Chapter 369: 463 pieces, those beautiful stories

463 pieces, those beautiful stories

463 pieces, those beautiful stories

―――― a red apricot branch growing over the wall

Is this spring? Africa also.

This is summer.

Although it is summer, my heart is full of spring.

The spring flowers, the buds, those beauties that cannot withstand Wind and Rain have all hurriedly faded; but the many good stories left by those flowers and buds let those beautiful stories remain in my memory.

I truly love those good, beautiful stories. While those beautiful fragments remain, and I can still catch a faint fragrance in the green leaves, I want to retrieve those good stories and recount those good stories.

78-year Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Singer once said: Human minds indeed cannot fabricate anything. Stories ought to be a natural manifestation of life itself, naturally revealed. Sometimes I read a story that seems unbelievable, yet in another place it indeed happens——

For example: the Northeast Three Oddities: window paper pasted on the outside; girls aged seventeen or eighteen holding a smoking pipe; raised children hung up.

If you have never been to Northeast, you would not believe the Northeast's 'Three Oddities'.

This Northeast only has the Three Oddities, while Yunnan has the Ten Oddities—seven more than the Northeast.

The Yunnan Ten Oddities are:

The flour-or-rice-flour rice-cake-shaped food is called edible pieces (the flour-or-rice-flour rice-cake-shaped food is a food made from flour or rice flour, shaped like rice cake),

Bamboo tubes used as smoking pipes (the water pipes of ethnic minorities are made from bamboo tubes),

Grass mounds used as pot lids (the pots of ethnic minorities are woven from bamboo strips, similar to the bamboo hats worn in summer),

Toes exposed outside (Yunnan is warm like spring; ethnic minorities wear shoes made of grass, which usually have holes, hence this saying), shoes have an extra piece (ethnic minorities love wearing embroidered shoes; many decorations are attached to the shoe sole, which sway with the shoe, hence this saying),

Eggs sold tied together (five eggs tied into a strip, making them easy to count and convenient for customers to carry),

Silkworm beans sold by number (ethnic minorities are accustomed to selling by count; Yunnan silkworm beans are large, so they are sold by number),

Radishes also sold as fruit (Yunnan radishes are fragrant, sweet, and tasty, tasting better than fruit; they are not only vegetables but also sold as fruit),

Girls wear flowers in all seasons (Yunnan's flowers are fragrant year-round, fresh blossoms bloom continuously, making it a kingdom of flowers; and Yunnan girls love beauty, so wherever and whenever they are, they casually pick fresh flowers and wear them on their heads),

Flowers in all seasons, in old age wearing red shoes (In Yunnan's flower kingdom, in the world of spring, those girls who love beauty, in their youth, like flowers, love beauty; even when they grow old, their love of beauty remains as it was).

This world truly has everything; every day, every moment, every place has new stories being born, and everyone wants to give the world a surprising story.

Today there may be no story born; tomorrow there might be. What this place lacks, another place may have—like the Northeast Three Oddities and Yunnan Ten Oddities, etc. The world is boundless, and so are its stories.

Therefore, Singer said, a day passes, and that day no longer exists. What does it leave behind? Just one story? What kind of story does it leave? A good, beautiful story? Or a story without punctuation, a muddled mess where the content is illegible?

"We live today; by tomorrow, today becomes a story. The whole world, all of human life, is a story," as a person, a living being, a person with one's own story, in the long river of humanity, what are we? A wave? A grain of sand? Or an episode in humanity's grand story? A word, a phrase? A tiny punctuation mark?

What exactly is life? No one can foresee. Now it is merely a fleeting moment that passes in the blink of an eye; in this fleeting moment, how should we write our own story? Is our story written by ourselves, with fate in others' hands? Or is it in our own hands?

"People live many years; they should enjoy many years; yet they should also think of dark days. For these days will be many, and what is to come is emptiness." Yes, an individual life will die, but that does not mean the world ends. The whole Earth, all celestial bodies, whether planets or stars, each contains a sacred history, the source of general life, an endless wondrous story………………………………………………….

(Heart with the disaster area, Flirting with the disaster area: may peace, courage, confidence, and strength be with the people of the disaster area, accompany them!)