I escaped from the black factory and ran home along the railway tracks

Preface

One evening a few months ago, I passed by my uncle’s house and found him loading grain in the rice field by himself. Over the years, my maternal uncle’s grandmother worked in a factory in the city and could only go home near New Year’s. Both sons also worked in the city, and my maternal uncle was the only one in the village, growing a dozen acres of land and feeding a few pigs and cows on his own. A normal day is like a battle that has to be fought, and the time for two meals a day is squeezed out, and on weekends he has to cook for his granddaughter who is on vacation. I went up to help and after a while, I couldn’t help but ask my uncle and grandfather, “You are so tired every day, why is that?” Grandpa smiled and did not answer my question directly, but told a story about his past experiences.

1

In mid-November 2006, the rape in the field began to draw moss, emerge green, the growth is pleasing. But as a crop farmer, I was not happy at all – there were still two months left for the New Year, and I had no money for the seeds and fertilizers I owed on credit, and no money for my young son’s technical school tuition at the beginning of next spring, so I had to take advantage of this farming leisure to find some odd jobs. When my neighbor learned of this, he invited me to go to Linfen, Shanxi Province to dig coal together.

The coal mine we went to had no government approval at all, and workers had to sneak down the shaft in the dark. Within a few days, the government came and stationed people at the coal mine, forbidding workers to dig anymore. My neighbor and I stayed in the shed every day, very anxious, and kept asking the foreman when the work would start, but he always said that it would be soon, “we will get the approval document from the government soon”.

My neighbor was fighting with the workers every day, and it was half a month – he was a bachelor, and his family was not hungry – but I was different from him, and I couldn’t afford to wait, so I decided to go home and find another job.

I finished buying tickets at Linfen Railway Station, and seeing that it was still early, I walked into a noodle shop, put two packages with quilts and clothes on the table, and ordered a bowl of vegetarian noodles. At this time a thin middle-aged man sat across from me, also ordered a bowl of vegetarian noodles, and asked me with a Sichuan accent, “Old brother, are you out to work?”

I took a look at the man, his hair sticking out haphazardly, wearing an ordinary black suit jacket with some white dandruff stuck to the collar, small eyes, and a kind face. Plus he speaks Sichuanese (uncle grandfather ancestral origin of Chongqing, before moving to rural Yichang, Hubei), so I feel more intimate.

I then returned in Chongqing: “Yes.”

“So it’s the old country shiver,” he said, claiming his surname was Li, and fished out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and handed me one, a 5 yuan cigarette. “Do you know how to play rice? You can earn 100 yuan a day.”

“I don’t want to work now, the train tickets are bought.”

“You give me the train ticket, I will go to help you return, you do not worry.”

I used to work in the rice factory in my hometown, and I could only earn 50 yuan a day, so I calculated in my heart: 100 a day, until the New Year, my young son’s school fees will be enough, and I can also pay off part of the debt. Thinking of this, I gave him the train ticket. A few minutes later, Li came back and said that the ticket had been returned, and the money would be given to me together with the salary.

We waited at the train station until the evening, came to a 7-seater white van. I got into the car, in addition to the driver, there is one person, and Li sat left and right on either side of me.

After driving for more than an hour, I asked how long it would take, and Li said he was close, and got out and bought me a box of lunch; after another hour, I asked again, and he got out and bought some melon seeds and fried peanuts, and said he would give me a snack; after another hour, the car finally drove into a large factory and stopped in front of a row of short houses.

I got out of the car and looked around, and found a few tall chimneys not far away – this is not a rice factory at all, but a brick and tile factory – I hesitated, and Li Gong saw me stay, shouted, picked up my luggage, and went into a room of more than 30 square meters. Inside the room were eight single beds, some of which were still padded with bricks, and the people in the beds were asleep. The floor was uneven mud, and the roof was covered with a layer of cow felt.

I couldn’t help but ask, “Isn’t it a rice factory? Why did you bring me to the brick and tile factory?”

