Wang Huailing

The barren and arid barren land is still indomitably growing a plant, Licorice.

The woman packed her luggage in tears. The baggage is just a few pieces of old clothes and dry food to eat on the road. The boy squatted on the threshold

and dawdled with his shoelaces, his dirty thumbnails exposed on the outside of his rubber shoes.

The sun came out with a bit of vigor, and the woman glared out the door in displeasure at the hellish weather.

"Go, put your backpack on." The woman said decidedly to the boy.

The boy quickly picked up his backpack and ran towards the gate. The woman locked the gate, walked a few steps, and then turned back to look

at the yard, two strings of crystal tears could not help but gush out of their eyes, and when they fell to the ground, smashed up the dust like two gray

flowers.

The boy has run down a sliver of slope, followed closely by a yellow dust, the boy is not a little bit away from home

away from the sadness, on the contrary, feel that the front of the good things waiting for them, jumping joyfully.

The village is very quiet. At eight or nine o'clock in the morning, the village is so silent that there is not even a chicken barking, not even a wisp of smoke

cooking smoke, as if the whole village is only a woman and a boy, the two living things.

Walking out of the village, the woman saw a dark shadow swaying on the road. The woman's eyes this time a little flower, see

What are muddy thud, she knows that this is the sunlight to the sting, the sunlight is a poisonous needle, the first to stab you in the eyes of the

dry hair pain, then a blur, and then blind. The woman attributes it to the darkness of the sun.

"Doll, are you going to the Wave Mother's house?" Closer, the dark shadows swaying on the road became talking grandmothers.

"My donkey is dead." The woman said.

"The family is gone, I came to see them off."

"My donkey died, last night." The woman said.

"The family has gone to Yinchuan."

"My donkey died, it was a good donkey." The woman said.

"This God does not want people to live."

"It's dying of thirst." The woman said.

The boy shouted loudly from a short distance away, "Mom, you quickly go mouth sand."

The woman had to look back when she walked a short distance, and she was able to land her eyes exactly where her house

was situated in only a split second of turning around. Of the dozens of homes scattered across the sunny slopes of one side of the village, hers was not marked by any buildings other than

than those of its neighbors. The entire village was made up of kilns dug into the hillside, with one or two unroofed

yellow mud huts in front of them. The woman stops at a mountain beam, knowing that if she walks over it she will never see the village or her home again. Last night, the woman buried the donkey in the garden behind the house and sat down on the soft, dry soil to think: If

If there are clouds in the sky tomorrow morning, I won't go, I'll wait for the rain and plant some buckwheat and small sun and moon millet. The woman looked up

at the sky, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, it was as clean as if it had been wiped with a rag. The gods won't keep us any longer! The woman

screamed sadly in her heart.

There were few people on the road, and it was rare to see a person in a hurry over a beam or a ditch, and the ones who did occasionally came across

were either women digging for licorice in fear, or old men herding goats with blank stares. The Lord has left this land in the hands of the

women and the old people to manage. The men have gone out to work, and the men only go out when they are hopeless.

When it doesn't

rain, it's impossible for the men to sow the seeds of hope into the hot, dry winds, and the land that they depend on for their livelihoods is left to fall into disuse.

The abandoned land is dotted with some sparse licorice seedlings, women take it as a life-saving straw even rooted

Pulled out for some firewood, oil and salt, was pulled out of the place, the color of the soil is brown, like a patch on the wilderness.

Artemisia is slow to grow out, only the ground pepper son poked out a little head, sheep arching the ground nibbled its two pieces of ear

dou, then slipped to the bottom of the ditch to drink alkaline water. The life of the licorice, the life of the ground pepper, the life of the sheep tenaciously in the wind, its

The next is the sparse lemon green with the flag of life. The gully and the loess dry plateau is very lonely, the lack of red flowers and green grass

smoked earth like home without a man's woman's mood, lonely and six godless.

At first, the boy also constantly chased the yellow rat, the yellow rat a lot, half a hundred paces can run into a, all thin bones

jagged, wrinkled hair, frightened as if into the hole. Gradually, the boys ran out of enthusiasm for chasing the weasels, and their steps

dragged a little. A ditch lay before them. The woman remembers that the road used to be straight, but now it takes a

huge detour to get to the other side. The ditch collapsed every year, once in a rainstorm, halfway up the mountain.

The woman lost her confidence in bending the road and sat down on the edge of the ditch with a sigh, and the boy sat down too, staring stonily across the road.

There was a girl digging for sweet grass. Across the street there is a girl digging licorice, a clearing has been dug out a dozen patches, the woman again heavy

sighed.

The woman shouted across a ditch, "Hey, woman, have you found an in-law yet?"

The girl digging for licorice lifted her head and looked across.

"Don't marry in the mountains, the sky is dry and on fire, there is no way to live, sinning to death." The woman continued to shout.

The girl who dug the licorice held the licorice and walked toward the village without answering a word.

