Excerpts from the text |
A night wind blew over, and the faces of those people shook a little and disappeared, as if blown away by the night wind. After the wind passed and the night fell silent, they appeared again, and only saw the face, as if the whole person was this face, hanging in front of Mrs. Mo's eyes one by one. Mrs. Mo whispered at them, she had long been accustomed to talking to herself like this, and the night was another face for her. The words that had been low in her heart for years were cathartic under this face.
Clean face
□ Tao Liqun
One
When the mid-autumn sun shone above all things, Mrs. Mo went out. After last year's sting, she could no longer turn the old cotton wool from bed on time as in previous years, and she knew that life had entered a new hurdle. Winter nights no longer easily made her feel comfortable and warm, and she always needed to slowly recall the things of the day, gradually to the events of half a life, and the time became longer and longer, until the coarse cloth cover of the old cotton wool was gradually warmed up, and she could slowly sink into sleep in the soft warmth. She knew that it was not the quilt that was getting thinner and thinner, but that the flesh needed more warmth, and the heat in her life was gradually dissipating. This is unavoidable, no one can avoid it. Mrs. Mo had seen too many deaths, and she had long been accustomed to the final destination of her life.
She became extra hungry for warmth and loved sunny days. Stretching out his hand, the sun jumped on the palm, and the warmth seeped into the flesh and bones through the skin of the palm, dispelling every inch of cold that was secretly growing in the body.
Yesterday evening, when the sun first appeared, a fourteen or fifteen-year-old teenager with a layer of thick fluff on his lips walked into the house with a depressed look and asked her to go to Jiang Village in the back mountains to clean her mother's face. Mrs. Mo was collecting the quilt from the backyard to dry during the day, and she held the quilt, looked at the child who had not yet grown, and sighed. Generally invited by the eldest son, Mrs. Mo has received the eldest son of fifty or sixty years old at home, and has also received the eldest son who is still in infancy and carried by people, whether it is the former or the latter, the sadness of death will not be too strong for them. The former has experienced the events of the world, has accepted life and death, and will not mourn too much, while the latter has not even perceived sorrow and joy. For them, Mrs. Mo generally did not have much pity, and her heart was always full of unspeakable pity for such a half-young and unfamiliar eldest son. Their lives are still in the stage of being half-aware of life and death, especially death, which is both novel, full of doubts and fears, and the sudden arrival of death will eventually become fear like a shadow hanging over them for a long time. Death should not be so premature as to haunt a thriving life that is growing.
The teenager wanted to give Mrs. Mo a prostration ceremony, which must have been taught by the elders, and she hurriedly freed up a hand to grab his arm and hold his already falling body. He wore a light blue short-sleeved shirt with neatly buttoned buttons, and was a young man who followed the rules. Disaster hung over him, but the vigorous vitality did not leave him, and his full cheeks were stained with a faint red halo of health.
"Sit down!" She said, pushing the teenager into a chair with his back. She wanted to know more about his mother's age, what kind of illness his life had died prematurely, and what relatives he still had in the family. But in the end she didn't ask anything, it didn't make sense. She gave the teenager a bowl of omelette konjac fans. Mrs. Mo rarely entertains guests at home, and most people are afraid of her home. But the youthful vigor and generosity of the teenager made her feel pity. His mother's illness must have left him without food and clothing, and his father could not count on it. The teenager was soon seduced by the delicacy, buried his head in the noodle bowl, and ate greedily, and the looming disaster was temporarily forgotten by him. She inquired carefully about the patient's condition, learned that she could not leave for a while and a half, and promised him that he would definitely go tomorrow at noon. Every long-ill person has the ability to foresee death, and when the time comes, they will ask their children to come to her. Of course, there are also some obsessive people who clearly feel that the shadow of death is approaching life, but still covet a secret object in the world and refuse to see her, such people often leave the world with a face of vicissitudes and a worldly sin.
Mrs. Mo stood in front of the door of the house, watching the teenager's back walk towards the mountain road in the gradually thickening sunset, and the figure gradually became smaller. When a person is thrown onto a mountain, he appears smaller and eventually becomes a handful of loess on the mountain. The rich sunset is so magnificent that people can't bear to think of death, and it has never left the world for a moment.
Warm breeze blows. The shining sunlight made Mrs. Mo feel warm in her body inch by inch, like blood flowing in her body, she gradually felt comfortable, and her steps became lighter. The aging body had been loyal to her for decades, rarely bothering her, and occasionally minor ailments such as sore knees and dizziness were usually cured by her decoction of herbs, and she never went to the town hospital. For the pain, she saw it as if she were alive and dead, and it was time to come, and there was no need to make a big fuss about them. The grains of early autumn have gradually matured on the mountain beams, soybeans, peanuts, corn, pumpkins, winter melons, konjac, gradually going to the yellow, the wind has begun to have the aroma of grain, and when the late autumn frost is frozen, it is time to close the warehouse. There were figures moving up the hill, weaving between grains. People live one life, grass and trees only live in autumn, but people spend their lives busy among grass and trees. The villager with the sickle box around his waist came down from the mountain and clipped a white banana core under his armpit. This thing can be fried for rice, similar to wild vegetables. The people who came gradually approached and settled down in front of Old Lady Mo.
"Grandma, go up the mountain?" It was a woman with a roasted red face. The people in the mountains called them to go out to work and go up the mountain, and the ground was on the mountain, and the work was also on the mountain.
"Go out." Mrs. Mo replied briefly, squinting her eyes at the people in the shining sun.
The woman was awe-struck, shivering coldly under the scorching sun, with a look of fear on her face. She didn't know what to say for a moment, and after a moment she panicked and grabbed the banana core that was clamped under her armpit, and drew the sickle from the sickle box around her waist.
"The plantains in the field are dead, and the banana cores are peeled off, and the wife takes them to taste." With that, the scythe blade rested on the core of the plantain.
"You stay," Mrs. Mo stopped her, "I can't stand this bite, I ate the heartburn." She waved her hand at the woman. The woman's movements froze on her bent arms, her eyes shining in the sunlight, and then she leaned slightly to the side and let Mrs. Mo pass. In fact, the mountain road is very wide, there is no need to avoid, but Mrs. Mo is "going out". She has a language that matches her identity, goes out of the house, works to call up the mountain, and if she goes to an invitation to die, if she happens to be asked, it is called "going out". The demise of life is certainly awe-inspiring, death is heavy, and people instinctively avoid it.
The peasant woman had been standing where she was, out of her soul. She had just been in the field rejoicing at the abundant grain she had grown by her own hands, and in the blink of an eye the shadow of death stood in front of her. She looked blankly at Mrs. Mo as she slowly walked up the mountain beam, turned a corner, and disappeared.
Jiang Village is at the foot of the mountain, surrounded by a mountain, slowly descending the slope, there is a person sitting on the edge of the water cabinet at the head of the village, shaking his legs. The man saw Mrs. Mo descending the slope, her trembling legs stopped, jumped from the water cabinet, and ran to her in three or two strokes. It was a teenager yesterday evening, and today I changed into a gray crewneck short-sleeved shirt with a white horse with hooves running on her chest.
"Mom told me to come and wait for you." The teenager hung his head as if he had made some mistake. She motioned for him to lead the way ahead. They walked quietly, and the teenager lost the generosity of yesterday's fall, and carefully stepped down in front of them, as if afraid of disturbing the people behind him. Taking a few steps and turning back, he looked at Mrs. Mo's eyes full of fear.
The patient was a woman of less than forty, lying under a quilt like a piece of paper, her hair scattered on the pillow as thick as ink. She closed her eyes, barely aware of her breathing, her eye circles as blue and black as her lips, and a layer of yellow skin wrapped around her bones. The appearance is still beautiful. Mrs. Mo only glanced at the bedridden person, and she knew that it was only two days of work.
There is a clear fragrance of dry star anise in the house, emitted from a string of star anise hanging at the end of the bed, and its fragrance can dispel the unclean smell in the air. The teenager tried to wake up the woman on the bed, but Mrs. Mo stopped her, and she sat down in a chair next to the bed. For a long time, the patient slowly opened his eyes and looked at her fixedly, as if he were recognizing.
