Looking for ducks in Beicun: Cao Xie

Kitamura is a writer I admire very much and a friend of mine for many years. He is a leading figure in China's avant-garde novels, and has published many collections of novels, among which Zhou Yu's Train, a single novel adapted into a film, has been known to people. However, it is difficult for me to associate the writer Kitamura with chickens and ducks.

? Beicun lives in Beijing all the year round. At first, I was surprised to learn that he recently returned to Changting to launch the online trading platform of "Beicun Natural Life Museum" to promote local pollution-free ingredients. Later, I saw Beicun go deep into the mountain village to look for "flying chicken" on WeChat, and sent a picture of the river that stayed overnight, and I was sure that he really wanted to be a chicken. I think Beicun may experience rural life and accumulate creative materials in this way. To this end, I also visited him in Changting. I sent an invitation to Kitamura. Since I am a chicken, why not come to Liancheng as a duck? Liancheng White Duck is a world-famous duck. I will forward a video to him at will. In the video, Darkmouth is a Liancheng white emu duck with black feet and white hair. After watching the video of the white duck flapping its wings and croaking in the clean stream, Beicun immediately replied that she had a crush on the white duck and resolutely decided to go to Liancheng to find the white duck.

? Soon, Kitamura really came. It was already evening when he drove to Shifeng Village, Beituan Town, and it began to get dark. Shifeng Village is surrounded by mountains and dense pine forests, and the air is filled with the smell of turpentine and flue-cured tobacco. A wide stream flows slowly through the village, dividing it in half. A bridge spans the stream. The stream is blue in the dusk, and fish can jump out of the water from time to time and set off waves. Down the river, the bamboo forest is swaying, and the cool wind is blowing on the face. Two enthusiastic yellow dogs in the village followed their master out to meet us.

? I found from my conversation with Beicun that he has lived in Beijing for a long time and can't stand the smog weather and traffic jams in the city. He likes the air, blue sky and water in the country; He likes the pollution-free ingredients on the farm table and the simple folk customs in the countryside. Beicun gives people the impression of being kind and frank, with clear eyes like children's innocence. He is especially fond of small animals. He once had several dogs in the suburbs of Beijing, and he treated them as adults. Seeing two dogs coming with their owners, he was very excited. He smiled brightly. His beard is impressive. Beicun looked up at the blue and far-reaching sky at dusk, breathed the air with the fragrance of vegetation, and looked at the dense green plants and dark blue streams around. Kitamura kept shooting videos with his mobile phone, as if to have a panoramic view of the beautiful scenery of the mountain village at dusk. He sometimes stood, sometimes bent down, and sometimes squatted down to shoot, praising: "It's beautiful, it's beautiful." Beicun didn't photograph the white duck in the stream. Maybe it was dark and the duck had returned to its nest. The host took us to dinner. When we walked around the high pine forest, half the moon had risen to the light blue sky overhead.

? The dinner was held at the home of the host Jiang. Many years ago, I went there and ate his white duck soup. On the way back, my Shanghai friend suddenly put forward the idea of staying for another night and eating white duck soup the next day. I didn't expect him to call my name after many years.

? The first course of dinner is his specialty-stewed duck soup. I saw him bring out a pot of steaming duck soup from the kitchen, and the soup was served, and the aroma of attacking people filled the whole living room. You can see duck meat and two Darkmouth slightly exposed noodle soup, with a thin layer of golden yellow oil floating on the surface, revealing the bottom of the soup. Shopkeeper introduced to Beicun that Liancheng White Duck used to be a tribute from the imperial court and is the only medicinal duck in China at present. Edible ducks must have a certain age and good cooking skills. The duck soup he stewed was delicious, pure and smooth, and the taste was fragrant. He only uses a little salt to cook white duck, and never uses monosodium glutamate, oil and other seasonings, trying to keep the original flavor. Jiang added that before stewing soup, duck meat should be scalded with boiling water, duck blood should be washed clean, and then cold water should be put into the pot, and the water should be flush with the meat. The longer the duck, the longer the stew. It will be more sufficient to process the fragrant head with firewood. Kitamura listened carefully. When he raised his head slightly, lifted his beard and smiled, his laughter was so clear and kind, like a clear spring in the mountains, which was not polluted by utilitarianism and secularity at all.

