1

My name is Xu Yi. I was born and raised in the mountains. I have been living under a sponsor for as long as I can remember. My primary school stayed at my sister-in-law's house, and my middle school stayed at my uncle's house. My father only came back in the New Year, so I was dissatisfied with him.

My father worked as a "stick-stick" in the city, but I was not out of the mountain at that time, and I stayed in the "Pick the Mountain Man" in the Chinese textbook for the career of "stick-stick".

What I was most concerned about at that time was where did my mother go?

whenever I ask my father, his eyes are red, he crouches on the threshold for a long time without talking, his back is thin and lonely, and he keeps sighing.

I was admitted to the university when I was nineteen years old. I was 1.8 meters tall, with strong arms and a strong figure. During the summer vacation, my uncle said to me, "You have grown up. Go to the city to help your dad. He is trying his best to pay for your college tuition in the city, and he can't bear to eat or wear. Life is very hard."

Uncle's words made my heart sink suddenly. Although my father is away all the year round, he will call me once every half a month. On the phone, he is always in a good mood, saying that he can eat stew once a week and let me buy whatever I should, so don't save money. He is full of energy, can bear hardships and it is not difficult to make money.

I simply packed my clothes and walked out of the mountain for the first time and ran to my father. When I followed my father to his residence, I was completely dumbfounded.

The place where my father lives is only a straight line distance of 3 meters from the city center. Compared with the city center, it is a world of difference. On the one hand, it is a towering modern building, and on the other hand, it is a dilapidated shanty town, which is dark and cramped, and rats are running around on the garbage.

There is only a narrow bed in my father's room, a rope is pulled in the middle of the room, clothes and towels are hung, a three-legged table, and a second-hand DVD player is playing on the table. My father can't read or play cards, so he just watches Liu Sanjie for entertainment in the evening. He says Liu Sanjie is really beautiful.

I have a sore throat and can't say anything. I silently go to the public kitchen to wash rice and cook.

At dinner, my father called his good friend, Lao Tang, who lived across the hall from us, an old man who limped. My father told me that Lao Tang helped him when he had no food to eat. Because his legs were inexplicably swollen and he didn't have the money to go to the hospital for treatment, he confiscated them for three months, and all the rice cookers were sold. When he was hungry, he put them in a small iron basin, and after the water boiled, he ate them.

In the evening, my father drank a whole bottle of the old village head, and the alcohol poured into his brain along the blood. He stumbled and told me about his mother.

"I didn't know your mother until I was 4 years old. At that time, your mother died of her husband and couldn't support three sons. She made a pot of rice with me, and the next year I had you. At that time, I was strict in family planning and was fined a lot. In order to pay off my debts and support my family, I went to the Northeast to dig coal for three years. One day, I suddenly received a telegram and your mother asked me to come back quickly."

My father froze, and tears came out of his eyes. I asked, "Then what?"

My father dried his tears with his hands and said, "Your mother didn't tell me until I got back that a man took good care of her during my absence for three years, and then he gave you to me. Don't hate your mother, son. I didn't want you to plant the seeds of hatred from your care, so I never told you."

that night, I choked for a long time, tears wet my pillow, and my fantasy about my mother was completely shattered.

2

The next morning, I started my first day of "great career" with swollen eyes. My father handed me a great stick as thick as a fist, with a rope as thick as a thumb tied on it. I carefully took it with both hands. My father patted me on the shoulder and took me to siping road.

The junction of siping road and Wuyi Road is a home improvement market, and it is also the base camp where my father has been squatting for 16 years. The entrance of the market is full of sticks, plumbers, painters, bricklayers and plumbers. My father is very popular in siping road, and his peers call him "Xu 3", because when my father was young, a person could lift 3 kilograms of goods.

My father and I didn't get a job this morning, and I was wandering around siping road. I was a little depressed. Before breakfast money was earned, it was time for lunch again. My father bought me a fast food for 7 yuan, and he squatted on the side of the road and chewed two dry steamed buns.

at two o'clock in the afternoon, I finally got a job. The paint shop wanted to send two bags of paint, which was over 1 kilograms and two kilometers away. The reward was only ten yuan. I was gearing up. My father helped me tie the two bags of paint with a rope and helped me stand up carefully before I walked 2 meters. My shoulder muscles had changed from acid and numbness to tingling, and then quickly spread to the whole body. My legs and feet became heavier and heavier, and I began to drift when I walked.

after the delivery, I sat on the ground panting, and sweat rolled down from my forehead. Father received another single job, ten boxes of paint, three hundred catties, and ten dollars. Father made a hard bargain with the boss with gestures, because it was a job for two people, and the boss felt a little sorry for it. Finally, he added five dollars. Father tied up the goods quickly and made two trips back and forth, and quickly delivered the goods.