"The wife is coming!" Soft sounds, weak, like strings that break at the first touch of a root.
Mrs. Mo nodded, "What do you think?" She shook the hand that had been wrenched from under the quilt. She knew the hand was looking for her. Only those who knew foresaw and had already compromised with Death would take the initiative to reach out to her. Hands are wet and cold.
"It didn't hurt much these two days, my liver hurt." The patient moved his lips slowly, "I've been sleeping, dreaming, dreaming of my grandmother, and I know it's time." The corners of her mouth moved, as if she wanted to laugh, "I am not afraid, but the child is still young and will suffer." ”
"It's not something you should worry about, the moment we give birth to a child, he has his own way of life." Mrs. Mo held the sweaty hand. Some people will not say a word at the last moment near, and most of these people have experienced too much suffering, and they have no words to say about life, and dying is a complete relief.
The patient closed his eyes and shook his head as if tired.
"Boy, are you ready?" In the middle of the night, Mrs. Mo asked the patient softly, and the hand that held the patient secretly exerted force.
The head on the pillow moved slightly. Mrs. Mo got up and left the room. The bearded man stood in the hall outside the room, with a four- or five-year-old female doll on his back, shrugging his head and falling asleep. When Han Zi saw Mrs. Mo come out, he murmured, "It's only been half a year, it's only been half a year." ”
"Yuzu leaves, scissors, all prepared?" Mrs. Mo asked bluntly, and all pity was of no avail. The man nodded. The teenager brought out a basin of hot water, and the grapefruit leaves and scissors were soaked in the hot water basin, and followed Mrs. Mo into the room. The woman on the bed kept watching all this, her gaze falling on the teenager, and tears began to ooze from the dry corners of her eyes.
There is no complicated process. The grapefruit leaves clear the dust and remove the impurities, the scissors cut away the three thousand troubles of the world, and people believe that together they can become magical powers, to remove all the sufferings and sins of people in the world, to clear the flesh and bones, to cleanse the soul, and to clear the way to another world.
When a person is still alive, he does not need to recite the purification mantra. Mrs. Mo took the towel soaked in grapefruit leaf water handed by the teenager and began to scrub for the bedridden person. First the face, the neck, the back of the neck, and then the quilt was uncovered, and the clothes on the woman's upper body were removed. The woman's body was dry, but her stomach was swollen, and a thin layer of skin was tight. The woman's hand caressed her stomach slightly, and tears slid down the corners of her eyes. She can also cooperate with Mrs. Mo and turn a long-lying and wrinkled back to clean Mrs. Mo. Her body was still clean, there was no obvious odor, and it was obvious that she had met a man who was generally quite sweet and did not let her short life suffer too much.
Everything is proceeding silently, life and death are quietly replaced. The sun is shining outside the house, the mountain wind is blowing, the grain on the mountain is ripening, all kinds of people-related sounds are heard from the streets and alleys, and the fireworks in the world are as usual, and the footsteps of the god of death cannot be seen. Compared to birth, the end of life seems too lonely. Such a scene has long been accustomed to Mrs. Mo. No matter how vigorous and prosperous a life's past is, and what kind of wealth and wealth he has enjoyed, at this last moment, he is alone on the road, irreplaceable.
Suddenly, a faint whimper appeared in the young man's throat, and the imminent death made him grow in an instant, without too much teaching. He took the towel handed over by Mrs. Mo, washed it in the hot tub, wrung it out, and handed it back.
The man came in with clean clothes, and his wife on the bed was clean, smiling silently, as if the basin of water had taken away her illness and anxiety.
Mrs. Mo withdrew from the room and asked her relatives to dress her. On the dining table in the hall was a basin of water soaked in grapefruit leaves, next to which was half a bowl of clear and transparent raw tea oil: it was prepared for her to clean her hands. The female doll stood at the dining table, her small face with a red halo that had just woken up, and two thin eyes stubbornly stared at Mrs. Mo.
"What's your name?" Mrs. Mo stood at the table with her hands clean, and her eyes fell on the girl's disheveled little head.
"What's wrong with Mom?" The girl was sensitive and her eyes were wary.
Mrs. Mo was silent. The truth was equal for every life, and she didn't want to lie or make any excuse to comfort the little girl. Wiping the water off her hands, she began to apply raw tea oil to her hands. Her hands washed countless bodies that were about to lose or had already lost their lives, those bodies with diseases, and this layer of raw tea oil could remove the filth caused by contact with the sick body. She didn't actually mind, preferring to put the last layer of oil as part of the whole clean face.
The man gave her a clean face gift and sealed it in a red piece of paper, and the sealed rice grains were still wet. Mrs. Mo took it calmly, this is what she deserves, this is the gift of purifying the face, she is the last ferryman of life.
The afternoon wind was warm, the sky in the mountains was high, there was no trace of clouds, and the sun was shining brightly. She has been doing clean face for more than forty years, has experienced too many deaths, and every time the clean face ends, Mrs. Mo will still feel the sudden emptiness, the empty emptiness that fills her heart, and she feels that it is just an empty shell walking, floating so lightly that she does not have to take steps. In any case, she was in awe of death, and death made her feel lonely, and no one could understand the loneliness of a clean-faced man. People think that they have mysterious powers, they can communicate with death, their hearts are stronger than ordinary people, and their lives are harder than ordinary people.
Mrs. Mo walked lightly in the alley, in a trance, she stood in front of a forked alley, trying to gather scattered thoughts, trying to identify, and finally walked into a narrow alley. That's right, that's it. She had been to the village the year before, and of course, had been here before, and it was unavoidable. The sun was blocked above the alley, and the alley was cool, and the old man and the dog sat in front of the house, quietly, and time flowed silently on the old man and the dog. She walked down the alley, stopping in front of a courtyard surrounded by low stone walls. The oleander was still there, its branches sticking out of the low wall, and only the topmost branch was in contact with a cluster of shining sunlight. The courtyard door was closed, Mrs. Mo gently pushed the door in, and at a glance, she saw the old man sitting against the wall under the eaves, with a bowl of water on the chair at his feet, and a black and white plaid turban wrapped the small head firmly. The old man hung his head, as if he were staring at something on the ground, and the expression on his face was calm. The sunlight in the courtyard had begun to tilt westward, fading away from the old man, and she was completely in the shadows. Mrs. Mo's footsteps fell silently in the dirt yard, the old man still looked up alertly, her gaze was chaotic and stagnant, and within her line of sight was a white fog, and a blurry black shadow moved towards her in the white fog.
"I smell raw tea oil!" She looked straight ahead, and the look on her face was stern.
"It's me!" Mrs. Mo said, walked over and sat down beside her.
"I didn't ask you to come, you came early." The old man stretched out his hand and groped toward her, his tone was very unkind, but the expression on his face was joyful. Mrs. Mo grabbed the hard bang bang's hand. They all have the same hands, bringing final comfort and cleansing to countless souls who are about to die.
"The tea oil in your hand is not dry yet, who is it?" The old man asked, his face facing Mrs. Mo, his eyes empty, they had been out of sight for several years.
Mrs. Mo said the name of the teenager. The two old men shook hands with each other for a moment and were silent. They don't see each other very often, but they care about each other. In this ancient mountain, almost every village will have such an old man, and people will entrust their dying moments to them, just as the newborn life of a person is entrusted to their parents. Of course, they do not grow old all at once, and their lives have been patronized by the lush years like gold, but their fate often suffers more misfortunes than the average person. Without any serendipity, bad luck is the best arrangement for fate, which puts them on this awe-inspiring and lonely path of soothing death.
"You haven't been to this village for a while, for a year or two, I really want to see you, my days are getting less and less every day, but I'm not afraid, there's nothing to be afraid of." The old man said, slowly rubbing against Mrs. Mo's two bare wrists, and she lowered her head as if her eyes could still see.