Li put my quilt on an empty bed, “Oh, it’s the same wherever you work, as long as you can earn money.”

I thought so, and stopped talking. Not long after, Li came in with a sheet and quilt and slept on the bed next to me.

2

When I was drifting off to sleep, I was suddenly woken up by someone pushing me to get up and get ready for work. Everyone in the room was awake and started to get dressed, but they looked at me blankly and didn’t say anything.

Li brought me an aluminum rice bowl and a pair of chopsticks, and handed me a packet of instant noodles, “You didn’t cook in the canteen last night, so you won’t have anything to eat this morning.” It turns out that workers here need to use their own rice bowls to pluck rice and then put it into the large steamer in the canteen to pick up and eat at the next meal.

It was not yet light when I walked out the door. I made instant noodles in the boiling water room on the side of the short room and came back inside, asking a few people in the room in passing, “How long have you been here?” They looked at me and didn’t answer. I asked again, “How much do you get paid a month?” They still didn’t answer, and the atmosphere in the room was very depressing. Li heard me at the door and came in and said, “Don’t ask about your salary here, it’s a secret, the factory rules don’t allow you to ask.” I did not dare to speak.

While eating, in walked a short, fat man with a shaved head and fat ears, claiming to be the boss of the brick factory, followed by two young men. After asking my name, the fat man said: “Old man Yang, you do not poke around here, honest work. You pull bricks for a few days, and then I will transfer you to drive a diesel tricycle, when the work (work) is easy.” I just have to nod and agree.

After dinner, just after dawn, I was led into the brick cellar by a Henan man, who pushed me an iron tricycle and asked me to pull out the burnt bricks and put them in a fixed place. My back was sore after a few trips, but I decided to hold on a little longer, thinking of the brick factory owner’s promise.

When it was light out, I took a closer look at the place and found that it was a brick factory about two kilometers in circumference, with the entire terrain recessed and the edge of the vertical earth wall, like a flat dam. There are four large brick kilns in the factory, and many rows of short rooms around it for workers to rest. The only road to the outside world was paved with gravel, and a dozen trucks pulling bricks were parked.

At this point, a middle-aged man limping and pushing a tricycle came into my line of sight, how there are still disabled people here? I quickly scanned around and found that there were many such people: a short man with one arm hanging down and the other hand picking up bricks; a man with long hair, one hand on his chest, the other holding the handlebar, his left foot open outward, his body undulating and shaking with each step …… They were mostly wearing tattered clothes and disheveled hair.

Suddenly, a young man standing around me pointed at me in Sichuanese and cursed: “You cut the brain, how to work lazy? I looked at him and lowered my head, thinking that I could bear it if I worked outside, and quickly started to move the bricks from the car to the outside.

As I was moving, another sentence came from Sichuan: “Your mother sells X, here again lazy!” I straightened my head, only to see a young man standing on the periphery pick up half a brick on the ground and throw it at a middle-aged man in a pile of bricks, the brick hit the man’s arm and broke in two with a “pop”. The middle-aged man held the pain, did not say anything, but looked at the young man pitifully. The young man seemed indignant, and went over to him to add a few kicks. The next few people came over to pull the young man, also in a Sichuan accent: “You do not cripple him! There are still people to work ……”

It looks like this group of young people should be the brick factory boss hired hitmen, they stood in twos and threes chatting on the site, although the hands did not take sticks, but as long as you see a worker resting, what is around to throw what.

At noon, I went to the canteen and took out my own steamed rice. On the other side of the table were several pots of vegetables: stewed radish, sliced potatoes, and cabbage. I asked the master to play some of each, the master looked at me coldly, “Only the same.”

After the workers finished playing, they all squatted in front of the canteen door and buried their heads to start eating, occasionally turning their backs on the beaters not far away and whispering a few words.

