Zheng Ge
一
I can never forget the quiet and peaceful village in the shadow of the clear and misty mountains. The tiled houses there are very old, the fields there are very flat, the cattle there are always leisurely, and the sound of birds and bamboo sticks always float far away in the dusk. But every grain of her soil contains bitterness. The hardships and sorrows contained in this peaceful scene have been wiped away by the years. The village is always so peacefully covered by the fallen flowers in the late spring of Jiangnan, and is covered by the melting moonlight and The smell of crops enveloped the place. The dying rainbow shadow on the distant mountains and the intermittent wild songs on the ridge always make people nostalgic and sentimental with a kind of lasting charm.
The hidden water in these years is the dear countryside that I have been dreaming about!
There must be a mountain of mountains running across the entrance of the village. At the foot of the mountain is the blue flowing water that sings softly in the town. There must be very lush and strong evergreen trees growing on the mountain, and there must be small houses with black tiles and white walls. Small ancestral hall. This mountain pass is the feng shui of the village, and it is also a sad place for travelers to leave. She is always associated with the irresistible thoughts of travel and nostalgia, and reminds people of those words about the bright moon and hometown.
A long time ago, I read Mr. Lin Yutang's "My Land and My People" and was surprised by his unique understanding of Chinese pastoral culture. He attributed the novel, supernatural and extraordinary vitality of the Chinese nation to the power of the unity of man and nature: "I would rather live in the wilderness, bask in the sun, watch the afterglow of the sunset, touch the dew of the morning, absorb the hay and moist earth The fragrance..." I don't know whether the reproduction from generation to generation is really intrinsically related to the freshness, openness and vitality of the black land, but I do know that the word "pastoral" plays an important role in my thoughts and emotions. The special meaning in cultural accumulation. In my limited reading of Chinese classical philosophy and poetry, I deeply felt how the attachment to the countryside can firmly integrate people's emotions, wisdom and ideals into a realm of tranquility and peace, thus making People with different traditional cultures are fascinated and moved again and again. If we think this is the power of philosophy and poetry, it is better to say it is the attraction of quiet and beautiful countryside. Pastoral is a magnetic field, and I have been trudging in its gravity all my life. I often think that perhaps only people with inner leisure and tranquility can truly understand the pure pastoral songs. This is undoubtedly a state related to inner emotions. Being attached to the countryside, just like being attached to anything beautiful in this world, requires a very sincere and simple love.
When you enter the village, you will see that the tiled houses and fields are surrounded by green hills. The hidden water of the years is hidden in the mountains. The stories of life and death are like the flowers, plants and trees on the ridges. It always appears or disappears naturally and without any trace. The years are like the wind passing over the treetops, taking away the sighs of life and bringing back new little hopes. Days change in an adagio way, and people and things also change in an adagio way. The crops on the ridges are ripe one after another, the land is turned over again, and the farm tools are like pens in the hands of farmers. , repeatedly carving life, the meaning and details of life into the soil. People, cattle, land and farm tools make up the village scenery, which looks equally heavy in every season. The land seems to be like the deep and surging waves in the depths of the setting sun. The waves are crops and cauliflower, but the blood and sweat sink to the deepest part of the waves. But the village has a strange beauty, not to mention the mirror-like round bamboo hats moving in the paddy field and the motionless egrets, not to mention the gentle rain in the distant mountains where the rapeseed flowers are lined up with golden buds, which is full of sentimentality. As long as you look at the barking firewood from a distance and the leisurely look of the farmers returning from their hoeing under the curling smoke, you will feel a sense of warmth and kindness in your heart.
