Late spring, the rosebuds bloomed, red, white, yellow, deep purple, pink, brilliant flowers, reflecting the canyon. Just after a spring rain, the petals are still stained with bright beads of water, moist fragrance, rising from the canyon, flowing in the air.
The sun gradually sank in the west, and behind the dark, distant mountains, it shot countless beams of light into the sky, as if golden horns were blaring in unison across the heavens. Later, it finally sank, and the orange-red streaming sunlight colored the entire Rosebud Valley. A few tired birds throwing themselves into the forest flapped their wings in the haze, looking like paper cutouts. Nearby, on the hilltops, a few foraging foxes, too, were returning to their dens in the gullies.
The sunlight is fading, and the sky and earth are turning gray and white. The lonely mountain wind had blown gently.
She lowered her eyes and only heard the wind flowing in her ears ......
An old man's heavy cough stopped her. She looked back to see the old man standing in the twilight. She couldn't see his face, but she could feel his gaze - the gaze of a pair of real old men.
"If you're going to jump, jump somewhere else, don't dirty this rosebush of mine!" Was all the old man said.
She cried, and cried in a quiet way, containing a gentle melancholy. She kept looking at the old man with a loving gaze. She felt the old man calling to her with his gaze, "Follow me."
The old man turned and walked away, and she followed. An invisible thread pulled and tugged between them toward the canyon.
The quiet path led through rose bushes, and a cottage appeared under the moon. Without looking back, the old man pushed the door and entered, and within moments the oil lamp came on and the old man's figure became like a very large sail cast against the wall.
She stepped into the dark, warm hut and sat down on a stool. She folded her arms and rested them quietly on her chest. Her eyes followed the old man. Her demeanor was much like that of a fledgling pigeon with still delicate wings, lost and being shone upon with a soft light by the owner who had taken it in.
The old man set food on the small table in front of her and went to the back room to make a bed. When he had finished supporting it, the old man brought in the quilt, and took off the cotton shirt he was wearing and added it to the quilt, saying to her, "At night, there is a wind coming from the other side of the valley, and it is cool."
He stepped out of the hut and sat down on a rock, his tobacco pot lit up red by red, as if the night were gasping for breath.
Late in the night, she heard the sound of the mountain wind flowing through the quiet valley of the roses. The wind soothed the old man's song. The song had no words to sing, just a tune, in the lonely valley, like the waves of water on a lake, slowly swinging away ......
She clothed the old man and sat down beside him.
The night was peaceful. The golden pale moon shone down on the Valley of Roses and the shadowed distant mountains. In the smoky trees, the vague cries of a few mountain birds set off a void, a melancholy.
"Where did you come from?"
"That town over there."
"How many days have you been out?"
"Walked from last night to this evening."
"Why do you want to jump from there?"
"......"
"I've wanted to jump off there too, and that was twenty-one years ago."
"You?"
"Me."
"Why?"
"No reason. Then I saw this valley of roses, and I saw the flowers, and I sat on the rock until dawn, and I stayed here."
She held her chin up and looked at the pure sky.
The old man sang again, and the distance between one note and another was long, as if a heavy wagon had traveled from one stage to another, full of hardship ......
She told the old man everything-<
She loved her papa very much.
Dad had been the chief conductor of an orchestra. At the time, when she was young, she used to go with her mom to concerts conducted by her dad. Dad wore a black tuxedo and had shiny hair. Dad's physique and movements were very moving. Piano, fiddle, black pipe and flute ...... all instruments play all kinds of marvelous and incomparable sounds with his hints, calls and exchanges. The musical sound hovered and danced in the hall, high and low, fast and slow. At one time, the sound like a black swallow in the silence of the air gracefully sliding; at one time, the sound like a gilded gold, a bright and brilliant, full of the world's gold shimmering; at one time, the sound of darkness, like the night sky under the distance there is a clear spring drop by drop fell in the black pool between the pines; at one time, like the starry sky of the wilderness has a ten thousand horses galloping. The magic of music was boundless. Sometimes she felt hot and clamored for her mother to take off her sweater, but a moment later, she felt cool and shady, as if she were walking in the cool, thick shade, and couldn't help but go into her mother's arms. The magical music surprisingly evoked all sorts of associations in her: furry sour apricots, blue ice lollies, delicate hexagonal snowflakes, a little red house on a hillside, an azure scarf floating down from the sixth-floor balcony ......
The curtain call came, and Papa lifted his head and opened his arms.
She loved going to concerts where Daddy conducted.
But when she was ten years old, her father was accused of "making a mistake" and was dismissed overnight.
