On this morning on the way to Cordyceps Mountain, it was snowing in the sky.

The snow hail originally fell straight to the ground, but there was a wind, not big, but very strong wind, which blew the snow hail sideways and hit people's faces, like flying insects with cold mouthparts hitting and biting.

The wind stirred the snow and blew the whole world to the ground.

In such a scenario, it is hard to imagine that there is a Cordyceps Mountain under the blue sky in this world, a mountain full of treasures buried in the black soil and under the shallow grass.

Sanji lifted the wide cuffs of his robe to shield himself from the wind and snow, and thought, "Cordyceps Mountain must be gone." ”

When the words came to his lips, they became: "We can't find Cordyceps Mountain, right?" ”

His mother reassured him: "Cordyceps Mountain is here." ”

It was almost noon, and everyone came to the foot of Cordyceps Mountain.

The snow stopped, the wind stopped, but the sky was overcast. The clouds and mist hung low, hiding the summit of Cordyceps Mountain in the gray depths. Only the dirt slope with cordyceps stood in front of him, like a giant, and he only saw his shy belly, but he could not see his head and neck hidden in the gray clouds.

Sanji thought that there must be a lot of cordyceps hidden on the bulging belly-like slopes.

It took a lot of effort to pitch a tent in the wind. The wind always wanted to blow the tent cloth into the sky before he had time to tie it, so Sanji pressed his whole body against the tent cloth and let his father free his hand and smash the rope anchor into the ground.

The tent was erected, and the mother lit a fire in the tent.

Sanchi scoured the bushes by the ditch for dry branches. He doesn't use his eyes to see, he pedals with his feet.

The shrubs that have lost their leaves all look the same, and it's hard to tell which ones are dry and which ones are still alive. But with a bore of his foot, the dry crackle snapped and broke, and the alive bent down and rebounded strongly. Soon, the dead branches next to their tent were piled up into a small mountain.

The neighbors all came to praise: "Only smart children can make things happen!" ”

But his father scolded: "Do you know how much boots you spend on doing this?" ”

His mother watched him add a dry rhododendron branch into the hearth, and his face reflected the red light of fire, and said, "He is beautiful in heart." ”

Sanji knew that his mother was beautiful when she saw that she was capable of taking care of her family.

At this time, someone was notified to draw lots, and the village used this method to produce six pickets who were divided into three groups every day to block outsiders at various intersections.

Father got up, and Sanchi followed him.

The summit is still shrouded in wind, snow and clouds, and in the depression below the yellow grassy slope with bulging bellies, the people of the settlement have set up their tents here.

The men gathered in front of the tent of the village chief's house, and the village chief folded some meadowsweet twigs beside the tent, pouted short sticks of different lengths, held them in his hands with one of his fingers, and announced the rule: "The one who draws the longest will be on duty tomorrow." Let's come back tomorrow night to see who should be on duty the day after tomorrow. ”

A cold wind was blowing in the sky, and the men put their hands in the placket of their leather robes, and the village chief held the short stick and raised his hands in front of the people. The fourth man was Sanchi's father. The father did not take his hand out of the placket of his robe, he looked at his son.

The village chief asked, "Let Sanji smoke?" ”

Sanchi's outstretched hand retracted.

Because the first three people all smoked short ones. He remembered a word that Mr. Dobujie had said in math class: probability. At that time, he did not understand. Now, he understands something. The first three are all short, so maybe the long ones should appear.

So, he said to the village chief: "Let others draw first, and I will do the math." ”

The men laughed: "Do the math, are you a lama who can tell divination?" ”

Sanji shook his head: "I'm going to do the math." ”

Their neighbor in the settlement held out his hand: "Oh, this doll pretends to be older than a lama!" ”

The village chief had twenty-eight sticks in his hand, six of them were long sticks, and three short sticks had been drawn, and then their neighbor drew a long stick, and then a short stick, and then another long stick. The person who drew the long stick called him unlucky. Although everyone was willing to be a picket to defend the Cordyceps Mountain in the village, no one wanted to be on the first day. Everyone understands that the harvest of the first day up the mountain may be better than the next three or four days.

At this time, Sanji said, "I've done it." He struck and drew a short stick.

