Chapter 18: Seven years later (2)

I remembered that when I went to school this morning, my mother told me that we would be having eel tonight, and there was indeed a half-barrel of eels at home.

Roasted eel. When I think of this dish, I think of my father cooking eel. He would catch the live eel, drop it with a ‘pop’ to stun it, then press it on a special board for processing eel, ‘splash’ it with a knife, pull it, and scrape it. The fresh eel is then processed.

Then cut it into pieces, wash it and set it aside. Then heat up the oil in the wok, and when it’s hot, ‘chop’ the pieces of eel into the wok and stir fry them. The fragrance will come out, and then add the bean paste…

I was thinking about it, and my mouth was watering.

Seeing that I was tempted, the crispy pork next to me urged me on: “Sanwa, let’s go. We’re going home. At worst, you can come to my house. My family is having ‘shao bai’ (similar to braised pork with preserved vegetables) tonight, and I’ll ask my mom to intercede for you. You can’t stay away from home forever.”

At the mention of “plead for mercy,” I was again discouraged. If my father were the kind of person who would listen to pleas for mercy, would I have been beaten so much? When my father beat me, I would cry so pitifully that people passing by would stop to comfort me. Hey, it’s okay, my father took their comfort as encouragement, and the more he beat me, the more he enjoyed it.

With a voiceover: “Boys need to be beaten to become men, unlike girls! If you don’t beat a boy, he’ll be shot later.”

In the end, my fear of my father overcame my desire to cook eel, and the spirit of the Red Army climbing snow-capped mountains and crossing grasslands inspired me. I had longed to be a little soldier, and I wanted to climb snow-capped mountains and cross grasslands to find a place to join the Red Army.

The Red Army is made up of good people. When they see a little boy like me, won’t they take me in? What if I never go home again? As long as the Red Army takes me in!

Thinking about this, I was excited and my determination was strengthened. I patted Su Rou’s shoulder and said with a heroic air, “You go back, Su Rou. When I become a Red Army soldier, I will come back to find you and become a Red Army soldier together. I will definitely not forget you.”

“You’re going to be a Red Army soldier?” Su Rou was suddenly confused by my words.

“Well, I’m going to get beaten up anyway when I go back, so I might as well go find the Red Army today. They’ll definitely take me in. You just wait for me. And don’t tell my old man about this,” I said solemnly.

“But where are you going to find the Red Army?” Su Rou was a little worried and was indeed curious about where the Red Army would be.

“I heard that there are some in the town. I’ll just go to the town. Don’t worry.” In fact, I had mistaken the police for the Red Army, but at that time I was still young, so how could I tell the difference?

“Okay, I’ll wait for your news. I won’t betray you. When you become a Red Army soldier, remember to take me with you.” Su Rou was also very eager to become a Red Army soldier, but he hadn’t made any mistakes, and he wouldn’t dare not go home even if he had the courage to do so.

He thought that if I brought the Red Army to his door, his parents would agree to let him join the army. He was looking forward to hearing good news from me.

So he forgot to ask me, do you know how to get to town?

So I forgot to ask him, “How do you get to the town?”

After walking around for a while, I realized that there was no town. I looked up and saw nothing but fields and mountains. Where was the town?

After the sun sets, it gets dark very quickly. At this time, a crescent moon has already crept up into the sky, and the sky is a kind of dark blue-black.

It was quiet around me, and I could only hear the chirping of insects and frogs. In this environment, I found that I could not hold on any longer.

Should I go home? This thought popped into my head. I thought of my sister, my mother, and the steaming hot dinner…

But when I thought of my father’s ‘invincible’ iron fist, I gave up the idea.

“Bah, Chen Chengyi, if you’re suffering, think of the 25,000 Red Army soldiers!” I encouraged myself, and whenever I thought of those heroic Red Army soldiers, my blood would boil.

After walking for a while, I didn’t even know where I was. I was so hungry and tired that I finally couldn’t take it anymore, and I sat down on the ground and started to ‘plan’.

My mother always told me not to be afraid of not finding a road, because there is always a road under your nose. That meant that when you couldn’t find a road, you should ask for directions. Now it was dark, and I didn’t know where to go to ask for directions. I decided to go to the town and ask for directions at dawn the next day.

As for being hungry, I looked around and came up with an idea. In this season, there are still a lot of unharvested corn in the fields, and I have matches on me, so it’s no problem to roast two ears of corn to eat.

So there was only one problem left: where would I spend the night? I thought about it for a long time, but I couldn’t think of a solution, so I just stopped thinking about it. Anyway, I had to fill my stomach first.

“Sanwa, is your head full of bean curd? Why don’t you think about anything all day long?” My mother often scolded me like this. I was so heartless and insensitive.

There were cornfields everywhere, so I decided to go in and dig. When I came out a little later, my yellow canvas bag was bulging with corn. I had picked three huge ears of corn for myself.

This kind of thing was too common for me to grow up in the countryside. I was ashamed to say I was from XX Village when I was a child and never stole corn.

After stealing the corn, all that was left was to find a bamboo forest. The dry bamboo leaves were excellent firewood. Sichuan has many bamboo forests. I wandered around in the moonlight for a while and found a bamboo forest. I ran into it happily.

At that time, I didn’t notice at all that not far from the bamboo forest was a graveyard. Even if I had found it, I don’t think I would have been scared. There are graves everywhere in the countryside, and I’ve seen so many that I’m numb.

Once I entered the bamboo forest, I started to work. I first tore off the outer layer of the corn, leaving a thin layer, and then gathered a pile of dry bamboo leaves and buried the corn underneath.

The dry bamboo leaves burned easily, and in no time at all, a fire had started in the bamboo forest.

At this point, my whole mind was on the three grains of corn, and I was guarding them with all my attention, adding bamboo leaves from time to time. The bamboo forest was very large, and I didn’t think anyone would see me start a fire in it, but I didn’t want to be seen by anyone.

Time passed by, and I don’t know how long it took, but my boiled corn was finally ready. I was so happy that I pulled the boiled corn out of the fire and tore off the remaining skin. I didn’t care if it was hot, and I ate it in big bites.

The stewed corn was very fragrant and I was very happy to eat it. While I was eating, I was also sighing, “Today’s stewed corn is really cooked quickly. You know, stewed corn is not the same as roasted corn. It takes a long time to eat stewed corn. In the past, in the village, I and the other little children in the village stewed corn together. We often waited for a long time, but I didn’t expect it to be cooked so quickly today.

In fact, I waited for nearly two hours, but I was so engrossed in the process that I didn’t notice the time passing.

After eating three large corn cobs by the fire, my stomach was finally full, and I felt tired after a long time. A sleepy fatigue hit my whole body, and I wanted to sleep.

Rural children know that lighting a fire in the bamboo forest is extremely dangerous. After I yawned and extinguished the fire, I could no longer control the fatigue that came over me. I threw my yellow satchel on the ground, then rested my whole body on it and fell asleep in a daze.

I don’t remember how long I slept that night. I only remember that I had some strange dreams, and then I couldn’t bear the coldness from my body anymore and woke up.

I subconsciously touched my clothes and found them damp. I wanted to sleep somewhere else, but I felt weak and still sleepy. I couldn’t tell what I was feeling, and I felt like I was half asleep.

I wanted to close my eyes and go back to sleep, but suddenly I realized that there were a lot of sounds around me, and it seemed very lively, but I couldn’t figure out where the noise was coming from.