Preface
2019 National Day junior high school classmates reunion, during the table, everyone asked Zhang Xuefei, said Mr. Liang recently busy with what, there is no news for some time. Mr. Liang had substituted our class for a few months of language, but also Zhang Xuefei’s own old uncle. Zhang Xuefei’s eyes instantly red, hanging his head, stunned for a long time, before whispering, “My uncle left at the end of last year, in Russia.” Thinking that Mr. Liang is only in his early 50s, and died in a foreign country, we were all very surprised. There was a long silence before we recalled a little bit of his difficult life.
1
In the fall of 1989, the language teacher was on medical leave, so the school arranged for Mr. Liang to substitute for us in the second year of junior high school. At that time, Mr. Liang had just graduated from teacher training college, twenty-three or twenty-four years old, wearing a well-fitted suit, hair untouched, although young, but always unsmiling.
The first time he took a class, he encountered a challenge.
He was a small town security is not very good, even the school have a lot of small gangs, our class Liu Weidong is even a “small leader”. That day, Mr. Liang just walked into the classroom, sitting in the last row of Liu Weidong with his brothers shouting up. In the past, most of the secondary teachers will choose to ignore this situation, continue to lecture, the math teacher will not move to the hands of the chalk head thrown over, there are also big-tempered teachers will go up to the troublemakers in the chest a old fist. Instead, Mr. Liang slowly walked up to them, “This is a classroom, please respect your classmates and teachers.” The voice was so powerful that the students turned their heads after them, and Liu Weidong reluctantly buried his head in his desk.
At that time, every afternoon, the third period was self-study, most of the teachers on duty would not come to the class, and the class was full of people, students either chatting in twos and threes, or scrambling to watch the rented martial arts novels, while Liu Weidong and his group would strut out of the classroom, shouting to “fight” with his brothers. But Mr. Liang came to keep an eye on us during each class, and the preparatory bell had just rung, and people were already standing on the podium, so Liu Weidong, who couldn’t sneak out, simply hated him.
At that time, we had a big fireplace behind the classroom, and the fire was extremely strong. Once, Mr. Liang just walked to the stove, suddenly a strong burning smell came, only to see Liu Weidong holding a stove hook in his hand, full of dismay. Perhaps he originally just wanted to play a prank, a black line on Mr. Liang’s clothes, but did not expect the hook buried in the ashes of the furnace will be burnt a large hole in Mr. Liang’s wool suit instantly.
Mr. Liang’s face turned red. He took off his clothes and heavily slammed them on Liu Weidong’s desk. Zhang Xuefei also walked over with an angry face and clenched his hands into fists. Everyone thought a teacher-student war would immediately break out, Liu Weidong would definitely be called parents, or by the political education department teachers locked in the small black house to teach a hard lesson – the worst result, Liu Weidong may even drop out of school.
Liu Weidong’s family is poor, his father has expressed many times before, want him to go home to help work, the reason has been delayed until now, but only to mix a junior high school diploma. But this time, burned the teacher’s valuable wool suit, is not a small thing.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ……” Liu Weidong was also afraid.
The teacher Liang stared at the patches on Liu Weidong’s clothes, stunned for a long time, but still put down the raised hand slowly. “I don’t call you a parent anymore, please behave yourself in the future.”
Although Mr. Liang had not been teaching for long, almost every student remembered clearly that Mr. Liang always liked to take us to recite domestic and foreign poetry together, and the most frequently read one was Pushkin’s “If Life Deceives You” – “If life deceives you, do not be sad, do not be anxious. In the days of melancholy, calmness is needed. Believe it, happy days will come —-“
Under the setting sun, the teacher on the podium stood straight, his voice was loud, and his whole body seemed to radiate a golden light. Soon, the majority of the class, even including Liu Weidong, bought small notebooks to copy and recite the poems together with Mr. Liang. Even when Mr. Liang stopped teaching us, whenever we saw him from afar at school, we would salute him early.
But unfortunately, in the autumn of 1990, Mr. Liang left the school and became a civil servant.
2
At that time, the new director of the bureau, Yuan, was none other than Mr. Liang’s wife’s own uncle. For one thing, he knew that his niece’s son-in-law was a high achiever in Chinese, and for another, he could not resist his niece’s repeated pleas, and decided to transfer him to his side to cultivate him properly.
