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Chapter Fourteen Family Portrait (1)

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    Gong Xiaojun woke up from the dream at two o'clock in the afternoon the next day. He didn't remember anything after he drank the bottle of white wine in one go, as if he had just returned home from the detention center.

    After Li Ernuo and Li Dongfang carried Gong Xiaojun home, Li Ernuo stood by Gong Xiaojun's side, watching him snore with his mouth wide open, and listening to him swearing at his mother with his mouth wide open.

    Gong Xiaojun went from sleeping to waking up too late, a carp sat up from the bed, rubbed his sleepy eyes, looked at Li Ernuo, and said, "Go, it's none of your business."

    Of course, Li Ernuo hoped that everything would be left alone. He stayed to take care of Gong Xiaojun, half of which was voluntary and the other half was involuntary.  Gong Xiaojun got drunk in one breath, Li Dongfang and Li Ernuo persuaded him once, but they didn't try to persuade him again. They thought that Gong Xiaojun might be relieved to some extent when he woke up after drinking unconsciously.  Let go of the emotions he can't control.  However, they were worried what would happen if Gong Xiaojun couldn't wake up?  Almost every day in the evening news there are stories of people dying from alcoholism.  Because Li Dongfang was still thinking about Gong Xiaolan at home, he had to ask Li Ernuo, who was single, to take care of him.

    Li Ernuo smiled at Gong Xiaojun inexplicably, and said, "The court sent a summons yesterday, and your divorce will start this afternoon."

    Gong Xiaojun's cerebral blood vessels were throbbing. After shaking his head, he still felt like there were a few stiff earthworms lying on his forehead.  He took a deep breath and said, "Got it, let's go."

    After Li Ernuo left, Gong Xiaojun lay on the bed for a while, he felt that his brain had frozen, like a bowl of overcooked tofu.  He tried hard to roll his dry eyes, trying to recall some details of the past.  divorce?  He said to himself, can I finally get a divorce?

    According to the calculations, it has been more than four months since Gong Xiaojun's wife Liu Yang brought his son Xiao Gongliang back to her natal home, and it has been almost 20 days since he sent the divorce application to his classmate who works in the court.  Now that Gong Xiaojun thinks about it, with this scandal, Liu Yang must be eager to divorce him, and everything will come to fruition.

    Gong Xiaojun finally got up from the bed, brushed his teeth, washed his face, and ate another bowl of instant noodles before picking up the court summons and preparing to go to the Guangming Street Court.  Walking to the door, he suddenly saw a huge portrait of his mother hanging on the right side of the door.

    The portrait is inlaid with a black frame, and a black ribbon hangs down from both sides.  This was used in the farewell ceremony for the mother's body, Gong Xiaojun thought.  Below the portrait is an altar, on which there are offerings, including bananas, apples, a glass of wine, and three sticks of incense.  The fruit has dried up and shriveled, and the incense has burned out, leaving only a pile of soot lying there.  Gong Xiaojun stood in front of his mother's portrait and looked at it for a long time.

    Gong Xiaojun is very familiar with the expression of his mother in this portrait, because it was reproduced from a group photo of a family of four and then developed separately. This group photo is also the only family portrait of the whole family.  To be precise, there are only three people in the photo, father Gong Daren, mother Wu Suzhen, and Gong Xiaojun, because Gong Xiaolan was still in her mother's womb when the photo was taken.

    Gong Xiaojun remembers that when this photo was taken, it was on May 16, 1967, when he was only 8 years old.  In the photo, Gong Xiaojun was crying and laughing, as if someone owed him two taels of money and just paid him back.  His parents were smiling too, but the muscles in their faces were stiff as wax.  The day the photo was taken was my mother's birthday, so my father proposed to go to the Guangming Photo Studio on the street to take a photo as a souvenir to express his congratulations.