There is no rest after eating. After work, someone came to the brick kiln to each smoker to grab a handful of loose cigarettes, there are 30 or 40, there are expensive and cheap. The fighter standing beside us shouted at us: “After you light the cigarettes, don’t stand around and be lazy, put the cigarettes in your mouth and get to work.”

After half a day of work, I feel more and more that this is a black brick and tile factory. When the fighters were not paying attention, I secretly pulled the workers to ask, but asked several after several, most people just look at me and do not answer, only a 50-odd Hunan whispered back to me: “I have not been home for seven years, and have not seen a penny.”

“Then why don’t you run away?”

The Hunan man glanced at the distant fighters, “Here hundreds of people, which do not want to run? But you look around, how to run? There are many people who have run, but did not run out, caught back and beaten and crippled.”

“You mean, the disabled in the brick and tile factory are disabled by them?”

Hunan nodded towards me, he was afraid of being found by the beaters, pulling the tricycle towards the brick kiln all the way away at a trot.

I began to recall repeatedly after being cheated, still could not believe it, and asked several more, from everyone’s sporadic answers, I learned that almost every one of them had been beaten, and none of them had seen the money – this is a black brick factory.

3

After dinner, Li came back. He was not there during the day and apparently went to the train station again to cheat people. He asked me how my work was, and I smiled and said it was okay. I asked him again to return the money for the train ticket, he still pushed to give me together when the checkout. I couldn’t force myself to ask for it, so as not to arouse his resentment.

I lay in bed at night, but I couldn’t sleep. I seldom worked in the past, and my sense of defense was weak. I used to see people being cheated on TV, but I never thought it would happen to me. Of course I wanted to escape, but apart from the only road, there were several meters high dirt walls all around, so I couldn’t climb up without the help of a ladder. In case you don’t escape, you will definitely be crippled by them, so not only will you be unable to do your job, but it will be difficult to escape.

But stay here and wait for the police to rescue, and how long to wait? I dare not imagine. What about my family? Without me, my family will definitely collapse: my wife can not plow the fields, and can not pick the grass (rice), the family still owes more than 10,000 foreign debts; the eldest son is a disability, now 24 years old even girlfriend; the youngest son is 16 years old, studying in secondary school, it is the time to need money ……

The more you think about it, the more you can’t sleep. I repeatedly weighed in my mind, and finally made up my mind that I must escape, even if I am finally caught and beaten into disability, I have to try, or the whole family will be finished.

I pretended to get up to go to the toilet, and just as I walked out of the house, two thugs came running at me with wooden sticks, yelling, “What are you doing?” I said pee, and they said to settle it right here. It turned out that there was a wood-burning stove in front of the eaves for the workers to get up at night, and someone else was on duty outside the door every night.

The next day at lunch, after spending a few minutes for a quick fix, I walked down to the road to poke around. There were five or six thugs standing at the road junction, and every vehicle going in and out would be inspected, and a hard break-in was sure to get you arrested. And the vertical earth wall around the brick factory, the highest place has eight or nine meters, the lowest also has four meters, and carefully observed a circle, around even a helper sticks are not.

When I was moving bricks in the afternoon, my hands were worn out a few blood blisters, so I carried the beater and prepared to rest for a while. At that moment, a man in his 40s, who was moving bricks next to me, scolded me in Sichuanese: “Do it quickly, don’t be lazy!”

I said to myself that he was also a working man, but also up to the mouth: “What are you?”

The man looked at me, Shun up a brick ready to smash towards me, my heart, the first to throw a brick at his arm, the man was smashed and shouted. The fighters soon came around and punched and kicked me, I wanted to fight back, but thought I had to save my strength at this point, in case I was injured and disabled, how else could I run.

At this time, the boss came over and grabbed my hair and said with a bad smile, “Old man Yang, you’re still quite crooked (sharp) ah?” Then, his face changed, revealing a hideous look, “You still dare to beat my people? I might as well tell you, I sent my people to beat up the disabled here, if you dare to mess up again, I will beat you into disability too!” I then realized that the boss had secretly planted spies around the workers.

