The tea rain is slightly cool

It is a yellow plum day. There is a drizzle outside. There is tea on the table. The people drinking tea and chatting have just left. There is a lot of water in the white porcelain tea cup. A jasmine flower, the tea rain is slightly cool.

On a rainy day, find a few people to sit around. There is the sound of water on the eaves. A few people sit in the house, drinking wine, listening to the rain, chatting and singing, forgetting about fame and wealth.

Yu Er is the kind of friend who never fails to make an appointment and comes just once. At that time, the city where I lived was very small. A city, he lives in the north gate, I live in the south gate. Once, on a rainy day, I invited him to come over and sit. He came wearing a blue poncho, rustling in the wind, and riding a broken bicycle. Halfway through the road, the car had a puncture, so Yu Er pushed the car and walked 10 miles through the city with a sigh of relief, and brought a pack of pig head meat from "Xiao Lachun" in the north of the city.

Of course I think of Mr. Chen who writes poetry. In spring, Mr. Chen invited me to Xinghua Village for a drink. I said, where is the Xinghua Village in our place? Are you kidding me? Boss Chen laughed loudly, you are still writing articles, you have no sentiment at all. Isn't the place where there are apricot flowers the Xinghua Village? That day, I followed Mr. Chen, not on a donkey but in a car. After walking for sixty or seventy miles, I almost reached Wang Zengqi’s hometown in the neighboring county. I ate Little Cigu, who was even smaller than Wang Zengqi’s description, and Little Cigu stewed black pork.

One evening, I called Mr. Zhang, and he said excitedly on the other end of the phone that I was on a boat, accompanying a friend to deliver goods to Chongqing, and passed the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River. , is in Wanzhou. I suddenly saw a person standing on the deck with a smile on his face and a cheerful look, with a sky full of stars above his head, and behind him were the lights of thousands of houses and the slowly moving skyline.

Zhang Daguo is a boss. He is always very busy. He ignores a lot of things in the factory and accompanies people to deliver goods. The man was driving, afraid of dozing off, and wanted to find someone to talk to. Without saying a word, Zhang Dagu climbed into the truck with his precious camera.

Find someone to sit around and enjoy the cool tea and rain. At this time, there is no rush or impatience, no nonsense bragging, and no vanity.

One year, by the Fuchun River, Mr. Chen and I chatted about Prince Youxue’s night visit to Dai. Boss Chen was drunk, grabbed my hand and said, "Brother, this is what you want in life!"

The place to sit is not very big, there is a small room, private, five or six It's a square meter, with four or five people sitting around, and the crude fiber food is steaming on the table. Mr. Chen recited a sentence from a poet: Men are born to be the protagonists of the tavern. Half of the many things are done here. All kinds of people have wild imaginations, full of ambition, and want to get ahead.

A tavern is a place where you can talk, where you can see the ups and downs of the world, where you can have mixed feelings, and the softest nostalgia is spread. That day, Zhang Daguo, who had just returned from delivering goods, had mixed feelings: "When I was a child, my family was poor and I often went to school hungry. When I went to a classmate's house, I saw dried radishes drying at the door. I secretly took a few pieces and stuffed them into my mouth. The dried radishes were too salty and I scooped them out. Drinking the cold water in the water tank makes me miss the past."

On warm rainy days, Kong Shangren wrote "The Peach Blossom Fan", Tang Xianzu wrote "The Peony Pavilion", and Shen Sanbai wrote "Six Chapters of a Floating Life"... "Peach Blossom Fan" sang like this: "You remember that there is not a single old red board on the bridge half a mile across the Qingxi River. There are too few people in the long autumn day, and the deserted sunshine leaves only a willow tree bending over." The rainwater hits the grain, forming a pattern. Flower-like splashes exude a strong fragrance of ancient meaning, infiltrating the words of the literati and also their hearts, spreading the mist.

I am not the only one who feels like sitting around with someone. In the Song Dynasty, when the water vapor was everywhere, the poet Zhao Shixiu invited his friends to sit around and said, "It rains everywhere during the yellow plum season, and frogs are everywhere in the grassy ponds. I have an appointment and I can't come over until midnight, so I can knock the chess pieces and let the lanterns fall." When the plums are ripe, ordinary people will have pink walls and white flowers. The tiles were hidden in the misty mist of ink, and in the grass pond, the sound of frogs came from far and near. The guests we have made an appointment with have come, but why haven’t they come yet? Time flies past midnight. Uncle Zhao is tapping the chess piece on the table gently, waiting for the guests. He only sees the wick, and after a while, it falls off...

In the drizzling evening, There are birds chirping in the trees and the fragrance of flowers flows in the air. When I go home alone, if someone calls me on the way, I won't refuse. At this time, if someone calls you, it means that this person is still thinking about you.