Standing on the ridge, there is always a feeling of low mood after the vicissitudes of life. The sounds of pots and pans, villagers talking at night, the sound of rivers flowing, and the sound of crops jointing are coming from the smoke-like moonlight, and the old land is humming. At this time, I thought of those people who died of old age many years ago. They were sleeping under the black soil, together with the lonely grass roots and worms. During their lifetime, they nourished the soil with their last drop of sweat. Lush crops extend their dense roots into their bones, bearing fruits that emit their fragrance in the sun. The ancient village has a different history. If there is a village history, there will definitely be records such as: "In a certain year, there was a heavy rain that lasted for more than a month. Flash floods destroyed houses, no fertile farmland remained, and hungry people flooded the fields." "Yun, I saw that all the crops were eaten up in one night, covering a radius of more than ten miles, and there was no harvest." and so on.
The vicissitudes of life, written with a few strokes on paper, have become the past, lost in the wilderness. In the early spring, there is the sound of cuckoo, and there is a mist of rain and a plow in the fields; in autumn, the sickle is waved, and the rice turns into golden waves; in winter, the snow falls on the trees, and there is no one on the ridges, except for the milky white smoke on the tiled houses. No matter what kind of hardships Yinshui has experienced over the years, it has always maintained a tranquil and peaceful scene.
How many years have passed, the people living under the tiled houses not only patiently tend the crops on the ridges, but also hope that one day they can find another way of living and venture into the world outside the village. Therefore, bricklayers and carpenters kept coming out of the village. They carried their simple tools and drifted away to complete another difficult life journey. Women, on the other hand, always complete the migration from one village to another at the cost of their youth. It is their stories that finally connect the villages on all lands into a coherent whole, with the same worries and peace flowing in their veins. and. The village is a part of the land, and the land is a part of life. In the wind and rain, the pastoral scene remains beautiful and quiet.
The moonlight is dim. Those hills, those fields, the haystacks and windmills on the fields were all sleeping peacefully, with only the occasional call of the birds in the trees. At this time, the countryside seemed far away from me. Those endless cottages are in my heart, deep in the years, and in the local accent, just like the rising smoke, which makes people miss them forever.
Whenever I think of Hidden Water, my mind will naturally picture various scenes of small bridges, flowing water, cottages, cattle and sheep, and rolling mountains. My life and soul are so closely connected with this land. I always want to go back to the countryside after coming out of the countryside. No one can express the various tastes of life contained in that deep attachment. . When we are frustrated and wandering, suffering from old age and illness, and when life and death are close, words such as mountains, bright moon, and homesickness always come from far away in the deepest part of our emotions. There is warmth and kindness in regret. I will not forget that the "national style" in the Book of Songs comes from the folk songs and proverbs of the countryside, nor will I ignore the "reclusion" and "rebirth" in the thoughts of Lao and Zhuang. This may be attributed to the attachment to the ideal pastoral life. Fascination with rural areas has such profound philosophical and life implications that we never expected. At this time, I remembered that people living in the city originally came from a certain field, so we always felt a pastoral mood amidst the hustle and bustle. After experiencing all kinds of sorrows, injustices and setbacks in the world outside the countryside, I suddenly remembered that I should go back and put my emotions and thoughts on the fields and the bright moon.
It is of course a very beautiful thing to farm, read, and drink in a field where rice and wheat are green and smoke is lingering. This suddenly reminded me of the simple and natural days in the countryside many years ago. The house is made of mud, the bridge is a stone arch bridge, and it is very exquisite to listen to the sound of the stream; the crisscrossing roads are covered with cow hoof prints, and the fields are filled with the smell of green grass. After often working, put a plate of peanuts, chili sauce, small bacon and a pot of rice wine on the field, and you can indulge in it until midnight. This is the countryside I lived in. When I think of it now, it seems very far away and dreamlike.
