The night the cold wave came
The Xi Road is in the heart of the city of Linyi, Shandong Province. After crossing the People’s Square, it extends southward and is cut off between Yinqishan Road and Qiyang Road, a 290-meter-long living street. Because of a heavy snowfall a few days ago, the snow that was not cleared in time was rolled into a layer of shiny ice by the pedestrians and vehicles that came and went, so you have to be extra careful when walking on it.
Because of the proximity of several old neighborhoods, this road is distributed with fruit stalls, pork stores, poultry stalls, Shandong pancake stores and dozens of stores, forming a strip of farmers’ markets. Stores, generated more domestic waste, so the road set up a total of two garbage sites, respectively, at both ends of the road, each site concentrated on eight or nine meters high green bins. The old Han has been selling pork on this street for more than 20 years, and his store and the south-facing garbage site is only one road away. 2020 December 29, Liu Ruxiang collapsed, he was the first to run over.
Liu Ruxiang was born in 1951 and was a sanitation worker on Xizhi Road. The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the public. Old Han’s wife and Liu Ruxiang greeted: “so cold day, still come so early ah? “Liu Ruxiang responded, the night can not see any difference in the look.
This day is the coldest day since the beginning of winter in 2020. Three days ago, the Central Weather Station issued news that December 28 to 31, “the strongest cold wave this winter” (Note: 2020) will be from Northwest, North China and other places Beginning, all the way southward expansion, cooling range covering the entire central and eastern part. Most places cool down to more than 10 degrees Celsius in a day, and the lowest temperature is below 5 degrees Celsius, and some areas cool down to 12 to 14 degrees Celsius.
Linyi was issued a cold wave yellow warning at 14:00 on December 28, and a dozen hours later, the temperature in Linyi dropped from a maximum of 9 degrees Celsius the day before to a minimum of minus 11 degrees Celsius, accompanied by goose feather snow and five gusts of wind. Lao Han’s memory of that day’s cold is still fresh, he told me, although wearing the same cotton clothes as the day before, but obviously feel inadequate, “fingers can not stretch straight, ears are also frozen off “.
The owner of another butcher store not far from each other said the store’s water meter was frozen and cracked that day. The cold wave and the accompanying heavy snow also triggered warnings across the city, with most primary and secondary schools and kindergartens in Linyi closed on the day. All bus lines at Linyi Bus Terminal stopped running at 6am, and some highways in Linyi were closed.
While the whole city is slowing down because of the cold wave, sanitation workers need to start work earlier. A logistician from Linyi Sanitation Group told this reporter that local sanitation workers usually start working at 6 a.m., but when there are more leaves or snow and ice removal, sanitation workers need to go to work at 4 a.m. in order to ensure smooth roads during the rush hour a few hours later.
Liu Ruxiang’s daily work time is a little earlier than others, and he a sanitation team of workers told me that the sanitation workers work is more work, some sanitation workers hope to earn more, they will apply to the company to contract a longer section of the road, the work time can only be advanced on their own. Liu Ruxiang is responsible for the section of about 290 meters, but because of more stores, more domestic waste, workload. In addition to the street, a lot of traffic up, garbage was blown all over the sky, more bad cleaning, so Liu Ruxiang generally up at 3:00 a.m. to work.
The day of December 29 is no exception. At 3 a.m., Liu Ruxiang left his rental house. At this time has been snowing, he wore a short cotton jacket, outside the set of yellow sanitation uniform. Perhaps because of the snow, he also had a long raincoat with the sanitation logo over his work clothes, and his feet were a pair of calf-length oil shoes.
Sanitation workers generally work in three stages: early morning to 7:30 a.m., then breakfast time, 8:30 a.m. and then on duty, continue to work until 11:30 p.m. to leave work, 13:30 p.m. to work, 17:30 p.m. to leave work. At 8:00 that morning, after breakfast, Lao Ma went out to work, passing Liu Ruxiang’s rented house, saw the other party is standing at the door with a shovel, Lao Ma shouted “to the point, let’s go! “, Liu Ruxiang in a normal tone of voice and responded, “go ah, go ah”.
Earlier this day, the company is responsible for the attendance of the Linyi Sanitation Group section administrator Xin Fengju also had a greeting with Liu Ruxiang, across the old distance, Liu Ruxiang smile to her.
