Chronicle of Farming in Muxianfu

Chapter 3 The Hidden Mountain Village
"Grandma Li, our village is called Lijia Village, how come there are people with other surnames?" Mu Ai asked the old lady.

The old lady was packing up her sewing basket, she put down her hands when she heard the words, and put Shuan Shuan into her arms, "In our village, there are more than 200 people and dozens of families, but it has been passed down for dozens of generations. At the beginning, it was an old ancestor of our Li family who led his family to live in this big mountain because of avoiding the war. Later, after some years, several families with the surname outside moved in and got married with each other, and gradually changed. It is what it is today. It is surrounded by mountains on all sides. Although it is a bit remote, there has been no war for hundreds of years, so everyone has lived very peacefully. Speaking of the mountains around, there is another According to legend, it was the war in several countries that the ancestors avoided. Many people died, and the gods were furious. A mountain fell from the sky. As a punishment, most of the food species were taken away. However, the warlike Lord Qi and the people did not want to give up this good opportunity to unify the world, and clamored to kill the mountain. The gods were even more angry He drew out his saber and slashed hard, creating a deep and wide crack between the two countries. Even so, the god of heaven could not calm down, and ordered the god of water to turn all the rivers of Qi into black and ice-cold. Let them live in the cold for most of the time every year. I want to use this method to let the people of Qi country reflect on themselves.

In the team brought by the gods, there is a Baihua fairy, because she once went down to the state of Wu to respond to the calamity of love, and she couldn't bear the suffering of the kind people in the state of Wu, so she made an excuse to walk a few steps late, and stayed to warn them that as long as they continue to accumulate virtue and do good deeds, God will surely punishment will be withdrawn.Later, Qi State changed its name to Heishui State, and Wu State changed its name to Baihua State in gratitude for Baihua Fairy's kindness.

According to the legend, the mountain that fell from the sky is the sacred mountain behind our house. Now it is too dark to see clearly. If it is daytime, you can see how strange this mountain is. It really doesn’t matter whether it is spring, summer, autumn or winter. You can only see the lower half of it. For so many years, occasionally some daring hunters have gone into the upper half of the mist, but they have not come out alive.After a long time, no one dared to go up.After leaving the village, we had to go around two hundred miles before we could reach the holy mountain. There really was a big wide ditch with no end in sight. In it, fierce and urgent black water flowed all the year round. Heishui Kingdom is far away, but about 200 years ago, His Majesty the Lord suddenly ordered a stone castle to be built beside the wide ditch, and a strong and long suspension bridge was built. Since then, every year at the beginning of June Every now and then, the suspension bridge will be put down and the Blackwater Kingdom will buy and sell things with each other.And His Majesty the Lord of each generation will also marry the princesses of Heishui Kingdom.Your Majesty the current king, married Princess Wan. It has been almost seven years. I still remember that Shuan Shuan's father became a soldier because of this, and he has been stationed there all year round. He wants to come back once. But it's not easy. "Speaking of this, the old lady sighed softly and wiped the corners of her eyes quietly, apparently thinking of her son who had been away from home for many years.

Looking down at Shuan Shuan, he did not know where to take out a stack of candy wrappers. He was having fun. He didn't hear grandma mention her father at all. Even if he did, he didn't have any impression of her father. I don't remember anything.

Mu Ai was afraid that the old lady would be sad, so she quickly changed the topic, "Grandma Li, do the remaining three mountains also have legends?"

The old lady knew that Mu Ai couldn't bear her sadness, so she put away her sadness and said along with her: "Silly girl, how could there be legends? The old saying about this sacred mountain is still passed down from generation to generation. I'm afraid people outside don't remember it. Only our Li family village has lived here for generations and still believes in the gods. When the harvest is good, everyone pools money and puts some chickens and ducks to worship. Our village The two mountains on the east and west of the village are not too high, and there are no fierce beasts. People in the village often go to buy some pheasants and wild boars. The dirt road of the village is also opened next to it. The ancestors diligently opened up less than [-] mu of thin land. Each of the dozens of families in the village was divided into three or four mu to grow some corn and winter wheat. Xiao Ban goes to the city to pay taxes, and the rest is barely enough to keep everyone from starving to death, which is not bad."