But Mr. Liang is not willing, he likes the three-foot podium, and the principal also hopes that the dedicated he can stay. In the family meeting, Mr. Liang’s father, after a long silence, also voted against – his son’s character is straightforward, does not know how to act cheaply, when really not suitable for politics. But Mr. Liang’s wife, Yuan Mudan, was not happy, “People go to the high places, water flows to the low places, how many people have cut their heads to get into the authorities. You are willing to be a child king, I still want to be a section chief’s wife, the director’s wife! If you really don’t want to advance, then let’s divorce.”
At that time, Mr. Liang and Yuan Mudan had just been newly married, and his wife lived in a compound with him, a few years younger than him, handsome and spirited. Both parents worked in a factory’s children’s elementary school, and his mother-in-law was the direct leader of Mr. Liang’s parents from a young age. Yuan Mudan failed to go to college after graduating from high school and has been working in a small town library.
After considering for a long time, Mr. Liang finally went to the office of the bureau. In addition to his new wife’s ultimatum, there are two main points: one is that Mr. Liang later thought that if he went to work for the authorities, he might be able to contribute directly to society on a larger scale, and in his own words, “the ancients also had the saying of the three immortalities of standing up for merit and virtue and speech”; the second is that he was somewhat less agreeable to his father’s advice that The second is that he did not agree with his father’s advice: “Why can’t a person with a straightforward personality enter politics? The black-faced Bao Zheng Geng, right, people also did the cabinet boss it.
In the future, Mr. Liang’s main job responsibility was to write the various reports and summaries required by the leaders. Because of the solid writing skills, coupled with the well-known reasons, the bureau headquarters departments and subordinate units are fully cooperate with his work, everyone said privately, “Xiao Liang will definitely become the director of the office.” Given time, the future is not limited.
At the beginning of 1992, just over 50 Yuan was suddenly transferred to the CPPCC as a false position, the newly appointed director is plainly and he had a grudge against Deputy Director Bai. Before leaving his post, Secretary Yuan repeatedly urged Mr. Liang, said Deputy Director Bai narrow-minded, and must be careful in the future.
At first, the bureau is still calm. But gradually, has always been a serious face to show people the Secretary Bai is like taking off the mask general, words and actions become frivolous up, and even openly and the Bureau of a young girl up, we can only pretend not to see.
At the end of that year, a female college student was assigned to the office, sitting opposite Mr. Liang. The girl surnamed Li, pretty face, people are extremely shy. One afternoon, we are busy, the director suddenly with a breath of alcohol wobbled in, the office director wanted to invite him to his small office to rest, but was refused by the director of the white, he stood behind the little Li. After a while, even recklessly put his hand on the neck of Xiao Li.
Xiao Li’s face was suffocating red for a long time before he stood up, “Director, I need to go to the bathroom.” While speaking, Director Bai actually pinched a hand on Xiao Li’s buttocks again, laughing and saying, “This little comrade is really lively.” Turning his back on Director Bai, Xiao Li’s tears fell down.
Mr. Liang could not help himself, stood up and said in a stern voice to Director Bai, “Please behave yourself!” Director Bai and his colleagues in the office were frozen.
That night, Mr. Liang said what happened in the office to his wife with righteous indignation. After hearing this, Yuan Mudan immediately scoffed at her husband’s behavior. She later told her family several times that Mr. Liang was a two hundred and fifty, and that so many people were watching and not talking, so how was he righteous. Yuan Mudan asked Mr. Liang to quickly and privately go to the director tomorrow to admit his mistake, and don’t bother with this kind of nonsense in the future. Mr. Liang was even more shocked to hear that.
The next day is the weekend, Mr. Liang full of resentment went to his parents’ home, older sister and nephew Zhang Xuefei are also in, Mr. Liang told his family about his “encounter”, the family listened, all silent and shake their heads. Only the vigorous Zhang Xuefei support the old uncle, “my old uncle did the right thing, that is the road to see a roar of injustice ah! Before leaving, the father has been silent to hold the hand of Mr. Liang, “I am a little worried about you, but you are doing the right thing.”
In the end, Mr. Liang did not go to “apologize”, but still in their positions dedicated to work.