I escaped from the black factory and ran home along the railway tracks.
I limped and pulled the tricycle to continue working. When no one was looking, I took a tricycle beam from the ground and put it into my clothes, almost 40 centimeters, so I could definitely use it when I escaped.

The opportunity soon came. A few days later, there was a heavy rain, when the day cleared up to work, I found an earth wall washed out by rainwater a ditch, a pile of silt under the ditch, that a place originally only 5 meters high, if climbing upwards, you can certainly go up. But there are many people during the day, and at night there are beaters outside the door to watch, can not find the time.

Three days later in the evening, the wind was blowing outside, and there was still scattered snow in the air. I couldn’t sleep, so I kept my ears open to listen to the movement. I don’t know how long it took, there was no sound outside the door, I got up on the pretext of going to the toilet and found that the fire outside the door was burning brightly, but no one was there, so the people who were guarding the first half of the night were off work, and the thugs who were on duty the second half of the night had not yet gone to work.

I hurriedly turned back inside, from under the pillow to feel the steel pipe hidden there, quickly uncovered the snoring Li Gong’s quilt, shining his two knees is a few steel pipes. This is what I planned – he tricked me here, beat him into disability, he can no longer go to the train station to cheat people.

Li Gong held his knees with both hands, wincing in pain. The people in the room were woken up, and I pointed a steel pipe at them, “Don’t move, if you dare to move, I’ll beat you together!” The crowd was silenced instantly.

I didn’t have time to pack my bags, so I grabbed my jacket and rushed outside. Luckily, the guards hadn’t come to work yet, so I started to run wildly towards the opening in the earth wall that I had identified during the day. It took little effort to climb up the mud pile, climbing up the gutter, but because of the lack of hand and foot strength point, soon slipped down.

I was so anxious and sweaty that I didn’t dare to look back. I threw my jacket up first, and then inserted the steel pipe into the mud, climbing up a cut, feet finally found a soft mud fulcrum, they pulled out the steel pipe quickly, and again up into the mud. In this way, I struggled step by step, and finally climbed up.

In front of me is a wheat field, wheat seedlings in the wind and snow swaying around, seems to be trying to grow.

I still didn’t dare to turn around, always afraid that someone would catch up with me. After jumping down the slope, I ran quickly along the ridge. After about 2 hours, I finally saw a railroad track, discerned the direction, and continued to run along the track. At dawn, I arrived at Linfen Railway Station.

I was desperate to get home, but I only had 37 yuan in my pocket, not enough for the 120-plus train tickets. I found a police station, and when the police learned of my ordeal, they didn’t give me a statement or ask me about the black brick factory, they just gave me an address and told me to find the aid station myself. Before leaving, a young policeman handed me 5 yuan to buy some food.

I can’t read or write, and I don’t know how to get to the aid station. I tried to find my way into the train station, but just as I walked in the front door, I saw the owner of the brick factory with four thugs not far from me. I hurriedly found a place where there were many people to hide, and then quickly ran out of the train station.

No money to buy a ticket, the train station also dare not stay long, a bold idea came to my mind: run along the railroad home.

4

Standing by the railroad in Linfen, I roughly analyzed: Hubei is in the south of Shanxi, so I ran towards the south of the railway line, I will be able to return home. Thinking of this, I was very happy and ran along the railroad.

After running for a while, I started to think again: my family must be worried about me now. When I first left from the coal mine, I asked my neighbor to call the village cadres home (my family did not have a phone at the time), saying that I would arrive home in two days. Now so many days have passed, I do not know whether my family has called the police, whether they have sent someone to look for me here …… I subconsciously speed up my pace.

I have been thinking about the phone number of the village cadres, but the more I think about it, the fuzzier it gets, and in the end I can’t even remember a number. There was a long time running, I was hating myself, why can’t I even remember a phone number?

When I was hungry, I bought some cookies and bread at the roadside kiosk, and when I was thirsty, I found a pond to drink some water. When I was tired of running, I walked, my legs would cramp up, but I didn’t want to stop. I was afraid that I would sit down and rest and would not want to get up again.

