Lu Qingniao's Rural Prose

I dreamed again.

The white mountains and black waters in my hometown are piled up in dreams, like a huge screen, and the scenes flash alternately. Those rural roads, leading to the fields, to the schools in the village, to other villages and to the outside world, are all faintly extinguished. They stubbornly weave into the warp and weft of dreams, they flicker in visible and invisible places, and they call me from all directions. I see that I walk on every road, I see my hesitation and surprise on every road, I see that I turn around frequently at the end of the road, and the place where the radiation extends thousands of miles is hiding my face and crying.

I woke up from my dream and I knew my hometown was calling me.

two

That year, I was admitted to a township middle school and left the village for the first time to study abroad.

The village used the country road at the entrance to see me off.

Now that I think about it, it should be the most beautiful road in my memory.

In spring, the left and right sides of the path are green wheat fields, surging with satin-like oil waves. Walking through the path is like stepping on boiling water waves with your feet. A loess path is like this, rolling green waves.

There are all kinds of wild flowers on both sides of the path. Dandelion obeyed and carefully held out a small spherical umbrella and yellow flowers, which was unspeakable tenderness. Bluegrass flower is a kind of small jasper, with five white petals supported by slender green leaves and slender stems, which is gentle and elegant. The big thorn mustard is bumping unscrupulously, the stem is thick, the leaves are covered with sharp thorns, the flowers are rude, and the hair is rough like a woman's unfinished bun. There is also a kind of flower called a bowl flower, which opens in the shape of a bowl. It is cheap in color and looks very thin, as if it could really be broken carelessly. Dog tail grass is crazy, spreading all the way, flirting all the way. Even if a small wind blows, they all meet and whisper. You spread it to me and I spread it quickly.

Of course, there are many wild flowers and weeds that I don't know, and they are also busy together. Small flowers are mixed in thick green and light green, and the color is light. Generally speaking, it is nothing more than soft powder, light purple, white and blue, which seems to be taken off the palette and painted on the petals. They are not as strong as the peony and rose in the park, and the flowers are huge and rich. But they opened their hearts and sighed heartily under the blue sky. They are hidden, but simple and focused, so they sway all the way, joking all the way, and still have unspeakable amorous feelings.

There are also slender green stalks (a kind of insect) and short and lean brown grasshoppers in the roadside grass. They jump around briskly, sometimes even jumping on the road and looking around, just like MengMeng. At this time, as long as you walk behind them gently, you can catch them with both hands. However, their limbs don't seem to be so strong, and they can struggle to break a leg in a short time, so they have to abandon it in the grass and watch it stumble away.

Bees are usually annoying, always circling around beautiful flowers, making a buzzing sound, being overbearing and playboy. However, there is a little white moth flying around among the green grass, like a white petal dancing with the wind, which is very vivid.

I always spend the most time on this road every time I go to school. I picked a bunch of wild flowers, caught some grasshoppers, picked a blade of grass and blew out the grunt in my mouth. Sometimes when I'm tired of walking, I just want to sit on the side of the road for a while and watch some pure white clouds in the blue sky.

Sometimes I often wonder how much thought and effort it takes to arrange such a beautiful and interesting road. Alas, my hometown, how lonely my hometown should be, so I care about it, what it sends out, and the steps it waits for.

However, it is very disappointing that the graves piled up in the wheat fields always make me feel mysterious and horrible. The grave is covered with tall pines and cypresses, and the branches and leaves are dark and gloomy, like guarding a huge and sad secret between heaven and earth, which is daunting. What is even more frightening is that every once in a while, one or two new graves will appear in the wheat field. The loess is wet and the wreath is beautiful, like a pair of empty eyes staring at something.

Every time I pass a place far from the grave, I can't help but hurry away, but I always seem to hear the drumming footsteps coming from the center of the earth behind me. When I looked back, it was empty, so I had to speed up my heartbeat and run away.

How many secrets are hidden in this empty land, and how many people walk through this country road with heavy hearts, and then go to an unknown destination in the depths of the earth in the distant years.

