Dow and Carbon-Based Monkey Breeding Guidelines

People who are easily bullied have a mark on them. This is real. The mark is not smell, not appearance, or even clothing. It always reveals itself in places that people don't usually think about. For many children who come from the countryside to study in the city, this incompatibility often surfaces when they need to pay. It seems that the food and use of the students around me are all good, and there are never any worries in life.

In fact, this is wrong. Children in cities still have to go to school and take exams, and the competition becomes more and more fierce every year, but that is a problem of atmosphere. They seem to take the roads, shops, high-rises and shops for granted. When they go to foreign restaurants to eat, they have a relaxed and comfortable attitude, as if someone has taught them the rules of dining. Really, they never admitted it proactively, but Xiaochu believed that there was such a thing. The kids in the city have created rules behind their backs that outsiders don't understand, and behind those lukewarm smiles and words, they mean more than what they show on the surface. Sometimes he does things according to the habits of his hometown, such as mixing all the lunch dishes into the rice. What's wrong with this? But then he felt that the classmate next to him, even though he pretended to lower his eyes and not look at him, was secretly frowning. They deliberately ate like chickens pecking at rice, as if his presence turned off their appetites. But he didn't dare to do that again. He only missed his grandmother in his hometown.

There are all kinds of things. In fact, they are all small things. Occasionally, a few words drifted past his ears, those eyes and strange faces that were too late to close up, or those extra steps that were meaninglessly taken around him. Most of the time, he himself would not think of these trivial things. Only when he was alone, staring at the bloody sunset at the bus stop, or huddled in bed listening to his parents quarreling outside, would those tiny moments return to his heart and make him I felt a huge whirlpool in my chest. He was afraid of dawn, afraid of going to school and facing those hidden eyes, afraid that he would always be an outsider who couldn't understand the rules, like a wild dog that was restless next to the evening rush hour traffic.

But he is indeed an outsider. This is true in this city, and it is true at home. His parents would not understand his ridiculous fear. They worked hard selling goods or working from dawn to dusk in their own beauty salon to buy a house in a tall concrete building and then put him there. Sent to a good school in the city. They have even planned his life for the next few decades: go to junior high school, high school, go to college, find a girl from the city to marry, and have children with local registered permanent residence (preferably two to three, at least one son). This plan was perfect, there was no doubt that they couldn't figure out what was so scary about Xiao Chu. Once he timidly told his mother how he felt, and she told him he was just being careless. The opinions of others don’t matter at all. When you make money, become successful, and become successful, everything will naturally change.

It is impossible for his mother to harm him...but the day of success is too far away from Xiaochu. He didn't know how long he would have to stay like this before that. It would have to be until the end of the college entrance examination at the earliest, right? Or the day you graduate from college? By then he will have grown up and become a fearless person, able to handle with ease everything that scares him at the moment. But that was really too long. He needed to work hard day by day, hour by hour, until he could make his own decisions on everything. That day is still far away for Xiaochu, but he has an independent role model in his mind.

In this cold and weird city, Cai Ji is his only friend. They were from the same hometown and could almost be considered a child, although Xiaochu was sent to the city to study by his parents very early. His memory of his hometown was always the sorghum field in front of his home, and his grandparents sitting on low stools in front of the house doing farm work. But Cai Ji didn't come here to study. He came to work in a car repair shop run by a fellow villager. He and Xiao Chu were different in every way. There was only one thing they had in common, that is, they were outsiders. Cai Ji hated this place even more than he did, hated the skyline blocked by tall buildings, and hated the smiles on the faces of city people. But he doesn’t miss his hometown either—he doesn’t have many people at home anymore.

Xiaochu's parents didn't tell him about the situation in his hometown in detail. He only vaguely knew those things: if there is no one at home, the public drainage ditch planned with the neighbors will move to your field inexplicably; There will be people picking in your fields at night and even during the day; there will be endless gossip. People in the village won't just look at you, so as Xiaochu's parents asked him, what's wrong with your classmates staring at you? In the eyes of this couple, the children in the city are all pampered waste, smart on the outside but stupid in reality, just like the pugs held in the car seats by rich women with long nails and nothing to do, without the slightest bit of hardship and struggle. Spirit. As long as you work harder and succeed than them all, sooner or later these looks will turn into jealousy. And they can't be like their relatives in the countryside who will ask you for money and arrange work and accommodation as soon as they hear that you are prosperous. Otherwise, they will spread rumors in the countryside and encourage people to deliberately spread rat poison where you raise chickens and ducks.