"It's always coming." Mrs. Mo laughed, and she was in awe of this elder sister who was twelve years older than herself. Now that she was old, Mrs. Mo had seen her youthful countenance, and in a flash, she was so old that she could not see the appearance of the earthly world that had lived for a lifetime. Mrs. Mo was brought out by her, and she helped Mrs. Mo overcome all kinds of fears of death, telling Mrs. Mo the truth of her death and the truth of Mrs. Mo's life.
"That's nothing." This is her mantra, and she always treats everything with a gaze and state of mind that seems extremely detached to Mrs. Mo.
The old man laughed, his face was a childlike look, and she often showed such an expression in front of Mrs. Mo, which contained a little expression of looking at people's jokes. Of course, Mrs. Mo understood what she meant.
"I'm a little tired today." Mrs. Mo said that the feeling of being hollowed out still did not leave her, and the two underage children were like two green fruits that were still hanging on the branches and stained with crystal dew.
"Your heart is still too soft." The old man sighed.
"People are still very young." Mrs. Mo said softly.
"Life is always fixed, so you still haven't understood this truth?" The old man's tone had a reproachful connotation, but it was not severe.
Mrs. Mo was silent. The death of a young life will inevitably make her sad. She rarely exudes this emotion in front of people, and people don't want to see her face full of pain for their loved ones. They need to see in her composure, to see life and death as usual, to see solemnity and respect, which will bring comfort and strength to the dying and their loved ones, and dispel their fear of imminent death. So she always had an expressionless look, and in those moments, her emotions were never on her face.
The old man groped to stand up, and Mrs. Mo hurriedly supported her, thinking that the old man was going to go to the hut. Although her eyes could not see, the old man knew everything in the yard and the room.
"You sit." She stopped Mrs. Mo and stood up on her knees. Perhaps sitting too long, both of her knees stiffened during the silence, and her knee joints made a loud rattling sound when she stood up. She walked toward the door, counted her steps silently, and accurately lifted her feet across the threshold and hid in the doorway.
The houses in the village are all made of stone, and the only thing that is not lacking in the mountains is stone, and the houses where people live, the cattle pens, the walls, and the stepping steps in front of the houses are all bulky and regular stones. This kind of stone brick is difficult to chisel, a house, you need to take your young son to constantly select materials in the mountain to chisel, and then carry the bulky stone bricks from the mountain, often until the young son is about to start a family, in order to prepare the required stone. Ancient houses have been passed down from generation to generation, and in the years of four seasons of wind and frost, the stones on the walls of the houses have become a solemn and stubborn dark black, as if containing the secrets of each family that are unknown to the people. Near the foot of the wall, the rainy season tends to spread half a meter high bright green moss, full of water color, after a sunny day or two, the moss will slowly dry up to turn gray-black, curled up, by the slow mountain wind a little peeling off, the corner of the wall will appear half a different dry white. Just by looking at the surface of the house, you can't tell how this generation in the house is different from the previous generation. The house is the same house, the land on the mountain is also handed down by the ancestors, the field is planted with grain that will never change, perhaps the dreams of the ancestors at night, the children and grandchildren have also made it from generation to generation.
The sun was slowly sloping westward, and the air in the courtyard was gradually cooling down, with the breath of twilight coming. The yard was clean and silent, with an occasional sound or two coming from the depths of the village. No village will ignore the old age of a clean-faced person. They have no children, no partners, a lifelong vegetarian diet, and the daily life of the world has no connection with them. When they were too old to move the towels soaked in grapefruit water to cleanse the faces of the deceased, every family in the village was their home, and everyone was their relative. After the owner of this perennially quiet yard could no longer see anything to touch a few years ago, she became the most respected elder of every family in the village. The housewife of each household would take turns to deliver three meals a day, cleaning the house, covering her house, and clothing. This is what she deserves, and she enjoys all the care given by the villagers with peace of mind, quietly waiting for the last time of her life to come. Her only regret is that throughout her life, she has not been able to find and cultivate a clean face person for this village who can replace her, which requires chance and cannot be forced. Over the years, Mrs. Mo "went out" more and more villages, the older generation of face cleansers are old, can no longer clean their faces, the village people began to ask the clean face people outside the village, if the time goes back to ten years ago, this is simply unimaginable. In this deep mountain, although the clean-faced people all abide by a set of common rules, the people in the outer villages are after all the people of the outer villages, do not know the roots, their human nature, the degree of rules and integrity, do not know anything, how can they hand over the last etiquette of their relatives in the human world to him?
Mrs. Mo stood up and walked toward the house. The light in the house was darker and cooler than the yard, and the silence, the simple furnishings, a few pieces of old and old wooden furniture, made of trees on the mountain. There is no shrine, no living thing, which is not allowed. The simplicity and cleanliness of the house gives people an almost depressed feeling, which can be seen in the harshness and self-discipline of the owner in daily life. Several pieces of gray-black clothing were draped over a high reclining chair. The old woman had worn such solemn and dull clothes all her life, which had become the background of her life, and Mrs. Mo had never seen any slightly brighter colors on her. There was nothing alive in her life or even in her life. Forty-eight years ago, the old woman's husband and a pair of young children were in a simple melon shed at the foot of the mountain when they encountered a landslide without warning. It was the collapse of the whole mountain, and the huge and evil red earth covered the melon shed that had disappeared, and even the edge of the melon planting field was gone. The catastrophe came so suddenly and so suddenly that it buried her past life. To this day, her three relatives are still buried at the bottom of the mountain, and the grass and trees on the mountain follow the four seasons of prosperity, and there is no trace of any disaster again. The calamity has always been in the heart of the old woman, who has become an indisputable clean-faced person who has brought the last comfort to the departed all her life. She said it was fate.
As quiet as standing in the deepest recesses of time, the solemn and dignified atmosphere of this simple stone house was familiar to her. Mrs. Mo was relieved, the signs in the room showed that the old woman's current life was no different from the past, she was still in a comfortable place in the world, how worried Mrs. Mo was that she would suddenly leave without quitting, after all, she was an eighty-year-old old man.
Mrs. Mo silently withdrew from the house, and a cold breath forced her to withdraw. She sat back in her chair, and the sunlight had faded from the top of the oleander, leaving a crown of black and oily green. Dusk gradually rose from the depths of the village, and the village of early morning and dusk was like a man full of heart.
The old woman came out of the dark door and slowly but sharply returned to Mrs. Mo's side and sat down, holding a glossy and dull glossy silver bracelet in her right hand. She touched Mrs. Mo's hand and put the silver bracelet on it.
"I've been wearing it for over forty years, and now I don't need to wear it anymore. You have to have such a thing, I told you a long time ago, to do our business, you must wear something on your body. The old woman said that the look on her face could not be rejected.
"I'm not afraid of that." Mrs. Mo held the old woman's hand and touched the silver bracelet with a touch of warm coldness.
"Put it on!" The old woman could not be argued.
It is an ordinary smooth bracelet, with a closed mouth, most women in the mountains have such a wrist, not thin and not thick, the husband's family gives, or the mother's family gives, wear on the body, is a kind of rules set on the body, a kind of life on the body. Mrs. Mo had never worn it in her life. The bracelet was slightly wide and easy to slip into her wrist, and she pressed it at the mouth to close the small circle.
Heavy feeling.
Two old men sat, and the silence and loneliness of the sky and the earth accompanied them.
"Xiaguang, have you ever resented me?" In the middle of the night, the old woman opened her mouth as if muttering to herself.
"How can you have such an idea? I've always done a good job, haven't I? Mrs. Mo said softly.
"I've always felt that you are not suitable for this line of work, but in the blink of an eye you are old, and I know that you have survived." 」 The old woman's face showed a distressed look when she was helpless about a problem.
Mrs. Mo was silent.
"You've always had heat in your heart, there's a ball of heat, and you can't fool me, but you've survived." The old woman said, "I sometimes pity you, old sister, if I hadn't taken you down this path..."
"Then my bones would have been soaked at the bottom of the Mona River." Mrs. Mo said quickly, wanting to give the old woman a powerful comfort.