Several times in the evening, the father said to his mother in the tent: "Your son, he said he was going to count, he was going to count!" ”

Sanji lay under the covers, listening to the wind whistling across the roof of the tent, and then turned out the tin stationery box from under the pillow, and felt three fat cordyceps, which transmitted the soft touch to his fingertips.

He heard his father whisper to his mother, "Is my son asleep?" ”

The mother said, "If you are not honest, the mountain god will be unhappy, and we will not be able to see Cordyceps with our eyes!" ”

The father said, "The old man of the mountain god is very busy, how can he have time to stare at you all day." ”

"The mountain god has a thousand and ten thousand eyes, and he can see anything."

Mother got up and left her father and burrowed into Sanchi's bed, she brought a warm breath, and her hand ran under Sanchi's armpit, gently embracing him. Her breasts were soft and warm. My father was still muttering to himself in the bed on the other side of the stove: "Count." ”

Sanji's body was slightly bent, and his posture was like cordyceps in a stationery box next to his pillow, relaxed and warm. He soon fell asleep.

He was awakened by the sound of drums.

There was no one in the tent, and there was a drumbeat outside.

He knew that it was the lama doing it.

The sky is clear and the sun is shining.

The meadow was illuminated golden. The snow-capped mountains above Cordyceps Mountain reveal ochre-colored cliffs and crystal snow above the cliffs under the blue sky.

People gathered by the stream. An altar has been built out of stone. The lama sits on the top and recites sutras with drums. The men lit cypress branches on the altar, and the fragrant green smoke rose into the blue sky. The ceremony came to an end when the cymbals and cymbals in the hands of the lamas made a loud sound. The men shouted in unison, and the sky was covered like snowflakes of wind and horses dedicated to the mountain gods.

Cordyceps season has officially begun.

The people who had been selected as pickets split up to guard the intersection, and the whole village of men and women set out for the hill. Each person has a small pickaxe and an enamel jar. People spread out on the hillside, lying on the grassy slope, searching for delicate brown grass shoots that were no more than a centimeter or two long.

Sanji also had a light pickaxe in his hand. When a cordyceps sprout appeared in front of him, he also followed the example of adults, brushed away the floating soil and dead grass around him, hoeed from the side of the grass sprout, and then pried it vigorously, he heard the sound of grass roots breaking, saw the ground cracking, and then slowly exerted force, in the center of the crack, the fat cordyceps appeared. He puffed out his cheeks, blew the floating soil off the cordyceps, carefully picked it up, and put it in the enamel jar. In all these actions, he is careful not to let the cordyceps have the slightest damage. In a few days, the cordyceps dealers will come, and they will always have one word in their mouths: quality, quality. The first is the condition, and the second is the condition. Just like the principal said, the first is to be a man, and the second is to be a man. Just like Mr. Dobujie said, the first is to learn, and the second is to learn. Just like Teacher Namu said, the first is love, the second is love, and the third is love.

In the mountains, the tall father was much more clumsy than himself and his mother.

First of all, he doesn't easily see the tiny cordyceps buds.

Second, I finally found out that his big hand was also at a loss to deal with this little thing.

When the sun was at its peak, the family stopped for lunch. Cold beef, pancakes, a thermos of hot tea. Sanchi gobbled it up. His father said he didn't eat well. The father sat upright, cut off the beef with a small knife, fed it to his mouth, and chewed it slowly. When drinking hot tea, it is necessary to make a comfortable exclamation. Sanji didn't care, three times five divided by two, and soon ate a little bit. He lay on the ground, counting three cordyceps in the enamel jar. His results were nineteen. Twenty-three mothers. The sire is the least, eleven.

The father smiled and said, "Little things are for children and women to see." Men's eyes are used to see both in the big and in the distance. ”

The mother said to Sanchi, "When your father was young, he was looking for prey and lost cattle, and he could see them from far, far away. The mother said to the father, "But now that I don't hunt or graze, I have to look at the details of the near area to dig Cordyceps." ”

When the father had eaten enough, he put the knife back in its sheath, wiped his mouth, rolled over and lay on his back on the grass, covering his face with his hat.

