Chapter 9 Chapter Seven: The Search for Beauty

Grandma didn't say a word for several days, she immersed herself in packing up Grandpa's things, and sorted out the books that had been covered in dust for many years without a head and a face.The second uncle came and looked through it for a while, and took away a large pile of thick old novels.The third aunt came next, after searching for a long time, she finally found an old copy of "Tong Sheng", she cursed and took it away.There are two books left for Caicai, and Caicai picked them up, one is "Three Hundred Poems of Tang Dynasty", and the other is "Excellent Good Ci".

So when she was cooking and lighting the fire, or when she was bored in the afternoon, she curled up in the straw in the kitchen and read those ancient poems in traditional characters word by word.While reading, she pondered over the words and sentences in the poem, thinking that every word and every line of the poem had been read by her grandfather many times, and she couldn't help but shed tears.She couldn't understand the complicated sentences, so she turned the pages all the way until she came to a short poem she was familiar with before stopping. It was the famous "Spring Dawn":

"Chunmian does not know, Birds are heard everywhere. The sound of wind and rain at night, How much do you know. " ——When she was just in elementary school, there was this poem in the Chinese textbook. The teacher taught her to read, recite, and write silently, so she read it, recited it, and wrote it silently.After a 100% silence, she became happy and threw the notebook aside happily.But at this moment, in this bleak and cold winter, following in her grandfather's footsteps, she inadvertently walked into the world of Tang poetry.She read aloud slowly and imagined slowly. Every time she read a poem, a picture would emerge, and every time she read a poem, she would enter a world.

So, she read "Spring Dawn" for a whole day. She found a unique way, starting from winter and walking all the way into the depths of spring.She didn't use her ears, but tried to listen with her heart, and she really heard the birdsong one after another.She closed her eyes and tried to watch with her little spirit, and she really saw the fallen flowers covered with water droplets after the storm.She imagined that scene, she reached out to touch the rain on the petals, she clearly felt their warm coolness. She was engrossed in reading, and she cooked the rice until it was burnt brown.

The next day, still curled up in the grass nest, she turned to another page, and this time she read a poem called "Send Ling Che".She didn't understand the meaning of the title, but liked the first two sentences: "Cang Cang Zhulin Temple, the bells sound late." It read so well, she read it again, she whispered aloud.The poem passed her tongue, tied a knot on the tip of her tongue, and then unfolded, a flower—and then, every syllable a flower.After reading it twice, she remembered: Cangcang Zhulin Temple, the bells are ringing late. After a while, it was time to eat. She held the rice bowl, and while eating, she chanted: Cangcang Zhulin Temple, Yaoyao, the bells are late.

The elder brother looked at her and thought she was weird and ridiculous, so he sat away from her, fearing that if he got too close, he would get bad luck.Mother is always busy, and it is rare to look at her directly.Her father, however, was leisurely and elegant. After observing for a long time, he finally asked her: "Caicai, what are you thinking about?" "Cang Cang Zhulin Temple, the bells sound late." "what?" "Cang Cang Zhu Lin Temple, Yaoyao bells are late." She read more and more slowly, the sky gradually darkened, her voice melted into the twilight, and the verses also melted, without a trace.But a bamboo forest grew in her heart, green and vivid.The setting sun flashed in her heart, and the bamboo forest gradually became vast and remote.After a long time, the bamboo forest disappeared, and the sound of the bell disappeared, leaving her alone, standing quietly in the shadow of the moon in Jiangcun.

The night in Jiangcun has become both beautiful and sad since then. Father couldn't figure it out, he shook his head and walked away, ignoring her. Soon she put down the book, she was sitting in the classroom, walking on the road, those Tang poems she had read would swim out from the small sea in her heart, one by one.Those ancient poems engraved on the old thread-bound books came alive one by one at this time, and each one belonged to her. Out of a certain instinct, she especially likes verses describing scenery.She felt that those scenes thousands of years ago were connected with her village.She believes that in Jiangcun, where the leaves are deep and dark and hidden, there is a road that can lead to the scenic spot described by the Tang people.So, when there was no one in the afternoon, or when there was no one in the middle of the night, when the whole village was asleep, she realized that she was awake. She pricked up her ears and listened to the clear sound of the wind. In between, looking for the path that no one knows.