Dad stayed at home for a year, closed his door, saw that the family could no longer make ends meet, and relied on a friend's connections to work as a salesman for a brush factory. Dad carried two big bags of brushes on his back and went out for dozens of days at a time. He traveled far and wide to sell the brushes to the small stores. Most of the time, he went straight to the small schools and peddled the brushes to the children who were taking large print lessons. He spread the brushes out on a piece of cloth and squatted in front of the school, patiently waiting for business. She went out with her dad once, and he was just too hard. Taking the car and the boat, and sometimes walking for ten or more miles. When he was hungry, he asked for a bowl of water to drink and ate some dry food. When it was dark, he stayed with others, either in the cookhouse or in the mill. Dad went around putting in a good word with people. One night, because they couldn't find a place to stay, they slept under someone's roof. The moonlight shone faintly and it was very cold, so neither of them could sleep. Dad asked her, "Do you miss mom?" She asked her father, "Do you?" Daddy gathered her head into his arms and stroked her hair over and over again. She knew that without Mommy in this world, Daddy might not want to live. Daddy said, "Let's take the money we make this time and buy your mom a nice sweater, okay?" She nodded.
Year after year, Dad went out, came back; came back, went out ......
Dad went out again, carrying two big heavy bags. One night, she went to her classmate's house to warm up her lessons, and when she came back at night, she felt a little cold and wanted to sleep in the same bed with her mom. Pushing open the door of her mother's room and pulling the light on, the scene in front of her immediately made her cover her eyes: on the bed, her mother was sleeping in the arms of a strange man!
She ran out of the house, ran like crazy in the empty night street, and finally ran to the river outside the city, hugging a sycamore tree and fell to the ground. Sat there until dawn, and then sat there until dark.
Daddy came back.
She looked at her father, who had grown old: his black hair had become withered and mixed with gray hair; his back was hunched, tilted because of the long time of carrying a backpack on one shoulder, which always looked like a sailboat sinking sideways into the water; a pair of flexible, magical hands had become rough, stiff, and without a trace of aura, and there was a line of wrinkles and cracks blown by the wild winds; a pair of hands full of emotion, like two-star candles in the night, and a pair of hands that were full of emotion, like two-star candles in the night. eyes, like the light of a two-star candle in the darkness of the night, became gray and cataract-like.
She made herself laugh and sputtered, "Papa!"
Daddy sat on the couch, his eyes looking a little dull.
"Mommy and I really missed you." She said a lot of things about mommy missing daddy.
Dad was getting a bit off: it was very dark before he staggered back from outside, smelling of pungent alcohol.
The day she came home from school, the house was quiet. After she adjusted to the dimness of the house, her legs shivered: her dad was sitting on the couch, clutching a double-barreled shotgun! She meshed her fingers in her mouth and clenched her body. She felt her heart suddenly turn to a ball of ice, and a bone-chilling coldness spread throughout her body. Her teeth clicked together as she pulled her bitten finger out.
"Dad, do you want to kill mom?"
Daddy sat stonily, his face frozen in place.
"Daddy! ......" she suddenly fell to her knees at her dad's feet, crying, wrapping her arms around his legs and shaking them vigorously.
Daddy shook like a puppet.
She lifted her head and looked up into his eyes, "Daddy, beat me to death too!"
Dad's shotgun fell to the ground ......
In the early hours of the next morning, as she sat on her bed quietly waiting for her dad, who hadn't returned all night, a dull gunshot rang out in the distance along the big river. When she arrived, she saw her dad, his head bleeding, leaning against an old tree as if he was tired, now quietly asleep ......
The old man draped his shirt gently over her shoulders.
The cicada-like light mist flowed seemingly through the valley of the roses. The moon rested on the branches of the western canyon, like a golden phoenix with a full breast that had built its nest there. The fog gradually thickens, the "phoenix" gradually faded ......
Dawn like a jade bird with bright feathers from the eastern sky towards the Rosebud Valley.
She went to the town five miles down the mountain and went on to middle school.
Every evening when she returned from school, she could see the old man sitting quietly at the mouth of the canyon waiting for her from a distance. The huge setting sun was right behind the old man, who looked like he was leaning on the back of a round, rich golden chair. Whenever she saw this image, she always felt a rush of warmth and a wave of tenderness that made her nose tingle. She shook her hand at the old man and ran towards him.
They walked down the mountain path towards the thatched cottage in the rosebush.
