Text/Liu Tongjun
Snow country is not a geographical concept. Strictly speaking, it is a land created by seasons. Every Yankee will have a snow country of their own. For example, Mo Yan's Gaomi Northeast Township in Shandong. My snow town is in a region called Jiulong Mountain in the east of southern Henan, which was later transformed into a farm named Xi Liu at the foot of the Lingshan Mountains after migration in the Qianlong era of the Qing Dynasty. It's not as beautiful as Jiangnan, but it's not rougher than the rough fur of the northern land. Fine and tight maple poplars, soft weeping willows, soft and boneless spring flowers... In a geographical sense, the abundance of thirty-one degrees north latitude is vividly reflected in my snow country. Or, in the middle of winter, you can see the hare running across the mountains, or occasionally encounter the white-crowned long-tailed pheasant with splendid embroidery, hanging down a delicate face, raising a few clusters of proud crown feathers, the mood is extremely cute and cunning, and it will also throw a few beautiful whispers into the snow.
When my grandfather was alive, the world had a little more to worry about. Even in the wind of the cold winter moon town, under the high brim of the hat, a pair of eyes that are not bright enough but are strong but flow with myopic scenery. The rushing north wind hurt the deep eye sockets. Bright or sad sunlight flickered in the snow nest beneath his feet, shaking his head in pain. The trance-like gaze caused a dizziness in his head, and in the dizziness, his voice and smile swept in like a tidal wave. Ever since I had the concept of time, I have looked at this old man who rarely goes out after retirement in different ways from different angles and in different ways—tall and admirable figure, big legs, big waist and round arms, living off a big man in the north. From five miles away, the fellow villagers could clearly hear his steely laughter. He was resolute and fearless, working as a widower at the age of twenty-six until he took his last breath. He has been away from this snow town for a short time, just like now I am gradually leaving this snow town for a short time. But the way we left was very different. He left to heal his illness and to flee briefly from the misfortunes that God had given him.
The fire pit of winter, because of my birth, is full of rich colors of joy. Originally built in 1975, the old house of the old home has four small main houses and two side rooms. One is the kitchen and the other is the bullpen. The door of the bullpen should naturally be opened, and it should not be connected with the qi vein between the nutrients of the "bell ringing ding food". For example, xiao lang, one is on top and one is on the bottom. From the kitchen to the bullpen, it's fifty steps. The time for the bullpen to open in the south was not long, and it happened in the years when my family and Li Baoqiang's eldest brother shared cattle, and then turned to a single house on the back. After the cattle were divided, the original cattle pen was converted into an exclusive living room for the elderly.
At that time, the snow country was full of children's laughter and the warmth of home. Go to a 100-square courtyard courtyard in the living room, although claustrophobic in the lonely part of the village, at the highest end, it is a place full of fireworks. The old man's strong and kind talk, our academic excellence, and the mother's virtuous and enlightened nature were once the topics that people in small villages were happy to talk about. Looking at it, the green mountains are continuous, and the green water surrounds the village, not Jiangnan is better than Jiangnan. When the first snow falls in the snow country, the birds inside and outside the village are crushed and bound in the middle of the view. The world is thick and simple, and it can only accommodate the next color, a kind of unique white. White is thorough, white is desperate, and it makes people panic. I didn't know the birds' situation, but I saw their cunning heads stretching out in the white frame. Every inch of the snow town, bloated ants have long been hidden in the bottomless darkness, and the once-domineering beasts have hibernated in the cat ear holes of the deep mountains and old forests. Only, the live little hares and birds are still in pairs, as if they are rare in the world. I was used to watching the birds in the white expanse, only to see the small sparrow shyly curling its neck and bouncing on the snow doing a kind of foraging motion. In my opinion, there is no seed particle in the snow country, only a thing collectively called white. But the little bird is still persistent, tilting its head and probing the shuttle, and there are a lot of ghosts entering the village to snatch the chickens and ducks. Perhaps, I was too young to understand the loneliness and obsession of a bird. Every time the finches take a step, or jump, they will always bring up the fine powdery snow particles, bounce into the large half of their world, fall down, throw up, throw up, fall down again. The birds repeated, tirelessly, but almost desperate to the point of suffocation, and no grain of grain of grain appeared on the snow. On a sunny day, or a semi-cloudy day, or a time when the snow is flying, birds fly directly low over the eaves of the corridor and enter the granary from the opening of the main room to peck. I was thinking that there must be a place in the snow town where the corpses of endless birds are piled up. In such a desperate ghost weather, is hunger the norm for birds? Otherwise, they would not have taken the risk of life and death and stood on the edge of despair trembling. It takes courage, but I don't know if things have courage, perseverance, faith, belief, or anything like that. Anyway, how is this, it is desperate in the ice and snow. At that time, when there was no environmentalism, the little farts thought about what soup to make if they shot a few sparrows. Sparrows are sporadic like this, facing the suspense of life and death like a certain period of time in the last century, facing the suspense of life and death, and the difficulty of life.
