Books, take me far away

After I became literate, it was a luxury to be able to read books other than textbooks. You know, when the bells of the millennium ring, my greatest wish is to eat white steamed buns. The extreme scarcity of materials makes people's eyes heavy, and it is impossible to leave the land and food. Fortunately, reading books makes me not sad because of suffering.

I remember that at that time, every time I went to the market, I either sold potatoes or exchanged corn for money. After the deal was completed, I always had to run to the only bookstore in town, look through the glass cabinets, and see some new books. Of course, you can only stare at the cover for fun. The boss asked "what do you want to ben", I shook my head, and replied " Don't do anything, take a look". People rolled their eyes and stopped paying attention, so I didn't eat cold powder and rushed out the door with a red face. Until one day, my mother took out a thick dime from the sale of watermelons and asked me to buy a book. I had a selection of essays, and from then on, whether it was fetching water from the spring or herding cattle and sheep, I took it with me and read it over and over again.

A book is a beam of light that can go straight into people's hearts. It was the text that still seems very immature today that made me see the world beyond the mountain village, the car, the elevator and the city, and let me know that there was a larger world - the library. It is also too eye-catching that there are so many books in one place that can be read for free. Every weekend in junior high school, I had to go home to get rations. Walking on the mountain road when the stars and moon are empty, there is no one in the four fields, and I fantasize that I have sat in the brightly lit library.

Later, I went to high school and had a heavy academic load. Both teachers and parents regard extracurricular books as a flood beast. And it was at that time that I fell in love with literature. Saving a few meals a week to rent books, Chinese contemporary novels, foreign classics, those in the sky of literature, glittering titles and authors, illuminated my narrow rental house. As a result, winter is no longer cold. Sometimes, I also risk taking books home. How many days of wheat yellow, carrying more than 100 pounds of wheat, walking in the poisonous sun, grinding shoulders, sunburning the back, but the calculation in the heart is that when it is dark, you can hold the book and read.

Then I went to the university, which was the first time I left my hometown, the first time I took a bus, the first time I entered the provincial city. A flat shoulder carried two pig feed bags containing bedding and some daily necessities. I didn't go to the dormitory first, but found out about the library all the way. Facing the library, which was larger than the high school building, I felt like I had climbed to the top of the mountain, breathed a sigh of relief, and finally arrived.

Thirty and standing, mixed feelings. To read a book is to enter a paper city-state where you construct your own spiritual kingdom. When I went to work and worked in writing, I was often grateful for the books I read, though many of them I couldn't even remember the titles. But I know that in my spiritual world, they are bricks buried in the foundation, supporting the nobility of a peasant doll's heart.

People's Daily (2019-04-19 12th edition)