I know that the village has been waiting, stretching its neck, waiting for the wanderers who left in a hurry to go far and come back, waiting for them to iron out its loneliness with their feet, soothe its sadness, and then become its footsteps deep in the center of the earth.

three

When uncle Qiang in the village got married, the village married his bride, using twelve red tractors that suddenly smoked and a country road that happily extended to the neighboring village.

The path excitedly passed through a large rape field in Huang Cancan, through a straight Yang Shulin and an undulating village, swaying emeralds and flowers, flying yellow dust and cheering away. The dust is filled with worldly happiness, the joy of the countryside, and the intimacy of all forces along the way.

Aunt Xiaoying, who is a bride for the first time, has a slim figure, a slim waist and smart and affectionate eyes. She is really a gentle and graceful woman in the Book of Songs, which led the little boy in the village to run half a block behind the tractor.

Just married for half a year, Uncle Qiang left the village and went out to wander the rivers and lakes. He vowed not to come back until his wings were plated with gold. Aunt Xiaoying does housework at home, waits for her in-laws, and counts calendars every day for ten years. The child in her belly has never seen her father from birth to junior high school.

Villagers often see Aunt Xiaoying sitting alone on a big stone at the entrance of the village at dusk, staring blankly at the way out of the village. The wind blows her hair, and her beauty is as amazing as loneliness in the twilight.

Uncle Qiang really came back glittering, dressed in a suit and tie, driving a Mercedes-Benz, but there was a charming woman and a child who looked like Uncle Qiang in the car. Aunt Xiaoying refused the compensation for all the property of Uncle Qiang, took the initiative to dissolve the marriage relationship with Uncle Qiang and left the village with her children.

It's still that way, but in the spring window, there is no beautiful image of Aunt Xiaoying with her head down, holding her shoes carefully and occasionally looking into the distance. In the sunset glow, she stopped staring and stared at the horizon. Her heart is a small town with beautiful spring scenery, but he is not a passerby.

The village sent her the same way, picked her up next to the withered grass in winter and kept her with affectionate eyes, but she still left and disappeared in its direction like a road.

There are too many roads in the country to witness the joys and sorrows of life. In their view, the so-called marriage is nothing more than two feet always touching the soil on the same road, inseparable; The so-called gathering and dispersion is just that everyone has chosen their own direction. At some point, they meet or pass by, instantly or forever.

The roads in the country have gone through many vicissitudes, and I have long been Zen. I only remember flowers, don't ask the fleeting time, and look at the stories in the dust of time.

four

When grandma left, it was in an endless winter.

? Along the winding mountain road, the funeral procession of plain clothes and white sails marched silently in sobbing cries. In winter, the wind is hard and cold, whistling between the treetops and the grass leaves. The faint sunshine shines far away, and the mountain road is gray, like the last smile on grandma's face.

At the end of the road is a large grave, where the pine and cypress stand upright and lush, with a huge blood line of a family. Grandma will stop her last steps here and start to sleep and wait.

When grandma was alive, she bent down countless times, and the big locust tree standing at the door was covered with a sunshade and looked in the direction of this road. Her eyes have been spent, and she can't see clearly for a long time, but from her expression, I'm sure she saw something we can't.

Grandpa was there many years ago.

A few years ago, grandma's most precious little son went there before her. The youngest son had leukemia and had a cold when he came back from the hospital. The whole family was crying loudly, but grandma sat by the bed and looked at her little son. Her face was strangely quiet and peaceful, just like watching a sleeping child in a cradle when she was a child, which could not be awakened or disturbed.

Is the time strikingly similar, or is maternal love never changed, or is grandma the Christian who really knows life and death and believes in the afterlife? She has been very worried about her little son, afraid of secular wind and frost. Now, her little son is there, and the secular storm has stopped, so she can go with peace of mind.

She measured all the hardships of life with a pair of little feet, and led her to complete the unfinished love in the last journey, so she walked so calmly and safely.

Many years later, grandpa's children and grandchildren will come here.

For a family, this is the only way.

There are many such roads all over the country, barren and slender, winding like capillaries to someone's wheat field, somewhere on the sunny slope, or the treasure house of Feng Shui that Mr. Feng Shui has seen.

