Written by Xiangxi
There is a pool of clear and sweet spring water in my mind, like a long-cherished key, which opens the memory of my hometown.
The spring water comes from a well underground, the water quality is ice clear and jade, because the whole pool of water is like a teapot, so it is called the jade pot well by the hometown people. There is a hexagonal stone monument in the shape of a tower in the well, which was built to commemorate a famous local anti-Qing righteous man Zeng Shengzhai. There is a huge stone next to the stone plaque, which is shaped like a ploughing ox lying on the ground, called "Shengzhai Fishing Platform". There is a craggy bluestone coming out of the bottom of the water by the well, like a lotus, it is called the lotus stone, and the water of the jade pot well flows into the Dingshui River through the pores of the lotus stone. There are still many beautiful legends about Yuhujing in my hometown, and I am talked about by the people of my hometown.
The water in the jade well is warm in winter and cool in summer. In winter, the water is covered with mist, and from a distance it looks like a pot of boiling hot water, and the water is warm when you dip your hands under the water, while the well water is clear and cold in summer.
I like the jade pot well in summer. In the summer, the stone staircase by the well, under the shade of the trees, is full of people shaking their fans to enjoy the shade. There are several large bamboo baskets soaked in the well water next to the stone stairs, which are ice powder, cold cake, and black cold powder. Although these summer sweets can be found everywhere in the streets and alleys of the small town, the people of the hometown still prefer to come to the jade pot well to taste a bowl. For just five cents, the dessert seller takes a piece of cold cake from the bamboo basket with his hands, spreads it out on his hand, and then uses thinly sliced bamboo to cut the cold cake into several even pieces and put it into a bowl, and then pour it with thick brown sugar juice. If it is ice powder and black cold powder, put it out directly in a bowl, stir it with bamboo slices a few times, and then pour it with brown sugar juice. When I was a child, I was the most greedy for black jelly, which is made from an herb that is abundant in my hometown, and the taste and appearance are very similar to the roasted fairy grass that is now popular in drink shops in the metropolis. On a hot summer afternoon, I drank a bowl of black jelly by the well, and suddenly felt that every cell in my body was cool.
To the southeast of Yuhujing is one of the most famous key middle schools in the county, and you can hear the sound of books coming from the campus when you stand on the well, and you can also see the polite teachers and students wearing glasses coming in and out from the school gate from a distance. There is a wide slope between the campus and Yuhujing, and there are three playgrounds side by side on both sides of the slope, and at the end of the lower part of the slope, there is a lawn overgrown with weeds on the west side of Yuhujing. Next to the lawn is the Dingshui River, which runs through the city.
The huge lawn is a football field where the boys run and gallop, and there are also students who play and roll on the grass after class. In the spring season, many kite flyers gather on the lawn, and all kinds of self-made kites fly in the sky. The lawn was completely untended, and the vigorous (savage) dandelions and dog's tail grass glittered in the sunlight and still wobbled in my dreams.
The playground left the footprints of my middle school days: morning jogging, radio gymnastics, basketball, badminton, rubber band jumping, sandbag throwing, shuttlecock kicking. At that time, there was no pure water or mineral water, and pure and sweet well water was a natural drink. When you are thirsty, you can directly use both hands to pinch the well water, suck it into your mouth, and feel hearty and comfortable.
I remember one time just after a physical education class in the playground, my classmates and I came to the Yuhu Well to drink water, I squatted on the stone by the well, looked down and saw small fish and shrimp swimming in front of me, as if within reach. I was reaching out to catch it, but I didn't expect my feet to slide down and lean forward, I screamed and hurriedly grabbed the classmate next to me, and the classmate was pulled into the water by me before he could react. Fortunately, a few classmates who also came to drink water not far away found us in time and pulled us out of the water. We crawled out of the well water, drenched and frightened, like two chickens in soup, and the classmates I pulled into the water complained about me and ignored me for a long time.
