Chapter 2 Red Nightmare

It was the sixth day of our long-distance walk in the snow with brown clothes wrapped around our feet.Calculating the distance, we should arrive at our destination in the evening.At about one o'clock in the afternoon, I climbed over the hill and arrived at the Lingguan Temple built with bluestone slabs on De'ao, where I had to rest for a while as usual.It was sunny after the snow, the snow on the stone strip was melting, and there was no place to sit, so everyone stood in the middle of the road.At the turning point of the two mountains, a dry creek was mostly filled with floating snow, and there were some footprints of wild pheasants, foxes and rabbits on it.On the side of the stream are clumps of thin-leaved bamboos and bamboos, topped with floating pines and white snow, which falls without wind from time to time.When the snow falls off, the branches tremble, and suddenly a burst of snow powder bounces off, and the movement becomes more and more quiet.Looking at the mountains shining in the sun from a distance, some of them seem to be wearing white snow hats, quietly warming themselves in the sun.Some of them only have a few white marks scattered horizontally and slantingly, while the rest of the cliff stones look extraordinarily deep and beautiful.Looking closely at the lower valley of Ao, you can see a small field dam, the fields are of different sizes, scattered and overlapping there like snowflake cakes.The four villages are scattered among the valleys around Tianping.Clusters of deciduous trees, poplars, ginkgoes, maple trees and pines without deciduous leaves in rows, bamboo forests gathered in clusters, isolated palms, and orange pomelo trees are intertwined.Among the trees on the east side is a row of long walls, surrounding a large courtyard.The houses in Shanxi are divided into three groups according to the terrain, and there are about thirty families in each group.A stream bypasses Dongshanzui, flows outside Changyuan, and then twists and turns along several villages in the west and disappears behind the village.Although the distance is so far, it seems that you can still hear the gurgling oe4 apricot when the snow water pours into the stream from every gap in the field. All can be estimated.Under the snow and sunshine, the quiet and solemn scene seen from far and near is really very moving.The four companions saw that I was a little obsessed with the things in front of me and didn't want to walk, so they joked with me as usual and called me "Bada".

Among them was the youngest one, only fifteen years old, a second-year student in junior high school, and his partner surnamed Man said: "Mynah, this can be painted again, isn't it? You want to be a painter, come to us, how many do you have?" There are things to draw! I’m afraid I can’t finish painting in my lifetime. Why don’t you come to the place as soon as possible, and go to the snow with us to hunt turtledoves and stir-fry spicy peppers to eat!” The other three Zhengruo fully agreed with the ridicule, all cooing and laughing. "We are modern soldiers, not exiles, what are we up to?" There was a pun in my words, and they understood.

"We still have thirty miles to go, so we have to hurry! It's too late, I'm afraid we won't make it, so we have to go in the dark. Look at this kind of horrible weather. In the evening, the mountain road is blown by the night wind, and it's frozen slippery. Go into the ditch, what should I do?" From the words, from the eagerness of several people to walk, I understand that they are a little joking on purpose, but I don't understand the intention. So I also pretended to complain, "Hey, this place of yours is really like what is said in the book. The people and the roads are also pretty. I can't walk anymore! You are homesick, you can go first, I want to stay here For a long time, beat the ears of the straw sandals. Let me ask you, how far is it?"

"Brother, don't count on boats, don't watch fights," an older companion then changed the conversation, "Hey, listen, some people in the village are asking for a new wife, blowing cannons and suonas, and sending bridal sedan chairs out!" Listen to it, and sure enough, there was a burst of mournful choking, and a burst of small firecrackers scattered here and there.I shook my head, because I have expressed complete conversion to the state formed by the tranquility of the foreground and the rhythm of life.There are four old hawthorn trees on the road sill behind the temple. The roots of the trees are arched, revealing many large and small holes.I said nothing, and sat down by the damp old roots.The intention is "this is Jingyanggang where there are big bugs, I have to sit anyway".

When several people saw me sitting down, they still smiled unanimously and stood in the middle of the road waiting. My trip this time can be said to be completely accidental.It turned out that three years ago I was just a "two-foot-and-a-half", a Qiu Ba on the roster, and my regular duties were either to go out as guards for the commander, or to detain honest countrymen outside the city to bring justice.The two things went on in turn, and it seemed to me that there was no difference at the time.Because once dispatched, there is also wine and meat to eat.When the guards arrive at the squire's house, they can eat steamed goose and fried yellow muntjac with spicy peppers as usual, and they can also take time to go to the stream to see the squire girl with a white face and long eyebrows carrying water with her bare feet, and tell a few not-so-embarrassing jokes.When killing people, the executioner used the bloody big knife to cut up the pork and mutton sold by the butcher at will, and took it back to the shed where he lived and braised it in red. Everyone had a share.Unexpectedly, one day, my ability to stew dog meat was accidentally discovered by a military judge, and I became a secretary.Now, I was suddenly transferred from the Military Law Office by my superiors back to my hometown villa to sort out calligraphy and paintings.As for how this errand came to me, it happened to be similar to many other things that I have encountered in my life. It looks like a fairy tale, but it is not a fairy tale.In short, I will return home from this new post.

