willing to make use of her?
Besides, he also felt that Yan Yan had a saying that was right, men are strong and born to do housework. The housework is so heavy, naturally the man should do, how can you ask the helpless woman to do it?
Just not waiting for Professor Dai to make a furtive proposal, she realized that Zhang Ma had long since had her eye on her successor and had educated her successor well before she stepped down, just waiting for the moment to take up her post.
So, except for the rice not being too good, Shi Wuwei did all the other chores well.
Moreover, Shi Wuwei’s cooking skills could not be blamed for the poor rice, in the past, when the family had plenty of food, he still did a pretty good job.
A skillful woman can’t cook without rice.
Without good ingredients you can’t make a delicious meal, not only women can’t do it, but men can’t do it either.
As for Mr. Su, he has always been a supernumerary.
Just as no one believed that Miss Zhu could cook, certainly no one ever expected Mr. Su to do housework. If this matter had been put in Mr. Su’s hands, he would have said, “I’ll come back today and bring two underlings with me.”
Mr. Su would have said, “I’ve come back today with two underlings.” The Zhu family still had three idle men in the house, so it was a good time to bring them back to work.
The second lady Zhu spent all her words on gossip, and was not very attentive to the meal, holding the chopsticks to hold the food, the chopsticks circled above the plate for a long time, and finally could not fall.
“Mr. Su, is it true that a prisoner has escaped?” Zhu Yanshu asked worriedly.
Su Chunjun was distressed that Zhu Er Miss couldn’t eat, poured a cup of water, put the fried radish strips in the water and swished it around before giving it to her to eat, and it was only then that the people at the table realized that this dish could be eaten this way! The tea kettle on the table was immediately emptied, and everyone put a tea cup in front of them, shabu-shabu.
Su Chunjun served the second young lady her meal and said with a smile, “It’s not that the prisoners ran out, I heard that it was because the prison ran out of food, and the people underneath took matters into their own hands and drove the prisoners away.”
Otherwise wouldn’t that still be raising prisoners for nothing? It’s not like starving to death, but it’s also a lot of effort to burn and bury them, not to mention, digging pits is a lot of work.
Now that there is no food anywhere, who remembers the prisons? Even the army has run out of food, and a place like a prison is even more of a stepmother’s child.
So the warden of the prison and the chief of the gendarmerie talked it over and released the prisoners.
After they were released, the warden wrote a letter to report that the prisoners had escaped.
How did they escape?
Over the wall.
They stole the keys.
They swam out through the sewers.
The warden did not know where to copy from, will be a prisoner escape report written like a novel.
But the warden was right, such a report will not reach Mayor Feng, who has no time to care about this ah?
Su Chunjun only laughed when he saw the report.
No one at the top took it to heart.
The first time I saw him, I saw him in the back of my head, and then I saw him in the back of my head, and then I saw him in the back of my head.
Su Chunjun smiled and said, “What’s wrong? Why are you all still surprised? What’s there to be surprised about?”
Yeah, there’s been plenty of tawdry government maneuvering ahead, so what’s there to be surprised about?
Zhu Yuyan thought about it and said, “Because it’s too childish, right?”
Su Chunjun laughed: “Is this child’s play? There are a lot of childish things, just that you don’t know. Don’t think of the people above you as profound, they are just ordinary people. If they are human beings, they can do anything.”