Author: Chen Xirui.
When I was a teenager, I was nurtured by the family environment and developed the Xi of reading books, and when I was in high school, I usually accumulated a little books, plus textbooks for school reading, and there was nowhere to store them for a while. So, I turned my eyes for help to my mother and to my mother's closet. My mother said, "You can take out my old wardrobe when I got married, and there is not much in it anyway."
That's what Mother said. My 16-year-old mother, when she married my father, was just a little donkey, and on a glorious autumn day, she came to my house from a small village eight miles away, with a few simple clothes and little dowry. An old-fashioned cabinet, an old-fashioned double-door wardrobe, not much taller than a human head, up and down, stacked together, in the dark, for many years silently staying in the corner, spending a long time lonely. A glance at the wardrobe is as if witnessing the smoky years, which makes people feel a sense of vicissitudes of life.
As a result, this old-fashioned wardrobe has become my bookcase, and those books and textbooks that have accumulated over time have a sense of belonging from then on. Of course, I understand that this is what my parents expect from me. Whenever I have a spare time or in the dead of night, I open the bookcase and stroke the books and textbooks, which suddenly immerse me in a strange world, and a sense of intimacy arises.
How can I forget, one cold winter after another, I spent all night reading "Water Margin", "The History of Confucianism", "Red Flag Spectrum", "Fragrance Floating Four Seasons", "Book of Swords and Enmity" and ......These tomes, when you encounter unfamiliar words or obscure sentences, will skip ten lines at a glance. From my father, I also collected some ...... "Three Character Classics", "Hundred Family Names", "Analects", "Thousand Family Poems", "Selected Readings of Hanshu Stories", and "Three Hundred Tang Poems".and other old editions of the book, I also read it with relish.
How can I forget, one sleepless night, no table, I just lay on the bench, on the edge of the kang, on the large urn, writing self-righteous poems and prose, began to submit, started to chase dreams, and soared in the sky of literature. Of course, in my parents' room, I would often see my father, who was an accountant in the production team, pulling an abacus bead under a kerosene lamp to crack the accounts for everyone.
When the manuscript was submitted, I began to count the time, looking forward to seeing the postman day by day, and looking forward to the publication of the article. But what makes me feel relieved is that the magazine has to reply to every manuscript, and what it sends is a "rejection notice" full of expectations and encouragement. I didn't give up, I didn't get discouraged, and wrote on the wall "Tianxingjian, a gentleman strives for self-improvement" to encourage myself.
I love books, I love them so much, but I love them selfishly, and the few literary books I have become my private property, and my younger siblings can look at them in front of me, but they are not allowed to peek. The fourth brother and the fifth brother seem to be working against me, and they want to steal books to read, but they don't know that they love to read just like me.
I have a plan, lock the bookcase door, come to an iron general to guard the door, measure that you have the kung fu of swallow Li San upside down with a golden hook, and you can't peek at it!Soon, I noticed that the books in the bookcase, which had been neatly arranged, had been turned upside down. It won't be a mouse, it must be the fourth brother and the fifth brother, the two little thieves who "committed the crime". I was immediately annoyed, and found them in the courtyard to question them, and came to "hear the case in court". They flatly denied it and did not admit it. I grew angrier, scooped up my broomsticks, and hit me all at once. The two suffered from flesh and skin, and then they admitted to the "crime" method: it turned out to be a crack in the door of the bookcase, so that they could steal the book.
When I got married, I got a new wardrobe, and the old wardrobe was returned to my parents, but the books that had accumulated over time increased, and it was my third brother, who knew how to carpenter, who built a large bookcase with plane boards for me to store books.
Later, a new bookcase was added, and until today, I "sit in the book city", two large bookcases, ancient and modern Chinese and foreign literary masterpieces are crammed full, and my younger brothers work hard every day for their livelihood, facing the world of thousands of purples and thousands of saffron flowers in the mobile phone, it is rare to calm down and read books. I understand that in today's commodity world, where money dominates everything, where people are bent on making money, literature is marginalized, and books are left out in the cold.
Now, seven years after my mother's death, my 95-year-old father has gone with my mother. Looking at the old-fashioned wardrobes and wardrobes left by my parents, I couldn't help but feel a sore nose and swollen eyes, and my heart fluctuated.
I told my younger brothers that they should not lose their parents' belongings at any time. Looking at these relics every day, it is as if I saw a young shadow reading a book in the long night, saw my father pulling an abacus bead under the kerosene lamp to settle accounts, and saw my mother sewing and mending our clothes and ...... under the lamp
Of course, I also understand that I have done nothing in this life, all my efforts have been wasted, and I have failed to live up to my parents' good expectations for me.
About author:Chen Xirui, known as Brother Shenxian on the net, is a director of Qingdao Writers Association in Shandong Province, deputy secretary-general of the Dramatists Association of Pingdu Literary and Art Circles in Shandong Province, and a signed writer of Qilu Evening News. His works have appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines and literary platforms at home and abroad, such as "Earth Literature", "Spark", "Qingdao Literature", and more than 1,000 essays.