Summer had arrived. After dinner, she climbed into the hammock to cool off, letting her body, sore from the road and her studies, lie softly. The hammock was made of kudzu by an old man and hung between two large trees. The hammock was covered with colorful flowers that she had picked. Sleeping in the hammock, looking at the night sky above the mountains, her heart felt a peace she had never felt before. The mountain wind blew against the empty mountains. In the distance there was the faint, wonderful sound of a living spring tinkling. The roses were in full bloom and the fragrance was intoxicating. Bathed in the silver-silk moonlight, she stretched and felt very soft and light, draping her slender arms over the side of her hammock.
Only when the old man hummed again did she turn on her side and let a nameless heaviness fill the mood.
The old man's face was always the same: cold, indifferent, with a hardness, even a coldness, in his eyes, which had fallen back a little on the eyelashes; and occasionally, in a flash of light, an unspeakable anxiety and an agonizing longing in his gaze, which was as fleeting as a flash of lightning.
The old man had a purple-black scar on his forehead, which gave his face a slightly fierce expression.
One day she was brought to tears by the old man's singing, "What's wrong with you, Grandpa, singing like that all the time?"
The old man suddenly realized what his song had done to her and felt very apologetic and sad.
"That day, you said you were going to jump from there too?" She looked longingly into the old man's eyes. Curiosity, concern, and an unwillingness to let her doubts continue any longer made her want to know immediately why this was.
The old man dropped his head and raised it again, "I spent ten years, in prison ......" Without looking at her, he asked, "Were you afraid?"
"No, I'm not afraid, Grandpa."
"You're going to ask me what this is about? Right? It doesn't matter, poisoning, setting fires, being a robber, it's all the same anyway, it's all called a crime. ...... I had to spend my life blessing a dead man in my heart. He was once in the same cell as me. I dare to conclude that he did not commit a crime. He was young, beautiful, an innocent man, even a great man. I noticed that he always kept a rosebush hidden in his arms all the time. I suppose the flower was given to him by a girl? Until the end, I wasn't able to figure it out. He was finally shot. Before he left, he said to me, 'Get out early, go out and be a good person!' ......20 years in prison, I sat out in 10 years. Thinking that I will soon return to my wife and children, I was so excited that I couldn't stand up, holding the big wall of the prison with my hand, and walking towards the gate, thinking in my heart: they are waiting for me, they are waiting for me. ...... I walked out of the gate, the gate was empty, only the wind was blowing, and the wind outside the prison was just a big... ...Later, like you, I walked, walked, walked, walked, walked to that cliff ...... The setting sun shone in the canyon, and the rosebuds bloomed beautifully, and I suddenly thought of him ...... I hit myself hard, and sat down on the rock. ......"
"Are you afraid to live here alone?"
"Afraid of ghosts? There are no ghosts in this world. Afraid of robbers?" The old man shook his head, "Then they are looking at the wrong person. But I'm really afraid, afraid of what? This canyon is too quiet ...... "The old man was suddenly pressed by something heavy, his breathing was rapid, and his eyes contained trepidation. It was some time before he calmed himself down, "Sometimes I can't hold it in, and I shout desperately at this big mountain, all the time crying out tears and shouting until I can't get a sound out of my throat. Except for planting the patch on the slope, I've been expanding the rose along the valley, desperately trying to make it grow all over the world." The old man looked at her, and suddenly became like an isolated, weak child, forgetting even to hold himself as a man of his years should, and asked, "Will you ...... soon be gone?"
She shook her head, and shook it again.
An old man and a young man, two lonely souls, facing a lonely mountain.
The sun seemed to fall suddenly. And in the air very close to the ground and then braked, noiselessly burning, revealing a look of the last drop of water on the ground to dry up like ruthless. The sky was blue, and there was not a cloud in 30 days. The drought is madly enveloping the mountains. It was hard to find a scoop of water for miles around. In the distance, the living spring has also dried up, no longer have the sound of running water. The air was so dry that it seemed to rub off blue sparks.
She became a little frightened, and looked at the old man with the disheveled hair with her usual thirsty eyes.
"Don't be afraid, these roses aren't dead yet!"
The roses were still growing tenaciously in the canyon, their leaves surprisingly green, some very thin branches, firming up into the air, and clusters of colorful flowers, hard and unhurriedly blooming.
So she really wasn't afraid.
Every few days, the old man would pick up a load of water from the river a dozen miles away. For this water, the old man himself used very stingy. When he was too thirsty to stay up, he would pick a few sour fruits from the bushes and put them in his mouth to chew on. But every morning, the first thing he did when he got up was to generously put half a pot of water on the stone table in front of the door - water for her to wash her face with.
