Li Dafa's second brother-in-law came to visit him and also to meet Second Brother by the way.
Second Brother-in-law studied hard when he was young and achieved something. He got the highest educational attainment in their village - graduated from junior high school. He often appeared as the host in wedding and funeral ceremonies. Half of the Spring Festival couplets in the village during the Chinese New Year were written by him, so he was called the "scholar".
This junior high school "scholar" had a flushed face after three cups of wine. After downing the fourth cup, his face was as red as a piece of dyed cloth. The redness spread to his eyelids, blurring his glasses. He took off his glasses, wiped his eyes, and there was moisture. He said to Li Dafa, who was lying on the bed watching them eat, "Whenever I think that I won't be able to see you, little brother, in the future, I feel so sad..."
As he spoke, the "scholar's" tears fell onto the dining table with a patter. Second Brother quickly moved the bowls of dishes to one side, fearing that the dishes would get too salty.
Li Dafa was feeling warm in his heart watching the two brothers eat. But when he heard the "scholar" crying with such emotion, he got angry. He wanted to say, "I'm not dead yet. Why are you crying? Isn't this cursing me?"
Li Dafa thought that this "scholar" was like a coal ball that had eaten ink. He didn't understand a single principle. The words got stuck in his esophagus like being blocked by a big rock. He turned his head away, not looking at the "scholar's" face full of old tears.
After finishing the meal, Second Sister came over and said, "I've taken away those corns in the west wing. There are more and more mice. If I don't get them out soon, they'll eat them all up."
Those corns, because they hadn't been husked, hadn't been sold yet. Second Sister had already had her own little plan. The "scholar" coming here served two purposes. It was both a visit to relatives and friends and a help to transport the corns.
Li Dafa listened to the sound of them going in and out to move the corns, and he got angry again. He spat out a mouthful of green water and knocked on the bedside with a wooden stick, but no one paid attention to him. His Second Brother was helping to move the corns, and his Elder Sister wasn't there.
The sunlight shifted a bit from the window, and the shadow suddenly came. He started cursing loudly in the room by himself, "You heartless people! You took the money but didn't treat my illness. Oh, what's the point of me being alive?"
By this time, the people moving the corns had already walked outside the gate, and no one heard his strange cursing.
Second Sister called Elder Sister, "Elder Sister, I've taken away the corns. If I don't get them out soon, the mice will rebel. Take a look at what else valuable is in the yard and come and take it away another day."
Elder Sister originally wanted to say, "There's a small iron cart in the yard. Leave it for me." But she swallowed the words about the small iron cart and casually said, "Take it away. It'll save trouble later."
Before leaving, the "scholar" suddenly remembered something. He jumped down from the driver's seat of the electric tricycle like lightning and rushed back into the yard.
Under the sycamore tree where the big stupid dog was tied, there was a small iron cart lying on its side. The handlebars of the cart were a bit rusty. The "scholar" with a red face like dyed cloth walked quickly, taking two steps at a time. Because he was walking so fast, his glasses slipped to the tip of his nose. He adjusted his glasses. Before he even reached the small iron cart, the big stupid dog suddenly jumped up, leaped quite high, and barked twice in protest.
The "scholar" with a red face after drinking a bit of revolutionary wine said a vulgar word to the protesting old dog, "You beast! You don't even recognize your own relatives! Bark again! Bark again! See if I don't skin you and boil you for dinner!"
The big stupid dog had lived for thirteen years and was no longer stupid. It could recognize different faces and understood human language well. Now, without its master's support and fearing that it would be used as food after its master's death, it quieted down, wagged its tail, and lay still under the tree.
The small iron cart was then loaded onto Second Sister's electric tricycle.
Later, when Elder Sister came and saw that the small iron cart had been taken away by her sister, she was unhappy, and several clouds seemed to pass over her face. Second Sister quickly tried to smooth things over, "Take a look at what else valuable is in the yard and take it all home."
Elder Sister swept her eyes over the four large brick houses. The red bricks were already mottled. She had helped build these houses back then. She couldn't exactly move the houses away, could she?
Second Sister said, "Why don't you take the big stupid dog away? Even just its skin is worth some money."
Elder Sister said, "I already have three dogs at home. I can hardly afford to feed them. What do I need so many animals for? And there's no corn to feed them. Let it stay here for now."
