Qiong Yin lingers

Chapter 12
Huang Simi glanced at Meng Huaxiang cautiously, and quickly supported the bottom of the table with both hands, lest she throw it over in a hurry.

Dongfang Qiong Opera Troupe is Meng Huaxiang's lifeblood, and anyone who dislikes or betrays Dongfang Theater Troupe will be included in her blacklist.

And Li Dongming who jumped out did this, which made Meng Huaxiang feel the most chilling: because he joined the theater troupe at the age of three, Meng Huaxiang regarded him as his youngest son since he was a child.

There is an unwritten rule in Dongfang Qiong Opera Troupe: If you encounter a beggar, or a child who cannot be raised by someone in the village, you will be raised by the troupe, only to feed back the society, and no death will be seen.

Meng Huaxiang's mother, Zhang Lujin, was born in Linggao Village, which is extremely patriarchal.

After being born, Zhang Lujin was starving and freezing, relying on her mother's protection, so she was buried alive without a shot.

But when she was three years old, her grandma took her to the mountain and threw her down, saying only one sentence: "It's up to you to live or die!"

The young Zhang Lujin, with one deep foot and one shallow foot, stumbled and ran down the mountain with his grandmother, but he couldn't keep up with his grandmother's pace. He cried heartbreakingly on the mountain, and ran into the head of the Ling Gaoqiong Troupe who went up the mountain to practice his voice The head of the regiment took her back to the regiment without saying a word.

After she became an adult, Zhang Lujin finally understood why the troupe often had girls in reverse roles, why a three- to five-year-old girl came to the troupe from time to time, and why almost all the troupe were women from the band to the actors to the clerks...

Women in Lingao know their own fate, and the head of the Lingao Qiong Opera Troupe has single-handedly taken in hundreds of abandoned girls.

People who have been exposed to the rain always want to hold an umbrella for others.

As an adult, Zhang Lujin took over the Linggaoqiong Troupe because of his outstanding professional ability.

Later, she led a troupe to kill all directions and became famous in the island, but was spurned and excluded by Ling Gao people, so she had to move to the east, and the troupe was forced to change its name to Dongfangqiong troupe.

Later, she abandoned the theater and joined the army, led the theater troupe's women's army, and killed the Quartet, becoming the "Iron Lady".

Zhang Lujin's life has been full of vigor and ups and downs: on the stage with fluttering sleeves, she is a heroic "Wu Dan"; on the battlefield where swords have no eyes, she is a brave and fearless "Iron Lady"; He is the "old leader" that everyone expects...

And one of her last instructions to the Dongfang Qiong Opera Troupe is "don't leave them alone": one is to adopt abandoned babies and children, and the other is to foster them in the Qiong Opera Troupe if the other party is willing to take care of them.

In fact, Zhang Lujin never asked what kind of return the adopted child should give to the Qiong Opera Troupe.

Meng Huaxiang had taken in many children before, and when asked the same question, she could only shake her head with a wry smile.

Zhang Lujin's original words are: "Don't do to others what you don't want yourself to do to others! Back then, although the head of the Linggao Qiong Theater Troupe didn't give birth to me, he raised me for most of his life, but never asked me to repay him. Why should I ask others to repay me?" As for taking over the troupe, it’s not about repaying kindness, but about being kind—without the troupe, where would I get a job? Where would I be able to perform overseas and be interviewed by leaders from various countries? Where would I have the confidence to lead my sisters to the battlefield to defend their hometown? Children, come, Let's greet each other with our hands upside down; when the child leaves, we applaud and see him off!"

Having said that, Meng Huaxiang took in a total of seven or eight children, almost all of whom were sent by families with too many children who could not afford two mouthfuls of food. Only Li Dongming was a real "beggar".

When he was picked up, Li Dongming was fighting with a wild dog for a bite to eat.He looked only three or four years old, skinny and skinny, with only a few strands of cloth left on his body, and abscesses on his hands, feet and back.

After Meng Huaxiang rescued him, he asked him for a long time, but he couldn't tell who his parents were and where he lived. Even he couldn't speak the island dialect.

Later, when Meng Huaxiang went on tour in ten miles and eight towns, he always took him with him, trying to help him find his family.

After so many years, the family has not been found, but Meng Huaxiang seems to raise him as his youngest son.

Because Zhang Shennian wanted to take over the Qiong Opera Troupe, he missed the opportunity to go to college, and he regretted it. Meng Huaxiang also wanted to cultivate Li Dongming, so that he could take over from his brother to go to college.

Helplessly, Li Dongming himself had no intention of studying. Even in high school, it was Meng Huaxiang who found a way to let him finish reading.

In the Qiong Opera Troupe, if you ask Meng Huaxiang who treats her best, almost everyone will say that it is Li Dongming.

Meng Huaxiang even taught him the "Lujin singing style" that his mother would not allow to be passed on to the public without reservation.Therefore, Huang Simi felt that it was okay for anyone who wanted to leave the Qiong Opera Troupe, but Li Dongming and Huang Simi were a little worried that her mother-in-law would not be able to accept it psychologically.

Especially today, when the whole family is happy, Li Dongming suddenly proposed to change his career to go to sea, which is really not right.

To Huang Simimei's surprise, Meng Huaxiang did not fly into a rage.

