Dream Guide

Cuanjia Village was originally called Cuandi Bazi and was located halfway up a mountain. The tall and steep mountain suddenly paused there, and a large piece of flat land suddenly emerged. It jutted forward abruptly, and then slowly fell to both sides. The ancestors of the Cuan family came here for more than a thousand years, built houses on this platform, and settled down.

Cuandi Bazi has a dangerous terrain, a wide view, and there are farmhouses to live in. In the old days, it was the most ideal stronghold for bandits. But no matter which group of bandits has ever occupied this place, it is said that it is because it is protected by gods, and miracles always happen in times of crisis.

One of the most talked about legends among the Cuan family is that when Tang Jiyao was in trouble, he hid back in his hometown of Huize, and was later chased by bandits to Cuandi Basi. When they had no way to escape, the bandits were all possessed by evil spirits for some unknown reason and left. Jumped off the cliff in front of the dam. Tang Jiyao later became the governor-general of southern Yunnan. His power was unparalleled for a while, so he came back and erected a monument for Cuandi Bazi, with a large Chinese character "Cuan" engraved on it and a couplet on both sides:

The mountain gods protect and protect Yao and Shun throughout the ages.

There are also small characters engraved with the story of Tang Jiyao's rescue in Cuandi Bazi, which is a little more embellishment. It is just to show that he is a person blessed by God. Yao and Shun were alive, and even the gods protected him.

The old people in Cuanjia Village still remember this monument, which was erected until the liberation. On the night before the People's Liberation Army entered Cuanzhou, the then head of Cuandi Bazi, Yao Jingjing's great-grandmother, Mrs. Cuan, ordered someone to put the monument in place. All the remaining characters on the inscription were chiseled away, leaving only the character "爨". The people in Bashang didn't understand it at that time. It wasn't until more than ten years later that they saw the old lady's wisdom in knowing who she was.

Cuandi Bazi has everything good, with mountains and water, fields and houses, and the protection of mountain gods. The only drawback is that the mountains are too dangerous and the road is difficult to walk. It takes two hours to walk down the dangerous road from Bazi. Half a day has passed since we arrived at the nearby market, and the round trip lasted a whole day. If the weather was bad and there was rain or snow, we would have to stay outside for a whole day to go to the market.

After the road was opened at the foot of the mountain, the people from Cuandi Bazi gradually moved to the road at the foot of the mountain. They no longer called it Bazi and changed its name to Cuanjia Village. Later, because the word "Cuan" was difficult to write, they and the people in Cuanzhou City Same, changed to the surname Cun, the pronunciation is similar anyway, people at that time didn't care how it was written on the ID card, as long as it sounded the same.

In Yao Jingjing's memory, Cunjia Village is next to this ribbon-like road. As for the dam on the mountainside, she vaguely remembers going there with her mother when she was a child, but her childhood memories are no longer very clear. She only remembered that the mountains there were high, the water was sweet, and the clouds were floating in front of the house.

The car stopped at the new Cunjia Village. All the old and young in the village came out to say hello to Yao's father and Yao's mother. The older women pulled Yao Jingjing around and kept saying that the girl has grown up and is getting better and better. Feeling refreshed, I asked Mama Yao if her son-in-law had been selected. Mama Yao said that she had chosen her son-in-law. He was in Wuzhong and owned a big company. He took us all over. Didn't he just come back from Wuzhong?

Yao Jingjing was so embarrassed that she kept trying to stop her mother from talking nonsense, but her mother didn't listen at all and kept talking more and more outrageously. Yao Jingjing simply ignored it and let her go. Anyway, she only came here once every few years.

After having dinner at her cousin's house in Cunjia Village and staying another night, Yao Jingjing followed her parents up the mountain to the Lao Cuandi Bazi in her memory.

The road up the mountain is not easy to walk. The early morning sun shines on the moss on the stone steps, and many vines have climbed into the middle of the road. Although tourism has been developed in recent years, there are not as many people traveling to Cuanzhou as there are in Chuncheng and Dali, not to mention that Cuandi Bazi is still so remote.

