"Stand, Knife"

The small station outside the town was her favorite place to go when she was young, and the sound of the train whistle would make her inexplicably excited. Where will that railroad track bend and bend straight? She always thought that the long, spitting dragon, coming from the sky and going up to the sky, could take her to the kingdom of happiness.
In September of 1931, she was thirteen years old, her eyes were like stars, her lips were like cinnabar, and she smiled sweetly and there were two small dimples, two dark twists hanging on her chest, scattered with a touch. A touch of sweet-scented osmanthus. She was a pretty and lovely girl.
Abba left with a spear and a knife.
Grandma bit her lip and cried bitterly.
She pulled the hem of Abba's clothes, her face flushed red, and she asked anxiously, Abba, are you coming back?
Abba touched her head, and only said a word, girl, remember, kill the devil and guard the country!
This time, Abba never came back.
The devil is here, and she has never been to the small station again.
The grandmother picked up the big scissors for cutting cloth, and squeezed her hair fiercely while crying fiercely.
She cried, grandma, grandma, don't twist my hair.
Grandma hugged her, her coat was soaked with tears. Grandma said, girl, don't blame her for being cruel.
Grandma's scissors fell on her face mercilessly, and she let out a stern cry, painful and blinded by blood.
The devil took Ama away, but left her aside and asked her to carry water and wash the clothes.
She saw her appearance from the water basin, screamed crazy, that was not her, it was a monster with no hair and scars on her face.
She knocked over the basin of water, limp and shivering in the cold water.
She missed her dad and grandma, but she didn't know where they were all.
Since then, she has never spoken again.
The devil thought she was crazy, and he didn't take her to heart. After a long time, he was relieved to let her deliver food and food.
As a result, she was finally able to go to the small station outside the town to deliver three meals to the guard there.
The station is small and there is only one guard. He is a small Japanese man. He loves to laugh, but he always laughs bitterly, which is very ugly.
The Japanese soldier has a small fruit knife with a wooden handle. He always likes to take it out and play with it and watch it as it is.
When sending fruit, the Japanese soldiers would often take out the knife and think about it, then carefully retract it and put it away, rubbing the fruit into his mouth.
The more times, she would stare at the knife curiously, she guessed, it should be a baby.
When he saw her sight, the Japanese soldier smiled ugly and asked her in blunt Chinese, do you like this?
She immediately turned her face away silently, as if she hadn't heard any sound.
As the train went back and forth, she always squatted by the rails, listening to the rumbling of the wheels rubbing against the rails, one after another, it seemed that there was a hammer in her heart.
Sometimes, she even imagined that one day Abba would kill her and grandma with an army of troops and horses from the train.
She had been looking forward to it, eagerly, until one day, she saw her grandmother being carried out by the devil and thrown on the grave in the desert. She knew that it was grandma, although she only glanced at it vaguely from a distance, although grandma was completely different, she knew it.
She stubbornly carried the bamboo basket containing the food, and walked stubbornly to the station.
The train roared past her side, and her patchy and oily cloth coat could not stop the pervasive cold wind. She swayed like a dead leaf in the wind, and the cold broke her heart.
She suddenly rushed forward frantically, grabbed the Japanese guard by the hair, beat him with all her strength, wishing to bite off his flesh.
She babbled wildly, without any doubt, like the scream of a wild beast.
The Japanese soldier showed fear in his eyes, and he slammed his gun at her.
She froze, then squatted down tremblingly, curled up in the corner, holding Number One and crying.
There was no gunshot.
She cried for a long, long time, until she ran out of tears. She raised her red and swollen eyes and saw the Japanese soldier standing aside silently looking at her, holding a white pear in her hand, which was peeled.
He handed Pear to her and said nothing.
She waved her hand angrily, turned and ran.
She thought she was going to die too. She beat the Japanese soldiers. He would definitely sue her. The devil would not spare her. She has been anxiously waiting for her death, thinking about all the torture and punishment she can think of.
But she survived, as if nothing had happened. She was still called to do miscellaneous tasks and deliver food to the Japanese soldiers.
When the Japanese soldier saw her, he still smiled ugly, his mouth grinned, his eyes and nose squeezed into a ball. He cut her a pear again.
This time, she didn't wave his hand again.
Your eyes, like my sister, are beautiful. The Japanese soldiers said in a row.
She glanced at him, holding the pear and ran to the railroad track and squatted.
Pears are juicy and sweet. She was crying again. She knew that she was not pretty, she was an ugly scarred face.
She and the Japanese soldiers gradually became estranged. The Japanese soldier always used blunt Chinese to talk to her about his hometown in Japan and his sister. At this time, he would take out the fruit knife and caress it carefully.
She saw some crooked marks on the handle of the knife, like words, but she couldn't understand it.
Every day when we deliver food, we have to pass through the streets and alleys in the town. People avoid her. The children smash her with stones, sing songs, and call her ugly, thieves, traitors, and bitches. Then soon there will be adults. Pull the children away one by one.
She lowered her head and silently endured it. She always walks in a hurry, as if going to catch a train. In her heart, she read the six words left by Abba, killing devils and protecting the country. She didn't want to be friends with the Japanese, but she was bitterly greedy for the quiet and peaceful sky on the side of the small station.
She fled in the shadow of contradictions and self-blame, and survived for more than ten years.
Finally, one summer, the number of trains at the small station suddenly increased, and there were frequent trips, and the devils left in batches and never returned.
The eyes of the Japanese soldiers flashed with complicated light, like joy but sadness.
He has learned Chinese a long time ago and speaks as fluent as an authentic Chinese. He said, there is going to be a truce, and I am going home.
Her eyes trembled slightly, and there was no sound.
He took out the fruit knife with a wooden handle. The blade had long been rusty and could no longer be used to cut pears, but the tip of the blade was still sharp.
He handed the knife to her and said, "You can run away. You can run to the Eighth Road. If you don't need you here, you will be killed."
Hearing the word killing, her hand shook involuntarily.
The nicks on the handle have been blurred for so many years. She stretched out her rough fingers and gently rubbed the twists and turns.
The Japanese soldier smiled ugly again, he said, this is my sister's name, and your eyes are as bright as hers, so I gave it to you.
She finally raised her head. She raised her head upright for the first time for more than ten years.
She looked at the squeezed eyebrows of the Japanese soldiers and grinned. What flashed before her eyes was what she looked like when she was carried to the grave by a devil more than ten years ago, and she also touched her with a big knife. head.
She pierced the fruit knife out, screaming in a weird and vague tone, killing devils and protecting the country, repeatedly, gnashing her teeth until tears burst into her face.
Then, she pushed away the Japanese soldier she stabbed, and ran wildly along the direction of the railroad tracks.
She killed the devil, and she did what Abba confessed, but she cried so much that her legs became weak with fear.
The hot sun slammed her face and back viciously, and the scar left at the age of thirteen throbbed like a new injury. She tripped on her foot and threw herself to the ground.
She lifted her face, and the railroad tracks in front of her stretched out towards the sky, endless.

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