In this way, she enjoyed the fun of imagination alone in a very small and closed space during her long and abundant childhood. She often indulges in a certain line of poetry for a long time, and she recites day and night: "The bright moon shines among the pines, and the clear spring stone flows upwards." ——In the deep night, she woke up alone, thinking hard, and finally figured out the position of the bright moon and the pine tree. The moonlight was clear and bright, and she could hear the sound of the spring water hitting the stone——what she came up with was not a two-dimensional picture Painting, but the complete three-dimensional hillside.At certain moments, that little hillside takes the place of the whole world—it fills her vision, her whole heart—and in the most beautiful moments, there is nothing but that hillside where the water hits the rocks. up.

And in that not-so-thick thread-bound book, there are so many poems that can become a world, enough for her to imagine slowly and reminisce calmly. Sometimes she likes "tobacco is sold out, the sun rises and no one is seen, it is a sound of green mountains and rivers", she reads each word, and slowly reads it into her heart and into her dreams.At the hour after day and night, in the confused transition between dream and waking, again and again, a sound of "Ai Nai" came from the depths of time, waking her up from the trance. She stupidly opened her eyes and found the door The river is bright green and bright, so her eyes are full of greenery and her heart is full of joy.

She smiles all day. It's drawing class again. Teacher Chen asked the children to draw a little girl skipping rope according to the picture in the art book.She was distracted while drawing.She was smiling and distracted.Jiang Ling finished the drawing with a smile, and moved her bow-tied head closer, and saw a clumsy Danjia boat appear in her drawing. On the Danjiaboat, there were a few wisps of "cooking smoke" like old branches. "Cooking?" "Well, we're done cooking and we're rocking the boat." "Rock the boat? Where are you going?" She didn't answer, took Ling Xiao's color box, and painted waves of green river water on the blank space of the drawing paper.

