At a Glance Furong Town is located in Pingbali, a gorge at the junction of Hunan, Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces.There is a creek and a river, two waterways flow around the town, and when they flow out of the town mouth, they converge after a long distance. Therefore, surrounded by water on three sides, it is a long and narrow peninsula-like terrain.Starting from the town, go south to the transition point, and you can go to Guangdong; go west, cross the stone arch bridge, which is a road leading to Guangxi.I don't know which dynasty or generation it is, but the mountain officials guarding here practiced benevolent government, or they were arty. A county annals and state history left a name, and ordered people to plant a few long flowery, green trees next to a mung bean-colored stream and river. The shady hibiscus trees have become the geomantic omen of the town; they also sent folks to dig a large swamp at the foot of the back mountain into square lakes and ponds, plant water hibiscus everywhere, raise fish, pick lotuses, and produce lotus roots, as the "official officials" of the mountain government office. Produce".Whenever the hibiscus blooms in lakes and ponds, or when the hibiscus blooms on the river bank, Pingba in the hinterland of the Wuling Mountains is quite a place of flourishing flowers and willows, a gentle and rich town.Hibiscus root, stem, flower and bark can be used as medicine.The water hibiscus bears lotus seeds on the top and lotus roots on the bottom. Even its emerald green gong-like round and fat leaves that cover the lake can also allow dragonflies to stand, frogs to raise their heads, and dewdrops to drip; The porters make meals for the middle class, make lotus leaf wheat cakes, cover the business burden of small vendors, cover the bamboo baskets for women in the fair, and are used as straw hats by cow herders to keep out the sun... everything is used for a variety of purposes, and each is different. .Small rivers, creeks, and small towns, hence the names "Furong River", "Yuyexi" and "Furong Town".

The streets of Furong Town are not big.There are more than a dozen shops and dozens of households tightly sandwiching a Qingshiban street.The shops are so crowded that one family cooks dog meat and smells the aroma all over the street; neighbors and neighbors know when a child stumbles, knocks out his teeth, or hits a bowl; The flirting is often overheard by the neighbors next door, and it is passed down as anecdotes and jokes in the whole town.Occasionally, when brothers in a certain family squabble, or husband and wife fight, the whole street will be in commotion. People rush to and fro, exhorting each other, like a flock of frightened ducks in the same river, which will not calm down for a long time.When it is not a fair day, residents on both sides of the street will build long bamboo poles from their attics to the attic on the opposite side of the street to dry a lot of cloth: clothes, trousers, skirts and quilts.The mountain wind blows, but you can see "ten thousand national flags" flying in the sky over Tongjie Street, red, green and green.In addition, strings of red peppers hanging under the eaves of each house, bundles of golden corn seeds, and gourds and melons with greenish white inside, form two colorful ribbons on the street... People pass below, Chickens are crowing below, and cats and dogs are running around below. It has a different style and a different scene.

During the four o'clock and eighth festivals of the year, the residents of the town talk about popularity and have the habit of giving food to each other.On March 3rd of the lunar calendar, make Qingming Huabazi; on April 8th, steam rice noodles and meat; on May Dragon Boat Festival, make glutinous rice dumplings and drink realgar mugwort wine; Tasting new things in the early morning, homemade earth moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival in August, persimmons under the trees in the Chongyang Festival in September, marriages and daughters in the golden autumn and October, making "Laba beans" on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, and sending the stove king to heaven on December 23rd... Formation Although the raw materials for eating fruits in every household are similar, but once the clever wives mix them with various condiments, they will come out with different styles and tastes. I am most willing to praise the neighbors after tasting them, just like doing folk art in secret. Non-staple food exhibition, color and fragrance products are more than average.Even in ordinary days, whoever eats meat with eyes and claws will not forget to give three or two yuan to the child next door, and let the child go home happily to show off the meat in his bowl to his parents. reward.After the meal, the mother must bring the baby over to sit down, even though she talked and joked about other things, her expression was a complete thank you.