While wiping his sweat, he said to me, "Son, strength comes from pressure, and there is no tailor-made job ..."

Before my father finished speaking, Nokia's mobile phone rang, and his buddy introduced him to a job. An employer dug a big spoon for cat food and fell into a hole in the toilet. The child was waiting to go to the toilet and took out a spoon and gave him 2 yuan.

Bangbang is the "panacea" of this city. I do everything. My father dragged me to run all the way. I frowned and was full of reluctance. How dirty it is! Arriving at the employer's house, the employer held his head high like a rooster and pointed to the squat pit and said, "This pit is deep, so you have to lie on the ground and put your arm in."

Although my father does rough work, he loves cleanliness, and his clothes are always refreshing. He asked, "Your toilet floor is full of dirty water. Can you give a cardboard pad?"

The employer's face was full of disdain. He snorted from his throat and shook his head indifferently. I couldn't get used to his condescending manner, so I pulled my father up to leave. My father broke away from my hand and stuck his hand on the ground. After reaching into the shit hole and taking out the spoon, the employer held his nose and gave him a bar of soap.

After father washed his hands, the employer locked his eyebrows and stepped back several steps. He gave his father twenty dollars with disgust and asked him to take the soap with him.

I didn't talk to my father in anger at night, and he took care of the dirty work that my peers didn't want to do.

My father didn't take care of my mood. After wandering around the room alone for half a day, his white short sleeves were soaked. His lips pursed and his eyebrows collapsed. He told me that the 1,465 yuan under his pillow was missing and asked me if I had seen it.

I shook my head. My father was silent. He sat down on the ground with his head in his hands and tears streaming from his fingers. He shrugged his shoulders and twitched. He told me that it was his coolie money for more than half a month, so he was stolen by a thief.

3

The next night, my father temporarily arranged for me to deliver a single job and asked me to go home first, but my father didn't come home until eleven o'clock at night. I called my father in a hurry and my father told me that he was waiting for his employer to pay the bill.

I hurried there, and my father squatted at the door of a beauty shop on the side of the road, looking around. He said, "My employer got separated from me, and this is the delivery place. He said he would arrive later, but it's past eleven now."

I advised my father to call the police. My father said, "I'll wait any longer. If I call the police and I can't find anyone, my resources will not be settled."

My father talked to his employer for a reward of 2 yuan. I couldn't persuade him to go home first. My father didn't come home all night. The next morning, I hurried there. My father fell asleep against the door and hugged the two boxes of goods tightly.

until ten o'clock in the morning, the employer finally appeared. At that time, the employer had an accident on the road and was hit by a car. He stayed in the hospital for one night. He was very grateful to his father and gave him one hundred yuan on the spot. After his father accepted it, he gave him sixty yuan. He said that the overcharged twenty yuan was regarded as lost time.

The employer used to be awesome, and he said with emotion, "awesome picked out the new Chongqing with awesome, but it's a pity that the days of shouldering the burden will eventually become a thing of the past."

My father smiled helplessly. Every time he couldn't get a job, he always said that he was unlucky. In fact, he didn't want to admit that the industry was gradually declining. My father forced me to find 6 yuan for my employer, which made me awe. On the way back, my father said to me.

"Son, I know you don't like great things in your heart, but my father doesn't steal or rob, and he makes money by" working hard ".Your tuition fees are all picked out by my shoulders."

I hung my head and began to regret spending 1 yuan on fried chicken chops at school, which gave me more understanding and respect for my father.

At the end of July, the city started to rebuild, and a high fence was built in siping road. The construction time took three months. My father was so worried that he smoked one cigarette after another. The base camp that he had been squatting for 16 years was submerged in the fence, blocking the employer's sight, and his father's baseball friends moved their positions one after another.

My father told me that a stick that doesn't have a fixed site is a wild stick, and every region has a fixed stick called a home stick, which is siping road's "home stick". Employers are also used to finding familiar faces, so it is difficult for foreign wild sticks to integrate into new areas, and local "home sticks" will crowd out, humiliate and even beat "wild sticks".

sure enough, where there are people, there are rivers and lakes.

That night, my father and Lao Tang drank a bottle of Erguotou. When Lao Tang saw that his father had not opened for two days, he took the initiative to pay for the wine and food. Lao Tang was in a daze. He told his father that his son had given him money a few days ago. He went to a big hospital for treatment, and his leg recovered almost. In a few days, he could fight side by side with his father.

my father was in a daze for a moment, and then he looked up and drank the white wine at once, making him grin.

4

My father went to Tianfei Palace Square, which is the largest clothing wholesale market in the local area. Every day, the number of clothes coming in and out is very large. There is an endless stream of vans transporting clothes at the entrance of the square, but the competition is very fierce. It is basically monopolized by local "home sticks", and it is difficult for "wild sticks" to integrate.