When I reach a railroad crossing, I stop and judge the direction based on the position of the sun. Occasionally I came across bifurcated railroad crossings that all led south, and I had to ask the crofters next to me, but most of them didn’t know, so I had to run down the road by feel.

At night, the unmelted snow shone on the road, and I went forward with one foot deep and one foot shallow. My head was swollen and my shoulders were sore, and my legs were more like sandbags, and every step I took was extremely difficult. When I came across the bridge, I wanted to stop and sleep, but I did not dare – the day was too cold, to really fall asleep will certainly be cold, if you fall ill, not to mention going home, even dead in the middle of nowhere may not be found.

The night was unusually quiet except for the wind, occasionally running past a train, someone in the carriage eating instant noodles, I was envious, thinking how good it would be to sit inside. Then I went over the fence, thinking that if another train passed by, I would climb up, but the train was too fast to make it.

I don’t know how long I walked, I was hungry, the kiosk was not open at night, I pulled a handful of wheat seeds wrapped in snow on the side of the road and put it in my mouth, a bitterness came up, it was difficult to chew, and I remembered my wife’s noodles.

When I was at home, my wife liked to cook noodles for breakfast because it was easy and I could go to work after eating. I didn’t like it and always scolded my wife for being lazy, but now I miss it a lot. When she made noodles, she liked to put lard, add a lot of vinegar and put some vegetables, which was really smooth and sour when I think about it now. Occasionally she would lay two eggs in it, and the two sons knew how to behave, saying that one was enough for the two brothers, and the other egg was split in two and given to my wife and me.

Thinking about this, I can’t help but keep weeping. Home was still far away in the darkness, neither knowing how far away nor seeing where it was.

Early the next morning, I walked to a train station. I was so tired that I found a place to sleep in the corner of the station, and occasionally fell asleep and was awakened by the noisy crowd, so repeatedly, I simply got up and continued to walk down the railroad.

After 5 days of walking in this way, I passed the 5th train station regardless of night and day. I felt something was wrong and asked the train station staff to find out that I had gone the other way. He told me that I must have taken a wrong turn at some fork in the road.

I collapsed on the floor of the ticket hall, feeling that all my past efforts were in vain, and I couldn’t help thinking that I could still go home or not – there were many forks in the railroad, and as long as I took the wrong one, I wouldn’t be able to go home. And I didn’t have a penny on me, so I couldn’t take the train. My feet do not know how many blood blisters, stand up and feel pain, let alone walking. I simply broke the can, anyway, can not walk home, first stay and say.

I was lying on the concrete floor of the ticket hall, feeling tingling all over my body, due to many days without good sleep, my head swollen, “buzzing” straight. The hall is too noisy, I grabbed a bit of cotton wool in the jacket compartment and stuffed it into my ears.

But the more you want to sleep, but the more you can not sleep, I repeatedly asked myself, what to do next, is it always in this strange train station to stay? Next I may become a beggar, looking for passing passengers to ask for some money, but when will I be able to get enough money for the journey home? I dare not think further, my wife and two sons are still waiting for me to go home.

Still can not sleep, I simply get up and sit. After a few struggles, decided to walk home, this is the only feasible way. I think I have complicated things, Hubei is in the south of Shanxi, as long as I go south, I will be able to walk home one day, I just need to leave this strange station along the railroad first and return to Linfen. Thinking about it, I got excited again.

5

Walking on the railroad again, I felt very clear. Occasionally a few birds flew overhead, they should also be going south for the winter, I waved at them and asked them to give me a ride. They “twittered” a few times, not knowing what they meant.

I amused myself by shouting at them, “I’m very light, you can carry me.”

The birds chirped a few times. I shouted again, “Do you say you can’t carry it? Well, then go to my house and send a message that I am on my way home and it may take a while.”

