The warm and beautiful things in Wang Taisheng.

It's Huangmeitian, it's raining outside in Mao Mao, there are tea leaves on the case, and the person who is drinking tea and chatting has just left. There are several jasmine flowers in the white porcelain teacup, and the tea rain is slightly cold.

On rainy days, find a few people to sit around, there is water on the roof, and a few people sit in the house, listening to the rain while drinking, singing while talking, forgetting fame and fortune.

Rain is falling all belongs to the kind of friend who refuses to make an appointment and invites once. The city where I lived at that time was very small. A city, he lives in the north gate and I live in the south gate. Once, on a rainy day, I invited him to come and sit. He wore an orchid shawl, rattled in the wind, and waddled in on a broken car. I got on the bus halfway and got a flat tire. On the second day, I "talked", pushed the car and walked 10, bringing a pack of pig's head meat "Xiaolachun" in the north of the city.

Of course I will think of Chen Laoda who writes poems. In spring, Chen Lao invited me to Xinghua Village for a drink. I said, where can I find Xinghua Village in this place? You're kidding. Boss Chen smiled and said, You are still writing an article. You have no mood at all. Isn't the place where there are apricot flowers the Xinghua Village? That day, I followed teacher Chen, not a donkey, but a car. I walked sixty or seventy miles and soon came to Wang Zengqi's hometown in a neighboring county. I ate a small Sagittarius smaller than Wang Zengqi's pen and stewed black pork.

One evening, I called Zhang Dage, and he said excitedly on the other end of the phone, I was on the boat, accompanying my friends to deliver goods in Chongqing, passing through the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River and in Wanzhou. I seem to see a man standing on the deck, smiling and radiant, with stars overhead and lights behind him, slowly moving the skyline.

Brother Zhang is the boss. He is always very busy, leaving a lot of things in the factory and accompanying people to deliver goods. The man was driving, afraid of dozing off, and wanted to talk to someone. Without saying anything, he took his precious camera and climbed into the truck.

Find someone to sit down, the tea rain is slightly cold. At this time, there is no hurry, no irrelevant boasting, no vanity.

One year, by the Fuchun River, Mr. Chen and I talked about visiting Dai on a snowy night. Boss Chen was drunk and grabbed my hand and said, "Brother, life is alive, that's what I want!" " "

The place to sit is not very big. There is a small room, private, five or six square meters. Four or five people sat together, and the coarse fiber food on the table was steaming. Boss Chen recited a poet's sentence: men are born to be the protagonists of pubs, and half of many things are done here. All kinds of people are dreaming, full of ambitions and want to get ahead.

A pub is a place to chat. There are changes in the world, emotions intersect, and the softest homesickness. On that day, Zhang Dage, who had just returned from delivering the goods, had mixed feelings: "When I was a child, my family was poor and I often went to school hungry. When I went to my classmate's house, I saw dried radish hanging at the door and secretly stuffed a few pieces into my mouth. The dried radish was too salty, so I drank the cold water in the tank. I really miss the past. "

On a warm rainy day, Kong wrote Peach Blossom Fan, Tang Xianzu wrote Peony Pavilion and Shen wrote Six Chapters of a Floating Life ... Peach Blossom Fan sang like this: "Do you remember that there was no old red board half a mile past Qingxi Bridge?" There are too few people in autumn water, and there is a cold picture, leaving a weeping willow. " Rain, hitting the particles and splashing like flowers, exudes a strong ancient fragrance, permeates the words of literati and their hearts, and suffocates with mist.

I'm not the only one looking for someone to sit around. In that steaming Song Dynasty, the poet Zhao Shixiu invited a friend to sit around. "Huangmei season, it rains at home, and frogs are everywhere in the grass pond. If you don't come at midnight, knock off the chess pieces and die. " Plums are ripe, ordinary people, white walls and tiles, hidden in the ink and mist rain, listening to frogs in the grass pool. Why hasn't the guest who has already made an appointment come yet? It's past midnight. Uncle Zhao patted the table with chess pieces in his hand, waiting for the guests, only looking at the wick. After a while, he dropped a piece. ...

On a rainy night, birds are singing in the trees and flowers are flying in the air. If someone asks me to go home alone, I won't refuse. Someone calls you at this time, which means that this person is still thinking about you.