At six o'clock in the morning, trucks arrive one after another, and the "home stick" must run after the car. Whoever touches the bottom of the car first will get the job. The gray snakeskin sack for clothes is bigger than the stick, and the stick is facing away from the car. The boss stands in the carriage and throws the goods on the bent back of the stick.

Most of the sticks in Tianfei Palace are shirtless, so they are called "bare-chested". My father is a "wild stick" in Tianfei Palace. Naturally, he dare not compete with the "home stick", so he can only find some scattered guys along the street. For four days in a row, my father and I earned no more than 5 yuan.

When my father came home, his head was dizzy with anxiety. He said to me with a sad face, "Your tuition is still 12 yuan short."

I comforted my father: "Dad, if we can't, we'll go to the construction site in siping road. I think it's hiring!"

My father didn't pick me up, but he still took me to the Tianfei Palace the next day. Perhaps it was lucky. We saw a white van parked illegally on the side of the road, full of goods. My father said, "It should be the first time for the driver to come, so hurry!"

My father and I trotted over and took the job. The employer was also very generous, offering us fifty dollars for sixteen bags of goods. My father hummed a ditty and carried it on the second floor of the market. After carrying the job, the employer gave him a brand-new fifty dollars, but my father was so happy that his teeth were missing.

However, just before I went to the toilet, my father was beaten by the local leader of "Bangbang", nicknamed "Man Zi". When I came back, my father's forehead was bleeding, his eyes were bruised, and he was kneeling on the ground with pain.

I was furious and asked my father where Man Zi was going. My father grabbed me and said, "If you go, just look for a fight. Let's go home."

My father limped home and rested at home for three days. My father said that he always felt dull and numb in his right arm recently, and I wanted to take him to the hospital for examination. He refused to go anyway, saying that this had happened before, but he was tired. He hates hospitals. He fell down the stairs and went to the hospital for a check-up. He spent 1,5 yuan. He didn't hurt his muscles or move his bones. He was very distressed about the 1,5 yuan, all of which were picked out with one load and one load.

I couldn't beat my father, so I had to give up. After my father recovered, Lao Tang's leg recovered. The three of us went to the siping road construction site together. The contractor looked my father and Lao Tang up and down and asked them about their age, physical illness and so on. Finally, he reluctantly accepted him and Lao Tang.

The contractor assigned the three of us the task of digging ditches. My father worked very hard, and he barely kept up with the rhythm on the first day. The contractor looked unhappy and stared at his father's eyes with mist all the time, but he didn't say anything after all.

The next day, except for the gasping sound in his mouth, the rhythm and speed of "shoveling" and "picking" were obviously not as good as those of Lao Tang. The boss settled his father's salary in advance, leaving me and Lao Tang to do heavy manual work for eight hours a day at 15 yuan a day.

This salary is the envy of my father. When I work with Lao Tang, he often stares for a long time with a cigarette in his mouth.

I comforted my father: "I earn 15 yuan a day now, so don't work until school starts, and I can make up the tuition!" "

My father doesn't talk. Although my salary is 15 yuan a day, I don't have a job every day. When it rains, I have to stay at home, and my father has gone out to look for a job. First, he got a job cleaning toilets, and after working for a week, he was fired. The boss said that he didn't mop up the urine around the urinal. My father is nearly 6 years old, and his eyesight is poor, so he can't be so meticulous.

Not content, he went to find a job of putting up billboards, that is, fixing plastic signs such as "manager's office", "finance office", "men's room" and "women's room" on the door with nails. The salary is calculated by the day, and it is 8 yuan a day. My father worked for three days and smiled and said to Lao Tang, "I'd rather do this, earn less money and relax.

Old Tang Xiaoxiao: "You can't eat grapes and say they are sour."

But a week later, my father was fired again. Because of a mistake, he posted the men's toilet on the women's toilet. He didn't talk all night, but kept asking me when the siping road project would be finished and when the fence would be demolished. He said, "My eyes are blurred, my hair is white, my back is hunched, and I have no education. I just want to stay in siping road and be a great family in my life."

I comforted my father soon. My father grinned, and the lines on his forehead were deep enough to kill a fly.

5

My father stayed in the house, eagerly looking forward to the early completion of siping road, and I sweated at the construction site with Lao Tang.

The contractor is very smart. Seeing that I am young, I am afraid that I can't stand the hardships. I leave halfway through my work, and my salary will be paid until the end of the month. I don't care. I only worry about my father who is alone at home. If he doesn't make money for food for a day, he will chew dry and hard steamed bread. Sometimes when I go home, his mouth is oily. He says cunningly that he has eaten stew behind my back.

I don't believe my father is willing.