There have been rumors that Cai Ji's uncle died from accidentally ingesting rat poison, and that his uncle was a fool or a lunatic (the main difference between the two is whether he could bite other people's faces). Xiaochu didn't know whether these two things were true or false, because Cai Ji never said it. He heard about it himself when he returned to his hometown during the summer vacation. In the "Intelligence Propaganda Station" - his parents often called the front yard of the family at the entrance of the village, as if they thought the term was funny - there were always several people sitting there. They talked there all day long and stared at everyone who came in and out of the village. People, measure what people do, whether they are happy, or how much money they make every day.

Few secrets can pass through the village without being seen by these eyes, and the secrets that are seen can never be blocked by these people's teeth. They spread gossip, some of which are true and some of which are false. After all, words have no shadow, and those chewing mouths cannot take away their own chickens and ducks. But Xiaochu was afraid of these people, afraid that they would stare at him with glowing eyes and ask him questions, asking him what school he went to, his ranking in the school, what kind of job he could do in the future, and whether he had forgotten his relatives in the village. He muttered and didn't know how to answer. Then they would mention Cai Ji, the boy who went to the city to make money. They murmured that when some people become prosperous and enjoy happiness, they forget about their fellow villagers who have helped them. After his mother ran away, it was only the care of the neighbors that allowed him to grow up. Could it be that he is still the father who found a stepmother for him? But Cai Ji is a white-eyed wolf who never looks back when he reaches a high branch. He doesn't come back with gifts during holidays.

But sometimes they say the opposite: the city is a dangerous place. People living in the city are cunning and indifferent, they are like a tiger's den that eats human bones. There will never be such warm-hearted neighbors as in the village. Working there is also full of traps. They will lie to you and say they can make money, but in fact they are trying to take advantage of you. You can't make money openly in the city, and a kid like Cai Ji who doesn't get into trouble is destined to suffer losses. He was probably not doing well and was afraid of being ridiculed by his stepmother and her children, so he didn't dare to come back every year.

The more Xiao Chu listened, the more confused he became. He always felt that the world he saw was irrelevant to what he heard. Even the world he heard was broken, conflicting and contradictory. Why on earth do they say that? Why are you talking so enthusiastically? It was all vague and confusing, and no one was willing to explain it to him, and even he didn't know how to ask questions. He always felt stupid, that everything outside the scope of the exam eluded him. He was also very clumsy physically, always knocking over things and knocking them over, and his knees hurt so much that he couldn't even run a few steps. The doctor said he had a problem with his meniscus. He didn't know what a meniscus was, but his parents didn't like the diagnosis. They thought it was because he was too lazy and lacked exercise.

So, in the end, he only talked to Cai Ji. When he was sad or scared, he would pretend to attend evening self-study, but in fact he would take the bus with the longest carriage and the clumsiest appearance at dusk (he felt that each bus had a different face, and He can also see their beauty and ugliness). The bus will keep driving, gradually moving away from the noisy places with tall buildings and crowds, passing through fields and dark river ditches, leaving behind the overlapping mountains of boxes (he also learned the word "yard" from Cai Ji) surrounded by trucks. come). It wasn't until the summer sun was half-sinking under the roofs of the factories to the west that he got off at the penultimate stop and walked along a gravel road to the river bank.

The road is always wet. Even on days when it doesn't rain, the shops or houses on both sides will pour wastewater onto the road outside their doors, making the water surface shine with a grease-like luster. Once he was splashed with water, leaving white foam on his running shoes and a fishy smell from his wet trousers. He also heard hoarse laughter from high up, and he became frightened. From then on, he never dared to delay on this road, and would always run in a hurry with his head down. Therefore, he could not tell exactly what these shops were doing. One of them must be a door and window manufacturer. For several evenings, someone sat in front of the store, using an electric wood planer to go back and forth over the rows of wooden frames. The wood chips piled up on the roadside like snowflakes. The air smelled of wood and paint. Sometimes they also welded metal, and clusters of white-gold sparks flew along the frame, which was another strange smell (later he learned that it might be ozone). Those welding sparks were so beautiful, like the fireworks lit during the New Year, but adults always warned him not to look at them for too long, otherwise his eyes would be damaged.

But the sparks flew in the hands of the welder, and this scene stayed in Xiao Cu's heart for a long time, like a magic show on the stage, or a fairy casting a spell on TV. He felt that these people with sparks in their hands had power, even though his parents told him that there was no future in doing such things, and that the hard labor was far inferior to the low-class people with stooped backs and thick glasses in school. He never told his family that he went to play with Cai Ji, because in the eyes of his parents, apprentices in auto repair shops were of course inferior people who could not get ahead.

