The taste of sunshine diary

一

It has been a long time since the sunshine, and the days are lingering in thick fog.

A car driving through the vastness cannot cut through the dense fog. The gray fog was endless, covering everything. Wherever the eyes go, in addition to the vast gray, there is still a vast gray. The driver turned on the anti-fog lights, and the light beam could only shoot a few meters away, and then disappeared in the fog.

On a winter morning, I couldn’t distinguish the boundary from night to day, as if a spaceship was pulled into a black hole by a strong magnetic field. There was no sound of wind, no sound of running water, no sound at all. If it weren't for the intermittent navigator's metallic machine voice reminders, our fleet would have been unable to move forward. The speed of the car slowed to a snail, and it slowly crawled forward. The people in the car kept silent, but frowned. I wonder if everyone was as confused as the thick fog outside the car window.

I participated in this inspection at the invitation of my colleague Xiao. Xiao is a warm and generous beauty who works in the village on behalf of her employer. I called that day and said that I wanted to lead the village team and some village representatives to visit several agricultural parks to find some projects suitable for the economic development of the village. Knowing that I was familiar with agriculture, I was invited to participate. I was very happy.

二

I have been to the village of Xiao twice. It is in an arm on the bank of the Yellow River, quietly away from the hustle and bustle.

The village was very quiet. The adults went to the city before dawn. The students went to school, leaving the village to the elderly and some people squatting or squatting in the streets and alleys. There are native dogs wandering back and forth, and native chickens raking grass clippings next to the firewood pile at the edge of the village, looking for a few grains of grain or insects. A rooster had bright feathers and looked arrogant. He held his head high and watched seven or eight hens busy. Walking in the village, I have a feeling of traveling through time and space, as if my long-lost hometown village has come to life again, quietly embracing me with warmth.

When she first went to this small village, Xiao had already been employed for a while. She led the villagers to build roads and clear drainage ditches. The appearance of the village was quietly changing. Flowers were planted at the entrances of some courtyards. Some common flowers are not as neatly trimmed as the gardens in the city, but they bloom gorgeously and unscrupulously. The hibiscus flower has bloomed for a long time and is still persisting gently. Dahlia is very ostentatious and stands out. Morning glories climbed up the wall and blew their trumpets into the sky. My favorite ones are the lentil flowers and loofah flowers, they remind me of nostalgia.

Nostalgia is an eternal knot in the hearts of many people, especially now that many villages are disappearing. When the dirt roads and field ridges, creeks and wild ponds, big trees and old stork nests surrounding the villages fade out of sight, The nostalgia became more and more intense. When some villages with a long history suddenly disappear, those beautiful legends that have been lingering over the villages for many years disappear without a trace.

Looking back again, the fog blocked the return journey. Looking back again, my eyes were filled with tears.

I regard that village as my hometown, at least it awakened my dusty memory. At that time, the autumn colors were deep.

三

This time we walked through the fog, it was already the middle of winter.

Today’s winter has lost many classic scenes. There was less and less snow, and there was a heavy snowfall in winter. It disappeared before the children could pile up the snowmen after school. Then this winter, the shadow of snow never came again. Not to mention that the village breathes quietly under the cover of snow. The smoke from the chimneys on the roof makes people distinguish a village from the wilderness. As for using a bamboo pole to knock off a column from the eaves, grinning and chewing it until it crunched like rock candy, it can only be a legend to today's children.

But winter is still coming.

The pace of urban expansion has slowed down. Many villagers who used to hang themselves with a rope on the construction site in the clouds and mist in the sky outside the building have a particularly cold life this year. They no longer go to the city to work, but return to the village. The construction sites in the city were looming in the haze, and the village roads were also looming in the haze. Haze is the background and theme of this winter. It blocks the vision, leaving many people confused and unclear about their future.

The flowers that bloomed in the village in autumn have long since turned into dust. As for the harvest of lentils and loofah, I don't pay special attention. I just think that this winter, looking at the flowers and the moon in the mist is a luxury.

Looking at the silent villagers in the car, Xiao still thought of breaking the silence. She introduced me to the villagers, saying that I graduated from an agricultural university, had in-depth research on agricultural development, and had unique insights into how to enable villagers to start businesses in the village. She also talked about my TV lecture "Three Rural Economics." Several villagers looked at me eagerly, and I could only smile bitterly.

The embarrassment was always broken. I started to look at their faces, all of which were dark. But their eyes were sincere. I thought of the old neighbors in my hometown who also had such eyes. So we started chatting, talking about things in the village, the harvest of crops, the price of local eggs, and even talking about lentils and loofah in autumn. They said that those things cannot be exchanged for money. Next year you can go to the village and pick as many as you want.

My heart becomes warmer. This is a long-lost family affection, a distant memory.

In the countryside at that time, when money was scarce, what was used in exchange for some fruits, vegetables and snacks was a strong sense of family affection. I was moved at this moment. I glanced at Xiao and the villagers who were the same as my old neighbors in my hometown, and secretly promised that I would walk through this thick fog with them and wait for the smell of sunshine.

四

But the sunshine never came that day.

