New masterpiece | Xu Jian: Smoke Burning Brick Swallow Gui (prose)

Xu Jian, a native of Dabanqiao, Kunming, Yunnan Province. He has won the first Lu Xun Literature Award, the "Five One Project Award" of the Central Propaganda Department, the "Chinese People's Liberation Army Literature and Art Award", etc., and was rated as a "moral and artistic double xin" literary and artistic artist by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles. Vice President of the China Reportage Literature Society, first-class literary creation, enjoys the special allowance of the State Council, and the national propaganda and cultural system of the Central Propaganda Department is "cultural masters and four groups of talents". Published 7 million words of literary works of "Missile Series" and "Tibet Series".

Author:Xu Jian

It will be dusk. The sunset hangs over Jinjiang City, crumbling toward the South China Sea. Like a southern lion dance, trying to swallow red dan. Coaster chased the afterglow, rolled over from Century Avenue, a little unable to catch up, traffic, pedestrians, and the ceiba trees on both sides of the Great Qu, stretched long by the sunset, projected, thrown into a place, the incense nest of late return.

Return to xi, there should be swallows in the sky, rock swallows perched, home swallows returning to the nest, swallows sounding. However, Yan Ying and Yan Sheng were not there, after all, in the deep winter, the swallows had already flown far away, hoping for the return of the swallows in the spring of the next year. The street is very quiet, only the sound of the wheels rolling, the tide is surging, chasing a wave. Century Avenue is long enough to run more than 30 kilometers from east to west to the seashore. When you reach the middle of the road, you suddenly turn right and head towards the old city. Make a U-turn at a large intersection, turn off the boulevard, and come to an abrupt stop. Stepping out of the car door, on the half-slope sits an ancient village, on the stone wall, inscribed with the book - Wudian City. Arrive in Jinjiang for the first night of the event, visit the ancient street, and have dinner in the old house.

The steps are quite spacious and flat, like a spread book, and the evening wind blows, turning up page by page, rolling us into the ancient village on the front of the Jinjiang River, on the half-slope. Zhang Ling is a native of Xiamen, familiar with Jinjiang, Wudian City was built for one of his friends, the construction period of five years, he almost every year, a stone and a pillar from where, a brick and a tile burned in He kiln, a door and a window demolition of He Village, clear.

Picking up the stairs, the internet celebrities punching cards are bustling around, all of them are youthful faces, like the spring tide of the sea and the sky, some wearing masks, some not wearing. At that time, the sunset was thick, the clouds and trees were the same as the sea, and the coastline was gradually redder. Ascending to the high platform and looking out, the sentient beings returning home in the twilight is a drop in the ocean. At sunset, the two rows of street markets in Wudian City are plated into a peach by the sunset, the red tide hits the shore, and the flames are like a fierce horse, making people feel that a heart is beating, a tube of blood is stretching, the earth is trembling, and the sea is like a drum. Bumping into the old street Zhuang Ancestral Hall and Zhuangyuan Archway, one street door and two champions, one street nineteen jinshi, sixty years and two solutions, enough for the parents of the college entrance examination to play chicken blood, but I was tasteless. The walls under the setting sun that came to the bottom of the eyes, the fat carmine of the water, was too dazzling. Only the Forbidden City in Beijing, the royal vermilion, can be compared with one.

