Author Ah Gui
1
After lunch, he lay on his back on the bamboo bed under the catalpa tree, eager for a little sleep. The shadows of the trees scattered into the courtyard, and time cycled to wet him. This late autumn, he covered the bed with a thin quilt. The red horse in the stables snorted, and the sound of the front hooves pedaling was muffled. I'm almost thirty years old, and I'm still restless. The temptation of the countryside to the hooves of old horses is far greater than that of the capital. The capital lacks the space for the old ji to gallop, and is occupied by stubble and stubble of young and powerful foals. When I am old, it is rare to have the privilege of returning to the countryside to sprinkle joy and gallop. This old horse is lucky. He thought, into a confused situation, his head was weakly tilted to one side, but his right eyelid was like the wings of a fly, shaking non-stop, affecting his deep sleep. Seventy-two years old, a really embarrassing age, the body is getting more and more useless, the heart is still puffing and beating wildly, trying to make myself a little younger, struggling to return to the past state. His consciousness was less and shallower, and he was awakened before dawn, either the gray magpie flapping its wings outside the window, or the wind and grass near the courtyard gate. He simply got up, led the jujube red horse, and walked his horse to the Shangyang River in the south of the village, and the river rushed toward the Weihe River, carrying its own light, like a white Lingzi in the morning light. He remembered that every day on the fifth day of the dynasty, the bright light came from the flashlight-like eyes of his colleagues, and the pupils that were as black as deep wells could radiate such a strong pillar of light, almost igniting the Forbidden City, and the stars were hidden... He smiled bitterly. When he laughed, his face was wrinkled, much younger and stronger than the villagers who were over seventy years old. He tugged at the reins of the horse. The old horse understood and looked up and stood still. He turned on his horse, and the old horse ran upside down for a while, and then he flipped his hooves and palms, and he went up and down like the white waves of a river. Suddenly, the old horse fell into the deep ditch in the air, and he flew gently off the horse's back and fell heavily into the grass and mud at the bottom of the ditch...
He jerked up from the bamboo bed. Another dream of a horse losing its front hoof. I don't know how long I slept. He rubbed his presbyopia and stood up. The sun in October of the lunar calendar has no strength by noon, and it runs slower than the old horse, hanging in the middle of the south of the village. He felt the autumn coolness and slapped his long coats without mud and water stains, but he thought he had slapped them clean. People are afraid of slapping their own problems, as if slapping a pillow, not for cleanliness, only for comfort. He remembered his descendant Camus saying, "Everybody carries the plague with them, and no one in the world is innocent." He had been embarrassed for a moment, and now this moment was getting longer, could it be because he was about to grow old? It is really funny, in May 1651 he was born in Shuixi Village, forty-two years as an official, returned to his hometown in August 1723, the beginning and the end of the strange bite, pondered down, a lifelong pursuit of the heart of the heart of no great sorrow and joy, and finally with a panic and shrugging hands back to the township. The emperor is the plague. Are you infected? He looked melancholy at the wall, the stone sewn with a few dog's tail grass, green and bent with full ears, and a bitter vegetable leaf next to it was yellow. It was strange that the dogtail grass in the cracks in the wall was still green. He was accustomed to thinking a lot, especially through appearances to see the essence or the appearance in the essence.
The nightmare caused him to lose his nap. Now, he came to the dirt road in the east of the village, and yesterday, perhaps the day before yesterday, it rained for a little half a day, and the road pit was full of water, muddy but could see people's faces. His back was not hunched, his steps were still relatively calm, and his shoulders and eyes still had the spirit of the soldier waiter, only a little bit of firefly style. The road is not wide, but it is very long, and you can't look north and south. He tried to stand in the middle of the road, his body straight and straight, with his hands back, looking north, turning around and looking south again, looking at the end of the road to be satisfied. No one would know where the end of his lookout lay, or he himself wouldn't know much, but he needed to stare into the distance in this position. This was his habit for many years, in fact, whenever he didn't think about anything at this time, he seemed to understand a lot. Thinking requires some kind of habit, it needs attachment, it needs decoration. The aspens on the side of the road are either tall, some short, some thick, some thin, and the shadows are cast to the ground, ready to flutter the fallen leaves. In fact, the fallen leaves began to fall early, from August when he returned to his hometown, maybe September, and could be seen everywhere, some years ago, some this year, and there was one in the grass. He knew exactly where the leaves had gone. Clear things don't necessarily have to be said, especially results.
