As the snow clears, the sun is warm, and the originally bitter northwest wind has calmed down much. In the canal beside us, there are large wooden boats with white sails and small steamers with black smoke, shuttles and bustling back and forth.

Because we brought a lot of luggage, from Xiawuwa to the county town, it was more than 100 miles along the canal Dayan. My father and I took each other to walk and stop and stop, jingling the car bells all the way, and it took us until noon before we arrived at the county town panting.

The Grand Canal winds from north to south, and suddenly makes a sharp turn east after passing south of Shandong. After walking dozens of kilometers, it enters Wolong Lake, and then heads south to the Yangtze River. The county we are going to is at this turn. This is a thousand-year-old ancient city, standing on the north bank of the canal, and was once the main battlefield of the Chu-Han War and the Three Kingdoms period. There have been several capable ministers and generals who have the biography and biographies in "Records of the Grand Historian". They are still familiar with the main supporting roles in various dramas, novels, and film and television literature.

The county town originally had a thick old city wall. Although it had experienced wars, earthquakes, and floods, it had been changing over time and was repeatedly destroyed and built over the years. It was not until 1958 that the old city bricks, which were full of vicissitudes of a century of storms, turned into small blast furnaces with black smoke, leaving only a solemn colored and mottled old south gate, and was still alone beside the canal weir, telling the suffering and glory of the past.

My father took me down the canal dam, passed through the ancient south city gate, and went up a north-south street, panting and slowing down the speed of the car. The entire county town was not big, and it was cut into four areas from two main streets, east-west, south-west, north-west, north-west roads were called Heping Road, and east-west roads were called Renmin Road. The two roads intersected at the center of the city. At the intersection of the intersection, an ancient Ming bell tower stood. I heard that pieces of blue bricks were made of glutinous rice paste and were extremely hard. I also wanted to demolish it when the steelmaking year was made, but the county's agency staff smashed it for two days and could not make a few bricks. In the end, they could only look at the tower and sighed and gave up in despair. On the top of the ancient bell tower, there was an imperial plaque of Emperor Qianlong. I still couldn't recognize the four big words on it.

My father took me to the intersection, which is the most prosperous and lively place in the county. Around the ancient bell tower are department stores, Xinhua Bookstore, Cultural Center, People's Theater and "Red Guard" Hotel. Because the first month has not yet begun, the New Year atmosphere is still there. On the streets we passed, men are full of alcohol and staggering, women on both sides of the road are eating melon seeds, chatting and chatting, naughty children are running around, igniting the last firecrackers in their pockets, and the "crackling" sounds disturbing pedestrians, and colorful paper confetti are flying around in the wind.

My father rode the "big golden deer" and circled the ancient bell tower for half a circle. I saw that some grass buds grew in the cracks of several bricks that were destroyed in the south. Unexpectedly, these seemingly weak things were so hard that they showed off their tenacious life before the winter cold ended.

We walked around the ancient bell tower, turned onto the spacious Renmin Road, and rode west for about ten minutes. A tall blue brick gatehouse appeared at the end of the road. A dull sound of machine came from it. My father turned his face and breathed a sigh of relief, pointed at the front and said to me, "Our schief mill has arrived."

The yarn mill I came to take over was the largest industrial enterprise in our county and even in the region at that time. Its full name was "XX Provincial Local State-owned XX County Textile Factory". The yarn mill was just the common name given by people in the county at that time.

The cotton mill has nearly 3,000 employees of all kinds. Because of its good welfare benefits, the cotton mill employees all walk on the streets with their chests and heads raised and full of pride. Among the more than 3,000 people, most of them were female workers, so it became the target coveted by the young people around them. Being able to work in the cotton mill became a dream for young people in the county at that time.

As for why this large-scale local state-owned enterprise was built in our remote Huaibei town, there is also a legendary story here, which has a direct relationship with my family. I will explain it in detail in the following story.

The yarn mill is located at the westmost point of the county town, next to the old moat. The main road of Renmin Road in the east and west is divided into two halves. The blue brick wall on the south side of the road is the production area, and the large yard surrounded by red bricks on the north side of the road is the living area. Like all state-owned enterprises at that time, the yarn mill is also a small society, with its own kindergarten, small hospital, cinema, bathroom, barber shop, etc.

My father took me out of the car in front of the living area of ​​the cotton mill. While walking in, my father greeted the acquaintance I met on the way.

"Master Wu, we're back for the holiday." Several young female workers smiled brightly at their father.