Liu Ruxiang was collapsed at about 8:30 in the morning. At that time, because of the snow, the road is less pedestrian than usual. Old Han looked out in the pork store, and suddenly saw that he was turning his back on the old Liu picking up the garbage cans straight backwards, and before Old Han could react, he had landed on his whole body, and his hat fell off his head. Old Han shouted “Lao Liu! “, no response. He threw down the store and rushed over to check.
At this time, Liu’s eyes were closed, his face was red, his mouth was open, and he was priming for air. Curled right hand still holding a kitchen knife just picked up from the trash, the blade next to the brain, a small cut in the brain. The left hand was stretched out flat on the side of the body, and both legs were stretched straight. The owner of the butcher’s store next door and a few meters away from the community janitor Zhou Master was also alarmed and ran over one after another, but no one dared to move him easily. 8:42 p.m., Han dialed the first 120 calls, when the snow was falling, several people found a plastic sheet to cover Liu Ruxiang’s body, in case he was wet by the snow.
The ambulance came slower than usual because of the slippery snow. 8:53 a.m., when Han dialed 120 again, the other party told him that it was still on the road. It was not until 9 a.m. that the ambulance arrived, at which point “Liu’s body had hardened,” said Han. A day later, Liu Ruxiang belongs to the company Linyi Sanitation Group issued a notice, the preliminary diagnosis of a sudden heart attack death, the specific cause of death need to be further identified by the forensic pathologist.
Until Liu Ruxiang suddenly left, Lao Ma remembered that just half a month ago, the company organized a routine physical examination, the doctor told Liu Ruxiang blood pressure is a little high, need to pay attention to. And in the earlier two months ago, Liu Ruxiang also told him that he had a cold, old cough, can not breathe. The old horse advised him to go to the cold medicine, sanitation workers do not have a day off, so workers a little sickness and pain, usually go to the pharmacy to get some medicine, rarely specifically run to the hospital.
The next two months, Liu Ruxiang’s cough, shortness of breath seems to have not seen a good, old horse thought it was because of smoking, but also advised him to smoke less. The janitor Zhou also heard Liu Ruxiang mentioned his “cold”. The day of the incident to help guard Liu Ruxiang, another butcher store owner told me that the recent period, see Liu Ruxiang, think “he did this work, a little tired feeling”. Specific performance in which he could not say, but and his wife chatting about it, his wife retorted him: “older, doing this work can not be tired? “
Who did not take these insignificant differences to heart. Compared to his own body, Liu Ruxiang is more concerned about what may be the approaching Spring Festival. He came to Linyi after the 2020 epidemic and has not been home for more than eight months. He told Lao Ma that he was ready to work until the twentieth day of the lunar month, regardless of whether the company was on holiday or not, he was going home for the New Year.
From village to city
Liu Ruxiang’s home is in Yanlingguan Village, Yangliu Town, Xintai City, about 140 kilometers from Linyi. It takes 3 hours to get there from Linyi City by bus and then by cab. According to most traditional rural customs, Liu Ruxiang lived with his son’s family when he was in the village. It was a common two-storey self-built building in the countryside, the house was sparsely decorated but quite grand from the outside, with tiles on the outer walls and an arched raised design for the doorway.
On December 29, 2020 when I received a call from Lao Ma, Liu Ruxiang’s son Liu Jun is working in Anhui, his daughter Liu Feng has been married to a neighboring village a few miles apart, although people in the village, but the snow was too big that day, all the city’s passenger vehicles stopped running until the afternoon, before contacting a private car to Linyi. When both arrived, it was already late afternoon.
The two siblings stayed in Linyi for three days to deal with the aftermath of their father’s death. When they left, they brought a rooster and paper money to the place where their father had fallen. In their
In their hometown, there is the saying of a rooster calling for the soul, which can pull the soul of the elders who died in another country back to their hometown – Liu Ruxiang, who has been wandering outside for most of his life, finally returned to his hometown in this way.
