Chapter 6 Brothers (3)

  One day later, Xiao Lanfang was discharged from the hospital. After her family found out what had happened to her, they took her back without hesitation, not even letting her see Li Yang and Li Lie again. At this point, only three people were left in the house: Li Father and his two sons. Perhaps because of Xiao Lanfang's incident, Li Father did not lay a hand on either of his sons. Of course, both brothers performed well every day, which made Li Father very satisfied. Every day after school, the two brothers would busy themselves cutting grass and then cooking dinner, taking turns to do the cooking. Xiao Lie was not tall, and when he stood behind the stove, he couldn't reach it at all, so he had to stand on a small stool every time. At first, when he wasn't careful, he broke a bowl, but after being beaten once, nothing like that happened again.

  After washing the dishes, Li Yang carried the pig feed water to go feed the pigs. Although he was only almost twelve years old at that time, he still had the strength to carry the wooden bucket used for feeding the pigs. From the kitchen to the pigpen was only forty meters away, but when it rained, there were twenty meters where they would get soaked. At night, this path also didn't have any lighting, so every time Xiao Lie walked in front carrying a small coal oil lamp with one hand blocking the wind.

  Once, on a rainy day, the muddy road was slippery, and Li Yang accidentally slipped onto the muddy road, and Xiao Lie wasn't spared either. A bucket of pig feed wasn't wasted as it poured all over the two brothers' bodies, and the small coal oil lamp also fell to the ground. The two big fat pigs seemed to know what had happened, knowing that the two brothers had spilled their food, so they let out discontented grunts in the pigpen.

  That night, the two fat pigs went hungry for a whole night, but fortunately, pigs are sleepier than humans, so after going hungry for a while, they fell asleep and forgot about not having dinner.

  The two brothers ended up being beaten as a matter of course, under the rod of their father. From a young age, the two brothers were very steady in handling matters and would not be like others of the same age who were restless, because the two brothers understood more than anyone else the taste of skin splitting and flesh cracking.

  A week after their mother left home, one day Li's father went out early and didn't return until afternoon when the two brothers came back from school. After tidying up the house, they still hadn't seen their father, so they put dinner in a pot for him and did the dishes, fed the pigs, and did their homework. Even then, their father still hadn't returned. The two brothers were used to their father coming home late at night, so after finishing their homework, they went to bed.

  In the late 1990s, although color TVs had become widespread around the world, in a small mountain village called Beiying Township, black and white TVs were still mainstream. At that time, there was no cable TV, and only two or three channels could be received. Farmers made their own antennas and placed them in front of their houses or on top of their roofs. Although there were not many TV channels, people could still watch with great interest. Li Lie's favorite show was cartoons, and every time the windmill on CCTV's children's channel was about to end, he felt a little anxious. That night, the TV was showing "White Eyebrow Hero", and since his father was not at home, the two brothers watched two episodes quietly, keeping the volume very low, with their ears perked up listening for any sound outside, afraid that their father would suddenly return.

  Fortunately, Father did not come back, and after watching the TV series, the two brothers climbed onto their own beds with a sense of accomplishment, as if they had succeeded in stealing something.

  At that time, Li Yang felt that he should start practicing martial arts, because wasn't it true that all the greats started young? However, Li Lie had been frail since childhood, so he thought he had a duty to help his younger brother build a foundation. Unfortunately, although Li Lie was very smart, when it came to martial arts, in Li Yang's eyes, he was a complete idiot. As a result, every night before bed, Li Yang would practice by himself for over ten minutes before resting, and in Li Lie's eyes, Li Yang just liked to wave his arms and legs around like a fool. If that was what they called martial arts, then wouldn't it be better to learn the frog dance? But he didn't dare say anything out loud, because although Li Yang's martial arts skills were unknown, he could still easily take care of himself.

  My father didn't come back for two days in a row, and at that time, mobile phones were not even mentioned, let alone telephones. In an era when communication was basically shouting and transportation was basically walking, sometimes one person would go out and leave only one sentence to the family members. But my father's departure did not have any words, however, for the two brothers, this is not a bad thing, at least they don't have to worry about being beaten, and without adults, they are even more free.

  However, the good times did not last long. On the third day, Li Yang found that there was no more rice and flour at home, and they encountered a continuous power outage again. The processing house in the production team refused to help them grind rice.

  "What's going on? Brother, I'm hungry." Li Lie pulled at Li Yang's sleeve and said.

  Li Yang looked at his younger brother, who was a head shorter than him. He himself was also hungry. However, Li's father had a bad relationship with their neighbors, and the two young children suffered as a result.

  "We can't ask others for help. Nor can we borrow things from others." Li Yang gritted his teeth and said, at a young age he already understood what human relationships were like, although the neighbors might be willing to help them, but if Father came back later, who knows how it would turn out.

