The Woman in the Mountains (novella) Zhang Baotong

Walking along the mountain road by the stream, there was still no one to see along the way. But I walked very fast, and before I knew it, I came to the small village at the mouth of Daxigou. In front of the small village, there is an open flat river. In the fields on the Hirakawa are patches of corn that are about to ripen. I saw someone breaking corn in the cornfield on the side of the road, so I asked, "Hello, where does Caiyun's family live?"

The old man came out of the field, went up to the side of the road, pointed to the place in the village near the side of the hill, and said, "Go that way, and see which house is the most dilapidated and rotten house." "I didn't go to her house first, I went to a small shop on the side of the road. Because it's the first time I've gone to someone's house, I can't say anything empty-handed. In this way, it will make you and others feel uncomfortable. I bought a bucket of vegetable oil and a bag of 10 catties of rice in the small shop, and also bought some food for the children. Then I carried it in that direction, and when I came not far from the side of the mountain, I saw a ruined house. If the house were to be regarded as a monument, absolutely no one would doubt it. Because the ruins of the ancients in Banpo Village, Xi'an are almost like this.

When I came to the front of the house, I saw an old woman bending over and smashing a walnut with a small hammer. These walnuts may be some walnuts that are not very good, and after they are smashed, the walnut kernels will be sold at a better price. I walked up to the woman and asked, "Does the Caiyun family live here?" As soon as the woman looked up, she immediately recognized me and said, "You are the Xi'an boss that Qiaoling knows?"

I also recognized that she was Qiao Ling's cousin. Although she was dressed in shabby clothes and her hair was like artemisia, she was not so old-fashioned, after all, she was only in her early thirties. There are still many women of this age in the city who are not married. But the women in the city have a good life and can dress up, so women in their early thirties only look like they are in their twenties. The women in the mountains, on the other hand, looked like they were still fresh at the age of seventeen or eighteen, but once they got married and had children, they looked like they were in their early thirties at the age of twenty-three or fourteen. The women in the mountains age quickly, and their youth is very short. This may be the reason why the girls in the mountains marry earlier.

Caiyun wiped her hands on her clothes, got up from the small stool, took the items from my hand, looked at me with a look of surprise, and asked, "Haven't you eaten yet?" I said, "Not yet." "She brought me into the house like a guest and was busy cooking for me.

I sat in her house. The hall was empty, except for a small wooden table and a large chest of grain made of rough wood. There was a lot of miscellaneous items on the chest. There is a small room next to each of the halls. The room where she lived had a large bed with a blackened mosquito net. There was a small bed in the other room, but there were some items like fertilizers and pesticides in the room. The kitchen is a house built in the open space in front of the door.

She was busy in the kitchen with the fire and dough rolling. I asked her, "What about the child?" she said, "and let her aunt take her out." "I immediately remembered that I had been asked to help her find out the whereabouts of her sister and husband. I said to her, "The year before last, after I returned to Xi'an from here, I went to Anyuan Village, but I asked the whole village, but I didn't ask your husband and sister-in-law. Caiyun said, "They don't live in Anyuan Village, that's him liaring." I asked, "Is there a whereabouts of your sister?" Caiyun said, "I'm already married, married to someone in the town." I said, "How old is she?" It's not okay if she doesn't get married, I'm afraid that she will follow my husband out again, and her heart will run wild, so she won't be able to take it. ”

While helping her light the fire, I talked to her about Qiaoling. She said, "I don't know what she thinks, she's a smart person and she has to do stupid things." I said, "Doesn't it mean that her father and her family don't agree to her divorce?" Caiyun said, "What's the use of not agreeing, she won't go home, and she will rent a house in the county town with others." What do you think there is a solution? Qiao Ling's father led someone to find where they lived, and wanted to beat Qiao Ling and force Qiao Ling to go home. However, the man was so vicious, carrying a kitchen knife in his hand, he said to Qiaoling's father, whoever dares to touch Qiaoling, I will kill him. was so frightened that Qiaoling's father and family didn't dare to care about her anymore. I said pessimistically, "In this way, Qiao Ling will have to live under his coercion in the future." Caiyun said, "That's not necessarily, to say that the evil Qiaoling is worse than him." No matter what you say, it's all Qiaoling's own fault. I said, "She's really dazed." Caiyun said, "In the past, Qiao Ling cried and asked for a divorce, and her family resolutely disagreed, but when this happened, Qiao Ling didn't say a word, and her family let her and her husband divorce quickly." ”

When the rice was ready, it was egg noodles with tomatoes, but to the worst thing, she put five fried poached eggs in my bowl. I said, "No, I can't eat that many eggs." "Because I usually only eat one boiled egg a day at most. So, I tossed the eggs from the bowl into her bowl, leaving only one egg. She frowned and said, "People from your big city come to us, and they don't have anything to eat, and we owe it to you." I said, "We eat the same food in the city as you do." She didn't want to eat the eggs, but poured them in another bowl and left them for the children to eat.

After a while, her sister-in-law returned with her three children. This girl is the girl who asked her husband to take to Xi'an. If a girl had been out with her brother-in-law for that long time, her reputation would have been so bad that no one dared to ask for it. However, this girl is really beautiful. The girl was neither fat nor thin, her face was white and clean, glowing red, her figure was neither high nor low, slim, very even, and she wore a new and beautiful dress. It's just that there is still a bit of a rural atmosphere in his demeanor. But the girl is still very beautiful, so beautiful that people feel a little dazzling. No wonder he was just found from Xi'an, and people rushed to go there. The girl took one look at me and went to serve herself food.

Xi'an people say that the women in the mountains of southern Shaanxi are docile and beautiful, and I have been to this big stream and ditch twice, and I have seen that the girls in this mountain are really more beautiful than the other, and they are also very simple. But it's a pity that they don't go to school much and haven't seen much of the world, so this is also one of the reasons why some girls are easily seduced. But because they are beautiful, people can forgive them very leniently, even if they lose their bodies or lose their reputation, so once they are on the right path, they are still the favorite of unmarried men to chase after them.