Back to 80: My Literary Life

It is mid-March. This afternoon, the weather is sunny and warm. The Qin Province Writers Association held a meeting. The directors in Xijing and some members of the Writers Association attended the meeting.

Fang Minghua, Lu Yao, and other vice chairmen of the Writers Association must attend. Chen Zhongshi did not come. He took a leave and stayed in his hometown of Bai Luyuan to revise the second draft of "Bai Luyuan".

Jia Pingwa, who rarely misses meetings, did not attend the meeting. It is said that he is preparing a novel at home. He is very much like Chen Zhongshi and will not stop until he finishes it.

The content of the meeting was mainly to listen to the work report of the Writers Association Chairman Hu Cai on the Writers Association last year. The specific work of the Writers Association this year can be discussed and approved by everyone. Every year is the same old thing.

At noon, the Writers Association also provided meals for the participating members, a bowl of braised meat, and steamed buns for them to take as they like.

Fang Minghua did not go home either. After eating with everyone, he went to his office and took a chair to sit in the yard to bask in the sun.

It is good to have a yard in this weather.

But I will own it soon. The small building in Chaoyangmen has entered the decoration stage. It will be completed by the end of May. Then I will leave it for another summer and move in in October.

In autumn, I can drink tea and appreciate chrysanthemums in the yard and spend my days leisurely.

Open the window facing the field and talk about mulberry and hemp.

Wait until the Double Ninth Festival, and come to enjoy chrysanthemums.

Hehe, this life is beautiful!

Fang Minghao was daydreaming when he saw someone coming over. It was Lu Yao.

"Brother Lu, come and bask in the sun. I'll bring you a chair." Fang Minghua greeted.

"No, Minghua, do you want to go to Tianhan area for a walk?" Lu Yao asked.

"Go to Tianhan?"

"Yes, it's March now. Tianhan is bright and beautiful, with birds singing and flowers blooming everywhere, and rape flowers are blooming. It's beautiful! And someone is providing free food and accommodation"

Free?

Free things often have traps, Fang Minghua couldn't help but be alert.

"Who invited you? Why is it free?"

Lu Yao talked about the whole story.

It turned out that there was a man named Xu Yue who raised funds to establish a journal called "Chinese and Foreign Documentary Literature". However, due to poor operation, he was facing a crisis of loss, so he contacted several factories in Tianhan to write a report to earn some sponsorship fees.

But the factory put forward a requirement that a celebrity must be found to write it. First, he must be able to write well, and more importantly, it must have a sensational effect. It happened that Xu Yue knew Lu Yao, so he found Lu Yao and asked him to go to Tianhan.

Lu Yao thought that he was idle at home, and his friend strongly invited him, so he agreed.

"This Xu Yue is also a member of our Qin Province Writers Association. He once worked as an editor at the Yanhe Magazine for a period of time, but he left in the early 1980s. You hadn't come to the magazine at that time, so you didn't know him." Lu Yao explained.

So that's it!

Fang Minghua was moved by what he heard.

I have heard of the name of Northwest Xiaojiangnan for a long time. I have been in Qin Province for almost ten years. I only passed by it a few times by train on the way, but I haven't really played it.

It's better to go there in spring, which is better than being bored.

Now Song Tangtang is busy preparing for the filming of "Ordinary World", leaving early and returning late, and he is almost alone.

But

"Brother Lu, they invited you but not me, how can I go?" Fang Minghua said.

"Oh, look at what you said, will he not let me go if I mention your name? It's meaningless for me to go alone, let's just go around together? It's up to you whether to write a report literature or not!"

"Okay, when will we leave? How long will we be there?" Fang Minghua decided immediately.

"The sooner the better, it will take about ten days to go back and forth."

"Then after this meeting, I will tell Tangtang, pack up and go to Tianhan!"

Song Tangtang still supports her husband and Lu Yao going to Tianhan.

As writers, you should go out often. You can't write any good works by sitting at home and working behind closed doors.