But Xiaochu didn't think that being a low-class person was a bad thing. Cai Ji knows a lot and is very capable. Although he is only about three or four years older than Xiaochu, he does not need the care of his parents and can support himself. He lived in his own place, ate his own food, and no one looked at him weirdly at the car repair shop. In Xiao Chu's opinion, this is a capable person. He felt that he would rather be a putty-covered mechanic in a car repair shop, working hard when there was work, and when there was no work, he would sit in the shop drinking beer and watching football games or movies on the heavy old TV. . They all said that these manual jobs were very hard, but in Xiao Chu's eyes, the workers in the shop had a very happy life, at least it was very simple. When they work, they work, when they are tired, they are tired, and when they rest, they rest. They never have to worry about whether the score in the last exam will cause the teacher to frown on you. When they don't get their way, they yell, curse, or spit without having to bother guessing. Among all the workers, Cai Ji was the youngest. At first, he could only repaint the car, mix colors or put putty on it, or pull out things stuck in the tires. Later, he started to learn sheet metal and drove the copper coin-shaped solder pads into the recessed fenders one by one. While talking to Xiao Chu, he would pull the welding pads one by one to make ribs, then use a hammer to smooth the board surface and erase the holes. This whole process seemed to Xiaochu to be extremely magical, like a mysterious witchcraft ceremony. When the dented metal surface returned to like new, he felt that he had also recovered to some extent. The self that was beaten to pieces by worries and fears was healed in this ceremony. He thought that even if he could not become the most successful student in school, that did not mean that the world would only be endless labor and pain. Cai Ji survived and was able to do some very interesting work.

Of course he doesn't think this life is perfect. Although there is no shortage of laughter in the auto repair shop, sometimes it is because of a steering wheel that spins like a top, sometimes because a certain sunroof always makes a weird fart-like sound when it is opened. Their troubles are also in front of them, such as the special cars sent for repair cannot find ready-made parts (this seems to always be the case in this area, not many people send good cars with popular styles to this corner) ); the work he did was tiring and dirty, and he sometimes got scolded, but the salary never seemed to be enough. Workers barely discussed the future, at least not as enthusiastically as his parents had planned.

They also talked about returning to their hometown to build a house, or going on a blind date to find a partner. To Xiaochu, these were things that only existed in words and would never really come true. Therefore, the days of auto repair shops will continue forever. He would tell Cai Ji about the people in the school, saying that the teacher always liked to talk in class about his son, who was studying at a major in the market, and how difficult the world would be in the future.

Most of the time, he talked, and Cai Ji listened while working. His clothes were covered with black grease, and his dyed hair hung down behind his head. He didn't say much, but Xiao Chu knew that he was really listening, because he would occasionally give one or two comments. He called those classmates who smiled strangely at the little guy but never came near him in the cafeteria as "little people who rely on their family background to dominate" and said, "Rich people will think they are unworthy even if they see a piece of dog shit on the street." on one’s own identity.” Of course these words are bad, at least the teachers at school would not like to hear them, but Xiaochu couldn't help but find them funny. His parents would also scold the city people, and would sigh with envy and disdain at the luxury cars passing by on the road, speculating whether they were relatives of some official, but none of them spoke like Cai Ji. Plant a tune.

It's hard for Xiao Chu to explain the difference clearly, but he still thinks that Cai Ji is different from others. Although they are all ordinary, mediocre and ignorant people, the most inconspicuous little ants in the world, Cai Ji knows better than him how to deal with this world that they hate. Once he met a classmate near an auto repair shop. When the other person saw him sitting and talking with the auto mechanics, the expression on his face was extremely surprised. There may be contempt and disgust there, but at least at that moment, Xiao Chu also discovered fear. The boy who always talked about travel and video games in the class just glanced at Cai Ji hastily, with a blank expression on his face as if he didn't want to attract the other person's attention, and then he lowered his head and concentrated on walking. The kind of concentration is extremely deliberate, like a person in a TV series crossing a broken bridge between cliffs. An auto mechanic suddenly shouted to him and asked him if there was hair caught in the zipper of his crotch. The whole store burst into laughter, and the boy's back shook as if he had been beaten with a stick, and he immediately ran away.

At that time, Xiao Chu felt indescribable pleasure, and at the same time he also felt a sense of guilt and panic, because he rarely did anything that violated the rules. But he still didn't understand what made the boy run away so fast, as if the people sitting in the store were not some skinny and poor workers, but a group of murderous robbers. Is it the hammers they often use to hit the fenders? Is it the work clothes that cannot be washed away from oil stains and sweat odor? Is it Cai Ji's messy hair and worthless accessories? It seems like it really is. Although Cai Ji is not tall and almost skinny, as long as he dresses differently, the children in the city will be afraid of him, just like they are afraid of brightly colored spiders.