He took a few steps forward, and those few steps were a little staggering. The shadow of a thick poplar tree reclining on the road is the shadow of the trunk, very thick. He loved the scene, and the tree shadows gave him a sense of wilderness. He thought he had lost that feeling forever. He moved himself into the shadows of the trees. The shadow of the tree stood up from him and crawled over half of his body, half of his face. One of his eyes was obscured by shadows, and the other, exposed to the harsh sunlight. He looked up and pressed hard in a southwesterly direction, on one side of the long ridge slope, five miles away, there was a tomb at the top of the Wolfbu Ridge, which was the han tomb of the king, the commanding height of the four fields. More than forty years ago, he used to go there, go out of the village to meet the stream and go to the tomb, playing with the tomb as an antiquity, and that familiarity is now only repeated in his heart. He closed his left eye, his right eye in the bright light, and could not really see the outline of Tsukasa. He closed his right eye and Tsukasa reappeared. He tried several times and the result was the same. The "result" made him unable to distinguish which eye saw the world as real or illusory, and it was futile to concentrate on it, but he longed to see the world as it was. A flock of sparrows flew across the field of vision, like leaves fluttering in the wind, clear and fluttering
2
I dare say that the streams on the north and west slopes of Wolfbu Ridge will flow non-stop and will always exist in ancient times. Even if Liu Zhang, the king of the qing Dynasty, buried himself in the high end, destroyed the spire of the mountain, or finally turned himself into a spire, equipped with the advantage of condescending thinking about problems, he could not shake the conventions and traditions of nature. Rain and spring water can always find the angle and corner of the intersection, a drop slowly integrates, tangled into a flowing force, struggling to push away the sediment and rock formations, touching the meaning of smoothing time, not dying, and finally becoming the source of the river. So we may be lucky enough to see the world as it is. Unless people don't particularly need clear and transparent days.
The problem is that even if the stream no longer flows, or the headwaters of the river are cut off, it is normal and often seen as a natural arrangement. For an entire century, and perhaps longer, people consoled themselves and comforted each other: everything was arranged in the best arrangement. The man who spoke had a piercing gaze and ran to tell each other, as if it were real. Who can say something bad? But my question is clearly not valid, at best a hypothesis. The stream continues to flow, from ancient times to the present, do not dare to slack off half-stop. There is nothing more normal than that. Just go and see, don't lie to you.
The three streams to the north, northwest and west of Wolfbu Ridge are normal, and the inspection shows that they meet various health indicators. Normal means that the water flows endlessly. We've all seen it. Facts speak louder than words. The one that went north to the Hongxiu River and the one that went west to the Shangyang River, because the water was fierce and the water surface was wide, ran after it without effort. For a little more than half a year, the soldier who had been disarmed and returned to the field ran after the water every morning. He chased on four legs on horseback. An old horse, with a little lame left hind leg, did not prevent the shore from stepping out of a path, which was later called a horse trip. If you look closely on the ground, you can still find the horseshoe prints that have been made by avoiding the force of the lame leg - of course, you have to turn over the old grass. I have two legs, inconvenient and four-legged than that, and the main worry is the old horse behind the shameful ground. I chose to take a walk towards the one that flowed northwest of the West Village. It is shorter, only five miles. I have good foot strength. I belong to nature. I don't love the human world, I only love red dust. Red Dust is not far from Shuixi Village, or within the village.