Homesickness in the yard

I always felt that I used to live in a yard. That yard is not big, and there are several bunches of banana in the corner of the door, with sparse leaves. When a visitor comes to visit, people will stand under the door and draw green pictures on the knock knock Ring.

Once upon a time, there were many old yards in the town where I lived. In the old house lived former neighbors, who often had a well and osmanthus and loquat trees. Sitting alone under a tree, drinking slowly. At that time, I lived next to a street, and I could see vendors and pawns, with the narrowest shadow; The world of mortals is rolling and the city is shouting.

A private space, very secluded, reminds people of the word "seclusion". So the yard in the south of the Yangtze River is full of moisture, moss and colorful flowers. From the point of view of architecture and aesthetics, it is more suitable for living alone. Or, look down on teenagers and concentrate on their studies. Houses on the roadside, with wide doors and windows, are clear at a glance and full of wind, which is suitable for breaking the wall and opening a shop. Or, make a living.

Living in the yard, the fence resists the temptation outside. Most of the people pacing out of the yard are thin and thin. Just like one night, when I was reading Zheng Banqiao's Dianthus, I suddenly remembered the courtyard of my former residence that I visited many years ago, and then I looked at his portrait, only to find that Zheng Banqiao turned out to be a thin man.

Standing in the yard, you can recite a poem to explain a person's madness when he was young. One day, I naively told my friend that if I were young again and wanted to rent a yard to fall in love, I would plant five trees, peach, plum, apricot, Elaeagnus angustifolia and persimmon, eat different fruits and enjoy different flowers in different seasons.

A lot of beautiful love in this world takes place in the yard and then spreads from the courtyard wall. Just like Lu You and Tang Wan met in Shenyuan, of course, in the south of the Yangtze River in spring, a big yard with deep vegetation. At that time, the leaves were thick, the pool was clear and the air was sweet. If there is no blue brick wall around, a touching and beautiful story will lack a box to hold. There is also an ancient scholar, Master WeChat, who wrote love letters on leaves and sent the cleanest feelings to each other through a Qingxi outside the courtyard wall. Those courtship confessions, across the wall.

After all, it is a quiet place to live. No one outside knows who is alive, what he said and what happened. In a small courtyard near Canglang Pavilion in Suzhou, Shen and Yunniang lived, and the love words in Six Chapters of a Floating Life inadvertently revealed the secret of the courtyard.

The courtyard has a subtle and beautiful artistic conception. In autumn, I lie in bed and think, will the fallen leaves in the yard be blown away by a gust of wind and become a distant past, just like on the thoroughfare? The fallen leaves in the yard probably only hover in the yard, just like a person's heart is full of joy or great sadness, and he will never leave.

Every old yard has its expression. Some courtyards have been decadent and deserted, and the descendants of the house are rushing for fame and fortune.

In the ancient village, I saw a pair of wooden doors left unlocked, leaving a wide gap between them. People stood outside the door and looked through the door. The courtyard is covered with moss and sometimes uninhabited.

In the past, the doors installed in the newly-built quadrangles of Huizhou people were asymmetrical. Half wide and half narrow, leave a gap, and then fill that half door when future generations are promising. In front of this family, until the last old man left, the door was left unlocked, and the wandering son never came home.

The quadrangles in Beijing are lively and noisy; The jstars courtyard is in the northwest, empty; The Xiaoxiang Pavilion and Garden in A Dream of Red Mansions are elegant and luxurious.

I like the low-key and restrained civilian compound in Jiangnan, with dense fish scales and thin tiles on the roof. The old courtyard with peeling bricks has some grass and some humidity, but the vegetation is dense and the space is compact.

I want to find an ancient courtyard, climb the high wall like I did when I was a child, and look up at all loves. I rode on a mulberry tree in the corner of the yard and ate red, ripe, sweet and sour mulberry fruits.

The small courtyard that I have never lived in is the homesickness of a middle-aged man.

A glum guest was sitting on the old stove.

After living in the countryside and the city for many years, I want to have a bite of dried pickles stewed on the old stove and braised pork belly. The old man drank too much wine, and his mouth was weak, and he wanted to eat the old taste of pork belly. Once, in a hotel, Lao Ju dreamily asked the waiter if he had pork belly cooked with miscellaneous branches, which made people look at a loss. I have seen old people eat braised pork belly, such as an old sow arching up and her throat turning over.

