Wake up（292）

 

Chapter 51 Lost

 

292

 

Sadness had already quietly taken root in Nanyang Sheng's heart. Looking at the passing streets outside the train, he felt so strange and out of place. He often clothes himself in self-pity, immersing himself in his own gray world. In the vast world, he will always curl up alone in the corner of society, shrouded in a dark life. Although he is already a doctor of psychology, he can't find a job he likes after graduation. Feeling swallowed up by loneliness. He has been thinking about the reason for living, and tears often roll in his eyes, not because he doesn't want to cheer up, or because he doesn't want to work hard. Maybe I have to have an excuse to live.

With the help of his friends, Nan Yangsheng left the land where there was no hope. He found a job in Hong Kong, and now he and his friends go back to the mainland to visit relatives in their hometown. The train is slowly approaching Xinyang. When the train passed through Wuhan, Nan Yangsheng told his companions Wanru, Cheng Yenan, and Sun Aijun about his experience when the epidemic broke out in Wuhan. At that time, he was a volunteer in the Fangcai Hospital, and missing was just a ritual. True memory is innate. But the memories left behind are full of tears and helplessness.

After the train stopped at Xinyang Station, the four young people got off the train and prepared to transfer to a long-distance bus to Lingnan Town, which was their destination.

Due to the long time interval between train changes, they chose a small restaurant near the station to eat. The chat during the meal is to listen to Nan Yangsheng's story about his grandfather He Jiafu and Xinyang's past.

Nan Yangsheng said: My hometown is close to Xinyang, but my grandfather didn't talk much, and he didn't talk much about Xinyang's past. About the story of Xinyang, I still heard it from Chai Jianhua, an old Chinese doctor who was a friend of my grandfather.

Chai Jianhua often talks about his experiences during the Great Leap Forward. At that time, the inhumane, meticulous and powerful suppression and the strict social control of the past and the present, coupled with high-intensity, long-term hard labor, and intense hunger, blocked the farmers from trying to save themselves and each other. All channels of escape from the bitter sea. The "Anti-Rightist" movement sealed everyone's mouths, and no one dared to say "no" to the misconduct of top and bottom officials. An unprecedented man-made famine came on the scene without any resistance. Exaggerated style, communist style, and high expropriation have left farmers with nothing; the violent "anti-concealment of production and private distribution" has robbed farmers of their last rations; the establishment of public canteens is not allowed to cook for themselves, depriving farmers in disguise The right of people to eat; all parties in urban and rural areas are strictly guarded against fleeing famine and begging for food, blocking the last way for farmers to escape... Xinyang is a typical window of the Great Famine.

Chai Jianhua said that there are only two "outlets" for the people in many rural areas: beating to death or starving to death! Many rural wild vegetables have been eaten up, the bark has been eaten up, the grass roots have been eaten up, and animal dung, dead rats, cotton wool, and soil are all used to fill their stomachs; In the winter of 1959, a girl who was engaged to a neighboring village in Huaibin County, Henan Province was so hungry that she could not stand up. He strangled her to death and cooked her to eat. Lu Hongsheng from the Huangtong Brigade of Tongfeng Commune, Yixing County, Jiangsu Province cut off his son's throat with scissors, then dug out his internal organs and ate them.

We all know how cruel the ending of this period of history is, but we still go a long way to explore its bloody history. The journey of life is just a meaningless circle of farce.

Wanru said: I have read Mo Yan’s article recalling the Great Famine. He said that he and many of his classmates enjoyed coal as a delicacy, stuffing coal lumps into their mouths and chewing. Everything that could be eaten was eaten, grass roots, bark, grass on the eaves. People died almost every day in the village, and they all died of starvation... Later, I heard that the white soil in Nanwa could be eaten, so I went to dig it and eat it. I couldn't pull it off after eating, and many people were suffocated to death.

Cheng Yenan said: General Zhang Zhaozhong, a military commentator, recalled that during the Great Leap Forward period in his hometown, Yanshan County, Hebei, all the leaves were eaten, and people in the village starved to death every day. He even picked up bare bones thrown away by others and smashed them with an axe The scraps are eaten as meat. Back then, the Xicheng Bureau held a three-level cadre meeting and rewarded a meal of meat and bone porridge. The participants competed for food, and the uneaten bones were thrown on the ground, and the residents rushed to eat after hearing the news. His grandmother, who lives nearby, went to pick up a basket, took it home, washed it, cooked it, and gave him a delicious meal.

Nan Yangsheng said: Sometimes I don't believe what the old Chinese doctor Chai Jianhua said is true. But I read a lot of books when I was in college. One of the articles "Interview with a Survivor of the Great Famine in Henan" records that Yipao was a man with great strength and a large appetite. He was so hungry that he lay on the bed and couldn't move. From the outside, I heard creaking noises inside, and when I went in, I saw that it was Yipao who was gnawing on the wood on the side of the bed. His nephew asked you what you were doing in surprise, Yipao said that I ate some peanut cakes, and ended up starving to death by gnawing on the bed. Later, I saw an article on Hu Shanlin’s recollections in Henan. He described how farmers in Shizhuang Village, Fangcheng County, scrambled to eat geese droppings and starved to death in large numbers from the second half of 1959 to the first half of 1960. He said that every time a person died in the village, he would use a hard object to make a mark on the wall next to the bed. By the time the wheat was grouted in the next year, he would count those marks. A total of 54 of the 196 people in the village died.