The birds chirped a few times, and I took them for granted. In the blink of an eye, they disappeared into the sky. I thought, if only I could fly like a bird, it would not take long to get home.

Walking alone on the railroad, with no one to talk to, I always like to ramble. As a man, I blame myself for running my family into the ground. But I have no other skills, I can only rely on the family’s 20 acres of land and part-time work during farming to earn some money to cover household expenses, children’s schooling, the end of the year, but the debt.

My wife is 10 years younger than me, married me at the age of 16, now only 40. I am not good-tempered, often scolded her where the money actually spent, my wife and I quarreled a few times, simply let me take charge of the family money, until then, I only understand what is called “not when the family does not know the rice, oil and salt expensive”, which also appreciate the wife’s difficulties. Sometimes the debt collectors come to the house, I am thin-skinned, knowing that there is no money at home, but still let them find his wife. My wife had to smile and beg them for a few days of grace.

After moving to the Yichang countryside, my wife only went back home once, or when my mother-in-law died. It’s not that she didn’t want to, it’s all because the travel expenses to and from the house were too expensive. She followed me and had to choose to be an ungrateful daughter.

I also think of my oldest son. When he was 5 years old, he accidentally rolled off a cliff with his 2-year-old second son, who died on the spot, and his older son’s leg was left disabled. I was so angry at the time that I slapped my oldest son in the mouth and questioned him about how he had brought up his brother. When I found out that my eldest son could not walk, my family could not afford to go to a major hospital for treatment, so I only asked a barefoot doctor to see him a few times, causing him to fall ill and walk with the help of a cane for the rest of his life.

The day after my eldest son went to junior high school in town, the school leader asked the village cadres to tell me that I had to climb four flights of stairs to go to school in the first year, and that it was not convenient for him to walk, so I was politely asked to take my son home. When I arrived at school, my son was sitting in the back row of the classroom looking at me with tears in his eyes, I deliberately did not look at him, silently walked in to help him pack his school bag, after packing, I stood in front of the classroom door and waited for him. The older son sat there and didn’t leave, so he kept weeping. We just stood there in a stalemate. After a few minutes, he wiped his tears with his sleeve, stood up with his hands on the bench, leaned on his crutches, and walked towards me step by step. I could no longer hold back my tears and hurriedly turned my back, feeling so useless.

No books to read, I let my eldest son to learn to repair television sets. A few years later, the industry was gradually eliminated, he had nothing to do, and told me a few times that he wanted to open a small store in town to rent video discs. But I had no money at home, so I had to refuse. Now think about it, I really owe him too much.

My youngest son, since childhood has been raised as a baby, as long as he asked for anything, I try to meet. But then his biggest wish was denied by me. At that time, he would have been admitted to the county’s second middle school, although not compared to a middle school, but there are a lot of university entrance exams.

But I thought the family was already in debt, and again, only a second middle school, so I had to let him go. He argued with me, I said you did not get into the first middle school, no one can blame. The whole summer, he did not say a word to me.

When school started soon, my wife thought he was too young to go out to work, and said he should continue his studies. I was softened up that I decided to brazenly go to the village to borrow money, but my youngest son looked at me and said, “Dad, I want to go to a plumbing school.” I asked him why, and he said that several of his classmates were attending that school, so he would have a companion. I agreed. I didn’t learn until later that he was trying to save money. It takes 3 years to go to high school, but the plumbing school only takes 2 years and the tuition is low.

When I think about this, I can’t stop my tears from falling.

The good thing is that over the years, the family of four is living a little poorer, but the relationship is still good.

I remember once, I drove the tractor climbing uphill when suddenly fell out of gear, the tractor back slide into the field, I was dropped out of the whole person. The wife in the field saw, towards me here frantically run, carry me up, to the roadside to stop the car to the hospital. When I was hospitalized, my wife was busy in the field and had to take time to take care of me, so I really felt guilty: “Did you go to borrow money again? I made the family so poor, do you regret marrying me?”