But whenever the Bureau of the General Assembly, the Secretary is always a serious face sitting in the center of the podium, impassioned reading the report, the stage is naturally thunderous applause, but Mr. Liang is no longer applause; in the organs of the banquet, the Secretary will not only tell one or two yellow paragraphs with interest, but also insist and female colleagues to drink cross-cups, if they are young and beautiful, will be a big cross-cup, whenever this activity, male colleagues will go from one to another to respectfully toast the Secretary, but Mr. Liang never past.
The director advised him privately, you just think of sitting across from the Secretary is not white, but a wall, the wall engraved with the word “Secretary”, you are in the two words applause toast, nothing personal. Mr. Liang also tried hard, but he said to his family, he really can not convince his heart.
Wait until the late autumn of 1995, the higher authorities came to the bureau, on several bureau leaders for democratic review. Mr. Liang wrote out without reservation not only the life style problems of Director Bai, but also some of the economic problems he knew about Director Bai.
3
Spring to autumn, the director of the White seven years in office, Mr. Liang without surprise not promoted.
The director of the year has become the deputy director, even that had been the director of the white pinch the buttocks of small Li have become Li director. But Mr. Liang is still a small section member. Only the name, was called from the “small Liang” or “Liang teacher” unified into a “big Liang”, or private “silly Liang “.
Every New Year’s Day, Yuan Mudan would prepare good cigarettes and wine early and urge her husband to go to Director Bai’s house to “visit”, but he refused to do so. “I was so blind when I married such a fool! Every morning and night for so many years, not even a deputy section chief, our unit Xiao Wang his husband, he is the same age as you, now have become a deputy bureau! Living in a big house, car pick-up and delivery, you say angry not angry!”
In early December 1999, the bureau gradually spread the wind, saying that the director of the year after the White will retire to the second line, the office of a deputy director was also transferred, has been the deputy director of the old director and the current director of the Lee strongly recommended Mr. Liang. In private, the old director had also secretly told Mr. Liang that they had communicated with Secretary Bai. Director Bai also agreed to put aside all grudges and grievances, “after all, the new century is almost here, we all have to look forward ah!”
Kindness, his epitaph
One day at the end of 1999, Director Bai’s wife called Yuan Mudan and said that Director Bai wanted to invite them to sit at home in the evening and had something in mind that he wanted to talk to them about. Yuan Mudan was so happy that she hung up the phone and hurriedly prepared to go out to buy gifts. Mr. Liang wanted to stop, but before he could speak, his wife disliked him, “You still want to stop me now? If you follow my wishes early, some years ago to move around more, not so you are still a small section member. Today people sincerely invite us to visit their homes, we can both go over with two empty paws? You are not a three-year-old child, how a little humane do not understand it?” Mr. Liang listened and was stunned for a long time. Finally, he retracted his arm.
At eight o’clock in the evening, Mr. and Mrs. Liang came to Mr. Bai’s house as promised against the heavy snow. Yuan Mudan was holding a black cloth bag, which contained two bottles of Maotai and two Chinese cigarettes.
As soon as he entered the door, Mr. Liang was stunned as if he were a wooden chicken. Because on the sofa in the living room, there were eight or nine people sitting in the dark, all of them were the leaders of the bureau. In an instant, Director Bai snatched the cloth bag from Yuan Mudan’s hand and took out the gifts inside, then said with a serious face: “Comrade Liang Bingxin, do you know what you are doing? You are trying to corrupt revolutionary comrades, is a bribe, is a crime! We still have comrades from the Discipline Inspection Commission sitting here!”
“Comrades, for so many years, there is a reason why the organization has not promoted Comrade Liang Bingxin, there is a reason for this, I have a bitterness. If I hadn’t broken my foot today and temporarily decided to hold this meeting at my home, you might still continue to misunderstand me! And also will continue to be hoodwinked by Comrade Liang Bingxin!” Director Bai spoke with conviction.
When Mr. Liang heard this, he was like a thunderstorm, he felt a blackness in front of his eyes and fainted. When he woke up, he found himself sitting on a wooden chair on the side of the street, with Yuan Mudan holding him tightly. In an instant, Mr. Liang couldn’t help but hold his head and bawl his eyes out.
The next day, Mr. Liang became very ill. Family members came to visit him, and after hearing the story, Mr. Liang’s parents and three sisters were in tears. The young and exuberant Zhang Xuefei insisted that he would take his two cousins and go to Secretary Bai’s house to fight for his life and “get justice for his falsely accused uncle,” but just before he reached the door, he was hugged tightly by the crowd.
