"Mom, why do you want to put a red cloth on the stone?"
"Where is the red cloth?"
"Mom... I seem to see that the stones in front of the temple in the back mountain can talk."
"Go to bed early, I have to go to school tomorrow."
The woman covered the boy with a quilt, and the boy turned to look out the window at the night. The woman put out the oil lamp, closed the door and went out. The moonlight shined on the boy's face through the window.
He blinked and looked out the window. After a while, he turned over, scratched his itch, and handed his back to the moonlight.
I still have to go to school tomorrow.
In the mountains, hundreds of insects chirp one after another, and there are also owls that hunt for food at night, which is very lively.
Du Ziheng came to the back mountain again the next day.
There is a temple here. In front of the temple is a unicorn made of stone. There is a statue of a god in the temple, which is covered with red cloth.
His mother said no, but he turned around and saw that there was clearly one.
I heard that this place was very prosperous in the past, and it was always popular during festivals. But then for some reason no one came.
With fewer people, the vegetation has become more prosperous, and the sun can't even shine into the forest.
It actually became his secret base.
He had just taken out the steamed buns in his bag and was about to eat them when a gust of wind suddenly started blowing in the woods outside the temple. He looked up in confusion and saw that there was someone else in front of him.
That is a beautiful woman.
Du Ziheng, who was six or seven years old, was dumbfounded. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and gave half of the buns on his hand to the woman.
The woman ate his steamed buns and told him that she had eaten his tribute and could ask her for anything in the future.
She will agree.
"Then take me into the mountains to play."
This was Du Ziheng's first wish for her. He wanted someone to take him to play.
The woman agreed to him, took his hand and took him to the mountains.
The mountains are very lively, with a few cumulus clouds floating under the melodious clear sky. A gust of wind comes slowly through the forest, and the wind blowing on you is extremely pleasant.
He competed with the woman but could not beat the opponent many times. He wanted to pick fruits from the tree, and the woman let him ride on her shoulders to pick. The woman could also weave banmao and blow whistles made of banyan leaves. Will take him to catch hares.
She can also sing. She learned it from people at the foot of the mountain, and she sings very beautifully.
The woman sang softly, and the wind blew across the grass and lake. Du Ziheng lay on the lawn and fell asleep at some point.
They squatted in the grass and watched the ants move. They were very happy when they caught the rhinoceros. When a monster appeared in the mountains, he became even more excited. He ran over yelling, but was held back by the woman.
"That's all for today. It's getting dark. I'll take you back."
When he went back, Du Ziheng knew her name.
The woman's name is Duoxi.
The next day he went to the mountain again.
"Duoxi, I brought this one. This one is called Southeast, Southeast, and Northwest. After I fold it, I will write something on it and I will teach you how to play..."
Went on the third day too.
"Taxi, wouldn't it be boring for you to be alone in the mountains? By the way, you are a monster."
The fourth day...
"Taxi, why can't they see monsters and only me can see monsters?"
Every day after that happened without incident.
"Too happy, we went to pick snake fruits today, and I saw that the snake fruits are quite ripe."
Duoxi took his little hand and took him to the mountains to find snake fruits. Du Ziheng was always restless and liked to jump up and down or pick up a stick to play with.
"How happy you are! Look! The platycodon flowers are blooming, so beautiful."
Du Ziheng asked Duoxi to squat down and put platycodon in her hair.
The boy grew up day by day, and there was always a quiet and peaceful beautiful woman by his side. When he looked back, he seemed to be running fast enough that his troubles could not catch up with him.
However, it is not always a happy time for a young man. Sometimes he will be distressed.
When he was twelve years old, he sat by the lake, hugged his face glumly, and said:
"Duoxi, I really want a lantern. The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming in a few days. Everyone in the school has lanterns, but my mother won't buy me a lantern."
This was his second wish for Duoxi, he wanted a lantern.
Daxi doesn't have human money, she doesn't even know what money is, so she can't buy a lantern for Du Ziheng, but she can make one for him herself.
They go find the materials.
