Things about village flowers

"Mom, I'm back!"At noon, a crisp and sweet shout resounded through the farmyard, breaking the tranquility of the mountain village.

The village beauty Ling Liping pushed a broken bicycle into the yard, like a famous actor on stage, shining brightly, with her waist-length braids dripping with sweat. On her wet back, light steps stretched her baggy trousers like colorful flags, her graceful figure was as elegant as the wind, and her white face shone with a pair of big, bright eyes.

"Oh, Pinger is back!"Ling Liping's mother smiled as she welcomed her eldest daughter who had returned from a performance in the commune.

"Wow, it smells so good! Ling Liping sniffed and asked,"What delicious food did you make?" whee"

"Haha, what a greedy cat with a sharp nose!"Mother smiled, and then urged,"Quick, wash up quickly, mother will make dumplings to eat in a while!"

"Haha, it smells like dumpling fillings. Ling Liping smiled and parked her bicycle immediately. She clicked her lips unconsciously a few times. She hadn't eaten dumplings in a while, so she immediately asked,"Huh?" Mom, what day is it today? It’s not the New Year or the festival, so why are you making dumplings to eat?"

"No, it just happened to be in time for the pig slaughter in Hexi (village) today," her mother pointed to the neighboring village Lingjiahezi Village across the river to the west, and said,"I went to cut three kilograms of meat and cut one Eat the small fat dumplings freshly to satisfy your cravings, everything else has been marinated"

"Very good!"Ling Liping clapped her hands and cheered."Oh, it's so hot! It’s not even June yet and it’s so hot."As he said this, he walked to the water tank, picked up the gourd and scooped a basin of water, and walked into his room in the west wing. After a while, a lark-like singing voice and the rhythmic sound of water dripping came from the west wing.

Ling Liping sang. Well, he is a better dancer, has a high talent for acting, and is the artistic backbone of the commune. He is often chosen to participate in performances in the commune and even in the county. In addition, he is particularly outstanding in appearance, so he is well-known throughout the commune. It is said that a girl is like a flower. Ling Liping was just seventeen this year (1978). She looked like a fallen flower and was fragrant all over the country. The more she looked at her, the more she was admired. The more she looked at her, the more handsome she became. She was a perfect beauty. , her name is true to her name, she is fair-skinned and beautiful, and her figure is as light and elegant as a duckweed. Her beauty combines the charm of a city girl and the simplicity of a country girl. It makes the young guys' eyes fall out and turn around. The rate was extremely high, and there were countless suitors, but she couldn't like any of them, and she was so angry.

Ling Liping changed out of her sweaty clothes and pants, and walked out of the room wearing a blue floral dress with a white background. Her skin was as white as green.

The dumplings were out of the pot, Ling Liping's father collected them, and her younger sister and younger brother came home from school. Ling Liping watched her younger sister, who was in fifth grade, and her younger brother, who was in second grade, with envy in her eyes as they walked into the main room carrying their schoolbags, and sighed secretly, It's great to go to school!

She only finished junior high school last year and then went home to work in the farm. Due to her family's financial situation and lack of labor, a girl's family can complete junior high school, which is already very good in the countryside. Most of them only complete primary school and can read two characters. As long as you can write letters and keep accounts, Ling Liping really wants to continue studying and go to college. She has a dream. She wants to study dance in college and become a dance teacher in the future to cultivate more dance talents.

Dumplings are stuffed with celery and pork. Yes, my family's favorite food. Ling Liping and her mother deliberately made more dumplings today. She should eat enough dumplings once in a while to make them enjoyable. As a result, everyone was exhausted, and there were still two bowls of dumplings left, ready to be fried and eaten at night. , that was the expectation of Ling Liping and her family.

After dinner, her sister and brother picked up their schoolbags and skipped to school; her parents went to the private land at the west end of the village to tend their vegetable garden; Ling Liping was a little tired and went back to the house to lie down. , no wonder, she performed continuously for nearly two hours in the commune in the morning, and she was the starring role in almost every program and contributed the most. But it was not in vain. Every time she was seconded to perform in the commune, the production team had to give her work points, and she also It should be more favorable, and points will be counted by each performance. A half-day performance will be counted as a full-day performance. Otherwise, her parents will not agree, and they will not be able to make excuses for her and blame her for not doing her job properly.

