The Woman in the Mountains (novella) Zhang Baotong

After walking along the curved mountain beam for about ten minutes, I began to descend again, and then began to go up again. In this way, I walked through mountain after mountain, and finally reached the top of a mountain that was neither high nor low. As soon as I reached the top of the mountain, I saw that the open mountain was full of people, at least two or three hundred. And where there are people, there are excavated caves. In front of the entrance to the cave were piles of dirt.

Following Qiao Ling, I came to the cave that Qiao Ling's husband had dug with them. Qiao Ling pointed to a man in his early thirties and told me that this was her husband Fusheng. Her husband looks older than her, but at first glance he is the kind of man who is very loyal and honest. The two of us said a few words, and I said I wanted to go into the cave and have a look. So, Fusheng took me into the cave.

The cave is so narrow and low that you have to squat to get in, and there is so little space inside that only one person can stay in it to work. I followed him into the crooked hole, which was lit by a lamp, and a man was digging through the earth with a pickaxe. I asked Fusheng why he hadn't seen the gold. Fu Sheng pointed to a loess vein in the cave that was only one or two inches wide and said to me, "This loess contains gold." He told me that the gold content of the ore might be seven or eight grams of gold per clay of ore, but the gold content of their ore was only four or five grams. Hearing him say that only four to five grams of gold can be extracted from a single clay of ore, and that it has to be refined by cyanide, I wonder gold is so expensive.

I came out of the cave and saw that the setting sun had stopped on the western mountain, and the glow reflected the setting sun red. I saw that the sun was about to set down the mountain. At this time, Fusheng and the guys began to divide the mineral soil. They divided the ore from the cave into small piles of ten equal parts, and asked everyone to pick and choose one by one. Everyone quickly finished choosing. At this time, Qiao Ling took out two snakeskin bags and used an iron shovel to put the mineral soil into the bags. After putting the ore into two and a half bags and leaving the rest for her husband, Qiao Ling said to me, "Let's go home." ”

So, we carried half a bag of ore on our shoulders and began to walk back. This half bag of mineral soil is about thirty or forty catties, and it doesn't feel heavy on your shoulders. Soon after the sun set, it began to get dark. We walked briskly through the twilight mountains, not saying a word, but hurrying. Uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill, because you're in a hurry, there's no time to go sightseeing at all. Before we were halfway there, it was already dark.

The moon rises tomorrow, the sky is full of stars, and there is a blurry and peaceful light between the deep ditches, and the night is not pitch black, but dark blue. The stream on the side of the road made a clear and bright sound, and everything around it was miserable and dreamlike. We hurried non-stop. By the time we returned to Qiaoling's house, it was already dark. Back in the house, Qiao Ling fetched water for me to wash, and she washed it too, and then started cooking.

After eating, I saw that the moonlight outside was very beautiful, so I asked Qiaoling to take me out to see the night view. We followed the path up the mountain to the top of the mountain and stood on the top of the mountain to watch the night view. The moon is rolling over the eastern mountain, and the wind is quietly drifting from afar, a little cool. At this time, under the starry sky, thousands of mountains stand solemnly, all are silent, the night sky is like a lake in late autumn, and the moon is like a psychedelic mirror, like a kind of dream emerging from the far-reaching and hazy artistic conception. The moonlight is bright and soft, filled with a warm and tranquil faint fragrance, and condenses the antique connotation and immortal feelings into the ultimate beauty of light and color, and makes the night of the world gentle and sweet, mysterious and moving.

Standing quietly on the top of the mountain facing the moon, gazing at the shining moon rings. At this moment, Vientiane is dreaming, only I wake up, the fog is misty and the moon is misty, and the mountains are shadowy, so that people can see the dream frozen in the beauty without closing their eyes. This moonlight is as tender as water, like a dream in the heart, filled with a kind of nostalgia and affection for the depths. In the whispering evening breeze, you can hear the wonderful echoes of the distant emptiness of ancient times. This is the collision and fusion of the poetic soul and the beautiful nature, and the yearning and reverence for the mysterious and ancient state of mind.

On a moonlit night, I asked Qiao Ling, "Your husband won't come back tonight?" because Fu Sheng seemed to be saying this to Qiao Ling when we left. Qiao Ling said, "He is on night duty tonight and will not come back." I joked to her, "Then I'm going to sleep with you tonight." "Because I don't want to go to her third uncle to sleep, what happened last night makes me still scared when I think about it now. Qiao Ling took my hand and said, "I also want to sleep with you, but I'm afraid that it won't be good for others to see it." ”

But I hugged Qiao Ling and said in a persistent tone, "But I just want to sleep with you." She hesitated, then coaxed me into saying, "That's only a little sleep, I'm afraid it's not good for people to know." I said happily, "Okay." As he spoke, we walked slowly on the mountaintop on the moonlit path, hand in hand, as if looking for the touching poetry and the tenderness of the dream. The moonlit path, winding and quiet, takes us into a mysterious and strange dream.

In the world, there are many riches and countless treasures, but the word love is the most touching to people's hearts. It is a divine object that nourishes our feelings and soothes our hearts. The material life is simple, but the spiritual needs are so difficult. In the depths of our hearts, it is not money and possessions that are most intoxicating and intoxicating, but our lingering love affairs, and what we will remember most is not fame and power, but the women we once loved deeply.

I was so happy that I wanted to sleep with Qiao Ling, so that we could keep our hearts closer together. I think Qiao Ling was thinking the same thing. The two of us held each other like lovers and walked in the silence of the night. Only in this silent night can we be so intimate. We walked around the hill in the dark until we reached the path at the edge of the village. Then he returned to Qiao Ling's house one after another.

Just as we were about to close the door and sleep together, Qiaoling's husband returned. He put the half bag of mineral soil on his shoulder to the ground, sat on a small stool and waited for Qiao Ling to pour water for him to wash his face and hands. I took a box of cigarettes out of my duffel bag and handed it to him. He took out a cigarette and lit one, smoking as he spoke to me. Qiao Ling poured water for him and asked him, "Didn't you say that you didn't come back from duty at night, why did you come back again?" "I heard Qiao Ling say that her husband has a serious rheumatism. But I think the real purpose of her husband's return at night is to worry that Qiao Ling will have an inappropriate relationship with me. Because he has never really been at ease with Qiao Ling.

I was very disappointed, but I was also very lucky. Luckily we haven't slept together yet, and if her husband comes back a little later, maybe we'll cause a big disaster. Qiao Ling poured her husband face wash and took me to find a place to spend the night. Walking along the moonlit mountain road, she said to me, "I'm sorry, we can't sleep together." I said, "It's a good thing we didn't sleep together, and if you let your husband catch it, it's over." But she said disapprerovingly, "What's the matter, it's a big deal to get a divorce." I can't wait for that. ”

Qiao Ling took me to one of her relatives' house, which had only one bed, no one to live in, and it was very clean. So, I fell asleep, and slept until dawn.