"That's what you said yourself, I believe in my eyes, nothing can escape my eyes." The old woman laughed, "Luckily you survived." Some things, whether you are willing or not, will eventually take you on the road that should be taken. You are on this road without illness and disaster, this is the blessing you deserve, for people like us, we can't expect more. You know, not everyone is suited to do this. ”
"I understand." Mrs. Mo said, stroking the silver bracelet on her wrist. The people in the mountains believe that silver can ward off evil spirits and drive away filth, but what is the real evil and filth? If it is in the bottom of people's hearts, how can it be prevented? Her views on many things contradicted those of the old woman, but she never argued with the old woman. Perhaps her dissenting thoughts had long been seen by the old woman, so the old woman said that there had always been heat in her heart.
The wind of dusk poured in from outside the simple courtyard door, carrying the various atmospheres of the village. The sound of bells began to ring from far outside the village: it was the cattle and sheep that had been released in the morning and began to slowly return from the mountains, and their judgment of the time of day was as accurate as that of people, and the way back was familiar, and the footsteps were calm, no different from the return of a man who had worked hard in the mountains for a day.
"It's time for me to go back." Mrs. Mo said softly, and the air at dusk began to glow with coolness.
The old woman once again groped over and took her hand, touched the silver bracelet that was on her wrist, and was relieved.
They didn't have any language of farewell. The two old men stood up, and the old woman took Mrs. Mo's hand and walked toward the courtyard door, stopping in front of the stone threshold of the courtyard door.
In the alley outside the door there were two children running, screams falling on those old tiles on the roof.
"Let's go." The old woman said peacefully, and those empty eyes turned to Old Lady Mo and released the hand that was holding her wrist.
Two
When the night came, the darkness slowly began to spread from the foot of the mountain, as if it were drilling out from underground. The houses, people, livestock, vegetable fields behind the houses, bamboo, castor at the foot of the mountain first blurred the shadows, and finally fell into the darkness without hesitation. Halfway up the mountainside, there was still a hazy light, and you could faintly see the sickle-like curved and narrow land on the mountainside, planted with corn, soybeans, peanuts, taro, cassava, plantains, and of course, the ground had a grave that was completely covered with weeds. The white soul-summoning banner hanging on the third day of March had long been blown down by the wind and rain, leaving only a bare hat stick on the head of the grave, half-drowned in the lush weeds. The evening wind blew and ran over its body, and it could not hang on to the wind. Halfway up the mountain is usually darker and slower, like a twilight man's waddling steps, pulling and pulling, hesitating, and when the crops on the mountain are not visible, the night really comes. The darkness of the mountainside is really dark, and the summit is always hazy even before dawn, and you can clearly see the silhouette of the mountain on the vast night sky.
The night in the village is quiet, not without sound, insects, dogs, dolls crying, mixing mouths, bits and pieces of the night sound, but these sounds only set off the silence of the night more deeply. Tranquility is the ancient background of the village, deep and thick, like the village's long past. Human life begins to multiply from the night, and the soul of man departs from the night...
Mrs. Mo usually closed the door and sat in the kitchen doorway. Beyond that is the Mona River in mona, which winds its way from vietnam. On the days of frequent rain in the summer, the humid smell rises from the river, passes through the vegetable field, and is poured into the kitchen, with a faint smell of algae, the fragrance of cauliflower and the smell of damp earth.
Mrs. Mo liked these smells, and they mixed with the viscous black of the night to form the breath of the night. Twenty years ago, she had quit dinner, and the time after dusk had become more generous for her. Her house was always clean and tidy, and the vegetable patch behind the house was verdant. It was a small vegetable field, and she chose to grow seasonal vegetables according to the four seasons, melon seedlings in spring, rape in summer, bell peppers in autumn, carrots in winter, and in the corner of the morning sun in the vegetable field, there was always a mat of red and shocking millet peppers. She never kept any living creatures, which was a rule for a clean-faced man. The life of livestock is also life, they have seven passions and six desires like people, they will be in heat, courtship, mating, giving birth, feeding, and multiplying like people, and this process will disturb the mood of the clean-faced person who has been far away from the red dust of the world. The loneliness of the clean-faced man is utter.
The night is dark, the night sky is high, the wind is cool and slow, and the stars are comfortable. I quit dinner, but Mrs. Mo liked to drink two sips. Drinking wine is allowed, and wine in this mountain is also a food to avoid impurities, and it can cleanse the three souls of people. The lights in the house were not lit, the houses were not too far apart, and the neighbors' lights flickered among the banana leaves. Mrs. Mo likes to immerse herself in the silent night. Half a bowl of winter mist-white corn wine rested on a chair next to it, without any ritual, like water, and drank slowly in the night. Her drinking was not large, half a bowl was enough. The strength of corn wine is usually not too high, mellow and fragrant. The night flowed quietly, people slowly drunk, in a slight dizziness, Mrs. Mo felt a burst of lightness, her feet slowly off the ground, like stepping on soft cotton, the whole person floated up. Usually at this time, they appear. They were not people, but faces, overlapping and overlapping in the dark night, one after another, like a line to see her, with a pure smile that had already let go of the earthly past. Of course she knew these faces, she had cleansed their faces for them, and she was their last consolation. In her long career of purifying faces for more than forty years, she has cleaned countless people's faces, but she has not been able to forget them, and they have become a part of her life. At this moment, in her slightly drunken dark night moment, they came. Without words, he appeared quietly in front of her, calmly and silently, looking at her silently. She nodded at them in the darkness, like a friend of many years. She even remembers some of the conversations she had when she cleaned their faces for them.
"You're finally here!"
"Hmm."
"I've been waiting for a few days."
"Don't be afraid, everything will be fine."
"I understand, I've figured it out for a long time, and no one can understand life and death better than a person trapped in bed."
"It's inevitable, no one can avoid it, it's just a matter of time, and we don't have to care too much about this."
"Thank you. You know, I used to be really afraid of you, thinking you had a pair of hands that pushed us to death, and now I know how much I need your hands. ”
"If you have a commandment in your heart, my hands can help you."
"I see, then, please get started."
Too many people have reached the last moment of life, have no quarrels, and calmly accept the last etiquette of life. After purifying their faces, they were renewed, illness and pain left them, and the invisible sins of a lifetime of visible credibility also left them, and this was another life, coming to an end and beginning.
"Here you are!" Mrs. Mo was talking to herself in the darkest, drinking slowly, making the wisps of drunkenness more and more mellow, taking her to another world. Those faces looked at her silently, as real as any acquaintance she had seen during the day.
"Actually, you don't have to come, I'm going to go over there after all, I told you, it's just a matter of time, I never mind." She smiled at them and said kindly. The fragrance of corn wine came up from her chest. She was originally a non-sticker of wine, not even touching a slightly flavorful seasoning such as onion, ginger and garlic, which was a matter of youth. When you were young? She hesitated for a moment, and soon a dizziness struck her, and there seemed to be a stubborn thought swirling in her head, and she shook her head slightly, shook the thought out of her head, and continued to look at the faces that appeared in the dark night.
"Sometimes I think that any of your faces is cleaner and more reassuring than the face of any living person in this world, that there are no more evil thoughts in your hearts, that all evil thoughts have been washed away, and that hearts without evil thoughts are clean, like this corn wine." Her voice grew faint, like a faint wisp of fire, and she looked at the faces of the men and bowed her head in the darkness, "You said all sorts of things to me before you died, including sins buried in your hearts that you had never said to anyone. You actually know that having a clean heart and soul is the most important thing for a person, but such a lucidity is not possessed until the end of life, which is not only the sorrow of you dead people, but also the living people. Her voice grew lower, like a slight sigh falling into the depths of the night.
A night wind blew over, and the faces of those people shook a little and disappeared, as if blown away by the night wind. After the wind passed and the night fell silent, they appeared again, and only saw the face, as if the whole person was this face, hanging in front of Mrs. Mo's eyes one by one. Mrs. Mo whispered at them, she had long been accustomed to talking to herself like this, and the night was another face for her. The words that had been low in her heart for years were cathartic under this face.