An hour later, Ling Liping woke up. It was very quiet outside. She heard a few chickens croaking and pigs snorting, and the big yellow dog at home was so hot that its tongue drooped to the ground and panted like a fan (box). She was the only one in the house. She jumped up, got out of bed, and put on her usual clothes. The baggy clothes worn in the village, walked out of the house, hummed the Peking Opera excerpts sung during the performance in the commune in the morning, and danced along the village road straight to the vegetable garden at the west end of the village. The warm afternoon wind blew on the loose pink shirt and The blue pants, which were almost as big as the skirt, rustled like colorful flags, and the wind swirled around her body from time to time, causing the clothes to cling to or wrap around her body from time to time, perfectly highlighting Ling Liping's well-proportioned and concave lines. At this moment, She is a moving Venus, Ling Liping seemed to realize it, her face turned slightly red, she quickened her pace and tried to minimize this eye-catching time and space. Your own vegetable garden is just around the corner

"Yo, why are you going? In a hurry."When I was about to leave the village, I met Zhao Qinggang, secretary of the brigade branch, carrying an iron shovel. He must have just gone to the vegetable garden. He shouted to her before he got close. The secretary of the league branch is Bai Liping's immediate boss, and Ling Liping is the propaganda committee member of the league branch. The party secretary is tall and tall, with an altitude of 1.88 meters. It is the highest peak in the village. He is twenty-seven this year and married. He likes to joke with Ling Liping that he regrets giving birth so early. If it were two years later, Ling Liping would have to be born. You can't pick this village flower. Bai Liping's words left him speechless. Then you can divorce him! How dare he? He suffers from severe"harmonious control of his wife".

"Oh, I went to the vegetable garden, do you want to go back?"Ling Liping said as she walked.

"Yes, it's so hot! If you can't stand it anymore, you'll burn yourself like a vegetable if you don't come back."The league secretary kept staring at Ling Liping and joked. When he saw Ling Liping, he seemed particularly humorous.

"Um."Ling Liping responded and turned sideways subconsciously."I'm going, Brother Qinggang."As he said this, he walked quickly through the narrow field ridge and passed by the Youth League Secretary.

"Hey, Liping!"The League Secretary's eyes followed Ling Liping as she walked forward for more than ten steps, and then he shouted,"We're going to have a branch meeting in the afternoon, so you go ahead and see us at the brigade headquarters in an hour."

"knew!"Ling Liping turned around and responded, running to her vegetable garden.

Unexpectedly, as soon as she arrived at the vegetable garden, her parents picked up the hoe and the vegetable basket and were ready to go home.

"Dad, mom is coming back now?"Ling Liping stepped forward and asked

"That's right," said his father, who walked out of the vegetable garden first with a hoe on his shoulder,"Why are you here? On a hot day"

"Hee hee, it's okay, come and have a look."Ling Liping laughed.

"Silly boy, come on!"My mother came over with a basket of freshly picked vegetables and waved to her and shouted.

Ling Liping quickly grabbed her mother's vegetable basket and went home with her parents.

Ling Liping is a hard-working and kind-hearted girl. Regardless of the field work or housework, she does her best. She helped her parents do more and actively participated in various useful activities in the village without asking for compensation. No one in the village did not praise her. They all said that Ling Liping’s family had cultivated good fortune in the previous life and gave birth to a good-looking and capable daughter. There were also people It is said that Ling Liping is a fairy who descended to the earth. Some people even said that Bai Liping was born from the fox fairy god on Dongshan (about one mile east of the village).

Ling Liping and her family laughed it off, saying that her mouth is on you, love Whatever you say, we are still us.

The so-called fox fairy on Dongshan Mountain is just the incarnation of the imaginary white fox. Many years ago, there were many white foxes in Dongshan. Now they have disappeared together with the wolves. Not even a fox hair is left. I seem to I have seen white foxes on Dongshan Mountain, which is probably just an illusion.

