The wind on the Loess Mountains has been blowing for thousands of years, knocking down the mountain ridges, blowing away the sun and the moon, but it just can't blow away the breath in people's hearts.
When Chen Shoitu was fifteen years old, his father died in a landslide while building terraces. The handle of the hoe is still warm, but the person is already completely cold. Since then, he has never left that land - plowing in spring and harvesting in autumn, in drought and flood years, living in a cave dwelling all his life and walking around in a pair of cloth shoes. He had never said a soft word in his life, but when he knelt down at the edge of the field and pinched a handful of soil, his hands were gentle.
Li Gaihua came here on her own. On the ten-mile loess road, I wore a red hijab that I had cut on my head, and my feet were wearing a layered bottom that I paid for. Her father called her "blind", and she said, "I admit she is blind." She has been cutting window grilles all her life, cutting red paper into magpies, lotus flowers, and "long life" and pasting them on the kang heads of the warehouse. The last time I cut was a mandarin duck. Halfway through the cut, I couldn't lift my hand. I leaned against the window and held the half piece of red paper in my hand.
Yang Erhu has been fighting with them all his life, fighting for land, water, and breath. On the day Gaihua left, he was the first to bring a bowl of stew and place it at the door of the kiln.
Mancang lost money while working in Shenzhen and hid for two years without daring to go home. His father sold the mule he had raised for seventeen years and sent the money without writing a word. Later, Mancang knelt at the entrance of the cave and shouted "big". Chen Shoutu came out and said, "Why are you kneeling? The ground has not been plowed yet."
This book is about a person's life, fifty years of a piece of land, and a wind blowing from boyhood to old age. I don't talk about big principles, I just talk about the days that grow in the soil - bitter, dry, salty, and a little sweet.
To guard the soil is to guard the ground, which is also an invisible agreement.
Intention: The so-called living is to live as a part of the earth. One day when people become earth, the earth will still remember you.