"Well, you see," she raised her hands in the darkness, "these hands give you the last cleansing and comfort, but no one has ever warmed these hands." It warms itself by the fire in the stove in the winter, I rely on it to caress the seasons that flow from me, and in the winter, my hands are touching myself up and down, and even my thinning hair has not fallen, and it does not know from what year they began to turn white, but I know that they have been white for a long time. I'm really worried, touching a piece of flesh and bone that can't even be warmed by the fire, you people know, right? Although I never said it to you. Now my feet are no longer easily warmed at night, they are getting colder and colder every year, I am not afraid of this, I have been waiting, people are always going to die, how can people not clean their faces when they die? Except for those little hairy heads who died tragically, I have never seen anyone who dies and does not need to clean his face. I was waiting for the moment to cleanse my face. No, you dead ghosts have misunderstood, not to clean my face, not like that. Old Mrs. Mo let out a sad laugh in the darkness, swallowed the last sip of cold corn wine, and waved her hand at the faces of the people.
It was late at night, the dew was thick, the lights were gradually extinguished near and far, and the village fell into a huge darkness, quiet enough to hear the sound of the season going deeper.
"Who says no one walks in the night? Don't you just walk in the night? The dead walk in the night, and the living devil walks in the night, you know, and I know. Mrs. Mo once again waved her hand at the faces, "But the sky will always be bright!" The faces were alarmed by the dawn, and they realized that the meeting should be over, so the faces slowly fled into the night, and finally disappeared, and the night was pure and deep. Mrs. Mo stood up with the door frame, and the dizziness dissipated almost completely. She smelled the cool smell of dew falling on the leaves. The legs and feet seemed to be rusty. She patted her numb legs and feet, feeling the qi and blood slowly flowing to the cold foot plate. After a few moments, she took one last deep breath of the dewy outside the house, dragged her heavy steps back into the darkness. Everyone has fallen asleep, and it is time for her to let sleep moisturize the drier life.
The last of the sounds in the clean-faced man's room disappeared, and the night grew deeper.
The last one went to sleep, and the first one woke up, like a village keeper. The morning in the village rarely sees the sun, which is blocked by the high mountains. But the sky was bright, and the sun was shining on the top of the mountain. Mrs. Mo woke up with the first rays of dawn that penetrated the house, the wine of the night was still fragrant in her mouth, and her two hands groped each other, slowly rubbing each finger. In this way, she always dispels the last bit of drowsiness in the consciousness of the remnants. As I get older, I sleep less and less, because I am getting closer and closer to the permanent sleep of life. After getting up, the door was opened as usual, and the faint light of the sky immediately poured into the quiet house, and the air with the fresh breath of the mountains. Mrs. Mo glanced around the door as usual, there was nothing suspicious new, the yard was empty, the ground was wet, it was the night dew in late autumn. In the past few years, Mrs. Mo opened the door in the morning and often found something fresh, such as fresh bamboo shoots just dug out of the soil, fresh mushrooms after the summer rains, and a heavy, plump banana pendant. She was still young, and she slept soundly at night, unaware of anything outside the door. She told the old woman about it, and the old woman was silent for half a moment, and then said to her in a slightly stern tone: "Don't think this is a gift from a kind person, you should throw these unclean things far away, you shouldn't let them defile you again." Mrs. Mo didn't quite understand why these things would defile her, and how there could be "again." It was many years before she understood what the old woman meant. When she once again found strange things in front of her door in the early morning, she threw them far away in front of many people, and the door was finally quiet.
It's going to be a good day. Mrs. Mo looked at the clean white light at the top of the mountain and said to herself. The door was open, the light inside the house was quiet, and anyone who passed outside the courtyard door and hit the door of this dark hole would be excited. But it must be open, as long as the person is at home, the door of the clean face person's home is always open. Mrs. Mo stood in the doorway and looked at the dark peaks of the mountains in the distance, until the village began to gradually have a variety of sounds, and the cow bells were clearly heard, and then she turned around and returned to the still dark house. Breakfast is usually porridge. Before that, Mrs. Mo wanted to boil a bowl of soup water with red adzuki beans that had been soaked all night, and only drank the soup water, which was the drink that got up in the morning. This habit was also passed on to her by the old woman. Now, Mrs. Mo was sixty-eight years old, except that sitting for a long time would make her joints appear stiff and numb, even in the rainy and wet season, she had never suffered from arthritis, and the red bean soup helped her get rid of the excess moisture in her body, and her joints were no worse than those of young people. When she was younger, she would chew a few bites of cooked red beans, and now she couldn't eat a bite, which would make her bloated all day. She can't keep poultry, but other people's cats, dogs, chickens and ducks will come to visit, and she usually asks them to help eat the stewed red beans.
The stove opened fire, and the fire reflected the old clean face man's freshly washed and kind face. Although the years have printed enough vicissitudes on it, from the outline, you can clearly see the style of the old man when he was young. Her eyebrows were still beautiful, thick and curved, and the place near the end of her eyebrows arched slightly upwards. This upward arch made her look with a majesty and solemnity that matched her profession. This is not something that is innate, but something that is created by a profession. People rarely see a cheerful smile on this face, but this does not mean that she is a harsh old man, she is peaceful and friendly, and always brings comfort and persuasion to people with troubles. The skin on her face was already sagging and wrinkled, but there was no age spot that the elderly usually had, not even sunburn, and the skin tone on her face was even and clean, showing the harmony of yin and yang in her internal organs and the stable mood of the year.
After stuffing enough firewood into the stove, Mrs. Mo opened the back door of the kitchen to the vegetable patch in the early morning when it gradually became clear, and a burst of moist air swept in, completely dispelling the dizziness that had been hovering over her forehead since she got up. For Mrs. Mo, a new day has just begun. Her door was open, praying that on this day there would be no footsteps disturbing the tranquility of her door. Mrs. Mo glanced at the vegetable patch. If there is any joy in her dull and lonely life, it is given by this small vegetable field behind the kitchen. Mrs. Mo's grandmother, mother, and sister have all been busy in this vegetable field, and the dark soil under the roots must still have their breath. After her sister got married, her grandmother and parents also died, and the vegetable field belonged to her completely. She also had a few pieces of mountain in the mountains, growing corn and some other miscellaneous grains. In the early years, she had more mountains than she does now, and she waited for them alone, busy all day in the mountains, and when it was harvest season, she called her sister to harvest them. She couldn't eat that much alone. The younger sister sometimes brought her husband to harvest the fruits of her older sister's labor, and when the children grew up, they brought the children with them. Mrs. Mo liked her sister's three children, two girls and a boy, who were as strong as enough corn, very diligent, and could stay in the field all day long. Her sister, who was three years younger than her, looked older than Mrs. Mo because of her three children and hard work. She was also very strong, and whenever her gaze glanced at her three healthy and industrious children, the expression on her full face was content. When the children grew up, the two girls married into the county seat, and the boys were forcibly left behind by their mothers, and then planted the family's acres of land that had been passed down from generation to generation. She was worried that the old man would have nothing to rely on. The younger sister loved her, and when Mrs. Mo chose to be a clean-faced person, the younger sister was even tougher than her parents' opposition, and was full of resentment towards the old woman who took her sister on this path. After Mrs. Mo got older, she no longer had the energy to take care of so many mountains, and only chose a few pieces of mountain land that were relatively close to home and the soil was relatively good to grow grain. The old sister still kept in close contact with her, and in ten and a half days, she would cross two mountains to find her old sister, bringing her own corn wine or a bunch of golden tortillas with sesame oil that were fragrant with coriander. The sisters were busy in the kitchen kitchen with work that they didn't actually have to do, while chatting about the distant past. They always find new joy in the constant repetition of conversations. Then when the sister began to sigh, complaining that the sister should not rush to take this lonely road, and finally could not avoid tears, the two people's thoughts returned to some unbearable past...
