书城外语阿米!走步!
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第36章 核!合!和!(22)

33.Why did Huang,who had been wild like an animal,become weak all of a sudden?It was the whistle.Some people knew Cai has kept such a whistle on him,but seldom saw him blowing it.Huang,however,knew well that once Cai blew it,he meant to risk his life.He remembered clearly Cai had done this at least three times.Many years ago,a gang of thieves stole some lumbers of the village and hurt the forester.When Cai heard about this,he all alone pursued the thieves that were escaping on a truck.When he caught up with their vehicle,he threw himself in front of it.Giving a forceful blow to the whistle,he lifted a heavy rock with his angry eyes staring at the thieves.They were frightened by the desperate Cai and finally surrendered to him.Other villagers came and caught them and the lumbers and truck were confiscated.Later Cai blew his whistle when he tried to save the village.When floods broke the dike and poured into the village.Many residents ran away out of fear.Cai blew his whistle and tossed himself into the gap,trying to stop the water from inundating the village.Encouraged by his courage,other villagers jumped into the water and formed a great wall by joining hands together.All the residents,both old and young,collaborated to fill the gap.The village was safe now,but cai fell gravely ill for six months.The third time Cai blew his whistle was when he was rescuing two migrant farmer workers who were entrapped in a gas accident occurring in a tunnel under construction as a part of a water project.No one dared to enter the tunnel to help the victims.In the niche of time,Cai gave a blow to his whistle and rushed into the tunnel and came back with a worker under his arm and the other dragged in his hand.When he reached the exit,Cai fell down in a faint.He saved two lives."I will blow the whistle in the niche of time.I blow it as hard as I can.And I will risk my life for the right thing.A man must do something to distinguish himself." Cai often claims.No wonder that Huang Manfu was extremely scared when he heard the whistle ringing loudly that morning in the market.

34.Looking at the scared Huang,Cai burst into laughter.Huang,who looked rather depressed,sat up with the aid of his apprentice.Hearing Cai's laughter,however,he became audacious again.Making two steps forward,breathing a deep breath and staring at Huang with his arms akimbo,he declared,"Who do you think you are intimidating?I am not afraid of you blowing your whistle and risking your life.Blow to a coward instead of me.You are so good at blowing.Blow,blow,blow.You might as well blow the air.Can you blow the dead pig alive?Can you blow the market into your house?Can you blow the buildings here in town to our village?Can you blow the old houses in our village into new apartments?" Huang was so outraged that he just spit out whatever came to his lips.

35.Cai,who had won a complete victory,was now very generous to the loser.He got down from the motor tricycle and took Huang by the hand.It was a gentle hold,but Huang failed to free himself from it.Cai whispered to his ears,"I have been thinking about building new houses for the villagers.So we have the same plan.As they say,we are hung together,aren't we?Can you figure out what troubles me?No?Try again.No?You are slow-minded.To tell the truth,pulling down the old shabby houses and walls is a big headache to me." When he finished,he turned and jumped onto the motor tricycle,shouting,"Go!",and disappeared like wind.

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36.It was still early when Cai got back home on May,12,so he went into the kitchen to make some food.He prepared four eggs and some noodles for his grandson,Xiwa.Then he boiled some water.When he finished everything,he sat down to sip some tea from first-class Longjing while listening to the school bells.As Cai drank the tea,he commented repeatedly: "Good tea,good tea." The tea was produced in Wenxian County,Gansu province as a new breed developed by the science academy where his son worked.Planted in the fertile soil of the mountains where plant diseases and insect pests are seldom seen due to the cold weather,the tea trees are free from fertilizers and pesticides.So the tea is a pure natural produce.The school bell rang for dismissal and the campus was in a hubbub immediately.Cai put down his tea and went into the kitchen to cook the noodles.Since all the others in the family went out to work,nobody cooked for Cai and he had to learn cooking himself.As he was putting the noodles into the boiling water,he picked a marinated pig ear from the pot with chopsticks.While slicing the ear,he said to himself,"Marinated pig ears and eggs and noodles in bittern make such a delicious meal!You can't even imagine how wonderful it is!" A small thing climbed up onto his back,threw its chubby arms around his neck and covered his eyes with two small hands from behind.Cai knew by intuition that it was his grandson,Xiwa.Without turning back,he said: "Get down,get down.I am cooking noodles for you." Xiwa got down quickly to the ground and clapped his hands,"I like noodles,I like noodles.I like noodles you cook,grandpa.Make five bowls,grandpa." "Why five helpings?Can you eat them all?" Before he finished his words,he heard several children greeting him in union,"Good afternoon,Mr.Cai." Then all of them said at sixes and sevens: "Make more." "Eight helpings." "One for each isn't enough." "One is OK for me.How about you?"