Red dust flew, and the stream went along the slope of wolfbu ridge towards Shuixi Village. I think this stream has chosen the right direction: to drive away the fireworks of the world. After observation, it did not go straight to Shuixi Village. Humility is not universal, but it is, and thus creates a meandering character. In fact, it is not afraid of long distances, nor is it worried about gravel shale obstructions, because since the goal is clear, it is natural to spend time. It's as long as time. It doesn't care about consuming itself. Time straightened up, buried in a hurry, like a fool. It is more rational than time, deciding from the beginning to take the "S" route. Practice has proved that this is faster and safer, enough to resist the long-term desolation of the sky. Another point, all the way down it has no thoughts, no obstacles and no distractions, in a state of ease, every turn is very poetic, there is no reluctance. Its stops on two platforms in the middle of the aisle are proof of this. To rest, it dug two ponds in the middle of the road, the second larger than the first, close to the size of the lake, closer to the village, but in terms of the number of frogs and fish, the first was more than the second. Before he was thirty years old, he often went to the first pond, protecting the root of life with one hand, pinching his nose with the other, and jumping into it with red stripes, and he helped beat the gong and drum, frightening the frogs and fish not lightly, and took the road to run to the second pond. Later, the second pond had more frogs and fish than the first, and it had to let the pond grow more reeds and calamus and the like, so that the frogs and fish could hide. This is all within the scope of freedom. It is not meant to do so deliberately.
Its goal is to reach the village, and those who bend the pond are the outpourings of its character. It doesn't have to go to the human world to see the fireworks. It knows how man will treat it by unnatural means. It went to Shuixi Village entirely out of curiosity, so it was a bit fatalistic. The result was fate. It approached the east of Shuixi Village freely, and when it was full of flowers, it raised a wave, and saw a young woman in the wheat field carrying a sprayer on her back, spraying water back and forth on the wheat seedlings, it liked the yellow clothes on her upper body, longing for one, just about to open its mouth to say hello, did not think of a horse losing its front hoof, stepping into the air, and her whole body fell. It turned out that the slope of Wolfbu Ridge had come to an abrupt end here, and a large low-lying area was waiting for it, like a trap, and it fell into it involuntarily, churning forward for more than a dozen heels before stopping, dizzy, and spitting white foam. Stabilizing its mind, it looked up at Shuixi Village, saw several earthen houses standing on the cliff, looked very close, but could not climb up at all. There must be something wrong in this world. It shouts when it spits out white foam, and occasionally a figure appears on the cliff slope, pointing and pointing, but ignoring it. It kept shouting with its hands raised, and the sound should be very noisy, because Shuixi Village gave it a name that it hated: Xiangshuiwoluo. It was very depressed, shouting for its companions from the two ponds above to gather quickly in order to climb over the earth cliff and rush into the village. The depression is too big, and it is helpless to exhaust the situation. After the soldier waiter returned to his hometown, he often came to sit next to it for a while, and changed its name, Wen Crepe Crepe, called Moze Lake. This name is good, there is ink in the belly, in line with its character, it recalls and reflects on itself, gradually smooth, and then carefully manage a lake, willing to be with the village, and return to its comfortable state.
3
It is not allowed that the stream has a super-historical consciousness. Without this water, the history of Shuixi Village would have to be rewritten. In the middle of the road he pondered, shaking his shoulders, his neck sore. He did not follow the original idea to swim upstream, experiencing the vastness of the wilderness, the melodiousness of the stream and the view of the king's tomb. He's not in the mood right now. He had a dead knot in his heart. He struggled with this for a while. For this reason, he returned to his hometown. The dead knot is not unraveled. He needs to think in a quieter environment, and perhaps he should sit down and meditate instead of lying down and falling asleep. He was afraid of sleep, and the old horse always took off in the air and let him fall into the abyss. He walked toward Lake Moze. For more than 40 years, from Yunnan to Hangzhou to Beijing, the officials have become bigger and bigger. No matter how old the official was, he did not dare to put down the lake in his hometown, and the color of the lake and the village gave him the joy of memories, gave him the nourishment of life, and his heart was alive. Now he's old. With a lake in his arms, he had sweetly fantasized that it would be difficult to realize. It didn't happen overnight, in his reluctant way.
