Students in the deep valley

In the fifth grade of primary school, three students, two boys and one girl, were transferred to the class. Their accents are slightly different from ours. I found that they were transferred from Qiao Yu Primary School in Qinling Mountains.

Qiao Yu is a long and narrow north-south gully at the junction of Huazhou and Shangluo in Shaanxi. This Qiao Yu primary school was in the middle of a ravine, about twenty or thirty kilometers away from the junior high school in Daming Town. The students it receives come from all corners of this valley and are scattered among people in the mountains.

Our Daming Junior Middle School is located in Daming Town, which is a part of Gaotang Plateau, between the East Qinling Mountains and the eastern Weihe Plain. The terrain is high in the south and low in the north. It consists of two naturally formed Sichuan roads and a higher plateau Luyuan, and Daming Town is in the corner formed by these two rivers and a plateau.

These mountain students go to school here. Unlike most students in our neighborhood, we can go home at night. But to eat at school and live in the school dormitory. They can only go home once a week. Every Friday, they don't go to class in the afternoon. Because it is too far to go home, they mainly rely on walking, so they have to leave home early. On Sunday night, they will go back to school as scheduled and bring a week's dry food.

One of the two boys is called Tao Shuan. He is tall, with deep eyes, a little shy and humorous. Because of the poor conditions of primary schools in mountainous areas, the teacher can't keep up, and his study can't keep up with the rhythm of these schools outside the mountain.

At that time, students in Yuan Shang, for some unknown reason, always felt that they were better than their classmates living in the mountains and looked down on them. They also denounced their classmates as "Shan Lang", saying that they could walk a foot high and were afraid of tripping over rocks in the mountains. As we all know, when I was studying in Yuanxia county in high school, I was surprised to find that we were also called "Yuanlang" by our classmates there, and we felt that we were not much better than these children in the mountains.

I am naturally empathetic and close to the poor or discriminated people. The more my classmates despise him and reject him, the more I want to get close to him. Whenever I don't understand An Shu in class, I always take time out to help him in my spare time. So he is very grateful to me, telling me everything, and often sharing with me the mountain products he brought from home.

At that time, there was a student canteen in the school, and the main lunch was corn porridge. Two large iron pots are filled every time. When eating, the students stood in line for a long time with bowls of rice. After class, An Shu took me and his bowl and ran out first in line. He never let me go and kept cooking for me. I was very moved to see him walking with two bowls of porridge.

One summer vacation, he invited me to his house to play, and I also wanted to see the mountains. I don't look so expensive because there are many children at home. Besides, at that time, my family didn't consider the safety of too many children as people do now, and I agreed without any obstacles.

On the morning of the holiday, An Shu and I set off together, full of curiosity and expectation. All the way from school to the south, when I walked to the village of Fraxinus mandshurica in Shankou, I was panting and my legs lost control. That set of bolts kept encouraging me and always said, "Almost there, almost there." I crustily skin of head, with heavy steps, hard to walk on the winding mountain road, and finally boarded the Qiao Yu Reservoir Dam at Qiaoyukou, which is the only way to enter the mountain.

Overlooking the whole Gaotang Plateau from above the dam, you can see everything. Villages dot the endless Yuan Ye. The road we took leads all the way to the town center in the distance. It is said that this road was built when Wang Zheng, the township head, was in office. His name still haunts the old people there, and he is grateful for his achievements and reputation. The cool wind on the dam is refreshing. After a short stay, we swept away our fatigue and continued on our way.

The water surface of Qiao Yu Reservoir is long and narrow, stretching for several kilometers. At the end of the south is a village called Donglaizi. There are only a dozen families here. Looking further south, there seems to be a mountain blocking our way. I thought this might be his home, but he just shook his head and encouraged me to move on.

When I reached the mountain I saw before, the road suddenly turned right, and a long valley road appeared, which extended to the end with the winding river. It's really hopeless. There is another village.

Only the scenery here has become more beautiful. The mountains on both sides are blue, and the river is gurgling, clear and swift. Small fish are swimming around in the water. Just lift a stone and you will see the golden crab hidden below. It's naive. That set of bolts soon skillfully caught a plastic bag crab. The stones here, shiny pieces, have different shapes, some are too big for trucks to hold, some are small and round like pearls, like exquisite handicrafts, and they are very beautiful. They should have been washed away by the river for thousands of years and formed such a perfect figure.

We walk, play, paddle, clap our hands and swim in the wild. At noon, we sat on a big stone by the river, spread out the dry food we had prepared with us and began to have a picnic. When you are thirsty, you lean down and drink a handful of river water in your hands, and suddenly it is cool and refreshing. It feels so good.