Sanchi looked at his father, and Sanchi always couldn't help but look at his father and mother. The father covered his face with a hat, but his ears were moving up and down. This is him teasing Sanji. It's the equivalent of those people on TV saying I love you. Father didn't say anything, he moved his ears up and down, amusing Sanji.

Sanchi's eyes were sharp, and he found a cordyceps sprout next to his father's ear.

He wedged the hoe into the soil, told his father not to move, and took out a fat cordyceps.

Then, he lifted the hat from his father's face and held the cordyceps in front of his eyes again.

The father was very relieved and said to his mother, "This child will not be raised in vain." It's not like your sister's son. ”

They were talking about Sanchi's sixteen-year-old cousin. He stopped going to the third grade of elementary school, and when he was fourteen or fifteen years old, he began to steal things, just to exchange a little money, to go to the town where the township government is located, or to play billiards in the county seat. He stole a cow and unloaded the spare tire of a truck parked in front of the hotel with another thug and sold it to a garage. On the third day of the fight, he was arrested and taken to the police station and detained for a week.

My cousin, who was wandering around, often did not come home, was so hungry that he ran to school to eat his meal.

On Sunday afternoon, on the grass behind the school, he once said to his cousin, "I'm glad you came to eat my meal." ”

The cousin gobbled it up and said, "Then you're a fool." ”

Sanchi said very seriously: "You came to eat my food, it means that you are not stealing." So I'm very happy. ”

The cousin said, "Fool! That's because the place is so poor and small that you can't steal anything! ”

Sanji was sad: "Please don't steal it." ”

My cousin also showed a sad expression: "I didn't get good grades in school, so I wanted to go back to be a herdsman like the adults, but the adults stopped herding." A rich family went to the county seat to open a shop, and our family was poorer than yours. You pretentious fellow, dare to teach me a lesson! ”

Sanchi didn't speak.

My cousin asked him to buy beer again. After drinking two bottles in one go, he borrowed wine and pretended to be crazy: "Those who study and do can go to college and become cadres." Wait until you become a cadre and then come to teach me a lesson! Then you say, what can I do if I don't steal? ”

Sanji buried his head in thinking for a long time, but he really didn't come up with any good solution, so he said, "Then you can steal less." ”

The cousin slapped him hard and walked away singing. That day, he stole a tape recorder from the school. After that, the school will not allow my cousin to come to him at school.

The principal said, "The school is not a place for hungry people to give food, please go where you should go." ”

Teacher Dobujie said, "Believe it or not, I can beat you up to see one person as three!" ”

My cousin slipped away. The expression on Mr. Dobujie's face softened, and he said to Sanji, "You can't help him now, only study hard, maybe you can help him in the future." ”

From then on, my cousin stopped stealing. He was a porter and helped people carry things. He helped tourists who climbed snowy mountains to carry things, helped people who explored mines to carry things, and finally, helped poachers carry antelope skins, and poachers went out of the mountains empty-handed, but he was caught by the mountain patrol team and went to prison for more than a year.

His father's remark reminded him of his cousin.

He remembered the words of Teacher Dobujie: "Your cousin is actually a good man. But prison is not a place to make a person better. ”

He wanted to wait for the cordyceps season to end and he had the money in his hand, so he went to the city to see his cousin. My cousin and sister are in the same city. The difference is that one is in school and the other is in prison. He wanted to buy his cousin a pair of gloves. Leather, all five fingers are exposed. My cousin used to wear a glove like that. That's what he picked up. But he likes to play billiards with a glove like that, and a baseball cap crooked on his head. Yes, he's going to buy him a new baseball cap. But he wouldn't buy a necklace for his cousin. The cousin's necklace was a plastic skull, but the surface was painted with metallic paint, which was really ugly. It was an image from a violent video game.

He sat on the grassy slope, thinking about his cousin in the sun, with a melancholy expression.

The mother complained to the father: "Why are you mentioning his cousin who is not angry? You made your son sad. ”

The father rolled over and touched his head: "Cordyceps is still waiting for us." ”

In the afternoon, Sanchi dug up more than a dozen cordyceps.

