A lovesickness

I was six years old when I started the first grade at the village elementary school. There was a girl in my class named Wang Lihong, not very tall, like the wheat seedlings in the spring field, very thin look.

Her hair was thin and hard like the water of the Luo River in winter, but she exaggeratedly inserted a big hairpin with glass flowers, like a big boat stubbornly moving forward in a small river ditch. I often looked at Wang Lihong's hairpin in class and froze, always worried that her hairpin would fall off.

In those days, unlike today's classrooms, each person has a desk, we were a group of six people, sharing a bench, and stools from home to bring their own. There were about seven or eight benches from front to back in a class, and Wang Lihong sat in the first group because she was short, and I was in the third group, and could only look at her through the heads of Li Weiguo, Zhao Hongjuan, and Zhang Hongli.

I often wondered if the textbook was printed wrongly when I was reading the sentence "Spring is coming" on the bench.

It is not without reason that I am very attentive to Wang Lihong's hair card. At that time, our clothes are often the big brother wears the second brother wears, the second brother wears rotten before our turn; class girls and boys are mostly the same, clothes older sister wears the second sister's wear, and the second sisters wear rotten turn to us. Boys' toys, and girls' jewelry, of course, are very luxurious things.

And my father went to Luoyang, to see a kind of plastic duck toy that will sound, infinite fascination, want, my father said, that is called "dog-like", next time to buy. Want to have a "dog-like" the idea of tormenting me for many years, has not been able to achieve.

Wang Lihong's father was a worker, with a monthly salary of 36 yuan, so Wang Lihong had the most goodies and was the small landlord in our class. She was often surrounded by a lot of "ass-kissers" to help her do this and that, picking up sandbags, picking up shuttlecocks, catching birds in the trees, and touching fish in the river, Li Ma Li gave Wang Lihong six melons to wear Wang Lihong's hair card.

At that time when Wang Lihong sitting next to Xu Jianfeng, Xu Jianfeng somehow often hit Wang Lihong, but Wang Lihong is not angry, only occasionally will lie on the table and cried.

I think Xu Jianfeng is happy, and the most beautiful girl in the class sitting next to each other how happy a thing ah, why still hit her? If I were to sit next to Wang Lihong, not only would I not hit her, I would treat her like a daughter-in-law. It has been my wish for many years to sit next to Wang Lihong, although it has never been realized.

There are a lot of people who befriend Wang Lihong, but I don't. I want to marry Wang Lihong and take her home as my daughter-in-law. Play with me, give me to do my homework, and her toys are of course all mine. If she did not obey, she was told to write her homework 100 times, such thoughts no one knew, I often thought how can I marry Wang Lihong home.

At that time I still slept with my mother, so let Wang Lihong also sleep with her mother, and she must go back to her house every day to bring me the goodies that her father brought back. Marrying a daughter-in-law requires the introduction of a matchmaker, and Xu Jianfeng was willing to be the matchmaker, but the condition was that I had to give him my slingshot.

The slingshot is my brother's, if I give it to Xu Jianfeng, my brother will beat me. Xu Jianfeng was not willing to act as a matchmaker, so the marriage between Wang Lihong and me had to be stopped. I also wanted to invite Wang Lihong to the town to eat sugar cakes, but because my father did not give me money, also became an empty dream. Now that I think about it, the reality is just a high-level return to history, and nowadays it costs money to fall in love, so marriage is always a matter of spending money.

After graduating from junior high school, I went to high school, Wang Lihong took over her father's class and became the envy of the workers. Three years later, I failed the entrance examination and worked in the village construction team. It so happens that to Wang Lihong's house, Wang Lihong returned on Sunday to help, see me sweating, she brought a towel, poured sugar water, and said, others did not put sugar in the water. The water is sweet, my heart is bitter, my childhood daughter-in-law ah, between us is a distance of clouds and mud.

Later, I left home and wandered around, so there was no news of Wang Lihong.

A few years later, I worked as a reporter for a newspaper in my hometown. When I went to a small town on the Luo River to cover the story, I saw Wang Lihong holding her child, and buying vegetables on the dusty 310 National Highway, and the child was crying. Wang Lihong beat the child while bargaining loudly with the vegetable vendor.

The wind lifted Wang Lihong's blue long-sleeved dress, revealing the side of the bra strap child, dirty, can no longer see the initial color.