Chapter 2 Huang Yongyu talks about Phoenix II

Collection by Zhao Chen Fenghuang County is a mountain city. The city wall winds along the mountain, and the upper and lower sides are embroidered into small laces. The current population is only 17,000, and the number of residents more than half a century ago must have been even fewer. There is a Qingshui River outside Beimen City, and the bottom of the river is full of pebbles and stones the size of houses. Professionals fish there, children bathe there (we call swimming a bath, and all flies and mosquitos are called mosquitoes). In the upper reaches of the river, a few bends lead to an extremely verdant canyon. The bamboo forests and ancient trees on both sides are covered with rocks, and the sun can only shine on a certain place at a certain time.

Huang Peng and Huamei sang inside, and a leopard was lazily lying on the high rocks waiting for the sun. Early in the morning, the sun shone brightly through the thick fog, and the banks of the Beimen River were full of laundry women, beating their clothes vigorously with "hammer hammers" and talking loudly. Sometimes for unknown reasons, they would fight by the river, roll in the water and fight! ...The hateful thing is that the young husbands of the two warring parties actually sat on the battlements with their shoulders draped over their shoulders, watching the battle, praising the gains and losses of the battle.

Down the river there is a dense set of views. A three-arch bridge full of high and low houses.There is still a street shop on the bridge, selling flour pastries, needlework, Chinese herbal medicines, and paper money offerings for the New Year. Embroidered goods, clothing, leather goods, leather shoes, passing food, pills, rats, flea medicine... On the left side of the bridge, a row of buildings on stilts extends to Hongyan and begins to turn. Most of the buildings below are sandwiched with blooming peach and apricot flowers and orange and pomelo trees. Near the right of the bridge is a small hill called "Zhuge Liang", which is actually Zhuge Wuhou Temple. There are many tall trees on the hill, which is suitable for enjoying the shade and overlooking.

When rowing a dragon boat during the Dragon Boat Festival, just looking at the densely populated Miao Aya on the mountain is not considered a trip to Fenghuang. There is a blacksmith shop on the shore.Generally speaking, blacksmiths have a bad temper, bulging eyes, and thin, but strong. He was not like a butcher, who squatted at the desk, stewed delicious food in a hot pot, drank a large bowl of corn wine, and spoke obscene words in a rough voice. Blacksmiths are different. They are deep, and a word weighs two catties.The apprentice tries hard to understand the meaning of the master with his mind, and when he grows up, he also works like the master.

They tilted the bellows backwards and forwards: they picked up the bright red raw materials from the hearth and beat them.It seems unreasonable for the apprentice to swing the heavy hammer and the master to use the small hammer. In fact, the small hammer is the baton of the root music conductor.Three or two people beat up according to an order, and the steel flowers shot all over the place, majestic and majestic. When things are over, use the remaining fire, set up a cooking pot, and eat a meal in a daze. There is nothing delicious to treat guests at the blacksmith's house, and even their meals are very "serious".

But the blacksmiths on the shore can make a good sound.For example, you use a large bowl to hold half a bowl of water, You tap the side of the bowl lightly and let it rippling, the sound is amplified ten thousand times, it is the sound of blacksmiths striking iron by the bridge. It's about ripples and echoes. Three sides are mountains, one side is a bridge, and the bottom is water!A great bowl made of rock filled with water... The mountain eagle is called rock eagle here. There are many rock eagles by the bridge, they are always hovering in the air, and then jump up and grab the chicken intestines and duck belly in the water in their claws.

They yelled, very comfortable. The place facing the bridge is called Longevity Palace. There are exquisite buildings and more than ten ancient cypresses. The bridge and the frontal scenery on the left and right can be seen from the stone platform at the entrance. The cypress tree looks respectable, and some kind of white and gray cranes often make nests on it. The houses on the right side of the palace are designed with great care, and the windows covered with white paper are very attractive. The Longevity Palace used to be rented out as an ashram, and the drums and gongs were loud for days and nights.Put the lotus lanterns at night, and see hundreds of lotus flowers with warm pink light spots,

Accompanied by Xiao Di finely drifting to the far downstream... Going down is the "Manzhai", with many peach, plum and pear trees, where graves are hung on the Ching Ming Festival, and "community meals" are eaten on the tender grass slope. The city is full of streets paved with bluestone and red stone, and there are canals under the stone slabs to digest the accumulated water. When it rains, in the middle of the night, you can hear pedestrians passing by wearing spiked shoes outside the wall, and the sound of iron horses and wind chimes on the eaves of temples. There is a temple on Phoenix Mountain, and there are monks, priests and nuns in the temple.

The children didn't like the nun very much, the shaved face, the lack of nutrition, the dull expression, it was disappointing to watch. Women should be cute by nature, have a pleasant face, be able to sing folk songs, and be able to curse.They can't.They can only chant scriptures, and they are ugly. The children only admired them. They lived in the big temple on the mountain and were not afraid of ghosts. They even believed that they had some magical powers. Monks are different, much cuter. First of all, it is not angry to joke with them, and the clothes are also very interesting, especially the pair of leggings on the legs looks like a real fast-track outfit.

