At the end of 2018, after the junior year final exams, before I returned to the dormitory and sat down, I received a call from Yangzi, who came up and said, “Meng Shoucheng, he’s dead.”
“Dead?” My whole body tensed up, Meng Shoucheng is Yangzi his father.
“The police station just contacted me and said that Meng Shoucheng died in the ancestral hall, and it was confirmed that it was a suicide, so I went back to claim the body.” Yangzi said very gently, like he was talking about someone else, “I’ll be back this afternoon, if you’re done with your exams, go back with me.”
I was stunned at the table, but then I thought – Meng Shoucheng’s death is not a relief for Yangzi.
That afternoon, Yangzi rushed back to Lanzhou from Guangzhou, and I went back home with him. Yangzi soon claimed Meng Shoucheng’s body back and held the funeral the next day. I met Meng Shoucheng’s ex-wife, Yangzi’s mother Tang Xiaolian, and his sister Meng Ling.
After the funeral, I invited the three of them to my house for dinner (there is an ancestral rule that those who have a funeral at home are not allowed to have fireworks for three days). During that time, they talked to me about Meng Shoucheng’s life, and apart from lamenting and lamenting, there was nothing left but helplessness ……
1
Yangzi’s original name was Meng Yang, and his family had an older sister, Meng Ling, who was two years older than him. Before Yangzi was born, his father, Meng Shoucheng, moved his family to Urumqi, Xinjiang, to make a living.
There is another story in the village about the Meng family moving away – our village is located in southwestern Gansu, with poor natural conditions and people living in relative poverty. Since the mid-1980s, some people have become involved in drugs to change their fate. In the county and town, drugs were once widespread, and many people fell into the foot. Some of these sensible people, in order to save their own lives, took their wives and children far away from home, and Meng Shoucheng was perhaps one of them.
The first thing that happened was that the couple was able to get a job at a construction site and his wife, Tang Xiaolian, cooked at the site canteen. The next year, Meng Shoucheng took his wife and children back home for a trip to his mother’s funeral, did not stay a few days, once the funeral is over, the family returned to Urumqi.
Tang Xiaolian said, “I thought I would live my whole life in that place where fruits and vegetables smell good, but I didn’t think I would be able to get rid of that filth and return to this pestilential place.”
According to Tang Xiaolian, 2004 “was a turning point for our family.
In that year, Meng Shoucheng’s hairdresser, Meng Dong, said he did not want to stay in his hometown and was afraid that he would accidentally “fall into the path of drugs” and wanted to come to Urumqi to live on borrowed time, asking Meng Shoucheng to arrange a place for him to stay and move out when he found a job. Meng Shoucheng remembered the old feelings, but also knew that in recent years, the “brothers” who grew up together, one after another drug-related imprisonment, thinking to help one is one, so he agreed without thinking.
Tang Xiaolian disagreed, she doubted the purpose of Meng Dong this time, “if Meng Dong drug or drug trafficking, he may come to us just to hide things, then we can be a cover-up offender”.
The company’s main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers.
In May of that year, Meng Shoucheng picked up Meng Dong from the station and brought him home. Meng Dong had a tired look on his face and only brought a black luggage bag. Although Tang Xiaolian is dissatisfied, but the landlord’s friendship or to do, made a table of good food to entertain this friend who came from the old country upside down. There are only two rooms in the house, after eating and drinking, Meng Shoucheng wanted to take Meng Dong to live in a hotel, but Meng Dong said, “It is good to squeeze in the house, there is no need to spend money to live outside”. When Meng Shoucheng saw that he didn’t want to go, he had to let his wife sleep in a room with the two children, and he and Meng Dong slept in a room.
In the middle of the night, Tang Xiaolian secretly called Meng Shoucheng to the bathroom and asked worriedly, “Is there really nothing wrong with him?”
Meng Shoucheng once again patted his chest and said with conviction, “He is my brother that I grew up with, what could be wrong with him? Besides, even if there is any problem, he can’t harm me, just relax!”
For the next few days, Meng Dong stayed at Meng Shoucheng’s house, showing no sign of looking for work. Meng Shoucheng and his wife, who owned a restaurant, were not at home all day and night, and Meng Ling and Yang Zi also went to the restaurant after school and did not go home with their parents until closing time.
Meng Shoucheng persuaded Meng Dong to go out and find a job. When pressed, Meng Dong was also “embarrassed” and went out to look for a job, but either resented the low pay or complained about the poor working environment. Meng Shoucheng advised him that he was from the countryside and could not be too demanding, but he was afraid of hurting his heart and told him not to be discouraged and to take his time. Although Tang Xiaolian dislikes Meng Dong, but because of her husband’s face, it is not good to say anything.
