Winter in Guiyang has really arrived. Li Housheng and I ate a bowl of mutton noodles at a powder restaurant under the Wandong Bridge, but we still couldn't resist the cold. He went down, I went up. He was going to Flower Creek, to a struggle for survival; I was going back to my dwelling and making a world of words in my nest. The temperature was minus two degrees, and between heaven and earth, the space seemed to shrink, waving at each other, and the two figures disappeared into the wind.
Walking alone in the cold winter streets, the strong posture of the Hunter building forced me to raise my hand and surrender. Am I a soft bone? So, shaking my spirits, straightening my waist, looking up, and walking forward. There were far fewer pedestrians on the street than usual, and it seemed that for an instant they were all slipped into their cold sleeping bags, unwilling to come out. The wind of minus two degrees is still attacking me, and I am bullying this lone traveler with this tall Hunter building. The only thing that comforted me was a small tofu stall on the side of the road, and the square soft tofu on the cart was soaked with oil and steaming in the cold wind. I suddenly had a sense of pride in life: "The standard winter should be like this, life should be like this." There was a wind under his feet.
I met Li Housheng at a book club at the beginning of the year, no, we met as early as a reading event at a new bookstore last year. It was just that there was almost no communication at that time, so I was not impressed. Familiarity was at the beginning of the year. At noon that day, I arrived early downstairs to do the event. After waiting for a while, a young man in a gray turtleneck sweater approached me, his skin slightly dark, his lips a little chapped, and I turned my head to ignore him and just walked forward. "Are you Li Yufeng?" His voice came from the air. Knowing my name, it seems that I misunderstood him: I thought of this young man as someone who sold me second-hand mobile phones, and I didn't like to pay attention to such people. I asked him if he had also come to participate in a book reading activity. He said yes. And so it goes. We talked about literature, each briefly introduced what we mainly wrote, and also mentioned Haizi. After some exchanges, I found that this was a young man who was very religious about poetry or spiritual piety.
The event was held at a teahouse on the top floor of the building. A dozen people sat around a long table in a tea room to read and talk about history and even the problems of today's society. At the event, he shared a feeling, saying that when he woke up from sleep in the afternoon, he often felt that life was particularly empty, and instantly produced loneliness that had never been seen before. In his hometown, he woke up one afternoon and asked his grandmother, "What do people live for?" Grandma said, "Little age, what do you want to do with this?" I think he must have his answer now.
From that day on, we became good friends.
On the evening of June 25, half a year ago, Li Housheng told me on WeChat that he and his friends had opened a hostel in the Sunshine Garden near Shanlin Road, on the top floor, with an open platform. One of them was going to be used as a bookstore, and then there was a poetry club or something like that, and they wanted to invite me to be a bookstore consultant. Seeing this news, of course, I was happy, and I quickly said that I would go to see it one day. He said it was still being renovated. It wasn't until the afternoon of July 17 that I went to his inn with a hint of melancholy about to leave Guiyang. By that time, the inn had been running.
Sunshine Garden is a slightly older neighborhood. There was no elevator inside, and I walked from the first floor to the eighth floor to see the inn. I went with a classmate and brought some of my books with me as a book display at the inn.
After entering the door, sweep to the right, and see an area that is very spacious, estimated to be more than forty square meters. In the middle is a long table less than a meter high, covered with a beige cloth with two stacks of books spaced on it, which can also be drawn out, of course; there is a bench on each side of the table, with cushions and backrests. On the wall directly in front hangs a projection curtain. On the other side of the window, a row of windows, opened less than a meter from the floor, with a few guitars on the edge of the window. In a corner, there was a pair of shakers where people could sit and even sleep on it, and later, an orange-and-white cat named Simi liked to jump on it and sleep. The small bar counter is on the right side of the entrance, and there are various wine glasses on the counter as usual in the usual inn. Walking straight through the door, you will see a bookshelf at the end of the aisle, on which are placed all kinds of books, and the books I brought will be placed here first. On both sides of the aisle, are several rooms. I went in to see it, and later Slept, and it was comfortable.