My wife scolded me: “You take good care of yourself, do not think nonsense. Our family is healthy and healthy together, it’s okay to be poor.”

The past is like a movie, thinking about this, my body has strength again, trotting up.

6

Five days later, I finally reentered Linfen train station.

Because I was so hungry, I walked into a fast food restaurant near the train station, hoping the owner would give me some food for free. I didn’t expect the owner to give me a lot of extra meat and vegetables after learning about my experience. He suggested that I escape the ticket to go home, and also wrote the word “Yichang” to me, let me enter the station, as long as I see the carriage with these two words on the train, I will get on.

Every morning, I would sneak into the train station platform and look for the label on the car. But sometimes, when I ran to the front, the train had already left – Linfen was a small station and the train often did not stop for a few minutes. When I was really hungry at noon, I went back to the fast food restaurant, added a bowl of rice and some vegetables, and then slipped into the platform inside the station. In the evening, I went back to the fast food restaurant, sometimes there were many leftovers, I could eat, and sometimes the food was sold out, I added a bowl of rice soaked in boiling water to eat. At night, I lay down on the concrete floor of the ticket hall and slept in my clothes.

A week later, I finally found a train to Yichang, excitedly jumped on.

The train conductor came to check the tickets, I hid in the toilet, the conductor found someone in the toilet, smashed the door, I did not open, the conductor then called the police, I had to open the door. When the police finished understanding my situation, the train just arrived at a large station, the police and several conductors together, I had to pull me off the train, I held the toilet door handle – I know, off the train, and then up will be difficult, and home will be a long way off. Some of the passengers around the side learned that the police and conductor also persuaded, saying that I was also poor, cheated, just want to go home. The good thing is that the police and the conductor were finally persuaded.

After a day and a night of bumps and bruises, I finally arrived at Yichang train station. I met an acquaintance from the same village who was driving a car, and I was able to get on the bus back to my village on credit.

When I arrived home, my oldest son was sitting on the bed watching TV. After seeing me, he froze for a moment and said with tears in his eyes, “Dad, we all thought you were dead and missing ……” He stood up with his crutches, “Dad, you sit down for a while, I’ll go get mom and brother. ” After saying that, he went out the door.

I was looking for food in the kitchen cupboard, half a plate of cold cabbage was just poured into my mouth, I heard my youngest son outside shouting “Dad”, I quickly walked out the door and saw him running towards home, followed by his wife. Her hands kept wiping her apron on her chest, and it turned out that someone from the same village had a guest for the child’s 10th birthday, and my wife was helping out at the person’s house.

In the evening, I looked at the table full of dishes and stuffed my stomach with 5 bowls of rice. I could feel my stomach swelling, but I still didn’t feel full, and I couldn’t eat the rice anymore, so I kept pinching the food and eating it until a wave of regurgitation came, and I ran outside the rice farm and threw up.

Four days later, the 2007 Lunar New Year. I put a couplet with black letters on a red background on the door frame of the adobe house, and listened to the sound of firecrackers outside the house as we sat down for a family reunion dinner. My two sons stood up to give me a toast, and I almost cried as I held my glass of wine.

The journey home was not easy, and I am really thankful that I persevered, otherwise there would be no reunion time today.

In the spring of 2007, I saw on the news on TV that the Shanxi police had rescued many workers from black coal mines and brick factories, and I wondered if there was one I had stayed in. In the same year, I borrowed money for my oldest son to open a small video rental store in town.

In 2008, my eldest son’s girlfriend asked us to build a new house, but the family did not have money, my wife and I borrowed money for more than seven months to build a two-story house. The following year, my eldest son got married and gave birth to a granddaughter.

In 2010, a tumor grew above my right eye, and the doctor was afraid it was malignant, so he removed my right eye along with the eyeball.

In 2011, my eldest daughter-in-law left home.

In 2015, my youngest son got married and gave birth to a granddaughter.

This is what life is like after all: it is quite tiring and mixed. But no matter what, I’m home.