In this way, Meng Dong was in Meng Shoucheng’s house for more than half a month.
One day, Meng Dong went out for a walk and did not return until the early morning. Meng Shoucheng found that his luggage bag was missing, asked him, he vaguely changed the subject, and kept inviting Meng Shoucheng to sing K, saying that he wanted to thank Meng Shoucheng for taking care of him these days. The company’s main goal is to provide a good service to its customers.
Meng Dong seems to see Meng Shoucheng’s concern, busy saying that he has money. Meng Shoucheng was puzzled and asked him where he got the money, and he did not answer, but just kept telling him not to worry about the money.
The company’s main goal is to provide a platform for the company’s customers to meet their needs. After the restaurant opened, there are several times Meng Shoucheng is depressed, the wrong end of the dish several times; there are several times is bright and cheerful, not at all like the people who stay up all night.
After another half month, Meng Dong suddenly said that his mother was seriously ill at home, and he wanted to return home to see. Meng Shoucheng seems very reluctant to him to go, has been retained. Tang Xiaolian was eager for him to leave so that he could resume his normal life.
“At that time, I thought he was just being facetious, so he pretended to keep Meng Dong. But after Meng Dong left, I realized that he was addicted to ‘Meng Dong’ and could not leave him.” Tang Xiaolian sighed.
After that, Meng Shoucheng did not go to the “KTV” for a few days, snot and saliva, all over the body itchy. The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to the market.
“How could he know, like a fool, he believed everything Meng Dong said, and he ate and drank whatever he was given, without any precautions!” Tang Xiaolian said angrily.
2
In 2005, just after the Spring Festival, the Meng Shoucheng family, who had left their hometown for 10 years, suddenly returned to their hometown.
People in the village who did not know thought they were “returning home”, but Tang Xiaolian knew that they had no choice but to return: Meng Shoucheng had become addicted to drugs and had become violent to her and her children. In just six months, Meng Shoucheng became a drug addict, not only lost the money the couple had saved over the years, but also disregarded Tang Xiaolian’s objections and took the store out. Tang Xiaolian made a fuss, but to no avail, and also thought of taking Meng Shoucheng to turn himself in, but her husband not only resisted, but also threatened to divorce her if she obstructed him from “dallying” again. Tang Xiaolian could not afford to live with a family of four in Urumqi, and had no choice but to return home to resume farming.
After returning home, the first thing Tang Xiaolian did was to ask Meng Shoucheng to settle accounts with Meng Dong, asking him why he was counting on Meng Shoucheng in this way. Halfway to Meng Dong’s house, she heard that Meng Dong had been arrested two months ago for drug trafficking at the Yunnan border. It was said that the police also had evidence that Meng Dong had sneaked into Xinjiang with a large amount of high-purity heroin to sell drugs in May last year.
“A beast like him should be executed by lynching, and it’s too cheap to sentence him to life!” Speaking of this, Tang Xiaolian cursed angrily.
And that’s how Yangzi and I met.
In March of that year, Yangzi transferred to our class. When he first arrived, he was white, well-dressed, and fluent in Mandarin, and stood out among our group of native-born rural children.
After getting acquainted, he often invited me to play at his house. At his house, I met the lean Meng Shoucheng, the capable and gentle Tang Xiaolian, and the smart and clever Meng Ling. At that time, this complete family looked happy and enviable – in our village, few families were complete, and drug use and drug trafficking went hand in hand, with countless people separated from their wives and broken families because of drugs. The men were arrested and the women were widowed, so our village became known as the “widow village” by outsiders.
But this beautiful illusion was soon annihilated – three months later, Meng Shoucheng was caught red-handed by the police in a private room of a dance hall in town, where he was involved in drug use. The legal section of the police station determined that he was “severely addicted” and sent him to a city drug rehabilitation center for one year.
When Tang Xiaolian heard the news of Meng Shoucheng’s arrest, she almost fainted. However, she quickly pulled herself together – her two children were coming back from school and she didn’t want them to know that her father was “in.
When she didn’t see her father for a few days, Yang Zi asked her mother about him. Tang Xiaolian couldn’t stand his inquiries and lied to him, “Your father has gone to work in the city and will be back in a year.”
Meng Ling soon learned the truth about her father’s arrest amidst the villagers’ finger-pointing. But Tang Xiaolian wouldn’t let her tell Yangzi, so she kept it to herself. And Yangzi, who was naive, believed his mother’s words and was so happy that he thought he could go back to the city to study again, and came running happily, telling us that he was going back to the city.
