I also know that the coming day is the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, a festival for the mountain opposite the village. The mountain is not an ordinary mountain; it's a Buddhist holy land. On this day, many devout men and women will come to the mountain to burn incense and worship Buddha, praying for smoothness and health. There are also some people who just come to wander around without any specific purpose. Surrounded by incense smoke and the sound of chanting sutras, every person who comes is imbued with the grandeur and enthusiasm of the festival. Compared to any other day of the year, on this day, both the village and the mountain are festive, joyful, bustling, and noisy. Villagers set up small stalls at the foot of the mountain to sell incense paper, snacks, toys, and other items, thus earning a pretty good income. And the rural stores in the village welcome guests from all walks of life.
As dawn breaks subtly and night falls. With roosters crowing and dogs barking. Smoke curling from chimneys. Winter gone, spring coming. Weddings, funerals, marriages. Eating, drinking, urination, defecation. Birth, aging, sickness, death. Joy. Sorrow. Hardship. Silent endurance. Perseverance. Helplessness. Entrustment. Aspiration...
Passing through the alley, I see someone's gate open, lights on in the house, and shadows busy in the yard. I know that their current busyness is worthwhile. During this season, there will be some tourists arriving, not many, but also not as few as usual. They may walk on the mountain path, stroll on the mountain, come to this village for meals and accommodation. Depending on people’s tastes and preferences, different reactions will arise. Exclamations and exclamations of amazement will sound, and so will sighs of regret. However, for most of the year, the village is lonely, people are lonely, days are silent, and everything here is like the flow of the stream of the small river to the north of the village, calm, soundless, but never ceasing.
For a village, such a night is too common. It has rained during the day, wind has come at night, figures can be seen, dog barks can be heard, and the deepening night color, the rapidly deepening dreams, as well as deeper breaths, sighs, and mutterings in sleep.
Finally, the village completely belongs to the night.
On this night, I stay in a farmhouse inn in Maojiataizi Folk Village as a tourist. In fact, I wish that everything here was familiar to me as I am familiar with them. This village used to be called Yangjuanbao by me and many people around me. If you have been here before, you must have seen the origin of the name Yangjuanbao inscribed on the wall stele of the folk village; if you are going to come here, you will surely see it. It was once a small mountain village with dozens of households. The villagers worked in the surrounding mountain fields, living peacefully and happily. Now, more than ten households' courtyards have been renovated into agritainment establishments, all because of the mountain across from the village. Government action benefits the villagers, and there's nothing wrong with that. There are always a few days in a year when here seems relatively noisy and lively, but for the rest of the time, it still returns to the tranquility and composure of the mountain village.
A village's night can be rich enough for you to interpret endlessly. A night of a village is equally rich enough for you to savor thoroughly.
But such a night in the village is absolutely extraordinary. Among the inherent elements of the village, there are many unfamiliar figures, footsteps, languages, and even bodily scents added. Of course, this does not change anything about the village, but in this one night, the village absorbs some sounds in the thick night, digests some scents, prepares some snacks, and retains some figures under the heavy night. For a night in a mountain village, this is rare and precious, and will be preserved forever. After many such nights, the village will continue some beautiful things.
Deep into the night, the village is surrounded by mountains and darkness, and I stay in the village, thinking about everything related to the village.
As a folk village, this village still lacks much and needs a lot of development and construction; as agritainment, this village has only just begun and is far from being large-scale. Tonight, I live here, observing and feeling with a familiar attitude and psychology. There were moments when I felt like a child returning from afar, crawling on the kang bedhead, while my father's sighs and my mother's chatter continued, and I had already fallen asleep. In my dream, I was the girl I met during the day and took a picture of her, playing with a cardboard box as a car...
As twilight grows thicker and thicker, wrapping around us more densely.
The village road we walked on is newly paved with cement, flat and white, and even without streetlights, it's unnecessary to worry about walking poorly. During the day, we noticed that there were not very lush poplar trees on both sides of the road. At this moment, the sparse branches and leaves of these trees seem black and gloomy. A breeze blows over, and the coolness penetrates the skin. This is due to the two rains that fell during the day. One was in the morning, drizzling, neither dense nor sparse, slanting like cow hair, yet wetting the road and soaking our clothes. Another came in the afternoon, tight and urgent, followed by a sudden sunny day after the rain, which refreshed the mountain fields significantly. Due to these two rains, the mountain night feels icy cold.
This is the content of the world. The people in the village have adapted to such a life. Working hard, seeking. Placing more hopes in their hearts, gradually approaching.
Walking quietly on the village road, listening carefully, besides the gentle wind and rustling leaves, what other sounds are there in my ears? The faint chanting sounds from the mountain drift over...
And for such a night in MaojiaTai Village, I am amidst it, feeling its actual state moving towards the clear dawn where the sun rises in the dark.