The Memory of Lake Moze is larger than reality, larger than a village. Repeated memories often amplify and blur the beauty in the heart, in contrast with the reality. He was somewhat lost. The Moze Lake in the eye resembles a diamond horn that has just come out of the water in Langqiong County, Yunnan, with three outreached sharp corners, one of which is connected to the stream. This lake is definitely smaller than the West Lake, in Hangzhou for three or four years as an official, diligent government affairs, never slack, even did not try to swim along the lake, the West Lake is mostly beautiful He can not talk about, it is a pity. He sat down among the fallen leaves of the poplar trees on the east bank. The shoreline was oblique, connecting the two corners, like the strings of a bow and arrow, and he sat on the shore strings, the dead leaves under his ass creaking, as if the sound of a bow and arrow. He gazed at the west bank, which was steeper and more densely wooded than the east bank. He imagined that he was a wooden arrow, which was ejected, flew lightly to the west bank, and inserted into the earthen courtyard wall of the low house on the shore, and the arrow body trembled violently, and there was a sound, shaking off a few handfuls of yellow earth, and flying a red dust. My whole life is nothing more than this.
He got up and slapped his body repeatedly. The sunlight penetrated through the gaps in the trees, and it was already very oblique, like ten thousand arrows. He sat for about a few hours, unconscious because his head was blank, as if it were only a few minutes. During this time, the world did not know what great changes had taken place, and no matter how much it changed, only one thing was left related to him and his hometown: the Holy Will, the Holy Will that five hundred Lijia had rushed after him. Seeing the yellow wall of the village, his heart jumped, and the words "kill without forgiveness, exterminate the nine ethnic groups" popped out at any time on the yellow wall. I don't know who is idle, take a brush and paint the village again. Is it not good for this silver ingot to be distributed to the five old people? Then there is the excess to take out and reward the poor children who can't afford to read private schools, so that it is called cultural construction, beauty is not to look with the eyes, but to experience with the heart... It's a pity that I'm not a waiter but a county order. In any case, he was terrified of the color that lay on the ground of this holy will. His name was Wang Duzhao, a native of Shuixi Village, thirty-one years old, a thirty-one-year-old zhongjia jinshi, an official to the right attendant of the military department and a right deputy imperial envoy, "pure in nature", a good reputation among the people, and was repeatedly reused in his career, without much setback, and was a prominent figure in the Kangxi Dynasty. In November 1722, the Kangxi Emperor died, and the four brothers YinChen seized the gongcheng and the Yongzheng Dynasty began. In the winter of that year, the snowflakes were very large, and the capital was white, except for the early dynasty, Wang Shilang closed the door at the official residence to thank guests, thinking about the future. There is one thing like a fish in the throat, like dust staining the body, can not be slapped off, Shu is not happy.
Although Wang Duzhao was not a taifu, but the place of work was relatively close to the upper study where Brother Ah was studying, it was inevitable that he would meet head-on with Brother Ah and nod his head and greet him, and when there was a matter of Brother Consulting theory, he answered it wholeheartedly. The Fourth Brother Yinchen was one of the ones who often came and walked around. Once, Yin Chan visited Wang Duzhao after school, and with great tendency to talk with his heart, he tugged at Wang Duzhao's sleeve and said that once he got his wish, he would ask Wang Duzhao to protect the dynasty. At that time, when the nine kings were seizing the concubine, the ministers were more watching and fewer dared to mix, and Wang Duzhao also took the attitude of watching the fire from the other side. Most of the nine princes believed that the fourth brother was less likely to inherit the unification. Therefore, Wang Duzhao was very dismissive of the affection from Yin Chan, and had a sense of danger and panic. He pulled off the sleeves of his robe with all his might, but Yin Chan avoided it and was almost pulled down. Who knows that people are not as good as heaven, and Yin Chan has ascended to the throne! Under the rain corridor, Wang Duzhao stared at the snowflakes as large as a human face, and the picture of Yongzheng almost falling down withdrew the sleeve of his robe was constantly reproduced. If he remembers them all, what about the emperor? A small incident changed his usual calm thinking, affected his judgment of the world, and fell into the predicament of arrogance. During that time, he felt that he was not even as good as the ants on the hot pot. A dead knot struck him in the heart. In the courtroom, he avoided confronting Yongzheng's eyes, fearing that the look of losing his soul would awaken Yongzheng's heart disease, and always answered questions that made Yongzheng quite nahan. In July of the first year of Yongzheng, Wang Duzhao became ill with anxiety and begged to return to his hometown to grow old. Yongzheng's eyes widened, and when he looked straight ahead, he didn't say a word, and there was a big word blockage. Beads of corn grain-like sweat dripped from Wang Duzhao's white beard to the bright gold bricks on the ground, waiting for the unfortunate moment when his heart was troubled to sleep and eat for half a year. A word, an action, is enough to make people abandon their achievements before they die. He sighed heavily. He feared that all the courtiers had heard his mournful cries.
