Mountain Chrysanthemum (Cheng Yuanyang)

That was thirty years ago. It was the middle of winter, and I was visiting a friend's house in Ngau Kon Wan. After breakfast that day, everyone was bored, and I don't know who suggested that we go to the East Lake outside the city, say go, and follow a winding ancient road out of the town.

Out of the city, you can see the vast expanse of loess terraces, like ochre brocade laid on it, and the decaying grass shakes violently in the wailing cold wind. We turned over a mound, and what appeared in front of us was a large lake, and the flat mirror-like surface of the lake had a thick layer of ice, and my friend said that this was the East Lake.

We took a few pictures of the lake and headed south along the path by the lake, where there was a secondary hoisting station. When we reached the south side of the lake, we looked up, and what led to the lifting station was a row of narrow and narrow servants, very high and steep steps, and everyone carefully picked up the steps, about twenty meters, and saw a buffer platform, where two little girls were playing.

One of the girls was about ten years old, her cheeks were frozen red, and her two clear eyes were looking at us curiously. The friend said it was dangerous, and the girl and her companion laughed, "We come often," she said, staring at us. Only then did I look at her carefully, a slightly oversized, thin winter coat, and worn and dirty cotton shoes exposing her toes. What's your name, I asked her, "Mountain Chrysanthemum," she said. Oh, what a nice name, I can't help but fall into meditation, every time the frost falls, the mountain streams of the hometown, the cliffside roadside is full of yellow chrysanthemums, and the clusters and clusters of small flowers bloom like an umbrella cover, turning the hometown of late autumn into a golden ocean. A breeze blows, and the rich smell of wild chrysanthemums wafts through the sky.

Day after day, year after year, quietly open, and silently zero, trying to decorate the world that no one cares about. No one stopped to admire it. Occasionally, a thirsty traveler who was thirsty during the long journey took it in his mouth or picked it for a leisurely farmer to soak in water, and did not like his bitter taste. Isn't she the inconspicuous, even humble mountain chrysanthemum in the countryside? "I'll take a picture of you," my friend's words interrupted my contemplation. They sat side by side on the steps, and my fool's machine fixed them forever on the morning in the bitter cold wind of OxHorn Bay, in the years of hunger and hardship.

"Come to my house," her tender little finger said, and we followed her up to the pumping station, which was her home in two low, dilapidated adobe houses. We walked in, and in the middle of the room there was a pot of firewood, and a great uncle was cooking in front of the stove. Mottled black walls, rudimentary furnishings, dim and yellowish lighting, that's all I saw. The old man put down his work and greeted us busily, he said that he was the grandfather of the mountain chrysanthemum, this is an old man who has been weathered by the wind and frost, and the knife-like wrinkles are covered with that dark face, as if he is silently telling the endless suffering brought to him by the past years.

He said that The father of the mountain chrysanthemum rolled down the cliff and died in a road construction, the mother could not survive the hard days to remarry another country, he usually collected some medicinal herbs for her to go to school, but now he is slowly getting old, the physical strength is not good day by day, it is very difficult to provide for her, "If I go, the mountain chrysanthemum will do it", his empty and cloudy eyes looked blankly at the rising stove fire in front of him. Who can remove the dark clouds that hang over his head and soothe the sorrow in his heart? We don't know how to comfort him, and I know that at this moment, no matter how flowery the language is, it is so pale and powerless.

At the time of the palm lamp, the elf-like snowflakes flew and roared down from the sky, and the flying snow covered the whole world, and the earth was white, and it was impossible to distinguish the road at that time. We stumbled back into town one foot deep and one foot shallow, and everyone was speechless.

I accidentally opened the photo album and saw the yellowed photo, which evoked many old things. A long-lost friend said that OxHorn Bay has embarked on eco-tourism and has undergone great changes. By the way, Shan Chrysanthemum is nearly fifty years old, is she doing well, I think she must be living well, because we are all living a good life.

It's autumn again, and mountain chrysanthemums are in full bloom