Secretary Wan pricked up his ears and straightened his back. "What's the matter? What's the conflict between you and Ermin? What are you supporting? Ermin and your father have moved away for several years. You haven't been in touch with them in all these years?"
Secretary Wan was extremely curious. He only knew that the second son of the Xu family had made a fortune after a few years away, but he didn't know how he made the fortune. He donated 500,000 yuan to the county, saying it was a way to give back to the village, and helped their village build a road to the town. He also donated another 1.5 million yuan to build a three-story primary school in their village, as well as a plastic running track and playground. This was not a small amount of money. What kind of business was this second son of the Xu family doing? Was it so easy to make money outside?
He looked Xu Daming up and down. Hmm, compared to Xu Ermin, he looked like a migrant worker returning home: a wrinkled, baggy old suit, sweatpants, and plastic sandals...
People are looked down upon when they leave their hometown. Looking at Xu Daming, it must be very difficult for him to make a living in a foreign land.
Xu Daming: How am I supposed to tell you this? Should I tell you that I don't want to pay for my father's surgery, or that I want to take advantage of my brother and let him continue to help raise my daughter?
He made an excuse that he couldn't organize the matter at the moment.
As if noticing his uneasiness, Secretary Wan changed the subject and said, "Damin, your father is over seventy this year, right?"
"Oh, yes, my dad, my dad was born in the year of the horse. Uncle, where did my dad and the others go?" Did they move to the town? Could they have moved to the county town? I heard the prices of houses in the county town have increased quite a bit in recent years. Could the three kids from Ermin's family afford to live in the county town? And with the two old people in tow, too.
He even forgot to include his eldest daughter.
Secretary Wan said, "I don't know exactly where they are, but they should be back soon. They called me a couple of days ago and asked me to help hire people to harvest your wheat. After the wheat is harvested, your brother will find a truck to pick up the grain. Well, if you're not in a hurry, just wait a few days."
When Xu Daming heard this, he immediately agreed. He didn't have to punch in to work at his auto repair stall, so he could decide how many days to take a break, right?
"Okay, uncle. Is there a ladder in our brigade headquarters? I forgot to bring my key. I'll get a ladder and jump in to open the door." Xu Daming said tentatively.
Secretary Wan: You forgot to bring the key, that’s Xu Ermin’s house. If you really have the key, then there’s something fishy going on.
But after thinking about what Ermin had said on the phone, he took out a bunch of keys from the drawer and handed them to Xu Daming: "Don't bother. Ermin left me a spare key and asked me to put it in the warehouse after I harvested the wheat. Now that you're back, you're brothers after all. I'll leave the wheat harvest and these keys to you."
Xu Daming frowned slightly.
Secretary Wan finished speaking but before Xu Daming could respond, he pulled out an envelope and handed it over. "Here's a thousand yuan. Ermin left it. He said the money for the wheat harvest, hiring people, and planting corn would all come from this. I'll give it to you too."
Xu Daming sighed softly, "Okay, Uncle Wan, I'll help Ermin take care of it then."
Xu Daming used the key to open the door of Ermin's house, but found that several rooms were also locked. The only two keys he had could only open the kitchen, except for the one for the front door. He tried to poke the locks of several main rooms with a piece of wire, but the locks were very strong and could not be opened.
Fortunately, there was a two-meter-long table in the kitchen. Although it was not wide, it was enough for one person to sleep on. He planned to find some straw to put on it and put a few clothes on it. He would not be staying there for a few days anyway, so he might as well just sleep like this for the time being.
The kitchen was stocked with rice, flour, oil, and various seasonings. Even the gas tank had at least half a tank of gas left. He could just cook some noodles while eating alone.
He remembered that the village chief had given him the task of harvesting wheat. The wheat fields included not only Xu Xiaomin's five acres, but also Xu Daming's five acres. He didn't know how the harvest would be. Since the wheat could be grown, Ermin must not have gone far. Well, maybe he was in the county.
Xu Daming decided to find someone to harvest the wheat first, but he had been away for so many years and had rarely returned. In addition, Santong's mother had spread the word about his identity as an "unfilial son" everywhere, so he received a lot of open and covert contempt when he went out. In addition, most of the young and middle-aged people have gone to big cities to work in recent years, and there are few people left in the countryside to farm. Now it is the busy farming season, so it is not easy to hire people.
Xu Daming weighed the thousand yuan and wanted to take over ten acres of land by himself to earn the money, but he probably knew that this was impossible. He remembered that the last time he went to the fields to do farm work was about twenty years ago.
He went to the warehouse and found a few sickles from Ermin's house, then went to the woodshed and moved out a whetstone, and started sharpening the sickles with great effort.
I ate a pot of noodle soup in the evening, put on the suit and sweatpants I wore during the day, and went to my own land under the cover of night.
Originally, he was not sure which piece of land belonged to him. The branch secretary told him that among the land at the south end of the village, only the ten acres of land belonging to the Xu family had been confiscated. He would know when he got there.
On the night of the full moon, the night was as dark as water, with the chirping of cicadas and the croaking of frogs. There was no wind, and the heavy golden ears of wheat bent the stalks. Xu Daming waved his sickle and began to cut the wheat.
He remembered that summer night twenty years ago...
It seemed like in a moonlit field like this, he was harvesting wheat alone with two sickles and two bundles of ropes.
That year he was in the third year of junior high school. His younger brother fell into a ditch while riding a bicycle and broke his femur. His mother was hospitalized with appendicitis. His father was working as a temporary worker in the Yingshouyingzi mining area and could not take leave.
The wheat harvest season only lasts for ten days or half a month, and every household is rushing to harvest. After harvesting the wheat, they have to plant the next crop quickly. They have no time to take care of their relatives. His mother sighed and thought about asking people in the village to help with the harvest. She would then give some of the wheat to the people who helped. At least his father could earn some salary as a temporary worker and would not starve.
He was not a good student at that time. He knew that he would never be able to get into technical secondary school, and he didn't want to go to high school. He went to school in a daze every day and was tired of his mother's endless nagging. He felt that he was an adult and didn't want to be controlled. He also had a lot of courage: Isn't it just a few acres of wheat?
He also cooked a pot of noodle soup and ate two large bowls of it with pickles. He also sharpened two sickles and went to harvest wheat overnight.
Although it was June, the night wasn't hot at all, but he still worked up a sweat. He finally took off all his clothes and worked in the fields in just his shorts. When he was thirsty, he drank water. When he was tired, he looked up at the moon. In one night, he managed to harvest an acre of wheat.
At that time, there were four people in his family and they only had four acres of land in total. It took him a week to harvest all the land. He cut the wheat at night and winnowed and dried it during the day. He had many blisters on his hands, which kept popping up after being pricked. There were many small scratches on his hands, arms and legs. Some of his fingers even had a layer of flesh cut off along with their nails. His legs would tremble uncontrollably when he pushed the cart. Later, he simply wrapped his calves with cloth strips so that he could continue to persevere.
That summer, he harvested four acres of wheat by himself, which cost him half his life. Although he still couldn't go to school, he knew that he could never stay here and be a farmer in the future.
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