The "black butterfly" hidden in the heart

Twenty-six years ago, I was thriving with nothing. While working in a furniture factory, he was sent to the northeast to learn about the raw materials of wood. Distant and distant, silent mountains, as soon as the tractor we were riding stopped, the thunderous old grandson and the old grandson's apprentice Xiaolang had jumped down. Lao Sun pointed to a dense forest: "Through the forest, go to the logging area." Go fast and be able to return before dark. ”

Lao Sun is the owner of a timber factory in Dandong. He had a rosy complexion, strong arms, a dark towel over his shoulders, and trousers that were rolled up above his knees, looking like a farmer. The road under our feet is stepped on by workers who move wood. One meter wide, the dirt is mixed with mountain rocks, and the tender green grass embellishes the curb. This road, like a knife, moves forward with its footsteps, constantly "cutting" the belly of the forest. The deeper the "section", the deeper it went, into a gloomy valley.

Tree species are a mess along the way. Birch, red pine, fir tree, cypress tree, all kinds of looks. Some are slender, with treetops stretching out to the clouds; some are as thick as a basin, and their arms cannot be wrapped around them; the dense branches stretch left and right, shoulder to shoulder. Occasionally, the trunk of the tree was broken, and Lao Sun said that it was broken by lightning and lightning. After experiencing the snow and ice in winter, there are almost no footprints and breath in the forest, not even birds. Breaking the dead silence is, it is the stream after the snow, it is the joke of Lao Sun and Xiao Lang with a loud voice.

After walking for almost three hours, the water in Xiaolang's military kettle was pumped to the bottom by me, and the "knife" under his feet was still "cut" in the forest. Old Sun said, it's almost here. I extinguished my cigarette butt and rushed to the gentle slope in front of me. The road was broken, and there was an open field in front of us. Lao Sun said: "This open space was cut down last year. This year I'm going to cut down the forest opposite. In the distance, I finally saw a forest full of ash willows. That's the material our factory needs.

The open mountain is occupied by newly grown grass. The wooden sticks that were cut down and not transported away, horizontal and vertical, were in a mess, like an ancient battlefield in a movie. I was trapped on a dark and decaying log, dying like a tree stump. The hunger and thirst that came with the attack made me look at Venus. In a trance, I saw black butterflies, one, two, and I widened my eyes in amazement, more and more, in groups, flapping black wings.

In the confusion, I saw lao Sun pinch a butterfly and put it in my nostrils, and the pure breath of wood drifted into my nose; he shoved it into my mouth, and there was a clear fragrance that seeped into my lips and teeth.

I screamed and got up from the tree: "Ah, fungus! "It turned out that the black butterfly with its wings was a fungus that grew from dead wood.

Carefully, I picked the magical elves that came from the decaying body of the butterfly! Sniff under the nose and chew in the mouth. With the dew, the faint smell of sunshine, quenching thirst, filling hunger, I have strength again. I was like a black butterfly flying in the wilderness, running towards the thick willow forest. I looked up in the forest, the tall and straight trunk of the ash willow reaching out into the blue sky; I touched the rough bark, as if I had touched the texture of time. Those trees are wordlessly reserved. They seemed to be a force, silent, a powerful being. They are also waiting, stubbornly, stoicly, with the power of silence. Maybe they're just waiting for the end, waiting to be cut down and cleared, that's the end of the forest.

Lao Sun said: This year we will cut down this piece. For them, this is the end of everything.

Suddenly, a trace of grief welled up in my heart: before long they would fall, and then follow the knife-like path, out of the forest, cut, sawn, planed, and drilled, and accepted human requisition with beautiful stripes; those who could not go out, fell, decayed, and disappeared. When the forest becomes a dead and silent wilderness, accompanied only by the fungus that grows from the body, it transforms into a butterfly, but it cannot fly.

Years later, Xiao Lang brought a few news that surprised me: the knife-like path was widened into a forest road, and when it arrived, tourists, tree planters, science popularization workers, and environmental protection volunteers made the mountain forest lively. Lao Sun closed the lumber mill, and he built a wooden house in the open space of the willow forest, and lived a life of planting trees, guarding the forest, and picking wood ear fungus.

I carefully opened the package sent by Xiao Lang, which was a bag of fungus. This blossoming black fungus, beautiful black ears, seems to be listening to the language of the sun and the wind; they are like black butterflies, taking me back to the unforgettable past, back to the time when youth had been consumed.