Chapter 29
The locust plague came so violently and quickly that no farmer in Zhaojiagou or even the entire provincial capital escaped. They could only watch helplessly as their crops were swept away by the locusts, leaving behind a mess.
When Yun Jin saw the huge swarm of locusts swarming towards them, she knew that something terrible was going to happen.
Amidst the desperate cries, she suppressed her fear and ran home.
My daughter was still at home. She had never seen so many locusts. Even adults were scared and at a loss, let alone a six-year-old child?
She ran home panting, and before she could open the door, she heard her daughter crying at the top of her lungs.
"Mianmian!" Yun Jin ran over and held her in her arms. Her chest was heaving violently, but as she held her daughter, her heart suddenly calmed down.
Fortunately, it was not some other natural disaster, otherwise what would happen to my daughter without me to protect her?
Although she knew that the horror of the locust plague was not limited to this, at this moment, Yun Jin couldn't help but feel a sense of indescribable relief in her heart as she hugged her daughter.
"Mom, there are so many bugs..." Yunmian whimpered and lay in her mother's arms, her little body still trembling with fear.
"Dear, it's okay." Yun Jin hugged her daughter tightly and comforted her: "They have already flown away and will never come back. Don't be afraid, Mian Mian."
After comforting her daughter, Yun Jin started working again.
She took out all the silver, money and food in the house and counted them over and over again. Finally, under her daughter's clear and innocent eyes, as if she had made up her mind, she sorted the food into categories. All the grains and rice that could be put in were hidden on the beam and firewood pile behind the chicken coop. Then she put those that could not be put in, such as vegetables and eggs, in her bedroom.
"Mianmian will have to go hungry with her mother from now on. Are you afraid?" Yun Jin asked her softly while holding her daughter.
Yunmian shook her head obediently: "Mianmian is not afraid, Mianmian will starve herself and I will give all my food to mom~"
The little girl's tender voice was full of childishness and innocence. She didn't know how terrible it was to be hungry. She just thought that it was okay for her to be hungry, but her mother had to eat more.
Yun Jin's eyes were red as she gently embraced the child in her arms and said softly, "Okay, then give Mian Mian some of Mom's food too."
Six-year-old Yun Mianmian nodded foolishly and was very happy. She didn't feel at all that she was coaxed by her mother's words. Nothing had changed after all the changes.
But later, Yunmian finally realized how uncomfortable it was to be hungry.
She was so hungry that her head felt dizzy, her vision went dark, and she couldn't even walk. Every day she just lay in bed motionless, like a bedridden person with a serious illness.
Just because her mother told her not to move or talk, so that she would get hungry slower.
But she was still very hungry...
Yunmian opened her dry and cracked mouth, looked at the empty room, and wanted to tell her mother that she was hungry, but her voice was so soft that even her mother could not hear clearly.
Am I going to die?
Yun Mian licked her cracked lips. The dry, cracked skin scraped the tip of her tongue hard, causing a bit of pain that was not too sharp.
She seems to have not eaten for two days...
Mom... Yunmian didn’t know how many days her mother hadn’t eaten. She only remembered that her mother gave her all the food. She would sit on the edge of the bed and pick up the rice crumbs that fell on the quilt to eat, or scoop a bucket of water into the bowl, rinse the few grains of rice at the bottom of the bowl and drink it. This was considered a meal.
Yunmian wanted her mother to eat more, but her mother refused to eat anything. She would frown and get angry, forcing her to eat all the remaining food.
Hunger made the little girl's already ignorant thinking even more dull. She thought for a while in a daze, and when she couldn't figure out where her mother had gone, she closed her eyes tiredly again.
Even though she didn't want to sleep at all, even though her stomach was so hungry that her intestines were stuck together and she was cramping, retching and coughing, she still tried to close her eyes and pretend to deceive herself that she was sleeping.
Only by sleeping can I not feel so hungry, and only by sleeping can I dream of delicious eggs and fatty meat.
While she was sleeping, outside the Zhaojiagou Village Office, Yun Jin was kneeling on the uneven mud ground, silently kowtowing to the village head and the village party secretary again and again.