Cooking porridge with firewood, rice porridge has the fragrance of resin and vegetation, which is the smell of fireworks rising in the air and soaking in rice. The stove crackled, and the jumping flames licked the bottom of the pot, flickering.

Firewood, piled in front of the villagers' houses. I watched the sunrise in the ancient village near Huangshan Mountain and stood halfway up the mountain at dawn. At this time, the morning light in the village was dim, white tiles were stuck on the walls, and smoke was curling up in the kitchen. Under every thin chimney, there is a Huizhou woman who bends down and cooks breakfast with firewood.

Old stove, seclusion in the old days. Brick, with yellow mud and lime paste, boiled coarse vegetables and miscellaneous grains that are simple, happy and easy to satisfy all year round.

In recent years, although many small restaurants have been opened in the city in the name of the old stove. Old chrysanthemum said that he never went to those places and restaurants, only form without soul, maybe just reduced to a trademark.

In the kitchen, there are sausages, fish with Chinese sauerkraut, chicken and trotters ... how authentic the taste of the old stove is.

When cooking with straw, roll a straw handle and add it to the stove chamber. The straw catches fire, the flame rolls, and the stove is covered with a puff. Rice straw cooks porridge, firewood goes out, and a star is like a bean. Water vapor permeates, "Gollum, Gollum", and porridge flowers overflow slightly.

The old stove is a warm place in winter. The first desire in life begins with the stove. The pot is like dream firewood, as bright as dark. I once put down two long and big sweet potatoes, and the sweet potato smell baked with firewood ash on the old stove.

Old chrysanthemum still remembers the lively atmosphere of frying leeks with cotton stalks in her hometown. The first knife cut the leek into inches, put the pot on the fire, and pour the leek in. "Snoop, snoop", the firewood goes out in an instant, the residual heat of the pot is passed down in one vein, and the fragrance of leeks permeates the earthen houses in the countryside.

A person who likes to walk a long way and look back from time to time will feel blue when his temples are frosted. Old people often dream that when they were young, they picked up leaves and cooked with branches in an iron pot on the stove to cook delicious rice. Old chrysanthemum said that when he retired, he wanted to rent an open space, put three stones into a triangle, hold a small iron pot, bring a large bundle of miscellaneous branches as fuel, and wash rice for cooking.

"Cow dung porridge", porridge cooked with dried cow dung, has a special flavor. Wet cow dung, spread on the wall, dry cow dung, shovel it down as firewood to cook porridge. Cattle eat grass, and dried cow dung can naturally be used as firewood. Once, Lao Ju told me a joke that there was an in-laws visiting the countryside in the city. He only knows that cow dung porridge is delicious, but he doesn't know what cow dung porridge is. When cooking porridge, I broke off a small piece of dried cow dung and put it in porridge, thinking that I could cook a pot of "gurgling" porridge, but I didn't know that it was cooked with dried cow dung as firewood. When the old house tells a story, he laughs first.

I also miss the firewood under the stove, the flame of firewood, and rushing among the flowers. In the Qing Dynasty's Tiaoding Collection, it was said that food was cooked with different firewood, and different firewood had different tastes.

Thinking of me in the country, I sat under the stove, pulling the bellows with one hand and adding firewood to the pot with the other, adding corn stalks, cotton stalks, miscellaneous branches and reed stalks to make the stove crackle. At that time, I said to my cousin who was cooking on the stove, is the fire big enough? I am hungry and thirsty. Can I have a bowl first?

People will become sentimental when they reach a certain age. This Spring Festival, I want to go to my relatives' home in the countryside for the Spring Festival. I took a spoon and shovel on the old stove and tried my best to chop wood and cook.

Perhaps, we are just a passer-by by the old stove, and the stove is just a symbol. The melancholy guest on the old stove has wet fog and misty water vapor in his heart; Mouth has the old taste of the past, ruminating like a cow; My eyes are full of smoke swimming across the sky.

Warm and beautiful things

Insects crow at night, turning over Zhang Dai's "Sailing in the Night", there is a saying that "Guo friends arrive at night and cut leeks in the rain to make cakes". The spring leek cut in the rain at night, with a few strokes, illustrates the relationship between two people, and the distance between them appears as a clear watermelon.

Some things are warm and beautiful to think of.

On a rainy day, there are people at home, and there is nothing to entertain. I thought there was a bed behind the house, and leeks grew happily in the rain. So I took an umbrella or a hat and went to the field in the dark to cut touch of green leeks and bake leek cakes.