In this way, we probably took five or six similar roads. After passing through a dozen scattered villages with only a few families, we came to a crossroads. Although the main road in the valley is still extending forward, the set of bolts says that we turn left from here and enter another passage, and we arrive at their village-Zhanggou Village.

When I entered this passage, the road became narrow and the slope was a little steep. I obviously felt great difficulties when I left. I couldn't walk any further, so I put the bolt on my back and left. It is said that this is Zhanggou village, but it doesn't actually have the shape of a village. I saw some houses built on the mountain, strewn at random, stretching for several kilometers, but no more than 30 households.

In the evening, I finally arrived at the home of that set of bolts. His home is a big tile house with four rooms, which is made of wood. This room is very wide. The rafters on the house are thicker than bowls, and the purlins are surprisingly thick. At first glance, it is much better than the house outside our mountain.

There are four people in Shu 'anjia, father, mother, brother and him. Because he often mentions me at home, my family is no stranger to me and very enthusiastic, especially his younger brother, who is tied up and never leaves. His mother is an ordinary peasant woman, very kind, and her clothes are not very new, but she is clean and tidy. Soon, her mother's potato Ciba was ready, and we finished our meal quickly. We had an early rest because we were so tired.

In the next few days, my family and I went up the mountain every day to pick Schisandra chinensis, which seems to be a medicinal material. There are many mountains near his home, and there are fruits everywhere. The color is red and very beautiful. The morning dew is crystal clear on it, and the whole mountain is filled with a fragrance.

He, his mother and his brother can pick a whole basket a day. I can't climb trees and my hands are slow. I'll pick a cage at most. When you are hungry at noon, you can make do with the dry food you bring with you. When I came back at night, my mother spread the picked Schisandra on the floor at home and let it dry slowly. There are many sacks in one room of his house, which are filled with dried Schisandra chinensis. It is said that his father can sell this for more than 10 thousand yuan a year, which was not a small sum at that time.

On the fifth day, in the middle of the night, the sky in the mountains suddenly thundered and thundered, and the storm suddenly struck. The roar of terror came from the river in the mountains and echoed in the empty mountains, shaking the earth like a lion's roar. It was the sound of the surging river hitting the rocks, which lasted for a long time and became louder and louder. Suddenly, the Shu 'an family woke up. They got up at once, put on their clothes, picked up the iron elevator and ran to the side of the house facing the mountain. Obviously, this is not the first time. They shouted while digging, anxious, because from time to time, floods in the mountains washed away the canals, which directly threatened the safety of his home. All night, I heard them shouting to block this side and that side, feeling that the house could be blown down by the water on the mountain at any time. I'm too scared to stay in the house. After a night of tenacious continuous flood discharge and water leakage in flood control channels, the house was finally safe and sound.

The next day, although the rain weakened, the roar of the river showed no signs of abating, so we couldn't go up the mountain. I played poker and chatted with Shuanzi at home, and the happy atmosphere in the past was restored at home, as if the crisis last night had never happened.

His younger brother, only eight or nine years old, has a round face and is very cute and easy-going. He has never walked out of the mountain, and he yearns for the world beyond the mountain. He asked me a lot of questions, and when he remembered last night, he suddenly felt that he was an indomitable person, tenacious and brave at the critical moment, and no one could beat him.

Two days later, it's sunny. It's time for me to go home. I picked up my dried Schisandra chinensis and a bag of walnuts packed by my mother with a set of bolts and set off. Bolt bolt sent me to Zhanggoukou, and the bolt looked a little reluctant to go, watching me go away.

On the way back, due to the flood that night, many of them were unrecognizable and seriously damaged. The scenery is completely different from the day we entered the mountain, and it is devastated. The water in the river is a little yellow, and the amount of water is much larger. Rafters, furniture and animal carcasses blown down by the flood can be seen everywhere. I heard that the village near the reservoir was flooded to the window that night, and many people fled overnight. I felt the power and horror of the flood for the first time.

After that summer vacation, An Shu dropped out of school without warning. I guess it's because of the pressure of study, and parents in the mountains don't pay much attention to their children's study. Because An Shu once told me that no one there went to high school. Since then, we have rarely seen each other. From then until today, the only time we met was when I was a freshman. That summer vacation, he took advantage of the market in Gaotang town to come to my house, came with him, and held a daughter-in-law with her son. Coincidentally, she is the mountain girl who transferred to school with him that year.

Later, I heard that the town had moved. An Shu's family moved to a village outside the mountain, but I don't know which one it was and I haven't seen it again. But after so many years, his impression in my mind is always lingering.