The most distinctive thing is on the roof. After entering the door of the inn, there is a wooden staircase on the left to go up to the top of the building. There is a clearing (the floor is a long strip of wood with gaps between the planks) and a small long table in the middle. On the side is also covered with an "L" shaped side room, under the long vertical of L is two or three rooms and corridor space; under the short horizontal is the tea room, where there is a long table and several small tables that are either round or square, the floor is wooden, and there are small slits between the wooden blocks. As downstairs, there is a projection device. The whole tea room is elegantly decorated, with a small bookshelf on the right wall by the window, which is clinging to the wall; the door is a wooden door that can be folded, with a long slit of one grid and one grid, and if the door is closed, the person outside can look down on the person inside through the long slit. The whole roof is naturally full of flowers and trees with various decorations, including ziwei, green baskets, hanging orchids, climbing tigers, etc., which are reflected in the wind or in the sun. If you want to stand higher and see farther, there is an iron staircase at the base of the wall close to the building next door, through which you can go to the side roof and look at the jagged and age-like roof, which has its own charm. Coming to the top floor in the evening to drink tea and talk or read a book is the most emotional. There is a guardrail here, even if you have a fear of heights, you can rest assured, as long as you do not have nerves, it is very safe.
Because it is on the roof, the full name of the inn is called "Youth Culture Inn on the Roof". To this day, I can't remember how many times I've played there. There were a couple of events that we did there as well. At present, although this is not the best inn in Guiyang, because of the owner's spiritual temperament, playing or staying here can have a different feeling. The overall atmosphere and spiritual style of an inn is determined by the spiritual temperament of its owner, so this inn embodies the spiritual atmosphere of Li Housheng everywhere.
After returning from the inn, in the early hours of the morning, I chatted with him on WeChat, and when I said that I was going to leave Guiyang after dawn, he sent me a sentence: Don't worry about the road ahead, you still have the hearts of the deceased. Now, I am back, I am still the same me, the "old heart" is still there.
The moment when these words are written is in the early morning, and it has entered a new day, and it can only be said that the day's events occurred yesterday. Just yesterday afternoon, I went to Li Housheng's inn, he was so sleepy, we discussed waiting for him to squint for a while and then go to a few bookstores to see. In the process of his sleep, the cat named Simi also slept in his arms, and I suddenly felt that the picture was so warm, so I took a picture. Almost half an hour later, he woke up.
We went to a small library first. There was tea and coffee inside. This is my third time here, so I am much more familiar with it than Li Housheng. As soon as we went in, we didn't read a book or drink some coffee or tea, so we looked at it. When I came out, I asked him how he was feeling, and he said, "Good place, the library (teahouse) should be like this." It's warm and quiet, the house is left behind before, and it feels like you're going back in time when you come here. Just outside is the hustle and bustle of the downtown area. In the hustle and bustle of modernization, there is such a place, which is really rare. Isn't this the "big hidden in the city" that many people yearn for? I know why he just looked at that: He also wanted to create such a place.
Come to the wandong bridge, yes, that is the eating powder mentioned at the beginning of the article. I have known for a long time that there is a flower and bird market here, and not long ago I went in with a fellow countryman, and I saw that the things sold in it were far more than flowers, birds, insects and fish, but also calligraphy and paintings and so on. This time it was different, one was not busy, you could linger; the other was with Li Housheng, who was a cultural fetish and said to take me to look for old books. So I followed him to the old book stall. When I arrived, I saw that several square book stalls that were about the same height as people had been covered with plastic paper. I saw another one that wasn't covered, but the boss was about to put it on—it was too cold at minus two degrees Celsius, and it was past five o'clock in the afternoon, and it was time to go home. As soon as we approached, we asked the boss if he had a Bible, because he had asked about it in the private library before. The boss said that there was another book, so he went to the pile of books to turn it over. When I saw it, I was excited, and I really had it! Since 2018, for some reason, bookstores, libraries and even online books related to religion have basically been removed from the shelves. I'm lucky to find it here today! But after reading the first few sentences, I felt that it was not like I was thinking about that version day and night, and after hesitating, I decided not to buy it for the time being. He searched and searched in the pile of old books, rummaged through and picked them up, and finally bought a copy of the "History of History", a copy of "The Tale of chivalrous wind and moon" and a copy of "The Tale of the West Chamber"; Li Housheng bought a copy of "Philosophy of Art" translated by Fu Lei.
We both went outside and walked into the lamb powder restaurant on the side of the road under the bridge. After the powder is served, the top of the bowl is covered with hot air, and when the chopsticks are used, I find that my fingers are not very flexible. It's really cold!
Written in December 2020 in Guiyang Coal Mining Village
About the Author
Li Yufeng, male, Tujia family, a native of Guizhou along the river. Believe in the humanistic spirit. He currently lives in Guiyang.