To the south of the Qinling Mountains is Dihua, and to the north of the Qinling Mountains is Xi'an. The road is about three hundred miles up the Qinling Mountains. The big bugs in the world are tigers, the long bugs are snakes, and humans are really just worms. For decades, I lived and wrote in Dihua and Xi'an, and I went back and forth on this road repeatedly.
My father once told me that when he was a teenager, he went to Xi'an to study. He walked for seven days and saw broken straw sandals everywhere along the way. He originally thought that it was the dog days of summer and the stones were so hot that they would bite his hands. But later he found out that the stones in the dog days of summer were also biting his hands. He did not dare to touch them and the skin would stick to them as soon as he touched them. By the time I went to school in Xi'an, there were highways and a county could have one shuttle bus every day, but it was very difficult to buy a ticket. I had to rush from Dihua to the county seat the day before and queue up at the station all night to buy it. The window glass of the shuttle bus has never been complete, and it is still bearable in the summer. In the winter, the wind blows in, and countless knives dance in the air. Pull down the two ears of the locomotive hat and tie it up, and the breath turns into frost. The brim of the hat is white, and so are the eyebrows. The speed must be at least forty miles per hour. The car was swaying on the winding mountain road, and its head was dizzy. After a while, someone got carsick, and the person in front was lying on the window and vomiting. The wind blew the dirt into the rear window, and everyone started yelling and cursing. The driver yelled: "Don't make any sound!" Everyone understands that there is a relationship of honor and disgrace between husband and wife, but there is a relationship of life and death between passengers and the driver. If speaking out will affect the driver, they will immediately stop talking. The road was too narrow and steep, and the car was icy and slippery. The car had to stop several times, either because the snow chains needed to be hung or because something broke down. The driver climbed under the car and lay on his back with his legs exposed. At the foot of the main peak of the Qinling Mountains, the place is called Heilongkou, which is a fixed point for relieving oneself and eating. Passengers wearing cotton-padded jackets and trousers were always crowded together like carrots. When they wanted to get off, their whole bodies were numb and they had to rub their legs. I just lifted one leg, and the person next to me said, "That's my leg." I said: Where is my leg? Where are my legs? It feels like I have no legs. It was not until dark that the car could enter Xi'an. The luggage was unloaded from the roof of the car. Everyone was saying: Hey, today is going well! Because cars often overturned on the Qinling Mountains, and the dead people were frozen in the ditch and did not need to be lifted. They were carried up like rafters. Even if the car you are riding in does not overturn, but the car in front of you has an accident or landslides, you will have to spend the whole night in the mountains without food or water.
In the early 1990s, this road was renovated. It was no longer a sandy road, it was paved with asphalt, and it was very wide. Cars did not slow down and stopped when they met, and the lights passed in a blink of an eye. In the past, there were few cars, and on the roads along the village where the wheat was harvested, farmers would spread out their cut wheat for grinding, and the dogs would chase them away. After the reconstruction, the road was no longer allowed to be littered. When a car passed by, the waste paper on the roadside would stick to the wall of the house, and it would not fall down for a while. There are fewer and fewer wolves, and even the hares are gone, but the cars don’t stop day and night. People had died in every village on the roadside. The car was still far away when they were halfway through the road, but the car suddenly came over and blocked them. In Dihua, five people were run over and killed in the past few years. The villagers said that this was a sacrificial road, and that major projects must use human sacrifices. In the past, there were two or three drivers in Dihua who drove shuttle buses for the county transportation company. They were honorable and honorable. They parked the car on the side of the road, carried wine and meat home, and put on their fur-collared cotton coats without wearing them, blowing in the wind. It seems to be going to heaven. People along the way smile when they see you and say hello to you. Are you back? Everyone followed him at a low profile, silently begging for breath if he could take someone with him to the provincial capital tomorrow. But now, there are all kinds of cars on the road, and some people even bought private cars in Dihua. Only then did they realize that driving is very easy. Almost any dog ??can climb into the car and drive. That year, my father's cemetery was chosen to be located next to the highway. My mother said it was too noisy because it was close to the highway. The Feng Shui master said: This is a good cave. It is important to have water in front of the grave. Look, the highway is now a big river!