Sunlight's Taste Log

I haven't seen the sun for a long time, and the days are haunted by dense fog.

Cars can't get rid of the dense fog when they are driving on the vast land. The gray fog is boundless and covers everything. Wherever the eyes go, in addition to the vast gray, it is still vast gray. When the driver turns on the fog light, the beam can only shoot a few meters away and then disappear into the fog.

In the winter morning, I can't tell the boundary between night and day, just like a spaceship being dragged into a black hole by a strong magnetic field. No wind, no running water, no sound. If it weren't for the intermittent navigator and the metallic machine voice reminder, our team couldn't move at all. Slow as a snail, slowly climb forward. Everyone in the car was silent, but they all frowned. I wonder if everyone's heart is as confused as the fog outside the window.

At the invitation of my colleague Xiao, I took part in this survey. Xiao is a warm and generous beauty, and she works in the village on behalf of the unit. I called that day and said that I wanted to lead the village team and some villagers' representatives to visit several agricultural parks and find some projects suitable for the economic development of the village. Knowing that I am familiar with agriculture, I was invited to participate. I am very happy.

two

I have been to that village twice, in an arm on the bank of the Yellow River, quietly away from the noise.

The village is quiet. The adults went to town before dawn. The students went to school and handed over the village to the old man. Some local dogs squatted or wandered back and forth in the streets, and some local chickens pulled grass scraps by the woodpile at the edge of the village, looking for some left-behind food or bugs. A rooster, with bright feathers and a cocky look, held his head high and watched seven or eight hens busy. Walking in the village, there is a feeling of crossing time and space, as if the small village in my long-lost hometown has come back to life and hugged me quietly with warmth.

When I first went to this small village, Xiao had been on the job for some time. She led the villagers to build roads and clear drains, and the face of the village is quietly changing. Some courtyards are full of flowers. Some common flowers are not trimmed as neatly as the gardens in the city, but they are also gorgeous and unscrupulous. Furong bloom for a long time, but still holding on gently. Dahlias are very conspicuous and particularly eye-catching. Morning glory climbed the wall and blew its horn into the sky. My favorite flowers are flat bean flower and towel gourd flower, which will remind me of homesickness.

Homesickness is an eternal knot for many people, especially when many villages are disappearing, dirt roads and ridges, streams and wild ponds, trees and nests around the villages gradually fade out of people's sight, and homesickness becomes more and more intense. When some villages with a long history suddenly disappear, the beautiful legends that have been lingering over the villages for many years will disappear without a trace.

Looking back, the fog blocked the return trip. Looking back, my eyes are hazy.

I regard that village as my hometown, at least it awakens my dusty memory. At that time, autumn was strong.

three

This time I walked through the fog, and it was already the middle of winter.

Today's winter has lost a lot of classic weather. It snows less and less, and it snows in winter. It disappeared after school before the children made a snowman. Then this winter, the shadow of snow never came again. Not to mention the quiet breathing of the village under the snow cover, the smoke from the chimney on the roof can tell a village from Yuan Ye. As for knocking down a Zhu Ling from the eaves with a bamboo pole, it can only be a legend for today's children to grin and sigh like chewing rock sugar.

But winter is coming.

The speed of urban expansion has slowed down. Many villagers who used to hang themselves on the construction site with a rope in previous years have had a particularly cold life this year. Instead of working in the city, they returned to the countryside. The construction site in the city is vaguely in the smog, and the path in the village is also vaguely in the smog. Haze is the background color and theme of this winter. It covers the eyes and makes many people confused and can't see the future clearly.

Those flowers that bloom in the village in autumn have turned to dust. As for the harvest of lentils and loofah, I don't particularly care. I just think it's a luxury to watch the moon in the fog this winter.

Looking at the silent villagers in the car, Xiao managed to break the silence. She introduced me to the villagers, saying that I graduated from Agricultural University, had a deep research on agricultural development, and had unique views on how to let the villagers start businesses in the village. She also talked about my TV lecture "Economics of Agriculture, Countryside and Farmers". Several villagers cast eager eyes on me, so I had to smile bitterly.

Embarrassment is always broken, and I began to look at their faces, all black. But their eyes are sincere. I think of my old neighbors in my hometown, and so do their eyes. So I began to talk about things in the village, the harvest of crops, the price of local eggs, lentils and loofah in autumn. They say those things can't be exchanged for money. When you go to the village next year, you can pick as many as you want.

My heart has become warm, it is a long-lost affection, belonging to a distant memory. In the countryside at that time, when there was little money, it was a deep affection to exchange some fruits and vegetables for snacks. I was moved at this moment. I glanced at Xiao, looked at the villagers like my old neighbors in my hometown, and secretly promised to walk through this dense fog with them until I smelled the sunshine.

four

But the sun didn't appear that day.