Meng Shoucheng has three brothers, the second in line. His older brother has been a drug addict since he was 18 years old and has been subjected to mandatory drug rehabilitation. Just two years before Meng Shoucheng was arrested, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for drug trafficking. His brother is in the animal fur business, which is a miserable business. He has two elderly people to take care of and two children to raise, so he has no financial ability to provide relief to Tang Xiaolian and his nieces and nephews.
Tang Xiaolian can only farm, life is very tight. Only a year had passed, Yangzi was no longer the well-dressed, fair-looking teenager, but with us all day long with the yellow earth.
During that time, the local anti-drug efforts increased, our elementary school repeatedly anti-drug education series, the town, the village, anti-drug slogans can be seen everywhere, adults gossip every day, Yangzi also quickly learned where his father actually went. His friends often teased him in front of him, saying “your father is a smoker”, and Yangzi often fought with others for this reason, but each time he was defeated and ran home in tears.
About 11 months later (more than 20 days), Meng Shoucheng was released from rehab.
On the day he got out, Tang Xiaolian borrowed some money from her mother’s family, found a car, and took her two children to pick up her husband. She gave Meng Shoucheng a new outfit and set up a banquet to celebrate his release.
When he returned home, Meng Shoucheng’s face was rosy, and he had gained a lot of weight, so he seemed to be “recovering” well. Not long after, Meng Shoucheng another hairdresser Li Fei came to look for him, Tang Xiaolian worried that “the visitor is not good”, they dragged the two children blocked the door, said Meng Shoucheng is not at home, do not let each other into the door.
Li Fei stood at the door and shouted Meng Shoucheng’s name. Meng Shoucheng came out of the house at the sound of his voice, signaling Tang Xiaolian to take the child back to his room. Tang Xiaolian saw in the doorway that Li Fei first held Meng Shoucheng’s hand very warmly and asked for warmth, then he came to Meng Shoucheng’s ear and said something. Meng Shoucheng first looked tight, then looked back at the door, a face of anger to shake off Li Fei’s hand. Li Fei also stopped talking and just looked at him, smiling strangely. After a long time, Meng Shoucheng’s tense face slowly stretched out, as if he had made a big decision, and then followed Li Fei out the door and walked towards the village entrance.
That day, Meng Shoucheng came home late and the two children were asleep when he returned. Tang Xiaolian asked him what Li Fei was looking for him to do, he looked melancholy, the whole person seemed to be deflated, and did not answer, his mouth muttered repeatedly: “My life is considered finished, my life is considered finished ……”
Tang Xiaolian tensed up and continued to ask questions, but Meng Shoucheng suddenly changed his face and angrily admonished Tang Xiaolian to leave her alone. Tang Xiaolian looked at her angry husband and vaguely guessed something.
Next, Li Fei had to come to Meng Shoucheng every few days to ask him to help “send something”. The first thing you need to do is to ask your husband what he wants. Sometimes he was very exuberant, and sometimes he was bedridden for a long time as if he was sick, and his face gradually withered.
Later, I heard that Li Fei, in order to get Meng Shoucheng to help them transport drugs, Yang Zi and Meng Ling threatened him, saying that if Meng Shoucheng did not help them, he let the two children also become addicted to drugs like him. Meng Shoucheng wanted to call the police, but he knew that Li Fei, the gang of desperadoes dare to say and do, they went in, their families and companions are still there, he could not take the risk of two children.
3
Li Fei did not appear again for a long time, Tang Xiaolian’s heart settled a little.
One day, she was cooking when Meng Shoucheng suddenly ran in like a madman and asked her for money – after Meng Shoucheng was arrested, she kept all the money in the house, and she was worried that Meng Shoucheng would go back to drugs, so she didn’t give him much money – Tang Xiaolian didn’t give it as usual, and Meng Shoucheng grabbed 500 yuan and ran out like crazy.
When he came back in the evening, he was very exhilarated. Tang Xiaolian asked him if he was on drugs again, but Meng Shoucheng was obviously still “high” and in a daze, slapped her in the face and ordered her to mind her own business.
“I am the mother of two children, do you think I care?”
Meng Shoucheng’s face immediately sank down, almost roaring, “Don’t mention the children to me! Don’t talk to me about the kids!”
“From the first time he made a move on me, I knew he had changed. I knew he wasn’t doing drugs himself, he was being victimized. I tried to understand him at first, but he wouldn’t listen to me, and he kept hitting me over and over again, ‘beating’ my heart out of my chest. If it weren’t for these two children, I would have divorced him a long time ago.” Tang Xiaolian sighed as she spoke, and shot a guilty glance at Yangzi sitting next to her.