Nostalgia in the courtyard

I have always felt that I once lived in a courtyard.

The yard is not big. There are several banana bushes in the corner of the door, with sparse leaves. When a visitor comes to visit, he lightly knocks on the door knocker, and when he stands under the door, people and paintings are all green.

Once upon a time, the small town where I lived had many old yards. The old house was inhabited by former neighbors, and there was often a well, as well as osmanthus and loquat trees. Someone would sit under the tree and drink wine leisurely. At that time, I lived next to a street, where I could see the shadows of hawkers and goons, the red dust billowing, and the roar of the market.

A private space has a strong sense of shelter, which easily makes people think of the word "seclusion". Therefore, in the courtyard of Jiangnan, moisture gathers, moss grows, and the colors are colorful. From an architectural and aesthetic point of view, it is more suitable for a person to live with a calm mind. Or, as a young man, he is reading without any distractions. As for the houses on the roadside, the doors and windows are open, giving a clear view, and the wind blows in. It is suitable for opening a shop and running a business through breaking the wall. Or, make a living.

Live in a courtyard with walls to protect you from the temptations outside. Most of the people walking out of the yard had pale faces and were thin. Just like one night, I was reading Zheng Banqiao's "Pictures of Dianthus" and suddenly remembered the small courtyard of his former residence that I had visited many years ago. When I looked at his portrait again, I realized that Zheng Banqiao turned out to be a thin man.

There is wind, flowers, snow and moon among the grass and trees at all times. Standing in the courtyard, you can recite a poem and interpret a person's youthful madness. One day, I naively told my friend that if I could go back to my youth and want to rent a yard and fall in love, I would plant 5 trees, peach trees, plum trees, apricot trees, Elaeagnus angustifolia, and persimmon trees, in different seasons. , eat different fruits and enjoy different flowers.

Many beautiful loves in this world happen in the courtyard, and then spread and grow from the courtyard wall. Just like Lu You and Tang Wan met in Shen Garden, of course it was Jiangnan in spring, a large courtyard with deep vegetation. At that time, the leaves were thick, the water in the pond was clear, and the air was sweet. If there were no green brick walls around it, there would be one less box to contain a touching and poignant story. There was also an ancient scholar who was a master of WeChat. He wrote love letters on leaves and sent his purest feelings to each other through a clear stream outside the courtyard wall. Those confessions of love pass through the wall.

After all, it is a place where quiet life flourishes. People outside have no way of knowing who lived there, what they said, and what happened. In a small courtyard near Canglang Pavilion in Suzhou, Shen Sanbai and Yun Niang lived. The romantic words in "Six Chapters of a Floating Life" inadvertently revealed the secrets of the courtyard.

The courtyard has a subtle and beautiful artistic conception. In autumn, I lay in bed and wondered, would the fallen leaves in the patio be blown away by a gust of wind like they were on the thoroughfare, and become a distant past? The fallen leaves in the courtyard are probably just hovering in the courtyard, just like a person who has great joy or great sorrow in his heart and will never leave.

Every old yard has its own expression. Some of the courtyards have become decadent and deserted, and the descendants of the houses are running around for fame and fortune.

In an ancient village, I saw a wooden door that was ajar, leaving a wide gap between the two doors. People stood outside the door and looked in through the crack in the door. The courtyard was covered with moss and had been uninhabited for some time.

In the past, Huizhou people installed asymmetrical doors in their newly built courtyards. Half of the door is wide and half is narrow, leaving a gap. When the descendants come out in the future, that half of the door will be patched up. The door of the house in front of me remained ajar until the last old man left, and the departing wanderer never returned home.

The courtyards in the capital are lively and noisy; the Qiao Family Courtyard in the northwest is lofty and open; the Xiaoxiang Pavilion and Yihong Courtyard in "A Dream of Red Mansions" are elegant and luxurious.

I like the low-key and introverted civilian courtyards in Jiangnan. The roof ridges are densely covered with fine fish-scale tiles. The old yard with peeling bricks has some weeds and some dampness, but the vegetation is thick and the space is compact.

I want to find an old courtyard and climb over the high wall like I did when I was a child. I look up and see the courtyard full of warm spring scenery. I sit on a mulberry tree in the corner of the courtyard and eat red ripe and sweet mulberry fruits. .

That small courtyard where I have never lived is the nostalgia of a middle-aged man.

A melancholy guest on the old stove

I came to the city from the countryside for many years and wanted to take a bite of the braised pork belly with dried pickles stewed on the old stove. Laoju drank too much wine, his mouth tasted dull, and he wanted to eat the old-style pork belly. Once, in a big hotel, Lao Ju asked the waiter, as if dreaming, if he had any pork belly cooked with twigs, which made the waiter look confused. I've seen Lao Ju eat braised pork belly, and it squeaks, squeaks, like an old sow eating with its throat bones turned over.