In Liu Feng’s impression, when he was 3 years old, his father left home far away to the northeast to work in the local production team and reclaim the fields. Soon after he left, there was an accident at home. On New Year’s Eve, 3-year-old Liu Feng mortar and pestle his face into a wood-fired stove where meat was being roasted, and his face was extensively burned. When her father couldn’t come back, her mother had to work in the fields and take Liu Feng to the hospital. At that time, the village to the town is not open to traffic, need to walk over, the mother in that year, suffer a lot of hardship. When the injuries on her face were almost healed, Liu Feng’s grandfather put the mother and daughter on a train to the northeast.
In the eight years in the northeast, Liu Ruxiang and his wife together, in the black land to grow potatoes, pumpkins, beans. Liu Ruxiang diligent, brain, in the production brigade to earn work credits, did a lot of side work, such as helping others to split firewood, or roll some of their own tobacco to sell at the market. Liu Feng remembered that one year, the night before New Year’s Eve, followed by his father to sell yellow tobacco, two people to go to the toilet work, tobacco was stolen, the Spring Festival that year, the New Year’s Eve goods are slightly shabby – only bought 3 pounds of pork. But his father was hardworking, plus the Northeast at that time, good settlement, soon Liu Ruxiang built his own house in the local.
In a flash, Liu Feng was already 11 years old. The custom of the old family is that daughters should be about 18 years old to make arrangements for marriage. Liu Ruxiang deep down still hope that the family can return to their hometown, in the old home for his daughter to choose a good home. So he sold the house and belongings in the northeast, with 6,000 yuan, with Liu Feng mother and daughter and returned to the town of Yangliu.
Back home, Liu Ruxiang has not been interested in farming. Wandering outside for many years, he has found that as long as the diligent and active, not afraid of dirty and tired, when a city drifter, from the seams of industry to get income, even if only sporadic, but also more than honestly do a village farmer earn. First he started working as a coal hauler, and then four years later he went north again with his daughter to the brick kilns in Heilongjiang to burn bricks and smash iron, to the Mudan River to plunder sand, and briefly to work at a construction site in Shanghai, earning 2,000 yuan in six months when things were going well.
That was the 1980s, the rural areas just began to implement the land package to the household, few people left the village fields to go out to work. Liu Ruxiang is considered an “alien” in the village.
Because of his willingness to work hard, people who have worked with Liu Ruxiang like to find him again to work. In the 1990s, a boss who had hired him and introduced him to a factory in Henan to help smash iron, from then on, Liu Ruxiang in Henan a stay is more than twenty years. After moving through Zhoukou, Kaifeng, Xinyang and other places, to the automobile factory, foundry, tractor factory, etc., Liu Ruxiang later formed a small team of a dozen people, what casual work are accepted. Which factory equipment is broken, it is very troublesome to repair, Liu Ruxiang will lead people to repair; also have the factory’s cast iron production is not compliant, need to rebuild, Liu Ruxiang will lead people to help the pile of scrap equipment disassembled, smashed, according to the number of tons of money, “like a ton of 20 yuan, the pile of There are 5 tons of stuff, three people do it together, and that earns 100 yuan for three people to share”.
Liu Jun said he also dropped out of school to join his father’s team, contracting a lot of work is the factory’s regular workers are not willing to do. “The regular workers in the factory can earn 200 yuan a day wages, not willing to earn that 500 yuan, because it is too tired. But then again, not hard, people in the factory will not use you to do. “
It was a period of great development of China’s manufacturing industry, the status of workers is high, the factory is good, Liu Ruxiang the small contractor’s income is increasing day by day. The best time, he can give workers to six or seven hundred yuan a month, he can earn a small 1,000 yuan a month. In the 20 years of his career as a foreign worker, Liu Ruxiang saved more than 200,000 yuan and spent 110,000 yuan to build a new house for his son and marry his daughter-in-law.
A little savings earned from decades of selling labor, but spent up as fast as water. Liu Jun remembers that the family’s economic situation began to deteriorate when his mother died in 2000. In that year, his mother was 50 years old, suffering from liver cancer, at that time, there was no medical insurance policy in rural areas, and he had to pay tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills in the local county. Within a year, my mother passed away. In fact, my mother’s illness was not sudden, she had a history of cirrhosis for 8 years and was constantly on medication. At that time, my father, who was still in his 40s, was able to trade his strength for money and did not feel much of a burden. After reaching 50, when all the strength that could be sold was used up, money started to leak out like an hourglass.
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