Wang Duzhao looked around at the corners of Moze Lake, and the sigh seemed to be still hanging in his chest cavity, and he had never landed on the ground. Now he is no longer a soldier waiter, but an old man in the countryside. The companionship of the lake and the village did not allow him to obtain the comfort and happiness of an old man. The world has seduced everyone with its true and false, and people's life is nothing more than a sad dream, a feast of constant farewell, and finally what they have to live is their own skin and burden. He found it closer to bypass the north corner to the shore of the West Lake, but to wade through the creek and climb high cliffs. Facing south, the shore of the lake curves to the south corner, turning a few houses to reach. The boy's mood was still there, and he abandoned the flat ground and walked roughly, and did not hesitate to go towards the stream. He went downhill and came to the stream. The stream was much smaller than before, like a horse's urine sprinkled from wolf's ridge to the lake, suspending stale and dirty things. He took a breath and strode over, the mud staining his soap boots and nearly slipping. When he climbed the steep slope, the fallen leaves were too thick, his feet could not grasp the ground, and his leaning forward body was almost unbalanced, and just as he was about to turn into the stream, he grabbed a branch violently. The spikes of the locust branches drilled into his flesh, like wooden arrows inserted into the earthen wall, he shook a few times, fixed his body, did not feel pain, but saw blood flowing from the palm of his hand, like a stream, dripping down the branches of the trees to the cliffs, flooding with a few red dust.
"The subject is old and dim, his mind is disordered, and he is begging for his hometown..." Wang Duzhao prostrated his head again, leaving a pool of ink on the gold brick.
"Remember the old man." Yongzheng finally spoke. "Ai Qing is loyal and honest, cautious in heart, diligent in government, and remembered in mind." Thousands of miles away is not far away, Qingdang should lead by example and live up to the reputation of a famous courtier..." Yongzheng still wanted to say something, and above the hall, he stopped.
The holy will was unpredictable, but what frightened Wang Duzhao was that "the distance of ten thousand miles is not far away." He struggled to climb to the top of the cliff, parting the thorny grass and reaching the west bank. Wooden arrows in illusion are not seen on the low walls of the earthen house. The red dust was gone, and he could no longer find himself. Wang Duzhao stood under the wooden door with "Houshui West No. 1" nailed to it, like a weak grass in the wind. Separated by a large ditch of four or five meters is Qianshuixi, separated by two villages and a ditch, but it is not far away, but in his mind, it is thousands of miles away. From east to west, the ditch runs through the village, dividing the water in two, from Moze Lake in the east to another large bay at the west end of the village and a ditch that winds its way to the Shangyang River. The stream finally entered the village, ding-dong, chasing the years, embracing the water of the west branch of the WolfBu Ridge in the Shangyang River, and flowing to the Weihe River with joy. When Wang Duzhao first returned to the village, the first and last thing he did in his life was to mobilize his father and fellow villagers overnight to dig a large ditch in the village, which people called Shuixi Ditch, and one ditch was divided into two villages, separating Houshuixi from the nine ethnic groups. The idea of preserving the bloodline is shuddering and tear-jerking. Since then, Shuixigou has been like a tangible arrow, impressively in front of the world, shooting thousands of miles and piercing through the distance. This arrow, lying across the Shuixi Village, is the embodiment of Wang Du Zhaoshui Xiren. A few months later, on the second day of the first lunar month of the second year of Yongzheng, Wang Duzhao fell ill, returned to his hometown for half a year, and died in silence, his thin body wrapped around the thin quilt that blocked the autumn coolness. When the news reached the palace, the Yongzheng Emperor threw away the folds, went out of the house in his cloak, the cold wind gusted, and the snowflakes drifted in the middle of the night. He felt endless sorrow in his heart.