Ling Liping and I are from the same village, Zhaozhuang, Qingdun Commune in this county. We grew up playing together, and we have a very close relationship. We are like brothers and sisters. This is due to my grandfather. My family is a good neighbor to Ling Liping’s family. They are very close to each other. They are only one house apart. It can be said that dogs and chickens hear each other. As long as Ling Liping talks and laughs a little louder at home, her grandfather’s house can hear her. Therefore, she always thinks that I have something to tell her. Don’t you know? Her sharp voice was so high in decibel that it was comparable to the tweeter hanging on the old elm tree at the brigade headquarters. It was extremely penetrating. Two courtyard walls were nothing. She leaked the news to us inadvertently.

Our two families are together. It's on a village road, and it's all on the north side of the road. The gate opens to the south. It's difficult to walk two steps from door to door without being close. Also, Ling Liping gets along with my grandma as close as her own grandparents and grandchildren. She will be fine if something happens to her. I love to go to grandma’s house. Grandma often tells me that this girl regards our place as her own home. She spends more time than she does at her house except for sleeping. After speaking, she always laughs and her eyes are very bright. She is very energetic. Ling Liping usually not only chats and laughs with her grandma, but also helps with housework. Almost every summer vacation, I go back to my hometown from the city to escape the summer heat (summer escape here is the same concept as playing, and my hometown is located inland and it is much hotter than at home) to visit my grandparents. , maybe it's a coincidence, there is a high chance that I will meet Bai Liping at my grandfather's house. Ling Liping is only one year younger than me, but she calls me"brother", which is so sweet. She is much better than my biological sister, who is two years younger than me. Years old, unless you need something from me, you usually don't bother to call me Brother Sheng. It's polite to call me by my nickname. If you want to say hello to me, it's just one word - hey.

Two years ago, in the summer of 1976, I went back to my hometown. The friends in the village climbed Dongshan together to play. Dongshan is not high, with an altitude of only three hundred meters. The relative height is more than a hundred meters high, which makes Dongshan look like a mountain from a distance and like a ridge from up close. But the mountain is not high, and there are immortals. Spirit, it is said that fox fairies used to appear in Dongshan from time to time. There was a cave on the mountain called Fox Fairy Cave. The water in the cave was gurgling and unfathomable. The fox fairies on Dongshan all had snow-white fur, which shone dazzlingly in the sun. The so-called fox fairy is actually a white fox, but it is also magical enough. White foxes are more common in the Arctic and are called arctic foxes. They are very rare in southeastern Shandong.

Although Dongshan is about one mile east of the village, it is very close. , but we all brought dry food and wanted to have an in-depth tour. We took Fox Fairy Cave as the key target to explore it in depth and break the myth of its unfathomable depth. For this reason, I also brought a flashlight (I must use it every time I go back to my hometown). Bring a flashlight so you can go out at night (the mountain village is very rugged). Of course, this is all my idea. The children back home don’t have this kind of leisure, and they almost don’t have the concept of a fox fairy.

A group of a dozen of us went out after ten o'clock, and it took more than half an hour to reach the foot of the mountain, because we were delayed along the way. The mountain road leading to Dongshan is on the stone end of the ravine. A spring stream flows under the ravine. The spring stream originates from Fox Fairy Cave. There are many crabs living in the rock crevices beside the stream. Many crabs may be entrenched at the bottom of the ravine. On the rocks, among the grass, or wandering in the stream, you can clearly see it on the ditch. Sometimes more and sometimes less. By chance, you can go down and catch a lot of crabs. The crab roe is grilled and eaten. It is so delicious that it is so delicious that your friends from my hometown describe it this way. Eating barbecued crabs is undoubtedly a huge temptation for everyone. I gave the order and everyone rushed down to the bottom of the ditch to catch crabs one after another. Everyone was a master of catching crabs, and it only took less than half the time. At the end of the hour, there was a lot of harvest. Some people caught three or four, and some even caught seven or eight. Everyone cheered and had some for lunch! It’s not just pancakes with scallions anymore.

Everyone took off their coats, wrapped the caught crabs, climbed up the ravine, and continued running up the mountain naked along the mountain path. My skin is white, like a guiding light, leading the way.