The northeast direction of Yuhujing, on the left side of the middle school gate, stands a hundred-year-old yellow kudzu tree with lush leaves, walking through the yellow kudzu tree, it is a long and narrow alley, strolling in the alley, you can't see the head and end of the alley, the alley is lined with low buildings, two or three floors. Someone put a small table outside the wall near the window, and there were several glass jars on the table, which were lollipops, bubble gum, and marssimas that the students could afford to consume. There are also people who completely convert the rooms on the first floor into a simple restaurant, with only two tables and a few chairs. In addition to the desserts on the edge of the jade pot, there is also a snack called gouache, which is actually the hot and sour noodles made of sweet potato flour that people love to eat now. But the seasoning of the gouache in my hometown is very exquisite, in addition to ginger, onion and garlic, there are also broken rice sprouts and crispy soybeans fried in oil. Sitting at a small table and eating a steaming bowl of gouache will feel very sour. Walking in the alley, you will often encounter someone carrying a small bamboo basket to walk around the streets and alleys to buy cold chicken nuggets, and uncover the lid of the bamboo basket, which is black and red and brightly wrapped in seasonings, which makes people salivate.
At the end of the alley is a wide road, which is even more lively on both sides: fruit stalls, vegetable stalls, pork, chicken, duck and fish, and bellows popcorn.
Walk a few dozen meters to the right opposite the school gate, and then turn a few hundred meters to the left, and a very long street will be in front of you, which is a main street in the county seat. The county surrounded by mountains, there are green mountains and green waters, there are fireworks in the world, and you will meet many familiar faces when you walk on the street.
To the west of the jade pot well, next to the football field, there is a stone mountain, and there are many strange and scattered boulders on the mountain. Climb up the wide stone staircase and pass through a circular arch engraved with the word "Xianyuan" on it, and enter another world, with pavilions, corridors, libraries, and verdant trees. In the pavilion, there are old people sitting around stone tables playing chess, surrounded by people watching the game, and wild cats walking lightly through the holes in the stones. In my memory, there was a young man of twelve or thirteen years old who always stood on the cobblestone next to the pavilion, playing the quiet sound of the flute. There was also a little girl sitting on a stone with a drawing board on her lap, and she was tracing the white pagoda in the distance.
The library on the stone mountain is my favorite place to go, but at that time, what I often read was not those world famous books, but some color pictorials, such as "People's Pictorial", "People's Liberation Army Pictorial", "Juvenile Science Pictorial" and so on. In addition, there are my favorite magazines such as "Juvenile Literature" and "Children's Literature". I remember skipping class in order to flip through pictorial magazines.
There is a flat open space in front of the library, where my father would practice Tai Chi every morning in the rising sun. In the melodious music, my father was dressed in a pure white Chinese satin dress, concentrating and calming, from the quiet to the momentum, the body moved like a cloud, the sun sprinkled on my father's body, and the green mountains in the distance were like daisies, this scene was like a smart three-dimensional painting, forever engraved in my mind.
The north side of Yuhujing is Baita Mountain, there is a white tower on the mountain, called Dengying Tower, the plaque on the top of the tower is written with the words "total Dengtian Road", it is Daoguang three years (1823) by the then Zhixian Liang Rugang raised and built. The entire tower has seven floors and is nearly 30 meters high. The highway at the foot of Baita Mountain is the passage from the county to the outside world, and Dengyingta Town guards the gateway of the county seat and is the feng shui tower of the county. From the bottom of the mountain, you can climb to the top of the mountain along a winding mountain road, and along the way there are shadows of trees with many unnamed wildflowers and chirping sparrows. In summer, the white and warm gardenias bloom all over the hillside, fragrant and fragrant. The gentle wind blows through the ends of the hair, and the laughter of youth is crisp and refreshing, like a string of golden wind chimes.
Time flies, and I haven't returned to my hometown for many years, and my childhood friend sent photos on my mobile phone to comfort my homesickness. In the photo, the low, old houses and narrow streets of the old town are all gone, replaced by high-rise buildings, busy traffic, wide streets, bustling people, and a bustling scene.
I stared at the jade pot well in the photo, trying to identify the traces of the past time, all the memories slowly came to my mind, except for the overlapping parts with the memory, those extra pavilions, viewing platforms, and water pavilion corridors, so that the original natural jade pot well has some artificially carved beauty. Especially at night, the jade pot well is brightly lit and colorful.
But I still miss the jade pot well hidden in my memory!
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