The road was strewn with stones, and Yun Jin's knees were pressed against the hard rocks. It was just the beginning of spring, but she was wearing only a thin layer of clothing. She staggered as she hunched her back and kowtowed to the embarrassed-looking village cadres again and again.
She didn't remember how long she had been kowtowing, but there were so many people watching around her that she didn't hear even a single word she wanted to hear.
Someone came forward and tried to pull her up. Yun Jin used her last bit of strength to break free, but the next second she was completely exhausted and fell heavily to the ground.
The thoughts in her head had become rigid due to extreme hunger. The moment she raised her head, the light from the sky poured down. Facing the backlight, she was in a daze and couldn't even remember who those familiar faces were. She only remembered one thing.
My daughter hasn't eaten for two days.
If I don’t eat something to fill my stomach, my little Mianmian will surely starve to death.
Yunjin is not afraid of death, but she will never let her daughter die!
She sat on the ground in a daze, and it took her a long time to slowly regain some of her sanity. Her health was already in very poor condition, like a bunch of dry bones with withered flesh hanging on her body. She had already starved to the point of not looking like a human anymore.
The most terrifying part was her forehead. She knocked her head many times numbly like a machine. Now when she raised her face, the blurred blood and flesh that had been broken by the knocks slid down her brow bone and nose bridge bit by bit. She didn't look like a human being, but more like... more like a ghost that died tragically.
The deep sunken eye sockets made her bloodshot eyes look even more terrifying. She slowly turned around, knelt there again, and said to the cadres in a hoarse voice: "Please...save Mianmian, she is only six years old, please...save Mianmian..."
She kowtowed heavily again.
And then he never got up again.
She was already extremely hungry, and her daughter was her only reason to hold on. She had just seen the pity in the village chief's eyes, so she finally felt at ease and let herself faint here completely.
Yun Jin thought she would never wake up again. In the long chaotic darkness that seemed like she would never get out of, she lost her direction and could not see a single visible light.
But in the end, she managed to get through it thanks to her obsession with her daughter. She raised her hand with difficulty to touch Mianmian who was sobbing beside her, and a glimmer of light finally appeared in her dark and gray eyes.
But it's still a long, long time before late autumn...
The Yunjin family ran out of food again.
She also knew that she couldn't ask for help like she did last time, because it was not just her family, but almost everyone in Zhaojiagou was starving, and no one could find more food to help anyone else at this critical moment. Even if any family started cooking and smoke came out of the chimney, the whole village would target them.
But summer is over and autumn will soon be here.
She had managed to survive with her daughter until now with great difficulty. Yun Jin would never agree to her fate of just waiting for herself and her daughter to starve to death.
"Mianmian, be good. Mommy is going out to find something to eat. You just stay home and wait for me to come back. Don't open the door no matter who knocks, okay?" Yun Jin touched her daughter's skinny cheek and smiled at her soothingly, suppressing her heartache.
"Mom..." Yun Mian reached out and grabbed the hem of her clothes, her abnormally large eyes full of anxiety: "Will you really come back? Last time..."
Last time, my mother was carried back. Since then, Yunmian would be scared every time she saw her mother go out.
"Mom, Mianmian is not hungry." She lied without any instruction and begged in a crying voice: "Mom, please don't go out, okay? I'm not hungry at all, I just want you..."
Yun Jin held back her tears and kissed her daughter's forehead: "Be good, wait for your mother at home. I will be back soon."
How could she not know where her daughter's anxiety came from? But compared to losing face or facing life-and-death danger, she had only one thought in her mind: let her daughter live, live until autumn!
No matter what, no matter how much suffering she has to endure, Yun Jin is willing to do anything as long as her daughter can survive this natural disaster.
She was not afraid of death, but she was afraid that if she died, her six-year-old daughter would not survive.
No matter how Yunmian begged, her mother still went out.
She had become as thin as a skeleton, and her clothes hung loosely on her body. Looking at her from behind, Yun Mian suddenly felt that her mother seemed to have aged a lot.
She is even older than Grandma Peng next door, and it seems that... the body that supports her movements will completely collapse into a pile of bones in the next second and can never be put together again.