It didn’t take long for Mr. Liang to hand over a paper application for suspension of pay to Director Li.
4
In the 2000 Lunar New Year, my second brother-in-law, who had come back from abroad, offered to take Mr. Liang into business with him.
At that time, the second brother-in-law purchased health care liquor and leather goods from the small town, sold them to Guangzhou, and then purchased fashion and small home appliances from Guangzhou and returned to the small town to sell them, and the business was flourishing. But a year, Mr. Liang will be the dividends from more than 20,000 yuan in full to his wife. The money was equivalent to the sum of Mr. Liang’s salary for two or three years in the institution. Yuan Mudan received the money, and a rare smile appeared on her face.
In the early autumn of 2001, their son was born. Mr. Liang named him “Liang Ning”, a lifetime of peace and quiet.
In the following 2 years, although the couple was separated from each other, but the life was quite smooth. At the end of 2003, my brother-in-law divorced my second sister. It turns out that a few years ago, the second brother-in-law and a Guangzhou woman on the good, and at that time, Mr. Liang, free time all immersed in the sea of books, did not even notice. After the divorce, the second brother-in-law soon started a business with his new brother-in-law, Mr. Liang had to work alone, for various reasons, a year down, even the capital lost a lot.
At the end of 2004, Mr. Liang returned to the small town, opened a bookstore near the school, each of which was carefully selected by Mr. Liang back to the purchase of books, mainly literature, history and philosophy, poetry in particular. When the bookstore first opened, customers often filled the door, but often the majority of people reading the book, less people buying books. So a year down, but the costs, the profit is meager. When Yuan Mudan saw this, she advised him to sneak in some pirated books like other bookstores and mix them with the genuine ones – the quality of pirated books was not as good, but the cost was extremely low, so that the bookstore could make money and it was not easy to find out. After hearing this, Mr. Liang still refused, “It’s not a matter of breaking the law or not, but if you let me in pirated poetry, isn’t that an insult to poetry?”
Later, Yuan Mudan repeatedly asked him to enter some best-selling martial arts novels. Mr. Liang dragged his feet for a long time before reluctantly purchasing a batch, but whenever he met students with backpacks or in school uniforms to buy, he would always wave his hand, “Study is important, study is important! If you really want to read, but also wait for the winter (summer) holidays to buy it.” He refused to customers at the door, door-to-door money do not want the practice, so the nearby vendors dumbfounded. In business, there is no use pretending to be noble, nor can it be a meal.
There is also a bookstore across the street from the one Mr. Liang owns, and there is a constant stream of customers, so Mr. Liang is curious about it.
One day, he closed the store early and went in with the crowd, only to find that in a hidden room on the second floor of the bookstore, there were more than a dozen game machines, including many students in school uniforms, skipping classes. Mr. Liang was stunned for a long time and went downstairs indignantly, saying to the boss standing behind the cashier, hatefully, several times, “despicable!”
After knowing this, Mr. Liang’s father also praised his son at a family gathering, “A gentleman loves his money, and takes it as he sees fit.”
As autumn and winter came and went, the year passed abruptly and Mr. Liang’s bookstore not only did not make as much money as the store across the street, but even broke even somewhat. Later, he was advised by his friends and students to purchase a number of primary and secondary school tutorials and practice test papers, plus word of mouth, many literature lovers in the small town also came, so that the bookstore’s business increased a lot, in one fell swoop to turn a loss into a profit. But the profits were meager and the family was still struggling to make ends meet.
Yuan Mudan’s scolding never stopped, like “after more than ten years in the authorities, even a deputy director did not mix up. Now business is also a mess. Do you think I was blind to find such a loser like you?” Such complaints were a common occurrence. Most of the time, Mr. Liang was very quiet. Sometimes scolded hard, will also be quietly sigh on, “I think your eyes are not blind, maybe it is my eyes out of order.” So long, the couple’s feelings are as thin as water, sometimes cold war up, and even a month will not say half a word. This kind of life for another five or six years.