Mu Ai nodded after listening, still very curious about the sacred mountain in her heart, looked up as far as she could, but saw nothing except darkness.The old lady patted her with a smile, and said lovingly: "It's just a little bit, don't look up any more, when you are more agile, let Shuan Shuan lead you out for a walk, it's dark, what can you see?"

Mu Ai also felt that she had become naive, and seemed to know that after she traveled through time, everything felt extremely novel, and the depression that had been suppressed in her heart seemed to have disappeared a lot, and she had a desire to start all over again, and Ye Zi complained about her coldness for several years Temperament suddenly became much more lively.

In this way, every day the old lady went to work in the fields, and only Shuan Shuan was with Mu Ai at home. Mu Ai was afraid that she would feel bored, so she racked her brains to think of some small games such as rope turning and suffocating cows to coax her to play. .

Of course, after grandma came back at night, Shuan Shuan also ran out to teach her little friends, which made the children even more curious about this sick sister.

Mu Ai remembered that when she was the age of Shuan Shuan, she was often called a wild child by the children in the village, and no one wanted to play with her. Every time she secretly cried, she would hide behind the tree and watch them play with these little children. The game is very sad.Now, every time I listen to Shuan Shuan chatting about the envy of my friends, I feel very lucky that Shuan Shuan has not been hurt like her.

Half a month passed in a blink of an eye, and the swelling on her head almost disappeared. Muai no longer felt dizzy when she tried to raise her head or move violently. Then she let out a long sigh of relief. Finally, she can take a bath openly, but she doesn't know if it is convenient to take a bath here, and she still doesn't want to cause trouble to the old lady.

I wanted to fetch water to wash my hair first, but saw that the sun was in the middle of the day, and it was time to deliver lunch to Grandma Li.She yelled twice in the yard before Shuan Shuan answered in the kitchen.

Turning around to look for it, the little girl was busy making corn flour pancakes, Mu Ai couldn't help but frowned slightly, for the past half month, Grandma Li and Shuan Shuan mostly ate corn flour pancakes or grain porridge , and her patient’s meal was nothing more than a bowl of noodle soup with salt and vegetables.This made her a bit unbearable for a person who likes to eat rice.But she still didn't say anything, Grandma Li and Shuan Shuan depended on each other for life, and the family didn't have a strong labor force, so I'm afraid it would be good to be able to maintain food and clothing.Mu Ai was thinking about what kind of excuse to find in order to take out the things in the space and improve the food, while squatting down to help Shuan Shuan to light the fire.

Although Shuan Shuan is only ten years old, he looks like he is used to housework.Two bowls of Baogu noodles and one bowl of semolina are mixed together to make a sticky paste. Hold them up with both hands, pour them into a round shape twice on the left and right, and then pat the side of the pot. Some vegetables are placed in the pot. Add water, add some salt, and sprinkle a few drops of raw soybean oil when it comes out of the pan.In less than half an hour, the lunch was ready. Mu Ai endured the smell of raw oil, barely ate a few mouthfuls, then took the food basket to put pancakes and a kettle, and said to the little girl, "Shuan Shuan, sister's head injury It’s so neat, I’ll go deliver food with you today, okay?”

After getting along for half a month, the little girl had already become familiar with Mu Ai, and when she heard that she had recovered from her injury, she happily came up to hold her hand.The two of them headed all the way to Baogudi at home.

It was the end of June at this time, and the weather was extremely hot. As far as the eye could see, there were vibrant new greens everywhere. Standing on a high place, Mu Ai had the opportunity to look down on the whole picture of this mountain village for the first time.