Two
The village is very old, no one can accurately tell its age. Walking around the village, you will find that for some time, the animals in the village are slowly getting laid off. You can no longer see the cows. If you occasionally see a dog, it must be an old dog, no matter it is a stranger. It is still close to you, it will not wag its tail at you, nor will it bark "woo woo, woo woo" at you, it will just raise its eyelids, glance at you lazily, and then continue to bask in the sun and cherish it. old. The sun comes up, the sun sets, and no one pays attention to it. There are only a few open-mouthed old men and women left in the village to guard the entrance. They all guard one door and are as nostalgic as an old dog. The plants sensed the end of the village prematurely and began to launch a massive attack. Large expanses of green tiles on the old house began to ripple in the wind, and water began to seep from the roof. The old people were often half asleep, and suddenly found that their quilts were wet, so they had to interrupt their naps and use large and small clothes. The wooden basin touches the sky and falls into the water. The fern spores that had been sleeping on the earth wall for hundreds of years suddenly woke up and pulled out long spikes overnight. The earth wall peeled off layer by layer between their birth and death. There were only a few pedestrians on the earthen road, and the cow-nosed grass began to spread towards the center of the road little by little. Soon, a road that could pull an oxcart turned into a ridge road with wide toeboards.
Few people come in outside the village. Adults and children who have entered the city feel strange as soon as they enter the village. Is this still the lively village before? It seemed that his feet accidentally went to the wrong place, so he ran away without having time to rest his legs. After the old people were buried one by one while watching and nostalgic, no one came into the village again. Everything will be dealt with by time.
An old house that no one lives in will return to the embrace of the earth in about ten years with the joint efforts of plants and animals. In another ten years, the purlins, rafters, and rafters will be decomposed into powdery organic matter. A tile made of soil will probably stay in the wild for a hundred years before it returns to its original shape. Walls made of rammed earth will stand longer, and after hundreds of years, some bulges can still be seen vaguely. But time will slowly remove these bumps and fill in some depressions. In the river of time, any person, thing, or object will return to its original appearance. The village just disappeared, as if it had never existed. In the end, only some broken porcelain or plastic basins were left, floating in the river of time for thousands of years, becoming a deep scar. Hundreds of thousands of years later, a group of people came. They would drill a very deep pit and analyze the landforms layer by layer. They found that there once was a village here, and people at that time had learned to grow grains and raise livestock. , as for what these domestic animals are called, they are not sure yet.
The crops in the fields grow year after year. Sometimes, those dense branches, leaves and tassels will cover the shallow trees near the crop fields to the east of our village at the end of midsummer. Sky. A brand new and dilapidated house gradually disappeared in the middle of the tall corn forest. The foundation of that house was built with stones. Since it was close to the stream, in order to prevent floods, the foundation was more than two or three meters high. It was this high foundation that actually reduced the stability of the house. When this house was first built, it became a dilapidated building and no one dared to live in it.
When I was growing up, my father often told me about his time working outside. He walked on the mountain road, in the canyon, between the cliffs, and in the pine forest, wearing straw sandals that had long been worn away by the stones on the road. He walked to a mountain ridge and buried his head in a spring in a dense chestnut forest, drinking like a cow. After drinking enough mountain spring water, I sat under a rock as big as a room, took out the rice balls that were as cold as stones from the cloth bag, and choked like a tiger or wolf. At home, the time we spent waiting always passed very slowly. When night fell again and again, we would sit by the fire one by one, carrying our hope for our father into our late-night dreams. When my father came back, he would always pass by our dreamland illuminated by kerosene lamps without waking us up. When we wake up from our quiet dreams, he has already turned his figure and eyes to those unknown lands, allowing us to continue to miss him in those days.
In fact, the existence of a village does not require too many comments. However, every time I inadvertently come and go, my emotions are pulled away, and I examine the familiar village deep in my heart.
The hidden water at that time is still a dynamic scene deep in my memory. Along a mechanized road overgrown with weeds, the mud made me hesitate countless times. Not long after I walked, the mud stuck to my shoes, making my walking extremely difficult. After finally walking to the mountain ridge, I saw gurgling water flowing on the brown, purple, white, light yellow, and blue-gray stones. Clusters of blooming wild flowers crowded the streams along the road. The mountains and fields were everywhere. Let an early autumn bloom unscrupulously, far away and warmly.