They often carry a Zen stick and make a bowl to beg for alms everywhere, and they are very energetic. Taoist priests are relatively withdrawn, with an air of being arrogant and divorced from the masses.When the children entered the Taoist temple to see something, they were immediately thrown out. But the children are curious, and there is always a way to lie on the wall and watch them live. It turns out that when they are with their companions, they also laugh and scold their mothers. Also talk about something that surprised us. Their looks are interesting, and their clothes make children feel comfortable.

That long beard is really fun to grow, just like the one in the book. Those who live in the temple on the mountain are not monks, nuns, or Taoist priests, but are wonderful people who tell the time. As soon as dusk comes, the sound of "Geng Bangzi" will sound from Guanjing Mountain. After nine o'clock, the second watch will start until dawn, and the sound of "watch" will be heard endlessly. Everyone is asleep and he wakes up alone.Rest in peace in the cradle of his "more" sound. Accurate, loyal to his duty has become a habit, plus he slept soundly on the mountain all morning, people think of him almost occasionally. The exception is that if a house catches fire in the middle of the night, he will immediately knock out dense "more" sounds to call the police, Some kind of rhythmic idea makes the insider understand which direction inside and outside the city it is. When changing to "changing", he also typed out intensive ideas for three or two minutes. This lonely and lonely "changer" is quite diligent about his job. When he wakes up in the afternoon and goes down the mountain, he will grab an acquaintance on the street and ask: "How? Is the idea of ​​replacing the third watch with the fourth watch secret?" "'Tide God'! Which one is lying on the bed in the middle of the night listening to you change!" ("Tide God" is a dialect for mental illness) "Didn't you hear it? Then listen carefully tonight, and I'll make another serious dish!" What is he drawing?What good pictures do you have?Not all sacred offices are easy to understand. No one has ever loved him, even the two wishes he once expressed in poetry "shaking his head and swaying around, accompanied by school girls" have not been fulfilled, so he has no children. When will you leave this world!No one can remember. The primary school is on a high slope near the mountain. The children have learned the Four Books and Five Classics, poetry appreciation, natural science and "de, le, eh, ah". The school building is very old, surrounded by temples and monasteries, and there are many Bodhisattvas.An unusually quiet stone lotus room full of strange rocks and ravines is on the left side of the school. The stone steps, pavilions, and temples are covered with layers of shade by a tree called "Pili Pazi" that bears yellow fruits, making it almost impenetrable to sunlight. This is really a noble and intelligent architectural heritage left to future generations. It cannot be said that the students at that time were all tame. No matter how well your school is run, it is almost a prison for the students.Compared with the school and the society, the disparity in the scope of knowledge and interest is obvious. On the way to school, walk half a mile along the city wall from the east gate to the south gate. The entire "side street" is carved with statues of Bodhisattvas. It is just a prototype today, and in five days it will become a sitting Avalokitesvara with both spirit and form.How can you not make a child who is sitting in class suspenseful? On the other side of the city there is a paper shop, and the ten-foot-high ghost king's frame made of bamboo strips was pasted with paper in a day, and painted in resplendent and resplendent colors after three days. Due to the size of the pavement, the works had to be done on the street.When there is a heavy rain in the middle of the night, the child will be awakened by the ghost king who unfortunately got wet. A dumb man surnamed Hou is the artistic standard-bearer of the Phoenix children. His workshop was a sanctuary for children who skipped school.His craftsmanship of kites, lions and dragon lanterns is the best in the city.He and his grandmother depend on each other for life. Every three or two years, he would go crazy, run around, eat dog shit, and then get back to normal and continue to make his kites and draw wonderful ancient figures. Where did you learn the skill?No one knows.It is completely a set of Yongle Palace murals in the Yuan Dynasty painting tradition.What happened to him remains a mystery to this day. At the bottom of the Ximen slope, a seven-year-old Miao child without a mother used lime peeled off the wall to Drawing on the stone slabs, people riding buffaloes, buffaloes crossing the river, Miao sisters and cubs herding horses, wooden boats transporting oranges and sugar cane at the water gate, the teacher sitting on eight crutches... Vivid and precise. He has two long, yellow snot noses, and in front of his paintings, it's not a big deal if he doesn't have a runny nose. It's a pity that his father doesn't like to let other children be with him, is he afraid that other children will hurt him? Call him, and the child immediately gets up and goes back into his small, dark room.This is really depressing and melancholy. An old Mr. Yang taught the children "Guwen Guanzhi", and sometimes told the children a little knowledge of phonology. One day during class, the sound of homicidal horns was heard from Chitangping, and the children ran away in a rush. At that time, Chitangping often killed people.To kill is to chop off the head. The 10-year-old and 8-year-old children all saw their heads cut off at that time. When the adults chatted, they often mentioned which prisoner had a worthwhile demeanor before being executed and how futile he was crying. The question of why these people were killed is rarely discussed. A person's power is so great that he can kill whoever he says, how much money is worth investigating and researching?But also. One day, in front of the gate of Daotai Yamen, a man named "Rooster King" was tied up. It was strange that a wooden Bodhisattva was tied upside down on his back, surrounded by people. "You're going to die, do you understand?" the child