Chapter 16 Chapter Sixteen

Spring grows in the wilderness after the fire. When the earth was sleeping peacefully, no one would have thought that one day it would be angry. A fire would be like a winter’s old fur to it. The lake water was evaporated by the sun and turned into a cloud containing water particles, and it was washed away by rain. The ashes on the body, those quicksands will bury the remains of the trees, and around the dead old trees, clusters of new shoots will sprout again.And dozens of miles of red grass grew as if nothing had happened, and the tips of the young grass stood upright, like small green swords, held high on the ground and swore to the sky that they would never die.

The shrubs are the ones that germinate quickly, leaning against the edge of the swamp formed by snow water, vigorous and lively.Brambles, Avalokitesvara willows, round-leaved green hillocks, and thorny kumquats, with vertical leaves and branches.The soil soaked with charcoal fire fertilizer is the most suitable for their growth. They wake up from the first thunder of one spring, and now it is another spring, and there are countless springs behind them. Brambles are a kind of wild and tenacious shrubs, and their old roots buried deep in the ground will not be damaged by fire. Its branches are flexible and elastic, suitable for weaving square baskets, dustpans, and thick baskets.Li Deafzi used to harvest them along the Yanhong area during his lifetime, making the silt soak the blue-gray skin and making the baskets rounder and denser.In the rooting season, farmers often dig up their roots, knock off the soil, pour big manure, and put them in rows on the sunny ground to expose them to the sun. The big manure has a strong rural fragrance, which makes them lively. Can't wait to spit out buds, those porous and multi-edged roots are like leeches in the water, if you divide it into thousands of branches with a quick axe, it will grow into thousands of clusters.There are only some old ones, and people think that the branches they send out are too thin and broken, so they use them to light a fire. The old roots of thorns burn hard and have a long life. They are not as impulsive as ordinary firewood. All night long, people dream of spring in the heavy snow all over the field.

Guanyin Liu is the big girl in the shrub, with thin skin and tender flesh, and a bit shy. The branches are much thinner than thorns, and it looks like anything. With the skillful hands of Seiko, it can weave all kinds of flowers.Some farmers use the thin baskets of Guanyin Liu to hold New Year’s cakes. The newlyweds ride donkeys to go home or visit relatives. Besides driving donkeys with big red bags, the silly boys who are son-in-law sometimes use them to hold gifts from various places. Gift back.It is a drought-loving plant, and it is most afraid of flooding, so it always climbs on a higher slope, covered with soft gauze of spring breeze, looking forward to its beauty.

Qinggang wood has the temperament of facing the sun and facing the fire. Its leaves are green in the green. If a person walks through the Qinggang forest, the radiating strong green can stain the face and clothes of the person.People use it to chop firewood, which is not only easy to make a fire, but also has the firepower of one piece equal to two pieces of ordinary wood.But in the wild, it is the eyes of the god of spring, so green and so tender. Kumquats with thorns are some backbone guys, like a country guy who gets angry, very strong.Legend has it that it originally grew in the south of the Yangtze River, and the tree was full of sweet and big oranges. Someone moved it to the north of the Yangtze River because of its meddling, and it was so angry that its burrs stood up all over its body; it would stab anyone who touched it!And it no longer bears sweet oranges, but only bears a kind of bristle ball the size of a wine cup, which means that it does not accept the soil and water of a foreign land and suffers from the disease of nostalgia.Retail investors have figured out its temper, and don't force it to bear any oranges, but let them join hands to make a living fence, densely blocking wild badgers and other animals from stealing and plundering.

After the spring rain, the weeds burst into green flames and spread everywhere with an astonishing momentum of prairie fire; the watery grass near the shallow marsh drags long, tooth-shaped leaves with brown edges.Wild centipedes spit out purple buds.Liaoting grows in the water and takes root on the floating mud.All kinds of wormwood like to occupy the gaps and depressions, trying to pull them up high, showing particularly plump.Swordgrass is almost similar to red grass when it is first born, but its leaves are short and strong, and the tip of the leaf is rolled into a spear point, purple with black, sharp like a handful of steel needles.Guibangzi is also called Gui Jianchou, and people suffering from evil diseases often use its red kernels to boil water and drink to drive away ghosts.Chetianzi is a kind of grass that joins in the fun, and it grows noisy here and there, like a gossip who loves to hang out.But burdock is different. It likes to wear a fat green skirt and squat lonely on the south-facing slope to bask in the sun.