The drug-addicted Meng Shoucheng became idle and spent his days hanging out with the village’s “smokers”, adding to the hardship of the family. At home, he fought with Tang Xiaolian, sometimes for money, sometimes for trivial matters. Sometimes I went to play with Yangzi and he would get angry with us.
Tang Xiaolian wanted to help her husband get clean, so she got her father-in-law and brother-in-law to tie Meng Shoucheng up while he was asleep, and chained him to a chair. I don’t know if this will work, but it’s better than him getting caught again,” Tang said. He probably wanted to quit his addiction, too. At least he didn’t resist when we tied him up.”
The first day and two days are fine, to the third day, Meng Shoucheng drug addiction, tears, snot and saliva, pain and itching, actually biting the tip of his tongue. Tang Xiaolian heart, and will be unchained, but also the family’s only remaining more than 500 yuan to give him.
Soon after, Meng Shoucheng was reported – he was again forced into drug treatment for one year. “Fortunately”, the drug shipment for Li Fei was not discovered.
Tang Xiaolian went to Li Fei to settle the score, and in front of Li Fei, swung a hoe and smashed his newly purchased car. Li Fei is not distressed, just stand aside to gloat at her, let her smash. Li Fei’s wife ran out to stop her, cursing Tang Xiaolian as a shrew. Tang Xiaolian was angry and tried to hit her, but Li Fei pushed her to the ground: “Have you had enough? If you’ve had enough, go home! I don’t have time to play with you!”
Tang Xiaolian fell to the ground and looked at Li Fei, who was smiling, and asked word for word: “Why did you let him take drugs, and what good did it do to you?”
Li Fei sat on his butt on the smashed hood, lit a cigarette, took a few puffs, then threw the butt in front of her, put away his smile and said with a grim face, “Why? You don’t know? If you don’t know, go ask him!”
Tang Xiaolian froze – he asked, how to make it seem as if Meng Shoucheng is not it?
Later, when Tang Xiaolian visited Meng Shoucheng at the drug rehabilitation center and asked about this, Meng Shoucheng was silent.
It turns out that in 2000, when they came back to the old man’s funeral, Meng Shoucheng had a public talk about the dangers of drugs, saying that drugs are vermin, whether drug use, drug trafficking are shameful, but also a sneer to the village listed drug traffickers are scolded, and said, “If I know who drug trafficking, who wrecked other people’s families, I will go to the Public Security Bureau to report them, I can not let I can’t let drugs proliferate here and poison my family!”
According to Tang Xiaolian’s description, Meng Shoucheng still looked impassioned and righteous when he said this in rehab.
But what Meng Shoucheng didn’t know was that at that time, “brothers” like Meng Dong and Li Fei, with whom he had grown up, had secretly begun to use and sell drugs. His words touched their pain, making them feel offended and despised, in addition, his comfortable and happy life in Xinjiang, but also let these “blood licking” people are very red – therefore, pull Meng Shoucheng down, also become their kind of people, in order to let They have a balance in their hearts.
Before leaving, Tang Xiaolian warned Meng Shoucheng that he had no choice, but if he relapsed after he got out this time, she would divorce him.
Meng Shoucheng nodded frequently through the glass window and swore that he would never use drugs again.
4
Meng Shoucheng was released from rehab for the second time in the late summer of 2007 during the wheat harvest. He returned home the same day with a scythe and went to the ground. Tang Xiaolian felt sorry for him and told him to go home and rest. He didn’t return, wielding the scythe as if he had inexhaustible strength.
Tang Xiaolian was somewhat relieved, because the Meng Shoucheng in front of him was the man with responsibility and commitment. Yang Zi and Meng Ling were also happy because the father they knew so well had finally returned.
“Maybe my threat of divorce worked, he’s not that heartless and heartless.” Tang Xiaolian said this and paused for a while.
After the wheat harvest, it is the farming season. Meng Shoucheng stays at home most of the time, and occasionally goes out for a walk, encountering young people in the village on the way, they will avoid. When Li Fei heard that Meng Shoucheng had returned, he came to see him several times, but was turned away by Tang Xiaolian. As for whether they met outside, no one knows.
One morning, Meng Shoucheng suddenly asked Tang Xiaolian for money, saying he was going to buy clothes. Tang Xiaolian hesitated for a while, but finally gave him the money. Meng Shoucheng took the money and went out, returning that night only after the three mothers had gone to bed.
