Chapter 206 People Have to Live.

After reading "To Live", Zhang Dehua's emotions could not calm down for a long time.

Because he was well-informed and had witnessed the rapid development of Xiazhou in recent decades, he did not have a broken heart. He just felt that this "To Live" really put all the disasters, poverty, and environmental difficulties in Xiazhou in the past fifty or sixty years on Fugui.

Obviously, the old thief must have this idea.

Throughout the novel, it can be said that God took away a lot of things from Fugui, but the only thing that could not be taken away was Fugui's will to live.

"No sensationalism."

"No deliberate effort."

"But it's really too cruel, this book."

Zhang Dehua looked at the book and was a little dazed for a while.

This book is sad. Although there are occasional warm and relaxing moments, most of the time, a numb and extremely miserable emotion fills the whole book.

This book spares no effort to show how fate destroys people's lives!

And Fugui is the protagonist of this destroyed life.

…

Unlike Zhang Dehua, Liu Lei, as a young man, felt that all his strength was drained after reading this book.

Liu Lei grew up in a favorable environment. Since he was a child, his grandparents always told him not to waste food or save all kinds of old items. Even some empty bottles outside, Liu Lei's grandparents would pick them up.

Whenever he saw his grandparents picking up empty bottles, Liu Lei would frown and go up to argue, saying that times have changed and the family is not short of money.

After all, in this era, even if classmates go out for dinner, they may spend hundreds of dollars, while decades ago, dozens of yuan was a person's monthly salary.

In the past, when his grandparents talked to Liu Lei about the past, Liu Lei would say that the times are developing, but the novel "To Live" truly shows the current situation of the past few decades to the readers.

In the evening, his grandfather went out to play chess, and Liu Lei talked about the past with his grandmother again.

Grandma held Liu Lei's hand and recalled slowly:

"At that time, every family was poor, so I went to Jiangbei to beg for food, door to door."

"You don't know, there were a lot of beggars at that time, unlike now, people would really starve to death at that time."

"The men in the family went to school, and I went to beg for food. I wore rags on my body. The apples I ate during the New Year and other festivals were those half-rotten apples on the street. I dug out the rotten parts and then ate them."

Liu Lei kept silent and had never listened so seriously.

He remembered that the last time, the apples at home were half rotten, and grandma wanted to eat them. Liu Lei argued with grandma angrily.

After all, according to the current view, half-rotten apples must not be eaten. There must be bacteria and metabolites, and even microorganisms will begin to multiply, and even the good parts will not be spared.

The mold can cause mutations in human cells, thus causing cancer.

In this era, apples, rice candies, and sweet potatoes are all unpopular things.

The price of apples in fruit stores is so cheap that it can't be any cheaper.

But according to grandma, when they were young, apples were good things, and they couldn't afford to eat whole apples. They could only eat half-rotten apples.

"Later, when I came here to beg for food, I met your grandfather."

"Your grandfather worked in a factory at the time, earning only 48 yuan a month. He was allocated a house and lived there. His life was hard..."

"There was no air conditioning now. In the hot summer, I fanned your father and your aunt, fanning them all the time..."

"In this way, your father and your aunt had to wait until the second half of the night to fall asleep."

"It was even harder in the winter."

When grandma saw her grandson listening to the story of the past so seriously, her memories kept surging, and she recalled with a smile.

There was no air conditioning, no heater.

In that era, electrical appliances were unimaginable.

Now many people shout in the summer that they will die without air conditioning, but the older generation all went through it this way.

Life was very tight, even tofu, cigarettes and cloth had to be bought with tickets.

There was no need to elaborate on winter. Children from poor families could only wear tattered cotton jackets and sanitary clothes to keep warm. It was considered high-end if they could wear cotton shoes with dry soles.

Winter was much more difficult than summer.

Grandma held Liu Lei's hand and talked for half an hour.

But during this half hour, Liu Lei found that grandma's cheeks were always filled with smiles.

Even though the past days were very difficult, the difficulties were hard for people today to imagine.

Grandma's situation was not an exception. From her grandmother's mouth, there were many people begging for food every day in their village. Liu Lei had not experienced it, but he could still imagine the scene at that time in his mind.

"Grandma..."

"Hey."

"Why did you persist in the past when it was so hard?"

At this moment, Liu Lei's heart suddenly arose a lot of feelings. Liu Lei could not say that he could fully understand the emotions in the story of "To Live", but he had already understood part of it.

People like Fugui were not an exception.

There are tens of thousands of Fugui people on the land of Xiazhou. They all live hard and have lived until this beautiful era.

"Persist?"

"People have to live."

Grandma's words seemed to be the truth.

"There must be hope. In the past, we hoped that your uncle would be successful. The whole family was surrounded by your uncle, but your uncle didn't learn well and was still in prison for a few years."

It can be said that the era of grandparents is a generation that favors boys over girls.

In that era, the concept was like this, and no one thought it was wrong.

It can be said that in the whole family, Liu Lei himself likes girls more than boys.

But grandma still wants to hold grandchildren, and still wants to add a male to the family to carry on the family line.

A person's concept is imperceptible, and decades of concepts cannot be changed at all.

In terms of discussing right and wrong, it is actually not very meaningful. Times are changing, and concepts are also changing.

Grandma looked at Liu Lei and smiled gently:

"Now that life is good, I hope to save a little more money, find you a wife in the future, and see great-grandchildren. This is my biggest wish in this life."

Why do you still have to live when life is so hard?

Why, after experiencing so much suffering, when talking about the past, when recalling the past, grandma can still smile?

…

"People live for the sake of living, not for anything other than living."

This sentence is the point that the author wants to express in the whole book.

In the whole "To Live", what Lao Zei expressed is very simple, to live is to simply want to live.

There is no moral high ground to point out the way, and simply describe Fugui's life. Such a life will be well known to millions of Xiazhou fans in "To Live", but thrown into the crowd, there is no trace of existence.

Because this is the life of many people in that era.

There is no good or evil, no right or wrong, no trace, just like it has never existed, submerged in the historical torrent of the whole year.

At this moment, Liu Lei felt that his grandmother was very similar to Fugui in "To Live", but his grandmother did not have a miserable life like Fugui, but experienced a lot of pain unique to that era.

The original Liu Lei could not understand it, but the appearance of "To Live" suddenly made Liu Lei realize something.

This book allows Liu Lei to share the joys and sorrows with Fugui. When good luck favors Fugui, Liu Lei will smile happily, and when Fugui suffers from bad luck, Liu Lei will be sad.

Tragedies always come one after another, making it difficult to breathe.

This is the era in the past.

…