? Then the fish in the stream boiled the soup. The fish soup is milky white, fragrant, and the fish is tender and elastic. Then there is fried brook fish, which is as fragrant as grilled fish, but not as burnt as grilled fish. Kitamura recognized it as a grouper. Grouper grows in mountain streams and requires high water quality. It is the best fish in the stream, with thick meat and black stripes. Kitamura smiled and felt like a boy again. Crispy fried dried fish reminded him of his childhood when he grilled fish. He inserted the caught grouper with a small bamboo stick and baked it on the fire, which was crispy and delicious. After drying, peel off a trace of fish, just like dried Balang fish sold by supply and marketing cooperatives. As he spoke, he tore the dried fish with his hand.

? The host is very kind, and there are too many dishes to describe one by one, so I won't press the table here. After dinner, we drove back to Liancheng by moonlight.

The next morning, Kitamura came to Bao Si Town, one of the four woodblock printing bases in Qing Dynasty. In the woodcut museum, facing the ancient woodcut fragments bearing culture in the showcase, Beicun shows his admiration for the ancients. Kitamura focused on taking photos and listened carefully to the narrator's introduction on the inheritance of engraving, without the habits and bad habits of many celebrities now. He smiled and ran to the tourist experience area to be a "printer" with a brown brush in his hand. He carefully brushed a woodcut New Year picture of Guan Gong and Zhou Cang, and took it back as a souvenir. Later, Kitamura visited Wei's farm in the dough twist field, where all the pure natural and pollution-free agricultural products were processed. Kitamura didn't forget that the main purpose of his trip was to look for white ducks.

? In the afternoon, Kitamura and his party hurried to Tang Qian Luodi Village White Duck Farm.

? Luodi Village is about 20 kilometers away from Tangqian Town Government. Panshan road is narrow and winding, and sometimes several calves are stuck in the middle of the road. Our car leads the way ahead, and the car from Beicun follows. I'm worried that there are too few mountain roads in Beicun to fall behind, so I have to stop from time to time to see if his car has kept up. The air in the deep mountains and forests is particularly good. My eyes are full of green mountains and trees, breathing the breath of vegetation. Occasionally, wild pigeons and pheasants will fly over the mountain road ahead, and birds will sing in the valley.

? There are only a few families in Luodi village. The village is surrounded by green hills. The trees in the distant mountains are like green clouds, the crowns are like mushrooms, and the leaves are opaque. Old boys of Forestry Bureau said that this is a primitive secondary forest, which has grown there for at least several hundred years and played a great role in soil and water conservation. A stream passes through the village, and the bottom can be seen clearly in shallow water. The fine sand is clean and numerous, and the water depth is surprisingly blue, like pieces of dark blue jade. Kitamura hurriedly photographed the surrounding scenery. In front of the master's new house, he turned on the tap water switch and scooped up the spring water with both hands and sent it to his mouth. He said that the free water here can be drunk directly. I filmed his tap water advertisement for Luodi Village.

? We came to a bamboo forest not far from our host's house. There is a stream ahead. I saw that the blue water surface of the stream was covered with white floating objects, like cotton and white clouds dotted on the beaches on both sides of the stream. A closer look revealed that it was a white duck. Ducks are playing freely in the stream. On the bank of the stream, some heads are buried under their wings to comb their feathers. In shallow waters, there are countless fish and ducks living peacefully. Ducks used to eat fish, but fish and ducks here don't compete with each other and live in harmony. According to the host, sometimes ducks go up the mountain to feed when they are hungry. After enjoying the insects under the bamboo forest, they will dive down the stream from the hillside in droves. The avalanche scene is very spectacular.

? Before dusk, the writer Kitamura desperately captured countless white elves in this mountain stream. At this time, a love story about Liancheng duck and stork slowly unfolded in my mind.