Cuan Family Village was originally called Cuandi Bazi, and it is located halfway up a mountain. The towering and precipitous mountain suddenly stops there, creating a large flat area that juts out abruptly and then gently slopes down to both sides. The ancestors of the Cuan Family came here more than a thousand years ago, cleared land, built houses, and settled down on this platform.
Cuandi Bazi is a strategically important location with a wide view and farmland for habitation, making it an ideal stronghold for bandits in the old days. However, no bandit group ever managed to occupy it, supposedly because it was protected by gods, and miracles always occurred in times of crisis.
One of the most talked about legends among the Cuan family is that when Tang Jiyao was in trouble, he hid in his hometown of Huize, and was later chased by bandits to Cuandi Bazi. When there was no way to escape, the bandits were all shot for some unknown reason. The evil spirit jumped off the cliff in front of Bazi. Tang Jiyao later became the governor of southern Yunnan, and his power was unparalleled for a while, so he came back and erected a monument for Cuandi Bazi, with a large Chinese character "Cuan" engraved on it and a couplet on each side:
Mountain God's protection
Yao and Shun, eternal legends
There are also smaller inscriptions detailing Tang Jiyao's rescue at Cuandi Bazi, which is embellished to show that he was a man blessed by heaven, protected by gods even during the reigns of Yao and Shun.
The elderly people in Cuan Family Village still remember this monument. It stood there until before the liberation. On the eve of the People's Liberation Army entering Cuanzhou, the Cuandi Bazi at the time, who was also Yao Jingjing's great-grandmother, Old Madam Cuan, ordered people to chisel away all the characters "Yu" on the monument, leaving only the character "Cuan". At the time, the people in the dam did not understand. It was not until more than ten years later that they saw the old lady's foresight.
Cuandi Bazi is great in every way, with mountains and water, fields and houses, and even the protection of the mountain god. The only drawback is that the mountains are too steep and the roads are difficult to travel. It takes two hours to walk down the treacherous path from the dam, and by the time you get to the nearby market, half a day has already passed. A round trip takes a whole day. If the weather is bad and it rains or snows, you have to stay out all day to get to the market.
After the road was built at the foot of the mountain, the people of Cuandi Bazi moved to the roadside at the foot of the mountain one after another. They stopped calling it Dam and changed it to Cuan Family Village. Later, because the character Cuan was difficult to write, they changed their surname to Cun, just like the people in Cuanzhou City. Anyway, the pronunciation was similar. At that time, people didn't care how it was written on their ID cards, as long as it sounded the same.
In Yao Jingjing's memory, Cun Family Village was right next to this ribbon-like road. As for the dam on the mountainside, she vaguely remembered going there with her mother when she was a child, but her childhood memories were not very clear. She only remembered that the mountains there were very high, the water was very sweet, and clouds floated in front of the houses.
The car stopped in the new Cun Family Village, and the villagers, young and old, all came out to greet Papa Yao's Mama Yao. The older women pulled Yao Jingjing around to look at her, saying that the girl had grown up and was becoming more and more beautiful. They also asked Mama Yao if she had chosen a son-in-law. Mama Yao said she had, that he was in Wuzhong and owned a big company, and that he had taken them all there and had just returned from Wuzhong.
Yao Jingjing blushed deeply and repeatedly tried to stop her mother from talking nonsense, but her Mama Yao wouldn't listen and kept going on and on. Yao Jingjing simply gave up and let her do as she pleased, since her mother rarely came to visit, not even once every few years anyway.
After having dinner at her cousin's house in Cun Family Village and staying overnight, Yao Jingjing followed her parents up the mountain towards the old Cuandi Bazi that she remembered.
The path up the mountain was difficult to walk on. The morning sun made the moss on the stone steps glisten, and many vines had already climbed into the middle of the path. Although tourism has been developed in recent years, there are not as many tourists visiting Cuanzhou as there are in Spring City or Dali, not to mention that Cuandi Bazi is still so remote.
Yao Jingjing was worried about her mother's health, Mama Yao was as light as a swallow and walked very fast. The mountains and rivers of her hometown gave her great spiritual motivation, and she wished she could take a step up the mountain and see the house where she lived as a child.