"I'm back, you're back too." Dad nodded and smiled.

"Old Wu, I heard that you have retired. Who will control the electricity in our living area in the future?" A man stopped us in a muffled voice.

"If you love, I will not care about whoever you love." Dad raised his face proudly and responded casually.

"Master Wu, I heard you are retired? Oh... Is this your son? He is thin and tender, with beautiful eyebrows and eyes. He is so handsome. Be my godson." A middle-aged woman shouted exaggeratedly, reaching out with one hand to touch my face.

"Don't be slutty everywhere. He's still a child. What are you doing?" I was so scared that I stepped back. My father stood in front of me, blocking the woman's soft white hand.

My father took me to continue walking inside. Seeing my father's melancholy face relaxed, and knew that his mood was beginning to improve, the heart I held along the way also relaxed a little.

My mother and I have been to the living area twice. After staying for a few days, when I passed by the cinema in the factory, I saw a bunch of colorful posters at the door, and my eyes turned a little green. You should know that it was definitely a luxury to be able to watch movies in the countryside at that time. The countryside film team toured once a year and a half, which was the eight model operas, "The Battle of the South and the North", "Mine War", "Tunnel War" and "The Third Battle" and other films. Every line we are familiar with can be recited.

While following my father, I was thinking about it. After passing two dormitory buildings with the "Flag of Ten Thousand Nations" and passing through more than ten rows of messy bungalows, we came to the end of the living area. This was a depression with messy trees, which was formed by soil extraction from the infrastructure of the cotton mill. There was a lot of water between the trees all year round, with a red brick path in the middle, and dark green moss on both sides of the road. The path leads to a small courtyard in the north. It is the guesthouse of our cotton mill. My father lives here now.

I followed my father carefully across the red brick road and came to the small iron gate of the guesthouse yard. My father handed the "big golden deer" to me, took out a bunch of keys on my waist, and opened the hidden lock on the door with a thunderous sound.

When I came to the city with my mother, I lived in this guesthouse. I knew that outside the wall behind was the farmland of Chengguan Commune. There was a small iron gate locked all year round on the wall, which was opened every summer and autumn every year during busy farming. It was to let Chengguan Commune pull all the electricity from here for the lighting of the threshing farm and the operation of the threshing machine. This tradition is said to be available when the factory was built, and it was to "consolidate the Federation of Workers and Peasants" and "industrial support for agriculture".

The courtyard was quiet, full of paper scraps and garbage, showing that there were still laughter and people vocals not long ago. The sound of my father unlocking a lock disturbed a group of playful sparrows. They jumped up in the air and flew up to the twisted branches of a ginkgo tree. Behind the tree was a single-sided two-story building with a corridor, similar to the one-sided teaching building we commonly use today. The mottled blue bricks marked the characteristics of its era.

My father closed the iron gate and took me around the front yard and came to a red brick cottage behind the small building. This was the distribution room in the living area. When my father transferred from the workshop to work as an electrician in the living area five years ago, he privately used waste bricks to divide the distribution room into two, and the second half still had a distribution cabinet, and the first half was used as a dormitory. The distribution room was not big at first, but now the space was divided into two, so it became very cramped. After putting a single bed, he could only place a three-drawer table and a bench.

My father asked me to take my luggage off the "Big Golden Deer". After entering the house, I carried a broken steel pot and went to the water table in the front yard to fetch water. When I cleaned up everything, he turned back with a pot of water. After entering the house, he pulled out a large electric stove under the table and pushed up a knife nailed on the wall. The electric stove wire emitted a purple-red light in the "Beebobobo". The kettle on it was placed on it immediately moaned and whispered.

My father fluttered the floating soil all the way through his body, glanced at the sunshine outside the door with his eyes: "The water will boil later, let's eat something first, cushion your stomach, and hurry to the bathroom. After this New Year, big and small things will continue, and my body will be rotten."

"What is the bathroom?" I asked in confusion when I heard this term for the first time.

"Grandma, I don't know." A wry smile appeared on my father's face, "The bathroom is the bathhouse. From now on, I can take a shower every day when I go to work in the factory."

At that time, in rural Huaibei, it was definitely a luxury to be able to take a hot bath in winter. Because the firewood in the countryside is precious and cooking is not enough, who would be willing to use it to boil water and take a bath? In the afternoon of winter, a large group of men squatted under the walls of the old house, basking in the sun and chatting, while turning over their waists of their pants, pinching lice with "click", is the most common scenery in winter.
Chapter completed!