These roads separate Yin and Yang, but connect life and death.

These roads are deserted and remote, but they will never be forgotten.

The village uses these roads to complete the last call to the people living in the village, and then discard them at will. Let weeds grow on the road, open wild flowers and quietly hide the most secret thoughts of a village.

five

When I was a child, I hoped it would rain the most.

Every rainy day, my mother will find a pair of blue rubber shoes with a waist from the carton under the bed, wipe off the dust with a wet cloth and put them neatly by my bed. Bright blue rubber shoes are placed on the rough ground of my house, just like a baby. And I think it is more like a magical carriage, and I will be different because I drive it.

This pair of rubber shoes was awarded to her by the school as an excellent teacher one year. My mother cherishes it so much that she can't bear to wear it herself. When I wore it to school, I had to tell her again and again not to let water into the rubber shoes, not to put the rubber shoes into the fire and so on. As long as the rain clears, my mother will call half a basin of water, carefully wash off the mud on the rubber sole, dry the upper and sole with a cloth, and then carefully put it away. It is also because of these rubber shoes that I like rainy days. Because most students in the class wear black rubber shoes, some are dirty and old, and some don't even have rubber shoes. My blue rubber shoes not only attracted the envious eyes of most female students in my class, but also strutted in the puddle on campus like a beautiful princess, splashing a series of happy splashes.

Until one day, my father took me to the county for the first time.

We walked, more than ten miles of mountain roads. In my cheering footsteps, we slowly retreated and curled up, and soon became a bald tail that I abandoned with my feet.

Walking on the wide and flat road of the city, the steps suddenly become bigger and the figure suddenly becomes taller, and the whole person seems to be invisibly elongated. It turns out that the temperament of those handsome men and beautiful women on the city road is nourished by the road under their feet. No wonder they look leisurely and elegant, quite broad and calm. I looked at the men and women who passed me with envy. I want to be them. I want to be the one who can click on the road with my feet. I want to be the person who can make a beautiful splash without wearing heavy rubber shoes even on rainy days.

I don't know if this is a kind of motivation, but every time I go to the county seat, this desire will become stronger. I study hard and my eyes are firm, but walking on the dirt road in the country, I never forget to wipe away the dust of my dreams. Finally, I got my wish. After graduating from college, I was assigned to work in the county town and mixed into the ranks of city people.

At work, I speak Mandarin like my colleagues, work hard, save my salary to buy fashionable clothes of the season, and high heels knock out a series of noises in the corridor.

It was in a spring, the unit organized an outing and came to the long-lost field. The smell of flowers, bees and butterflies, grass and earth all greeted me, tempting all my memories. I can't be reserved any more. They were my most familiar regulars when I was a teenager. When my colleagues looked at me and told me the names, uses and even medicinal values of many weeds on the roadside, one colleague said: My family is in the countryside and I know so much about grass. I suddenly fell silent.

Some things will eventually become your mark, and you can't get rid of them anyway. Just like that painful, abandoned and forgotten country road, it has been bald behind me. No matter how I hide it, I will shake off all my inferiority at a certain moment.

After many years, the difference in identity has been gradually blurred by time. Jujube and sweet potato I brought from my hometown have even become rare things for my colleagues to taste. Every time I set foot on the road back to my hometown, I feel comforted. Compared with Fang Gezi, which lives in reinforced concrete above the city, having a home to go back to is a luxury and happiness. Those pattering footsteps on the hard asphalt road can only bring temporary false self-confidence, and the deepest expectation of the soul will always echo on the country road.

How many roads do you have to go through in your life to understand that our lives are moving in the same direction.

Later, the rural roads gradually turned into cement roads, and the rubber shoes that my mother once cherished were useless. I drove home from the county seat, which was only a ten-minute drive.

Along the way, those country roads full of wild flowers are nowhere to be found, but I always feel that every road under my feet has its shadow. It has been connected with the world, and finally it is everywhere.

six

"The younger son asked, why is it too late to come back now? * * * Who is fighting for time to win sideburns? "After waking up from a dream, I read such a poem in the moonlight by the window, and I couldn't help crying again.