Same Fire

The Communist Fire Department only had one fire at first. Beside the fire, there is a pot of soup that is not enough to be portioned, there is a cracked clay pot that is still usable, there are children who secretly eat tomorrow, there are teenagers who are reluctant to kill small beasts, and there are also women who saw Xiaosui in the mud. No one knew at that time that the herd would move further and further away, and that the grass seeds on the river beach would keep people away. Continuous hunger, wind and rain, and the northward migration of the herds pushed the same group of people to two ways of survival. Shuo led a group of people to follow the beasts northward. They understood the world from the wind and snow, the starry sky, the herds of animals and migration routes, and gradually developed the heavenly road, the flesh-breaking stone, the animal spirits and the migration songs. He Nu led another group of people to stay in the river bend. They understood the world from soil, rainwater, seeds and granary, and gradually developed ancestral land, first ears, granary gate sacrifices, water canals and field boundaries. The first generation remembers each other. The second generation can also exchange things. The third generation began to find each other strange. Further back, the same river beach appears to one side as the old pasture where ancestors kept their animals, and to the other side it looks like the fields that were maintained only after generations of people cleared stones, dug canals, and planted seeds. So misunderstandings turned into rules, rules turned into beliefs, and beliefs made old wounds deeper and deeper. Until the first death, until a belated road, until the salt, the clay pot, the tallow and the first ear were exchanged for the stone. Only then did they understand: Civilization is not about letting one side win over the other, but letting people who travel far away know where to return, and people who keep home know where the missing things come from. The sky is above and the earth is below. People in the middle still have to learn.