We visited several modern agricultural parks in the fog. Some new facilities and technologies opened the eyes of villagers who have been dealing with the land for decades. They became excited, as if the big rooster at the head of the village had seen the red sun rising in the east, and began to flap its golden wings and make a sweet crow. My level of excitement is definitely not as high as theirs, because I have seen too many such modern agricultural facilities. The greenhouse built of reinforced concrete is equipped with electronic equipment for automatic temperature and humidity control, Internet of Things technology for monitoring the entire process, automatic rolling shutter machines, and droppers at the roots of each seedling. In my eyes, Not fresh.

I have led teams to visit many more advanced facilities agriculture, but I know that at least for now, they do not belong to the villagers like my old neighbors in my hometown. Many agricultural modernization facilities are demonstration parks invested and built by the government, and the economic benefits of each layer of insulation film will never be calculated. Those funds were like another car driving in the opposite direction from our car, but a light flashed in front of us, and then disappeared into the vast haze, never to be seen again.

I told Xiao that the village’s economy would be better if it were more real. Xiaoye nodded, knowing that there was no way to obtain so much funds to revive the fields of the small village in the arms of the Yellow River overnight. But when I saw the green leeks in the small shed at Sanhe Lake, my eyes lit up. I told the villagers to listen more to the experience here, especially how to develop leading industries in the face of a rapidly changing market.

For fear of irritating everyone, I changed my tone to a half-joking tone and told them that they had been living in the countryside for most of their lives and might never farm in the future. Several villagers nodded with a little anxiety on their faces. Some of them lit up a cigarette and thought about something while smoking. White smoke came out of his nostrils and immediately mixed with the haze, without the usual swirling and rising smoke.

五

Rising may be hope. I sincerely hope to ignite their enthusiasm, just like the red light of a faint cigarette butt in the fog.

Passing by the west outer ring road of the city, a strong smell floated into the car, and I felt suffocated for a moment. I couldn't breathe, and my brain began to turn pale, as pale as the fog outside the car window, as if the world was about to end.

This smell definitely does not belong to the countryside. Even though many large-scale animal husbandry bases have been built in the countryside in recent years, the smell of pig manure, chicken manure and cow manure is the smell that comes in from outside the car today. In front of you, it will be eclipsed. I took out a white handkerchief, poured some water from the thermos cup, covered my mouth and nose, and breathed hard. As the car passed through this area, my eyes were full of tears and my heart was filled with endless sadness. Because of the tears, I didn’t see how the others in the car passed through that hellish place.

Fortunately we crossed the Yellow River. The Yellow River is very thin and listless. Only a short section can be seen on both sides of the bridge, and it is divided into several roads by sandbars. It winds tiredly into the thick fog with no beginning or end. In the cities on both sides of the Yellow River, tall buildings have sprung up like mushrooms after rain in recent years. The building was also shrouded in fog and the roof could not be seen.

Xiao was very embarrassed. She explained that she had read the weather forecast and said it would be sunny today. How could it be like this? I also smiled and said that this is the darkness before the light, just get over it and it will be fine.

Six

How to survive the darkness before the light? I thought of the hibiscus flowers that bloomed in the village in autumn. Its flower language is called gentle persistence.

Persistence is valuable, especially in these turbulent times. We need to muster the courage to open our hearts that are shrouded in haze. Everything that confuses the eyes should be swept away by a biting north wind. Although the north wind brings coldness, it also becomes the savior that allows us to breathe freely.

Will the north wind blow here as soon as possible?

When we returned that day, it was getting late. On a short day in the middle of winter, we saw green peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and strawberries in modern greenhouses that were stunted due to lack of sunlight. We also saw mushrooms that could still grow in the dark. The mushrooms are developing, and their hyphae spread through the medium, stretching each mushroom body out from the base material. They can grow without sunlight, and darkness cannot hinder their life process.

Then there is the last base, the Ten Thousand Mu Lotus Root Base. Even though it was getting very late and the fog was getting a lot heavier, Xiao still insisted on letting everyone get out of the car to visit. Because in the village where she worked, there was a large depression where wild aquatic plants and reeds grew. Xiao discussed with the village team to sort it out this winter and cultivate lotus roots next year.

The lotus root pond is very busy. Vendors from the counties on the other side of the Yellow River are waiting for the lotus root walkers to fish out the lotus root called "Gourd Head" from the pond. The owner of Ouchi stood on the shore with a scale in front of him, waiting to calculate this year's harvest.

He is an acquaintance of mine, and I often photograph egrets and black-winged stilts in his lotus pond in spring and summer. He saw me handing over a cigarette, and I waved my hand and refused. Then, on behalf of Xiaohe and the villagers, he invited him to find time to come to the village to guide lotus root planting. He agreed readily and said he would leave lotus seeds for everyone.

At this moment, the remaining lotus seeds are still guarding the darkness in the mud at the bottom of the pond, waiting for the arrival of next spring. And the villagers have already begun to tidy up the pond in the haze.

I seem to see, in that small village in the arms of the Yellow River, in the wild water in the southeast corner of the village, pieces of green new lotus leaves, with sharp corners emerging from the bottom of the water, and then Green umbrellas were opened one after another and raised high. In the endless green, the white lotus blooms, allowing bees and butterflies to suck the sweet nectar, and dance with the egrets, night herons and pond herons in the wind.

At that time of year, the smell of sunshine was everywhere in the small villages and cities.