The vegetable patch was damp, the leaves were wet, dew was flowing, and the moisture came from the Mona River outside the vegetable patch. Behind the house, there began to be housewives pouring vegetables, and the dew on the leaves was drizzled before the sun came out, otherwise the tender leaves would be sunburned by the sun. Mrs. Mo muttered in a low voice and stepped into the vegetable field to pick a few meat mustard leaves as large as a fan. Her breakfast was always eaten around ten o'clock in the morning. After drinking a bowl of warm red bean soup, start boiling porridge. Mountain work has always been busy in the afternoon, if any. She was more and more fond of working in the bright, open sun, and the sun had to shine completely on the mountain until it was near noon. Before she could drink a bowl of hot red bean soup, she could no longer carry water and drizzle vegetables like in previous years, and her legs could not make it stronger.
The mist drifted slowly on the surface of the Mona River, and the whole river was like a pot of steaming hot water. Mrs. Mo returned to the kitchen from the vegetable patch and found a yellow dog sitting in front of the fire, staring at the flames licked out of the stove hole, as if Mrs. Mo had ordered it to watch the fire. The dog saw Mrs. Mo enter the kitchen and snorted in his nose. Mrs. Mo has long been accustomed to it, and it is always the first guest to visit her house every day.
"You old dog, did you forget to feed dinner last night?" Come and find food early in the morning. Mrs. Mo said she couldn't keep poultry, but she didn't hate them. No one understands life better than a clean-faced person. If you talk about it, what difference can be made between human life and them.
When the pressure cooker began to spray on the stove, more lives began to enter the house of the old clean-faced man, first two half-large roosters with shiny coats, and then a female cat who had been a mother for the first time in the summer, and now her children had all been sold by the owner's family, and the mother cat's silent steps were full of sorrow. In Mrs. Mo's kitchen, cats and dogs coexist peacefully, each with their own areas in her house, non-aggression. The cat walked to Mrs. Mo's feet, its furry head rubbing against her ankles, purring in her throat. These vigorous living creatures brought a lot of comfort to Mrs. Mo's lonely daily life. In her eyes, they were silent people, like the faces of those who appeared in the darkness at night. She never refused their company.
After drinking the red bean soup, the red bean was left for the cat and the roosters with bright fur. The dog continued to wait, Mrs. Mo used as a porridge for breakfast before it began to cook, the dog did not eat beans, it was waiting to eat breakfast with Mrs. Mo. The light was getting brighter and brighter, and the morning wind was blowing slowly.
As with any morning, all that changes is the different colors of the four seasons.
Mrs. Mo carried an empty bucket toward the river, the cat and dog remained in the kitchen, and the dog still sat in front of the stove to guard the fire, and the eyes shone with flames.
The water in the river is not cold, and before the sun reaches the river, the water in the river is warm, and the water smoke rises on the surface of the water. In the afternoon, when the river is jumping with bright sunlight, the river becomes cool. For several years, Mrs. Mo could no longer throw the bucket down toward the river, pressed two buckets into the water at the same time, filled them up, and then picked them up and walked up to the simple but not too low docks, and those years were gone, and her waist and legs could no longer support a bucket full of water. She had to carry buckets of water to the dock before she could pick them up. From the river to the vegetable patch, it was a curved, flat road, and she carefully stepped down, avoiding the raised stones on the road—no old man of her age was still carrying water to drizzle vegetables. However, the old clean-faced person is not too sad, after all, this road is his own choice. In fact, she did not have to serve this vegetable field at all, as long as she wanted, picking vegetables in any vegetable field by the river, no one would have any objections, this is the responsibility and obligation of this village to her - what ancestor who was sent to the mountain by any family did not get her last clean face before dying? But she didn't want to do that, and she even refused some housewives' requests to drizzle the vegetable patch for her, and she felt that the bones on her body could still bear the responsibility for her own food and clothing.
Walking across Mrs. Mo's vegetable patch with her shoulders between her shoulders was a skinny peasant woman, wearing a pair of gray waterproof leather sleeves on her arms, and her bare feet were wet and covered with damp mud. Apparently she was also pouring vegetables. She walked to Mrs. Mo's vegetable patch and stopped, with an expression of wanting to say and stopping.
"Green Jade, did you eat it?" Mrs. Mo was pouring the millet pepper full of bright fruits in the corner of the vegetable field.
"Grandma!" Green Jade walked towards Old Lady Mo. The yellow dog came to the kitchen door at this time and stood majestically. When Green Jade saw the dog, she hesitated for a moment, and Old Mrs. Mo turned toward the dog, and the dog went into the door invisibly.
"My father-in-law may be dying!" The tiny eyes of the green jade were firmly fixed on the old man.
Old Lady Mo looked straight at The Green Jade, "Is this your own judgment?" Her tone was somewhat serious.
Green Jade immediately lowered his head, and a look of shame flashed on his face. "He didn't talk for days, he didn't eat much, and I didn't look at him very well." She whispered that the shame that flashed on her face could not escape Old Lady Mo's eyes, and Old Lady Mo's heart softened. Green Jade is a diligent woman, the two daughters are also very sensible, but the fate is not good, marry a gambler, all day long to travel east and west to drill gambling nests, but also roll their heads. Green jade looking for death and life several times, but the man has been mixed into sex, can not go back, green jade pull two children to live, often rely on the mother's family to help. It's not too bad just to be a widow, but there is a father-in-law who is often paralyzed on the bed, and he has to wait for him to eat and drink Lazar. The old thing is called Shunyi, and when he was young, his roots were not good, and he had some character of stealing chickens and dogs (his son was considered to have followed the character of Lao Tzu), and his wife died when he was young. As I grew older, old things became more humble. One year a homeless man from out of town died, and he greeted a few young people and rolled up the mat to bury the tramp, which was a good deed. In recent years, the old things have been plagued by seven or eight plagues, and there are seven or eight months of a year when they are paralyzed in bed. You see he can't get up in one breath, he gasps for two days, and he can climb out of bed and bask in the sun under the outside wall of the house. You can imagine what kind of life Green Jade lived: there was nothing wrong with her expecting her father-in-law to leave early, after all, she was a seventy-five-year-old person.
"Child, human life has days, and it is not up to us to decide which day he can live." Just give him food and drink, and don't let our conscience sleep in the dark of night. Mrs. Mo said gently and firmly.
Green Jade was in tears and covered his face and whimpered. "Grandma, I really can't go on, if I hadn't looked at the faces of the two children, I would have really wanted to put a rope around my neck and walk away." The sound of crying seemed so out of place in the increasingly bright morning, and the sun poured down on the top of the mountain, shining brightly.
Mrs. Mo put down the water scoop, and the neighbors in the surrounding vegetable field were pouring vegetables, and the vegetable fields were not too close, and no one noticed them.
"Don't say such stupid things, Green Jade, no one's days are as straight as a rope from head to toe. A woman with children should not be knocked down by anything, unless God takes her life, she should be as hard as a stone. You can understand what your wife said, right? Mrs. Mo stared straight at Lu Yu, she believed that Lu Yu understood and listened to her words. The tribulations of life can give people wisdom, which Mrs. Mo is convinced of.
"Go into the house for a while and look at the fire." Mrs. Mo comforted, she hoped that Lu Yu would stay quiet for a while, calm her mind, and not take a face full of tears to walk in the early morning of the day.
Green Jade shook her head and smiled at Old Lady Mo with tears in her eyes. "No, ma'am," she said, twitching her nose, "I'm really dizzy, how can I have that thought?" I went back, I was really dizzy. She turned, walked silently across the ridge, and came out of the vegetable field.
Mrs. Mo stood in the vegetable field, and some long-ago past events slowly came to mind in Qinghui. As a face purifier, all the past before becoming a face clean person should have been forgotten or put down a long time ago. "No one who holds a grudge or love for the past can be a true cleanser." This was the old woman's teaching to her, and she remembered it all the time, but in the depths of her heart, she could never get rid of the past, and at some special times, the depths of her soul would still flood with unsettling resentment. Resentment is like a hidden flame, and when her mood fluctuates, the flame waits for the opportunity to burst out, burning her and stinging her. At this moment, she felt her chest burning and burning again, and she squatted down and dipped her hands into the cool river water in the bucket, letting the cold spread from her fingertips into her body inch by inch, and calming out the flames that were about to move.
