On the first day of the 10th lunar month, the first day of the 10th lunar month is Halloween in the hometown, when the living people burn paper and send money to their deceased relatives so that they can prepare clothes to protect them from the cold before the winter comes. In this kind of thing, I have always been in a state of separation between reason and emotion, but I have again and again obeyed the impulse of emotion, and hurried back to my hometown in the country, to burn a bundle of paper money for my father, who had been worried all his life about food and clothing, so that he would no longer be hungry and cold in the underworld.

Turning around the Guandi Temple in the village, which was on the verge of collapse, I saw my home. The tree stretched out its huge triangular canopy and stood proudly on the side of the street only ten meters in front of the gate. My tree - every time I return to my homeland and see this tung tree for the first time, my heart will spring up with the joy of "my tree". The reason couldn't be simpler, I planted this tung tree. My father liked to plant trees when he was alive, and the trees planted by his old husband are still flourishing in front of and behind the house of our house, and the white tree on the field is already a hug thick. However, every time I go back to my hometown and see the tree I planted, I am more kind than I see the tree planted by my father, and to put it bluntly, it is just that the hope that the person who planted the tree for the seedling will come true. Yes, when I saw that the finger-thin seedling I had dug and planted was finally strong, standing in the village alley, holding up a green cover in the vast sky, I felt like reading a novel I had just finished.

Twelve years ago this month, I was transferred to the professional creation group of the Shaanxi Writers Association. The only thing I felt at that time was that I was starting to get into the best state of life. Professional creation has only one thing to me, that I have all the time at my disposal, and that I don't have to dictate to me. The pressure also comes at the same time, and since life, study, and creation are all at your disposal, you can't write decent works, and there is no excuse to cover your shame.

Almost at the same time, I decided to go back to the lair. Return to the homeland of my father, my grandfather, and my old lady. It's not because they're all dead and need to be inherited by me, it's just to have a place where they can sit down and read and think about issues not only in art but also in art. I know that my knowledge is incomplete, and the pace of life evolution is so rapid, there are many problems that need to be thought about calmly.

It's really refreshing to live in the countryside, and all the harassment and temptation are naturally removed. Whenever it was so quiet that it was lonely, I would go out of the gate and gossip with anyone I met randomly in the village alley, even if it was fun to play with children. When the summer sun is storming, I can't resist the scorching sun when I walk out of the door, and after the sun, a layer of red millet grains like spots grow on my head and arms, which is itchy and difficult to support, and the doctor said that it is called solar dermatitis. I was afraid of the violent sun, and I thought that there should be a shade of greenery for shelter. It was so pleasant to stand in the thick and cool shade of the trees and smoke with the farmers...... So I thought of planting two trees.

The first is the choice of tree species. I'm going to plant two tung trees. Nearly 40 years ago, when I was in junior high school, I watched a Chinese-French co-production of the children's film "Kite", and I remember the tall street trees on the streets of Paris, which I had never seen in my hometown. It was another 20 years before I learned that the tree was called the Tung tree, and in many cities in China, landscapes had been formed on both sides of the highways, and some farmhouses in my hometown had been planted.

In the early spring of the year when I started writing the novel, I asked a young man in my village to buy back two tung trees from the temple fair, each for one dollar. The tree was naturally bought and I got my wish, but unfortunately it was too small and thin, only as thick as an index finger. Oh my God! If you want to take advantage of its shade, if you want to have a green shade, how many years will you have to wait!

I did not hesitate to dig the pit, put soil on the bottom of the pit, and planted it, and by planting it, I firmly planted a longing for greenery. I wiped the sweat from my face with a shovel, admiring the young plant that was only as high as my chest, and a wisp of worry arose, the pig could arch it, and the child could pinch it with his hand, it was too weak! So I carried it up the hill, dug up a bundle of sour jujube trees, and planted them around the young plant, so that it was tightly protected.

To my disappointment, almost all of the young leaves of the trees had turned green, and my two tung trees were still in their bud. I opened the jujube tree and pinched the skin on the trunk, and found that it was already a dead brown. I want to pull it up and throw it away. At the moment when I grabbed the trunk of the tree and was about to exert myself, a miracle happened, and a little yellow bud appeared near the ground, and my heart trembled slightly from surprise.

This is a new shoot that emerges from the root of the tree, proving that the root is still alive. The roots of the tree will give birth to new shoots when they are alive, and how tenacious and great life is! It is a stout cone-shaped bud that has not yet seen the shape of the leaves, which has just broken through the ground and emerged, and there is a faint green in the tender yellow, and it is estimated that it has only experienced one or two times of spring sunshine. I crouched there for a long time and was reluctant to leave, celebrating the birth of a new life. I replanted the sour jujube trees that had been removed, and not only could the young shoots not withstand the trampling of the pig arch by the chariot and the horse, but the chicken paw would easily cut it off and destroy it with a single stroke.

I look at the sprout no less than eight times a day. It jumped up. It turned from a tender yellow to a tender green. It finally sticks out a green leaf. It pulls out a new leaf. It finally came out of the jujube trees that surrounded it, and stood up with its vigorous green leaves, so cheerful, so upright towards the sky...... However, it does not dare to relax in the slightest, and digs a bundle of sour jujube trees every spring to strengthen the protective barrier! It is still weak and still unable to withstand accidental or intentional injuries.

When it grew to the thickness of my arm, I finally enjoyed its green shade. The shade of the tree was projected into the ground, the size of a sieve, and I stood in the shade of my tree, sheltered by it. Its not yet majestic branches and green leaves are not yet generous, after all, it has the ability to shelter from the scorching sun, and I want to have a green shade to come true. At the end of that year, I finally finished my four-year novel writing project and went back to the city. Before leaving, I still reinforced the area around it with a layer of sour jujube trees.

When I went back last summer, I found that the trunk had grown to the thickness of a small bowl. I don't know where a child carved my name on the trunk of a tree with a knife. The marks of the knife had healed, but the color was maroon-red, conspicuous in the grayish-white of the bark. From last year to this return, I noticed that the trunk of the tree had suddenly thickened, and the two characters engraved with my name had grown. There was already a huge shade of greenery under the trees.

It has become a real tree, standing there, with a huge umbrella-like canopy propped up in the sky. When my father was alive, he told me that the roots of a tree stretch as far as the canopy of a tree reaches in the sky, that the taproot of a tree is as thick as the trunk is, that the branches of a tree stretch up a foot or an inch in the air, and that the roots of a tree extend a foot or an inch around the ground in the ground. I still can't judge how much scientific reliability my father's words have, but I do believe that the roots of the tree are very deep. Even if you think of the worst things at the extreme, such as being suddenly hit by a passing car, or unfortunately encountering a lightning strike that has not been encountered for decades, this naturally cannot be prevented, but this one will not be broken by the crash. It will sprout new sprouts again, and its life will begin again. If this happens, I will dig up the jujube trees again without regrets and start the protection of my new sprouts.

I stood beside my tung tree for a long time, admiring my name that had been deformed but still legible, and the mischievous ghost whose name had my name engraved should have grown as tall and strong as this tree, right? When it is hot and dry next year, I will go home to the garden and enjoy the shade of my side under the fierce sun.