Oil paper, candles, wire.
Trim the wood into strips, fold the oil paper into a lantern, and bend the wire into the base of the candle.
Du Ziheng thought that Duoxi was omnipotent, because Duoxi was always able to do anything with ease. She could catch rabbits and judge what fruits were edible.
But this time Duoxi failed many times.
It turns out that there are things that Duoxi cannot do, he thought with a smile.
Between failure and each restart, he regretted and laughed, but was always happy and calm, but they finally succeeded on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.
It was a lantern that was so beautiful that Du Ziheng jumped for joy.
Duoxi lit the candle for him and watched the boy holding the lantern going down the mountain. The light of the fire went away and returned to the fiery festival of humans below.
Later, the boy had new troubles.
"What a joy, the homework is so difficult."
"What's the homework?"
"It's the homework assigned by the school gentlemen."
"Is that so...playing southeast, northwest, and northwest?"
Du Ziheng was speechless. It was something for children to play with. He was almost eighteen now.
He told Duoxi that he didn't like playing this anymore. He wanted to get into college, but he was stupid and couldn't remember what the teacher said in class.
He was very distressed about this. If he couldn't get into college, he would have to stay and farm.
He didn't want to farm, he wanted to go out, to the outside.
This is Du Ziheng's third wish to Duo Xi, he wants to be admitted to university.
Du Ziheng already knew that Duoxi was not omnipotent, and he had no hope that Duoxi could help him.
But Duoxi still tried her best to help him, supervise his homework, read books, and recite the texts, over and over again. When Du Ziheng was studying hard, Duoxi was waiting for him.
"Let's play southeast, northwest."
"Taoxi, I am an adult and I no longer play this game."
"You take a look at this first."
Daxi handed him a new origami, with the punishments written on it being memorizing articles, copying texts, and doing science homework.
During the arduous learning process, he couldn't help but laugh out loud: "Let's go to Dong Twelve."
Daxi counted from one to twelve very seriously, and said in a clear and calm voice: "Let me see, it's terrible, you have to memorize the text."
Du Ziheng laughed loudly.
Duoxi asked him why he was laughing.
Of course Duoxi is very funny... He looked at the other person's face under the oil lamp, that innocent and simple look, and for some reason, he avoided her sight.
For the first time, the young man had something on his mind that he couldn't even tell.
In the end, Du Ziheng got his wish and was admitted to university.
But going to college means that he has to leave the place where he has lived for more than ten years.
"Ah Heng, the platycodon flowers are blooming in the mountains. Do you want to go and see them together?"
Du Ziheng stared blankly at the woman in front of him.
The other person has accompanied him through his childhood, youth, and now youth.
Du Ziheng didn't know what he thought of her.
Because of her naivety when she was young, she asked this beautiful woman to take her to the mountains to play. Because of the boy's ridiculous desire to compare, she asked her to make a beautiful lantern for herself. In order to satisfy her growing ambition, she asked her to help her get into college.
But what about now? What does he want?
He felt that his thoughts were ridiculous and wrong, and he was always afraid of his disgusting thoughts.
He didn't dare to look at Duoxi, and the strange feelings in his heart forced him to run away.
Du Ziheng chose to leave without saying goodbye.
Maybe it's because he has come into contact with too few people. Maybe after he walks out of this place, those irritating thoughts will slowly fade away.
Soon, Du Ziheng realized that he had made a wrong decision.
When he was in college, he would always think of that woman's face in his dreams. He was as pure and beautiful as a platycodon in the mountains.
He understood that he wanted to go back to see her, even if it was wrong.
That was the person he had always dreamed of.
But just as he made his decision, he learned a sad and ordinary thing from a letter at home.
The village decided to build an ancestral hall at the back of the village and started to bulldoze the temple of Empress Duoxi in the back mountain.
When Du Ziheng returned to the village after a long journey, he found two stone statues in a pile of rubble in the back mountain. One of them was the stone beast in front of the temple.
There is another one, which is a cracked statue of a woman.
Her name is Duoxi.
