Mother said, sooner or later, your father will become a tree. I said, mother, you really know how to tell jokes, how can my father become a tree? My mother glanced at me, then looked out the window, "Don't believe me, go to the orchard and have a look."

So I came to the apple orchard. The apple orchard in spring is the best way to reflect the vitality of spring. The flowers bloomed into a mountain, competing in the sun; The eternal bees do their eternal work tirelessly, flying from flower to flower, from tree to tree. I sniffed the apple blossom and I felt like it was the best in the world. I understand why my dad is obsessed with apple orchards.

I found my dad in the grove of fruit trees in my house. My father didn't look at the flowers, he didn't see the bees dancing, he didn't smell the apple blossoms, he stood in front of a tree that was beginning to wither, stroked the trunk with his hand over and over again, and muttered, "Another red Fuji is dead." I read the sadness in my father's eyes and in his gray hair.

Eighteen years ago, my family's orchard was a wheat field. A field of green wheat. In response to the call of the superiors to vigorously develop the fruit and wood industry, the village head, Pingyuan, turned our wheat field into an orchard. Saplings were brought in from the prefecture. In one day, the best wheat fields in the village were filled with large and small tree pits, like a gorgeous garment cut by merciless scissors. At that time, my dad and I went to plant trees. I dug a bunch of holes with my shovel, and my dad was still squatting on the ground and smoking cigarettes. I walked up to my dad and said, "Dig it, Dad, we'll have apples in a few years." My dad spat out a puff of cigarette, stared straight at the wheat field, sighed and said, the wheat seedlings are almost jointed.

That year, my family was the last to plant trees in the village.

A few years later, the apple tree had grown, and the wrinkles on my father's face had been smoothed out by the apple leaves. My father's laughter began to echo in the apple orchard, often shaking the leaves and the dewdrops. My father went to the township forestry station to learn the knowledge of fruit tree management, and he was very interested in taking care of apples. Pressing, threshing, watering, fertilizing, spraying, he is tree by tree. Every branch, every leaf, passed through his hands. My dad had a taste of apples in his hands.

My dad was tired. He single-handedly farms more than 10 acres of land and manages an orchard. My siblings went to school and then went to work, and rarely helped the family. My dad grew up in the ground all year round. When the orchard blossomed and bore fruit, my father had a cart of bricks pulled and a small house built in the orchard. My father lived and ate in the orchard. My mother brought him food every day. My mother said, you are an old thing, you can just find another woman to live in the orchard together, and I will not have to serve you every day. My dad took a bite of the steamed bun and smiled wiltingly, you don't know yet, I already looked for it. My mother glared and asked in a different voice, who is she? My dad just pointed to the orchard, the apple tree, who else?

Apple picking is the happiest time for our family. My sisters and I came home to help, and the orchard was filled with the laughter of our family. My father climbed up the tree like a young man, picked a basket full of apples, and then shouted to my son and my nieces and nieces, children, and then the old man's basket, eat with your belly open, and I will let you eat a round melon. The children flew over with their wings like swallows, and scrambled for the baskets, which jumped and rolled in their hands, and the apples flowed down their heads to the ground. I looked at the children, and I became a child. I ran up to them and fought with them. I snatched the biggest apple in my hand, wiped it with my sleeve, and was about to put it in my mouth, but my father jumped down from the tree and snatched the apple in one hand, boy, eat the small one, the big one sells for a high price!

The apples that year were indeed sold at a good price, a piece of five and a half pounds, and my father had thousands of dollars in his hands. My dad invested in a small three-horse and a pesticide machine. My father said that this kind of apple is better than growing wheat, and I can make more than 10,000 pieces for the New Year!

However, the second year did not go well. Autumn is rainy, humid and muggy. In the dense orchard, the apples rotted in large quantities and fell like rain. My father wanted to dispose of those non-rotten apples as soon as possible, but the country roads were as soft as noodles, and the transport carts couldn't get in or out, and more than 10,000 catties of apples turned into sauce. My dad buried all the sauce in the orchard, and his face was covered in sauce.

The following year was surprisingly dry. There was often no rain in the spring, the river dried up, and the water in the well was pitiful. First, the apple blossoms of one tree quickly withered and withered due to the lack of water nourishment, and then the water-loving red Fuji apple trees died one after another. My father could not help it, he stroked the dry trunk of the tree with his hand over and over again, looking at the clear sky without a trace of clouds, and the old tears dripped silently under the apple tree.

The radio speaker in the village, which had been idle for many years, came from the voice of the village chief, Brother Pingyuan. Brother Pingyuan said that the county has approved our village to build a large auto parts market in the apple orchard. Brother Pingyuan also said that now is the industrial age, the orchard is not needed, and the whole village will cut down all the fruit trees within three days!

The apple tree is my father's woman. The apple tree is my father's soul. When the apple trees were finished, my father had no woman, no soul. My dad started not coming home all day. My mother called him, but he didn't reply. I called him, but he didn't reply. My sisters came to call him, and he didn't reply. He either circled around the treeless orchard, or stood in the orchard looking at the sky in a daze. My mother said, your father is ruined, he is no longer human, he will become a tree sooner or later.

My mother was right. On the fifth day of May, I went to the orchard to see my father. I bypassed the people who were preparing to build the auto parts market, searched the entire orchard, and did not see the shadow of his old man. In front of a pit where fruit trees had been cut off, I really found that my dad had grown into a fruit tree.

It was an old tree with branches and leaves pointing straight to the sky.