Text: Shangshawo
Pictures: Source Network
Living in the city for a long time, I took a break to go to the wild on Sunday and grew up in a deserted beach at the foot of a mountain. There are some weeds covering the area of ??more than ten acres of land. It's early autumn in season, and as we walk closer, the breeze blows, and a faint floral fragrance floats past the wings of the nose, enters the nostrils, and penetrates into the lungs. This smell is so familiar to me! Isn’t this the long-lost smell of malan flowers? Following the direction of the wind, I quickly searched, and suddenly my eyes lit up. I saw Malan. Malan grew on a piece of land as big as a basketball court, and they all had blue flowers!
These cute elves swayed gently in the breeze, as if they were dancing gracefully to welcome me! Aren’t the blue buds blooming in the Malan leaves the flowers they hold? They stood there in clusters, full of energy and high spirits! They looked at me and I looked at them. They seemed to be looking at old friends reunited after a long absence, as if they wanted to tell me about the separation after many years, and the loneliness of those many years.
Malanthus; also known as Malanthus, butterfly flower, Phalaenopsis. The horse lotus also contains the meaning of lovers in the past life, so some places also call the horse lotus the Yingtai flower. In my hometown, horse lotus appears in early spring, blooms in midsummer, and sets seeds in autumn. Now is the flowering season of horse lotus. Horse lotus is a wild flower. It grows on the edges of villages, in ravines and on the edges of fields in rural areas. It can be seen everywhere. Its vitality is extremely strong. No matter whether the weather is good or the wind is blowing; whether it is stepped on by people or pressed by cars, it grows tenaciously and never gives in to the harsh climate and environment. Moreover, the tough character of the Malus japonica makes it extremely adaptable, fertile and growing.
In the fields and ditches in my hometown, you can see it everywhere, sometimes as a clump, sometimes as a single particle, and it is easy to see them one by one on the grass. Because it is ordinary, it cannot be accessed and is often forgotten by people. But I especially like Malan flowers, because only Malan flowers are very calm. I like how unassuming it is, it opens quietly, does not join the crowd, and only opens in its own season. It has its own ideas and preferences. So unique, so unique, and truly doing their own thing. It is not like those vulgar things, which only cater to the taste of the owner, are pretentious, put on the smile and posture that the owner likes, and will inevitably be abandoned by the owner in the end.
The horse lotus flowers in my hometown come in different sizes. The tall ones are as beautiful as purple butterflies fluttering. Dwarf plants are everywhere and no one appreciates them. Every time before and after the Dragon Boat Festival, people pick some of the leaves of the lotus root to make rice dumplings. The friends pulled out the malan, pinched a two-inch-long leaf, put it on their lips, and moved it laterally while inhaling. The leaf would make a "sizzling" sound, which was very fun. We picked the Malan flowers and sucked the clear dew-like liquid into our mouths, and a faint sweetness spread on our taste buds. I have never dreamed of that taste deep in my memory!
Plucking out a Malan flower, picking a leaf and putting it on my lips, I want to hear the long-lost sound again; picking a Malan flower and sucking the nectar, I want to reminisce about that distant place. smell. However, the sound made by the leaves was not as loud as I remembered, and the taste of the liquid was not as long as I remembered. I was disappointed! Is it the hardship of childhood that gave us the sweetness we once had, or is it the happy life now that fills our appetites?
Looking at the patches of Malan flowers, I fell into deep thought. In a daze, I seemed to see a thin figure walking towards me along the Malan Cong. That was my neighbor, a girl named Qiuye. Miss Qiuye is the oldest among our friends. She lost her mother when she was young. After her father remarried, she paid little attention to Sister Qiuye, and her stepmother even beat and scolded her. Qiuye did not go to school with his friends of the same age, and because of his young age, he could not participate in the team's work. Although Sister Qiuye is often kicked out of the house by her stepmother and sometimes can't even eat, she is very happy when she is with us and is good with her hands.
In my memory, there seems to be nothing she can't do. As far as Malan is concerned, she can use the blades to weave various small things, and she also taught us straw weaving. She held the Malan leaf in her hand and worked with both hands. In a short time, she could weave animals such as foals, piglets, deer, and goats, as well as boxes for grasshoppers and butterflies. We often show off the knitted animals in front of our friends, and we also catch insects such as grasshoppers and butterflies and put them in boxes for observation.
