When I followed Anli back to her grandmother's house again, it was already midsummer. The primroses that had surrounded the entire Huoshan Village during the Spring Festival had now erased all traces, hiding in the ground patiently waiting for the next spring. The dense and tall walnut trees surged with a sea of bright green, making the village seem like an island reef submerged in the ocean. The buzzing insects in the ears were like small fish swimming past a whale, and the scorching sunlight was filtered by the layered leaves, becoming as gentle as a wooden sole.
When we arrived, Erwa was sitting on a small square stool in the clover field under the walnut tree to cool off, while Grandma was sitting on the doorstep shelling last year's walnuts. The weeds in front and behind the house were striving upward in the ground, while the fruits on the branches were trying to return downward. They all exuded the thick atmosphere of this season, enveloping this independent, quiet, and silent air. If people stay in such a natural and harmonious environment for a long time, they might also absorb its aura, becoming like a moving peach. The mule foraging on the grass casually flicked its tail, producing faint tremors, as if responding to the noisy summer cicadas hidden in the trees. Here, every species can find its place and enjoy itself.
Erwa led us to the plum orchard on the high ground behind the village to find wild vegetables. He walked ahead, calling out the names of various weeds by the roadside, breaking off a piece and putting it into his mouth to suck the sweet juice from the grass stems. I remembered when I was a child herding cattle, I saw that the cattle liked to eat grass, and I was very curious about the taste of grass. So I plucked a blade of grass and put it in my mouth to chew. It turned out to be an extremely sweet delicacy. I was delighted for a long time, and from then on, every time I herded cattle, I would also fill myself with the sweet juice from the grass like the cattle. People living in nature have an astonishing familiarity with nature, almost like naturalists. They can always accurately name every weed and wildflower by the roadside, and also precisely state their edible and medicinal effects. Correspondingly, as part of nature, nature's understanding of them exceeds their own self-awareness. For example, in this season, the weeds growing vigorously by the roadside are sure to be those with the effects of clearing heat, detoxifying, dispersing stasis, and relieving pain.
Erwa pointed to a small patch of tall Yunnan pine forest outside the plum orchard and told us that he had planted them himself as a child, following adults to buy saplings from Qingyun Village. More than twenty years ago, the saplings were about the size of roadside weeds, but now they stand tall and majestic. The abandoned wooden shed was where he used to spend the night watching over sheep when he was young. One shed housed the sheep, and the other housed him. On dark summer nights, he would stay alone guarding the sheep all night, also watching fireflies all night. Recalling those distant memories, it felt like he was remembering an old friend. People are always like this: adults recall childhood, the elderly recall youth. All the hardships and toils of the past, when retold now, are like sipping tea, echoing with endless sweetness.
When we returned to the village, Anli had already cooked the zongzi. A series of fragrant dishes were then placed on the square table. We sat in a corner of the courtyard, avoiding the still fierce slanting sunlight, and began to enjoy the warm time that came with the sunset. In this quiet and simple village, where one can gaze at mountains tens of kilometers away and wildflowers bloom like a brilliant galaxy, poetry and distance are the wild meadows covered with yellow flowers, the endless mountain ridges, and the homes that one can return to just by thinking of them.