In the pile of broken logs in the center of the remote wild forest area, dodder timidly parasitizes in the wooden holes and by the bulging tree roots.The poisonous mangosteen is growing vigorously, and the stems of the grass are highly poisonous, but everyone who lives in the wasteland recognizes it, children recognize it, even cattle and sheep recognize it, and abandon it when they gnaw on the grass. Near the Ghost Pond, in a place frequented by people, many familiar grasses are luxuriantly spread: Pteris chinensis, 嘓嘓ding, Maogouzi, horse whip, Bletilla splendens, Brassica chinensis, Tongtian Mu, talking sweetly to each other, talking about the words of the sky and the clouds, and passing them on to the slightly chilly warm wind.A few children who survived the fire appeared in the field, and they cut the grass with sickles and put it into the small baskets on their backs.In the wilderness of Yehuhu, the sky looks extraordinarily high blue, and their thin and small shadows protrude from the sky, appearing extraordinarily timid and lonely.The girl who was hugged and kissed by the crooked man was also in that group. She didn't feel that she lacked anything at all. Her father's grave was buried not far from her. Her mother brought her to burn the paper ingots. She had forgotten up.Spring is so good, her little bare feet step on the wet sand, one step at a time.The sun was shining on the grass, and some small wild flowers had already bloomed, and the sky became lighter as it went farther away, as pale as a faded white moon cloth, and there was not even a shadow to be seen.Three or four boys who had mowed grass played a game of throwing knives and betting grass on the flat ground between the graves. One of them picked a long grass and strung up grasshoppers, saying that burning them was more delicious than beans.She didn't catch grasshoppers, although she was very hungry and wanted to eat a lot.She picked a handful of fur dogs and made a dog, so that she could take it back to coax her younger brother.On the top of the grave there is a branch of celestiaceae, which she recognizes. My mother told such a story that celestial culm is a kind of grass that symbolizes auspiciousness. The grave is placed in the spiritual cave. Go long until you go around the tomb three times.With her small hands, she led the reed-like grass around the grave, singing slowly with confused and innocent blessings:

Celestial Grass, keep growing Bless your children and grandchildren to be rich and honored, Go to the grave every year and burn the paper Yinhua carries her child Huosheng on her back, squatting by the ghost pond to pick wild vegetables.The name Huosheng was chosen by Xia Futang for the child, it was very resounding, and she liked it very much that the child had such a resounding name.When you think of Huosheng, you will think of Guilong, Uncle Waihu Mangy and the earth-shattering fire.But those are all in the past, and only spring remains in her eyes.The days are like a dream, as if yesterday, she also sang such a slow ballad, on an unknown grave.

She untied the fire from her back to nurse.Once the vegetable juice is drunk, the milk will be light.Before leaving, Uncle Xia not only entrusted her with the bluestone house, but also left a sum of money.She didn't want to waste that money, and saved it to buy a cow in autumn, and plowed it herself, and cultivated dozens of acres of land in the Huoshen Temple. Guilong also entrusted her like that, which made her shoulders feel heavy. The sky is so high and blue, under this blue sky, there are many things she doesn't understand, she must learn to understand it slowly, at least when Huo grows up; And Guilong did.

It's a good life, Yinhua, although the Anti-Japanese War has been won, the troubled times are not over yet!She remembered what Uncle Xia left behind before he left. It's a good life to survive, obediently.She hugged Huosheng and said, almost crying: Mom is with you.We are together.There are fields and wild vegetables, and the mother and son will not starve to death. Be good. Feng slapped the child's face with her green cloth kerchief, and the child smiled peacefully. The two black pupils were like two deep dark wells, which could wash away all her misfortunes and sorrows.She is also relieved, the green of the field makes the spring so rich and prosperous.She tied the child to her back again with a baotou, and picked up wild vegetables one by one. The child fell asleep on her back, and his breath was blowing on her ears, just like the warmth that Uncle Xia said wind of.

Time flows on the wilderness She carefully picks seven-cornet, dog's head, makin, alfalfa, small garlic, and large-flowered alfalfa and yellow alfalfa.Those wild vegetables are the natural food for countless people to feed their lives in the years of famine. The ancestors thousands of years ago used them to fill their stomachs when they could not cultivate. Many people who were born in the land of the East know this. Wild vegetables are very important for old people. What the people have contributed is actually more than any righteous emperor in history.And Yinhua doesn't know that, she only knows how to carry the child through.She longed that no frightened sound and color would disturb the child's dreams!Her heart was as bitter as vegetable juice.

When Huosheng was three years old, Yinhua taught him to recognize the names of wild vegetables, and took him to the grave of Crooked Hu Manile, like the mothers of the previous generation, telling him many stories in the light and mist of the small oil cup; Stories, stories about fire, stories about wolves, but add the stories about Crooked Hu Lai'er, his father Guilong, and Wu Dazhuang. Yinhua didn't tell the story of Uncle Xia, she didn't know about Uncle Xia.She recruited a long-term worker to be the housekeeper for the director of Qingshiwu.But Xia Futang never came back.He died in the midwinter of 37th year on the snowy field near Liaoyang in the northeast, and his blood flowed together with the blood of countless unnamed defenders. The moor still slumbers to the east of the lake. The wilderness has given birth to the dreams of many generations, but it has always been that way.It's quiet, silent and desolate (End of the book) First draft in mid-winter of 1953. Rewritten in 1955. Rewritten again on November 7, 1959. Released on October 10, 1962.