3300 meters above sea level.

The bell rang for the boarding school.

Sanchi looked back from the top of the shallow hill at the place where the bell rang. It was the seat of the township government. Twenty or thirty houses were scattered in the middle of the depression. The three-storey building is the township government. The two-storey, curved ruler-shaped building was the school he had just left.

It was the beginning of May 2014 and the air was moist. In the past winter, there was only the smell of freezing in my nose, the smell of dust in the wind. What filled his nostrils was the smell of the vapor that melted snow had spread into the air, the smell of frozen soil awakening, and the smell of grass that had just sprouted.

It's a belated taste of spring at high altitudes.

At the first bell, the sun showed its clouds. The sky, the undulating earth, and the meandering waters all light up. The first bell is called the preparatory bell. When the bell rang, Sanchi seemed to see that the girls were already sitting quietly in the classroom. The boys don't run from the dormitory, from the playground, from the toilet, from outside the school gate to the classroom upstairs. Clothes shook, ill-fitting shoes popped. The boys like to run like this, they like to push and bump in the stairwells and hallways, and run into the classroom in a crowd. These children in the process of enlightenment like to gasp for breath and sit in the classroom, like little beasts, spitting out puffs of white smoke from their mouths on a cold morning.

By the time the bell rang for the second time, the classroom was silent, save for the boys' gasps after a violent run.

The bell rang for the third time, and it was the official bell for class.

Teacher Dobuje or Teacher Namu began to take names.

Start at the table in the middle of the first row.

Then left, then right.

Then the second row, then the third row.

Sanji's seat was in the middle of the third row, with the shy girl Jinhua.

Now, it's time to name him. Today is Wednesday and the first period is math class. Then it should be Teacher Namu who is named. Teacher Namu pronounced his name in her sweet, always shy-sounding voice, "Sanchi." ”

There was no answer.

Teacher Namu raised her voice: "Sanji! ”

Sanchi seemed to hear his classmates laughing. As soon as she raised her eyes, she could see that the middle of the third row was empty, but she buried her head in the roll call book and read it again: "Sanchi! ”

At this time, Sanji was standing on the hill where he could see the elementary school, the playground and the red flag, facing the air of water vapor, learning the teacher's tone: "Sanji! ”

Then, he laughed: "I'm sorry, teacher, Sanji skipped school!" ”

At this moment Sanji had crossed the hill and descended a few steps down the hillside to the south, where the school and the houses in the township had disappeared from his sight. He began to run down the hill. He ran, like many children on the steppe, not in a hurry, but in order to let the soft wind blow in his face, to run and pant like an energetic little beast. In the spring, the grass slope has become soft and elastic under their feet, much like the plastic track in the school when they moved to the provincial capital after the earthquake.

A ridge more than half a meter high appeared under his feet, and Sanji jumped down easily. The hurdle was picked out by the yaks when they sharpened their horns.

He jumped over clumps of snowy rhododendrons with only bare hard branches, and in a few days they would bloom with new shoots, and in another month, they would have fine purple flowers.

Next to the azalea bushes was a small patch of remnant snow, and he heard the hard shell of the remnant snow shatter beneath his feet. Then, the sky swirled in front of his eyes, and that was when he slipped and fell on the snow. He fell on his back, his ears hearing the sound of something inside his body vibrating. He laughed, he picked up the voice of his classmates and said, "Teacher, Sanji skipped school." ”

The teacher didn't believe it. Sanchi is the student who loves to learn the most. Sanchi was also the top student.

The teacher said, "Is he sick?" ”

"Teacher, Sanji heard that the school will not have a cordyceps holiday this year, so he ran home."

Originally, the schools on the grassland had to give Cordyceps holidays every May. The season of digging Cordyceps is the most abundant harvest season of the year for people on the grassland. Traditionally, schools have to take a two-week cordyceps holiday for students to go home and help. Now that grazing has been returned to grassland and the ecology has been protected, the herders who have moved to the settlements have less places to graze. The family's firewood, oil, and salt, the money for the temple support, the money for new clothes and furniture, the money for the children who grow up to go to school in distant places, and the money for medical treatment, all count on this short cordyceps season. Sanchi's sister attends middle school in the provincial capital. Both father and mother complained that my sister was spending too much money on dressing up. Sanchi, who had studied at a school in the city, knew that his sister's expenses were necessary. She's going to wear a skirt and she's going to wear pants. Wearing a skirt and pants should be worn with different shoes. Leather shoes, cloth shoes, plastic shoes.

During the winter vacation, when my sister came home, my father complained that she spent hundreds of dollars on dressing up.

The father also talked about my grandmother's illness, which made my sister cry with guilt.