There is always too much helplessness around us, which makes us endlessly sentimental. Perhaps only by learning to give up can people stop hesitating. However, it is difficult for human beings to do this, not only for the elderly, but also for the young.

Cheng Yenan said to Nanyangsheng: Because of my work and business relationship, I have been to Yunnan. When I was in Yunnan, I came across a local article. The author was Li Bin, who was classified as a rightist in Pingbian County, Yunnan in 1957. The tragic scene of hell on earth where people and hunger kill them. In order to cooperate with various campaigns in the society, the labor camp authorities always use violent fights, beatings and arrests to create an atmosphere of terror. Among the detainees arrested in Honghe Prefecture Forced Labor Camp, some were so hungry that they couldn’t stand stealing food, some accidentally hoeed weeds and broke grass seedlings, or fell and broke buckets while walking, and some were too tired and sleepy to collapse She couldn’t get up on the ground and was thought to be resistant to reform... Xiao Nu, a beautiful right-wing college student, couldn’t tolerate the cursing and sexual insults from Huang X, the guard, and asked him to speak cleanly. Huang X immediately became furious and pointed at Xiao Nu’s big forehead Scolding: "What is clean? Your mother's B, motherfucker, how dare you talk to me like this? I will wipe your dick and give you two slaps today!" Then he slapped Xiao Nu hard face; and then reported to the authorities, the labor camp immediately held an on-site meeting to criticize, beat and scold Xiao Nu, until Xiao Nu fainted to the ground and convulsed all over her body.

After many days of repeated torture, Xiao Nu lost her mind, but the labor camp said she was pretending to be crazy, and organized some people to beat and kick her at will, tie her up and hang her, and hung her up on a swing before arresting her again. legal action". At the meeting announcing her arrest, Xiao Nu, who was already delirious, smirked at the police officers who were pulling ropes to arrest her, until she was tied tightly by the ropes and screamed heart-piercingly.

The RTL authorities resorted to various means of distorting human nature and destroying conscience to force the RTL detainees to submit. A big rightist from the labor camp was so hungry that he suffered from edema. His weight dropped from 100 kilograms to more than 30 kilograms. Locked in a hole that is only one meter square, in the special "confinement room" of the labor camp, he can neither lift his head nor stretch his feet. He can only curl up inside like a dog after returning from work every day. Another two reeducation through labor inmates were locked up in a small basement and starved to death. The last one ate a lot of meat from the stinking butt of the deceased, and still had a mouthful of unswallowed human flesh in his mouth. .

Li Bin recalled that during the long hard labor of the Great Leap Forward, the most tragic thing was the torment and torture of severe hunger. Every day before breakfast and dinner, some people would collapse on the spot and pass out. A patient with severe edema couldn't get out of bed. The guards insisted that he was playing tricks and dragged him up to go to work. He died on the road. Once we were ordered to bury a dead man who had been hard on the bed before dawn, and a patient in the adjacent bed told us some things about the dead man before he died. The patient in the situation became the deceased again... the first to die was a "coffin" made of bed boards. Later, more people died, and whoever died was wrapped in his quilt and sheet, and carried out "soft coffin". Buried".

More than 90% of those who did not die for a while suffered from edema, and they were still forced to work when they were close to death. As long as the wind was a little stronger, some people would be blown down and unable to get up again. Some people even eat feces and other people's vomit to survive. There was a patient with edema who was already unconscious. He accidentally got a bowl of life-saving brown sugar porridge, but because of his serious illness and dry stomach, he couldn't bear it. Lie down on the ground, grab the pile of vomit with your hands and feed it into your mouth.

Rightists who are driven to the brink of death by hunger, even if it is a leaf of yellow cabbage that falls on the road, a thong swollen in the rain, a rotten sweet potato thrown on the dung pile in the cafeteria, or a mouse caught by chance , What kind of bugs will be put into the mouth without hesitation and eaten. Wan XXX, who was born in a scholarly family, was so hungry that he passed out several times. One day on the way to work, he came across a snake crawling into a crevice in the rock. Pulling, just hearing a "click", the snake was torn off by the waist, Wan ×× immediately put the bloody tail of the snake into his mouth and began to chew...

The four young people inadvertently talked about the anti-rightist movement and the suffering stories in the era of the Great Famine.

At this time, Sun Aijun, who was silent, said: "This is all in the past. If you talk too much, you will be sad and resentful. Let's talk about some happy things."

Wanru said, "Yes, let's talk about something worth remembering."

Nan Yangsheng smiled: "What do you think is the most memorable?"

Wanru said, "What do you think? Is there me among the most memorable experiences in your life?"

Nan Yangsheng blushed. Wanru, Cheng Yenan and Sun Aijun laughed.