The next day, when it was still hazy outside, Tang Xiaolian woke up, how could not sleep, always felt that something was going to happen. Vaguely, she heard a messy and hurried footsteps coming from the back wall. At this time, next to Meng Shoucheng suddenly woke up, without a sound jumped up, did not even have time to put on clothes to run outside.
Before Meng Shoucheng reached the door of the room, he was pinned to the wall by the police who rushed in. Yangzi was also woken up, sleepy-eyed, he saw his father being dragged out by the police through the window, wearing white and blinding handcuffs on his hands. Tang Xiaolian got dressed and followed him out with tears in her eyes, while Meng Ling also watched the scene from the doorway of the room.
Yang Zi was so scared that he knelt in front of the window in a daze. Meng Shoucheng, still desperately resisting, looked back with difficulty in Yangzi’s direction, his eyes red.
“I don’t know what his eyes contained at that time, if it was love, then such love I don’t want.” Yangzi said expressionlessly.
After Meng Shoucheng was arrested this time, Yangzi didn’t come to school for a week, and I went to his house to look for him while I was free at the weekend. In the blinding sunlight, Tang Xiaolian sat listlessly in the courtyard, tears in her eyes, Yangzi and Meng Ling around her, helpless.
After that day, Yangzi and Meng Ling came back to class. A few days later, Tang Xiaolian went to school to give the two children a leave of absence, and Yangzi didn’t come to school for a few more days.
When I went to see him again on the weekend, he was sitting in the courtyard with his hands on his knees and his eyes staring at the sky, looking melancholy and despondent. When I approached, he suddenly told me, “My mother is leaving, and our family will be broken up!”
It turns out that the days of leave, Tang Xiaolian took the two siblings to visit Meng Shoucheng in the drug rehabilitation center. Tang Xiaolian asked Meng Shoucheng why he had relapsed into drug addiction. Meng Shoucheng shook his head and smiled bitterly, not saying anything. Tang Xiaolian scolded Meng Shoucheng for not being able to change his ways, and called him a “smoker” and asked him for a divorce.
Meng Shoucheng did not agree and dropped the phrase “divorce? You don’t even think about it!” Without looking back, he went back to the prison, without even glancing at the two children. Yangzi and his sister, holding hands, stood stiffly behind his mother and did not speak.
Tang Xiaolian said she could no longer live like this. She asked someone to draw up a divorce agreement to send to the drug rehabilitation center, but Meng Shoucheng refused to sign. Tang Xiaolian then went to court, in view of Meng Shoucheng “three times in the Palace”, the court soon awarded a divorce – Yangzi was awarded to Tang Xiaolian, but he was determined not to go with his mother.
“Meng Shoucheng went in, and Tang Xiaolian wanted to leave, so we had to depend on each other, and no one could leave anyone.” From here on, Yangzi’s title for his parents changed and he began to call them by their first names.
When Tang Xiaolian heard him say this, she lowered her head slightly.
When Tang Xiaolian left, Yangzi was in fifth grade and Meng Ling was in her first year. Yangzi became silent and did not go home after school, often sitting on the double bar in the corner of the playground and staring at his chin.
In our “widow village”, there were many men like Meng Shoucheng, but most of the women would bear the humiliation for the sake of their children and wait hard. In contrast, Yangzi must have felt that Tang Xiaolian did not love them.
Yangzi’s uncle took the siblings home, and 1 year later in the summer, Meng Shoucheng came out and they moved back in.
Perhaps the blow of the divorce, this time out after Meng Shoucheng completely become a different person: neither talk more, nor work, the two children do not care, all day except for eating is sleeping, the whole person lean and monkey-like. Sometimes when Meng Ling was late in cooking, he started to make a scene, spilling his guts and asking his daughter, “Why don’t you give me food to eat? Do you also do not recognize me as a father?” He was like a madman.
In order to reduce the burden on the family, 14-year-old Meng Ling took the initiative to suspend school, “when the family situation is better she went back to school”. In fact, she knew better than anyone that she would never have the opportunity to return to the classroom.
In November, Meng Ling went to the utility room to look for something and found that several bags of wheat were missing. She thought the house had been burglarized and was about to call Yangzi to discuss what to do when Meng Shoucheng came back from outside shakily.
Meng Ling told her father that several bags of wheat had been lost, and she didn’t know who had stolen them. But Meng Shoucheng replied: “What do you mean by stealing? How can you call it stealing something that belongs to your own family?”
Meng Ling suddenly understood what: “You …… went to drugs?”
