A Beautiful Picture of Contemporary Rural Life--Reading Qi Yanling's Short Story "Winter Solstice

After reading Qi Yanling's new work "Winter Solstice" (a short story published in the first issue of Tianjin Literature in 2021), it seems as if a beautiful painting of rural life is shown in front of my eyes, and as if I am listening to a piece of faintly sentimental idyllic pastoral song. The unfolding story is as delicious as a cup of tea, and as intoxicating as a glass of wine. Undoubtedly, this is a reminiscent, thought-provoking, like the excellent short story.

"Winter Solstice" is a profoundly contemplative story. As if the story is about you and me next to the neighbor's story, but also as if it is a narrative is a longing for us, but also we have experienced a slice of life, seems to reach out and touch, but also seems to be very far away from us. It is a typical "this one", a piece of realism with a small view of the big, a typical work of excellence. Intercept a unique life scene, to individual to show the big time background of the life of the group.

"The sunny winter solstice afternoon, a single thin autumn moon twisting the thin waist to pack the sun-dried yellow grain six-year-old son jumping to the autumn moon. Warm and melting sun climbed on the face of the autumn moon bloomed a bright smile ...... autumn moon's days as hanging on the wall of the string of mountain peppers, red hot." The novel opens with a prose tone, poetic language gives us a vivid life scene full of life interest. In the winter solstice, which is a cold but full of vitality and longing, a young woman and her cute and naughty children are waiting for the return of the master of the house with different thoughts. And so the story unfolds.

We can't help but say that the author has chosen his scenes with great care. The author's narrative is unhurried and written in an old-fashioned style.

Autumn Moon is a kind, considerate, hardworking, virtuous, but also very careful woman, is a good woman with traditional Chinese virtues in one. She is even familiar with the sound of her own man's footsteps to the point of knowing. She blames her second wife for not knowing how to care for her man, "Autumn Moon smiled shyly, my Dong Gua walks a little special, his footsteps are broken and heavy, "Boo dong boo dong" sound." In a short sentence, the story is a vivid portrayal of a young woman's fulfillment, pride and longing, all of which comes from her man, Donggua. And the simple robustness of the melon also jumped off the page.

And as a contrast to the autumn moon, "the second sister-in-law", through the autumn moon's heart describes the idle pen like an introduction to the "autumn moon knows that the second sister-in-law is lying, since the second brother did not come back two years to 'congratulate the winter', there is no 'sunshine winter'. Since the second brother did not come back for two years to 'congratulate the winter', there has been no 'sunshine winter' (sunshine winter, Huashi custom). Second sister-in-law heart is not bad, people lazy, love foreign air, do not care about the second brother, there is this mouth broken, especially in these two years, as much as jokes village women ...... a vain, full of modern disease, valuing money, belittling emotions, has begun to lose the most valuable village women's simplicity, the image of another type of countryside woman sister-in-law jumped on the paper.

The next novel through the autumn moon climbed up the high slope in front of the house to look at the figure of the man, portraying a pining for a man to go home to the urgent mood. Through her thoughts, from her distant look at the loss of men, smoked men like to eat preserved meat to prepare wine dishes, depicting the operation of the autumn moon on the home, on the operation of love, you see how attentive she is, the heart is loaded with men's preferences, as if the man at this time he is all he has. At the same time, by recalling a time when she and Donggua were looking for Ergao for a drink and heard the situation outside the door - that is, the cold fire and lack of smoke in Ergao's house and Second Sister-in-law's aggressive questioning of Ergao's income and life outside the house, a stark contrast is made. Here the author demonstrates the sexual hunger and starvation of a woman left behind in the countryside through the story of "Sister Ju" and "Sister Wu" (whose men are also working outside but have returned) who can't wait to get rid of their children to have some lovemaking through the broken mouths of the second sister-in-law. And Autumn Moon did not wait was also supposed to go home to sit at the table and drink wine to let the woman thought a lot, at the moment but no news, the phone are occupied. Autumn Moon fidgeted and almost panicked. "Autumn Moon apprehensive and panic out of the phone to dial, occupied line, she was shocked for a moment. Autumn Moon heart a little anxious, panic. Staggered out the door, walked to the slope in front of the house in front of the tungzi tree looked for a long time, the winding concrete path is not seen Dong Gua's silhouette. Autumn Moon welled up with resentment and scolded Dong Gua, men do not have a good thing. After the anger, a little later - think, always winter melon speech is still counted ...... "Then winter melon since it is said to come back, and is also a speech counted, why not will? What happened?