"Why can't I draw what I think in my heart?" She put down the colored pencils angrily, and her voice raised unconsciously. "What are you going to draw?" "River water, fishing boats, fisherman, bamboo grove——'Ai Nai' sounds green!..." "Sanshuilu?" At some point, Teacher Chen was already standing behind her. She dared not say anything. Teacher Chen asked her to stand in front of the window of the school office, and she had stood there for quite a while.Principal Jiang made a cup of tea, sat down in Teacher Chen's seat, and asked her with great interest, "Caicai, why are you forced to stand?" She didn't speak, and looked away from the window - the last session of every afternoon was the school's activity class, and Teacher Chen was teaching the children in the class to play "Qi Jun Qi" on the grain drying field.Everyone was running and laughing, even the quietest girl was jumping rope under the tree - but she, at this moment, had to stand here, and even had to withdraw her playful eyes and look at her black toes head! "Fighted?" She shook her head. "Speak in class?" She nodded. "Teacher Chen is so vicious?" Principal Jiang shook his head and sighed, "Just said a few words, and Cai Cai was locked up and not allowed to move. It's too miserable!" "It's not just talking..." She felt that this was unfair to Teacher Chen, so she decided to explain, "I violated discipline." "What discipline did you violate?" "I didn't do Teacher Chen's homework. I thought, I thought..." She couldn't express, she stomped her feet anxiously, almost stomping out a bottomless pit on the floor under her feet.Principal Jiang drank his tea slowly and nodded from time to time to let her continue.She talked, talked, unconsciously, said a lot of things - she never knew that she had so many things to say - she was long-winded, talking about spring sleep without knowing dawn, talking about the upper stream of Qingquan stone , and talking about Einai’s “Shanshuilvlv”, she said that her biggest distress was that she couldn’t draw that picture. Principal Jiang taught her to look up. There was a large picture on the high wall, which was taken by a camera and enlarged. The West Lake with peach blossoms in full bloom: "Is this the picture?" She shook her head desperately.Not so, not at all!What she wants is a living landscape, a living river, wild trees, living weedels, shrimps and clams, living stones, paths, living bridges and ferries... and this picture is just a representation of a dead landscape. Just a corpse. She wanted to say what was in her heart, but she was speechless.She felt that she was so full of words that she couldn't speak—when would she be able to express her thoughts accurately?When will I be able to truly express myself? However, she soon saw the wall calendar under the West Lake.The Chinese painting "Spring of Taihu Lake" is printed on the calendar, and the raindrop-like apricot blossoms bloom in disorder on the other side of Taihu Lake, which is full of ink and wash, creating a scene like Tang poetry.She ran over, stood on tiptoe, and greedily flipped through, twelve months, twelve paintings, she flipped through, looked and looked.That's all it is, for her, it's enough to be satisfied. Having a few paintings like this can prove her heart, and it can prove that she is not the only one in this world, yearning for The scenery in the poem. She looked and looked and looked and looked.Her little heart was pounding. Principal Jiang walked away at some point. When Teacher Chen came back, she educated her hard, punished her for coming to clean the office after school, and even watered the cannas in the flower garden. As soon as Mr. Chen finished speaking, the school bell rang.She happily accepted the punishment. For her, even letting her clean the toilet was more pleasant than standing still in the school office. She was so absorbed in her own world that she didn't realize that her Jiangcun was quietly changing. Near the village on the other side of the Dongjiang River, at some point there was less farmland and two more factories.Of those two factories, one makes plastic fake flowers, and the other makes fireworks and firecrackers. It wasn't until Suxin asked her out, crossed the ferry together, went to the fake flower factory to open a book, and brought back a lot of plastic flower branches and silk petals, she realized that she could no longer be like before. After school, I ran outside like crazy. Every day after school, the girls in Jiangcun would take out a wooden basin and sit in front of their house to make fake flowers.Su Xin took her time, and after a month, she still earned three yuan.Cai Cai's claws are fast, and he received five yuan in the first month. On the day she received the money, she ran all the way back, holding the money tightly in her hand, as if holding a bird, for fear that it would fly away.When she got home, she happily ran to her mother and handed over the money.Mother took the sweaty five yuan, and suddenly hugged her head tightly into her arms. Soon, she heard that making firecrackers could make more money. Although it was dirty and dangerous, it would cost less than ten yuan a month.Then she crossed the boat with Suxin again, and went to the firecracker factory to get a small notebook. Since then, she has spent all her free time outside of school doing firecrackers.Day after day, she sat on the red brick floor for