The family property was almost divided up, the arrangements for the afterlife had been made, and everyone was waiting for him to die, but he still wasn't dead. He was even getting impatient for himself. He remembered that he had hidden a bottle of pesticide by the bedside. In spring, he mixed the pesticide with peanuts. The peanuts mixed with pesticide turned red, and they were planted one by one in the field. The red coating was a powerful weapon against pests, preventing the seeds from dying in the dark and complex womb of the earth. Those city people who are afraid of death always think that peanuts are green products. In fact, except for the green paint on cucumbers, there's hardly anything truly green. Every food we eat has its own prenatal poison.
What had he eaten that poisoned him and made him develop lymphoma at the age of fifty-six? He really couldn't figure out the answer. But now, life was worse than death, and he wanted to die.
There was an unused quilt neatly folded beside his pillow. The pesticide was hidden in a concealed corner under the quilt. He stretched out his hand, which was like a withered branch, and groped for a long time. Finally, he touched the green bottle. He used all his strength to prop himself up half-lying and half-leaning. Then he used all his strength again to unscrew the cap and pour the green pesticide into the cap. It took him a lot of effort to fill the cap, and some of it even spilled onto his clothes.
The pesticide was his last dignity symbol in this world. Just one capful, and he could return to the earth peacefully like the wrapped peanuts.
When he gulped down the pesticide, it was like taking a sip of baijiu from Fatty Wang's small grocery store. When baijiu was drunk, it was refreshing. Sadly, he found that his throat was choked by the sarcoma and he couldn't swallow it at all.
He tried to swallow repeatedly, but his throat was like gears meshing, with no gap for it to go down. Maybe changing the way would open up new possibilities. He lay down. His tongue was like a mixer. The pesticide was churned into a ball in his mouth, and it got tangled with his tongue, making it difficult for him to breathe. He felt that half of his body was on fire. He knew that the pesticide bottle had been tipped over and the liquid was eroding his skin. He couldn't succeed as easily as the peanuts. He groped for the wooden stick, but it seemed that he didn't have much strength to knock on the bed.
However, his Elder Sister still heard it. Elder Sister was more perceptive than a needle.
She rushed over and saw her brother drowning in a sea of green. She shouted loudly, "Second Sister, go and call Wok Lid quickly!"
Before Wok Lid arrived, Elder Sister and Second Brother had already pried open Li Dafa's mouth and taken out the red lump in his mouth. When the green pesticide entered his mouth, just like when it was mixed with peanuts, for some reason it turned red, into a red ball that Li Dafa simply couldn't swallow.
Wok Lid, the doctor, lifted Li Dafa's eyelids and then pried open his mouth to take a look. He said, "His internal organs are already rotten, even more poisonous than the pesticide. Using poison to fight poison, even if he had swallowed that little bit, it wouldn't have had much effect. It's okay now."
The most painful thing in the world is that when you are completely disheartened, you don't have the ability to turn yourself into ashes. You can only let the sunlight and the night gradually erode your body and soul.
Wok Lid was right. Using poison to fight poison, Li Dafa, like a dead dog, regained a bit of breath. He even felt a bit of strength. Since eating that dumpling, he hadn't been able to swallow another bite of food. Now, after a life-and-death battle, it seemed that something in his body was calling. In the afternoon, the sunlight leaped through the old glass window and shone brightly on the Shibajie fried dough twists that Second Brother had brought. He watched helplessly as the twisting fried dough twists, like a young wife doing the yangge dance, with a fragrant powder smell, gradually approached him who was on the verge of death.
He wanted to live. He knocked on the bedside with a wooden stick. Elder Sister came over. He saw the deep wrinkles on Elder Sister's face like walnuts and rattled off a lot of words. Elder Sister understood. He wanted the doctor to give him an injection.
Couldn't even a nutritional injection be given? Since Li Dafa was so insistent, Elder Sister of course wanted to fulfill his wish.
Wok Lid, the doctor, came again. Wok Lid searched for a blood vessel on Li Dafa's wrinkled and elongated skin that was like old tree bark. Finally, after decades of traveling around as a doctor, Wok Lid found a tiny blood vessel like a small earthworm. The nutrition from the nutritional injection was transported through the winding work of this earthworm-like blood vessel to the various parts of Li Dafa's body, giving him the juice to live on.
Second Brother had been here for seven days. Before he came, he was prepared to deal with the person's death and finish the funeral arrangements within seven days and then leave his hometown once and for all.
But now that Li Dafa had received a nutritional injection and seemed to have some hope again.