At around 11 o'clock, we arrived at the Fox Fairy Cave, which is located halfway up the southern slope of Dongshan Mountain. The cave is made of yellow-brown rocks. The cave entrance is so small that an adult can barely pass through it. The front of the cave is covered with mountain grass nearly half a meter high. The grass is tall and dense. It seems that no one has entered the Fox Fairy Cave for a long time, and it has become a forgotten corner. Obviously, no one except me pays attention to it anymore. Because of this, when my friends and I passed by this Fox Fairy Cave in the past, no one reminded me what kind of cave it was. It looked like an ordinary small cave, so I didn’t pay special attention, ignored it, and missed it many times.

The reason why I came here to explore the Fox Fairy Cave this time is because when I slept on the kang with my grandfather last night, my grandfather told me the story of Dongshan Fox Fairy.

I was the first to rush to the Fox Fairy Cave. The sunlight was almost directly shining at the entrance of the cave. After walking more than ten meters inside, the light began to dim. Going further in, I had to turn on the flashlight for lighting. The entrance of the cave is very small, but the inside of the cave is big enough and has a whole other world to it. The more than ten meters deep section of the road is as big as a large room, and the walls are relatively smooth, as if they have been dug manually. The most amazing thing is that a line of clear water as thick as a finger flows from the crack in the rock wall that looks like a spout. Slowly poured into a bowl-shaped stone mortar on the ground, the overflowing water flows to the entrance of the cave along a stone trough-shaped stream on the ground. The stream sinks underground on one side of the cave entrance.

I stared at the gurgling stream flowing into the ground, and couldn't help but ask: Where is the water flowing?

Friends rushed to answer, but they all had the same idea, flowing into the ravine at the foot of the mountain! It's the same ravine where we caught crabs just now.

I'm half convinced. Where's the evidence? Show me the evidence. What he said may be correct, but the difference may be mostly a guess or wish. In fact, there is no need to take it seriously. People always like to guess and have good wishes. Only in this way can life be more exciting and interesting. Just like when I came to the Fox Fairy Cave to explore the wonders, I came even though I knew it was all illusory.

The Fox Fairy Cave is comfortable and pleasant, like a cool world. I heard from my companions that it is very warm in the cave in winter, and I don’t feel cold at all. Compared with the cold outside of the cave, it is like a world of ice and fire. The cave is warm in winter and cool in summer. No wonder the fox fairy chose to stay here.

With the help of flashlight light, as soon as we walked about ten meters into the cave, the cave began to gradually become lower and narrower, and the cave walls were lined with strange rocks with sharp edges. If you were not careful, your skin would be scratched and punctured; when you have to bend your back, As we walked forward, the eerie feeling became stronger and stronger. Occasionally, there would be a biting cold wind blowing on the face, like a knife cutting, making people shudder. I wish I had brought more clothes. In fact, even if I wear it at the moment I didn’t feel hot even under my cotton-padded clothes; I couldn’t walk any further than twenty meters further. The cave quickly became as narrow as a dog cave. Even if you crawled forward, it would be difficult. The sharp rocks on the cave walls were as sharp as ordinary ones. The sharp knives and swords are intimidating, and it is getting colder and colder, as if it is about to freeze, so people have to stay away. Then I suddenly realized why people always say that Fox Fairy Cave is unfathomable, but no one can measure the depth.

I think if we go further in, we will definitely find the Fox Fairy's lair. Alas, we have no choice but to stop and withdraw the way we came. It seems that people's ability to adapt is indeed too weak. People can't stay where the fox fairy stays for a moment.

Feeling that the cold was unbearable, everyone hurriedly evacuated the Fox Fairy Cave and cheered and jumped outside the cave, as if they had transitioned from the cold zone to the tropics. Human beings are still suitable to stay in a warm climate environment.

Unexpectedly, while everyone was reveling, a bright white shadow passed towards everyone from the direction of the cave entrance with a"swish" sound like a sharp sword, and disappeared in the grass in an instant.

Everyone noticed it, and they were all stunned, and they didn't come back to their senses for a long time.

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