Chapter 139 Chapter 22 Plum Tea Inn

The train is like a caterpillar, slowly crawling among the green hills, stopping for a few minutes from time to time.There was a rumbling sound in the carriage, and the passengers were drowsy, snoring one after another. I stared blankly at Mu Qingxiang, feeling my heart fluctuate.Mu Qingxiang doesn't know how to joke, even if what she says doesn't go through her brain, she won't talk nonsense.After listening to it, I immediately recalled the previous events—after my father brought our family back to China, my mother couldn't stand my father's incompetence, divorced angrily, and married a rich man to the United States.Mu Qingxiang mentioned my aunt many times, but she never showed me a picture of my aunt, and I never showed her a picture of my mother. This is the first time that my aunt and my mother are equated.

Li Xiaobei was puzzled for a long time, and found no one was talking, so he broke the silence: "Qingxiang, the aunt you mentioned before is Xiaolu's mother?" I felt a little awkward when I heard this, coughed dryly, and replied: "When my parents divorced, I was only 8 years old, but my mother doesn't seem to know much about tea. In the past, in Malaysia, the tea business was dominated by men and women Bring the kids at home." Mu Qingxiang returned the photo to me and said with certainty: "It can't be wrong." Li Xiaobei asked curiously, "Could it be twins?"

Mu Qingxiang denied: "Since I can remember, my aunt has been living with me in the mountains, and has never left for half a step. Whether she has twin sisters, I don't know, but my aunt's eyes... I will definitely not admit it." I pinched the yellowed photo suspiciously, looked at my mother's eyes, and suddenly felt that her eyes were exactly the same as Mu Qingxiang's.Since I was a child, I have always felt that my mother's eyes are like ice, and there is always a feeling of repelling others thousands of miles away. This may be the reason why I seldom miss her over the years.After the divorce, my father rarely mentioned my mother. After many years, I even forgot that I also had a mother.Times have changed, and my mother immigrated to the United States a long time ago. I don't know how she is doing now, let alone whether she has returned to China.

This incident was like a depth bomb, I couldn't calm down for a long time, but Mu Qingxiang quickly recovered her calm appearance.Li Xiaobei had a lot of questions, and before I could digest the fact that my mother was my aunt, he kept asking where my mother went.I understand that Li Xiaobei wants to clear things up, but I don't know anything about my mother, so it's useless to ask.Mu Qingxiang didn't say a word, like a wooden figure, but I feel that she can't wait to fly to Mount Meng immediately, or ask her aunt face to face what happened. After the photo incident, the three of us didn't talk much, and I kept pretending to sleep.Closing my eyes, I was thinking that if my aunt was really my mother, then why didn't she go to find Mu Qingxiang after leaving Mengshan? Could it be that she let go of her and didn't want to go back to Mengshan?My aunt met the young Yang Chishan, but that was in the 1930s. Why didn't my aunt and Mu Qingxiang grow old during these 60 years?I asked Mu Qingxiang about this matter, and she said with certainty that the aunt in the photo has basically remained the same, but she is a little old.Mu Qingxiang also confessed that although she has not changed much, her body has continued to grow in the past ten years. This is an unquestionable fact.

At night, all the passengers in the carriage fell asleep, but I kept asking the same question in my heart: how did the 60-year time span come about, and why did the time that stood still on Auntie and Mu Qingxiang start to move again? After another day, we finally arrived at Mingshan County. It was drizzling that day, which made people feel that winter was even colder.My first impression of Mingshan County comes from a poem: Famous mountains are famous for tea, and famous tea shines for famous mountains.Of course, I actually heard this poem in Wuyishan. Whether it has anything to do with Mingshan County is unknown.

Mingshan County is a group of counties in western Sichuan. It is famous for its Mengding tea. Its Mengding Mountain has been as famous as Mount Emei and Mount Qingcheng in Sichuan since ancient times.Although Mengdingshan tea in Mingshan County is well-known at home and abroad, its industrial foundation is weak. Compared with the national-level poverty-stricken counties, Mingshan County in the 1990s was not much better.Mengding Mountain is located 10 kilometers northwest of the county seat. Some tea dealers are reluctant to pay the 3 yuan fare, so they walk over step by step. Li Xiaobei seemed to be in a state of drunkenness all the time, so he urged us to walk to Mengding Mountain, and Mu Qingxiang agreed without hesitation.My foot injury is just right, no one thinks of me, I have no embarrassment to object.In the drizzle, we didn't take an umbrella, and after leaving the county town, there was a muddy mountain road.

There is very little chance of finding a mansion in a deep mountain during this trip, because although Mengshan is not big, it is the remnant of the Qionglai Mountains.The Qionglai Mountains are much larger. It stretches about 250 kilometers from north to south. It is the watershed between the Minjiang River and the Dadu River, and the geographical and agricultural boundary between the Sichuan Basin and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.We only have half a map, and now we can't figure out the specific location marked on the map. It is estimated that the mansion in the deep mountain is outside Mengshan Mountain and within Qionglai.If you really want to find it, the difficulty is even greater than finding the ancient city of Yuequan.

