Wentu/Ying Zhigang
When I was a child, I often sat on the hillside behind my house, watching the village under the sunset, and the smoke rising from the kitchen.
I don't know if the smoke from the kitchen has turned into clouds and wandered around.
On a certain day, a few years later, a man struggling on the streets of the city cried in the dust with empty eyes looking over the tall buildings.
He knew that he would never return to that smoky day.
Grandmother shouted in the small courtyard, "Ah boy, go back to the house and eat!"
Grandpa led the ox, passing through the hazy light, the basket full of wild fruits became clearer and clearer.
The mountains in Guizhou are higher than the mountains in my hometown, with nine bends and eighteen bends. The car sticks to the cliffs and turns in a lane close to 90 degrees.
The clouds seem to be right in front of my eyes, within reach, just like the nostalgia buried deep in my heart, coming out from time to time, like needle cones.
I also saw the smoke rising from the kitchen. In the ancient village called Loushang, the morning sun seemed to be mercifully watched by the gods, clear and peaceful.
I am not in a hurry to get close to this village like my hometown. Standing on the top of a high mountain, I hesitate like a man who has been away from home for many years, how to comfort his long-lost wife and children.
He stopped, watched the smoke dissipate, sat on a rock, and silently smoked two cigarettes.
The mountains are like Daisy, the villages live by the mountains, the terraced fields undulate with the mountains, and the breeze brings the fragrance of rice waves.
A small path leads to the village, the breath of early autumn has filled the air, and the fallen leaves are rolling on the stone road.
The old wooden house, the courtyard with the door open, like a lonely old man, waiting silently in the years, every wanderer who will come back after all.
The eave beams and door panels are covered with golden bracts and red hot peppers, and the festive red couplets gradually lose their color in the moist eye sockets.
Only the bougainvillea plant in the corner blooms gorgeously, waiting for no one, blooming when happy, and thanking when sad.
The old villages are like this.
A long, long time ago, a young man traveled from Nanchang, Jiangxi to Guizhou to seek a living. When he got here, he might feel tired, or he might have met an interesting woman, but he didn’t want to leave anyway.
The young man is very industrious. He cultivated pieces of farmland in the mountains and planted corn and rice. The springs on the mountains flowed over the fields and flowed into rivers along the way, sending a message of peace to his homeland.
Spring comes and winter goes, and the annual rings of time take care of the children and grandchildren of young people, and thrive in the depths of the mountains.
The time in the mountains is very slow, the old man dozed off in the shade of the trees in the yard with his baby in his arms, and the smell of passing strangers made the old man wake up from his drowsiness.
The child also woke up, pursed his mouth and blew saliva bubbles on me, and then stretched out his hand to be hugged by me. The fragrance of new life makes people warm.
From time to time, children would come to visit and run around in the yard, touching here and there, and the old man only cared about them playing.
When it was time to leave, the old man ran into the house with small steps, grabbed a handful of berries, and stuffed them in the child's hand.
I looked at the wild fruit in the child's hand, and thought about the scene when I was a child going in and out of the house in the village, and I remembered how I rolled all over the floor and cried when my grandmother gave the wild fruit to other children.
I asked the child, "Is the fruit sour?"
Watching her put the fruit into her mouth and chew, she nodded to me, her big eyes fluttering and she didn't speak.
In fact, my mouth is already full of saliva, and the taste is very uncomfortable. Swallowing saliva in front of a child is really embarrassing.
The child followed for a while, and I couldn't help but look at the fruit in her hand several times.
Small tomatoes grew in the cracks of the wall by the side of the road. When I saw a few ripe ones, I quickly picked them up and put them in my mouth. I finally covered up my greediness and swallowed them with my mouth full of saliva.
At the bottom of the village, I took out water to quench my thirst. The child pointed to the bottle in my hand and said, "That's not good."
I thought the child was looking for an excuse because she was thirsty, so I handed her the bottle, "Do you want a drink?"
The child shook his head, came to hold my hand, and led me to a pool sheltered by a hut.
There is a stone wall in front of the pool of water, and the endless spring water gushes out from the bamboo tube that goes deep into the stone wall.
I imitated the child's appearance, bowed down and took a sip of spring water to drink.
"Is it sweet?" The child looked at me proudly.
I smiled, emptied the water in the bottle, and poured a full amount of coolness into it.
The child giggled, jumped and ran into a house, and I never met her again.
I got lost in the trails of the ancient village, passed from the front yard of this house to the backyard of that house, and ran into the middle room from the kitchen of others.
Suddenly, it seems that time travels, and you are in an old poet's house. Although the quaint Eight Immortals Table and Grand Master's Chair are dilapidated, they can't cover the momentum of the past.
Looking up, I saw a plaque of "Listen to the Rain", and I couldn't hold back my composure. The inscription was signed by Weng Fanggang, a famous calligraphy, literature, gold and stone master in the Qing Dynasty, and a cabinet scholar.
Turning around, I saw the four characters of "Fengdu Biography" again. Looking closely, it was written by Huang Ziyuan, a calligrapher and industrialist in the late Qing Dynasty.
The old people here can't tell the allusions of their ancestors. They are just busy with their own affairs and let me, a foreigner, walk around in their house.
I don't know what kind of blood gene makes them survive the barren time in the mountains, but I know that behind that indifference hides the prosperity of a family.
It's just that the years are like water, and they see through the world of mortals. They abide by the precepts of their ancestors, guarding the old house, guarding the mountain behind the house, and guarding the few acres of paddy fields from green to golden in front of the house.
Let alone old things, time may not surprise the snow.
Only when you meet them in the narrow alleys, and the wind passing by, can you vaguely see a lonely swordsman walking from the wind and dust of history.
Knock on the blackboard to remember the key points
upstairs ancient village
Shiqian Loushang Ancient Village is located in Guorong Township, Shiqian County, Tongren City, Guizhou Province. It was called "Zhai Ji" in ancient times. It was built in the sixth year of Hongzhi in the Ming Dynasty. It is a blood-related village dominated by the Zhou family.
The ancient building complex on the upper floor takes Zitong Palace as the core, and is composed of ancient houses, ancient alleys, Tunka, ancient wells, and ancient tombs. famous village".
The ancient village sits in the northeast and southwest, and is built against the mountains. Its overall layout is a "shou"-shaped structure, and all lanes are paved with bluestone. On both sides of the bluestone slabs are all wooden houses with blue tiles, and they are all built in Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The wooden windows of every household are carved with exquisite patterns, or plum blossoms, or dragonflies, or butterflies, or magpies, rich in profound cultural heritage.
There is a large area of ancient trees in the village, consisting of crape myrtle, osmanthus, red maple, and cypress. According to research, these ancient trees are more than 300 years old. The most peculiar thing is that the seven maple trees are distributed in the shape of "Big Dipper". Thousands of herons live on the maple trees, but they never live or stay on other ancient trees.
Ying Zhigang: From Ningbo, Zhejiang.
He has worked in the media for 20 years. He used to be the reporter of People's Daily "China Economic Weekly", the director of the news center of People's Daily Online Sunan Channel, and the editor-in-chief of China Daily Online Jiangsu Channel. Founded Suzhou Bocai Zhongchuang Media Co., Ltd. in 2015.
Travel Experts: Lotto Inspiration Traveler (2018 CCTV Image Spokesperson), Tongcheng Traveler, Lvmama Traveler, Tuniu Big Player, China National Geographic Columnist, etc.
Cultural travel writer: He has published "A Day in the Clouds of Beauty", "The Highest Mission", "Suddenly Nostalgic", "Scattered Tenderness", etc.