The Winter Night of Lao Cai Zhang Baotong 2018.6.7

The winter night in the old street is cold and silent. As you walk through the streets, you can't hear the wind in the cold. The streets were pitch black, and the cold rain was miserable. Looking out the window, the attics on both sides of the narrow street were dimly lit, and the interior of the house was empty.

My family lived here 40 years ago, when the streets were so narrow, and the attics on both sides left traces of the Ming and Qing dynasties and the Republic of China, and the wooden planks and window lattices of the attic were dilapidated. Whenever the cold wind howled, the window film was shattered, and it was silly in the bleak wind. The night rain continued, leaking rain in many places, and cold raindrops hit the basin and clay pots, sending out incomprehensible doubts in dreams. The streets are dark and deep. The smooth bluestone slabs glow with the light of the night, and whenever someone walks by, there is a panicked footsteps, as if a bad guy is chasing after them.

By this time, we were already sleeping under the thick quilt, watching my mother sew and mend her clothes under the oil lamp. Mom was only about thirty years old, and the bright light reflected her kind and clear face. Because the family is poor and there are many children, the mother always has endless needlework. When I woke up, it was very bright. Dad came home with a night of cold. He wore a blue cotton coat and held a reinforced iron rod in his hand, as he had to guard the materials on the railway site, and this iron rod was the weapon in his hand.

No matter how early you wake up, you can see some farmers carrying bamboo baskets or carrying baskets to buy, placing vegetables and fresh fish on the streets. Water spinach is two cents a handful, and fresh fish is four dimes a pound. At that time, Miluo was still a small town and belonged to the jurisdiction of Xiangyin County. Laojie is the center of Miluo Town, with a total length of no more than 100 meters and a width of only four or five meters. Two bluestone slabs line the middle of the street, a cinema at one end and a train station at the other. My father's unit had just moved from Nanping, Fujian Province, to build the Miluo River Railway Bridge, and the family area had not yet been built, so we could only settle here. Since we have only lived here for one winter, the winter in Miluo Old Street is our first impression of Miluo.

Winter nights always come quickly, sometimes at five or six o'clock, and it gets dark. At this time, we returned home after a crazy day. At that time, there were no electric lights, and when it was dark, kerosene lamps were lit in the house. The light of the kerosene lamp is very dim, and people will feel sleepy when they look at it. Therefore, except for my mother who had to do needlework at night, everyone else went to bed early.

I remember one evening, when a strong wind blew and the clouds cleared, there was a miserable scene under the clearing. The tiles of some homes were blown open, and the windows of some homes were broken. When I returned home, the fire in the furnace had been extinguished, and only the ashes remained. The vegetables and flowers in the field are withered and ruined, and there is a mess everywhere. The house was leaking rain, the windows were ventilating, and the mother frowned and looked sad. And I was a teenager who didn't know what it was like to be sad and didn't know how to help my mother.

I'm in the second grade of elementary school, and I don't have much homework to finish before school ends. So, I don't know how to spend a lot of time in the evening. I was really bored, so I sat on the edge of the bed and played the flute. When the flute is tired of playing, it plays the harmonica again. Sometimes he blows "The North Wind Blows" and "Dongfang Hong", and sometimes he blows some very melodious or very sad tunes. This song is improvised at will, which can be said to be an emotion and a yearning in the heart. At that time, there were no books to read. Therefore, our concept of books is very weak and simple, and when it comes to books, we only know the kind of comic books that children love to read. We all call it a little picture book. You can buy a little picture book for a dime or two. However, who is going to buy books for their children? There is an old man on the street who is setting up a bookstall with small picture books such as "The Biography of Yue Fei" and "Lin Hai Xueyuan," and you can read one for a penny. However, adults would rather use this penny to buy half a handful of water spinach than let their children use the money to read a small picture book. Therefore, I often walked past the bookstall and looked at so many tempting little picture books placed there, but I could only look at the books and sigh. So, I have the impression that I barely read any books until the third grade. The streets of Lao Cai are home to movie theaters, which often show some very good films, such as "Wildfire Spring Breeze Fighting Ancient City", "Chicken Feather Letter" and "Heroic Little Eight Roads". For five cents, you can go inside and watch a show. However, every day when I walk on the street and look at the movie posters posted on the telephone poles, I just hate that I have no money in my hand. Sometimes, the school organizes students to watch movies, which is like a holiday for us poor children.

Later, we left Lao Cai and moved to the family compound of the 6th Engineering Agency of the 4th Railway Bureau. But we often have to go to Lao Cai to buy groceries, watch movies or go to the train station from there. However, within a few years, Miluo Town was changed to Miluo County, and a new street was built in the south, which is now the urban area of Miluo. Since then, we rarely go to Lao Cai again. Especially after going out to work, I have not passed by the old street for many years. Therefore, the feelings and impressions of Lao Cai gradually faded away, and I almost forgot about it.

This year, I went back to my hometown and went to Lao Cai to relive that unforgettable time. I found that the old street was still the same, almost unchanged. It's still so long, so wide, so silent and dark, so cold and desolate. For more than 40 years, the remote countryside of Miluo has been transformed into a new look, and western-style buildings and new houses have blossomed everywhere, but this old street still has many traces of our childhood. This can't help but make me feel a lot of emotion.

Now we can buy a house, a car, anything we need. However, we couldn't buy the little picture books of that year, we couldn't buy movie tickets of that year, and we couldn't buy anything we wanted at that time. It's like we don't have money when we want to buy things, and we can't buy what we used to want when we have money. Is this the sorrow of the times, or is it our own regret?

Walking in the winter night of the old street, the street is still pitch black, but the bluestone slabs have been replaced with cement roads, and the wood-plank attics have been replaced with brick houses. How much makes some people go to the empty building, and the melancholy and sadness of things and people, but its overall appearance has not changed much, and the content it treasures has not changed. Walking in the drizzly winter night, I can still clearly touch the scenes and feelings of childhood.

Quiet years, the night is like ink, walking in the sparsely populated, silent winter night, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes sentimental. Dare to ask the wind, who can tell me what is the light in the morning bell and what is the confusion in the twilight drum? Why there are tears in life, and why there is sorrow. Looking back on one's life, why is there so little joy and so much sorrow? When people recall it, they can't help but look up to the sky and sigh: they are only in a shadow, they are often worried, they die early, and fireworks are easy to get cold. Only recalling this winter old street and tasting this kind and peaceful situation can make my heart feel some comfort.

I really want to go back to the attic of my childhood, blow a song "The North Wind Blows", I really want to spend 100 yuan to see the small picture books on the last book stall, I really want to go into the teahouse on the edge of the pond, and drink a cup of chrysanthemum tea, but will that tea still be the taste of that year? Moonlight and flowing water, lonely and silent, tidbits flying, lovesick and unrepentant, who will cherish this gratuitous sorrow and cold memory?

Recalling the prosperous era at the end of the dry period, don't ruin the wine without taste. Sigh and worry, boundless thoughts. Seven points of loneliness, three points of tears. Whose life is not like this? It's just that the feelings of this Miluo Old Street, like a wine kiln, have been brewed for more than 40 years, and when you taste it again, although it is mixed with five flavors, it is also sweet and mellow, which can't help but make people drunk and hazy. In fact, this is not only the taste of the old street, but also the taste of life.

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