As the old lady said, this is a spacious valley surrounded by mountains. From a distance, you can see a narrow mountain stream flowing down from the middle of the sacred mountain, slowly passing through most of the villages, and from the south mountain It passes through the middle of the field and extends out along with the dirt road out of the village. I don't know where it ends up.A few willow trees were planted scattered at the entrance of the village. They should be some years old. The branches and leaves are lush, and the trunks are thick. With the breeze, they sway enthusiastically in the sun.There is a solid bluestone arch bridge next to it. From the perspective of the situation, the houses in the village are all built on the side of the valley. The sacred mountain is 200 meters away, while the Dongshan mountain on the left is very close, only about 100 meters away.All the houses are arranged in four untidy rows, about a dozen or so in each row, all of which are single-family and spacious yards with a vegetable garden behind them. The yard where she lives now is in the northeast corner of the village.It can be seen from the material and structure of the houses that the villagers here are not rich. The better houses are built with green bricks, and the worse ones are built with adobe.

Listening carefully, there are occasional chickens and dogs barking in the village. Against the backdrop of the beautiful scenery, although it is not as exquisite and picturesque as a small village in the south of the Yangtze River, nor is it as rough as a village in Saibei, it does have a simple and mellow style.This is probably the paradise that countless people who hate the world in modern times want to find.

Mu Ai looked around as she walked, as casually as she used to go out every time, but within two quarters of an hour, her scalp was numb from the sun, and the little girl was so hot that her face was flushed.No wonder, both she and Grandma Li have dark complexions. How can they not be dark after working in such a vicious sun all year round.

Thinking of the gray clouds floating over the city forever and the frequent sandstorms in spring, Mu Ai couldn't help raising her head and taking a long breath greedily, the place is full of pure breath...

Suddenly, the corner of the clothes seemed to be slightly tugged, and when he turned his head, he saw Shuan Shuan was looking at him with his head tilted, his eyes were bright, and there was a sly smile inside.Mu Ai also pursed her lips and smiled, how could a child who has never experienced life and death, or even setbacks, understand her perception of life at this time.

He tightened the little girl's hand, worried that the old lady was thirsty, and stepped faster.

Sure enough, as soon as the two of them reached the edge of the field, the old lady greeted them immediately, and the three of them sat down in the shade of a tree. Tears dripped from the corner of her mouth and landed on the skirt of her clothes.Seeing that she still has to do farm work at such an advanced age, Mu Ai felt uncomfortable, so she turned her head and pretended to look at the valley.

The old lady quenched her thirst and breathed a sigh of relief, and then slowly ate Lianghe noodles with water. When she saw Muai staring at Baogudi, she thought she was a child of a rich family who had never seen a farmland, so she gave it patiently. She was explaining, Mu Ai didn't say anything, she listened with a smile, her left hand unconsciously flicked the ring worn by her right hand, but she was thinking about her future life in her heart.

Last night, in the dead of night, she took a rough inventory of the things in the ring space, and then remembered what Grandma Li said that day, for the sake of caution, most of the things can't be taken out until she fully understands the world.However, it is extremely easy to find one or two items in it and exchange some capital for survival.

Buddhists often say that every drink and peck is destined by God.Mu Ai didn't believe it before, but when she graduated from university, she accidentally bought this ring at a street stall and discovered its magical storage and planting functions.It really made her excited for a few days, thinking that in the future, she can take pictures and draw around without worrying about survival, and when she is tired from playing, she can find a place with beautiful scenery and grow old quietly alone.

As a result, after several years of tossing around, I traveled all over the country, collecting favorite fruit trees, vegetables, and rice, purchasing a lot of seasonings and all kinds of daily necessities that I could think of, and then staying at my friend Ye Zi’s house, a quiet and beautiful little place that few people go to. The mountain village has built a house. As long as this last trip is over, you can just move there. During the day, you can teach Younger Ye English, and at night, you can play the guitar and read books. This is the quiet life she has dreamed of for many years. Unfortunately, the return flight But at this moment, an accident happened, and she crossed over.

Maybe this is the hidden place that God has destined for me. It is just as quiet, and the folk customs are as simple. The only difference is that it is a different time and space...

When she came back to her senses, the old lady had already finished her lunch, and she obviously felt that she was lost in thought, but she was considerate and didn't disturb her.

Mu Ai said apologetically, "Grandma Li, I'm being rude, I just lost my mind thinking about something."

(End of this chapter)