The hidden water in autumn looks pure and clean, like a piece of clean white lotus root placed on the edge of the water, wet and shining with a warm light. A gentle maternal wind flows everywhere, making the snow-white walls, crimson roof tiles, rich green leaves, restless puppies wandering around and calves looking for food all glow with a kind of light in the sky. Loose and genuine affection. A cool breeze blew by, and a touch of sadness mixed with a touch of nostalgia came to my face from all the things I could see.
In September, everything in the village is new. Such fresh light illuminates everything around it with a fresh breath. What used to be like pouring rain in the summer has now become thin and continuous, and everything is washed away. The white walls and red tiles look fresher in the sunshine, as if they had just been painted with new paint.
The tall roof ridge has charming curves against the distant sky.
The sky in the village is high and quiet. On the blue background are endless white clouds, flowing back and forth without any shape like water. Their sudden gathering and dispersing shapes often attract children to shout out their new discoveries. They often argue endlessly about what a certain cloud looks like, and such arguments often lead to no results. When brought to an adult, the problem is often ignored, and even a scolding is given. Therefore, most children will end their own lives through betting, so it is easy to hear children screaming again and again. A few dogs, a few chickens, a group of ducks, and a calf that followed its little master were all watching the excitement. They also started shouting and shouting. It took a long time for the messy scene to calm down, but soon, It started again.
Every time at this time, under the vast blue sky, a kind of sadness often comes uninvited, often suddenly and inexplicably. This is the easiest season to be nostalgic and tender. On the threshing floor, the fresh haystacks are tall and large, and the golden wheat straw piles are topped with mud hats that have not yet dried out. The shadows of the trees on the yellow mud path look long and deep, and you immediately feel cool when you walk up there. The sun's rays are bright but not dazzling at this time, which makes everything appear three-dimensional and bright. Looking at their thoughtful look, they are like children who have just changed into new clothes, remaining silent in excitement, and in silence Full of hidden worries.
The village becomes graceful and the water flows often in autumn, just like a mother humming a children's song, melodious, vague, gentle and quiet. You can walk around freely and simply in this season. The crop fields have already been hoeed and the grouting water has been poured. A good harvest is in sight. All the things that should be busy have been done, and the necessary busyness has not yet come. . Just walking around on the field path, the grass on the path is thick and lush, and a frog or cricket will always jump out of it unexpectedly. They don't even care about your appearance. They jump out and stay there for a while. , as if adjusting his mood, then turned around and jumped away leisurely. The wind has no direction and no purpose. Looking up at the sky, seeing the clean and elegant blue sky and white clouds, I feel satisfied.
The villages in September, like children and women, give you infinite compassion and love. The tenderness in my heart is like the grass that has absorbed enough water, growing wildly overnight for no reason.
Autumn in the village is quiet and docile, and becomes more attractive in the evening when the smoke from cooking fires rises into the blue sky. The gentle breeze carries the aroma of food and the faint spiciness of cooking smoke. At the same time, it is also mixed with the mother's call for her playful children to come home for dinner, the contented cries of cattle and sheep returning to the pen, and the chickens and ducks returning home to watch. The screams of joy and surprise when reaching the owner all seemed distant and clear, gentle and kind. Even today, many years later, I am inadvertently immersed in this memory again, and I am so nostalgic that I never want to return to reality. The autumn village is forever irreplaceable in my memory.
Water drops were still dripping under the eaves of the village. Those water drops fell at the foot of the wall, and the report meeting silently splashed smaller water droplets that were almost invisible, making people feel a bit cool. Autumn seems to be getting deeper, and I am eager to see clearly the harvest in the village. But because the fog was always shrouding the entire village, I could only see some dilapidated houses, scattered fences, sparse barking of dogs, the chirping of mountain birds, and the sound of mud as I walked on the village road.
Three
Back Mountain is a silent term. When it is overgrown with weeds and covers up some past events, I will treat it as a silver-white pin and place it on my chest near my heart. Thinking of my family, the long and short history covered with mud, squeezes my dreams, absorbing the crawling lizards, the slow cattle, and the flying dragonflies. Back Mountain is hidden behind my village, turning a blind eye to the busy people running around in the sunshine. Some people who left the village followed a journey that was like a trail of smoke, leaving no trace of the bushes on the back mountain. However, when villagers grow old, they often stand on the back hill for a long time, staring at the rugged hills, looking for a destination. As a result, the back mountain was covered with graves.