Hearing this, Meng Shoucheng seems to have sobered up and kneeled down in front of his daughter: “It’s not that I want to take drugs, I really have no choice, they suck, I also followed the suck. I can’t control myself, there is always a voice in my head saying, ‘just once, just once, let yourself feel good again’ …… I really can’t help it, I can’t control myself, Dad, please, don’t abandon Dad! ……”
The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to its customers.
“For me, studying is my greatest hope to change my fate, for the sake of this family, I gave up this opportunity, he did not understand even if, but actually stole the family’s food to buy ‘white powder’, that is our food for the winter ah! Meng Ling mentioned the past, her voice trembled and her eyes were filled with tears.
That evening, Meng Shoucheng was arrested by the police under the bridge at the entrance of the village, along with Li Fei, who was selling white flour to Meng Shoucheng, and the drug money seized was half a bag of wheat – this became the biggest laughing stock of Meng Shoucheng after word spread in the village.
I asked Meng Ling to confirm whether she went to the police, Meng Ling sneered and did not say anything.
In view of Meng Shoucheng’s repeated failure to reform, this time he was transferred to a drug rehab facility in Lanzhou for 2 years of mandatory isolation. Meng Ling and Yang Zi lived in their uncle’s house again.
After hearing the news, Tang Xiaolian came back to see the two children and brought them a lot of food. She said she was getting married and invited them to her wedding next month.
Meng Ling declined, not wanting her mother’s new husband to feel unhappy about the presence of the two siblings.
5
In 2010, the county government believed that the backwardness of the local economy was one of the main causes of the drug problem, so the relevant departments attracted investment and opened a flour mill in the town, which was mainly used to accommodate drug dealers after their release from prison, in order to solve their basic living problems and to centralize management and education, thus reducing the rate of drug use and trafficking.
The year I was a junior, Meng Shoucheng came back from rehab and went to work at the flour mill. Yangzi and Meng Ling also moved back home again.
The old adobe house hadn’t been lived in for two years and had fallen into disrepair, with the walls showing signs of collapse, but it was barely habitable.
After Meng Shoucheng went to work at the flour mill, the whole person was much more energetic, and every once in a while he went to the police station for urine tests. For the first month or two, his behavior was uncharacteristic, except that he and Meng Ling got along somewhat awkwardly – Meng Ling didn’t say a word about his father’s last arrest, and Meng Shoucheng didn’t say anything, and it was as if father and daughter had a grudge against each other.
Yangzi’s grandfather is planning to give his second son “a companion” to take care of him and to relieve Meng Ling’s pressure to run the household. Meng Shoucheng readily agreed to this proposal, and Yangzi and Meng Ling had no objection, “If remarriage could keep Meng Shoucheng from taking drugs, it would be a great gift to me and my sister.
The new aunt, Zhao Xiaohong, is from the next village, divorced because her ex-husband was in jail for drug trafficking. The matchmaker told her that although Meng Shoucheng had taken drugs before, he had been rehabilitated and was now a good man, and arranged a meeting between the two. Meng Shoucheng’s face was also spiritual at that time, Zhao Xiaohong was very satisfied, so she agreed to the marriage.
After the marriage, Meng Shoucheng performed normally, going to work on time every day, and every month when he was paid, he would hand over part of his salary to Zhao Xiaohong for household use; the rest was left to Yangzi and Meng Ling – although Meng Ling did not accept it.
Zhao Xiaohong took good care of Yangzi and Meng Ling in their daily lives, and the two siblings were sympathetic to their stepmother and obeyed her on many matters. When Meng Shoucheng is not using drugs, he is gentle and elegant, but also like a modest gentleman. Although the quality of life is not high, but also calm.
“During that time, I really thought we could just live so beautifully, but the sky was not ……” Yangzi remained expressionless.
In April 2011, without warning, Meng Shoucheng was arrested again for drug addiction and was again forced to detox for 2 years.
After Meng Shoucheng’s accident, Zhao Xiaohong cursed Yangzi’s grandfather and the matchmaker as liars, and decided to divorce. As compensation, Yangzi’s grandfather scraped together 10,000 yuan to give her, and apologized to her repeatedly. Yangzi really can’t understand his father’s repeated drug use, both helpless and angry: “Fuck, I just can’t figure out, he repeatedly suck, drugs are really that hard to quit? It makes me want to try it, to see what magic it has, to Meng Shoucheng woe into this way.”
The two siblings had no choice but to live in their uncle’s house again. But the uncle was cheated out of money in his business and was also strapped for cash. Although the uncle wanted Yangzi to finish junior high school, Yangzi decided to drop out of school to work. He went to Dongguan, Guangdong, lied about his age and worked in a restaurant as a maid – a 15-year-old boy who went into society.
