Chapter 1: The North Wind Blows
"watch out!"
Whoosh~, the snowball flying in the air drew an arc and hit the head with a black velvet hat not far away.
Pah! Snowflakes flew everywhere. "Damn it!", accompanied by an angry cry, the figure under the black velvet hat shook his head. The scattered snow took the opportunity to slide into the collar, and the shivering exclamation of "Ah" made his companions not far away laugh.
"Come on, Nissan~"
"Haha, the kid from the Shirakawa family is really a nerd. The snowball mark on his hat is whiter than a rice stick."
The crowd watching the fun on the side also joined in the fun. There was the little girl next door who clapped her hands to cheer the boy up, and there was the lazy man who was chatting in front of the door on a winter day.
The boy shook his collar. Hearing the crowd's jokes and the smug look on the guy opposite him, he grabbed a handful of snow and squeezed it, rather unconvinced, ready to start his own revenge.
"Xiao Feng, it's time for dinner."
Shirakawa Feng looked in the direction of the voice and saw a woman in a crimson blue canvas kimono waving at him under the eaves.
"Hai!" Shirakawa Feng threw away the snowball in his hand and clapped his hands. Before going home, he turned back and shouted to his target of revenge, "Koutaro, I'll spare you today, but you won't be so lucky next time."
After saying those harsh words, Baichuan Feng walked towards his home leisurely.
Well, my touch wasn’t good today, but it’s definitely not because I can’t beat Kotaro.
"Haha~" The crowd burst into laughter, and Kotaro laughed the loudest with his hands on his hips.
Seeing Baichuan Feng's back with his head held high and his chest puffed out, if you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, you would have thought he had won the battle.
"Speaking of the boy from the Shirakawa family, although he's not very good at fighting, he's really good at studying. I heard he's going to Tokyo to attend university soon?"
"Yeah, you're a nerd as expected. That's Tokyo, a big city."
As Shirakawa Feng left, the crowd of onlookers gradually dispersed. Everyone chatted and sighed that the Shirakawa family was going to make a difference this time.
At this time, someone noticed that Kotaro was breathing white air and still holding his head proudly, and couldn't help but teasing him.
"Hey, Kotaro. The Shirakawas are going to Tokyo to study. Why are you joining them?"
Hearing this, Kotaro got even more excited. He rolled up his wide kimono sleeves to reveal his thick black arms, regardless of the cold weather. He shouted, "I'm going to Tokyo to make a lot of money. Maybe Xiaofeng will ask me for help in the future."
Hearing Kotaro's words, the crowd burst into laughter again. After the laughter, everyone quickly fell silent, with an occasional sigh.
The last rays of sunset in the distant sky also quietly disappeared into the forest. The whistling sound of the tireless cold wind blowing through the treetops was the only melody in this mountain village at night.
…
"It's so warm." He returned home and closed the thick door curtain. The temperature of the fire in the house made Baichuan Feng shiver comfortably.
He threw down his woolen hat and climbed onto the table impatiently. "Snap" a pair of chopsticks accurately hit his paw halfway up.
When he looked up, his mother was looking at him with a smile, "It's not a good habit to eat without washing hands."
"Ha~i~" With a long tone, Shirakawa Feng turned listlessly to the kitchen to complete the Shirakawa family's regular pre-meal ritual.
Although washing hands before meals was a basic habit in the previous life, who would be willing to put their hands into cold water in such a horrible weather with a howling north wind?
Besides, there was no such custom in the whole village at that time, only Baichuan Feng's mother insisted that he do so.
As for heating and so on, I'm sorry, we don't have such conditions in the countryside.
Seeing Shirakawa Kaede disappear into the kitchen while mumbling, Shirakawa Hayato raised the corner of his mouth, which made his serious face look a little warmer.
It can be seen that he is in a good mood. Whether it is the bumper harvest of grain this year or his son's upcoming study in a prestigious university, they give him plenty of reasons to be happy.
Now just curling up the corners of my mouth is already very restrained.
As a wife, Kazuko understands her husband best. "He is in a very good mood."
"Hmm." Without his son present, he didn't have to pay attention to his dignity as an old father and smiled at his wife.
"How's things going?" Taking advantage of her husband's good mood, Kazuko asked about the most important thing at home recently.