In fact, my childhood and my first memories started in Huibei Mountain.
The high sky covered the wilderness of Back Mountain with its azure color. The scattered rocks were close to the old tombs. The elders breathed their last breath and gathered densely in the woods and streams of Back Mountain. , both sides of the mountain road, on the flat ground in front of the cliff cave, among the withered pumpkin leaves. Their graves still guard some crops with spring flowers and autumn fruits. When spring comes, leaves and flowers spread the back mountains into a distant song, while the souls buried in the land use inscriptions to guard the roots of each family. In my childhood, I spent every day clinging to the grass on the back mountain, looking for dragonflies, worms, and crickets perching on the vigorous leaves, as well as the unlit trees on the edge of the cornfield. All the paper money. The smell of death in the back mountain escapes a child's eyes, but what appears is Bupleurum everywhere, and the tiny buds that were cut off before they became Chinese herbal medicine. The villagers work in the large fields around the village all day long. They work absent-mindedly and sing absent-mindedly. The cattle scattered in the crop fields do not lead them to abundant food and clothing, but they make people happy every year. During the Spring Festival, they brought empty and sparse sacrifices, lit candles on the hills of Back Mountain, whispered and prayed. There was guilt hidden in the silent expression.
A group of people carried a deceased person in a heavy coffin and walked slowly. The paper money scattered along the road led to a path towards the back mountain. I sat high on the hillside and quietly watched their team getting closer and closer. I even saw one of the people carrying the coffin. When he was walking among the rocks by the river, his feet The coffin, which was undulating slightly when being stirred by the scattered stones, shook a little. The rooster with crimson feathers tied to the coffin also flapped its wings in surprise and screamed as the coffin shook. I saw the hard work of people sweating like rain. I sat on a high hillside and quietly watched the villagers busy working on the final resting place of a deceased person.
At this time, green smoke was rising in the village. The family, the relatives of the deceased, must still be sitting in the mourning hall where the body of the deceased had just been stored, lowering their heads and crying, one long and one short. It tells all kinds of past events of the deceased’s lifetime. It should be considered a very honorable thing for the deceased to live in Back Mountain. He can be with his ancestors, receive the warmth of burning paper money, and watch the birth and growth of every child in the village. Fresh soil covered his body, and as night fell, people in the village set up a high lookout tower to ferry his wandering soul. At this time, I saw the firelight in the village flashing and jumping, and some words said to him: Come back! There are also words that say to him: Go ahead. The tomb closed the heavy stone door, and the deceased lived in the back mountain from now on, letting my footsteps disturb his sleep.
In the dark night of Back Mountain, someone said I saw a ghost. So I left the back mountain and returned to the village. I was hidden in the undulating waves of the rice fields near the village. My skin was dark. I don’t know who the lonely soul is with in the back mountains.
Back Mountain is covered with trees and weeds. The continuous wind and rain over the years have turned the rocks hidden among the vines and leaves into a dark color. In the village, some people drive cattle or small donkeys into the mountains in the early morning to cut grass between the graves. The fertile soil will always grow some dark green grass, which can be carried back to the village to make a warm bed for the livestock, allowing them to chew quietly and have a good dream when night falls. It's just that the graves scattered on the hills of the Back Mountain face dew erosion every day, guarding the lifeless soil. When I returned to the village, there was no one living in Back Mountain. The hut I once lived in gradually deteriorated in the wind and rain, and finally collapsed. The sun was shining brightly on the cow stable behind the hut, and it turned out that the smell of cow dung emanating from it could still be smelled. But later, the cows returned to the village and ate grass on the village road outside the village. When they fell asleep in the sunshine, dragonflies perched on their thick horns, decorating the village with tranquility and serenity. At this moment, the back mountain is outside the cow's dream, and the water vapor is evaporated by the sun. The cow dung that smelled of grass and wormwood was no longer in the stable. There were only snakes entwined on the dense branches of the mulberry tree next to the stable, and lizards crawled quickly in the sun, and finally disappeared on the rocks in the grass. in the gap.