A small canal at the entrance of the village is covered with Malan flowers. They have strong reproductive capacity. They grow in clusters, and some extend to the path. They are stepped on by people, but they still bloom the most beautiful flowers in the next year. The light blue petals are swaying in the morning breeze, blue and purple, not thick but not gorgeous, like a simple and elegant farm girl.
In the countryside at that time, people's food and clothing problems could not be solved. Who had the heart to care about those flowers and plants. But for children, there is an innate love for flowers and plants. Every spring, when all kinds of wild flowers in the fields open their bright smiles, a group of friends and I, carrying a bamboo basket and a small shovel, run in the green and furry fields. The juicy dandelions, the plump bitter greens, and the fat and big pig ears are all our favorite wild vegetables. After eating potatoes and radishes all winter, these fresh and tender wild vegetables have become the focus of people's dinner tables.
After picking up a lot of wild vegetables, it’s time to spread your legs and play. At this time, the various wild flowers blooming beside the ditches in the fields are the most beautiful scenery in our eyes. Squatting down and playing while picking, you can pick a large handful in a while, fold a few wicker sticks, braid a straw hat, and carefully decorate the straw hat with various wild flowers. Singing nursery rhymes, the little friends accompanied the setting sun and carried laurel crowns, lining up in long lines on the country roads and walking home happily, making the people who worked laughing, but we were proudly like a He was a little warrior, and now when he thinks of himself as a child, the corners of his mouth still turn up unconsciously.
Sister Qiuye takes care of her stepmother’s children, and she also has to cook and feed chickens and pigs. In my memory, she always wore a long black adult dress, and her eyes were always full of tears. She would wipe them with rough fingers from time to time, leaving a tear trail on her face. When the weather cleared up, she took a piece of tattered sheet and spread it on the path in front of her door, letting her children sit on the ground. She also sat on the slope, with the thick and lush clumps of Malan flowers behind her. The leaves of Malan flower are long and narrow, like leek leaves, thin, long, and very flexible. She picked two freshly bloomed flowers and tied them in her braids. Then she turned around and picked up a handful of lily leaves and spread them on the ground for her little brother to play with.
When we come back from school with our schoolbags on our backs, Sister Qiuye will always take out the biggest pony from her pocket and hand it to me, and then take out a handful of pony from under the grass blades like magic. The good malan flowers are in my school bag. She knows that I like flowers, so she will pick a lot for me every few days and ask me to put them in cans and fill them with water. They will bloom for several days.
In the summer, the village watered the fields, and the small ditch was full of clear water. Sister Qiuye sat by the small ditch, finished washing a lot of clothes, rested, and watched me come over after school. , grabbed me and whispered, I am getting married, the son of a relative of my stepmother’s family in the mountains. I don't understand, I really don't understand. In my eyes at that time, Sister Qiuye was just a 15-year-old child. However, facing the world of adults, I was helpless. When I got home, I put the malan flowers that Sister Qiuye gave me in a bottle. Looking at the blue flowers, what I saw in front of me was Sister Qiuye's childish face and tears in her eyes.
A year later, in May when the malan flowers were in full bloom, Sister Qiuye got married. I quietly ran to the wedding carriage and saw Sister Qiuye in red clothes. She didn't cry, and there was no trace of reluctance on her face. She told me that the person she wanted to marry would have enough to eat. After that, no one picked a bouquet of Malan flowers and stuffed it into my hands, and no one made a flower basket for me. Later, when I went to school and left the village, I never saw Malanhua. Together with my poor Sister Qiuye, it was dried into a heartbreaking memory, engraved in my heart.
My Malanhua, a long-lost old friend! He knelt down and stroked them gently. The hard, thick, dark green Malan leaves are still so textured. On the calyx growing out of the gap between the leaves, there are clusters of three or four light blue Malan flowers, leaning closely together like brothers and sisters. I picked a Malan flower, held it in my hand and looked at it carefully, then put it in front of my nose and smelled it. The blue and white petals and the strong or light aroma are simply delicious wines brewed by nature, an outstanding brewer! When I saw Malanhua today, I was filled with emotions. I have never appreciated Malanhua as much as I do today. I admire Malanhua’s perseverance, self-improvement, and stubborn will; I admire Malanhua’s plain and ordinary tenacious character; and I also admire Malanhua’s character of not being surprised by honor or disgrace.