We visited several modern agricultural parks in the fog, and some new facilities and technologies opened the eyes of the villagers who had dealt with the land for decades. They got excited, as if the big cock at the head of the village saw the red sun in Dongsheng and began to stir up golden wings and make a pleasant cry. I'm certainly not as excited as they are, because I've seen too many such modern agricultural facilities. The greenhouse built of reinforced concrete is equipped with electronic equipment for automatic temperature control and humidity control, Internet of Things technology for whole process monitoring and automatic winder. The dropper at the root of each seedling is not fresh in my eyes.

I have visited many more advanced facilities agriculture with my delegation, but I know that at least for now, they don't belong to my old neighbors. Many agricultural modernization facilities are demonstration parks invested by the government, and the economic benefits of each layer of thermal insulation film will never be calculated. Those funds are like another car driving in the opposite direction to ours, but when we see the lights shining ahead, they disappear into the vast smog and never disappear again.

I am good at novels and the village economy. Xiao Ye nodded, knowing that he couldn't win so much money overnight to enliven the fields of the small village in the arms of the Yellow River. However, my eyes lit up when I saw the green leek in the small arch shed of Sanhe Lake. I told the villagers to listen to the experience here, especially how to develop leading industries in the face of the rapidly changing market.

Afraid of irritating everyone, I changed my half-joking tone and told them that they had stayed in the countryside for most of their lives and might not farm in the future. Several villagers nodded, with some anxiety on their faces. Others lit a cigarette and thought about something while smoking. White smoke came out of his nostrils and immediately mixed with the smoke, without the usual curl.

five

Promotion may be hope, and I sincerely hope to ignite their enthusiasm, just like seeing the faint red light of cigarette butts in the fog.

Passing through the west outer ring of the city, a strong smell floated into the car and suddenly felt suffocated. Out of breath, the brain began to turn pale, as pale as the fog outside the window, as if it were going to the end of the world.

This smell definitely does not belong to the countryside. Even though many large animal husbandry bases have been built in rural areas in recent years, the smell of pig manure, chicken manure and cow dung will be drowned out by the smell coming in from the outside today. I took out a white towel, poured some water from the thermos cup, covered my nose and mouth, and struggled to breathe. When the car passed by this area, my eyes filled with tears and my heart was filled with endless sadness. Because of the cover of tears, I didn't see how other people in the car passed through that hellish place.

Luckily, we crossed the Yellow River. The Yellow River is very thin and listless. Only a short section can be seen on both sides of the bridge, which is divided into several roads by sandbars, winding wearily in the dense fog, with no starting point and no ending point. In recent years, cities on both sides of the Yellow River have sprung up like mushrooms after rain, with many tall buildings. The building is also shrouded in fog and there is no roof in sight.

Xiao is embarrassed. She said that she clearly saw the weather forecast and said it was sunny today. How is that possible? I also smiled and said, this is the darkness before the light, just get through it.

six

How to get through the darkness before the light, I think of the hibiscus flower in the village in autumn, whose flower language is gentle persistence.

Persistence is valuable, especially in these restless years. Opening the heart covered by smog requires us to summon up courage. Everything that confuses the eyes should be swept away by a cold north wind. Although the north wind has brought cold, it has also become a savior for us to breathe freely.

Will the north wind blow as soon as possible?

It was very late when I came back that day. In a short day in the middle of winter, we saw green peppers, eggplant and tomatoes, as well as those strawberries, which were stunted because of the lack of sunlight in modern greenhouses, and also saw mushrooms that could still grow in the dark. Mushrooms are developing, and their hyphae are all over the culture medium, stretching one mushroom body out of the base material. They can grow without sunlight, and darkness can't stop their life process.

Then there is the last base, the 10,000 mu lotus root base. Although it was getting late and the fog was getting heavier, Xiao insisted that everyone get off and visit. Because in the village where she works, there is a large depression with wild aquatic plants and reeds. Xiao discussed with the village team that this winter will be sorted out and lotus roots will be planted next year.

The lotus pond is very lively, and vendors from the county seat on the other side of the Yellow River are waiting for the people who step on the lotus root to fish out the lotus root named "Hulutou" from the pond. The owner of the lotus pond stood on the shore with a scale in front of him, waiting to calculate this year's harvest. He is an acquaintance of mine. I often shoot egrets and black-winged snipes in his lotus pond in spring and summer. He saw me handing out cigarettes, and I waved my hand and refused. Then, on behalf of Xiao and the villagers, ask him to take time to guide the planting of lotus roots in the village. He promised very readily and said that he would leave lotus seeds for everyone.

At this moment, the remaining lotus seeds are still guarding the darkness in the mud at the bottom of the pool, waiting for the arrival of the next spring. And those villagers have begun to rearrange the pond in the smog.

I seem to see the small village in the embrace of the Yellow River. In the wild water in the southeast corner of the village, pieces of green new lotus leaves drill out from the bottom of the water, and then open one green umbrella after another and hold it high. In the endless green, white lotus flowers bloom, allowing bees and butterflies to suck the sweet nectar and dance with egrets, night herons and pond herons in the wind.

At that time, the smell of sunshine was everywhere in small villages and cities.