Appreciation of beautiful prose: The long river
Appreciation of beautiful prose: The long river
She is always so gentle, as quiet as a virgin, unhurried and leisurely, flowing slowly through the years. No matter how time passes, how light and shadow alternate, how the world changes, she remains the same, with a faint poetic elegance, like a beautiful and delicate Jiangnan woman, with her unique style. This is the front door of my house. That river gave me the first impression.
This river originates from Mengshan Mountain and is called the Mengjiang River Basin. It meanders all the way down, twists and turns, and finally merges with the Xunjiang River. On both sides of the river bank are green mountains, beautiful ridges, villages and towns. The residents here have cultivated and cultivated on both sides of the river basin for generations and live and work in peace and contentment.
Both sides of the river are planted with bamboo, lychee trees and longan trees. The peaks along the river are covered with pine trees and evergreen shrubs, so it looks lush all year round. Greenery. On a sunny day, the waves on the river are shining, the breeze is gentle, the beautiful ridges and green bamboos are reflected on the water, and fish are shuttled in the water. Occasionally, a boat or a bamboo raft will pass by, breaking up the tranquility! On a rainy day, the mountains are empty, The clouds and smoke are thick, the river is vast, and the water mist is lingering!
After every rain, the river will be covered with a layer of light gauze-like fog, curling around. If you hold a small boat or a bamboo raft and stand in it, you will feel the breeze blowing on your face and the flowing water playing the piano. It is like a dream, and you will feel relaxed and happy! At this time, looking up at the mountain peaks by the river, with misty clouds and clouds, I always imagine that it is It’s not that Qing’e, a pure girl from heaven, came here in the clouds and mist to find a lover on earth.
In spring, the longan trees and lychee trees by the river are covered with clusters of small yellow flowers. The fragrance of the flowers attracts bees and butterflies, and birds are also busy bickering among the flowers. From time to time, Falling flowers will fall on the water. Although the flowers are not eye-catching, they still have the artistic conception of falling flowers and flowing water. At that time, the river surface was the most lively and poetic among the four seasons. The yellow flowers, green trees and green bamboos set off each other and set off the river and mountains. If there happened to be one or two egrets or sand gulls passing by on the water, it would create a wonderful and clear picture. Elegant landscape paintings appear before your eyes.
In the early morning of spring, I always love to walk on the village road by the river. At that time, people in the village will not get up too early, so I can enjoy all kinds of birdsong and the morning dew on the bamboo. There is a slight ticking sound, and this kind of silence often makes me have an illusion, as if the spiritual energy between heaven and earth is all around me, allowing me to think freely. But sometimes I don’t think about anything and just watch quietly.
Occasionally, during the continuous spring rain, I will hold a small umbrella and walk down the stone steps of the pier. , let the raindrops compose moving music on my umbrella.
The pier is quiet in the rain. A few bamboo rafts lie quietly on the water. Not far from it is a full-time crossing boat parked to facilitate people to go to the opposite village. . The green bamboos on both sides of the river were hanging low in the rain. A gust of wind blew by, making a splashing sound. Countless water droplets fell on the river surface, splashing crystal water. In spring, various unknown wild flowers are always blooming along the river bank. From a distance, they are also colorful. The beach diagonally opposite the pier is covered with green grass, and there are always horses or buffaloes greedily enjoying the food. Not far from the beach are green paddy fields with lush crops growing in them.
But if it is a clear morning, you will see many women in the village washing clothes on the stone steps of the pier, chatting and laughing, and the owners of the Li family have short discussions, and laughter often resounds across both sides of the strait. On a sunny evening in summer, this pier will become a good place for people to swim and play in the water.
Standing on the pier and looking along the current of the river, a steep stone wall rises from the water, about twenty meters high, forming a cliff. Looking down from the cliff along the water flow, you can see a flat beach in the water. The silky blue water is divided into two streams by the beach, and then merges into one stream at the end of the beach.
Speaking of this cliff and beach, there is a long-standing story:
I don’t know which dynasty it was in. It is said that there was a rich man who had many wives and concubines, but he had very few children. She is nearly sixty, and she only has an eighteen-year-old daughter at her knees. He was secretly worried, so he found a Feng Shui master and traveled through the mountains to find a treasure land where he could bury the bones of his ancestors and help himself get rich.
One day, Mr. Feng Shui pointed to a piece of land and said: You bury the bones of your ancestors here, and bury them at a certain time of a certain year, a certain month, a certain day, and within two quarters of an hour after the burial you will meet The noble person in your life. That noble person will help you make a fortune.
The rich man followed his words and buried the bones of his ancestors according to Mr. Feng Shui's instructions, and then quietly waited for the noble man mentioned by Mr. Feng Shui to appear. But the June sun was scorching the earth, and there was half a human figure there. After a while, the rich man felt like he was sweating profusely, his mouth was dry, and the heat was unbearable. While I was impatient, I suddenly heard a burst of singing coming from the forest. After a while, I saw a young woodcutter, about twenty years old, walking from the forest carrying a load of firewood and singing folk songs.
Young man, wait a minute! Wait a minute. The rich man hurriedly called the woodcutter.
Well, is something wrong? The woodcutter put down the firewood and asked.
Can you give me your water? I'm very thirsty!
Okay, here you go. The woodcutter handed him the gourd filled with water. The rich man drank the water. He had never been so thirsty.
The woodcutter took the empty gourd and was about to carry firewood back when the rich man stopped him again. The rich man thought of Mr. Feng Shui's words, and he was confused. The man in front of him was obviously a woodcutter, and there was no way he was noble at all. Why did he say that I would meet a noble person? Could it be that he was deliberately making nonsense in order to defraud money? But he didn't want to miss the opportunity to make a fortune, so he let him try it out.