asked him. "No! No! No!" "Why are they trying to kill you?" "Uh, uh, uh!" He only wanted to make a primitive echo in his throat. Opposite the test shed at the north gate, there is a tall screen wall nailed with several rows of iron nails. From time to time, loads of severed heads were picked from the village, including children a few years old, and strings of human ears. Only then did people understand the usefulness of nails. Was the Phoenix 50 or 60 years ago really a fantasy land like what outsiders said? In winter, people go to the streets to watch the beach theater, every family beats cakes, there are plum blossoms everywhere, and the city is full of pigs in the middle of the night. Firecrackers rang all night, followed by lion and dragon lanterns until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. Spring is here, the grass is green, and the sparrows are singing all over the mountain. The "Chun Guan" from the countryside enters the city, carrying a basket containing spring cows and "Ao Yu'er", Go to every household to "talk about spring" to sing and report the solar terms. The children started to fly kites, go up the mountain to pick "tea buds", pick delicious "hair needles", bracken... In summer, the children go down to the river to bathe, catch fish, go to the market with the adults, and go up the mountain with the older children to watch them find girls to sing folk songs. I went to pick up seedlings in the pine forest, and I passed "jumping rocks" when the sun was about to fall. From a distance, I saw a little Miao child sitting on the battlement playing the clarinet. It's really good-looking and good-sounding. In autumn, the leaves are withered, and the cool air is everywhere.Baskets of oranges, sleeves, chestnuts, and walnuts were picked into the city. Children are adults' followers, running around the mountains, catching civet cats, netting quail, hunting pheasants, leopards, and wild boars. Sometimes at home, I can hear the fortune teller playing the huqin and go to the street to watch monkeys from other provinces. Or go door-to-door with a little girl and a puppy to perform "Dog Mortar"... Even children are dimly aware of a peculiar social variation, shock, and dissonance. Why can poetry, idyll, and joy be mixed with suffering and ignorance?Like a bowl full of bitter tears tempered with honey. The misery of the destiny of the national culture is fundamentally different from the content of the misery expressed by the national culture. Culture can withstand the grind of suffering, it will never be extinct, but it is expressed in various ways and forms, and sometimes it seems that only zero is left. I remember that many years ago, I visited the Empress Dowager Cixi’s bed with a friend in the Summer Palace. The bed was covered with silk cotton on the hard wood. I said, "What a stupid way to live!" The friend laughed. He said: "Fortunately, she is stupid. If she was smart, how would we get here today." That's the truth.How can backward violence adapt to the strong will of the people?Not only history is on the side of the people, but even nature is on the side of the people. The cultural, political, and economic collapse of Fenghuang County at that time was inevitable, and the rain was about to come. If the local people hadn't found a roof to hide, Just let the blood drenched the whole body.Families who have a little relationship with outsiders do everything possible to send their children away.Aspiring young people went far to Yan'an. Scenery and atmosphere are nothing to eat, just as people who do not look at paintings or listen to music for a year cannot die. The end of life is the most practical place, and it is also the most troublesome place, and there is no room for falsehood. A young man in his 20s is already a very old man in the eyes of a 10-year-old.Old men and old women are also born with it. What children are most afraid of is the start of school after the summer and winter vacations, and they are afraid of Sunday afternoons.Some children even think that adults are very stupid, Have money but hide it in your pocket instead of buying something to eat. But there is also something to admire about adults. The teacher in the school is actually a big boy, and he is also busy with his own future ideas and actions. Many things are quite admirable and affected by children, that is, reading foreign magazines and extracurricular books. The teachers subscribed to the magazines, and the kids got them too.From there, the children discovered the world beyond the books and the county. Among the magazines, "Shanghai Comics" and "Times Comics" benefited the most at that time. Many of their works, It trains children to use the perspective of cartoons to promote observation and thinking skills, and quickly judge the obvious mistakes and correctness in life. It was very much in line with the tastes of the children in the turbulent town of Fenghuang at the time. People can judge the world from various angles and ways: viewing the world from the perspective of comics is the most interesting and powerful. Sometimes the children's conversations are inevitably overheard by the adults, and they have questions again: "Are these little guys developing prematurely?" In the class posters appeared Time Comics and Shanghai Comics revamped parodies mocking the Phoenix Society and making school jokes. The principal is okay, he just thinks that the child's work is not very clever, so he just finished it with a smile. The child himself was very proud of himself, he really thought he had some kind of great weapon in his hands, so he had the courage to, He shamelessly pasted a poster called "Smooth Road" with cartoons on the wall opposite the entrance of the girls' primary school. I haven't heard of any brilliant results since then. From then on, I understand that there is a kind of art, as long as you think about things well first, make up a contrasting and funny metaphor, and draw it, even if it is not very good. It can also be regarded as doing something beneficial to society.Of course, it also increases the sense of pride.There are quite a few children of this type. Decades later, after inquiring, I paid a high price for the habit of thinking I developed since I was a child, and there are many "rightists" in this small mountain town. (Excerpt from "Honey Tears")