Yunmian was scared. She was afraid that her mother would die quietly in a place where she couldn't see.
So she closed the gate and followed her mother from a distance.
I have to watch my mother, I have to die with my mother.
The little girl, who was only six years old, had already understood the importance of life and death in this disaster year. She was afraid that she would be left alone in this world, and she was also afraid that she would be very sad if her mother died and there was no one to accompany her.
Mianmian and her mother will be together forever, live together and die together.
Yunmian hid behind the wall and watched her mother quietly climb over the low wall and enter Zhao Xiaoli's house like a ghost.
Yunmian knew that Zhao Xiaoli had many people in her family. She had four older brothers and sisters, all of whom were very fierce and domineering. Yunmian was afraid that her mother would be discovered and beaten if she went in, so she didn't bother to hide and ran over quickly.
But the low wall was still too high for her, who was only six years old. Yun Mian could only climb up the tree while enduring the pain in her abdomen.
Just as she climbed up, she heard the angry barking of a dog the next second. Yun Mian was so frightened that she almost fell off the tree with a pale face.
But she soon had no time to be afraid because she saw her mother.
Holding the bowl in her hand, my mother endured the pain of being bitten on the leg by the dog and put all the rice in the dog's bowl into her bowl. Then she limped and dragged her leg towards the low wall with the dog.
The people inside had heard the noise. Yunmian even heard Zhao Yunhai shouting across the house, "Stop barking!" Her mother also obviously quickened her pace, but the dog was too ferocious and would not let go after biting someone. Yunmian looked at her mother who was sweating in pain, and she came down from the tree whimpering. She picked up a stone and threw it inside while crying, trying to save her mother.
When someone came out, Yun Jin just happened to crawl out dragging the bloody leg.
Seeing her daughter biting her sleeve and crying with tears all over her face, Yun Jin was surprised for a moment, but she didn't care about the pain at the moment. She held the bowl full of dog food, held Yun Mian's hand, and limped behind the wall.
The mother and daughter ran for a long time. From a distance they could hear the sharp voice of Zhao Xiaoli's grandmother, scolding the thief for stealing even the dog's food.
Yunmian didn't feel ashamed. She just used her hands to cover the wound on her mother's leg, trying to stop the glaring red blood from flowing out.
“Mom, mom, are you… is it in pain…” Yun Mian tried several times to stop the bleeding but failed. She finally broke down and cried. At this time, her mother carefully handed her the bowl of dog food.
"Mianmian, eat quickly. There's still a lot of rice in this meal. You won't be hungry after you eat it." Yun Jin wiped away the tears on her daughter's face with trembling hands, her face pale. She handed the bowl to her and said in a trembling voice, enduring the pain: "Mianmian, don't be afraid, don't be afraid... Mom won't die. Just eat the meal obediently. Mom will live well with Mianmian. Be good, Mom won't feel any pain..."
Yunmian held the bowl of dog food that her mother had exchanged her life for with her bloody hands. Her tears dropped into the bowl, and she sobbed as she numbly stuffed the dog food into her mouthful by mouthful.
She didn't think it was bad, nor did she think it was delicious. She didn't even have any desire to eat, but she still forced herself to swallow the rice mouthful by mouthful.
Because she eats her mother's flesh and drinks her mother's blood.
There was still half a bowl left, and Yunmian cried and begged her mother to eat it.
In the short time that Yunmian was eating, Yunjin had already torn his sleeves and wrapped them around his right leg, where a piece of flesh had been bitten off by the dog.
But the blood still seeped out bit by bit, and her vision began to darken. She vaguely saw her daughter crying, and she bit her tongue again, relying on the other pain to force herself not to faint.
At least, at least don't faint in front of Mianmian, that would definitely scare her.
No one knew how Yunjin managed to survive, but in that midsummer closest to autumn, Yunjin took her daughter to dig grass roots, steal dog food, dig rat holes, and even went to the county town to beg... Even though no one was optimistic about her, she managed to survive.
When Yunmian had his first full meal after the autumn harvest, he licked the bottom of the bowl clean with his tongue.