One day in the summer of 2011, around 11 o’clock at night, Yuan Mudan suddenly and aggressively brought six or seven relatives to the bookstore. At that time, the store was brightly lit, with only Mr. Liang and a girl of about 16 or 17 years old as the clerk. Not allowed to take a breath, Yuan Mudan began to scold: “No wonder this time, you come back every night more than 12 o’clock. Ask you why, you do not even put a fart. If not for what big sister saw today, I would still be in the dark! You’re over 40 years old, and you’re still hanging out with someone who could be your daughter. The surrounding residents heard the noise and scolding and all gathered over.
“Please behave yourself, don’t spout blood!” Mr. Liang heard his wife’s words and was so angry that his body trembled.
“Don’t go up and tear that little bitch’s mouth off!” Yuan Mudan led the crowd of relatives to swarm up, and Teacher Liang defiantly blocked the girl, “You’ve misunderstood! Misunderstanding!” But the crowd did not listen to his explanation.
After a series of beatings, the girl’s face was beaten with blood and her hair was disheveled. She cowered in the corner, too frightened to speak a word. In the midst of all the noise, a bicycle came speeding by in the distance. The bicycle was ridden by a woman dressed in overalls. She stopped in front of the store and darted into the bookstore. When the girl saw her, she jumped over and shouted “Mom! While bawling and crying.
It turned out that the woman’s name was Fang Mei. It was a student that Mr. Liang had taught. She did not go to high school after graduating from junior high school, married early and had a daughter. A few years ago, Fang Mei divorced, alone with her daughter rented in a large compound. But not long ago, a new tenant came to the courtyard, is a flowing young man, often playfully hit on Fang Mei’s daughter, and on several occasions, even secretly stalked her. It so happened that Fang Mei needed to work the night shift during that time, and was really worried that her daughter was not safe at home alone, so she approached Ms. Liang, hoping that her child could stay at the bookstore for a while after her evening study, and then go home together after she finished her night shift. Ms. Liang agreed at once.
On that day, Yuan Mudan’s older cousin returned late from a night out, and when she came to the door of the bookstore, she was thirsty and saw that the bookstore was still lit, so she walked over. But when she reached the door, she found her cousin’s husband was “chatting” with a girl – in fact, Mr. Liang was tutoring the girl’s homework. The first cousin didn’t know what to think, but she politely told her cousin.
After hearing this, Yuan Mudan became furious and, despite her cousin’s repeated attempts to dissuade her, took the crowd to the bookstore and eventually staged such a farce. Although afterwards, both Mr. Liang and Yuan apologized to Fang Mei’s mother and daughter, it didn’t take long for the vicious rumor that “the moral teacher Liang had gotten together with his student’s daughter” to spread like a plague over the small town. Even the family relatives heard about it, but they could only advise Mr. Liang, “The body is not afraid of the shadow, the feet are not afraid of crooked shoes. Our brother is a square person.”
Zhang Xuefei said that he could not understand how this rumor of falsely accusing his uncle actually got out. Once drunk, he ran to the bookstore where he had been cursed by his uncle for the game machine incident, and the other party admitted that they did hate Mr. Liang, who had blocked their way, but privately, they admired Mr. Liang’s candor and would never spread such a nasty rumor.
The culprit was never found, and eventually Mr. Liang closed his bookstore because he couldn’t stand the small-town gossip. Soon after, he and Yuan Mudan also divorced. He knew that every anger and suspicion between the couple over the years, every complaint and bickering, every tearing and crying, and even every contemptuous look, every indifferent face is that a snowflake, accumulated over the years, piled up into a trembling mountain of snow. And after the late night bookstore tearing incident, the snow mountain collapsed.
5
After the divorce, the son lived with Yuan Mudan, Mr. Liang left the small town and went to Beijing to work as a “northern drifter”. Later, he moved to Shanghai and Dalian, but it was never too smooth.
Every New Year’s Eve, people who work outside the city will drive back to the small town, and then carry a large bag to see their relatives. Mr. Liang, on the other hand, always took the last bus and hurried back to his parents’ house in the night.
During the entire Spring Festival, Mr. Liang rarely went out. Once, Zhang Xuefei invited his uncle for a drink, perhaps a few more glasses, his eyes red, Mr. Liang actually stood up on the stool, impassioned recitation of “If life cheats you ……” looking back at his uncle half a life of hardships, listening, Zhang Xuefei can not help but fall into tears The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services.