4
I traveled west from Houshui West No. 1 to No. 16, the complete length of Shuixi Ditch, more than one mile, at a glance is the actual size, and the endless is the historical span. I come from the distant future, and at the same time from the past. I walk with the wind. The winds of the past and the future are mixed together, twisted into knots, filling the streets and alleys of the front water west and the back water west, and also floating on the water west ditch, like a day that comes and goes. I walk like water. Running water is a remnant of time. I'm slower than the flowing water, delaying half a beat. I am a remnant of the current. I wanted to catch up with the previous wave, and it shattered, just as I was about to pick it up. The latter one I could hardly pick up, it jumped, shining in all colors, strange and strange, like an untouchable dream.
The Shuixi Ditch was dug overnight, the village was separated, and the blood vein was cut off, but it was too new, and it was foolish to look at the emperor, and the offense was added to the first. The whole village went out to pick up fallen leaves, dead branches, rotten grass, and all the garbage was used to cover the new soil. Ducks and geese were driven to ditches and water, not allowed to go home, spoiled, feces were the most precious, newly buried. I don't know whether it's because of the new or because of the old, go down into the water, play with the water, let the water wash away. The stream is cool, with the smell of ancient times, the smell of fish bones, and the fragrance of fields. Looking at the dead leaves on both sides of the river, I chased away from the water, became a drop of water, and disappeared into another drop of water. I flowed into the Weihe River, and in between, I seeped into the red Bashan Stone and gained solidified vitality.
Wang Duzhao gave birth to a son Wang Qiyou, Wang Qiyou gave birth to a son Wang Rui, Wang Rui was the fifty-seventh rank of the third rank in the first year of the Yongzheng Dynasty when Wang Duzhao told the old man to return to his hometown, and Liu Tongxun, a Man from Qigezhuang across the Shangyang River, entered the army in the same year and became an official in the same dynasty. Sending away the flow of the past, but also ushering in new things. The old things and the new things, at first glance, look similar, look at it for a long time, there is no difference, strange, satisfied, is a mirror, is a mirror in the mirror out of shape.
Next to the old gatehouse of No. 311 in Qianshuixi Yiguan, I met Mrs. Wang Duzhao, dressed as a peasant woman, with a smile on her face, and a smile on her face. Opposite the gatehouse, a low house, pasted on the wall of the house and planted a moon season with her, from spring to autumn and winter, the flowers bloom continuously, the aroma is overflowing, such as stream water, straight to the main road of Huangdao Road, which runs north and south of Shuixi Village, and may also spread to Wolfbu Ridge. When the flowers bloom, passers-by stop, extend their noses to smell, or run into the alley to take pictures. After the winter, there are fewer flowers, but the few flowers I have surprised. I took a picture, showed it to her, took another picture, and showed it to her, and she said it looked good, but she couldn't smell the fragrance. I approached the colorful petals, and the fragrance went straight to my heart. I say very fragrant, humorous, faint, continuous. She giggled, like a teenage girl.
It was a coincidence that at the bottom of the bay west of Houshui West Village, I finally found Wang Duzhao Shilang, who had been looking for a day, and he was not allowed to call him Shilang, but he was glad that I called him Old Sir. Mr. Wang squatted at the bottom of the bay to pick spinach among the few green leafy vegetables he was serving, and for dinner he prepared to fry the pot with chili peppers, simmer a plate of spinach, and eat a pot of old wine. The fresh and tender spinach roots plucked are stuck to the new mud, scattered in an iron sieve, the wire of the sieve is full of rust, but the spinach leaves are more like a bowl of water, illuminated by the sunset, with the skylight, dangling, flashing, a leaf, a tree, very comfortable.
November 16, 2018