The carved fence jade has long turned into ash, but the carmine color has not changed. I stood in the center of the old street, looking back at the street, the end of the street, the lighting of Lu Yanxi, the smoke of the high-rise buildings, the ancient villages in the afterglow, the vicissitudes of the sea like blood, the water flooding the old courtyard, the sunset and the petrel dancing together, the sea breeze and the long sky a city. That street red reminds me of the three-color genealogy of Chinese architecture, one is royal color, one is vermilion, one is folk color, it is Jiangnan black and white gray, one is aristocratic color, Jinjiang carmine. The people of jinjiang are in the central plains after the southern crossing of the crown, in Luoshui, on both sides of the Yishui river, Yang Liu Yiyi, there is an Yi person, on the water side. At that time, the flowers of Los Angeles blossomed, the Dragon Gate was first built, and by the Yi River, it was full of Wei Jinhao clans, and ordinary family Yan flew into Wang Xiementing. Ji Kang, Ruan Yuan, and Liu Ling drank heavily, knocked on the door knocker of the Zhumen of the Shantao family, and shouted, Shan Juyuan, take the wine, and drink another pot. A torch of soldiers rose up suddenly, reflecting the Red Emperor's capital, palace chaos, war chaos, Jin chaos, Wuhu chaos, killing, blood, "four hundred and eighty temples in the southern dynasty, how many buildings in the smoke and rain." In the Spring and Autumn Warring States, in order to avoid the scourge of war, the Hao clan jumped on the white horse, which was the white horse in front of the White Horse Temple, and came by the passage, and also drove the peace and happiness far away, not to pass through the Luoyang Galan Temple, dragging the family with the mouth, to the land of Wuyue, to the water of the Minnan Mountains, to the end of the sky, the horn of the sea. Since then, his hometown has been his hometown, and the cultural bloodline of the Chinese people in the north, along with thousands of miles, has become a red wall and red tile in the smoke falling.

That dusk, I was overwhelmed by the red tide and the market was silent. Suddenly, a gust of ancient wind in the north blew a piece of central color, the embers reflected red, the unusual Chinese red, the burning red, the red of the morning and evening. Stone doors, stone pillars, next to stone windows, inlaid with red and fiery fire bricks, afterglow dissolving gold, that is the last remnant of the Nandu noble mansion, the last trace of umbilical blood of the Central Plains culture, spread on the wall, bricks, tiles, red and red, in fact, is an auspicious pattern. Jinjiang Overseas Chinese Township, ten families and nine overseas Chinese. Father and son brothers go to Nanyang, into the tropical rainforest, send overseas Chinese, may never return to their hometown in this life, but there is still a Chinese red, central plains red, build a red brick house, the brick is particularly large, like on the Great Wall, the palace wall, so that the descendants of overseas descendants understand that home is in Jinjiang, in the east where the sun rises, life must hold a cluster of bonfires, burning, like the earth fire rushing, like the flame flowing, more magnificent as the sunset.

Night fell. Three clams and two glasses of light wine, the wind is urgent in the evening, the talk has not decreased, and people are slightly drunk. After the night feast, out of the old house, along the old street down, turn past a jinshi mansion, stone wall foot, granite stone door pillar, big red square brick wall, that wide thin brick, when I was young in Yunnan hometown, is pasted on the temple wall, there is only one color, Jiangnan gray-blue, smoke and rain color, but here is full of red bricks, the same work. I asked the narrator what the name of the brick was.

Smoke burning bricks.

Which swallow? Heavy snow falls on the swallows of the swallows.

No! Although the girl is a new Jinjiang person, her words are round and round, and she is the smoke of fireworks in the world.

What about the system? Is it manufactured? I asked again.

Nor is it, teacher, it is the hot people.

Ah, smoke, what does that mean.

It means swallow. Smoke, swallows. In the memory of the Jinjiang people, the swallow chased the ancestor of the crown nandu, but it was on the beam of the Jialan Temple in Luoyang, before the family of Xie Zhi, the king of the nest, accompanied by the master to the south, ma ta fei yan, a dynasty to say goodbye to the Luoyang flower, a day to see the Chang'an flower, the hometown is far away, only the family Yan shuttles between the north and the south, and the Yan character Jinshu is passed in the clouds. Swallow, wanderer. The family swallow twittered, flew but gave birth to sea flowers, strange alleys, strange up, Wang Xie's home was eclipsed, the old appearance, only left in the smoke bricks, on the swallow tail, the people of Jinjiang did not forget the courage and preciousness of the north.

The house swallow is the bird. In the hearts of the people of Jinjiang, it is the divine bird that flew from northern China and is the sacred bird of the hometown of the Central Plains, protecting the generations of Fulu Xishou. Therefore, the swallowtail became the god on the roof ridge, arched by a personal character, vaulted in the corner of the cornice, the leader to the sky, the swallowtail rushed to the night sky, the tail was white, that is, the swallow's ass, very exaggerated.