For two years, Yang Zi did not return home, and no longer contact me, until the Spring Festival of 2013, he came back – because Meng Ling wanted to get married.
The most important thing is that he does not smoke or drink, not to mention drugs. Yang Zi of course agreed, he wanted his sister to get married early no longer to send uncle fence, to live their own life, and moreover, to get rid of this “pandemonium” place, he had what reason not to agree to it?
He called Tang Xiaolian for advice, and Tang Xiaolian had no objection. At this time, Meng Shoucheng also reached the end of his sentence and was released from the drug rehabilitation center again. The day he came out, Yangzi hired a car to pick him up. On the way home, he reminded Meng Shoucheng several times that his sister was getting married and asked him to be more peaceful. For his daughter’s marriage, Meng Shoucheng did not say yes or no, and let them measure themselves: “You two siblings discuss, you feel good.”
Gu Changming knew the situation of Meng Ling’s family and felt sorry for her, so he let the wedding be simple, just a formality. But Yang Zi disagreed, marriage is a lifetime event, can not be because of Meng Shoucheng, and let sister’s wedding looks shabby, sister can not afford to lose this person, he can not afford to lose – he wants to give sister a decent wedding.
Yang Zi took out two years of savings from working in the restaurant, and also asked for some money from Tang Xiaolian (Yang Zi said it was “borrowed”) to buy a dowry for his sister. He seriously told Meng Ling, “Sister, your hard days are over, you will be happy in the future.”
Meng Ling hugged her brother and said with a sigh, “Everything will be fine.”
As with every release before, Meng Shoucheng was very peaceful during that time, except for Meng Ling’s wedding, he stayed at home and basically did not go out. A week before the wedding, Yangzi gave Meng Shoucheng more than 1000 yuan, so that he bought himself body surface clothes, do not lose the face of his sister in the wedding.
But Yangzi never expected that the money would once again become “drug money” for his father to resume smoking. After Meng Shoucheng finished his drug use, he stripped naked and danced like a madman in a dance hall, then was reported, arrested and detoxified for 2 years – later at Meng Shoucheng’s funeral, I heard people in the village say that every time he was reported, the person who reported him was Meng Jianpeng, whose whole family was using drugs in the village (because there was a bonus for reporting).
This farce by Meng Shoucheng before his daughter’s wedding made Meng Ling, who was full of joy preparing for the wedding, unable to hold her head up on the man’s side, and became the last straw that crushed her father-daughter relationship with Meng Shoucheng.
The wedding took place as scheduled, and on that day, Yangzi invited many people to help celebrate. Tang Xiaolian also came as the mother of the bride, she wore a decent light pink suit, looking even younger. The bridal convoy came, Yangzi took his sister on the wedding car, Tang Xiaolian followed behind. Meng Ling smiled, and Yangzi smiled, smiling and laughing, tears came out.
After that, Yangzi called me to go to a drug rehabilitation center, he did not visit Meng Shoucheng, just left 1000 yuan in his account, and then went to Guangzhou, following a boss to run business.
In 2014, Yangzi pulled out and went it alone, recruiting a bunch of people on his own and inviting rent to open a store. He was very busy every day, earning more and more money. During the period, someone from the village to Guangzhou had contacted him, but he did not treat anyone – he was afraid, afraid of Meng Dong, afraid of people like Li Fei.
6
A week before Meng Shoucheng’s sixth release, Yangzi rushed back home.
The day before receiving Meng Shoucheng from prison, Yangzi came to visit me at the high school I attended and invited me to accompany him to see Tang Xiaolian. He said, “My sister is determined to break off the relationship with Meng Shoucheng, if I don’t care about him, I’m afraid he will really become a loner. In the past few years, I have thought a lot about how he is a bastard, but also my father, the relationship can not be severed. I can only blame my bad luck, I had such a father. To put it mildly, I wish he was inside, so I would have a lot of peace of mind and not have to worry about when he gets caught again.”
After her remarriage, Tang Xiaolian and her new husband went to work in the city, at first as a dishwasher, then as a waitress, then as a logistics director, and now as a lobby manager.
When they met, I didn’t feel much emotional turmoil from Yangzi. Tang Xiaolian took us to another restaurant for dinner. At the dinner table, mother and son chatted with each other, the atmosphere was much worse than when Meng Ling got married. Halfway through the meal, Yangzi suddenly said, “How good it would have been if you hadn’t divorced Meng Shoucheng in the first place.” He looked at Tang Xiaolian and said, word for word, “At least we still have a home.”