After walking for about an hour, Yao Jingjing saw the smoky gray Bazi hidden in the ancient trees and mist. At the entrance of the Bazi stood a large stone tablet that was as tall as one person. The monument had long been weathered and mottled, but the word "Cuan" on the monument was still clear because it was carved very deep and huge. There were still some traces of the red paint on it after it was carved.
Except for the word "Cuan", there is still a large space on the stone tablet. When you get closer, you can see that the pits on it are full of traces of being chiseled, making the tablet look a bit strange.
Of course, Yao Jingjing had also heard about how her great-grandma ordered people to chisel out the remaining characters. She didn't understand it when she was a child. But now that she thinks about it, her great-grandma was indeed very foresighted, and she couldn't help but respect her even more.
After walking through several low-lying areas overgrown with weeds, some stone walls stood in front of many gray-tiled houses that were now covered with vines.
Mama Yao complained, "Oh dear, really, now that we've moved down the mountain, nobody takes care of the old house anymore!"
Papa Yao said, "Wasn't this supposed to be a tourism development project? It looks like a deserted village!"
My uncle, who accompanied me, said, "Sigh, only a few people come throughout the year. They all come in the Xia Tian, and after autumn, there's no one left. We only come to clean the old house when we sweep the tombs during Qingming Festival."
They originally planned to visit the graves first, but seeing the dilapidated state of the old house, Mama Yao couldn't help but go in first to take a look, afraid that her grandmother's house had been ruined and she wouldn't have the face to speak to her grandmother when she got to the graves.
The uncle helped them open the ancestral house with the key. The house was fine inside, with no musty smell, but a lot of the roof tiles had fallen off and needed repair.
Mama Yao took Yao Jingjing to her great-grandmother's room, while her cousin and Papa Yao smoked outside. It is said that her great-grandmother was very clean and never allowed men into her room when she was alive. Although her cousin was just a child at the time and could come and go as he pleased, he stopped going into that room after he grew up. Although the old lady has long since passed away, the villagers still abide by the rules she set. The cleaning of the house is done by the women of the village, and men never come in.
The room was simply furnished with a bed, a dressing table, and an old-fashioned wooden cabinet, unlike anything one would expect from a mountain dwelling. The moment Yao Jingjing stepped inside, she thought she had entered the boudoir of a woman from the Republican era.
"Oh dear, thank goodness, it's still the same as before," said Mama Yao, patting her chest.
Yao Jingjing saw a piece of glass on the dressing table, and under the glass were several old black and white photos, all severely faded and mottled.
Yao Jingjing looked down curiously and found that most of the photos were no longer legible, except for one where a woman in military uniform could still be identified. Although her face was blurry, her heroic and spirited demeanor was still palpable.
Wow, my great-grandmother really was a soldier!
Yao Jingjing seemed to see her great-grandmother holding a gun, fighting the enemy on a battlefield amidst the flames of war.
Thinking about it this way, she didn't feel so bad about the days she spent sweating on the training field, after all, she had the blood of the Cuan Family flowing through her veins!
"Mom, why is such an important photo of Great-Grandma left so casually?" Yao Jingjing touched the glass stand and felt that the photo was stuck to the glass and could not be taken out.
She didn't hear her mother's reply. Turning around, she saw her mother holding an old-fashioned square wooden box, fast asleep against her great-grandmother's bedside. She saw her mother's eyelids moving and vaguely sensed a fluctuation of Mental Power.
Yao Jingjing was very curious about what her mother was dreaming about. With that thought, she entered her mother's dream.
An endless sea of yellow sand appeared before her, and her mother stood in front of it. There was an invisible wall between her and the desert, as if she were in a dark movie theater with a huge screen in front of her, showing a documentary about the desert.
A person walked out of the desert. At first, she was just a black dot, but as she got closer, it became clear that she was an old woman dressed in homespun farm clothes. Her hair was completely white, but her face was without a single wrinkle, and she walked with an indescribable grace and elegance.
The old lady walked closer and, looking at Mama Yao through the screen with a mixture of affection and seriousness, said, "Where is my Xue'er? Where has she gone?"