Chapter 494

Cuanjia village, originally called cuandibazi, is located on the hillside of a big mountain. The tall and steep mountain suddenly paused there, and a large flat land sprang out, towering forward abruptly and falling slowly on both sides. The ancestors of the Cuan family came here for more than 1000 years and settled down on this platform.

Cuan Di dam has a dangerous terrain, a wide field of vision and houses to live in. In the old times, it was the most ideal stronghold for bandits. But no group of bandits have ever occupied here. It is said that it is because there are gods to protect it. Miracles always happen in times of crisis.

A legend most talked about by the Cuan family is that when Tang Jiyao was in trouble, he hid back in Huize, his hometown, and was chased by bandits to Cuan Di dam. When there was no way to escape, the bandits jumped off the cliff in front of the dam. Later, Tang Jiyao, the governor of Southern Yunnan, came back and set up a monument for Cuan Di dam, engraved with a large Cuan character and a couplet on both sides:

The Mountain God protected Yao and Shun for thousands of years.

There are also small characters engraved with the story of Tang Jiyao's rescue in cuandibazi. They add fuel and vinegar, just to show that he is a man blessed by God. Yao and Shun are alive, and even the gods protect him.

The old people in cuanjia village still remember this monument. It was erected until before liberation, just the night before the PLA entered cuanjou, the then head of cuandibazi, that is, the old lady Cuan, Yao Jingjing's great grandmother, ordered someone to chisel out all the remaining words on the monument, leaving only the word "Cuan". At that time, people in Bashang were puzzled. It was not until more than ten years later that they saw the wisdom of the old lady.

Cuandi dam is good for everything. There are mountains and water, fields and houses, and the mountain god is protecting it. The only disadvantage is that the mountain is too dangerous and the road is difficult to walk. It takes two hours to go down the mountain from the dam, and then it has been half a day to get to the nearby Jizi. This round trip is a whole day. If it's bad for rain and snow, you have to stay outside for a day.

After the road was opened at the foot of the mountain, the people of Cuan Di dam moved to the side of the road at the foot of the mountain. They no longer called Bazi and changed their name to Cuan family village. Later, because the character Cuan was difficult to write, they changed their surname to Cun, just like the people in Cuan Prefecture. Anyway, they had the same pronunciation. At that time, people didn't care how to write it on their ID card. They just called it the same.

In Yao Jingjing's memory, cunjia village is beside the highway like a ribbon. As for the dam on the hillside, she vaguely remembers that she followed her mother when she was a child, but her childhood memory is not very clear. She only remembered that the mountains were very high, the water was very sweet, and there were clouds in front of the house.

The car stopped at the new cunjia village. All the people in the village came out and said hello to Yao's father and mother. The older women looked at Yao Jingjing and kept saying that the girl had grown up and was becoming more and more flexible. They also asked whether Yao's mother-in-law and son-in-law had been selected. Yao's mother said that they had been selected. They were in Wuzhong and those who opened a large company picked us up, I just came back from Wuzhong.

Yao Jingjing was made a red face and repeatedly stopped her mother from talking nonsense. However, Yao's mother didn't listen at all. The more she said, the more outrageous she became. Yao Jingjing simply doesn't care. Let her go. Anyway, she rarely comes once in a few years.

After having dinner at the uncle's house in cunjia village and staying for another night, Yao Jingjing followed her parents up the mountain to the old Cuan Di dam in her memory.

The road up the mountain is hard to walk. The early morning sun shines on the moss on the stone steps, and many vines have climbed to the middle of the road. Although tourism has been developed in recent years, there are not as many tourists to Cuan Prefecture as Chuncheng and Dali, not to mention Cuan dibazi is still so remote.

Yao Jingjing is worried about her mother's body, but Yao's mother is as light as a swallow and walks fast. The landscape of her hometown gave her great spiritual power. She wanted to step up the mountain and see the house she lived in when she was a child.

After walking for more than an hour, Yao Jingjing saw the smoke gray dam hidden in the ancient trees and fog. A large stone tablet with a height of more than one person stands at the mouth of Bazi. The body of the tablet has long been weathered and mottled, but the Cuan character on the tablet is still clear because it is deeply and greatly engraved, and there are still some traces of red paint on it after being engraved in that year.

In addition to a long character, there is still a large amount of space on the stone tablet. When you approach it, you can see that the pits on it are all chiseled marks, which makes this tablet look strange.

Of course, Yao Jingjing has also heard about grandma's ordering someone to chisel the remaining words. She didn't understand it when she was a child. Now she wants to come, grandma is really very prescient and has a little more respect for her.

After passing through several depressions covered with weeds, some stone walls built with stones stopped in front of many gray tile houses covered with vines.

Yao's mother complained, "Oh, really, it's moved down the mountain, and no one cares about the old house!"

Father Yao said, "isn't tourism developed? It looks like a deserted village!"

Uncle Tang, accompanied by his colleagues, said, "Hey, we can't come a few times a year. It's summer. There's no one in autumn. We all come to clean the old house every year when we visit the tomb during the Qingming Festival."

They had planned to go to the grave first, but when they saw the dilapidated appearance of the old house, mother Yao couldn't help but go and have a look first. For fear that grandma's house would be ruined, she didn't have the face to talk to grandma at the grave.

Uncle Tang took the key and helped them open the ancestral house. The house was OK. There was no mildew. Just a lot of tiles fell off the roof and needed to be repaired.

Yao's mother took Yao Jingjing to grandma's room. Uncle Tang and Yao's father smoked outside. It is said that grandma loved cleanliness and didn't let men into her house. Although uncle Tang was a child at that time and could go in and out freely, he wouldn't go into the house when he grew up. Although the old lady is long gone, the people in the village still abide by the rules set by her. The house is cleaned by the women in the village, and men never come in.

The furnishings in the house are very simple, a bed, a dressing table and an old-fashioned wooden cabinet. It doesn't look like people in the mountains. The moment she walked into the door, Yao Jingjing thought she had come to the boudoir of a woman of the Republic of China,

"Oh, it's OK. It's still the same." Yao's mother patted her chest and said.

Yao Jingjing sees a piece of glass on the dresser and several old black-and-white photos under the glass. They have seriously faded, and they are spotted and out of shape.

Yao Jingjing looked down curiously and found that most of the photos could not see the picture. Only one of them could identify a woman in military uniform. Although the face is fuzzy, I can still feel the valiant and heroic posture.

"Wow, grandma has really been a soldier!"

Yao Jingjing seemed to see grandma killing the enemy on the battlefield with a gun.

With this in mind, she didn't feel bitter when she was sweating on the training ground. After all, she was bleeding from Lao Long's family!

"Mom, how can you put such an important photo of grandma so casually?" Yao Jingjing touched the glass table and felt that the photo had been stuck with the glass and could not be taken out again.

She didn't hear her mother's answer. Looking back, her mother held an old square wooden box in her hand and fell asleep against grandma's bedside. She saw her mother's eyelids moving and vaguely felt a wave of mental power.

Yao Jingjing is curious. What dreams will mom have at the moment? She thought so and entered her mother's dream.

A boundless yellow sand sea appeared in front of me, and my mother stood in front of the desert. There is an invisible wall between her and the desert, as if she were in a dark cinema. In front of her is a huge screen with desert scenery films.

There came a man in the desert. At first, it was a black spot. When she approached, she saw that it was an old lady in a homespun agricultural dress. With silver hair and no wrinkles on her face, she walked with unspeakable grace.

The old lady approached, looked at mother Yao lovingly and seriously across the screen and said, "where's Xueer in my house? Why is she missing?"