Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 515: A small station deep in the Qinling Mountains

It is now mid-March. This afternoon, the weather was 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 were of course expected to attend. Chen Zhongshi did not come. He took a leave of absence and stayed in his hometown of Bai Lu Yuan, where he was revising the second draft of Bai Lu Yuan.

Jia Pingwa, who seldom missed meetings, did not attend the meeting. It was said that he was preparing a novel at home, and seemed to be following Chen Zhongshi's example and would not stop until he finished it.

The meeting was mainly to listen to the work report of the Writers Association last year made by Hu Cai, the chairman of the Writers Association. The specific work of the Writers Association this year was discussed and approved by everyone. Every year it is the same old thing with nothing new.

At noon, the Writers Association also provided meals to the participating members, including a bowl of braised meat and steamed buns of their choice.

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

It’s nice to have a yard in this weather.

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

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

Kaixuan noodle farm, the wine talk mulberry.

After the Chongyang Day, the chrysanthemum will come.

Hehe, this life is so 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 him.

"No need, Minghua, do you want to take a trip to the Tianhan area?" Lu Yao asked.

"Going to Tianhan?"

"Yes, it is March now. The spring is bright and beautiful over there. There are birds singing and flowers blooming everywhere. The rape flowers are in bloom. It is very beautiful! And someone is providing free food and accommodation."

free?

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

"Who invited you? Why is it free?"

Lu Yao explained the whole story.

It turned out that there was a man named Xu Yue who raised funds on his own to establish a magazine called "Chinese and Foreign Documentary Literature", but due to poor management, he was facing a crisis of losses, so he contacted several factories in Tianhan to write a reportage to earn some sponsorship fees.

But the manufacturer required that a celebrity be found to write the story, not only to ensure that it could be well written, but more importantly to create a sensation. Xu Yue happened to know Lu Yao, so he found Lu Yao and asked him to go to Tianhan.

Lu Yao thought that he was just sitting around doing nothing at home, and since his friend strongly invited him, he agreed.

"This Xu Yue is also a member of our Qin Province Writers Association. He used to work 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.

That's it!

Fang Minghua was moved by what he heard.

I have heard of the fame of Northwest Jiangnan for a long time. I have lived in Qin Province for almost ten years and have only passed by it a few times by train, but have never really visited it.

It would be nice to go there in spring, it’s better than staying bored here.

Now Song Tangtang is busy running around to prepare for the filming of "Ordinary World", leaving home early and returning late, and she is almost alone.

but
"Brother Lu, they invited you but didn't invite me, how can I have the nerve to go?" Fang Minghua said.

"Oh, look at what you said. Would he not allow me to tell you my name? It's no fun for me to go alone. Why don't we just go together? It's up to you whether you want to write a report or not!"

"Okay, then. When do we leave? How long will it take?" 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 to pack up and go to Tianhan!" Song Tangtang was very supportive of her husband and Lu Yao going to Tianhan.

As a writer, you need to go out often. You can't write good works by sitting at home and working on your own.

On the evening of March 3, Fang Minghua and Lu Yao each carried a travel bag and were driven to the train station by Song Tangtang, where they met Xu Yue in the waiting room.

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

They were typical Guanzhong people, with simple and honest looks but revealing a hint of shrewdness. After introducing themselves to 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 urban area in Xijing is only more than 200 kilometers, but there are no high-speed railways and highways now, and it is difficult to cross the Qinling Mountains.

Most people who go to Tianhan take a train along the Longhai Railway to Baoji, then turn south to join the Baoji-Chengdu Railway. After arriving at Yangping Pass, they head east along the Yang'an'an Line and finally arrive at the urban area of ​​Tianhan. It takes a full 12 hours!
This is the path that Fang Minghua and his group took.

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

It still took two people, one pulling in front and one pushing from behind, for the train to start crossing the Qinling Mountains.

Fang Minghua lay on the middle bunk, looking out the window at the pitch-black darkness with occasional lights and the huge echo of the train passing through the tunnel.

Oh my god
One cave after another.

Just as the rhythmic "bang bang" sounds were being heard, Fang Minghua fell asleep.

I don’t know how long I slept before Fang Minghua was woken up by Lu Yao who was sleeping in the lower bunk.

"Minghua, get up!"

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

"No, we're still in the Qinling Mountains. The conductor said we're stopping temporarily for a while. Let's get off and get some fresh air."

The Baoji-Chengdu Line is a single track and a major railway artery connecting the northwest and southwest regions. There are many passenger cars and freight trains running on the railway, so there are many temporary stops due to missed trains, railway failures, etc. Many times the train stops for one or two hours, and only when you see a train whizzing past from the opposite side does your own train slowly start to get on its way.

The situation is probably the same today.

After hearing this, Fang Minghua jumped out of bed, put on her clothes, and followed the two people off the train.

This is a small station deep in the Qinling Mountains. Perhaps it was just daybreak and there was no one on the platform waiting to catch their train yet. There were only passengers like Fang Minghua who had gotten 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 station was called 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 had learned in elementary school.

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

He still remembers the beginning:
"This is a small station on the railway line. Only slow trains stop for two or three minutes. Express trains rush by, and passengers don't even have time to see the station name clearly.

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

Platform, fence, fountain, almond blossoms.
Just like a very beautiful painting, when Fang Minghua read this text that year, he imagined that one day he would be able to experience it in person.

I didn't expect to see it this time.

Although there are no fountains or apricot blossoms on this platform, golden forsythia flowers occasionally poke their heads out from the cracks in the towering and steep rocks opposite, swaying in the wind, making the spring scenery of the station even more charming.

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

"What's up? Are you inspired to write a poem by the scene? Write one?" Lu Yao joked while smoking a cigarette.

"Okay, okay, 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."

(End of this chapter)