Elder Sister said, "Wait a few more days. It wasn't easy for you to come. If you go home and he then gets worse and dies, you'll surely feel bad."
Second Brother remembered when his mother was ill that year. He also came back with the intention of seeing his mother for the last time. But when he saw his mother, who was lying sickly in bed, her eyes lit up when it was time to eat. She slurped down a big bowl of noodles with two eggs into her stomach, not looking like she was about to die. So he went back home. As soon as he stepped into his house, the phone call came right after. His mother now looked dull-eyed when she saw the noodles and eggs and was probably not going to make it. Even if he took a rocket, he wouldn't be able to see her for the last time.
He didn't want to have the same regret as last time, so he put his eagerness to go back into his body.
The sensation in Li Dafa's body woke up again, and along with it, his pain. He often made whining sounds at night, like an old dog that had run around crazily and had no strength left and was about to die. The pain made him twist and turn constantly. His shoulder blades were rubbed red. Because he didn't eat, he hadn't had a bowel movement for a long time. When he urinated, he no longer used a urinal. Second Brother laid some old clothes under him. When he urinated, he just took the clothes out to dry, without even washing them. When the two sisters took turns to take care of him, they would still wash the old clothes that had been urinated on.
Second Brother said, "Anyway, he's almost dying. If it smells too bad, just save it up and throw it away when the time comes."
The room where Li Dafa was staying smelled of urine. Second Sister was worried that the Shibajie fried dough twists would pick up the smell, so she wanted to take them away and give them to the "scholar" to eat. But she used the excuse of feeding the big stupid dog. Li Dafa, who used to look at the fried dough twists to relieve boredom, protested from his throat. The fried dough twists were transferred from Second Sister's right hand to her left hand, then back to her right hand, and finally put back on the table. Second Sister joked, "When you swallow this fried dough twist, I'll buy you a whole room full of them."
A wire bed was set up in the room. It was where Second Brother slept at night. They say that old people sleep less, but Second Brother slept just as much as before. They also say that people who can sleep are broad-minded and fat, and pigs that can sleep are fat and strong. That's really true. In his fifty-six years of life, Li Dafa had also been on the verge of being fat because he loved to eat meat. He used to start snoring as soon as his head touched the pillow. Second Brother was almost the same as he was before he got sick. He would fall asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.
At night, his internal organs felt like they were on fire. The pain was like lit firecrackers, exploding one by one along his body. He wanted to drink water and made some sounds. But Second Brother's snoring didn't stop. When Second Brother first came, he was quite vigilant when sleeping at night. Li Dafa's needs could basically be met. After a few days, he became careless and showed his true colors.
Li Dafa groped for his wooden stick and knocked on the bed hard. By "hard", the wooden stick just made a hoarse sound like a broken-stringed morin khuur. Second Brother's snoring was like a skyrocketing double-kick firecracker, whistling and taking a turn.
Li Dafa hit the sleeping Second Brother with the wooden stick, hitting him right on the nose, pressing the pause button on Second Brother's snoring. He sat up dazedly, "Who hit me? Who hit me? Is there a thief?"
Second Brother turned on the light and only then realized that it was Li Dafa who had hit him. The dying man actually had the strength to hit him. He suddenly felt sad, "If you had something, why didn't you just call me? Why did you hit me for no reason?"
Second Brother thought to himself that he was already old, had come a long way, and not only was he being scolded by you but also hit. This was really going backwards in life.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. There was nowhere to go at night. He couldn't just leave like last time to go and talk to Elder Sister. After understanding that Li Dafa wanted to drink water, he deliberately ignored him, holding his anger and lying down again. After lying down for a while, he was afraid that Li Dafa might have gone to report to the King of Hell when he heard no more movement from that side. So he quickly stood up to check on the patient in the bed.
Li Dafa was lying still, staring with his big eyes, not blinking. His eyes were already big, and now that he was thin, it seemed that there were only big eyes left on his face.
Second Brother started to cry, "Fifth Brother, how could you just leave like that? It's my fault. You died without even having a drink of water. Wuwuwu..."
The 40-watt light bulb emitted a dim light. Second Brother wiped his tears and saw that clear tears were also flowing from Li Dafa's eyes. He sniffed his nose and shook his head. He wasn't dead. He was still alive. His whole desire in life at that moment was to drink water.
The next day, Second Brother said to Elder Sister who came to take over, "I'm going back to Tianjin. I can't wait for him to die."