The cut leek is crystal clear with dew. Bake leek cake, chop leek inch by inch, mix the batter with green powder, and bake in a firewood iron pot. The pot is not hot, and the cake is not attached. Soon, the smell of leeks overflowed the hut. There are two people in the window. You don't need wine at this time, you can help yourself. Their feelings are as close as rain and leaves.

Some things are warm and beautiful when you think of them.

A pair of old tables and chairs left by our ancestors are very quiet. Dally all the year round, rubbing and wiping, the vegetables are stumbling and the soup overflows. Winter is cold and hard, and summer absorbs sweat. A woman with a bun, a child with a drooping head, an old man ... who thought? What did you put in?

When I was a child, I heard from my grandmother that my life was simple and barren. One day, a pro-guard came to the door, and grandma ran out of rice in the jar, so she quickly went to her neighbor's house to borrow it. Grandma borrowed three kilograms of rice, and the guests didn't know it. Grandma borrowed food from the guests without telling them, and pretended to be fat. She smiled and told the guests that there was no worry about money and coal. If you have anything, just ask.

When I was fifteen or sixteen, I went to visit my relatives in the countryside. Living in a village and going to a house, the host was surprised when he saw a guest coming to his house. He was in a hurry and didn't know what to entertain. He was rubbing his hands and hesitating when he suddenly saw a pear tree outside the house, full of pears with bent branches. Autumn is when pear trees bear fruit. The host was overjoyed and rushed to the door to bring back a handful of pears.

Pear trees are outside the door, blooming in spring and selling white incense; As a result of autumn, the shovel is silent. Picking pears is within reach, but sometimes the owner forgets the existence of this pear tree.

I came by boat from a small town hundreds of miles away. I live in Dongzhuang first. A relative got the news and walked 15 miles from Xizhuang to Dongzhuang to meet me at his house. Having dinner at noon, sitting and chatting, relatives said that the children came all the way, and there was nothing delicious in the country. Just then, he suddenly patted his thigh and said, I remember. Grain Rain ordered some melon seeds in the field across the Dongtou River. I don't know. Has it been solved? Relatives piled up their rice bowls and went to that field. After a long struggle, they picked two thin melons.

In fact, in my opinion, rural cantaloupe is the most suitable for painting. The color temperature of melon is blue, melon is fragrant and melon lines are clear. Compendium of Materia Medica says: "When planted in February and March, there are tendrils, big leaves, yellow flowers in May and June, and ripe melons in June and July."

Wet beauty is mostly related to the situation. For example, apricot blossom and spring rain, fine breeze and fine moon, sitting by the window drinking, two or three intimate friends walking together. Sometimes, on the journey, people will meet one or two strangers.

Go to the mountains to see the lake and live in the county. When I got up in the morning, I opened the window and saw a woman standing on the balcony opposite, combing her hair in the morning breeze. Not far behind, the lake is breathing slightly and people are in the scenery.

Look for tea in Jiangnan town in case it rains. Look at those tea sellers, taking their time, sitting in a half-bright and half-dark shop, immersed in the shadow of tea fragrance, narrow streets and friendly lights.

There is an interesting childhood story in Zhang Chonghe's Little Garden is Things. When Xiao Chonghe was still in infancy, he adopted it to his great-aunt Li. Zhixiu is Li Hongzhang's niece, who has given Bug the softest feelings since childhood. When Zhang Chonghe was a child, the concept of mother was vague. Living with my aunt, she even thinks that "I was born to my grandmother", which is childish, moist and lovely.

I had a similar experience when I was a child. I thought I picked it up from a fishing boat, and my brother was born during my menstrual period. At that time, menstruation often came from the countryside and lived for ten days or half a month. Menstruation often puts my brother to sleep and makes small clothes by hand. I often compete with my brother for milk. At that time, the milk was really fragrant, full of fragrance, much better than the milk now. This is milk from the 1970s.

Simple things are a thing of the past. Some things, after many years, feel warm and beautiful when I think of them.

Wang Taisheng

Member of Jiangsu Writers Association. His works are scattered in 100 newspapers such as Prose, Yuhua Literature Newspaper, People's Daily and Yangcheng Evening News. Many articles were reprinted by Reader and Youth Digest, selected as the best anthology of the year in China, and designed as Chinese exercises for middle schools.