As for Yun Jin, she knew that her body had completely collapsed in this disaster year. Every day she lived with her daughter was God's mercy and gift to her.
But Yunjin didn't expect that this gift would be so short-lived and so quick.
She injured her leg when she knelt down to kowtow to the village cadres, and later a dog bit off a piece of flesh from her leg. She could only walk with a limp for the rest of her life.
That day she went to the next village to collect clothes for mending and washing, hoping to save enough money for her daughter's second grade tuition before spring, so she came back a little late.
As a result, there was no moon that night, and it was so dark that people felt uneasy.
Yun Jin held a stick in his hand and groped his way forward bit by bit.
She should have been very familiar with this road, but her vision was obscured by the darkness, and her legs and feet were really inconvenient. The stick was hard when she hit it, so Yun Jin raised her foot and took a step forward.
At this step, the solid ice suddenly shattered, and her messy life came to an abrupt end.
The moment his body was immersed in the freezing river water, Yun Jin was unexpectedly calm, unlike himself.
She struggled and tried to climb up, but the river water in winter was too freezing. The bone-chilling coldness quickly flowed through her body along her injured leg, causing her legs and feet to become numb and twitching. Yun Jin knew that she would never be able to climb up this low river bank.
But what about Mianmian?
What should she do with her Mianmian in the future?
It’s almost spring and time for school to start. If I leave, Mianmian won’t be able to go to school and she will no longer have a home.
The huge panic and sadness temporarily suppressed the coldness of the river water, and her somewhat frozen brain slowly started to work. In the last few tens of seconds before she was about to freeze to death or drown, Yun Jin's mind flashed through all the images of her daughter's childhood like a kaleidoscope.
She bit her finger in the water, but perhaps the water had numbed her to the point of freezing her, and she seemed not to feel any pain at all.
She was afraid that the blood in her body would be washed away by the river or freeze, so she bit the tip of one of her fingers with trembling teeth until the white bloody bone was visible. Then she groped in the dark, using her finger bones as pens and her blood as ink to paint the blood-red cotton flower stroke by stroke on her clothes.
Because she couldn't read, she could only draw the white cotton in her memory again and again. She didn't know if she had made any mistakes or if there were any repeated strokes. In the dark, she could only try her best.
She was afraid that those people would not recognize the cotton she had drawn in the river, so she used her white finger bones to cut her own flesh and struggled to draw one last time.
If her body could be salvaged, when the villagers saw the cotton flower, they would probably understand what I wanted to express, right?
Yun Jin knew that it was the most unreliable thing for her to pin her hopes on others, but she had reached a dead end and there was really nothing she could do...
As a mother, her only wish is that everyone in Zhaojiagou can be a little kinder to the orphan Mianmian, even if... even if Mianmian is about to starve to death, just give her a piece of steamed bun like a beggar so that she can survive, that would be enough.
Yunjin's consciousness began to fade, and her body was pushed and squeezed by the river water, floating and sinking little by little.
The river was actually not very deep, at least it was difficult to drown an adult. But in this cold winter, Yun Jin, wearing blood-stained clothes, lay quietly at the bottom of the river, and never returned to the small courtyard with the dim kerosene lamp.
Yunmian was abandoned by her mother.
She was wearing white mourning clothes and stood blankly beside her mother's body.
The corpse was covered with corpse spots and had turned purple from being soaked in the river water. It must be the ugliest and most deformed corpse in the world.
Seven-year-old Yunmian looked at her mother's appearance bit by bit, and it took her a long time before she reached out to touch her now so ugly.
But the next second, the neighbor's grandmother slapped her hand away: "Mianmian, you can't touch this. The body of a dead person is so dirty. Don't touch it, little kid. You have to wrap your hand with a cloth before touching it, understand?"
Yunmian stared at her mother blankly, her mouth open but unable to say anything.
Dead people are very dirty.
But this is Mianmian’s mother…
Mom said she would come back early before dark, and she also said that when spring comes, she will make a new schoolbag for Mianmian...
How could mom be dirty?
Mom never lies to Mianmian, so how could she sleep in such a cold river and refuse to come back to wait for the arrival of spring with Mianmian?