Where is it! Down the stairs in the night wind, street lights illuminated, looking at the night sky, on the roof ridge built of smoke and bricks in the wind, the red tiles of the water on both sides, the roof ridge is actually a pair of swallow tails, below is a human character, the wings of the family swallow, connected to the human world, connected to ordinary people's homes.

At that moment, I thought of spring back to Kunming, and spring city was flying flowers. It is the time of planting seedlings in the lunar calendar, but the countryside has become deserted, and the mulberry fields have become an empty port. Returning late, the night was gentle, and I found a pair of swallows perched on the wire in front of the house. Previously, the ancestral house was a civil structure, a two-story tile house with bird's nest on the door. After the wife demolished the old house, built a five-story building, cement frame, the front beam of the face is white, and the swallow nest has been lost. Just in April, the swallows flew along the old tracks, just like the wanderers in the distance, and there was still a kind of hometown memory. Unfortunately, the nest was destroyed, and the two family swallows snuggled up to each other, crouched on the wire, and spent a long spring and summer night.

Yan Nanfei, Yan Ming's heart is broken, and the nests of generations are tilted, but they are still clinging to the south and returning to the north, as if only by returning to the southern country can they find their true hometown and relatives, but where is the home?!

The next day, I went to the ancient village of Wulin. This is a village dominated by Cai surname, still maintain the cultural roots of Jinjiang, ten families and nine overseas Chinese, more than a hundred years ago, male Ding took a boat to the South China Sea, chose Southeast Asia to go ashore, as a coolie in the Philippines, silently read a Minnan language in his heart, love to fight to win, beat the festival and sing, everyone can hum, earn hard-earned money, send overseas Chinese back to Jinjiang to support their families.

Gradually, after gaining a firm foothold and living a good life, he brought back a sum of money, built a house, and proved to the villagers that he had mixed well overseas and made a fortune. Filipino overseas Chinese Cai Xian wanted to build the east building, asked the British architect to design the villa, transported reinforced cement from overseas, invited Shanghai engineers to supervise the construction, three-story Western-style building, east and west, sitting south and facing north, nearly a thousand square meters, lasted five years. When it was capped, the War of Resistance Against Japan broke out. When the country was in trouble, the Cai family stopped the renovation and donated a huge amount of money to the state to buy arms and vehicles to alleviate the country's worries. To this day, the East Building is still a cement shell, but it is iron and strong, proudly in the heavens and the earth.

That morning, I walked to the balcony on the second floor of the Qiao PingGuan and had a bird's eye view of Wulin Village. Cottages, green areas, lotus ponds, under the sun, smoke hills floating and rising. Although the season has entered winter, it is still as gentle as spring. In the distance, the sea fills the sky, and the dome is Hada blue. Next to the square, a row of repaired and newly built old houses, from a distance, the smoke bricks are like a tree of coral blooming, each brick is just like a child's heart, burning, jumping. But what the navigator returned to his heart was a chirping swallow, and the swallow array did not stand in the air, but stood on a row of roof ridges. Smoke and bricks were built to the roof, and on the gable, a capitalized hermitage was just like the book written by Huang Tingjian's sword pen, not stingy with rice paper, and the world was wild. Covered with white ash, the roof of the two waters was lifted, and there were giants on the top of the red wall, one skim and one stroke, one stack of two stacks of three stacks and four stacks, four figures facing the sky, a pair of swallow plumes facing the sky, a white tail, and the swallow belly appeared. Trident-like, a wing soaring into the sky, phoenix sky, drifting across the ocean, there are gusts of swallow language. At that time, the sea breeze was everywhere, and the old red house under the swallowtail wing of the house, the tile roof of the two overturned water, was nothing more than a red sailing ship and a white sailing boat, walking between the seas.