Although the streets of Furong Town are small and there are not many residents, it is a market for thousands of people when it comes to fairs.The main place of the market is not on Qingshiban Street, but on the 20 to 30 mu square of land facing the river behind the street, the old society has left a long pavilion with two rows of stone pillars supporting the beams, green tiles on the roof, and empty in all directions.Opposite the long pavilion stands an ancient stage with mottled oil paint.At the beginning of liberation, the fair period followed the old rules, every three, six and nine, three fairs in one sentence, and nine episodes in January.Eighteen counties in three provinces, merchants from the Han family, hunters from the Yao family, medicine craftsmen, and peddlers from the Zhuang family all gather here for trade.The pig market, vegetables and fruits, mushrooms and fungus, lazy snakes and live monkeys, sea cucumbers and foreign cloth, daily necessities, food stalls... The streets are full of people, buzzing and buzzing.If you stand on the back hillside and look down, you will see a turban, flower handkerchief, and straw hat on a sunny day, and a cloak, paper umbrella, and cloth umbrella on a rainy day.People don't seem to be walking on the ground, but they seem to be floating on a lake.From selling cold water to working as a dental broker, many people rely on this fair to make a living.It is said that there was a poor man in the town who actually made his fortune by picking manure from the pig market and the bull market... By 1958, the Great Leap Forward, because everyone in the world wanted to make steel and boil iron, and launch all kinds of weapons. The world-renowned high-yield satellites, coupled with the district and county governments' restrictions on rural market trade, and criticism of urban and rural capitalist forces, Furong Town has changed from a three-day fair to a weekly fair, to a ten-day fair, and finally to a half-month fair. dike.Gradually transition to the elimination of the market, that is, the completion of socialism and the entry into the communist fairyland.However, it is said that due to God’s unfavorable beauty, the downturn in the fields, soil, and mountains, and God’s rebellion, the threshold of the communist paradise is too high. Falling into the barren and impoverished human land, they lived a bitter life in the big pot of green vegetable soup in the public canteen. The only thing sold on the Banyue Fair was bran cake, bitter pearl, fern powder, kudzu root, and Smilax cocos.Horses have thin hair and long hair, while people have thin and yellow faces.Both the country and the people suffered from edema.Merchants disappeared, and the fair was no longer a fair, but betting on prostitutes, beating, stealing and abducting were all the rage... It was not until the year before last—the second half of 1961 that the county government issued another official document to change the Banyue Wei is a five-day fair, first of all, the scale is relaxed from the fair period to facilitate the exchange of materials.Due to the severe loss of vitality, Furong Town never recovered and became a market of ten thousand people gathered by merchants from eighteen counties in three provinces.

In recent years, the business in Furong Town is thriving, not the famous pig market and bull market, but the rice tofu stall opened by Hu Yuyin in this town.Hu Yuyin is a young woman of twenty-five or six years old.Customers who come to her stall and eat bowls of rice tofu for snacks are used to calling her "Sister Furong".There are also such funny characters who call her "Fairy Furong".To say she is a fairy is of course a bit of an exaggeration.But Hu Yuyin's black eyebrows, big eyes, face like a full moon, plump breasts, and dynamic posture are obvious to all passing merchants.Gu Yanshan, director of the Zhenliang Station, gave an analogy: "Sister Furong's flesh is as white and tender as the rice tofu she sells." , are greeted with smiles: "Another bowl? Add a spoonful of soup to dry your mouth?" The oil and water are also thicker than the other stalls, and a bowl costs ten cents, and you can add soup at will, so there is always a constant line of customers coming and going in front of her stall.

"Buying and selling, harmony makes money." "Buyers and buyers, food and clothing for parents." This is the "family motto" Hu Yuyin got from her parents.It was rumored that her mother had worked as a beautiful brothel girl in a big port in the early years, and later eloped with a young man to a mountain town on the border of the province, where she kept her anonymity and opened a husband and wife inn that was popular with passing merchants.The couple were over forty years old, and they burned incense and worshiped Buddha, and gave birth to Hu Yuyin, an only daughter. "Yuyin, Yuyin" is the meaning bestowed by the merciful and compassionate Avalokitesvara.In the public-private partnership in 1956, shortly after Hu Yuyin recruited his husband to accept his relatives, the two elders both passed away.At that time, the top-up recruitment system had not yet been implemented, so Hu Yuyin and the bridegroom joined the junior cooperatives in the town and became farmers.It's been nearly two years since the rice tofu was sold at the market.It’s a bit embarrassing to say that Hu Yuyin’s business started from selling bran and vegetable cakes in bamboo baskets, and gradually transitioned to selling fern powder cakes, potato flour cakes, and developed into a rice tofu stall.Didn't she inherit some ancestral business, she was taught by a hungry and miserable life?

Learned her ability to make a living. "Sister Furong! Come two bowls with more chopped peppers!" "Okay——I'm afraid it will make your brother's belly button hurt!" "My belly button hurts, sister, can you cure it?" "fart." "Lady Cousin! A bowl of rice tofu and two taels of white roast!" "Come on, it's hot, I'll give you comrade this bowl of soup. Please go to the shop opposite to buy liquor." "Sister Fu Rong, here is a bowl of rice tofu with white water. I like your white and tender hands. It's easy to walk after eating."