At that time, Sanji said to his sister, "Girls should dress up in fancy ways." ”

My sister laughed, and at the same time stretched out her hand to hit him: "Fancy branches, this is a derogatory term!" ”

Sanchi flipped through the dictionary: "It didn't say it was a derogatory term. ”

"When it comes out of a person's mouth, it's a derogatory term."

Sanchi closed the dictionary: "It's a nice and beautiful word!" ”

The parents could not understand the conversation between the two siblings in the Chinese they had learned in school.

The mother, who spun the woolen thread with a spindle, smiled: "You speak like a cadre from the village!" ”

Sanji's father, who changed the soles of his boots, said: "Being a cadre attracts hatred, but it is better to be a teacher in the future." ”

Sanji said: "When Cordyceps is off this year, I have to earn 2,000 yuan. 1,000 yuan for my sister, 1,000 yuan for my grandmother to see a doctor! ”

Grandma doesn't speak.

He does not speak when he is sick, and he does not speak when he is not in pain.

Hearing Sanchi's words, she became happy, but still did not speak, but grinned toothlessly and laughed.

However, when the Cordyceps holiday was about to be released, a person in charge of the school came from above and said, "Cordyceps fake, what Cordyceps fake!" We can't let money worship defile the hearts of the next generation! ”

As a result, Sanchi's plan was about to come to naught. If he can't keep his promise to his sister and grandmother, he will become an empty talker.

So, he made up his mind to skip school.

So, he ran out of school this morning, before the school bell rang.

The bell, he thought, is not yet the bell without me.

It turned out that the school shook a copper bell in and out of class. When a small truck came up from the township to collect rags, the bell disappeared from the school. The bronze bell, polished by the hands of the principal and the teacher on duty, had a red tassel tied to the handle, and it was usually placed on the windowsill of the principal's office. Dew falls on the morning in summer, and frost forms in the morning of late autumn and early spring. In winter, there is nothing on it, but the luster is hoarse from the cold.

The tattered truck came and went, and the brass bell was gone.

Everyone is chattering about the legend that it was a classmate with unclean hands and feet who did it.

Legend has it that he played an all-night game at an internet café with the money he exchanged for copper bells. He killed a lot of monsters on the computer screen and shot down a lot of weird-looking planes.

I heard that the teachers also held a special meeting to discuss whether to find out this guy. Later, it was the principal who said, "Child, child, this kind of thing is still not over." ”

The principal went to the county seat to see his asthma, and brought back an electric bell from the county education bureau by the way. The electric bell is wired and installed on the lintel of the principal's office. As soon as the switch was pressed from the house, Ding Lingling's voice sounded. Hurry, fast, whoever drives it is the same. Unlike the original bells, in the hands of different teachers, different rhythms will be shaken: "Ding-dong!" Ding-dong! Or: "Ding-ding-dang!" Ding Ding - Dang Dong! ”

I don't think about it, the electric bell is afraid of the cold, and in the winter of more than 20 degrees below zero, it rings for a few days, and it can't make a sound anymore.

Sanji and Zeren remembered a discarded car tire buried in the snow on the side of the road, and they lit a fire, burned the rubber on it, and got the remaining half of the broken steel rim back and hung it on the basketball hoop, which is now the clock of the elementary school. A stick struck it, and after a loud sound, there was a buzzing aftersound echoing, like a swarm of bees flying happily.

It's winter vacation, and the steel hoop is still hanging on the basketball hoop.

The man in the county town called "Rag King" came two or three times in his pickup truck, and the steel ring was still hanging from the basketball hoop.

Sanji told his father about it.

The father said, "Good causes bear good fruits, and you have a good principal." The ex-cattle herder, who spends his days doing nothing, also made a big fuss, saying that there are too many bad people today because there are too many police. My father said, "Bad people are not like Cordyceps, the more you dig, the less you dig. The bad guys are always getting more and more caught. Bad things are not the same as good things, and they are always looking for more and more. ”

Sanji learned his father's words to Mr. Dobujie. The teacher smiled: "Strange philosophy." ”

Sanji asked, "Strange meaning I know, what is philosophy?" ”

The teacher said, "I don't know about that." ”

Sanji was very smart: "I know, this don't know is unspeakable knowing, not my kind of ignorance." ”

The teacher was moved by this sentence and touched his head: "Soon, soon, I won't be able to teach you." ”

Mr. Dobujie usually wears an army green jacket, jeans with high military boots, and a beard, a very tough image, but there are tears in his eyes when he says this.

He made Mr. Namu laugh out loud like that.

Now, Sanchi is running away from the bell's call.

As he ran, he fell heavily on a pile of snow and fell to the ground on his back, the organs in his chest were shaken, and his brain buzzed like the steel rings on a basketball hoop after being struck.

Sanji was glad that he didn't bite his tongue.

Then, he turned sideways and pressed his face against the cold snow, which calmed the pain and the buzzing in his head.

At this time, he saw the first Cordyceps of the year!