Obviously... the Chinese New Year is only two days away, and it will be spring as soon as it’s over!
Tears slowly slid down her cheeks. Yunmian no longer tried to touch her mother's body with her hands. She didn't go anywhere either. She just sat on the edge of the bed with her knees hugged, quietly accompanying her mother.
Just like when the villagers carried my mother back home with a bleeding forehead.
Yunmian was a child and could not afford any money to plan a funeral. She was also unwilling to plan a funeral and did not want her mother to lie here while others ate and talked outside.
So she always sat by the bed, as if her mother had never left, with her tear-washed eyes open, silently watching those familiar people coming in and out, sighing or sighing.
"What should we do with this child?" someone asked, pointing at Yunmian.
Everyone was silent for a while. They had just experienced a disaster and everyone was having a hard time. Yunmian was already a six or seven-year-old girl, not a boy. There was no use in raising her up, and no family wanted to pick up such a burden.
No one spoke, and everyone found an excuse to continue working.
Yunmian sat beside her mother's sleeping bed, as if she had been forgotten by the whole village.
Later, she stood at the door and listened to people outside talking about how her mother was not from Zhaojiagou and could not be buried in the Zhao family cemetery, but had to be buried on the small hill to the west.
When her mother was buried, Yunmian stood aside and watched like an outsider.
The village prepared a thin coffin for my mother. The money Yunmian found at home was used to make the coffin. It was the money my mother had saved for her second-grade tuition.
"Mianmian, come and kowtow to your mother." Grandma Peng waved at her from the front, holding a stick of freshly lit incense in her hand.
Yun Mian walked over step by step, bent her knees and knelt gently in front of the low grave built with several stones.
The soil beneath her knees was soft, just like when she curled up in her mother's arms every night.
After kowtowing three times, Yunmian took the incense handed to her by Grandma Peng and stared at the thin white smoke rising from the incense. Suddenly, a sentence flashed through her mind.
"Mianmian, if mom is gone in the future, you have to live obediently, understand?"
Yunmian leaned over and inserted the incense stick little by little into the soil where the paper money had been burned.
From this moment on, she no longer had a mother.
Yunmian is a child without a mother, a bastard as those children with parents call him, a freak who sleeps in front of his mother's grave every day but has never been dragged away and eaten by a wild wolf.
But the monster finally died in the children's ignorant malice.
She died in an equally freezing winter. That day she was frightened by a group of boys leading their dog.
She heard Zhao Yuntao say proudly that they had known that it was her mother who stole the dog's food. If they hadn't been afraid that she would blackmail the Zhao family and ask for compensation, they would have spread the matter to the whole village.
They said that they wanted to let all the children in the brigade know that Yunmian was a little bastard, and that Yunmian was a thief just like her mother who even stole dog food. Everyone would hate her and no one would pity her anymore.
That was the first time Yunmian didn’t go to accompany her mother.
Because she had another fight with the Zhao brothers, she smashed Zhao Yuntao's head with a stone and was beaten so hard that she couldn't stand up.
later……
Later she died on her way to see her mother.
Mom, Mianmian has been very obedient and has worked very hard to live to the age of thirteen.
Mianmian is the baby her mother drew on her body, not a bastard.
Mommy loves Mianmian so much, and Mianmian misses her so much too...
This is Mianmian and her mother in the previous life. There is no original body. Mianmian is always the Mianmian who loves her mother.
Thanks to the little angel who threw the grenade:
1 flower fell without intention;
Thanks to the little angel who cast the mine:
Amber Teoh, HRH 1;
Thanks to the little angel who irrigated the nutrient solution:
Fallen Flowers Unintentional 55 bottles;
Snow 44 bottles;
It’s impossible to have 22 bottles;
Decline, Chen Feng Mu Yu 20 bottles;
A gentle sky, watching the world go by like smoke, three bowls for one meal, Lingyin, 10 bottles of small rolls and baked milk;
5 bottles of Silent Monster;
Sweet 3 bottles;
54149098 2 bottles;
Tuizi, Dongerzaibei, Lala Lala, Fengtian Chengyun ttl, Alin, bingo_X, Qingmeng 1 bottle;
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