One
Spring in Lixiahe begins on the water surface.
After the Waking of Insects, the first soft rain came quietly late one night, beating on the roof of the black-topped boat like thousands of silkworms eating mulberry leaves. At dawn, Li Changhe pushed open the creaking wooden door and saw that the entire Xiali Village was immersed in the light blue morning mist. The mist rises from the criss-crossing river ditches and flows slowly against the rice fields. The thatched roofs float on the mist, like moored ships.
He took a deep breath - the smell of awakening earth was mixed with the smell of rotting grass and water. This was the smell he was most familiar with in his forty-five years of life. The locust tree in front of the door is still bare, but if you look carefully, the branches have sprouted buds as big as rice grains. The old wooden boat was tied under the tree, and the water stains on the boat's side were layered one after another, recording the height of each flood season last year.
"Look at the weather, it's going to rain." His wife, Wang Xiuying, walked out with half a bowl of wheat porridge in her hand, "Eat before going to the fields."
...
This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.