The big girl pulled the she-donkey grazing around the village, the little donkey foal around her, as if she is its

biological mother, the big girl dress up the little donkey foal like a child dress up the little donkey foal, to the little donkey foal head tied with colorful flowers

and cloth, wearing twelve small bells on the neck, the little donkey foal a joy, there is a tinkly dong dong long beautiful music in the wind

swinging in the wind.

Swinging in the wind. The big girl, while her donkey, while digging in the mountains of the few licorice, save enough ten pounds, to

market to sell, for a ten head eight dollars, the big girl to buy a cut flower cloth, buy a bottle of inexpensive face

oil, and then to the little donkey pony to buy a few bells or a bridle with a flower.

The donkey is two years old and his black hair is so shiny that he can't climb flies.

The girl's family

In Gansu Huanxian a small mountain village, the in-laws in Ningxia Guyuan a small mountain village, two provinces, two counties, two townships are adjacent to the

The same bitter focus, the same barren. When the girl married to the family proposed what dowry do not want, to take away the small

black donkey, the mother's family did not agree, and finally the in-laws with a donkey in exchange, of course, there is a box of colored cloth, cloth flowers to

and bells and bridles.

The woman to the in-laws has been nine years, the second year of marriage on the birth of a boy, and now the child is eight years old, think about it, that

donkey has been eleven years old, the woman's biggest regret is that she did not remember the donkey's date of birth, only remembered that it is in the old calendar

May of the day, or else she will give the donkey's birthday, just like the birthday of the child, even if it is more bitter, but also

Feverishly, she cut a bundle of grass for the donkey and served a basin of fresh water.

Now, that donkey has gone on the road, it went to another world to enjoy the blessings of the world, that world has a wide grass

field, there is sweet spring water, there is fragrant hemp peas, there is with the woman as much as the love of its master, to where,

worst is not worse than the present such as being killed alive by thirst, starvation.

"Mom, I can't walk anymore, slow down for a while and then walk again."

"Slow down for a while."

"Mom, I'm hungry."

The woman took the dried food from the bag, and handed the boy a yellow cornmeal pancake, which the boy took a bite of and chewed with difficulty.

"Mom, I'm thirsty."

"Bear with it, there's water just ahead."

"How far is it?"

"I don't know."

The boy knowingly put the dried food back into his bundle, his eyes raised to look into the distance, he wanted to see a river or look at a

spring, the woman took a piece of licorice from a small bundle she had with her, broke it off, and handed the boy a section of it, and mother and son chewed it

slowly, and the bitter-sweet taste made a little saliva in the mouth, and swallowed it down, and the throat didn't feel

smoke. >

Smoke.

In front of a three-wheeled trampoline, carrying half a carload of licorice.

The car was shaking in the thick dust, and the mountains

mounted in front of it were covered in a haze of dirt and fog.

The trampoline stopped in front of the mother and son, the driver of the whole a dirt thief, like just crawled out of the rat hole,

full voice roar: "licorice sell?"

"Not for sale." The woman replied wailing, like a fly screaming.

The boy's eyes fixed on a plastic jar hanging from the handlebars that held more than half a can of tea, and the boy looked

at the tea at his mother. Just as the trampoline started, the woman called out, "Change the water?"

The driver says dismissively, "Just kidding." The latter words need not be said, you think your licorice is worth a cow price or

is the price of a horse, gold?

The woman said, "My child is thirsty."

The disdain on the driver's face disappeared in a gust of wind, and the woman saw the dust-covered face show sympathy and

tolerance.

"Take it." The driver generously handed the child the plastic can.

A rolling yellow dragon rises from before the eyes of mother and child.

"Licorice, licorice," the woman shouted as she scrambled to her feet, and the trampoline rounded a corner and was gone,

and a flurry of dust fell like a warm blessing. The woman was touched by kindness.

The sun really seems like a furnace, baking the woman and the child covered in sweat, the sweat on the woman's head flowed to the face, on

a burst of pain, the woman once beautiful face is now rotten with blood, that is the sun to the sun. The woman

People in the house while herding donkeys, while digging licorice, the wind and sun, hard to ruin the woman a beautiful face, face

First red and black, then peeling, and then cracked dry blood-red small mouth. What is even more pitiful is the old donkey, in order to

nibble some grass buds, mouth close to the ground arch, the result is that the lips are also worn peeling, by the hot soil scalded, the mouth swollen with

hippopotamus like.

The boy had finished the plastic jar of tea. The woman carefully put the empty canister into a duffel bag,

a reminder of a good samaritan.

A yellow rat ran from one side of the road to the other, blinking at the two small, earthy pedestrians on the road,

and then burrowed into a cluster of lemons.

They traveled through village after village, through stark wilderness after stark wilderness.

At dusk, they saw a black dragon not far down the hillside, snaking along without knowing its head or tail,

and many small beetles crawling to and fro on its back.

"Mom, what is that?"

"A big road, paved with asphalt."