After breakfast, the morning in the village is more than half over, and near noon, the sun finally crosses the top of the mountains and shines diagonally on the ancient village. The sun was still, and the slow morning wind had stopped. The cold morning of late autumn slowly begins to warm up, and distant cow bells come from the mountains. Mrs. Mo likes to start every day from this moment on, the whole world is warm and bright sunshine, and she likes to work in the vegetable field under the cotton-like sun. In fact, there is no work, her vegetable field will never have weeds, the ground is clean, and she knows every leaf. She took a sharpened wooden stick and squatted in the dirt under the pine root in the ridge. She grows all the flowers that can bloom, and the cauliflowers that rise and fall are still thriving on her vegetable floor. In the cold winter when everything is depressed, that piece of millet pepper is the most vivid fire in the vegetable field. Her vegetable patch is not lonely. In those years when the old woman's eyes were still bright, she would often turn over the mountain to visit her sisters, standing in front of this bright vegetable field, always frowning deeply, and then sighing softly. Mrs. Mo felt a pang of shame, she understood that the old woman saw through her thoughts, but the old woman never broke it, and this was the old woman's preference and compassion for her: this bright vegetable field reflected Mrs. Mo's certain entanglement with the mortal world, which may be attachment or resentment, but no matter what it is, it should not be. The heart of a clean-faced person should have the outstanding qualities of solemnity and cleanliness like cotton cloth soaked in blue indigo... Mrs. Mo had hoped that time would take everything away, but year after year the splendid vegetable patch reminded her that her soul was still imprisoned in the shadows of the past.
When the midday sun hangs above the peaks of the mountain, the warmest hour of the day in late autumn has arrived, the frost and fog of the morning have disappeared, the young people are toiling on the mountain, the village is half-empty, and there is a kind of old tranquility. When the sunlight slowly climbed up the door leaf, the hidden wooden door slowly opened, like a long period of time, slowly trembling out of the door one by one old people who were not easy to go out. The bright sunlight outside the door made them toe, and the steps across the threshold seemed to be slightly drunk, and the warm and bright sunshine had been waiting for a long time. They looked east and west in the courtyard, the dim sight gradually became clear, the air they breathed was familiar, with the smell of the crops on the mountain, the yard was familiar, the courtyard wall was familiar, the high threshold that had been tripped countless times when they were children was also familiar, they were still towering there, and the footsteps and time gave them a delicate luster. Hanging on the walls of the house were several old agricultural tools, sickles, wood knives, axes, wedges in various boxes, the ropes tied around the waist were dry and old, turning a fragile brown, and the blades of the knives were gradually covered with rust and rust, no longer sharp. Now they were hung on the walls for a long time, and the eyes of the old man stared at them for a long time, and then slowly fell to the ground: the years of waving young and strong arms to cut thorns were gone. The old man stood in the courtyard, the expression on his face was relaxed, the heart was relieved, they already knew the secret of time, time would arrange corresponding encounters for each time of each person, and now, time had taken away their once strong physique and omnipotent strength, and time was giving them the last quiet moment of life, they just had to wait. When the warm sunlight warmed the old bones of the body through the thick cotton coat, some fresh strength returned to their bones. Dangling slowly, they left the courtyard door and walked toward the vegetable patch behind Mrs. Mo's house. There was no agreement, and at a certain age, they walked in the same direction, and the increasingly rickety figure stepped on their feet. Mrs. Mo's house is at the end of the village, and this road is wide, accompanied only by silent sunlight. When she came, she sat on the weeds outside the vegetable field, Mrs. Mo was busy in the vegetable field, and no one greeted her, and the people who came first and those who came later did not say hello, and each of them found a comfortable place to sit down and completely open themselves to the sun. Seven or eight of them followed, dressed in dark thick clothing and beanies, so that people could not tell whether they were men or women. They are too old.
Mrs. Mo never took the initiative to go out of the vegetable field and sit among them, she could not approach them with such pity, even though their bodies were old, their hearts were still beating vigorously. She can take the initiative to approach the young children, the energetic young people, but she cannot take the initiative to take her own shadow to the old people whose vitality is getting weaker, which is not auspicious, unless invited by them. The old people sat quietly outside the vegetable field, silently looking at each other, and suddenly found that there was no one missing. The memory is getting worse and worse, who is missing? There was no need to think about it, Presumably the man would never come again. Since Mrs. Mo became a clean-faced person, her home is lonely, and few villagers visit the door, and the weedy grass behind the vegetable field has brought her these silent guests who have reached the twilight of the year in a sunny afternoon. This weedy field seems to be the last journey of their lives, it seems that the last time must be spent on this weed to be at ease, it seems to be close to the clean face to be at ease. No one can say exactly why, like there is a mysterious call, a kind of destination.
"Kasumi, come and sit with us!" Someone among the old men greeted her.
Mrs. Mo stood up in the vegetable field and stopped to stare at them. They were all much older than hers, and in the village, people like Mrs. Mo were in her sixties who had to go up the mountain to work, and only when their legs and feet were too old to climb the mountain could they put down the farm tools in their hands. These were all eighty-somethings and ninety-somethings, her elders, and it was inappropriate for her to sit among them, and she didn't like to do that. A clean-faced person should have the ability to be alone and be accustomed to being alone.
"You sit, goodness, I loosen the soil." She politely refused.
No one demands it anymore.
"Do you say there really is another world?" An old man spoke first.
The conversation floated lightly over the vegetable field, and Mrs. Mo squatted in the vegetable field to listen, and she was already familiar with these conversations. Since she was young, generations of elderly people in the village have sat on this weedy grass outside her family's vegetable field, the same waiting, the same silence, or the same conversation. They are no longer taboo about death.
No one was interested in this subject, because no one else who was still sitting here had ever seen the world, not even dreamed of it.
"Well, you probably haven't lived enough, expecting another world to live again." Old people talk one after another.
"Of course, I never felt like I had enough to live, even though I started to be widowed at a young age, and two of my three sons have died, but so what? I will never bear the strong and full crops on the mountain, just like when I was young. ”
"This stupid woman will always remember only her crops."
"You lazy man, you never know what it's like to watch the crops grow and bear fruit in your hands, it's like you're in control of the whole season, you won't know." An old woman sharpened her two thin lips and replied sharply.
"I don't have to know those, I know what they taste like in my mouth." The old man did not mind the old woman's taunts at him.
"What's the difference between that and the cattle grazing on the mountain?" The old woman was dismissive.
"I wish I were the head of the cattle, in my opinion the cattle on the mountain lived more comfortably than the people, pulling the plough twice a year, idle for two seasons, but as long as people still have two eyes open, one day they don't worry, and how can people compare with the cattle." 」
"Well, you reincarnate into a head animal in the next life, you old thing that has been fed up."
"If it works, I don't mind at all."
"When you die, no one will give you a clean face, the sharp tip of the knife will stab you in the neck, your blood will be wiped out, the meat will be eaten, and the bones will be thrown to the dog, and this is the fate of the cattle." 」
"Is it really that important to be pure and impure?" The old man's tone became hesitant, which was probably a confusion that had existed in his heart since he was young.
"Of course, it is important, even the newborn baby knows this truth, you forgot how your father asked Kasumitsu to clean his face?" You old thing, if you have doubts, when you feel that you are about to return to the West, you do not have to ask our light to clean your face for you, you can take this dirty skin that is soaked into the world, this is your freedom. ”
"I'm just saying casually that your temper has grown as much as your age..." the old man sighed.
"Casual? Are you talking about this? I see that you are a head animal in this world, carrying a mouth on your shoulders just to eat. If you say such a thing in front of our light, you will be struck by lightning. The old lady's tone had a majesty that matched her age, "I don't see that your skin bag is worthy of getting the hands of the cleanser to bring you the final cleansing." The old men fell silent, and after a moment they all laughed, grinding their two crumpled lips, a kind of reconciling laugh.
Such disputes have long been accustomed to Mrs. Mo. Someone had doubts about clean faces, and she never blamed them, and she never explained too much, and there was nothing more appropriate than giving time to explain. Perhaps time may not ultimately give a completely satisfactory answer to those who have doubts, but time will slowly change their perception and give them the power to accept it.
