The Ladder of Love (Part II) Zhang Baotong 2017.10.10

Originally, my wife and I planned to take our children to the mountains to visit Uncle Liu and Aunt Xu in the spring of the following year, but due to various affairs and reasons, we never went to Banpotou again. Six years later, during the 2007 National Day Golden Week, I finally took my wife and daughter on a journey back to Banpotou.

At noon that day, our family of three took a car to Changle Village, and when we came to Liu San's house, Liu San's daughter-in-law was cooking. She was very happy to see us coming, let us sit in the house and drink tea, and let her son go out to call Liu San. Looking at the boxes of mineral water and bags of smoked tofu and slate glutinous rice cakes in the hall, I thought that their family must be in business.

After a while, Liu San came back, and as soon as he saw me, he shook my hand vigorously and said, "Since the article you wrote was published in the newspaper, Chongqing Television and CCTV have gone up to the mountains to shoot and report, and some people have made their stories into movies and TV series. The government of Jiangjin District and Zhongshan Town attaches great importance to the story of my father and mother, and they call the mountain road and stone steps that my father built as the ladder of love, and open up tourist routes, and many people travel up the mountain every year. I said happily, "I was afraid that my report would disturb the peaceful life of the two elderly people and cause them some unnecessary trouble." ”

Liu San said, "It doesn't matter, the more people who go, the more they get used to the outside life, and they start to come into contact with people outside, because people keep going up the mountain, and I don't worry about them so much." If there is anything, they will let the people who come down the mountain tell us, and the tour management is also familiar with us, and they will tell us anything. I asked Liu San, "They are all old, still refuse to come down the mountain to live?" Liu San said, "Now the mountain is different from the past, the top of the mountain has been connected to the power line last year, and a boss has sent them a TV, they can see TV every day, so they are even more reluctant to come down the mountain to live." I said, "I should let them go down to the mountains to live, they are old, they are all seventy or eighty years old, and if they have any serious or sudden illness in their lives, there is still nothing they can do in the mountains." Liu San nodded and said, "I've told them how many times, but they don't listen." Or when you see them, talk to me for me, and let them come down to live. I said, "Okay." ”

I pointed to the mineral water and smoked tofu and slate glutinous rice cakes in the house, and said, "You are in business now?" Liu San smiled and said, "I sell mineral water and local specialties in front of tourist attractions. I asked, "How's the business?" he said, "It's been good for a while, but it's been good for a while." There are quite a lot of people in the tourist season, and you can earn two or three hundred yuan a day, but when the weather is cold, no one comes, so you stay at home and do some farm work. I said, "You are the son of Uncle Liu and Aunt Xu, and you can be regarded as a business card, and the business should not be bad." He smiled and said, "That's it." They buy my stuff and ask me to tell them my parents' stories, and when they hear my stories, they buy my things. I also smiled and said, "This is called the predecessors planting trees, and the later generations enjoying the shade." ”

As she spoke, Liu's third daughter-in-law had already brought the meal to the table, including braised pork, smoked fish, fried chili with eggs, smoked tofu and fried winter melon. I don't know if the food cooked by Liu's third daughter-in-law was delicious, or if we were all a little hungry, so we ate a lot. After lunch, we took out some fruits and food for Liu San to bring them, and then we had to go up the mountain.

Liu San took our family of three to the edge of the small bridge. The small bridge was originally just a small wooden bridge, narrow and broken, and it was very scary to walk on it. However, now it is a solid cement bridge, with the big red letters "Tongxin Bridge" written on both sides of the bridge. The wooden bridge next to it was dilapidated and almost submerged by the river. Liu San told me that a dam was built here to generate electricity, and the river was raised, so the original wooden bridge was flooded. And Liu San's stall is on the edge of the bridge. His stall is small, but the glass counter contains cigarettes, drinks, smoked tofu and slate dumplings. In addition to his counter, there are some glass counters like him and some stalls selling snacks. His son is selling things to tourists.

Liu San sent us all the way to the foot of the mountain at Banpotou. There is a ticket office at the foot of the mountain, and each ticket costs 30 yuan. We bought three tickets and started going up the mountain. Because Banpotou has become a tourist attraction of the "Love Ladder", the road up the mountain has obviously been rebuilt and widened. And there will be a sign on the side of the road with the name of the place, an introduction, and a short story. When I first went up here in the past, I didn't have anything, and I didn't know what the name of the place I walked to or what the story was, but I just walked all the way and looked at the scenery. And these signs, introductions and short stories are indeed very meaningful to deepen the tourism of the "ladder of love".

Follow the signposted mountain road to a high slope, and you will enter a large alder forest, which is cool and damp, silent, and the path covered with dead branches and leaves is very soft to walk on. If you go further up, you will see clouds drifting from the deep valley stream at the edge of the forest, making you feel like you are walking in the clouds. All the way out of the dense forest, you can see the mountains full of maroon rock formations, which is a typical Danxia landform.

It was from here that the mountain suddenly steepened, and all the way up, one by one, the stone steps reached into the dense forest of the mountain. Looking up, I saw four big red characters engraved on the stone wall in front of me, "Love Ladder". And there is an introductory word on the wooden sign standing on the side of the road, which is interpreting the ladder of love in this way: "50 years of perseverance, 6,000 steps of the ladder of life; 20,000 sun, moon and stars have witnessed the increasingly scarce ---classic love!" This is a really good saying, it incisively expounds the ordinary greatness and profundity of the ladder of love. It's not that people who have been to the top of the hill and experienced the steadfast love in that primitive state can't write such a classic comment at all.

Yes, in this 1,500-meter-high mountain mountain, because of Liu Guojiang, Xu Chaoqing, and two lovers who look together, there is a winding and steep ladder. In order to dig the stone ladder leading down the mountain, Uncle Liu persevered for more than 50 years between the sea of clouds and mountain fog and the cliffs, chiseled more than 20 steel drills, fell into the mountain stream several times, suffered countless pains, cold and heat did not stop, perseverance, and chiseled out a breathtaking more than 6,000 steps of love ladder with a hammer. This in itself is the classic and immortal of love.