At this time, the mountain behind became an image, and I gradually forgot about it. I sometimes think of it and let it become a river of memories in my writing. I was lying on the rice field beside the village, holding a book in my hand and reading quietly. On the field outside the village, I read many books. They used to be: "Red and Black", "Quiet Don River", "Hunter's Notes", "Selected Poems of Ai Qing", "Journey to the South", "Snow Mountain" Flying Fox". When I read those books in the fields, I often fell asleep. So I opened the book and covered my face casually to block the sunlight leaking from between the round leaves of the persimmon tree by the pond, and had intermittent cool dreams. The pages of the book were blown up by the wind, and I could see the mountains behind me facing me in the distance. I looked at the back mountain casually. The entire hillside was as silent as a silent old woman. On the sloping slope, I could vaguely see the silky mountain road, shrouding the mountains behind. The mountain roads formed a network like leaf veins, and I knew their extension in every direction. When I woke up from my sleep, I saw some mountain roads in my sleepy eyes and began to recall the past events that happened on those roads in my childhood.
I will also think of some people, most of them have died, some even died when I was still on the mountain behind. When I was on the Back Mountain, I also ran into those woods. The moss was dried by the sun and covered the writing on the tombstone. The blurred writing was wetted by the water drops dripping from the tree, and stuck to the difficult movements of the ants that happened to pass by. They are arranged neatly in the forest, and one team after another can make people identify the lineage of a family. The decline of the old tomb caused the tombstone to collapse in the grass. The vines grew day by day and entangled the writing. No one could see clearly how much hardship and fatigue those words recorded. In the forest without sunlight, the light is dim. I sat in the deep forest, imagining ghosts, gods and fairies flying, fighting and crying on the branches. In the heart of a child, there is no fear of the grave in an adult.
There are also some tombs, although they have been washed away by rain, they still stand in time. The moist forest hides their existence, and the dark green moss is slowly extending towards the top of the tombstone. The neatly ridged edge of the tombstone is still telling a child that a life has just left not far away. I saw the remaining crimson tears of candles on the stone platform in front of a tomb in the forest. A few drops of candle tears stick to the tomb platform, mixed with fine dust, condensing the memories and thoughts of the people living under a certain roof for the deceased. Perhaps, the villagers will still think of the deceased, talk about his happiness and sorrow in the village inadvertently, and in the dark night, towards the direction of the mountain behind, light a stick of incense, light a pile of paper money, and pour Sprinkle a bowl of water and wine and have a quiet conversation with the ghost living behind the cold tombstone.
I often think of this scene when I am half asleep on the edge of the rice field. The silence of Back Mountain actually did not make me forget it, it is a special place.
The sun gradually sets towards the Western Mountains, the moisture in the air becomes heavier, and the fragrance of flowers slowly fades away. On the petals of the brilliant wild roses, the wings are wet due to the imperceptible moisture. And it seems more alive. The evening wind got stronger, causing the wild flowers to sway on the branches and form a small arc. Some petals lifted up with the wind, flying in the air, like spilled rouge, making people's sight red. The clear singing voice of the girl in the village came from the distance, floating farther and farther in front of the flowers flying in the sky, like a string of long-lasting notes, embellishment of her first blooming feelings. As we watched the song from a distance, faint smoke rose from the shadow of the peach blossoms on the courtyard wall, and the fragrance of food gradually filled the air, spreading out towards the outside of the village. The day was about to end, and the wilderness was about to recover. The silence it was supposed to preserve. I also stood up intoxicated and walked towards the village. Amidst the huge crowds, I wanted to go back again, back to the village, and then back to the city from the village, back to my life and busyness. Go and face the hurried work and the endless changes in people and things.