"That old guy from Shunyi, it is estimated that he will soon come to invite Xiaguang."
After the silence, the topic of death was revived. These old men, who have lived in chaos in heaven and earth, talk about death like when they were young talking about the cattle in the pen and the crops on the mountain, without any scruples, they can no longer integrate into the lives of young people, and the topic of young people is far away.
"He has nine lives like a cat, he can't die, and in a few days he will be able to get up and squat on the wall to bask in the sun."
"You'd rather hope he dies sooner, and it won't be your turn to eat."
After the people here have passed the age of sixty, they cannot eat the red and white celebrations.
"I'll be ninety in two months, and I'll still have a rare meal." I felt sorry for the child of green jade, the daughter-in-law served the father-in-law, and God was blind. Shunyi was not a good thing when he was young, and there were eighteen lives that deserved to die, torturing people. ”
"Well, people have not driven you to the cattle in the pen, nor have they pulled out the crops in your field, and there is a great resentment, and it is time to disappear, and the loess is buried in the tip of the nose."
"Maybe I'm confused, I remember him saying he didn't want to clean my face."
Silence once again envelops the old people. Mrs. Mo had been looking down at the loose earth, and the sun shone quietly on her, as if nothing could disturb her. She was a petite old woman, from her youth to the present, time had only aged her face, and her light body was wrapped in dark heavy clothing, revealing a strong and inviolable force. Without warning, the stick under her hand poked into the root of a cabbage, and with the strength of her wrist, it pushed into the stick, and the root of the cabbage came out of the wet and soft soil. Taken aback, she looked out over the weeds beyond the vegetable patch, where the old men seemed to freeze still, their eyes obscured by the dense layers of leaves, and they could not see the dirt under her hands.
"When anyone is young, they say something that they are destined to regret later, and that's how we all came."
"He wasn't young when he said that."
"He'll regret it."
"That old thing doesn't know what blessings to repair, the old sister served him all his life, and now he is a daughter-in-law." Like frost that old girl, she has lived a lifetime empty, what is the picture? When an old girl is dead, the incense is only lit, and I am afraid that when I get there, I will be rejected by her old lady. ”
The afternoon wind blew, slowly, warmly, with the warm breath of the sun, warm and sleepy, they sat down, sat and sat down, and went to sleep, their heads low, their chins against the cotton collar of their chests.
"Zu-Zu!" From the depths of the village came the occasional childish call, looking for these taizu who seemed to have forgotten their time to go home for lunch. Unconscious, they are lost in time.
The warm wind brought the past to Mrs. Mo. She returned to the shade under the eaves, where her friends in the kitchen had long since left, quietly, and some light leaked from the tiles that had been moved from the roof and projected on the floor.
The past is also mottled.
She sat down in the kitchen doorway and leaned against the door frame. Ru Feng's face rarely appears at night, but Ru Feng appears in her dreams. No, not the frost of old age, nor the frost of dying in her arms, but the frost of youth. She was six months younger than Mrs. Mo, and any hillside where mushrooms and spring shoots could grow was filled with their figures and laughter. It wasn't until Mrs. Mo became a clean-faced person that their friendship was stopped by the old woman, who warned Ru Feng with extremely harsh words not to go near Mrs. Mo again, they were not the same kind of people. For Mrs. Mo's choice, Ru Shuang's opposition was even worse than Mrs. Mo's sister, and she even threatened Mrs. Mo that if Mrs. Mo insisted on taking this road, she would accompany Mrs. Mo for a lifetime and never marry. Mrs. Mo thought that she was just momentarily confused by the once beautiful friendship. However, when Mrs. Mo really carried the clear water soaked with grapefruit leaves and sharp scissors towards those dying lives, the despair of frost still shook her. The radiance of youth disappeared from her eyes and face, and her gaze towards Mrs. Mo was filled with utter sorrow, as if it was she who was about to walk on this long and lonely road. Her threat to Mrs. Mo also became an impregnable promise, the bright clothes faded from her body, and from the early morning her face was shrouded in a faint sadness, she became reticent, and labor became her only pleasure in daily life. The vitality in her body gradually disappeared with her widowhood, and she was like a twilight man full of heart, pressing her lips tightly. In Mrs. Mo's clean-faced career, Ru Feng was the only one who was as close to her as always. She approached Mrs. Mo almost with a sinful piety, in the vegetable field behind the house in the morning, in the crop field on the mountain in the afternoon, in Mrs. Mo's quiet house at night, in front of the lonely festival dinner table, almost all accompanied by good friends. They would talk about crops and the rotation of the seasons, about fresh mushrooms after the rains in the mountains, about wild boars that occasionally spoiled crops, and about newborn babies in the village, but never about Mrs. Mo's profession of cleansing people. They all tacitly avoided the matter. Most of the time the two people are silent, letting the pace of time pass quietly from the two people, from one morning to another. If Mrs. Mo knew rufrost very well when she was young, ru feng's heart was as clear as the dew in the morning, and she knew any thoughts and secrets of her good friends, then after she became a clean face person, ru feng made her feel confused, and the dew lost its crystal clearness, as if falling into the dust, with an invisible filth. Frost's gaze stared deeply at her, and she could see that behind Frost's gaze there was a fog that she couldn't see clearly, and she could never penetrate that fog. Mrs. Mo had never tried to understand or inquire for decades, because she believed that any thoughts in her good friend's heart would not hurt her in the slightest. No one can do unreserved love to another person, she understood.
Four years ago, Ru Feng died of an illness, she was emaciated, eating less and less every day, and by the last moment of her life, she had been dripping water for several days. As Frost looked like a daughter-in-law, Lu Yu took good care of her day and night, and Lu Yu secretly ran to invite Mrs. Mo at night, hoping that Mrs. Mo could persuade the old aunt who was dry and stubborn to drink a mouthful of soup medicine. Mrs. Mo just sat on the edge of the bed, holding tightly the hand of her good friend who had been with her all her life, which had lost its luster of life. She felt a despair in Ru Feng's heart, and this despair was by no means the fear of death, and she was tormented by this despair.
"What do you want?" Mrs. Mo remembered asking her that.
However, the patient's head shook lightly on the pillow, and her weak and focused gaze fell on Mrs. Mo's face, as if discerning something.
"Don't suffer your heart alone, I don't allow you to do this, you should trust me, I will help you." 」 Mrs. Mo stared at her old friend. Her sick face and white hair made Mrs. Mo feel the omnipotent power of the years.
Tears oozed from the corners of frosty eyes. "I want to ask your forgiveness, Kasumi, and let forgiveness guide your heart to do everything in the future!" She said softly.
Ru Feng finally walked away in Mrs. Mo's arms, and she refused to clean her face when she still had a breath, "I don't deserve such etiquette." It wasn't until she lost her breath that Mrs. Mo began to clean her face.
"Xiaguang, let tolerance guide your heart!"
Ru Feng's young face flashed in front of her, and Mrs. Mo woke up in shock, and she leaned against the door frame to sleep. The afternoon sun was already westward, falling obliquely on the floor beneath her feet. In the weeds outside the vegetable patch, the old men were gone, and the grass was empty, as if they had never been there. (Excerpt)
(For the full text, please read "Yangtze River Literature and Art: Good Novel", No. 4, 2022)
—END—
Excerpt from Hibiscus, No. 1, 2022
The original journal is responsible for editing | Yang Xiaolan
The journal is responsible for editing | Yan Li
"Yangtze River Literature and Art : Good Novel", No. 4, 2022
▲Tao Liqun |
Tao Liqun, Zhuang, Guangxi Baise people, Master of Arts. His works have been published in "People's Literature", "Ethnic Literature", "Mountain Flower", "Youth Literature", "Furong" and other journals, and have been reprinted and selected into the annual ranking list many times. He has won the Guangxi Literature and Art Bronze Drum Award, the Guangxi Zhuang Literature Award, the Ethnic Literature Annual Work Award, the Beijing Literature Novella Monthly Excellent Work Award, and the National Ethnic Minority Literature Creation Horse Award.