a long time, breaking up the firecrackers, quickly grabbing one after another, and weaving them into long strings.Such a monotonous job, such a long time, kept squatting for a long time, and gradually felt that her legs and feet were numb, so she stood up and turned on the radio. Turning on the radio, she heard Radio Hong Kong most clearly. She likes Hong Kong dialect, and thinks that kind of tune is soft and friendly, lubricated and gentle, suitable for teasing parents.In contrast, the Cantonese spoken by Zhujiangtai is much stiffer and crisper, like an unpolished stone, and Zhujiangtai always talks about serious topics. She likes the "Endless Stories" of Hong Kong TV-the endless stories, there is one every day.It's a huge tree that bears fruit, and every day it bears a fruit, and when you break open a fruit, it's a new story -- these stories are completely different from the ones grandpa told, this is a real radio play, every character has Different facial expressions and voices, with the progress of the plot, accompanied by music that sometimes slows down and sometimes tightens, fuels the flames and makes people cry quietly in the bleak place. For a long period of time, they interpreted the fox ghost stories in Liaozhai one after another. The beauty is like spring flowers and autumn moon, the horror is creepy, and the sorrow makes people cry.Caicai likes every story in Liao Zhai, they have distinctive colors and sounds, and each plot has a strange and unique atmosphere.She has heard a lot of stories, and she likes them all, remembering the names of Yingning, Xiaoqian, and Pianpian.However, these stories, although novel and interesting, did not seem to really move her. Every evening at six o'clock, she listens to Zhujiang TV's novel broadcast, she listens to Zhang Yejia's talk, and Lin Shaoming's talk.She listened to it every day, and gradually became familiar with everyone in the story. When she mentioned the names of Lu Da and Lin Chong, she was more affectionate than her classmate Jiang Mingjiang Liangjiang Xiazi. But what really fascinated her was not these stories, but the "Literary Ocean" broadcast on Zhujiang TV every weekend at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, although on the surface it was much more monotonous-only one female host, sometimes introducing works, Read the works aloud, interspersed with light music like boiled water. She will always remember that rainy afternoon. She has been working on the floor for a long time. A ground of yellow leaves.She listened intermittently to the radio, where a woman was reading a novel.Jiang Caicai raised her head suddenly, pulled herself together, and heard something like this: "...a few years have passed, and the short man is still single and widowed. Only on Sundays, he brought the child back from outside to be with him. The people in the building looked at his short and lonely figure, thought about his events over the past ten years, and gradually seemed to realize why he insisted on this celibate life... When it rains, the short man holds an umbrella When going to work, probably out of habit, I still half-hold the umbrella. At this time, people have a wonderful feeling, as if there is a long space under the umbrella, empty, and nothing in the world can fill it.” After the novel was finished, there was a long pause on the radio. There was no singing or human speech. She wiped her eyes unconsciously and found tears streaming down her face.It was the first time that she noticed the subtle difference between stories and novels, and realized that what she was obsessed with were lonely words and details. She longed for more similar moments, for better novels, but the radio kept failing her, so she went forward and retuned.One channel after another, all she tuned out were music programs.The radio sang one song, and another, and she squatted on the ground and sang along, and sang it again, and sang it again, and at the end, the songs flew out of the radio and perched in her henhouse-like head. She sings while sitting, walking, and walking. Her favorite song is "Vineyard": The breeze blows through the happy vineyards, It is red and green and asks how many acid there are, High on the fence hang colorful dreams, Red strings under the green leaves; If autumn returns to the vineyard, Only then will you realize how short summer is. There are colorful dreams hidden in the depths of the sun, Every dream is sweet and warm. Beautiful vineyard, great harvest, she wants to own a vineyard.In the composition class, Teacher Chen asked the children to write "My Ideal". Jiang Xiazai wrote: "My greatest dream is to be a tractor driver." Jiang Lingxiao wrote: "My ideal is to be a great movie star." Jiang Caicai wrote: "There are colorful dreams hidden in the depths of the sun, and one of them is my little dream. I have a dream, and I want to have a big vineyard." She wrote "ideal" as "dream" , but this time, Teacher Chen didn't bother with her, and Teacher Chen posted her composition on the wall behind the classroom. Jiang Xiazi plays like crazy all day long, and he doesn't seem to take his "ideal" to heart. It's great to be a tractor driver, but it doesn't seem to matter if he doesn't. Jiang Caicai's vineyard seems to be just a daydream, only occasionally thought about. Ling Xiao began to work hard to understand the affairs of Hong Kong stars.At that time, the