One (a)

Mr. Shen and I walked side by side in the woodland that I had set foot on many times back then.

By this time it was already summer.

We crossed the small stream that used to be a rushing stream, but now it is not as abundant as it used to be, and sometimes it stops flowing in the fall.

I looked at the gurgling water.

Since we separated, I don't know how much water has flowed away, and I don't know how many old selves have perished.

I asked Mr. Shen about some of the town's residents I knew before.

Now that the double-track railway passing through the town has been opened, the town has become a transportation hub for the region, and has tripled in size. With the opening of the train came a large number of immigrants. The immigrants opened many hotels, shops, and restaurants here, and gradually became the protagonists of the town, while the original local residents of Donghu Town gradually left the town and moved to other places because they were not suitable for this new form of life.

Mr. Shen said that my aunt, who was the neighbor I knew best, sold her ancestral house in the town a year and a half ago and moved to another more remote and quiet town, where she continued to live the idyllic life she was used to. She stayed here, and when she did business, she would not negotiate and compete by any means necessary, and soon the immigrants would crush the small family inn, and what she grew would not be as good as the products of the up-and-coming big farms. As it became a famous hunting base, traditional fishing and hunting income became less and less reliable. Gradually, the family struggled to make ends meet.

Mr. Shen said that when her family moved out, her aunt led the black dog and sighed in the vegetable field for a long time, lamenting that the vegetables planted this year had not yet been fully harvested.

When Mr. Shen saw it, he comforted her and said that the new owner would definitely clean up the dishes.

She shook her head and said to Mr. Shen that the new owner would definitely destroy the vegetable patch. They bought it to build a convenience store, and they have planned to use the vegetable patch space to make a small hot drink bar and provide free iFi inside.

She asked Mr. Shen what iFi was.

Mr. Shen had to reply briefly that it was a tool that allowed people to stay in touch with the world anytime and anywhere, and to know what was happening around the world at the moment, similar to radio and television, but the news spread faster.

Auntie asked, is it just the phone in everyone's hand?

Mr. Shen said, yes, both the phone and the computer can be viewed.

The aunt said she couldn't understand. She said: "To know what to do with so many things in the world, can we ordinary people manage it?" ”

"When I was a kid, the old people in the town said that all the new gadgets were the devil's invention," she said. One should be less with the mess of the world, more with God, more in the forest listening to birdsong, and more looking at the stars overhead. It's something we've been close to for generations. Today's young people are in a mess and don't know what to stuff. ”

She continued to look at the vegetable field and sighed, such a fertile land, not used to grow something, such a good food, not used to make food in the kitchen, what a waste, what a pity.

Seeing her sad appearance, Mr. Shen had no choice but to say, tomorrow two workers will come to the camp to pick the vegetables that grow and eat them and make them into camp salads to reduce the loss of the vegetable field a little, I don't know if this is good.

When the aunt heard this, she felt a little comforted. She said in a loud voice that Mr. Shen was a good person, and that he was still close to the residents of Donghu Town.

She said that a good person can see it, and she has long concluded that Mr. Shen must be a good person if he is so kind and kind, and that dear Vera and Verolishka are also kind and good girls at first glance.

Verolishka can even go to the police station for a rabbit or a grouse, she said.

The aunt babbled and said, it's a pity, there are fewer and fewer good people like you now. Alas, the hearts of the people of this world......

In such a chatter full of emotion, the neighbor's aunt left the Donghu town where her ancestors had lived for generations and embarked on an unknowable new path of life.

When I listened to this story, I was also very emotional.

"That's right." Mr. Shen said, "Before leaving, my aunt left me a little cabbage seed from her vegetable garden. Would you like to take some back and plant it? The aunt said that this is her family's unique cabbage seeds, and the cabbage grown is particularly sweet and juicy, which is perfect for making dumplings. She said, "The cabbage you buy in the vegetable market in the future will never have the taste of my family." This is the original flavor of the billion-year-old forest. ”

When I left the town of Winter Lake, I went back with a little cabbage seed left by my aunt.

Later, I planted them in the garden of my Windermere Lake District villa.

In the year after sowing, a batch of cabbage was really harvested, but it didn't seem to be as juicy as my aunt said. Maybe it's because the land is different. However, the cabbage of the aunt's house is indeed a little sweeter than the vegetables grown in Britain, and there is more wild flavor flowing between the veins of the leaves.

(b)

After listening to Mr. Shen's story about my aunt's move, I noticed the convenience store next door to the camp.

The earthen wall between the camp and the aunt's house is long gone, replaced by a two-man tall concrete wall. Barbed wire was also pulled on the wall.

Mr. Shen said that on the other side of the wall is the storeroom of the convenience store, which often contains the store's stock and various electrical equipment, perhaps they have pulled up barbed wire for the purpose of preventing theft.

I've been at the camp for a day or two, because the high wall is obscuring it, the gate of the camp is not in this direction, and I haven't paid much attention to what kind of convenience store is next door.

I told Mr. Shen that he might as well take me to the newly opened convenience store.

When we came back from the woods, Mr. Shen took me along another newly built path. The path leads from the edge of the forest to the entrance of the convenience store.

Far away, I saw the neon signs of the convenience store flickering.

I was amazed to see that the sign turned out to be in Chinese! The two words of Douda keep changing colors: all-friend!

I almost screamed.

Mr. Shen looked at me in amazement and said, "What's wrong with you?" ”

I disguised myself and said, "Nothing. It's just that I was surprised to suddenly see a convenience store like Allyou in this place. ”

Mr. Shen was not suspicious and accepted my statement.

I followed Mr. Shen into the convenience store. Familiar shelves, familiar microwave ovens, familiar hot snack bars, familiar rice balls, sandwiches, bento boxes and drinks.

I asked the cashier clerk if this is an all-you-friend convenience store under Tingxin Group? The local cashier apparently didn't know much. So, the manager with a Chinese face came over enthusiastically.

This young man, who is from Shanghai, told us with certainty that this is the All-You-Convenience Store under the Tingxin Group.

What a surprise. This is a convenience store owned by my uncle's family!

Mr. Shen and I found a seat at the hot drink bar, and Mr. Shen went over and ordered two seaweed pork floss rice balls, two boxes of bowl noodles, and two boxes of juice.

The manager brought the hot rice balls and noodles to us, and repeatedly bowed to thank us for coming, saying that I was happy to see Chinese people in this town.

So, we ate a simple meal with great emotion in the former vegetable field of the neighbor's aunt's house.

It turned out that it was my own family that uprooted my aunt's fertile vegetable plot and uprooted their family from the traditional way of life of their ancestors.

I deeply hope that my aunt will rediscover her familiar way of life in another distant town, that the railway and the Internet will never reach there, and that their peaceful and peaceful days will not be disturbed and shattered again.

However, I also know that it is most likely just an impossible ideal.

Modern life is spreading like a cancer across the globe.

The era of pastoral poetry has long been destined to become an irretrievable past.