Use firewood to cook rice and porridge. The rice porridge has the fragrance of resin and vegetation. It is the rising smell of fireworks that permeates the rice. Under the stove, there was a crackling sound, and the jumping flames licked the bottom of the pot, flickering brightly and dimly.

Firewood is piled in front of the villagers’ houses. I watched the sunrise in an ancient village near Huangshan Mountain, standing on the mountainside at dawn. At this time, the village was dimly lit by morning light, with white walls and black tiles, and smoke curling from the kitchen. Under each chimney, which was as thin as a gossamer, there was a Huizhou woman hunched over, head lowered, making breakfast with firewood.

The old stove is hidden in the old times. It is built with adobe bricks, covered with yellow mud and lime, and cooked throughout the year. It is a simple, happy and easy-to-satisfy meal of coarse vegetables and grains for the whole family.

In recent years, many small restaurants named Laozaozai have been opened in the city. Lao Ju said that he never goes to those places, those restaurants, there is only form, no soul, it may just become a trademark.

In the kitchen, there are tinkling lights, hanging sausages, pickled fish, chicken, pig's trotters... The smell of the old stove is so authentic.

To cook rice with wheat straw, roll up a handle and put it into the stove. The hay is on fire, the flames are rolling, and the lid of the stove is popping. When making porridge with straw, the firewood is extinguished, and a star is like a bean. The water vapor is lingering, "Gulu, Gulu", and the porridge flowers are slightly rippling.

The old stove is a place that makes people feel warm in winter. The first desires in life all start from the stove. Inside the pot, there is a dreamy firewood ashes, bright and dark. There were once two long and large sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes were roasted with firewood and ashes on the old stove, and the fragrance was overflowing.

I remember the noisy atmosphere of frying leeks with cotton stalks in my hometown. I cut the leeks into inch-inch sections with a knife, put the pot on a high fire, poured in the leeks, "chi la, che la", the firewood It went out in an instant, and the residual heat of the pot was passed on in one pulse, and the earthen house in the countryside was filled with the fragrance of firewood and leek.

A person who likes to walk for a while and look back from time to time will feel melancholy in his heart if there is frost on his temples. Lao Ju often dreams about picking up leaves when he was a child, using the branches to cook rice in an iron pot on the stove, and cooking fragrant rice. Lao Ju said that after he retires, he wants to rent an open space, use three stones, arranged in a triangle, set up 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 fragrance. Wet cow dung is thrown on the wall in puddles. After the cow dung dries, it is shoveled down and used as firewood for cooking porridge. Cows eat grass, and dried cow dung can naturally be used as firewood. Once, I told me a joke, saying that there was a relative from the city who came to the countryside as a guest. He only knew that cow dung porridge was delicious, but he didn’t know what cow dung porridge was. When cooking porridge, I break off a small piece of dried cow dung and put it into the porridge, thinking that I can cook a good pot of "gulu" porridge. However, I don't know that dried cow dung is used as firewood and burned. Cooked. When Lao Ju tells a story, he laughs out loud first.

I also miss the firewood under the stove in the past. The flames of the firewood jumped in all directions and bloomed like a cluster of flowers. The Qing Dynasty's "Diaoding Collection" talks about using different firewood to cook food. Different firewood will have different flavors.

I thought of myself in the countryside, sitting under the stove, holding the bellows with one hand, and adding firewood to the pot with the other hand. Adding corn stalks, cotton stalks, miscellaneous branches, and reed stalks made the stove crackle. . At that time, I said to my cousin who was standing on the stove cooking, is the fire still strong enough? I'm hungry and my mouth is dry. Can you have a bowl first?

When people reach a certain age, they will become sentimental. During the Spring Festival this year, I thought about celebrating the New Year at my relatives' house in the countryside. I was holding a spoon and a shovel on the old stove, using all my strength to chop wood and cook.

Perhaps, we are just passers-by next to the old stove, and the stove is just a symbol. There is a melancholy guest on the old stove, and there is wet fog and misty water vapor in my heart; the old taste in my mouth is like a cow chewing cud; my eyes are filled with the rising smoke swimming across the sky.

A gentle and wonderful thing

In the night when insects are chirping, I read Zhang Dai's "Night Sailing", and there is a saying that "Guo Linzong's friend came at night and cut leeks to make cakes in the rain." Ye Yu cuts spring leeks, with just a few strokes, the relationship between two people, closeness and distance, is presented like a tiger-skinned watermelon with clear lines.

Some things are warm and wonderful when you think about them.

On a rainy day, when someone came to the house and there was nothing to entertain, I thought of a patch of land behind the house where spring leeks were growing in the rain, so I held an umbrella or wore a bamboo hat and went to the ground in the dark to cut some. A handful of green leeks, making leek cakes.

