New life gradually settled onto its proper track as time flowed slowly by, like a stream rushing down from the mountains. No matter what obstacles they encounter, they must always find a direction forward, converging into the low-lying sea, where things both knowable and unknowable unfold. The girl remained free, finding spare moments to do things she enjoyed—reading, drawing, cooking, sleeping in, and secretly playing on her phone, for which she was scolded. As for me, I was immersed in the pleasures brought by the firewood stove, devoted to its rich, smoky warmth. Such a life seemed quite intoxicating.
We often took walks in the fields, or walked to the seaside. Several times the girl pointed to the mountains in the west and asked, what mountain is that? Is it Cangshan? After giving her an affirmative answer, we could never resist scolding her a little—how could you not even recognize Cangshan by now? That long stretch of mountains we can see to the west is all Cangshan. The girl would retort with perfect confidence, I just don't remember, it's not that I'm stupid. She was only eight months old when she first saw this unique landscape of mountains and sea. Now she is twelve, and the mountains and sea seen from our home are quite different from what she saw in her early childhood, so it is forgivable that she does not recognize them.
When she was still very young, we lived in a village by the sea. Standing on the third-floor terrace, we could gaze out at the entire rolling expanse of Cangshan and the broad, flat fields beyond the village. Now, however, we can only see a few more intimate and exquisite peaks. Back then, we often stepped outside during the rainy season, pausing by the low wall, spending half an hour or longer watching the jade-belt clouds drift slowly from the north to the south, condensing at the mountainside into a gentle aerial spectacle. The girl would point at the double rainbow after the rain, letting out soft, joyful childish sounds, dancing with delight. On clear winter days, she would let me place her in the small stroller and push her along the lakeside road for a while, basking in the sun; or we would go into the withered yellow wild grass to look for colorful wildflowers and lingering crickets. She would also happily lie on my back, following us to places we had never been.
We preferred the winters here. Compared with our familiar hometown, the winters here are more brisk and lively. People do not deliberately pay attention to the exact hour winter arrives. Once Cangshan is shrouded and entwined by thick clouds for a little too long, sharp-eyed people will quickly spread the good news of snowfall, and only then does winter truly begin to spread across this land. After the snowfall ends, this land becomes even more vast and limpid.
Snow here usually falls only above Cangshan's permanent snow line, and people on the flatland rarely have the chance to touch it. But during our first winter living here, we encountered a rare snowfall. How happy everyone was then, watching the white layers deepen one after another on the mountaintops so low across Erhai Lake. Even the most staid elders could not help but wear joy on their faces, coming outdoors one after another, even though the cold wind carried a somewhat unfriendly sharpness that stung the face. There was a patch of wild land by the sea, said to have been bought by a wealthy local planning to build a luxury hotel. Construction had not yet begun, and only a villager watched over the building materials. The scenery inside was still lovely. With the villager's permission, we went in and took many snowscape photos under the banana trees there. The girl's birthday is in winter. When she turned one, we planned to take her on a bicycle tour around Erhai Lake. But because that winter brought unprecedented cold, the trip around the lake was postponed by about two months, and we only set out with her on my back when the withered willows had grown new leaves again.
When mountains and sea meet, gently caressing soft light. Many trivial matters of the past have long faded from my memory. Only when I leaf through the photos that remain can I gradually recall those insignificant yet deeply moving, subtle, ordinary moments. For example, before the girl learned to walk, she was always unwilling to be tucked into the stroller, preferring to be held in my arms as we played in the large patch of wild grass behind the house that would soon be turned into a farm. She always refused to sit properly, instead turning around to stand leaning against the armrest, then tumbling solidly into the tall grass, caught by the earth. I do not know when it began, but we became familiar with this beautiful landscape of mountains and sea, and with the fleeting light and shadows between them. Since then, we no longer regarded this place merely as a travel destination, but as the place where we live.