The faint sparrow was urged by the cold, and faced the strafing of the naughty boy's slingshot and the attack from behind. From an early age, I established the idea that the shooter behind me is not a hero or a good man, but at best a cold man. I shoot sparrows and never choose when it's vulnerable. Instead, in the harsh winter of that snowy country, I took the initiative to present a piece of love to the birds. I searched with the grim eyes of the old man on my back, and at the bottom of my barn, under the barn called the funnel, I grabbed a star or a half grain of rice or grain. From the grain pile in the main room, walk out of the door with your back to do a parabola movement. Immediately attracted birds boundless, chirping. Their lofty heads and cheerful foraging were a compliment to my rash behavior. At that time, from a trance of annual rings, I found a mystery that had existed for many years, and birds also had feelings. In the warm spring, they gather on the peach tree plum apricots in the back garden, crawling, and together with the woodpeckers, they remove insect pests from the trees and ensure a harvest for a season. From a rational point of view, the bird protection actions of that time were just in line with today's ecological conception.
A writer's scene of sifting and catching birds will not happen in the snow country, or the IQ of the snow country people has not reached this height. On windless nights, in the middle of winter, the fire pond choir generally becomes the best gathering place for villagers. The story of the fire pit cannot be told. Angelic, demonic, demonic, heavenly and earthly, the old man came at his fingertips. The essence of my good impulse is estimated to be inherited from the old man, who talks about the former dynasty, his eyebrows fly and dance, and his eyes are all the majesty and arrogance of the Han Dynasty. Liu Bang's Siege of Bai Deng, Emperor Wu's sweep of the Xiongnu, was interpreted by the old man in a colorful way, so wonderful. To put it bluntly, the descendants of our Great Han Dynasty are all noble temperaments of royal blood. In the long course of history, it seems that only we are orthodox. One of the great abilities of the old man is to play with fire and play exquisitely. He held a thick and heavy chopping wood in one hand, grabbed a handful of pine needles in the other, mixed them together, and snapped down the throttle of the lighter. It was also a snap, the pine needles rattled, and the small wooden sticks and some dry bushes that took the lead quickly burst out of passion, flickering and flashing, burning into a raging fire. The flame rose along the blackened eaves, rising into the air, and the dust hung near the roof. Up and down, down, just like the embarrassing situation of people in middle age. An iron cable is placed on a horizontal roller-shaped log, dangling slowly, and the cold water of the jar is preheated in the warm heat and churns, and then turns into a ridge of steam and flutters up. It was in this steaming steam that the Third Master boiled the small soybeans in the tin can by the heat of the fire pond. Don't look at it on land, it crunched, and when it came to the water, the ocean of snow water was soaked up like a few bean tendons. In some water-scarce years, or on days when the snow closes the mountains, it can be exchanged for a tasteful mountain day. The old man did not think that the third master had a good life, but thought that he was simply a greedy and small third elder. The old man and the third master were descendants of the same grandmother, and in his eyes, the third master did not grow up. In other words, no matter how good his kung fu is, he can't fly out of the palm of the Buddha's hand.
The ashes in the fire pond were still flickering, and the old man was still in good spirits. He combed through Chinese history from dynasty to dynasty, but, to put it bluntly, no dynasty still entered his eyes. Except, of course, for the Han Dynasty. There is one passage in which he is most accustomed to his words, and there is one passage that impresses me the most. In a certain year, probably in the early years of the Republic of China, the clan built the Liu Ancestral Hall. There was a man called the Fourth Master, who wrote a wonderful couplet with a wave of his hand, which was said to have spread to ten miles and eight townships. The gist is that there are twelve emperors surnamed Liu at the foot of the Eastern and Western Imperial Cities. When I was young, I couldn't understand the mystery, but I vaguely felt that I had to work hard to achieve some academic success, and paid tribute to the old fourth master. In my limited perception of scarcity, the old man was the first enlightenment. He would teach me to read in the ashes, with a pine branch or whatever branch I wanted. The simple fire pit, a dozen large green bricks and a fire pit worthy of a kingdom of knowledge and common sense. The two bald people and the few unemployed vagrants talked to the old man almost all night. Later, one of my eldest nephews actually said the old yellowed old saying in the living room of the side room. "Listening to the king's words is better than reading ten years of books." Most of the old man's tea sets were purchased from the street, and several were bought from a business trip in the streets and alleys of Shijiazhuang. In the snow town, where the palm is big, the old man is an elder and a big coffee who has seen the world. Undoubtedly, this is also the main reason why my family can become a place where many people gather.