"It's cooked when you put it in the pot. It's been two days since your daughter-in-law told you to kneel at the foot of the bed and pull your big ears!" "I wish you would pull my big ears, sister!" "Immortal and uneducated, you have blisters on the tip of your tongue and sores on the root of your tongue after eating white water tofu. May you be dumb in the next life!" "Mo Curse, Mo Curse, the rice tofu stall has one less regular customer, are you willing?" Even when cursing and swearing at people, Hu Yuyin still has a gentle smile in her eyes, and her voice is as beautiful as singing.To these customers who often come to her booth, she talks and laughs, and is as kind and easy-going as if she were her own brothers.

Indeed, her rice tofu stand has several regular customers who must visit every fair. The first is Gu Yanshan, director of the town grain station.Lao Gu is in his forties, a northerner, a widower, honest and honest.For some reason, Gu Yanshan suddenly notified Hu Yuyin in the fall of the year before last that she could sell her sixty catties of broken rice grains from the rice mill at the grain station every pier, fulfilling her small business! Hu Yuyin and his wife were so grateful that they almost didn't give Director Gu kowtowed and called out his benefactor.Since then, Gu Yanshan has come to sit at the rice tofu stand in every fair, silently looking at Hu Yuyin, who is diligent and fast, and responds to all directions, as if savoring her youthful beauty.Because he was a decent man, even his rather frivolous and vulgar metaphor to "Sister Furong" did not cause any criticism.The other one is Brother Man Geng, the party secretary of the town brigade.Brother Man Geng was in his thirties, he was a demobilized soldier, and he was a brother to Hu Yuyin's man, and Yuyin recognized him as a brother-in-law.It is very symbolic for Gan Ge to sit at the stall every time he comes to the fair, and eat two bowls of rice tofu that do not count the tickets. The stall is approved by the party branch and supported by the party secretary.

There is another person who eats rice tofu without counting tickets, and that is the famous "sports root" Wang Qiushe in this town.Wang Qiushe is in his thirties, with a round head and round ears, and looks like a smiling Buddha in his daily life.But whenever the government sent people down to seize the center and carry out some kind of campaign, he would definitely become popular for a while, blowing whistles to pass people to meetings, the leaders shouting slogans to create atmosphere at the meeting place, and guarding the bad guys on night shift, which was very effective.Once the center passed and the movement came to an end, he was like a deflated ball.His mouth is so greasy, and he likes to be dirty. He spends three for one, and he eats for one.When I sit in front of the rice tofu stand, I always say: "Sister-in-law, come two bowls, and keep the account!" with a well-deserved air.Sometimes, in front of Hu Yuyin, he patted her man's shoulder and joked: "Brother! What happened? You and your sister-in-law have been married for seven or eight years, and your sister-in-law is still like a yellow flower girl, and she hasn't installed a kiln? Do you want it?" Ask a master to be a doll for you!" The couple's faces were flushed, neither angry, annoyed, nor scolded.Although Hu Yuyin was displeased with this free eater, but the neighbors in this town, who came to sports and became very popular, naturally couldn't afford to provoke them, and they had to make a smile on their own.

Among the customers who must come to every fair, there is a strange person who deserves special mention.This person is nicknamed "Qin Epilepsy" and his real name is Qin Shutian. He is a member of the five categories.Qin Shutian used to be a happy eater. He used to be a music and sports teacher in a state middle school and a director of a song and dance troupe in his county. Township production.He was stubborn and never admitted his anti-Party and anti-socialist crimes. He only admitted that he had made two mistakes in the relationship between men and women.It has its own set of self-deceiving theories.He came to Hu Yuyin's stall to eat rice tofu, always waiting for the time when there were few customers, smiling, and always humming the tune of "Mimi Suo, Suomi, Miduo, Lado Suosuo". "Evil Qin! What ghostly tune do you hear the sky humming?" someone asked. "Cantonese music "Backgammon", dancing." He replied. "Are you still backgammon? You are clearly a member of the fifth class, and you are backgammon!" "Yes, that's right, the world is going downhill, try to reform..." In front of Hu Yuyin, Qin Shutian was very knowledgeable, he didn't look around, and didn't say a word. "Don't kick a skinny dog, don't bully a sick horse", but Hu Yuyin felt that he was downcast and a little guilty.Sometimes the rice bean curd, sesame oil and seasonings given to him are deliberately heavy. Going to the market at fairs, running business and doing business, good and evil mixed together, clear and turbid merge, those with kind faces, those with poisonous hearts, those with kind faces and those with good hearts, those with kind faces, those with bad hearts, those who follow the wind to steer the rudder, those who look at the water and bend the boat, those with sharp tongues and sharp tongues, lively Goods are said to be dead, dead goods are said to be alive, buying and selling, ruthless, what kind of people don't have it? A few regular customers in front of the "Sister Furong" rice tofu stand will be introduced here for the time being.Over the years, people's life is also like a market.In the following whole story, these few patrons will appear one after another, no matter the protagonist or supporting role, they will appear on the stage one after another and meet the readers in turn.