After five or six years of tossing and turning, in 2017, a student whom Mr. Liang had taught called him and said he was now working for a large state-owned enterprise and had been sent to the Russian branch as the head last year. The office director of the company resigned a year ago. He knew that Mr. Liang studied Russian as a foreign language in college, so he wanted to ask Mr. Liang to come to the company at first, not only as the office director, but also to do some translation work, and of course the salary package was very generous. Mr. Liang agreed.
Because of his busy work, Mr. Liang did not return to his country in 2018 Spring Festival, but he kept thinking about his son who was about to take the college entrance examination. Since Mr. Liang went abroad, Liang Ning’s academic performance regressed very much, and Mr. Liang was afraid of affecting his child’s mood, and did not dare to ask more questions. Finally, on June 9, Mr. Liang first contacted his son to ask him how he did in the exam. But for some reason, the phone has not been able to get through. The teacher had to contact his ex-wife Yuan Mudan, “If you have time, you’d better come back.” Yuan Mudan’s tone was urgent and unsettling.
One day at the end of June, Mr. Liang finally got on a plane back to China, and Zhang Xuefei, who met him at the station, sent his uncle straight home.
At home, Mr. Liang only saw his anxious ex-wife Yuan Mudan and asked where his son had gone. Yuan Mudan listened and pointed to her son’s room with her finger. Mr. Liang was very surprised, so he was busy knocking on the door while calling out, “Ningning, Daddy is back, see what gift Daddy brought you?” But his son did not open the door. After knocking for a dozen times, Yuan Mudan stopped him.
Yuan Mudan told Mr. Liang that since the second semester of his sophomore year, Liang Ning’s academic performance had dropped dramatically and soon became increasingly silent, sometimes not taking the initiative to say a word to her for a week. She thought it was because her child was under too much pressure to study, so she didn’t pay much attention to it. When the college entrance exam was over, no matter what she asked her son, he still wouldn’t say a word. When his cousin called, he didn’t answer, and when he came home to look for him, he hid. Later, even grandparents do not answer the phone.
After the results of the college entrance exam were announced, Liang Ning’s score was not even on the key line, so Yuan Mudan went to a cram school to enroll him – it was a cram school with exceptionally strict management, known as the “first concentration camp in a small town”. But on the day he reported to school, Liang Ning took a kitchen knife and swung it wildly at his mother. Later, Liang Ning locked himself in his bedroom and said that if anyone wanted to break in, he would jump off the building.
Mr. Liang was heartbroken, recalling that his son had been a lively child who loved to talk and laugh when he was young. But Yuan Mudan often lectured her son at home, saying with conviction, “You are unfortunate that you do not have a good father. Now you have to work hard from a young age to get into Tsinghua and Peking University when you grow up. When you graduate, strive to become a big official. If you are in business, you must also be a big boss with a powerful style. Don’t be like your father who is a wimp and can’t do anything.” Ever since the children started elementary school, they rarely finish their homework before 11 p.m. in various tutorial classes.
After Liang and Yuan divorced, the number of times he saw his son was even more limited. Every New Year’s Eve, my son would go to his grandparents’ house for a day, but only for one day. Whenever he saw Mr. Liang, his son would always smile silently, and then father and son would quietly start playing chess. Sometimes it was chess, sometimes it was military chess. The grandparents would watch the game with a smile on their face.
The son rarely initiated contact with Mr. Liang. Only once in his memory, when he was still working in Shanghai, did his son suddenly call him one day with a crying voice. Mr. Liang was startled and asked him why. He said his mother had just scolded him severely. Mr. Liang asked why? The son said he had written a small poem at school, and his mother found it when she checked his bag at night, and furiously tore the poem to pieces, and told him never to learn from his useless father, not to do his job. Mr. Liang was furious after hearing this, and for the first time since the divorce, he took the initiative to call his ex-wife, “You can insult me, but please don’t insult the poem, and don’t kill your son.” Then it was still an argument.
That time back home, Mr. Liang stayed at home for three days, but his son never came out of the room to meet him. In the meantime, he sent his son a lot of weibo and text messages, and had also handwritten several letters and stuffed them through the doorway, but in the end there was no response.
The night before he left, he silently wrapped more than 200 dumplings for his son, weeping as he did so. My son has always liked to eat dumplings filled with three fresh ingredients, and I remember once he asked him why, and the little man tilted his head and said seriously, “Dad is meat, mom is like a leek, and I am a tiny shrimp. You and mom quarrel every day, I don’t want you to quarrel, so I want to eat you all in one bite, so that you two in my stomach, you can never quarrel again.”