Young man, how old are you this year? Do you have a wife at home?
Twenty-two, you haven’t married yet. What's the matter? replied the woodcutter.
It’s nothing, just asking. If you go up the mountain to cut firewood every day, will you encounter a tiger or something? Are you afraid if you encounter it?
What are you afraid of? I am. With all my strength, the tiger didn't dare to hurt me! Once I met a big tiger with golden eyes and white forehead, and I beat it away in three strokes.
Who would believe it? Haha, young man, you really know how to brag. I'm afraid the tiger will scare you to the point of peeing when it comes. The rich man said with a smile.
Don’t you believe it? My upright young man was anxious, and his clumsy eloquence left him speechless for a long time. He didn’t know how to make the rich man believe his words.
Haha, if you dare to jump off this cliff, I believe that when the tiger comes, you will not be so scared that you will pee your pants.
Just jump, if I dare to jump, you have to show something. The young man is not stupid either.
I forgive you for not daring to jump. If you dare to jump, I will marry my daughter to you.
Don’t regret what you said! Because his father died young and his family was poor, the young man was dependent on an old mother in her seventies. She was orphaned and widowed. No girl in the surrounding area was willing to marry As a poor boy, this opportunity to marry a wife fell from the sky, so he naturally had to take advantage of it. He leaned forward to check the height of the cliff. Good guy, the depth of the cliff was measured to be at least twenty meters deep, and a clear river flowed below. He couldn't help but regret making the bet with the rich man. He thought for a long time, looking left and right, but couldn't make up his mind.
At this time, the rich man’s voice sounded again: Ha, I said you don’t dare to jump, but you can show me how to jump, coward!
Who said that, I was just watching. It would be more appropriate to jump off from somewhere.
When the woodcutter tried to squat down and look again, the woodcutter on the back of his belt suddenly hit the ground, making his center of gravity unstable. He stumbled forward and fell straight into the river. . Fortunately, he was familiar with water, so he turned over and swam to the shore before sinking to the bottom.
But it was said that the rich man saw the young man jumping off the cliff. He regretted it. He really shouldn't have betrothed his only precious daughter to a woodcutter so hastily. But he couldn't take back what he said, so he had to Another life. He thought about it, couldn't sleep for several days, tossed and turned, and finally came up with a great idea.
One day, he called the young man to him and said: Young man, originally I should have fulfilled my promise and let you marry my daughter, but last night Yue Lao in the sky gave me a dream, saying that you and I The daughter must go through another test.
What kind of test? The young man also knew that the rich man intended to make things difficult, but his daughter was his, so he had nothing to do.
You will know tomorrow. said the rich man.
Early the next morning, the high places on both sides of the river were full of people. Everyone wanted to know the result of this test, because the rich man had already promised to let the villagers be witnesses in order to show that he was notarized. Suddenly, the hills on both sides of the strait were crowded with people and there was an uproar.
I saw the rich man ordering two young people in the village to split a large bamboo with a knife and then carry it to the river. Two groups of people were assigned, each group of two people, each holding a bamboo raft and holding a separate half of the bamboo, and went to the river to wait quietly for the rich man's order. The rich man said let it go! The two of them put the bamboo into the river ten meters apart at the same time, and the two bamboos went down the river. Then the rich man announced loudly: If these two bamboos can be reunited into one bamboo in the beach below, I will let my daughter marry this young man without saying a word. After the rich man finished speaking, he patted the woodcutter next to him on the shoulder.
The crowd was in an uproar. How could this be possible? How could two separate bamboos that were so far apart come together? This young man had no hope of marrying the rich man's daughter. The woodcutter himself felt that there was no hope, but he remained silent. The rich man thought he was sure of victory, and gradually his face beamed with joy.
I don’t know how much time passed, but suddenly the people guarding the beach came to report: The bamboos are together, together. There was another uproar in the crowd. The rich man didn't believe it, so he hurriedly took a bamboo raft to check. He saw that the two bamboos that had been separated just now were close to each other, seamlessly joined together, and they were lying quietly on the water in front of the beach. , if you didn’t look carefully at the thin slit in the middle, you would think that this bamboo has never been separated. The rich man was helpless, looking at the river slowly flowing into the distance on both sides of the beach, and sighed: God's will!
From then on, the beach was called Hezhu Beach, and the cliff standing on the riverside was called Hezhu Beach. For the gambler's cliff.
Click, click, boom, crash, a burst of noise pulled me back from my thoughts, and when I took a closer look, it turned out to be a private sand dredging boat in the river at work. Suddenly, a strip of yellowish water was mixed in the middle of the clear river water. I couldn't help but feel annoyed. In the past ten years, greedy criminals have been frantically mining the bottom of the river in a destructive manner. Every autumn during the dry season, piles of pebbles left by sand mining boats will appear on the river surface. The river is no longer vast, but is divided into many small streams that twist and turn around the piles of stones and flow forward in a meandering way. The weeds on the stone piles are overgrown and yellow, trembling in the howling autumn wind, making the entire river look riddled with holes and scars, which is shocking and makes people feel sad.
I once heard someone say that this river used to have a lot of fish, shrimps, crabs, turtles, and stone snails, especially stone snails. You can just touch a lot of them under the cracks of the rocks on the riverside, but since the sand mining boats have After searching the bottom of this river, it is difficult to find a stone snail, and there are also very few fish, shrimps, crabs and turtles.
Amidst the rumbling sound of sand dredging boats, I watched with melancholy the river separated by turbid water flowing far away. I felt worried that maybe a few years later, as people pay more attention to the big The over-exploitation of nature has made it difficult for us to see the clear and sparkling river water. Hezhutan will be just a legend by then, and the beautiful river scenery can only be seen in dreams