    On this day one year ago, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China announced the famous "May 16 Notice". The raging fire of the proletarian "government" ignited in China's 9.6 million square kilometers, and China entered a special period.  .  During this year, the Gong family became well-known in the city because of doing business in the evil old society, and his grandfather committed suicide because he resisted the public-private partnership.  His father, Gong Daren, became the target of his unit, the original Gongji Food Store, which was renamed People's Food Store when it was a public-private partnership, and he was always in fear of any mistakes.

    In the photo studio, Gong Xiaojun sat on his father's left leg and his mother's right leg, his father's left hand and his mother's right hand were wrapped around his waist respectively, like the back of a chair.  Each of them has a badge of Chairman Mao on their chest, and each of them holds a book of quotations from Chairman Mao in their hands. The red badges and quotations make their faces red, covering their faces.  Paleness due to lack of essential nutrients.  Facing the camera, his parents made a smile, but Gong Xiaojun looked unhappy, no matter how the photographer coaxed him, he still had a gloomy face.

    "Hey, little guy, smile." The photographer winked his eyes and nose successively, making a very funny look, and said.

    Only then did the parents realize that their son was unhappy, they turned their faces and asked, "Xiaojun, why don't youHappy?  "

    It doesn't matter if you don't ask, but if you ask, Gong Xiaojun will cry.

    "I won't take photos, you are too selfish." Gong Xiaojun stood up from his seat, tore off the badge of Chairman Mao on his chest, threw it on the ground together with the quotations from Chairman Mao in his hand, and said.

    Gong Xiaojun's parents jumped up from their seats. They were so frightened that they threw themselves on the ground desperately, picked up Chairman Mao's badge and quotations, and held them with both hands on their beating chests.

    The photographer also looked a little terrified, staring and not speaking. All the people who came here to take pictures appeared in front of the camera in this form. In order to prevent the reflection of Chairman Mao or the golden or silver metal head, he designed a set  Fantastic lighting.  This set of lights is composed of dozens of light bulbs, large and small, shining on the subject from different angles, just like the shadowless lamp in the operating room.  However, it was the first time he had seen someone viciously throw two necessary sacred objects to the ground.

    Gong Xiaojun got a fat beating after his parents woke up from the panic. He remembered that his father kicked his butt lightly and hard, and found that he was not crying loudly.  Kicked a second time.  The second kick was heavier than the first kick, but Gong Xiaojun still didn't cry, he just wondered why he accidentally hit a teacup on the ground and broke it. His father kicked him much harder than this time  .  Gong Xiaojun lay on the ground and cried loudly after his mother twisted his buttocks. This was the first time his mother beat him in his memory.

    Gong Xiaojun who burst into tears finally comforted his parents. They turned around and said to the photographer: "Children are not sensible."

    The photographer just smiled again and said, "Yes, I'm not sensible."

    We should thank the photographer who was once an optical engineer, and we should also thank the young Red Guards who pulled him out of the optical research year and criticized him for half a year. They taught him tolerance.

    The photographer picked up Gong Xiaojun who was lying on the ground, wiped his tears, and asked, "Little guy, tell Uncle why you are unhappy."

    Gong Xiaojun is like a poor and lower-middle peasant who has suffered a lot and has a deep hatred. When he saw Chairman Mao, his savior, he hugged the photographer's leg and said, "Their cards are bigger than mine."

    This card is the badge of Chairman Mao on their chests.  Gong Xiaojun's parents, as if waking up from a nightmare, scrambled to take off the big badge on their chest, and wanted to cut it for Gong Xiaojun.  At this time, the photographer waved his hand to Gong Xiaojun and said, "Come here, little guy, uncle has a bigger one."

    The photographer's drawer is full of all kinds of Chairman Mao badges, including plastic ones, aluminum ones, luminous ones, and ceramic ones.

    Gong Xiaojun chose the largest one, which was thirty centimeters in diameter and made of plaster.  After he asked the photographer to cut his chest, he happily walked back to the camera.

    "Let's take a photo." Gong Xiaojun said, puffing out his chest.  (Remember the site URL: www.hlnovel.com
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