(Continued from previous episode)
Six
Mrs. Guo is eighty-seven years old. Her back was so hard that it was about to bow to the ground.
Her eyes had been blind a few years ago, and with her keen senses, she could sense people five or six meters away from her. She nodded affectionately to those who passed by her, her wrinkled face always smiling kindly, like a sunflower shining with the sun's light.
The village roads, the ridges, the fences, every ditch in her fields, she knew it as well as her own hands.
It is often seen that she carries a small bundle of wheat, or rice, or rape, or soybean, and walks slowly on the ridge of the seven quintals. When she encounters a very small problem, she has to sit down, grind her buttocks, first lift her left leg with her hand, move her left foot to the side of the khar and stabilize it, and then lift her right foot with her hand.
She walked for a while and sat on the ridge to rest for a while. Walking across the ridge, she had to rest about three times before sitting down on her field.
She never felt dirty, and was willing to sit on the ground directly. She didn't need to see the open field illuminated by the setting sun orange red, in the somewhat humid brown earth, the breeze blowing, the crops in front of her were laid out, golden, green, purple red, intertwined in the wind into the most moving painting between heaven and earth, very beautiful, gratifying.
She believed that she knew the crops, and the crops knew her. Whether it's rice, wheat, corn, beans, they left last year, and they come again this year.
She sat in the field for a while, and the autumn evening sun shone red on her face, reflecting her eye sockets deeper and darker.
Once, she heard the rumbling of machinery into the field, and then the sound of clattering again for a long time. She hadn't heard the sound of a machine in the field for a long time, but she listened attentively, and she could hear that the sound of the machine was cheerful. At this time, a voice as soft as wool said, "Lady, basking in the sun?" Mrs. Guo heard that it was Lao Liu, and she looked up and said, "Lao Liu, what kind of machine is ringing in the field?" Lao Liu said, "The grain cutter, one end of the grain, the other end of the grain." The old lady said, "So godly, you don't need to harvest the grain and pick the grain to threshing?" Lao Liu slashed at the tree above his head and said loudly, "No, old lady." The old lady said, then what are you going to do in the future, watch TV and play cards every day? Lao Liu said, what will happen at that time, we don't know, let's see. Do you want me to take you by the hand? The old lady muttered and said, no, I'm not old enough yet.
After Lao Liu left, the old lady owed herself and wanted to stand up, but she couldn't stand up. She sat in the field for a while. The evening breeze was blowing, and the chirping insects sounded in the fields at dusk, and she felt that she was refreshed and happy, and she had strength in her body, so she stood up and went to harvest the rice that had dried on the slope of the grove in the morning.
The position of the rice is a bit high, and it was deliberately thrown on it when she was cutting the grain. It's a small high slope, and the sun is abundant, and in the evening the rice dries out. Now, she stood on tiptoe and stretched out her hands to hook most of the rice.
She pushed her toes harder, trying to keep herself taller, and her calves began to tremble.
Her hand quickly hugged the rice, and her feet slipped slightly, as if the air was tearing like a silk. She fell backwards into the field.
She is the daughter of the land. She embraced the land with open arms, and Shidi immediately hugged her tightly.
She heard the crickets crow once or twice, and they trembled a little, like moaning. She turned her head to look, but she didn't see where the cricket was. The yellow leaves fell to the ground. The unknown cricket that was afraid of the cold must have been hiding under a certain leaf.
She picked up a grass leaf in her hand, and saw that the bright yellow leaf had become thinner, not as thick as in summer, nor as hairy as in summer.
She pinched the leaf stalk, covered the leaf over her eyes and shone it against the sun, through the leaf, she really saw the sun, the sun was like a magnified egg yolk.
This is the autumn sun, it is no longer hot, it is no longer sharp. It becomes thicker and kinder, and brings people a quiet warmth when it is cool in autumn.
...... Mrs. Guo's grave is on the small slope forest, and she can watch over her field. Her tombstone has ears of rice carved on the left and sorghum on the right. The three incense sticks are like a few wisps of mourning, rising in the autumn sun. There are more than a dozen old people's machines in front of the tomb, as well as a brand-new smartphone. Her four children and grandchildren stood quietly at her grave.
Sun Tzu presented poems to Mrs. Guo on their behalf——
The milk of the millet flows through the village
The moon was sad and stayed cold in the paddy fields
You went away without saying where to go
The return date was not stated
Like a grain of grain, it gives off gold and warmth
Allow me to say that love has been hidden in my heart for a long time
Red fluttering love. It's like being in the sun
Shimmering golden millet, waiting for your pair of hands
Pick and gently hold between lips
Allow me to say the warmth and peace of the sun
Faith in general, flickering above all things
The second child trembled his hand and rearranged the mobile phone that had been placed in front of her grave, twice, three times...... He choked up:
Mother, you are here when the earth is there, and you are here when the grain is there!
You are industrious, you are loving, you are the granary of the world, you are the reckless earth......
You will always walk in front of me, I will always follow you! You will always be on the horizon, you will always be in front of you!
The second child stood and saw Mrs. Guo coming from the autumn sun...... The old man is still working in the fields...... It's the field right now...... Now, the second child not only saw her, but also saw himself. When he saw her at work with himself, his heart fell silent like a field. Silence and emptiness. The second child immediately heard a voice, which was Mrs. Guo's voice.
(End of the full work)
About author:Xu Songhua is a member of Hubei Writers Association. He is the author of the novella "Promotion Next Year", the biographical literature "Those Poets of the Tang Dynasty", the short stories "The Straw Hat in 1972" and "No Story Tonight", etc., and "The Twelve Months of the Staggered Years" won the second prize of the first Chinese Novel Competition. Many of his works have been selected into "Selected Small Novels", "Selected Micro Novels", "Selected Folk Tales", "Reader", etc.
Huainan Bagong Mountain has a rich history and humanities, and it is also the place where the book "Huainanzi" was written, and the place name brand is well-known, which has a great influence on the works of propaganda writers. "Bagongshan Literature" (yearbook) is an internal publication supervised by the Propaganda Department of the Bagongshan District Party Committee and the Federation of Literary and Art Circles, guided by the Huainan Writers Association, and sponsored by the Bagongshan Writers Association. The journal is committed to the development and prosperity of literature, and provides a platform for writers, poets and literature lovers in Bagongshan District, other counties and districts of Huainan City, as well as all over the country to exchange and display their works. As of this year, seven issues of Bagongshan Literature have been published (2016-2022 volumes). It has had a great impact on the literary world.
Today's headlines "Eight Public Angles" cooperated to select the outstanding works among them. Xu Songhua's novel released in this issue of "Bagong Angle" is selected from the 2022 volume of "Bagongshan Literature" "Langji Qingqing" novel column.
(Editorial Department of "Bagongshan Literature" of Huainan Bagongshan Writers Association)
On April 26, 2024, today's headline "Eight Pictures Angle" was released