"Look how fast that beetle runs."

"That's not a beetle, it's a car."

"Faster than our donkey?"

"Faster than our donkey."

The boy had never traveled far. To be exact, he has never left home, the boy has walked the most spacious road is today

walked this dirt road, this road can also go to the car, the old home of the road can not even pass a walking tractor.

The woman, feeling tired now, sat paralyzed on a small mound of dirt by the side of the road, and the boy sat down against his mother, looking down the hill at the

big road and the cars.

"Mom, is that the car my dad left in?"

"Uh-huh."

"Did it go south or north?"

"I don't know."

The woman didn't know if Gulaben was north or south. The furthest she could remember traveling was when her fiancé took

her to the county seat of Gulaben for her wedding photos, and at the time, she still hadn't figured out whether Gulaben was in the south or the north.

"Can we find my dad?"

"Yes."

"I'll go to school if we find him."

"You'll go to school if we find him."

The woman's husband went out to work four years ago.

The year is 1995, the boy is only three and a half years old, that

year is also a hundred years of drought, and this year is the same, the day does not rain, the spring of the water is dry, the city people all the way

far with a car to the mountains, the mountain people along the dirt road with barrels and jars to grab the water to drink, the cows and sheep died of thirst a layer of

The man went to the outside world to work to earn money went to the woman left at home with the child, digging sugarcane, and the woman was not able to find the money. The woman was at home with her children and digging for licorice. What's different is that

that

spring also had a rain, the field more or less sowed some seeds, although the crop is not good, but after all, there

point of green, there are green there is hope. And this year, a drop of rain also did not fall, the ground a seed also did not sow, May Festival

over, the land a faction of abject poverty, only the stars of the lemon more or less wet with the woman's eyes.

The woman's husband went out that year, and wrote that he was working at a construction site in Yinchuan, and that he would

come home when it got cold.

The first time I saw a woman's face, she said, "I don't know what to say, but I don't know what to say," she said. The woman knows that the man is very ambitious, she believes that the man earned money

will come back, he loves his own woman, love his son. The next year when it was cold, the man had not returned.

Some people said that the man in the Gulaben private coal cellar on the work, the woman asked the Gulaben in what place, the man said the Gulaben in

Meng. Since then, the woman has been thinking about Gulaben. The first time I saw this, I was able to get a word in edgewise, and I was able to get a word in edgewise, and I was able to get a word in edgewise.

Later, the woman several times heard the private coal cellar collapsed and crushed to death, she was alone in tears: "You live

to give us a word of mouth mouth sand, dead you give me a dream mouth sand, how you have no news at all?"

The heavy night like a huge sieve, filtered out the daytime heat. The woman and the boy came to the asphalt paved

road, the road vehicles to and fro, the road on both sides of a slice of tiled buildings, the door are hanging bulbs,

most of the kiosks, restaurants and gas stations.

The boy said, "I'm hungry."

"I'll buy you a bun."

"We have buns."

"I'll buy you noodles."

The woman took the boy into a restaurant with the smallest frontage and asked for a bowl of chow mein, the woman asked for a bowl of noodle soup that didn't cost anything

and soaked the dry food in the bowl of noodle soup as she ate it.

"Master, is there a car that goes to Gulaben?" The woman asked.

"There are passing ones tomorrow morning, not at night." The diner owner replied.

"How much is the fare to go Gulaben?"

"Thirty dollars is about right, you get on the bus and then bargain with them." The boss was shrewd enough to teach the woman.

The woman's heart secretly rejoiced, she still had fifty-one dollars in her close coat pocket, which she had saved from digging up licorice,

which she had exchanged for a pretty face.

"What da man are you?" The boss asked.

"Dryburger."

"What's the point of going gulaben?"

"Wave relatives."

"Can't go tonight, you live in the restaurant, I am also dry fortress people, how come I have not seen you, what do you call

name?"

"Life is cheap, parents did not An name." The woman replied. When the woman just married over, the village people meet called her new

daughter-in-law, gave birth to a child, and then did not call her new daughter-in-law, called the child's name, her name only man happy

when only muttered a few times, the man went away, even the woman herself almost forgot that she also has a good name.

After eating, the woman took the child to a corner that is not easy to be found, the woman took out the dry food and plastic

material canisters, so that the child lay down on the pillow of the baggage of clothes, and she pillowed the small bundle of licorice. The steps made of cement were as flat as

a kang, and as warm as a kang by the poisonous sun of the day, and soon both mother and child were

in dreamland.

The woman dreamed that she and her child rode on the back of the family donkey, which flew in the

sky like the White Dragon Horse in Journey to the West, and she saw that Gulaben's mountain was filled with green trees, and that the woods were dug into black holes after black holes, and that

there was a bright little river twining around Gulaben's knees, and that her husband had drilled out of one of those holes, his face full of coal

black and surprised. >

Black and surprised, he waved his hand and shouted, "Licorice, licorice."

The woman's name was Licorice.