The woman who feeds the cat on a rainy day and guards the ancestral hall

The weather forecast indicated that there would be rain for the next month, and the whole of May was wet and the rainy season began.

To send Sister Quan home today, remember to buy a barrel of oil to take home. Auntie said that she bought 50 catties of rice and filled a jar, probably enough for half a year. But the oil at home was gone, and she was too lazy to go out to the streets, so she asked us to buy a bucket from a supermarket when we came back from the city, and told us not to use GMOs.

We played the Monopoly game last night. The battle line was long, and Quanmei fell asleep as soon as she touched the pillow. She was really a child. I woke up very early again today, I heard the sound of dice, and I saw her playing games on the balcony, playing with herself, with a serious expression. During breakfast, I asked her what time she got up, and she said it was 6:55. She looked at the time on the phone watch. I told her we were going to my friend's yard to help her feed the cat before going home. There were other lights in her eyes, as if she was more interested in something other than a millionaire, so she began to repeat to me, how her friend Xiaoman picked up a black cat and was talking to her family. Struggling to negotiate, I don't know if I can stay in the end. I raised my eyebrows and told her that there were two cats in the yard waiting for us to feed her. She took the cold medicine faster. I asked if I could touch it. I said of course, if you can.

I didn't expect this sentence to come true. She really couldn't touch the two cats that disappeared without a trace. It's just that I, who never had this wish, was waiting for the last cat to come downstairs to eat. She was squatting and playing with her phone, but when she left, she rubbed the back of her hand, like some kind of cat demon repaying her gratitude. Quanmei was full of envy, but she was always thinking about her friend Xiaoman's black kitten, and wrapped a small handful of cat food in a tissue, ready to take it back to eat.

Somehow, little children's wishes about other lives are always in vain. We stood in the rain with umbrellas and watched Xiaoman come out in pink pajamas, saying that the kitten had been sent away, Quanmei took out a handful of cat food she had caught earlier from her bag and wrapped it well in a tissue , there is still a smile on his face, but his tone is a little regretful. She was as stubborn as designing a game of Monopoly that I couldn't lose. She held an umbrella and turned around alone, trying to feed the puppy that was tied to the door at her aunt's house, which made people laugh and cry.

It was raining all the time, and we were running up and down the alley with flowers in our hands. I specially sent one to my aunt because I met her in the alley yesterday and she promised to answer some of our questions about "mother". But she was not at home, only her daughter who was in middle school was alone. She was surprised to receive the flowers, and solemnly said thank you to us, which made me feel a little embarrassed.

Auntie called us to go to the library. She said in a sly tone that it was raining and wet, and she couldn't go anywhere to play. She asked Quanmei and I to help her guard the library in the afternoon, and she went out to play. And so my story of being a librarian began.

I thought there would be no one in the afternoon, just sitting here painting and playing Monopoly with the kids. Unexpectedly, as soon as my aunt left, someone came to return the book and borrow it. It looked like a middle school student, wearing a pair of glasses, like the "nerd" type who didn't like to talk in school. She brought two volumes of reasoning games and read them all, and was going to borrow the third and fourth volumes. I was not yet familiar with the system of borrowing and returning books, and I was in a hurry. She stood beside me and didn't speak, but she looked very mature. After she left, I couldn't help but wonder what kind of girl she was and what kind of books she read. There are many faces of former classmates flashing in my mind, which is incredible, but they are not related, each has his own destiny.

I thought maybe there would be some more children, or some old people who read newspapers under the porch without borrowing books—once my aunt was about to lock the door to get off work, only to see him put down the newspaper and walk to the door tremblingly. I looked at the ancestral hall behind him, and it felt amazing, like something ancient suddenly came to life. The moment he put down the newspaper, the smoke in the ancestral hall rose, the library disappeared, and the ancestral hall resumed its original function.

It used to be an ancestral hall, but the owner later turned it into a library. As soon as I entered the village, I saw it first. The moon pond in front of the door was refilled in the spring rain, and the little lotus in the pond showed its sharp corners, which made it even more green and translucent in rainy days.

It really rained all day, and some adults came to look for children with umbrellas, but no one came to borrow books. Xiaoman borrowed a piece of letterhead from me with the words "China Social Welfare Education, Science and Culture Center Tianjin Film and Art Company" written on it. object. She found a book for teaching comics on the shelf, and used letterhead to trace the characters she liked in the book. I was really curious about this stack of letterheads, so I searched the Internet for this header name, but found nothing, maybe it was something from many years ago.

This is the renovation of the ancestral hall, the library is very small. There are only three rows of bookshelves in the middle, and another row on each of the three walls, but the variety is quite rich. As soon as you enter the door, you will find the "literature" bookshelf, with rows of Mo Yan, Qian Zhongshu, Feng Jicai, and even Zhang Ailing and Jin Yucheng. But the most conspicuous are the martial arts novels. When I first came here, I noticed that there are three rows of Liang Yusheng's novels. Everyone reads Gu Long and Jin Yong, but they don't think of Liang Yusheng very much. Even if they have read "The Legend of the White-Haired Witch" and "Seven Swords Down the Tianshan Mountains", they don't seem to know Liang Yusheng's name. I haven't read his novels, but I only remember that there is an article on reading comprehension in the high school Chinese paper about Liang Yusheng.

The most amazing thing is that there is a set of "Records of the Kingdoms" on the last row of bookshelves. It is still shocking to see the names of so many countries and regions appearing in front of me, and in this small rural library. It seems that at that moment suddenly crossed time and space, because of curiosity, went to a wider world. This set of books made me see the "ambition" of a small library. It is like a "sea country map" today, a window for the villagers to "open their eyes to see the world".

Behind the door of the borrowing room, there is a handwritten letter by the old curator, "Worry about the country and the people in reading, be loyal and filial", "cooperate with the villagers", it seems that the meaning is more clear. This library does carry some grand wishes. Although children play 4399 games here, borrow comic books, suspense, and mystery novels, and adults read martial arts novels, the literature in the first row and the "Columns" in the last row. Guozhi is still quietly waiting for someone to come. All a book can do is wait, and the only thing a library can do is wait.

The rain was still pouring down, and through the windows, you could see the continuous threads of rain, and even bigger raindrops fell on the trees and eaves. Whenever I stand in the yard and look up at the ancestral hall in the center, I feel that the library has disappeared, and the old atmosphere has risen again, and I am not a librarian, just a woman who is instructed to guard the ancestral hall.