After leaving the city, two tea masters followed, one of whom was a woman.The woman was wearing a scarf with embroidered flowers around her waist. She looked like a witch instead of a tea man, and I always felt horrified when I saw it.I didn't want to go with outsiders, but Li Xiaobei was so hospitable and lecherous that he even took the initiative to invite those two to go with him.Mu Qingxiang was even more indifferent. I asked her why she allowed Li Xiaobei to do anything wrong, and she said that this road is not yours, so why can't you let others go. I have no way to refute, I can only take one step at a time, who said that this is not our territory.Thinking of being robbed in Yunnan before, maybe it would be safer to go with the locals.When you leave the city, there are high mountains and deep valleys, and the people are lonely, and you can hear a fart a hundred meters away.This road has traveled all over the rugged mountain trails, twists and turns, and there are ghosts hitting the wall from time to time. Four or five roads suddenly appear, making people hesitate and wonder which road to choose.The 10-kilometer journey is so long, I am secretly glad that I did not part ways with these two local tea people, otherwise it would be really difficult to find the right path.

In the afternoon, we finally reached the outskirts of Mengding Mountain, but the two tea masters did not enter Mengding Mountain to collect tea.After asking why, we found out that Mengding tea had already been sold, and scattered tea makers could only go to the vicinity of Mengshan Mountain to collect tea, and they could not receive tea leaves when they entered Mengding Mountain.I secretly scolded this group of bastards, for covering a mountain, a group of tea people starved to death, is it so difficult to share a meal? The two tea masters went to the top of the mountain near Mengshan, where there is also a lot of tea, but it is slightly inferior to Mengding tea.At the foot of the mountain on the left, there is an inn for tea collectors. The two tea masters are going to stay there. I see that it is getting late, so I will go with them.From a distance, we saw a yellow wooden building at the foot of the mountain. After counting it carefully, the wooden building only had two floors.Walking to the inn, I saw five characters written in yellow paint on the door: plum tea inn.

There was only one child about seven years old in the inn. He opened the door to greet him, and called out Dad and Mom. Only then did I know that two of the two people walking with me were the owners of the inn.Apart from the three of us, there were only two other tea men and the child in the inn.Later, after observing for a long time, I found that the child was blind.This couple is also really bold, leaving their blind son at home alone, not afraid of accidents to the child. The owner of the inn is a elder brother in his thirties. His name is plum tea, which is the same as the name of the inn.Meizicha's family is named Mei. A few years ago, their family passed away one after another, and Meizicha inherited this small inn.After settling down, I left Li Xiaobei and Mu Qingxiang upstairs, and went down to chat with Plum Tea by myself, and asked about the surrounding situation by the way.Plum Tea really thought that I was here to collect tea, and immediately enthusiastically introduced tea farmers nearby, and reminded me that since Mengding Tea was contracted to a merchant, Mengding Tea is not as good as before.

Because the tea receivers could not collect Mengding tea, they had to find sellers in the county, so the business of the inn plummeted. No wonder Meizicha had a problem with Mengding Mountain.I went downstairs to pay for the accommodation, but Meizicha pushed the money back and said bluntly that we would stay for free, and we could stay as long as we wanted.Meizicha told me that no one has come to the inn for a year, and I helped them carry their things on the way just now, and he would not take our money if he was killed.After pushing the money back and forth several times, I couldn't hold back the plum tea, so I had to put the money back in my pocket.Meizicha is a straightforward person, I couldn't bear to lie to him, I wanted to confess the purpose of this trip, but I didn't know where to start. At this time, Mu Qingxiang and Li Xiaobei came down from upstairs, and the blind child pestered them, asking where they came from.Meizicha laughed and said that the child hadn't met someone from outside the mountain for a long time, and he must be too happy to sleep tonight.The terribly dressed elder sister lit a fire and cooked for us as soon as she entered the house. I also changed my opinion and thought that her outfit was actually quite good-looking.Today, he might be the spokesperson of Mengding Tea. Plum tea is not a real tea person, or else he could smell the alcohol on Li Xiaobei's body, he would have doubted the identities of the three of us long ago.You should know that people who drink frequently should not touch the tea leaves, otherwise it will affect the taste of the tea leaves, and alcohol is also a taboo for tea drinkers.Fortunately, I already know tea well, so I got dizzy about plum tea just by talking about it casually. I really thought I was here to collect tea. After Mu Qingxiang went downstairs, the little boy kept pestering her. It seemed that even the blind could feel her beauty.Mu Qingxiang seems to be interested in the little boy too, and has been sitting with the little boy on the charcoal stove in the lobby of the inn, and Li Xiaobei is also shivering by the stove to keep warm.I glanced at Mu Qingxiang, and found that she was always watching the little boy's eyes, thinking about something. I sat on the chair next to the stove, turned around and continued chatting: "Brother Mei, have you ever heard that there are people living in Mengding Mountain? It's like living in seclusion. There is only one house in the deep mountain." Meizicha waved his hand and said, "Don't call me Big Brother Mei, that's an ugly name, just call me Meizicha." I smiled awkwardly and said, "Then I won't be polite! Plum tea, what I just asked...have you heard of it?" The wife of the plum tea brought us each a cup of tea made from stamens, and the hot air contained a floral fragrance.Hearing my inquiry just now, the plum tea wife's face was a little ugly.Meizicha waved her back to the kitchen, looking at the situation, it seems that I said something wrong just now.I hastily explained that I wanted to collect some wild tea leaves instead of artificially grown tea leaves. I don't know if I believe the plum tea. In short, he was not as happy as before. After looking at the little boy with Mu Qingxiang, Meizicha told me: "Xiaolu, to tell you the truth, if you know how my baby is blind, you will be at peace."