On the evening of March 19, Fang Minghua and Lu Yao each carried a travel bag, and Song Tangtang drove them to the train station, where they met Xu Yue in the waiting room.

Xu Yue is in his forties this year. He is from Qishan and graduated from Qin Normal University. He has written the essay collection "When I Was Seventeen", the novels "The Adventures of Life in the Mountains" and "The Story of the Goat and the Watermelon".

A typical Guanzhong person, his honest appearance reveals a hint of shrewdness. After introducing each other, the three of them boarded the train to the Tianhan area.

These days, it is not easy to reach the Tianhan area. The straight-line distance from the Tianhan city in Xijing is only more than 200 kilometers, but now there are no high-speed railways and highways, and it is difficult to cross the Qinling Mountains.

Most people go to Tianhan by train along the Longhai Railway to Baoji first, turn south to enter the Baocheng Railway, and then go east to the Yang'an'an Line after reaching Yangpingguan and finally reach the Tianhan city. It takes a full 12 hours!

This is the road Fang Minghua and his friends took.

They took a sleeper berth and headed west. There were some lights along the way. They stopped at Baoji Station for half an hour, and the steam locomotive was replaced with an electric locomotive.

There were still two people, one pulling in front and one pushing in the back, and the train began to cross the Qinling Mountains.

Fang Minghua was lying in the middle bunk, looking out the window at the darkness, with occasional lights and the huge echo of the train passing through the tunnel.

Oh my god

One tunnel after another.

Just as there was a rhythmic "bang bang" sound, Fang Minghua fell asleep.

I don't know how long I slept, Fang Minghua was awakened by Lu Yao in the lower bunk.

"Minghua, get up!"

"Have we arrived?" Fang Minghua opened his eyes, still half asleep.

"No, we are still in the Qinling Mountains. I heard from the conductor that it is a temporary stop. We will stop for a while. Let's go down to get some fresh air."

The Baocheng Line is a single track and a major railway artery connecting the northwest and southwest regions. There are many passenger cars and freight cars running on the railway, so there are many temporary stops due to missed trains, railway failures, etc. Many times, they stop for one or two hours. When you see a train whizzing past from the opposite side, your train will be on its way.

It is probably the same today.

Fang Minghua jumped out of bed, put on his clothes and followed the two people off the train.

This is a small station deep in the Qinling Mountains. Perhaps it was just dawn, and there were no people on the platform to catch the train. Only passengers like Fang Minghua and others got off this train to take a break.

It rained last night. Although the weather was a bit cold, the air was fresh and refreshing.

From the signboard standing by the platform, Fang Minghua knew that the name of this station was Huangniupu, hidden in the Qinling Grand Canyon.

Standing on the platform, looking at the small station with only a row of workrooms, he couldn't help but think of a text he learned in elementary school.

The essay "Small Station" written by writer Yuan Ying describes the appearance of a small railway station in the mountainous area.

He could still remember the beginning:

"This is a small station on the railway line, where only slow trains stop for two or three minutes. The express trains rushed by, and the passengers didn't even have time to see the station name clearly.

At this moment, you might see a small house with red tiles and gray walls, a row of small fences painted white, or three or five figures. And all of this disappeared immediately, and the cliffs and boulders on both sides of the train were still approaching.

Platform, fence, fountain, apricot blossom.

It was like a very beautiful painting. When Fang Minghua read this text that year, he imagined that one day he would be able to be there in person.

I didn't expect to see it this time.

Although there are no fountains and apricot blossoms on this platform, golden forsythia flowers occasionally pop out of the cracks in the steep rocks opposite, swaying in the wind, making the spring scenery of the small station more charming.

"It's so beautiful," Fang Minghua couldn't help but sigh.

"What? Are you moved by the scene and inspired to write a poem? Come on? "Lu Yao joked while smoking a cigarette.

"I'm not Li Bai, who can speak eloquently." Fang Minghua said with a smile: "But the scenery here is indeed beautiful."

"Editor Fang, let me tell you, the Tianhan area is full of beautiful scenery." Xu Yue interrupted: "You can write a travelogue of Tianhan."