The cut leeks are crystal clear.

To bake leek cakes, mince the leeks inch by inch, mix the batter with green powder, and bake it in an iron pan with firewood. The pan is not hot and the pancakes are not sticky. The aroma of leeks soon fills the hut. The two people are reflected in the window grilles and lights. Wine is not necessarily needed at this time. The guests can do whatever they want. Their feelings are as close as rain and leaves.

Some things are tender and wonderful when you think about them.

A pair of old tables and chairs left by our ancestors, with a soft texture. All year round, there is friction and wiping, bowls and plates are knocked against each other, and soup is spilled. It's cold and hard in winter, but soaks up sweat in summer. A woman with an updo, a child with hanging hair, an old man... Who has sat on it and thought about it? What things have been placed?

When I was a child, I heard my grandmother say that life in the past was simple and barren. One day, a relative came to my door to tell me that there was no rice in my grandma’s jar, so I hurried to a neighbor’s house to borrow it. Grandma borrowed three kilograms of rice, but the guest didn't know it. Grandma borrowed the rice without telling the guest, and even swollen her face to pretend to be fat. She smiled and said to the guest, "If you are short of money or coal, don't worry. If you have anything, just ask."

When I was fifteen or sixteen, I went to the countryside to visit relatives. I lived in a village and walked to a house. The host was surprised to see a guest coming to the door. He was in a hurry and didn't know what to entertain him. He was rubbing his hands and hesitating when he suddenly saw a pear tree outside the house, full of pears. Bending branches. Autumn was the time when the pear trees were bearing fruit. The owner was overjoyed and hurried out the door and brought back a large handful of pears.

The pear tree is outside the door. It blooms in spring and produces white and fragrant flowers. It bears fruit in autumn and is quiet and silent. Picking a pear is within reach, but sometimes the owner forgets the existence of this pear tree.

I came by boat from a small town a hundred miles away and lived in Dongzhuang first. A relative heard about it and walked 15 miles from Xizhuang to Dongzhuang and took me to his home. During lunch, we sat and chatted. My relatives said that the children came all the way and there was nothing good to eat in the countryside. As he was talking, he suddenly slapped his thigh and said, I remember, Guyu planted a few melon seeds in the field on the other side of the Dongtou River. I wonder if they have grown? The relative piled up the rice bowls and went to the field. After rummaging for a long time, he picked two skinny melons.

In fact, in my opinion, the melons in the countryside are the most suitable for painting. The melon is warm green in color, has a delicate fragrance, and has clear melon lines. "Compendium of Materia Medica" says, "It is planted in February or March and spreads out, with leaves several inches large. The flowers bloom yellow in May and June, and the melons bloom in June and July." Ripe. ”

Most moist and beautiful things are related to situations. For example, apricot blossoms in the spring rain, cool breeze and beautiful moonlight, sitting across from a window drinking wine, and walking together with two or three close friends. Sometimes, when people are traveling, they will meet one or two strangers.

I went to the mountains to see the lake and lived in the county town. 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. The lake was not far behind her and she was breathing slightly. She was in the scenery.

Looking for tea in a small town in the south of the Yangtze River, it rained. I saw the tea sellers, taking their time and sitting in the semi-dark shops, soaked in the fragrance of tea and the shadows of lamps. The streets were narrow and the lights were friendly.

Zhang Chonghe, a young lady of the Republic of China, wrote an interesting childhood story in "Xiaoyuan Jishi". When Xiao Chonghe was still in his infancy, he was adopted by his great-uncle Li Shixiu. Shixiu is Li Hongzhang's biological niece and has given Xiao Chonghe the softest affection and love since childhood. When Zhang Chonghe was a child, she had a vague concept of mother. She lived with her great-uncle and her great-uncle. She even believed that "I was born by my grandmother." She was childlike, moist and cute.

I had a similar experience when I was a child. I thought I was picked up from a fishing boat and my younger brother was born to my aunt in the countryside. At that time, my aunt often came from the countryside and stayed for ten days or half a month. She often coaxed my brother to sleep and made small clothes by hand. I often grab milk with my brother. The milk at that time was so fragrant, mellow and rich, much better than the milk of today, which was the milk of the 1970s.

Simple things are things of the past. Some things, after so many years, feel warm and wonderful when I think about them.

Wang Taisheng

A member of the Jiangsu Provincial Writers Association, his works have been published in more than 100 newspapers and periodicals such as "Prose", "Yuhua" literary journal, People's Daily, Yangcheng Evening News, etc. Many of his articles have been published by "Readers" ", "Youth Digest" and other publications, it was selected into the best domestic anthology of the year, and was designed as a Chinese language exercise for middle schools.