Yao Jingjing was worried about her mother's health, but her mother was as light as a swallow and walked very fast. The mountains and rivers of her hometown gave her great spiritual motivation. She couldn't wait to step up the mountain and see the house where she lived when she was a child.

After walking for about an hour, Yao Jingjing saw the smoky gray dam hidden in the ancient trees and mist. There is a large stone tablet that is as tall as a person at the entrance of Bazi. The body of the tablet has long been weathered and mottled, but the word "Cuan" on the tablet is still clear because it was carved very deeply and hugely. Traces of red paint on the paint.

Except for the word "Cuan", there is still a large space on the stone tablet. When you get closer, you can see that the pits on it are full of traces of being chiseled, making the tablet look a bit strange.

Of course, Yao Jingjing had also heard about how her great-grandma ordered people to chisel out the remaining characters. She didn't understand it when she was a child. But now that she thinks about it, her great-grandma was indeed very foresighted, and she couldn't help but respect her even more.

After walking through several lowlands covered with weeds, some stone walls were built in front of many gray tile houses that were already covered with vines.

Yao's mother complained: "Oh, it's true. If we move down the mountain, no one will take care of the old house!"

Dad Yao said: "Isn't it developed for tourism? Why does it look like a deserted village?"

My cousin who came with me said, "Hey, there aren't many here a year. They come all the time in the summer, and there's no one around since the beginning of autumn. We always stop by to clean the old house during the Tomb Sweeping Festival every year."

They originally planned to go to the grave first, but seeing the dilapidated state of the old house, Yao's mother couldn't help but go in and take a look first, for fear that grandma's house would be ruined and she would be too embarrassed to talk to grandma when they got to the grave.

The cousin opened the ancestral house for them with the key. The house was fine, there was nothing bad, but a lot of tiles on the roof had fallen off and needed repairs.

Yao's mother took Yao Jingjing to her great-grandma's room, while her cousin and Yao's father were smoking outside. It is said that my great-grandmother loved to be clean and would not let men enter her house during her lifetime. Although my cousin was still a child at that time and could come and go as he pleased, he stopped entering that house when he grew up. Although the old lady is long gone, the people in the village still abide by the rules she set. The house cleaning is done by the women in the village, and men never come in.

The furnishings in the house are very simple, including a bed, a dressing table, and an old-fashioned wooden cabinet. It doesn't look like a house in the mountains at all. The moment she walked in, Yao Jingjing thought she was entering the boudoir of some Republic of China woman.

"Oh, okay, okay, it's still the same." Yao's mother said, patting her chest.

Yao Jingjing saw a piece of glass pressed on top of the dressing table. Under the glass were several old black and white photos. They had all been severely faded, and they were stained and stained.

Yao Jingjing lowered her head to look curiously, and found that most of the photos could no longer be seen clearly, and only one of them could still identify a woman in military uniform. Although his face was blurry, he could still feel the heroic figure coming towards him.

"Wow, my great-grandma really served in the military!"

Yao Jingjing seemed to see her grandma holding a gun and killing the enemy on the raging battlefield.

Thinking about it this way, the days when she sweated profusely on the training ground no longer felt bitter. After all, the blood of the Lao Cuan family was flowing in her body!

"Mom, how come such an important photo of grandma is placed so casually?" Yao Jingjing touched the glass table and felt that the photo had been stuck to the glass and could not be taken out again.

She didn't hear her mother's answer. When she looked back, she saw that her mother was holding an old-fashioned square wooden box in her hand and was asleep leaning against her great-grandma's bedside. She saw her mother's eyelids moving and felt a vague mental fluctuation.

Yao Jingjing is very curious, what will her mother dream about now? When she thought about it, she entered her mother's dream.

An endless sea of ​​yellow sand appeared in front of me, and my mother stood in front of this desert. There was an invisible wall between her and the desert, as if she was in a dark movie theater with a huge screen in front of her, showing desert scenery films.

A person walked in the desert. It was a black dot at first. When she got closer, she saw clearly that it was an old lady wearing homespun peasant clothes. She has a head full of silver hair, but there is no wrinkle on her face. She walks with indescribable grace and elegance.

The old lady walked closer, looked at Yao's mother lovingly and seriously through the screen, and said, "Where is my Xue'er? Why is she missing?"