  "I'm hungry, what to do? The pigs haven't been fed yet." Li Lie said sensibly.

  At that time, Little Li thought that if he were a cow, it would be great, because cows are full when they eat grass, but he is not a cow, so he can't be full by just eating grass.

  "I heard that flower crab can be eaten," said Li Lie, because he saw fried flower crab in a book today.

  (Note: Piāng huā zi is a Sichuan dialect term meaning crab.)

  "Then let's go catch some." Li Yang didn't know if crabs could be deep-fried, but he knew that after the two big legs of the crab were removed and roasted, they tasted pretty good.

  The sky was about to darken, and the two brothers hastily picked up their flashlights and ran towards the stream.

  "Yangyang brother, where are you guys going?"

  Li Yang hadn't run a few steps when he heard Xu Jiadai calling him from behind.

  "It's nothing, go graze the cattle." Li Yang said, he knew that if he said he was going to pick lotus flowers, that little girl would follow him, and he didn't want a tailgater behind him.

  The two brothers worked hard until nightfall, and then they brought back more than a dozen big crabs. Seeing the dozen or so crabs in the basket, Li Yang thought of the golden fried crab in the book painting, and his mouth watered.

  The crabs were brought back, but the next problem was a bit tricky. Seeing those tens of fierce crabs, washing them was a hassle, and as for deep-frying them, it was better to kill them first or fry them alive. On this point, both brothers thought that frying them alive was too cruel, but they had no experience in killing them. So Li Yang decided to wash them clean and then directly put them into the pot of oil to fry.

  Many years later, during a wilderness survival training session, Xiao Lie learned that when wanting to fry crabs, they need to be soaked in salt water first, allowing the crabs to spit out the sand from their bellies. Then, they can be put into the oil pot. Moreover, eating only crabs is not very filling, unless you eat a lot of them. At that time, he and Xiao Yang... Xiao Lie shook his head at this thought, still missing the past.

  Two brothers poured nearly a pound of vegetable oil, then recklessly put the crabs into the pot. The crabs, which had water on their bodies, jumped around violently in the high-temperature oil pan. When the water met the oil, it quickly exploded, splashing the two brothers, who were wearing short sleeves, with hot oil on their skin. The burning sensation caused them to run away immediately.

  Fortunately, Li's father was not at home. If he had seen the two brothers putting a catty of oil in the pot to fry crabs like a pair of prodigal sons, he would have skinned them alive. In some mountain villages in Jianmen County in the 1990s, a catty of vegetable oil was very expensive. Ordinary families only extracted five catties of oil at a time, which could be eaten for several months.

  The ancients told us that the longer a person is suppressed, the more severe the backlash will be. When Father was at home, the two brothers had no chance of playing, let alone being free and easy to do whatever they wanted. When Li father was not at home, the two brothers felt like fish flying in the sky. In the first three days, the two brothers still thought that their father would come back at any time, but after three days passed, Li father had no news, and the two brothers didn't feel that there was anything wrong with it. Fortunately, they had been able to do household chores since childhood, so the things at home were not affected by Father's absence, and the room was still clean and tidy.

  When the crab in the pot finally turned golden, Li Yang used a spoon to scoop them up one by one and put them on a plate. The crabs that had just been placed on the plate were steaming hot. Under the white light bulb, the two brothers sat at the small table, staring at the crabs on the plate with wide eyes. It wasn't until about the third minute that the crabs weren't so scalding hot. During this time, Li Lie and Li Yang couldn't help but reach out more than five times.

  Ah!

  Li Yang picked up a crab and started biting into the largest leg, although the outer shell was very hard, but after being fried, it became crunchy.

  "Mm." Li Yang nodded vaguely at Li Lie while eating.

  Li Lie saw his brother like that, and immediately picked up the crab from the plate and started eating. Soon the two brothers found out that except for eight legs, there was only sand inside the crab shell, and they couldn't eat a single bite.

  Finally, the eighteen crabs had their legs completely gnawed off by the two brothers, and the remaining ones were thrown into the pig food bucket. The two big fat pigs, however, enjoyed gnawing on them very much.

  Just as the two brothers had finished cleaning up, the power went out. In the darkness, Li Yang skillfully found a kerosene lamp and lit it. Under the dim light, Li Yang and Li Lie felt a chill for the first time. Li Yang suddenly realized that there were only him and his brother left at home now. Their mother had been taken back by their grandmother and uncle, and they hadn't even seen her face, only knowing that she was still alive, nothing more.

  "Brother, I'm hungry," said Li Lie. Those few crab legs were not enough to fill the two brothers' bellies. Before long, Li Lie felt hungry again.

  Li Yang put Li Lie's hand in his palm and looked at the homework under the oil lamp. He didn't have the mood to continue writing his homework.