他跟着后来名满天下的传奇英雄余占鳌司令的队伍去胶平公路伏击敌人的汽车队。
THE NINTH DAY of the eighth lunar month, 1939.
My father, a bandit's offspring who had passed his fifteenth birthday, was joining the forces of Commander Yu Zhan'ao, a man destined to become a legendary hero, to ambush a Japanese convoy on the Jiao-Ping highway.
奶奶披着夹袄，送他们到村头。
Grandma, a padded jacket over her shoulders, saw them to the edge of the village.
余司令说：“立住吧。”
'Stop here,' Commander Yu ordered her.
奶奶就立住了。
She stopped.
奶奶对我父亲说：“豆官，听你干爹的话。”
'Douguan, mind your foster-dad,' she told my father.
父亲没吱声，他看着奶奶高大的身躯，嗅着从奶奶的夹袄里散出的热烘烘的香味，突然感到凉气逼人。
The sight of her large frame and the warm fragrance of her lined jacket chilled him.
他打了一个战，肚子咕噜噜响一阵。
He shivered.
His stomach growled.
余司令拍了一下父亲的头，说：“走，干儿。”
Commander Yu patted him on the head and said, 'Let's go, foster-son.'
天地混沌，景物影影绰绰，队伍的杂沓脚步声已响出很远。
Heaven and earth were in turmoil, the view was blurred.
By then the soldiers' muffled footsteps had moved far down the road.
父亲眼前挂着蓝白色的雾幔，挡住了他的视线，只闻队伍脚步声，不见队伍形和影。
Father could still hear them, but a curtain of blue mist obscured the men themselves.
父亲紧紧扯住余司令的衣角，双腿快速挪动。
Gripping tightly to Commander Yu's coat, he nearly flew down the path on churning legs.
奶奶像岸愈离愈远，雾像海水愈近愈汹涌，父亲抓住余司令，就像抓住一条船舷。
Grandma receded like a distant shore as the approaching sea of mist grew more tempestuous; holding on to Commander Yu was like clinging to the railing of a boat.
父亲就这样奔向了耸立在故乡通红的高粱地里属于他的那块无字的青石墓碑。
That was how Father rushed towards the uncarved granite marker that would rise above his grave in the bright-red sorghum fields of his hometown.
他的坟头上已经枯草瑟瑟，曾经有一个光屁股的男孩牵着一只雪白的山羊来到这里，山羊不紧不慢地啃着坟头上的草，男孩站在墓碑上，怒气冲冲地撒上一泡尿，然后放声高唱：高粱红了——日本来了——同胞们准备好——开枪开炮——
A bare-assed little boy once led a white billy goat up to the weed-covered grave, and as it grazed in unhurried contentment, the boy pissed furiously on the grave and sang out: 'The sorghum is red – the Japanese are coming – compatriots, get ready – fire your rifles and cannons –'
有人说这个放羊的男孩就是我，我不知道是不是我。
Someone said that the little goatherd was me, but I don't know.
我曾对高密东北乡极端热爱，曾经对高密东北乡极端仇恨，长大后努力学习马克思主义，我终于悟到：高密东北乡无疑是地球上最美丽最丑陋、最超脱最世俗、最圣洁最龌龊、最英雄好汉最王八蛋、最能喝酒最能爱的地方。
I had learned to love Northeast Gaomi Township with all my heart, and to hate it with unbridled fury.
I didn't realise until I'd grown up that Northeast Gaomi Township is easily the most beautiful and most repulsive, most unusual and most common, most sacred and most corrupt, most heroic and most bastardly, hardest-drinking and hardest-loving place in the world.
生存在这块土地上的我的父老乡亲们，喜食高粱，每年都大量种植。
The people of my father's generation who lived there ate sorghum out of preference, planting as much of it as they could.
八月深秋，无边无际的高粱红成洸洋的血海，高粱高密辉煌，高粱凄婉可人，高粱爱情激荡。
In late autumn, during the eighth lunar month, vast stretches of red sorghum shimmered like a sea of blood.
Tall and dense, it reeked of glory; cold and graceful, it promised enchantment; passionate and loving, it was tumultuous.
秋风苍凉，阳光很旺，瓦蓝的天上游荡着一朵朵丰满的白云，高粱上滑动着一朵朵丰满白云的紫红色影子。
The autumn winds are cold and bleak, the sun's rays intense.
White clouds, full and round, float in the tile-blue sky, casting full round purple shadows onto the sorghum fields below.
一队队暗红色的人在高粱棵子里穿梭拉网，几十年如一日。
Over decades that seem but a moment in time, lines of scarlet figures shuttled among the sorghum stalks to weave a vast human tapestry.
他们杀人越货，精忠报国，他们演出过一幕幕英勇悲壮的舞剧，使我们这些活着的不肖子孙相形见绌，在进步的同时，我真切地感到种的退化。
They killed, they looted, and they defended their country in a valiant, stirring ballet that makes us unfilial descendants who now occupy the land pale by comparison.
Surrounded by progress, I feel a nagging sense of our species' regression.
出村之后，队伍在一条狭窄的土路上行进，人的脚步声中夹着路边碎草的窸窣声响。
After leaving the village, the troops marched down a narrow dirt path, the tramping of their feet merging with the rustling of weeds.
雾奇浓，活泼多变。
The heavy mist was strangely animated, kaleidoscopic.
我父亲的脸上，无数密集的小水点凝成大颗粒的水珠，他的一撮头发，粘在头皮上。
Tiny droplets of water pooled into large drops on Father's face, clumps of hair stuck to his forehead.