Lucheng is rich in kites.

Kite, also known as wood harrier.

Craftsmen use bamboo and wood to make skeletons, cover their faces with silk or paper, and paint by hand. It seems simple, but it contains complex and exquisite skills, including four steps: "piercing, pasting, painting, and putting".

Materials need to be selected before binding, and the materials usually used to tie the skeleton are bamboo, rattan white wood strips, reed and spruce wood strips, etc. Taking moso bamboo as an example, it generally has to go through five processes: selecting bamboo, breaking bamboo, cutting bamboo, repairing bamboo and bending and forming. After the skeleton is ligated, the next step is to paste the painted paper or silk on it, which is called "mounting".

The kite of Lucheng does not focus on the natural shape, but seeks to write the god in the form, in the crane, swallow, butterfly, cicada all kinds of outside, also as a variety of characters, full of ingenuity.

Once the kite is made, the last step is to fly it. Every time the wind is stable and refreshing, in the suburbs of the city, the river is flooded, on the beach, the tourists are mixed, each carries the spool, competes to fly kites, competes with each other, and is not lively.

However, there are people in this city who make kites for another purpose: to spread the word.

Yuan Wei stood in his home, looking up at the gradually darkening sky outside the wall, and the hope in his eyes slowly dimmed with the sky. The wind is stable and the sky is clear, the moon and stars are scarce, so good weather, why don't kites come yet?

The little maid Ling'er walked out of the house, looked left and right carefully, and then walked to Yuan Wei's side and comforted softly, "Miss, go back to the house, it's cold now, and the dew is heavy at night, so be careful that your body is frozen." ”

Yuan Wei stood still in a daze, and after a while, a string of tears rolled out of the corners of her eyes, "Ling'er, hasn't it been here for a few days?" ”

Seeing Yuan Wei's appearance, a fire suddenly rose in Ling'er's heart, so she puffed up angrily, "Why did Miss break her body for someone like him, if the kite doesn't come, it won't come, and we won't be uncommon with his broken letter......"

"In the past, he would send a letter in a kite every three days, but this time, why is it so long?" Yuan Wei said to herself, as if she hadn't heard Ling'er's words, "He shouldn't be sick, right?" Ling'er, you go out tomorrow to inquire. ”

Ling'er knew that she couldn't persuade her, so she sighed in her heart and said perfunctorily, "Okay, I'll go out to inquire tomorrow, shall we go back to the room now?" The dish has been heated several times, so you have to eat a little. ”

Yuan Wei shook his head lightly, "I'm going to wait here, I remember one day, he was so entangled in things that he only put the kite up when he was in ......"

"Okay, then young lady, you just wait here, don't talk about the war, just wait until the time of the morning and the hour, and see if you can wait for the kite." Ling'er had persuaded her for a few days, but she had returned in vain every time, so she was annoyed now, so she gritted her teeth and threw down a sentence, turned around and walked towards the room, crying as she walked.

Yuan Wei and Chen Yong met two months ago, on that day, Ling'er accompanied Yuan Wei to the suburbs to walk in autumn, and as soon as the two walked to a wooden bridge, Yuan Wei was hit on the shoulder by a kite falling from the sky.

Yuan Wei was not injured, but became interested in the kite that hit him, it is a soft-winged butterfly, different from the butterfly wings of traditional kites, which are separated from the top and bottom of the butterfly wings, it is a living wing, fixed skeleton. After the flight, the wings are flared and lifelike, and from a distance, they look like a real butterfly flying in the air.

"I wonder who has such a pair of skillful hands to make such a realistic kite?" Yuan Wei was holding it and admiring it, and the owner of the kite appeared, he was Chen Yong.

Chen Yong is a young scholar, about the same age as Yuan Wei. When the two met, Yuan Wei didn't do anything, Chen Yong blushed first, if it weren't for Ling'er accusing his kite of hurting her young lady, Chen Yong probably stood on the bridge until dark, and couldn't hold back a word.

"Right...... Sorry. ”

Ling'er remembered that Chen Yong only said these three words from beginning to end that day, and Yuan Wei only replied with three words, "I'm fine." ”

But two days later, when she accompanied Yuan Wei for a walk in the garden, she saw the butterfly kite again, it flew very low, just on the treetops outside the courtyard, its wings fluttering, and the yellow and green patterns on its body were gilded with a layer of brilliant light by the sun.

The two were looking at the butterfly in a daze, but its thread suddenly broke, and the butterfly fell and fell into the grass in the garden.

"Miss, this butterfly has a letter tied to it." When Ling'er hurriedly took the envelope to Yuan Wei, she found that her face was as red as Chen's face that day, but her eyes were very bright, as if they were covered with dew.

"Ling'er, you throw the butterfly out and tell him, Xin...... Roger. ”

Yuan Wei told her so, and Ling'er did as she was told, but vaguely, she felt that she had done something wrong, especially when she saw Yuan Wei secretly hiding the letter in her cuff.

Since then, butterflies have become messengers. It waits punctually in the treetops every three days, like the moon that rises every night, and never misses an appointment. And under Yuan Wei's pillow, the envelopes have been stacked more and more, and she falls asleep with them every day, waking up with a sweet and shy smile on her face.

But this time, the butterfly hadn't been here for ten days.

On the day it missed its first appointment, Yuan Wei didn't sleep all night. Before dawn the next day, she had already gotten up, put on a dressing gown and ran into the courtyard, and in the company of the moon that had not yet disappeared, she pulled the grass and searched carefully inch by inch. However, the butterfly was not there, and the same was true on the third and fourth days, and until now, ten days have passed, and the butterfly has not appeared.

"The butterfly of the east family flies to the west, and the white riding boy returns today."

On the night of the tenth day, after Ling'er left in a bad mood, Yuan Wei stared at the treetops and muttered a poem, she smiled, and then answered herself, "The white horse boy never returned." ”

"Whoa."

As soon as the words fell, a gust of wind suddenly set off on the ground, and the trees outside the wall were blown and shaken, and the canopy was filled with wind, as if it had swelled all of a sudden, like a monster with teeth and claws.

Yuan Wei was shocked, and when he looked at the canopy again, he found that there was a hazy black shadow on it, floating around on the top of the tree, and there was a faint sound of "Zheng Zheng" bamboo whistle.

Fear was replaced by joy in an instant, Yuan Wei walked to the courtyard wall, and before he could speak, tears had already fallen, "Gongzi Chen, you are finally here." ”

After speaking, he suddenly realized that something was wrong, because the black shadow on the top of the tree was obviously several times larger than the butterfly used by Chen, and there was no blue and green pattern on its body, but it was black, as if it had been coated with a layer of black paint, and if it did not move, it would almost dissolve into the night.

"Zheng Zheng."

There was another bamboo whistle, and the thing rose from the top of the tree, fanning a strange wind, and blowing Yuan Wei to the ground. From this angle, Yuan Wei could clearly see the two patterns hidden under it, which were two crimson characters for "Shou", which were set off by the night like dried bloodstains.