products of the Jiangcun canteen had changed a little. They added a table in the store, and there was a box of tapes on the table. At the same time, they also bought a set of stereos. The waves of pop songs are rippling. On Sunday, Ling Xiao made an appointment with Caicai, and the two held hands, took a short cut in the middle of the rice fields, and walked to the central market in a neighboring town, where there were many shops selling clothes—although they were all grown-ups. They couldn’t wear clothes, so they went to the stall in front of the middle school, where there were colorful stickers of Hong Kong stars, and next to the stickers were various styles of small mirrors, small combs, bows, and entertainment magazines and fashion magazines in traditional characters. In the song collection, large and large pictures of handsome men and beautiful women hang high above the stalls, and their strange postures make people dazzled. Ling Xiao bought a beautiful notebook on which popular lyrics were copied one after another densely.Between songs, Ling Xiao drew beautiful lace—some lace is a bunch of small leaves, one after another, each with a happy expression; some are many small fruits, apples, pears, bananas, one after another One, holding each other's hands... Cai Cai likes the lace drawn by Ling Xiao, but doesn't like the colorful stickers of Hong Kong stars. "I like Wang Jie the most." Jiang Ling smiled and opened a Hong Kong magazine. In the book, Wang Jie was called the "Prince of Melancholy", and introduced his height, weight, blood type, constellation, and his favorite food was curry fish balls.After class, many girls got together, holding the songbook, and sang Wang Jie's "Something Sad and Crazy" together - that was the theme song of a TV series that was currently on the air - that long TV series was It is a compulsory course for the people of Jiangcun every night. Caicai doesn't like Wang Jie very much, she likes a band called "beyond", and she copied the lyrics of "Earth", "Glorious Years", and "Broad Sea and Sky" in her notebook.She loves "beyond" and Priscilla Chan, her love for them is two different kinds of love. The song "beyond" made her yearn for it, but Priscilla Chan's singing directly entered her heart.She felt that Priscilla Chan's voice was as clear and moving as the water of the Dongjiang River. She copied Priscilla Chan's songs and copied most of her notebooks.When she was alone, she took the notebook and sang by herself, singing one after another, including Priscilla Chan's "Silly Girl", "Infatuated Accident", "Embracing with Tears" and "A Thousand Thousand Que Songs" ", she sang heartbreakingly, accompanied by the sad joy of masochism, she shed tears.Sometimes she sang so forgetfully that people laughed at her, but she didn't care. In those wonderful years, a song suddenly became popular, like an incurable disease, like an unavoidable rain, like a gust of hot wind, but within a few days, suddenly everyone could sing, and the girls were busy borrowing each other The song was originally copied. Ling Xiao's news is the most well-informed. Ling Xiao's songbook is the best copy, and Ling Xiao loves her own songbook the most. Every time she copies a new song, she draws a beautiful beauty next to it.Cai Cai is very envious, because she can't draw so well. They had just mastered one song, and soon another was coming.They quickly learn the new and forget the old. All kinds of songs have different colors, different tastes, different joys and sorrows.Caicai imagined that they were wearing various styles of skirts, with long and short hair, and beautiful ornaments hanging on their bodies. They were jingling and flying outside the window one after another. One came to her. She was walking on the road, passing people's windows, and she came across a song from time to time, and she happily picked up the tune and sang it loudly.She sang it over and over again, and each song enriched her poor heart, making her forget that she was in a small backwater village, and gradually fell into lingering nostalgia.She yearns for everything in the songs, for the rain in the distant jungle and the blessings in the rain, for the sailboats in the distant sea and the fleeting years in the sea, for the melancholy love in the piano played in the evening and the sound of the piano... When she went to water the vegetables in her private plot, she sang as she walked: "On those green roads/How many wounds have been experienced/On that old face/It also recorded wind and frost... On those open roads/How many ideals have been trampled/On that high face/It was quoted How many/unchanged sun and moon/coexist in acquaintance..." She cried while singing, and she continued crying and singing.Maybe someone saw her, maybe someone laughed at her, she didn't care, she cried and sang, she felt very happy in her heart. When washing clothes at the port by the river, she sang while washing: "Every night/I will look into the distance/Boundless sea of ​​stars, a little bit of starlight/Seek thousands of miles of stars, light your way/Tell the wind to call you a thousand times..." Looking at the river water, she becomes infatuated while singing, she doesn't know clearly what she is looking at every night, what she is calling every night... But how much she likes to sing like this, keep singing like this , keep singing, never stop... (End of Chapter 7)