Tang Xiaolian put down her chopsticks and was about to say something when Yang Zi added, “But it’s good, otherwise, Meng Shoucheng really made our family ‘elite’ and you made the right choice. You have time to care more about sister, she is the most need to be cared for, I do not care anymore.”
Hearing her son say “it doesn’t matter”, Tang Xiaolian’s eyes shone with tears, her lips trembled slightly, but in the end, she said nothing. Perhaps, she had expected this scene today, just give Yangzi dishes, awkwardly smiled and said, “Eat more.”
After picking up Meng Shoucheng from prison, Yangzi stayed at home for more than a month, in fact, also guarded Meng Shoucheng. During this month, Meng Shoucheng was honest and peaceful, without any irregularities.
The home has not been living for several years, the walls collapsed some, the roof will leak when it rains. Yang Zi found some workers, the old dilapidated home simply renovated, not to let Meng Shoucheng “sleep in the wind”, and then returned to Guangzhou. After he returned, Meng Shoucheng also quiet for a year.
The seventh time I heard that Meng Shoucheng was imprisoned for drugs was after my college entrance exams: he first borrowed money for drugs, and when he couldn’t borrow, he cheated, and after his money trick was discovered he started stealing and robbing, and was beaten up; after he failed to steal and rob, he thought of selling his family’s home base, but before he could sell it, he was arrested – something that fortunately didn’t happen, otherwise Yangzi wouldn’t even have a place to stay.
After he got out last time, Meng Shoucheng had been alone in the village, and no one knew how he had taken drugs again. When I called Yangzi to tell him about this, Yangzi was very calm, just like a person who is fine: “Don’t worry about him.”
“You almost lost your home base, but you don’t need to care about it either?”
“I want to manage, but can not manage ah. Before Meng Shoucheng died, it was something that belonged to him. It’s better if it’s gone, and I don’t have to come back ……,” Yangzi quickly hung up the phone for business reasons.
I froze in place, not knowing what to say.
Meng Shoucheng was arrested this time, or was forced to detox for 2 years. The village people said that the police station police are helpless to Meng Shoucheng such people, “we arrested and what can be done? He has become a dead skin (Northwest dialect, meaning scoundrel), quit and can not quit, just stay inside for a year or two, come out and continue to suck, and then be caught in, and so on and so forth. If someone hadn’t reported it, we wouldn’t have bothered to catch him.”
During this period, Yangzi ushered in his first and only relationship in life. He met a girl in Guangzhou, and the two quickly fell in love. Yang Zi in love to find a long-lost “care” and “care”, so especially cherish this precious feelings. When discussing marriage, Yangzi thought about it, but honestly told the girl’s parents one by one about what had happened at home over the past ten years. As expected, the girl’s parents decisively rejected their daughter’s relationship with Yangzi on the grounds that “you are not suitable”.
At first, the girl was very stubborn to choose to stay with him, but her parents forced to death, she had no choice but to bear the pain and Yangzi separation.
This is the deepest scar in Yangzi’s heart, deeper and more painful than the scars of Meng Shoucheng’s drug addiction, Tang Xiaolian’s abandonment and being criticized by others. This matter, Yangzi only once on WeChat and I said, later no matter what, he no longer mentioned.
“Sometimes I really want to kill Meng Shoucheng, although he is my father, but because of him, we do not know how much suffering, how much white eyes.” Yangzi said angrily.
In October 2018, I heard my mother say that Meng Shoucheng was out again. This time Yangzi did not come back to pick him up, only on the same day sent a circle of friends: you do not end one day, my world will not continue one day. With a picture of a dark death with a scythe on his back.
And then, less than two months later, Meng Shoucheng committed suicide.
The police told Yangzi that Meng Shoucheng had committed drug addiction before his death, and hit his head against the stone pillar of the ancestral hall because of the unbearable pain (the autopsy report states that Meng Shoucheng’s head was badly damaged), and then cut the aorta at his neck with a knife and bled to death. However, people in the village said that the night before Meng Shoucheng committed suicide, someone had shown him the circle of friends that Yang Zi had sent (Meng Shoucheng only had an elderly phone, no WeChat), Meng Shoucheng did not have any abnormalities at that time, but just smiled nervously and joked with others that his son “might be talking about someone”, and then he committed suicide the next day.
Postscript
Last November, 23-year-old Yangzi renovated the old home, repairing two rooms, and then got married, his wife was met through a blind date. He said he wanted to have a home and not to wander anymore.
On the day of the wedding, I attended Yangzi’s wedding. On the wedding day, he wore a white dress, his hair was well groomed, and the whole person was in good spirits.
He received the guests courteously, really like a mature adult, or rather – he has long been an adult.
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