In the evening, back in the tent, my mother made a fire and rolled noodles. The water in the pot is boiling with beef slices and dried vegetable leaves, and today's dinner is a pot of hot noodles.

Sanji took a small soft brush to remove the debris from the Cordyceps one by one, and then arranged them neatly on a dry wooden board, and the moisture in the Cordyceps partially volatilized into the air and partly absorbed by the dry wooden board. By the time the cordyceps dealers show up at the camp, they will be ready for sale.

When my father came back from the lottery, the noodles were already in the pot. When the soup was boiling, my mother poured a small spoonful of cold water into the pot so that it would be quiet for a moment, and then it would boil again, and the slippery and fragrant noodles would be cooked.

The father drew another short stick.

The father said to Sanchi, "I will do the math from you." ”

This made Sanji laugh a lot.

As Sanji laughed, the tent curtain was lifted, and a man came in with a cold wind. The person who came was a lama.

The hostess specially washed a bowl with clean water, took a large bowl of noodles and respectfully handed it to the lama with both hands. The lama did not speak, but smiled and shook his hands.

The family didn't dare to take care of themselves, so they let the boiled dough melt into a pot of paste.

In previous years, at the end of the Cordyceps season, the lamas would come and collect some cordyceps from each household as a reward for their chanting practices at the opening ceremony of the cordyceps season. But on the first day of the mountain, I came to someone's house, and this was the first time. The lama didn't speak, and the family didn't understand what he meant, so everyone froze there.

The lama spoke, and he didn't say what he meant, but he said that according to everyone's legend, the son of this family named Sanchi was gifted and intelligent, and his grades in school were very good. The lama said, this is the root apparatus good. It's a pity that he didn't go to the temple to become a monk in his early years, but entered the school. School is good, go to college, go to the city, and enjoy the good fortune of this world alone. If you become a monk, succeed in your cultivation, and live on your own, then the whole family will enjoy good fortune, not only in this world.

As he said this, the lama's eyes were fixed on the cordyceps drying on a wooden board in the corner of the tent.

Those cordyceps are illuminated when the flame bursts out of the hearth, and when the flame retracts into the hearth, it disappears into the darkness and is not seen. Sanji shifted his ass to block the fire from the Cordyceps.

The lama smiled: "Sure enough, it's a smart seed!" ”

The lama also said, "Do you know? There are a lot of things in the Buddhist scriptures about shadows. How can the cloud shadow hide the mountain? ”

Sanji was annoyed and confronted the lama: "Seeing that the mountains are going to the wide grassy beach, you don't have to come to my narrow tent. ”

The father recited a Buddha name: "Little calf, revere the Three Jewels." ”

Sanji knew that the Buddha and his Dharma, as well as the lamas who preached his Dharma, were the Three Jewels. As soon as my father reminded him, he was also scared. At school, he had confronted the teacher, but he was not so scared afterwards.

The father said to the lama, "When the master comes to the poor house, please say anything about it." ”

The lama said: "Every year during the Cordyceps season, everyone goes to the mountain god's treasury to get treasures, and it is all up to us to pray for the old man, so that the old man does not get angry and punishes him." ”

My father said, "We know this, and when the cordyceps season is over, we will still present the thanksgiving ceremony as in previous years." ”

The smile on the lama's face disappeared: "The treasures in the mountains are becoming less and less, and the mountain gods are becoming more and more unhappy every year, and we have to exert several times more effort than in previous years to appease his old man from anger." ”

When it comes to this, the result is naturally clear. The lamas took one-fifth of the cordyceps from their first day's harvest and advanced a reward for doubling their efforts.

The lama took the cordyceps and politely took his leave. By this time, his dough had turned into a pot of batter.

The next day, when they went up the mountain, the lamas spread blankets on the grassy beach, sat on them, and beat bells and drums.

Sanji said to his father, "The lama will come tonight." ”

That night, the lama did not come.

They came on the evening of the fifth day. This time, two novices, one shaking the prayer chakra and the other holding a tray in his hand, stood at the door and said, "Twenty, twenty is enough." ”

Sanji couldn't help shouting, "Twenty, six hundred dollars!" ”

Afraid that he would say something more presumptuous, his mother reached out and covered his mouth.