At that time, the school was on winter vacation, and four acquainted students from the same hometown were going home to celebrate the New Year. They invited me to go to their countryside first, and made an appointment to celebrate the New Year. After watching the fireworks in the countryside, they would return to the city to do business.The four of them lived forty-five miles from the county seat, and the place was named "Gaojian". I had never been to this place, and it was a way of life that didn't pass through the county seat, so I was not familiar with the distance.The four young companions tortured for a semester at school, all the way they only talked about the Chinese New Year at home, and they were very excited about the big pieces of fat bacon and big vats of sweet rice wine prepared at home.I have no home for a long time, and I have no expectations, but I can only silently use the scenery that my eyes come into contact with along the way, confirming the large and small frames that have been preserved in my memory for half a year.A row of cliff stones facing trees, a big tree isolated on top of rocks, the arrangement of a pavilion and a bridge, and the matching of hills and ravines, when encountering the cooperation of nature and handwriting, it is inevitable to stop Come down and have a good time.Sometimes it may be unavoidable to be in a daze, because the boldness of nature often exceeds the ingenuity of the painter.Instead of getting noticed by two things brought up by my companions, I routinely fall behind several times a day on the road.One is a tiger palm cherry tree with a big bowl in the mud and fresh snow on the edge of the slumped road, and the other is a two-foot-long bamboo dart on the mountain depression, pretending to be the "boss sitting in the depression" who is trying to buy road money from passers-by.It's no fun for a single guest on the road to come across something by chance!I was called "Bada" or "Mynah" by my peers, and that's where I came from.

Although it is on the Au at this time, the village is one or two miles down the mountain. The scenery in the village and the sound of suona played by people celebrating weddings represent the peace and prosperity of this small place. So I didn't care, and calmly accepted the teasing of several companions, but there was an emotion in my heart, thinking that "for my own life, I should really try to leave the army and study painting. Learn to use a pen to capture this. It is a kind of miraculous nature. I will make good use of my strengths and see for myself. What a prince can do, a soldier may not be unable to do!" But think about it, from wielding a bloody sword to cut What a long distance it is from a poor life to a painter's career!A new revelation and discovery inevitably made me feel at a loss.It turned out that at this moment, in this snowy and clear valley, suddenly there was a fresh sound of horns and a burst of barking dogs.I understand that although life can be seen in painted paintings, as for the movement of life itself, the sound of horns trembling in the cold air symbolizes the rhythm and joy of life, the barking of dogs expresses the excitement and enthusiasm of life, and in this In the interlacing and overlapping synthesis of voices, with heartbroken panic, desperate low howls, and urgent panting, the fox and badger rabbit rushing from the slightly thawed snow to the wet jungle, the life consciousness that they hold in their struggle to survive when the danger comes, is by no means As much work as any painter can do!How can my dream not be shattered, it is no longer like an individual can decide.

Try to speculate on the sounds that the sense organs can touch at present, all these are obviously getting closer and closer to our road.Look at a few companions standing in the middle of the road, kicking the snow with their feet to play with each other. If they don't care, they still smile at me with the same air as before.It seemed that this was just a prank planned by them, the intention was to break my delusion of being a painter, and from the comparison, I saw that the people in the city were rare and weird, so I panicked.As for them, there is no need. In order to show the same calmness, I smiled and greeted the youngest partner, "brother, carefully prepare your eyebrow stick, a wild boar is coming soon. Don't stand on the road and let the wild boar overwhelm you! We'd better climb to the ridge Come up, and when it passes by, you give it a stick from the side, regardless of whether it hits the mark or not, we will have a share of the wealth, and today we will have wild boar to eat!

Before he finished speaking, he heard a hiss beside a hawthorn tree behind him, and a ball of yellow hair shot into the hole in the root of the tree like an arrow.Suddenly everyone was startled, turned around and yelled in unison: "Fox, fox! Stop it, stop it!" After a while, several thin-waisted and pointed-eared dogs came, and three of them rushed towards the tree roots with their noses sticking to the ground, wagging their tails and barking at the hole.Another large poodle pounced on my little companion.I was really anxious, "This is terrible! Why don't you do it?"

Before the words were spoken, look again, the companion has thrown away the stick and hugged the dog.It turned out that they were old acquaintances, so they were very intimate when they met suddenly!Then came three young hunters, panting and turning over from the fork in the road.This kind of person can usually tell the color of yellow deer and goats in the grass three miles away from the mountains. When they see us from a distance, they all shout "ha" and go straight to my companions.The companions also ran towards them with a "ha".So at that moment, the arrow shot out from the root of the tree again, passed in front of my feet, and went straight to the snow-covered mountain stream.Several dogs chased afterward, and together kicked up a burst of white mist from the snow in the stream.Not far away, when a dog caught the ball of yellow fur, the rest followed and rushed forward, and the fox, the dog and the snow rolled into a ball.The desire to be full of joy in passion is like Lu Matong and others fighting for Xiang Yu's dead body in Gaixia.Seeing this situation, the three hunters and my four companions also cheered and jumped down the mountain stream together, falling and rolling towards the fox dog. ... I stood alone in front of the Lingguan Temple in a daze, because the atmosphere formed in this short period of time was simply the most vivid scene in a drama, it was simply ... and what surprised me even more was that we In fact, we have already arrived at our destination, and the next village after a mile away turns out to be Gao Jian!The four companions discussed in advance that they wanted to play tricks on me, so they pretended to be cunning. When the village was already in front of them, they also said that there were still thirty miles to go, and they were about to enter the village and turn to their homes to sit down. Then they gave me a big surprise.It so happened that the people in the village welcomed us while the snow was clear and the dogs were chasing the foxes.

From the mouth of the hunter, we also know that the sound of suona and firecrackers we heard earlier is the excitement of our little friend Manjia's brother holding a wedding.Before long, we will be able to sit together with the country gentry in feather silk mandarin jackets and the children in red hoods at the square table in a new house in the big courtyard, and eat eight bowls of wedding wine while purely advocating.As a result, I, embedded in this natural background and emotional background, had to give up my dream of being a painter forever.