Memories scattered in the depths of time
Wen 丨 Lei Jinyang
Weicheng light rain
To the west of Bridge No. 2 is the site of an ancient ferry.
In the babbling Wei River, a few wooden stakes crooked from east to west stubbornly pointed to the sky, listening to the older generation, this is the ancient ferry head of Xianyang in that year.
The old man smacked his mouth touching his gray beard: At that time, this ferry port was very prosperous, very lively...
I turned my head to look at the ruins of Gudu in the river, where only a few wild ducks were floating in the water. Because the water is muddy and even the fish cannot be seen, it is hard to imagine that this was once the busiest place in Xianyang.
Later, I ate at a noodle restaurant on North Avenue, and there were old photos of Xianyang hanging on the wall, one of which was impressively written with the words "Xianyang Gudu". The photograph is yellowed, faintly recognizable as a crowd of people huddled together, behind which is a patch of water, small boats floating, and the sound of crowds can be heard for decades.
After eating, it came out and it started to rain lightly. Looking up at the sky, looking at the ruins of Gudu in the distance, I suddenly remembered that the famous "Weicheng City Towards the Rain and Dust, the Guest House Green and Willow Color New" seems to be written here; the famous song "Yangguan Three Stacks" seems to describe the scene of Xianyang Gudu's farewell.
The friend who had eaten together smiled and said goodbye to me, and I watched her gradually walk away, and her nose was inexplicably sour. Farewell, farewell, farewell at this ancient ferry, and it is still raining slightly, but is it not much different from the scene of a thousand years ago?
How many times has the ancient ferry head experienced a farewell in the light rain? Starting from the sound of crabapples and the sound of Guan Ju, the woman with a worried eyebrow watched the good people drift away in a boat; the sound of horseshoes, the folding willows were given to the guests, and the willow branches of the ancient ferry head brought the ardent hope and care of friends; the smoke in the distance, the resolute gaze, the white-haired mother draped the young children who were about to go to the battlefield with hand-sewn clothes... Two thousand years of time, countless times of farewell, each time sincere, all tears.
Unconsciously, I walked to the shore again and looked at the ruins of Gudu not far away. The rain is drizzling and the worries are endless. I remembered the countless times I had turned around and parted since I was a child. When I was learning to speak, my mother always walked in front of me for a while, and then stopped to look back to see if I had followed, and I staggered my legs and stumbled over because I was afraid that my mother would leave. Later, the distance became longer and longer, and I don't know when the figure of my mother always walking in front disappeared, and I was the only one walking on the familiar street. Later, strange people accompanied me through one section after another, but the road was too short, and people changed frequently. Tired of walking, want to stop and rest for a while, look up at the flow of people around you, and continue to take steps to continue walking, keep walking... I said goodbye to one person after another, and I knew that one day, eventually, I would say goodbye to myself.
In the beginning, leaving the familiar person, you will cry heart-rending and crying darkly. As there were more farewells, the rain in my heart became heavier and heavier, but there was no emotion on my face, and I walked forward numbly and kept saying goodbye.
I raised my hand and touched my cheek, not knowing if it was rain or tears.
The phone rang, and I scrambled to answer it, and it turned out that my friend had already come home and reported to me that I was safe.
The ancient ferry head in the distance was still hazy in the rain, but there was a hint of relief in his heart. Everyone has an ancient ferry in their hearts, where we say goodbye to the world.
Off the plains
"Away from the grass on the plain, one year old and one year old..." When I ascended to the Wuling Plain, I thought of irrelevant verses.
Wuling was originally located in Xianyang, said to be Wuling, in fact, I don't know how many mausoleums there are. People often say that "the talented son of the south, the general of the north, the emperor buried in the plains of Xianyang". It can be seen that the importance of Xianyang in ancient times, as well as the number of imperial tombs in Xianyang.
In fact, when I was very young, I came to Wulingyuan. At that time, I didn't know that these were ancient mausoleums, but I just used them as a big earth mountain to climb, laughing and making noise on them, picking wild flowers, digging wild vegetables, and having fun.
Coming to Wulingyuan again, I couldn't help but feel a thousand emotions.
I am no longer a child who did not understand the world, and naturally I know that the "Big Earth Mountain" in front of me is a mausoleum made up of human beings little by little. I think how grand such a tall mausoleum should have been on the Guanzhong Plain! Now, in the distance, high-rise buildings are lined up, trains are roaring, and the Wuling Plain is full of wild grasses and sour date trees, looking desolate and lonely.
When I returned to wulingyuan, it was the autumn wind. The dog-tail grass beside the road had turned yellow and stained with dust, a dirty color.
Some pines were planted around the lingzhou, and in a vast yellow, this emerald green was particularly valuable. There are some stone carved animals in front of the tomb, but they are all mutilated, goats have no horns, monkeys have no heads, stone dogs have no tails... They lay crooked in the weeds, in a mess.