Shirakawa Hayato calmed down and poured himself a glass of warm sake. "Although there were some twists and turns, it's basically done."
After saying this, he raised his head and drank the whole glass, then sighed with satisfaction. Kazuko seemed to feel relieved, her shoulders relaxed slightly, and she quickly filled another glass for her husband.
It is a happy thing that his son is admitted to a university, let alone a famous university in Tokyo. Shirakawa Hayato, who has been a farmer all his life, may not know what Meiji University means.
But Kazuko, who was once a daughter of a landlord in the old times, knew very well that although Meiji University could not be compared with top-notch schools like the University of Tokyo, it was definitely a prestigious university.
As long as Xiao Feng can graduate successfully, he might be able to settle down in a big city like Tokyo in the future. At least he won't have to stay in this remote mountain village and be a farmer for the rest of his life.
However, Meiji University is equally famous for its high tuition fees. Unlike national universities, private universities have almost no tuition subsidies.
Some of them are completely incomparable to national universities, especially Meiji University.
In order to raise enough money for Shirakawa Kaede's tuition of several hundred thousand yen, all the rice in the family and the jewelry and kimonos passed down from Kazuko's mother's family were exchanged for money.
Even so, it was still a little short of the goal, so Shirakawa Hayato had no choice but to go door to door to collect the money. Recently, he had been busy with these things, running back and forth between the mountain village and the town.
Although they have been farmers for generations, it doesn't mean that Shirakawa Hayato doesn't understand the importance of going to college. Especially since his wife has a broader vision than himself, it's right to listen to her.
Shirakawa Hayato relaxed and prepared to treat himself to another drink. He looked up and saw his son coming out of the kitchen, sitting upright and maintaining his father's dignity.
However, his reserve was doomed to go down the drain. Baichuan Feng didn't notice his father's expression at all. As soon as he came out of the kitchen, he couldn't wait to sit cross-legged at the low table.
"I'm ready to eat." He clasped his hands together perfunctorily and impatiently grabbed a rice stick and stuffed it into the miso soup in front of him.
It was called miso soup, but it was more like a casserole. In addition to soup, there were vegetables, mushrooms, and even one or two pieces of chicken, which made Shirakawa Feng even more hungry.
This is the traditional food of Akita Prefecture, rice stick pot. It has a history of hundreds of years. At first, Shirakawa Kaede was not interested in such local food. In the past life, there were thousands of kinds of Chinese food, most of which were enough to beat rice stick pot.
But after being hungry several times, he once again faced the rice stick pot in front of him and sniffed it. It actually smelled quite fragrant.
Alas, we are really too poor. It's not just this family that is poor, it's the whole village.
A dark blue coarse cloth kimono, a head wrapped in a white turban. The dark earth, the farmhouse with a cedar bark roof. When Shirakawa Kaede opened his eyes and saw this scene for the first time, if it weren't for the language difference, he would have thought he had returned to his hometown in the 1970s.
Actually, there is not much difference, except that the location has changed to Neon.
Let alone all kinds of dishes, vegetables and mushrooms are enough to meet daily needs. There is plenty of rice, after all, it is the only thing that Akita Prefecture can offer. Oh, yes, there is also sake.
"Xiao Feng, would you like some?" Hezi shook the sake in her hand. Now that the big things at home had been settled, she felt relaxed and poured herself a glass.
Bai Chuanfeng, who was busy working on the roasted rice sticks in the bowl, raised his head and said, "Mother, I'm still a few months away from turning eighteen."
"Eighteen years old?" Hezi looked at him puzzledly, "That's still a long way from twenty years old, but what does it matter. We should do happy things when we are happy."
It was then that Baichuan Feng remembered that the legal age of adulthood for Japanese people was still 20 years old, which was a long way from 18 years old in China.
Without waiting for Shirakawa Kaede's response, Kazuko took out another wine glass, poured some sweet sake into it, and gently pushed it in front of him.
"It's okay to have a drink occasionally. It's good for your health."
Shirakawa Feng has been thin and weak since he was a child, which is why Kazuko insisted that he wash his hands before every meal. If he gets sick by accident, the family will suffer for half a month in the mountain village.
Looking at the clear wine in the glass in front of him, Baichuan Feng hesitated for a moment, but still couldn't resist the temptation.