At this time, the author's brush, the autumn moon recalled some sweet some blushing heartbeat and winter melon video calls, a long time not meet the hungry teenage couple flirting, vividly appeared in front of the reader's eyes. "Autumn Moon's heart jumped, face red, ranting and cursing, speechless, all of a sudden, there is a feeling of bulging in the chest, a stream of warm springs in the body to run and straight, followed by her head - bouts of dizziness. She turned off her cell phone's video and collapsed on the bed, tears happily and sweetly spilling out one after another. After calming down, for the village electricity left behind women complain, arm as just now, they want to control can not control ...... "This description will be left behind a young woman's helplessness and desire to be very evocative of the performance, at the same time to respond to the above on the issue of left behind women.

At this point, the reader both for the happiness of this happy little couple of happiness full of joy, at the same time, but also on the problem of left-behind women to think about, for the autumn moon anxious, this donggua in the end what to do to go? A bad premonition appears in our minds. At this time, the author unveiled the mystery. It turned out to be the second brother because of depression, can not sleep, drink on the construction site in the scaffolding under the fall, injured. This kind of thing happens almost every day around us, and this is one of the biggest pains of migrant workers. Many people go out to work happily and come back as urns. We always accuse them of not being safety conscious, but when have we ever paid attention to their minds and hearts? They are not tools, they are flesh and blood people. Not every man has the luck of the winter melon ah. Seeing this, the reader can't help but fall into thought while being relieved for Autumn Moon. At this time, the author came back to the evocative stroke, adding to this wonderful image of autumn moon that he has created.

"You this dead guy, in the side of the second brother still let the second brother out of trouble, come back I will not forgive you!"

"Ouch, let the second brother suffer such a crime, winter melon I do not care."

Autumn Moon's two words seem unreasonable, even unreasonable, in fact, is the biggest reasoning. This is a woman of great understanding, good to her own man is her instinct, once the loved ones in trouble, it shows her responsibility and bear. The next thing whether she is on the second sister-in-law's comfort or persuasion, but also let us on this seemingly weak woman full of respect.

Art comes from life, higher than life. There is no deep root of life, no passion and love of life, can not write such a story, such a novel. Modern people are very impatient, always living under the desire of utilitarianism. Unceremoniously, many of the reading material now prevalent on the Internet can only be called textual garbage. Real literature is set aside like nothing. Thinking back to the 1980s and 1990s, that was the best time for literature. People wrote purely and sang purely. Yan Ling Jun was born in the late 1960s and was one of the "literary youth" of the 1980s. At that time, the respect for literature was the same as the attitude of young people towards celebrities nowadays. However, literature is after all an arduous career. Under the impact of the economic wave, some people became celebrities, some went into business, and some gave up their original dreams. Only a very few people in the bitter perseverance, and Yan Ling Jun is one of the few.

Mr. Yan Ling was born in the countryside, studied medicine, went through business, and loved literature, which is somewhat similar to the experience of our literary mentor, Mr. Lu Xun. He loved to read and think, and never stopped for decades. Mr. Yan Ling is also a diligent person, a person who is full of love for the countryside and fascinated by the fragrance of the soil. If you don't forget to read, there will be an echo. Half a century of infatuation, so that his creation is maturing. He has been the chairman of Xiangtan County Writers' Association for two consecutive terms. Although he has a lot of business, he has never put down his writing and reading. He is a witness and an experiencer of the changes in the countryside for nearly half a century. Since the 1980s, when China began to implement economic reforms, the traditional idyllic world of the countryside began to stir and clamor, and the farmers' sense of land changed profoundly - from sticking to the land to fleeing from it. They broke away from the bondage of the land and used their own shoulders to push open the gate separating urban and rural areas. The flow of migrant workers in the new countryside is bound to have a great impact on today's rural society, all of which is rapidly and profoundly changing the traditional farming civilization. All these are rapidly and profoundly changing the traditional agrarian civilization, and the great change of the migrant workers into the city has also produced many social problems.