One day in a certain month of a certain year, the ice was long enough, and I was full of interest and I raised my stick to hit the ice hanger. The ice hangers are spectacular, densely distributed along the corners of the eaves. In the sunlight, the bright and dangling vitreous body flashed like a sharp blade, forcing adults to shiver. The old man had long since taken refuge in the fire, roasting the fire day and night for warmth, and preaching his story day and night. The stick doesn't have to be too long, it's not easy to use when it's long; it can't be too short, it can't be reached too short. Always entangled in contradictions, wandering, walking. When the quiet and non-lethal sunlight shines on the high wall of southern Henan, my achievements have shown signs of abundance. Ice hangers, ice cubes, ice powders, various forms of ice and snow are formed in the corner eaves of the wall. Sometimes, without paying attention, the ice hanger flies from the cuff into the cuff, and from the cuff to the inside of the body. Immediately, like a child's turning fire bowl fell to the top of the head, the goosebumps on the body were more spectacular than the waves of the ocean. The childhood of that generation, in my snow country, was spent like this. There are also sleds, which are naturally not things within the Arctic Circle, or are designed for adventure, but are just paralleled by a row of bamboo poles, such as a physical parallel circuit, tied together strongly. The older doll pushed from behind and whistled, and the baby in front glided wildly, from the high starting point to the low point, making a parabolic rotation. Inexperienced children must wrestle, but I have drawn experience, and I have never broken even an inch of skin in the ice and snow. Namsanoka is an excellent place for ice skating, but the risk factor is high. It was facing the roof ridge of the second mother's house, and if it didn't care a little, it slid onto the roof and couldn't get down. People's chimneys are never lonely, and there is always a bush of smoke rising, making the village smell of fireworks. The locust tree is a unique scenery in the countryside. When the snowflakes stop, supplemented by the strong cold air outside, the image of the tree full of ice is the most moving. The most beautiful is the black oak tree, the autumn leaves have fallen, the branches support a few white black trees. Snowflakes are laid out, snow powder falls, and in the distance, the silver-clad ice trees are not spectacular. There is also a black tree, the most primitive slingshot bullet, often in the hands of the naughty boy. With a snap, the ejaculated black squirrel landed firmly and fiercely on the combined part of the sparrow's wings and chest. The knife fell from the head and shot away the bird. Liso's black oak made an arc in the snowy sky, a perfect arc in the eyes of children, and immediately hit the bird's vital point. One year in the deep winter, the snow town wandered with a group of strange birds dressed in black and white bellied. In my house, there is a bamboo garden behind the house, and the lush green bamboo is in the same order. This flock of birds is dispersing day by day, and it seems to occupy this bamboo forest. I don't know what the intention is, I began to hate these noisy birds. Finally, during a time when the snow was closing the door, I took out my long-planned slingshot and shot a black girth at the white belly of a bird. Only a scream was heard, and the strange bird fell to the ground in response. From the patio of my house, it landed slowly, and with a loud click, it fell heavily on the ice in the middle. A cloud of red liquid flowed on the white background, and a thick breath of death accumulated under the black clothes. My heart shook suddenly, as if stung by something in the shape of a hacksaw. I was frightened, a bird that I had slaughtered with my own hands. Soon, the old man who heard the screams of the fire and drove out of the fire told me with a sigh and told me--Spotted dove, spotted dove, good bird. Like a child who made a mistake, I lifted the heavy dove carcass and walked step by step to the pit where I often buried the undead of living creatures. After performing a few eye-catching rituals, plus a few sounds of Amitabha, I left its burial place. At that time, the Xuexiang people were deeply buddhist and rarely killed. I broke the Buddha's vows, which is really a sin.
In those years, when the snow was flying, I didn't feel cold, but I felt a lot of fun. Gradually, with the ups and downs of life, I went from the snow town to a new world. From the first experience of the city to the settlement of birds without laying eggs, tiptoeing up and not seeing the small city of the north, the snow town, like a melting white snow, slowly faded out of my world. Since I left the snow country in some unknown year, the old man has been living in a kind of tumbling day, thinking about death all day long. He was so lonely, an empty nest old man, watching over the snowy fields. A man, a rafters of a ruined house, a cold pot stove, standing in the cold snow and wind, he seems to have returned overnight to the career of an orphan riding a cow. In the fire pit of the snow town, there was no longer the audience that had gathered before, and the former unemployed vagrants of Er Bald and Gen Mo had long become migrant workers who were in a hurry like ants. One by one, they broke free from the shackles of the snow country and fought alone in a strange city, without even having an identity. Finally, in the early morning after a snowstorm, the old man also left the snow country for a long trip.
Today's snow town, the entrance to the village, there are finally two new buildings belonging to my family. When the old man was alive, the location of the new house was two meters below the foundation, and the damp was often wet. It is a pity that the old man has suffered all his life, and he is ready to renovate the house and give him a more abundant and comfortable old age. Unbeknownst to him, he could no longer wait to live in, and the people went away with the west wind. In other mountains and rivers, for the sake of future generations, it has become the pursuit of most farmers' lives. The new house was built by my mother, and after suffering and running, my children and I became the ones who enjoyed the success, and the old man and the mother were the founders of this "great cause". In order to make up for the unhappiness of the old man before his death, I decided to buy him the highest specification tombstone, and also wrote the best inscription in the cultural circles of The Snow Township. But it is all earthly bubbles. Nostalgia for the years of the snow country, and then recount the past of the snow country, for me, are general past tense, or past completion tense. Anyway, remembering that three thousand are still inferior to the old man when he is still alive gives me a smile that will be hearty. However, the snow country is eternal, the personnel is convenient, and the wheel of rural history will crush everything and kill all sentient beings.
(Image from the Internet)
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