Later Cai Ji told him that this is what children from the village do. They want to show that they have their own circle and are definitely not beggars who kowtow to the people in the city. They also want to prove to the village that they have seen the world and understand the world. The world beyond the fields and crops. They belong neither to this end nor to that end. Some people may think they are weird and ridiculous, but they don't care. Don't care about what others think of you, but overwhelm them with contempt and treat their rules that they think are unbreakable as bullshit - and all of this is just for survival, and it does not make you truly lawless. People who work in auto repair shops never do anything illegal, because the most important thing is to make money to support their families. They don't have to think about how to avoid taxes or how to make friends with business people like Xiaochu's parents. They just immersed themselves in the tires and fenders all day long, and until the day the auto repair shop closed down, they were still like that, and no one thought about taking action.

Xiaochu was not present that day. Many things he later heard from Cai Ji. He heard about the initial situation: the car was delivered with scratches everywhere, as if it had been scratched with a knife, the gaps in the tires were full of vomit, and the crumbs of wine bottles; the guest promised to give They were paid generously, but their attitude was very bad, and they were warned not to talk too much. In fact, no one wanted to say anything, let alone call the police, even though they found some unlabeled pills and a few towels stained with blood and pus from under the seats while cleaning the carriage. It really is none of their business. What bothered them was that it was hard to find spare parts for the old car, and the bits and pieces of damage were also a headache. Once during repairs, Xiao Chu came and sat beside the stone pier outside the shop to talk to Cai Ji. That was less than a month before the auto repair shop closed down, but Xiao Chu felt very happy that evening. They were talking about happy things. Xiao Chu was saying that the bookstore near the school had just bought a batch of comics. Some of them were second-hand, but they were sold very cheaply. When he grows up, he also wants to be a bookstore owner, and he reads books all day long while at work. Cai Ji told him that the bookstore would close down sooner or later. In the future, people will only read things online, just like no one will read paper newspapers in the subway anymore.

He asserted that if you were to open a physical store, you should sell food and drink, because that’s all you can’t buy online forever. No one likes to eat stale food every day, just like no one likes to drink alone at home - Xiao Chu can't help but be a little doubtful about this, because his father likes to close the door and drink by himself, and curses anyone who drinks at that moment. People who disturb him and try to talk to him. His mother told him that it was because of hard work. His father's job was always talking and smiling at the empty gun-like cameras and flashlights. All these sacrifices were for him. . Therefore, Xiao Chu has made up his mind. In the future, he must do a job that does not require talking and laughing, so that after get off work, he will be willing to talk and chat with his children instead of drinking behind closed doors. He also asked Cai Ji if he would be qualified to be an auto mechanic. Cai Ji grinned coldly, definitely laughing at him for saying something stupid. But Xiao Chu didn't care, because Cai Ji did know more than him, and he always had something to say and would never say one thing and think another.

Cai Ji told him that repairing cars is not a good way out. Hard work is just a small problem (not a small problem for Xiao Chu’s knees). The point is that after you learn all the skills, it will be difficult for you to find another one. Opportunity to rise. The number of orders is always so large, and the apprentices hired by the boss from the countryside are always more energetic and able to endure hardships than the old people, so he cannot make big money based on this. And he wanted to stay in the city. Although he and Xiao Chu hated those boxy sky and crowded buses, he also had no place in his picturesque hometown with green hills. Things have long been beyond repair. Perhaps it was from the day Cai Ji's father suffered an epileptic fit and fell into the pond, or perhaps it was the day the family with whom they had a land dispute bought a luxury car before the wedding banquet. These rumors floating in the atmosphere of his hometown had a profound impact on Xiaochu. They are completely fragmented and irrelevant. The only fact they illustrate is that Cai Ji is actually homeless.

Like Xiao Chu, he must find ways to take root in this hive made of cement and steel. Whenever these thoughts vaguely appeared in Xiao Chu's mind, he actually felt very happy, and he didn't think there was any contradiction in it at all. If someone died in the family of one of his classmates, he would comfort him as the teacher said and pretend to be sympathetic and sad. However, Cai Ji was not a stranger on the roadside, but the only one who could talk to him. peer. All the unfortunate country stories are so far away. Only the auto repair shop at dusk is real. It is the place where he can escape from loneliness and confide his thoughts. And precisely because Cai Ji is homeless, the reality of the auto repair shop will last forever.

The setting sun fell between the gaps in the factory chimneys. Cai Ji put down the hammer and welding pad and walked into the shop to find a pad of suitable shape. Xiao Chu was sitting on the stone pier, with a careless expression on his face, and his secret joy and confusion were stirring in his heart. A boy carrying a guitar walked past the gravel road in front of the store. Xiao Chu stared at the gig bag exposed behind his shoulder, imagining that there were actually many rat poisons and knives hidden inside. At this time, the other party also raised his head, and their eyes met. Xiaochu saw the most friendly face since he entered the city.