There is also a mandala around the mausoleum. Mandala is a traditional Chinese medicine and a poison, and in spring and summer, white flowers bloom, which are enchanting and beautiful. The mandala in late autumn has borne fruit, and the fruit is densely covered with thorns. Still the color of the withered yellow dust, accompanied by the roaring west wind, lifted up a loess. The mandala stands tall in the wind, resembling its ancestors.
Thousands of years ago, there may have been only a weak seedling emerging from the soil. It watched the people around it, and it and its descendants witnessed the birth of imperial tombs and the formation of miracles one by one.
I walked on a path in the weeds, surrounded by the dead yellow weeds of Xiao Suo, half a man tall. Suddenly, I felt that in fact, these mounds, which were praised by posterity, may not be as great as the grass around them.
You see, didn't the emperor of the ancient heavens, who was the son of heaven, finally lie on the Wuling Plain like a commoner? Let these flowers and plants flourish on their tombs. There are so many emperors, each dynasty has so many different rulers, the power struggle has never stopped, it is really "you sing I appear". But of these grasses, there is only one ancestor of each grass. They are born here, they grow here, they die here, and their withered bodies become fertilizer to feed the next generation of weeds.
"Wildfires burn endlessly, and spring winds blow and grow again..."
The top of the mausoleum is the sky, and the tip of the weed also points straight to the sky. Is there any difference between the sky then and the sky overhead now?
Mandalas and weeds have multiplied from generation to generation, the passers-by of the cemetery have changed from generation to generation, the dead bones in the tomb have decayed into dust, and time has flowed for thousands of years.
The moon is silent
There is a section of earthen wall near the home.
The wall is about two meters high, made of loess, and the wall is cracked over time, and from the cracks in the soil grow wild grass and wildflowers, and even a tree grows, and the curved trunk points to the sky.
I heard that this section of earthen wall was left over from the Ming Dynasty.
Every crack in the wall precipitates traces of time; the potholed wall surface is the trace of corrosion by time.
Sometimes I would pass by this section of the Ming City Wall, because it was surrounded by brick walls, and when I tiptoed up, I could only faintly see the branches of the tree that grew on the wall. It was about a date tree, rough bark, a knotty and curved trunk... The jujube tree grew slowly, and it has been here since the first time I saw the ming city wall. It doesn't seem to have changed much over the years.
It should be a dozen years old—maybe longer, I suppose. Does the jujube tree know that it grew on a section of the ancient city wall?
This short earthen wall has experienced the rise and fall of a dynasty for eight hundred years. This bouquet of loess may have been trampled by Zhu Di's horse's hooves; the stone may have tossed at Wang Shouren's feet.
But none of this matters to the jujube trees that grow on the walls. In the spring, green shoots emerge from the cracks in the walls; at the beginning of summer, a few small wildflowers can't wait to stretch their petals, and the sweet fragrance attracts butterflies; in autumn, a few red dates are scattered on the branches; in winter, only bare earthen walls and bare branches are left, occasionally with snowflakes.
My friend heard that there was a Ming Dynasty city wall near my house and excitedly asked me for a photo. I always say wait, wait, wait. Later, she really couldn't stand her pleading, so she deliberately went to the earthen wall to take a few pictures, and she was greatly disappointed after seeing it: Isn't it the half-cut earthen wall of her hometown, which is also full of weeds.
I said, you see, that's why I don't want to take pictures of you, nothing to look at, just grass growing on ordinary earthen walls, surrounded by four brick walls. This is the Ming City Wall you've always thought of.
In the imagination of friends, this is the place where the Ming Dynasty iron horse is rolling in the dust, the battlefield famous generals are in the storm, presumably how sentimental is miss Gongzi chanting poems, there are lonely old people blowing in the wind, right?
However, in reality, there is no sword and light sword shadow, no red dust like a dream, not even a white-haired old man sitting at the base of the wall. Occasionally a few stray dogs pass by, leaving a few drops of urine as a mark under the brick walls on the periphery. The rest of the people, in a hurry, each with their own business to do, who will pay attention to the half-cut earthen wall?
The seasons change, time flies, the date trees and the earthen wall are there, lonely and silent. And this loneliness and silence seems to me to be a more affectionate narrative.
Once, at night, I passed by the Ming City Wall, and it was winter, and even the moonlight brought a little chill to the earthen wall and the jujube trees. Suddenly, I remembered the Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Ruoxuan's "Spring River Flower Moon Night": "Life is infinite from generation to generation, and Jiang Yue is only similar every year." "Years and years are similar, and people are different from year to year. From the Ming Dynasty to the present, how many people have passed through here! The weeds that grow on the walls of the Ming City are also stubble every year, and maybe even this jujube tree has been changed for several generations! Only this half-cut earthen wall under the moonlight is not humble or profane, nor resentful, and stands to this day.
(Excerpted from the second half of Yanhe Magazine, Issue 12, 2021)
Lei Jinyang is a college student and a member of the Shaanxi Youth Literature Association. He has published many works in newspapers and periodicals such as Yanhe, Xianyang Daily, and Xianyang Literature and Art.