A cup of sake went down his throat, and the unique fragrance and sweetness of rice flowed between his lips and teeth. His eyes lit up, what a good thing.
"Well, one glass will be enough." Hezi seemed to have guessed his thoughts. Before he could finish his words, she took the wine glass in front of him.
"Tsk" Shirakawa Feng smacked his lips with some aftertaste. Seeing his son like this, Shirakawa Hayato showed a smile in his eyes.
He felt that it was natural for a man to drink a little, especially since Akita, located in the northeast, was covered in snow for three or four months a year.
But... Shirakawa Hayato glanced at his son's small body again and decided to play it safe.
" Although Kotaro is a little impulsive sometimes, he is still a very reliable person." After another drink, Shirakawa Hayato began to talk to his son about the upcoming trip to Tokyo.
It was already mid-to-late March, and school would start in early April. Because he was in the countryside of Northeast China, Shirakawa Kaede needed to pack his luggage in advance and rush to Tokyo before the end of March.
In the past, almost no one in this small village at the foot of the mountains had ever been to the legendary metropolis. However, with the development of the economy in the past two years, there has been a shortage of labor in the big cities.
The money earned from doing any kind of work there was almost as much as what the villagers could earn from working in the fields for a month. So people began to move to the big cities one after another.
The legendary women, fine wines, and all kinds of new things were things that people here had never seen before. They were covered in a layer of dazzling clothes and displayed in a dazzling array in the windows.
Regardless of whether you can afford it or not, at least you can always appreciate their colors and appearance, or smell their fragrance.
So as I received more and more descriptions of the country folks who had left here and were now basking in the glory of the big city.
More and more people were desperate to leave the sinking, empty wreck and take the "city" train which was heading in an unknown direction and was already overcrowded.
Now Kotaro is about to become one of them. According to his previous temperament, he should be the first to leave here. It's just that his mother's health has always been poor and his father is a drunkard who rarely comes home, which slows down his pace.
Now that his mother's health was getting better, he could no longer suppress his inner restlessness. As Shirakawa Kaede was going to Tokyo to study, it was only natural for him to go with her.
Amid his father's warnings and his mother's hesitant gaze, Baichuan Feng rarely acted as if he didn't care.
They have never left the mountains and have never been to Tokyo.
But I still hope to find even a little bit of comfort from my decades of somewhat monotonous life experiences to comfort my son who is about to go far away and wander around. Such experiences are also good.
Even if Baichuan Feng doesn't need it now.
Human emotions are both simple and complex. Different languages, customs and practices do not hinder empathy between each other.
In the dead of night, Shirakawa Kaede was still tossing and turning in bed. Perhaps it was because of the excitement of going to Tokyo, or perhaps it was because of what his parents said.
Finally, he simply got up and opened the window. The cold air blowing in his face made him shiver subconsciously, and also made his restless heart calm down a little.
There is an arched snow cave under the eaves, in which the water god is enshrined. This is also the custom here. Every household has such a snow cave in front of the door. The hostess goes in every day to pray for good weather and good harvest in the coming year.
The night was dark and silent, but the white snow was still clearly visible. The river not far from the house was covered with snow, leaving only a shallow trace, just like his surname, Shirakawa, the white river.
My mother gave me the name Feng, which means autumn is the season for enjoying the red leaves. Autumn also means harvest, and as a farmer, there is no better meaning than this.
The people in the mountain village make a living by farming, and rice is the main crop. However, due to the geographical location, the fields here are basically terraced fields.
As far as the eye can see, all you can see is a vast sea of forest.
The whistling cold wind woke Baichuan Feng from his trance, and he closed the window and prepared to continue his dream. At this time, there was a noise at the door.
"Are you still asleep?" The mother and son's voices came from the door, but she did not push the door open.
"Hey, I'll go to bed right away." For some reason, Baichuan Feng suddenly felt guilty about being caught playing games late at night by his mother in his previous life.
"Make sure you get enough rest. You still have things to do tomorrow." The gentle voice gradually faded away, with only a few words of conversation occasionally interspersed in between.
It turned out that they hadn't slept either. Baichuan Feng lay on the tatami and sighed deeply.
The moon is bright and the stars are dim, and the night is long.