The swallows have returned several times, only in the depths of the green rock. Swallow wing tail, wanderer groan. At that moment, the sea breeze was on all sides of the building, and A wonderful awakening came. The people of Jinjiang regard the house swallow as a sacred bird and a xuan bird, not only because there are many swifts, family swallows, petrels, rock swallows, whisper swallows, and all the worlds depend on each other. It is also because the smoke brick itself is a burning heart, do not choose the soil, do not shelter from the wind and rain, through the fire of smoke, burning, and finally refined into a Dan heart, the eternal carmine. Even if you wander the world, work hard, make a trace, glory or decline, sloppily fall outside the territory, die elsewhere, but the heart sends a book, rides on the wings of the swallow, returns, returns to the hometown, with the radar of the swallow's soul, you can trace the township sound, the rural rhyme, the rural well and the cooking smoke. Come back! Despite the "return of the swallows to embroider the curtain, the old nest is nowhere to be found." "The old nest is ruined, and a new home can be built."

That day in the Lilang Park, under the curtain wall of high-rise buildings, an entrepreneurial block was a wonderland. Green trees, flowers and grasses are dotted with gardens, a wei and Jin style bone, and more postmodern face changes. Each small building has a unique pattern, and it is a landscape to see from a distance, which is suspected to be the Silicon Valley of the East. There is no shortage of black technology and unicorn companies. The neighborhood is open to the public, coffee shops, water pavilions, abound. The high-rise buildings on both sides are staff dormitories, which can overlook the city forest garden, and the most brilliant thing is a clear stream passing through the city, which is the childhood dream of the three brothers of the Lilang Wang family. This city was originally the site of Chen Village, where I studied as a child, but Tian Domain, Que Mo, Rape Flower, Daoxiang Village, and the creek that played in the water were no longer there, along with the swallows that flew around to the fields, and were swallowed up by the city. Then build a stream in the city and awaken childhood memories. The three brothers of the Wang family coincided. When it was completed, the water was babbling, and it was spring all year round, and it was red and red, just waiting for Yan to return. "The west wind is not old Yan late return. Nest cold semi-dry mud".

Those nestless family swallows will also find home mountain idyllic and childhood flavors, return to the original hometown, let the wings stain the glass-like clear water surface, and evoke the new Jinjiang river and the rural rhyme of the Central Plains.

At that time, I wanted to be in the summer dusk, I returned from Jiangnan to my hometown of Dabanqiao, pulled the suitcase, turned around the old streets and alleys, overheard the sound of swallows chirping, looked up, China Telecom's signal box, actually built a new swallow nest, a number of yellow mouth children, a period of swallow twittering, waiting for the nest side of the mother swallow to feed each other.

Close to home is not timid. The pair of family swallows on the wire above the door began to be alienated, day by day, they gradually drifted apart, and finally there was only one left, staying in the doorway overnight, Lao Yan flew apart, where did they go?!

Last year's swallows are the end of the world, and this year the swallows are home. Returning from a foreign country, returning from overseas. The relatives of overseas Chinese in Jinjiang do not choose high branches to live, but still look for the traces of their ancestors, either to live and die in other countries, or to return to their hometowns to start a business. Burning the original heart like a smoke brick. The same is true of the Antardin father and son. In the first year of reform and opening up, his father Ding he returned to his hometown and built the first shoe-making workshop with the villagers. A few years later, his son Ding Shizhong consigned 600 pairs of shoes to Beijing and shopped them into the Xidan Mall in Wangfujing. For more than forty years of fame and dust, one night woke up, and became the world's sporting goods giant.

Haiyan renovated the curtain, and the arrival of Spring in Jinjiang was delayed. When I returned to the hotel that day, I didn't see the shadow of the swallow, but I also had a swallow groan in my heart, and the smoke was hot and bricky. I think of the swallow poems I read as a child, I like the seven laws of Bai Yiju the most, as plain as vernacular, but always floating in the fireworks of the world: "A few early warblers compete for warmth trees, whose new swallows peck at spring mud." "A new industrial change, many factories moved away from China, but Jinjiang entrepreneurs are not distracted to do business, keep their duties, and create Jinjiang experience and miracles." Although Cheng Guo did not see the pastoral swallow crying, the generations did not smoke and burn bricks, and they were still permeated with red dust and fireworks.

Smoke burned bricks, swallows returned. It will be a new green of the Jinjiang River and a rising spring tide.

Editor-in-Charge: Hengwen only

Source: China Youth Daily client