litchi
Author: Xiao Fuxing
Read aloud: Meng Ying
I first ate lychees when I was 28 years old. It was more than ten years ago, when I just returned to Beijing from the Great Northern Wilderness, I only had a lonely mother at home. Standing in front of the litchi stand, I can't move my feet. At that time, this kind of southern fruit was rarely seen in Beijing. Once the season was over, you could not buy it again. Think about living to be 28 years old and never tasting lychee. Think about the person whose mother is nearly 70 years old and has never eaten lychee! Although a catty is expensive and worth several yuan, I still bite my teeth and pay for a catty. At that time, I just got a job as a middle school teacher in the suburbs, and I had a salary of 42 yuan and a half that month in my pocket. I want my mother to taste something new. She will be happy.
When I got home, before I could take out the lychees from my schoolbag, my mother first brought out a plate of sand fruits. This is a kind of small fruit that is not much bigger than crabapple. Each of them has scars, and some of them have rotten skin, but the mother gouged out the scars one by one and washed them clean. Each mango is crystal clear, stained with crystal beads, and the red lines on the peel are particularly clear. I don't know how many times the old man washed it before it became like this. I know that this must be the processed fruit bought by my mother. The maximum amount of fruit per kilogram is 5 cents or 10 cents. Living at home, the old man has been here all his life. Somehow, I didn't dare to take out the lychees for fear that my mother would scold me for being extravagant. After all, this was the most expensive thing I bought that year.
I took a mango and put it into my mouth. I repeatedly said it was delicious, and asked how much it cost per kilogram knowingly. Then I kept saying it was really cheap. In fact, my mother knew that I was just comforting her, but this trick still made her happy every time. While she was happy, I took out the lychee and said, "Mom, I bought something good for you today." When my mother saw the lychee, her face immediately sank: "What's the matter with you rich man? Such an expensive thing, you......" I interrupted my mother, "I don't want us to taste such an expensive thing, Then cut the litchi skin with the little thumbnail cover, carefully peel the skin without letting it fall off. Holding the litchi in the palm of your hand, like a chicken just pecked the eggshell, you looked at it lovingly and couldn't bear to swallow it, and kept saying to me, "How do you think it grows? Why is there such white meat in the red skin?" After all, it was the first time to eat it, and it was delicious after all! The mother was as happy as a child.
That night, a teacher happened to be visiting my house with several students. It was strange to look at these two plates of fruit on the table. Also, a plate of sand fruits is scarred, and a plate of litchi is exquisitely carved, with too sharp contrast. To tell the truth, pride and vanity go hand in hand. I feel like a plate of ugly duckling like sand fruit. I really want to conjure it away at once. Mother brought the tea, smiled and walked away with the sargasso, so carelessly, and then turned to the guest and said, "Taste the litchi!" It was so natural and appropriate.
Mother likes to eat lychees, but she hates to eat them. She always gives me big lychees. Every summer, no matter how expensive the litchi is, I will always buy one or two jin to let my mother taste it. Litchi became my family's annual reserved program until my mother died three years ago.
It was summer before my mother died, just in time for litchi to come into the market. I bought a lot of fresh lychees. The skin is thin and the core is small. When the bright red skin is peeled off, the white and bluish flesh is covered with a layer of thin drops of water, as if I had traveled a long way, and I was tired with sweaty little faces. Yes, they ran for a whole year before they met us again. I am comforted that my mother ate the litchi with water spirit the day before she died. I always think it is fate and the reward for her kindness and loyalty. If the litchi comes on the market a few days later and I buy it a few days later, what a pity it would be, and how much pain I will have that I cannot make up for.
In fact, I was wrong. Since the family has added a grandson, the mother has given part of her love to her son. I ignored the existence of the greedy cat beside me. He didn't have to endure until he was 28 years old to taste lychees. He didn't know what was precious and what was reluctant. He just opened his mouth when he wanted to eat. My mother died a long time ago, I learned that my mother was reluctant to eat a lychee before she died, and gave it to her beloved little grandson, who was too greedy to eat.
Today, lychees are still in full bloom.
(e employees of CRCC)