Looking at the cool water, and then at the old man's bursting lips, she stubbornly refused to wash.
The old man insisted, "You can't go to school until you've washed your face!"
That delicate, white face without a trace of color, every morning if you can not ensure that the washing, for the elderly, the heart is not passable. It was only when the hair on her forehead hung in beads of water, and her face was alive, pure, and exuding moisture from the fresh water, that he felt agreeable.
One day the old man got so angry over this that he barely managed to throw the water from the basin into the rosebush. He muttered over and over under his breath, "Girls don't wash their faces, how dare a girl not wash her face ......"
As she washed, she dripped tears into the basin of water.
After some more days, she came back to the Valley of Roses from school, and the old man looked rich, and boasted, "These days, a lot of water has been saved, and today, I picked back a big quart full of water, so you can take a bath." The old man trudged on, heading for the mouth of the canyon.
She did not go against the old man's wishes, took off her clothes, naked, and used a ladle to pour the cool, silky water down over her head. The water rubbed her body like soft white silk, and it was very pleasant. At night, the mountain showed a sense of silence. Bathed in the moonlight, she appeared almost transparent. She looked down at herself, feeling inexplicably bashful and happy that she was growing up and looking good. Ladleful, ladleful, she splurged on the fresh water the old man had prepared for her. She felt her heart was moist. She suddenly felt like singing a song and did so. The voice seemed to have been washed by the fresh water as well, pure as silver, and rang out in the canyon. This canyon, which has existed in the world for an unknown number of years, for the first time received the caress of a voice from the depths of a young girl's heart, and the surroundings became extraordinarily peaceful.
The old man leaned on the rock and fell asleep ......
This day, the old man sat on the rock at the mouth of the canyon and waited for her to come back as usual -- however, today, she did not come back even when the moon was in the middle of the sky.
She was gone.
The drought has not only exhausted the old man, it has also put an enormous strain on his life: the crops are almost gone, and there is little food left in the urn on the corner of the hut. She was unaware of this, and ate the food the old man prepared for her without a care in the world. She hated herself when she occasionally found the old man hiding behind a rock, gnawing hard on the roots of a bitter plant.
The old man was so thin that he was a skeleton, with jutting cheekbones, a grayish face, and a somewhat frighteningly pointed chin, and if she stayed in Rosebud Valley any longer, the old man would be like an oil lamp that she would soon drain of its oil.
She went back to the city she had never returned to since she ran away. She wanted to go back to that home, though she didn't want to see her mother. She came to the window that was both familiar and unfamiliar. She didn't want to go in right away, she wanted to look through the window and see her dad's picture on the wall first. However, she looked all over the wall, but she could not see the picture of her father. She felt like falling into an infinitely deep ice cave, shivering, wanting to cry, but unable to do so.
She walked down the street in a daze. In the street light, on the sycamore tree, a piece of broken leaves are falling to the ground. The night was getting deeper, the street was empty, only the fallen leaves were blown by the autumn wind, rolling aimlessly on the blackened pavement. She didn't know that she was tired or not tired, she just walked, her gaze frozen.
The streetlight spread the huge figure of a man all the way to her feet. She looked up and saw the old man standing firmly in front of her with his hands on a bamboo pole.
She frantically ran over to him.
"Come back with me, back to Rosebud Valley! We have lots of money now, lots of money! There's a man who has bagged all of our rosebuds. They're going to make Rosebud out of it. Rosebud, do you understand? Sprinkle it on your clothes. The scent lasts forever. Did you ever hear that in ancient times, when someone received a poem from a friend or relative, they washed their hands in rosebud before reading it? We're rich, we're rich! You're going to college, to college ......"
The old man's eyes shone as if they were polished.
Five years later--
The old man lay on a small bunk in his hut. People marveled at how tenacious the aging being was, not having taken a drop of water for days, yet still keeping his eyes wide open and looking out the door. He was waiting for her - the girl who was already a college student.
She traveled day and night back to Rosebud Valley and flung herself at the old man's side. When the old man saw her, he closed his eyes forever.
She picked countless baskets of rosebuds, spread them out on a very large, flat rock, and carried the old man, who had become very light, onto it. Late at night, she took off the old man's clothes, scrubbed his whole body with rosebay dew over and over again, and then changed him into new clothes, and then silently guarded him ......
After that, every year when the rosebay flowers bloomed, she must come to the Rosebay Valley for a few days. She felt that the old man's lonely soul has been living here. She felt his presence everywhere. He needs her to accompany him.