The day he left, Zhang Xuefei drove and sent his old uncle straight to the airport. Along the way, Mr. Liang told Zhang Xuefei must contact his son more, even if Liang Ning refused to answer the phone, refused to return WeChat, and never, never give up. Zhang Xuefei followed along with a sigh, many years ago, as long as Mr. Liang and Yuan Mudan a quarrel, a small Liang Ning will run to his home to hide, the two brothers are also very deep feelings.
Nearly to the airport, Mr. Liang looked out the window of the golden sunset, suddenly said quietly: “life’s critical point really only a few steps ah. Once you go wrong, it will be like a fallen dominoes. No matter how hard you struggle, you can’t go back to the old days after all. I really miss the days when I was teaching.” From the rearview mirror, Zhang Xuefei saw that his uncle was already in tears. He wanted to say something to comfort his uncle, but for some reason, he also choked up.
Back in Russia, Mr. Liang had contacted his son several times, but Liang Ning still did not respond. Mr. Liang was often dazed and even distracted by this. Although the company also appropriately reduced Liang’s workload, after a few months of suffering like this, Liang finally decided to quit the well-paid job, after all, returning to China to treat his son’s illness was the most important thing at the moment, and the company agreed to Liang’s application to leave and return to China after the New Year holidays in 2019.
One day in mid-December 2018, there was a fierce snowstorm. When Mr. Liang returned from his business trip, the car just arrived at the company’s gate, the driver received another phone instruction, so he put Mr. Liang down and drove away straight away. Half an hour later, colleagues on the road to the office building, found Mr. Liang collapsed in the snow, by then, he had stopped breathing, heart attack.
Two of Mr. Liang’s colleagues came to his ex-wife’s house, wanting to inform Mr. Liang’s son and a group of relatives about the process of his death and to express their condolences. No matter how the crowd communicated, Liang Ning did not come out of his room. at the end of December 2018, Mr. Liang’s ashes were sent back to the small town, and throughout the funeral, Liang Ning did not eventually come out of his room to give his father one last ride, and people outside the house only heard his whimpering and wailing and heartbreaking cries.
At the memorial service, the old director, who had just retired at the deputy department level, came, and the head of the Russian branch where Mr. Liang was born accompanied by the old head of the provincial head office also came. After the memorial service, on the way back, Yuan Mudan said slyly, “Old Liang ah old Liang, you did not even become a deputy section chief before you were born, and now that people are gone, there are two deputy department-level leaders to see you off, you are considered to have mourning glory.”
Walking on the side of Zhang Xuefei heard, so angry that his body shivered. And several of Mr. Liang’s sisters even went forward and surrounded Yuan Mudan, angrily scolding her for ruining her brother’s life.
The scene was in chaos.
Postscript
The world is a strange place, and the clouds are white. Sometimes I think that the year when Mr. Liang was teaching at the podium must have been one of the happiest and most enjoyable times in his life. He was so radiant at that time.
At the end of November 2019, Lao Xue, a junior high school classmate who was already past his prime, finally became a father. Everyone knew the hardships of the couple’s more than 10 years of IVF, so they tried to rush over to congratulate the child when it was full moon.
During the meeting, someone suddenly asked Lao Xue, said you gave the child what name ah? Old Xue lowered his head, half a long time, Fang stood up, the corners of the eyes actually had tears, “I named him Xue Bingxin, I hope that when he grows up, like Liang Bingxin teacher, to be an upright and kind person.” The crowd listened to this, Mo not all red eyes. Zhang Xuefei is more tears fly like rain, can not help themselves.
Late that night, Zhang Xuefei sent a message in the group of students, “I have always felt that my uncle, Mr. Liang, is like a scripture taker. He is not stupid, he knows that there are difficulties and obstacles on the way, and he will even be bruised, but he has never given up on his ideals. I had firmly believed that in the end, he would definitely be able to defeat all the demons and monsters. Heaven forbid, but in my heart, he will always be my pride.”
Some time ago, when I was reading, I happened to see an ancient music poem, “The public did not cross the river, the public even crossed the river, fell into the river and died, what will be done about the public!” I don’t know why, but I suddenly thought of Mr. Liang, who often walked alone, and got wet with tears, so I wrote this article.
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