Meng Huaxiang put down the teacup lightly, looked around lightly, and lowered her eyes: "Is there anyone else who wants to go to sea like Amin?"

Seeing that everyone was silent, Meng Huaxiang let out a long sigh: "Hey! I am old, but my heart is not old. I am also like you, with lofty ambitions in my heart! It's just our dream, which is different."

As the Qiongju sang, sorrow and joy can be overcome by oneself, but it is difficult for others to understand.

Meng Huaxiang wholeheartedly wants to protect the Dongfang Qiong Opera Troupe, but the young people want to play the role of trendy children in the tide of market economy.

After Zhang Shennian went to the sea to set up a stall, Huang Simimei opened up wasteland, and ran a teahouse, Meng Huaxiang gradually thought about it: When the times abandon you, you won't even say hello.

If these young people are like her, they just want to stick to the troupe and don't think about making progress, it may not be really good.

Just taking advantage of Li Dongming's excuse, Meng Huaxiang said slowly: "If you are like me, you want to carry forward the cultural essence left by your ancestors, then stay, we guard the Dongfang Qiong Opera Troupe and Qiong Opera; if If you want to set up a stall in the sea, I will not stop you, and you can change your career freely."

After saying this, the smile on Meng Huaxiang's face gradually disappeared, and she looked lonely at the narrow stage of the teahouse, with bitter helplessness on her face: "This is the age of your young people, you can be more brave."

Because of her husband's early death, Meng Huaxiang has held the troupe firmly in her hands all her life, even if the contracting system was transferred from public to private, it failed to defeat her ambition.

Her son went to sea, and her daughter-in-law changed her career, but her inner belief never collapsed. She firmly believed that one day, Qiongju would see the moon and see the moon, and usher in a vigorous life again.

I just don't know if she can still look forward to that day.

For her son and daughter-in-law, Meng Huaxiang felt a little guilty: she never asked them about their career dreams, but she just took it for granted that they should be like herself and sing Qiong opera well all their lives: "Your grandma and grandma Zhang Lujin, who is gentle and weak on stage, plays Huadan, and offstage is heroic and carries a gun on the battlefield. Ah Nian and Simei, you just need to remember that no matter what you do, you can’t forget Qiongju opera!"

After finishing speaking, Meng Huaxiang turned around and went back to the room, leaving the room quiet for everyone to think for themselves.

With her release, several younger members of the troupe were moved: among other things, every time Zhang Shennian came back, the shirt he was wearing was more beautiful than the Zhenliang gown.Although it seems that theater troupes are booming in land reclamation and teahouses nowadays, but a man, who doesn’t want to be like a young and Dangerous boy, roaming all over the rivers and lakes domineeringly?

Looking at the sincere faces in front of him, Zhang Shennian felt a little embarrassed: "Simei, look..."

Huang Simei took a bite of the lotus seed paste mooncake and said with a smile, "Grandma has already opened her mouth, so you can take them there!"

Dongfang Qiong Opera Troupe is different from other troupes. Most of the troupe members are trained internally. From childhood to adulthood, everyone lives and eats together without separation, and they are like relatives.

Huang Simei couldn't travel far because of her mother-in-law, but she agreed to let these young people go out and have a look.

After all, Zhang Chennian said that the outside world is very exciting, and every time these young people hear Zhang Shennian talk about it, their eyes sparkle.

After careful consideration, Zhang Shennian took Li Dongming, Huang Donghua and Lin Jiaojiao to Sanya.

Huang Simei led Zhang Wenxuan and hugged Zhang Wenqian, and sent them to the train station.

In the waiting hall, there are endless calls for selling rice dumplings and bua.

Lin Jiaojiao proudly patted her big cloth bag: "We brought zongzi and coconut bua from the Oriental Teahouse, the taste is amazing! You can't buy them outside!"

Zhang Wenqian swallowed her saliva: "The taste is awesome!"

The grown-ups amused by her baby-like voice, and laughed, and the little girl buried her head in her mother's arms in shame: "Sister, I want to eat brown rice and bua!"

Huang Simi patted her on the back and coaxed softly: "Okay, okay! Eat when you get home, okay?"

Zhang Wenxuan stood aside like a little adult, and asked his father pretending to be deep: "Father, when will you come back next time?"

Zhang Shennian rubbed his son's tiny head: "Dad will be back during the Chinese New Year."

Hearing that it would take so long for Dad to come back, Zhang Wenxuan and Zhang Wenqian lowered their heads in unison, and instantly became listless.

For them, the days when their father came back were always happy and short, and they hadn't parted yet, and they were already counting the days and looking forward to his return.

Zhang Shennian looked at the disappointed look of his son and daughter, and felt very unhappy.

In the East, festivals are very important: during the Mid-Autumn Festival and the first and fifteenth day of the Lunar New Year, the whole family must be reunited to keep the year old; during the Ching Ming Festival in March and during the Mid-Yuan Festival in July, one must go home to worship ancestors; on the Dragon Boat Festival, one must return home to make zongzi, bring five-color thread, and wormwood. Take a dragon bath.

However, Zhang Shennian, who is busy setting up a stall, often fails to come back because of business problems.

After returning this time, Zhang Shennian realized that he had missed many stages of his child's growth.

Before entering the platform, Zhang Shennian secretly made up his mind that he would go home every new year and festival.

*
After seeing off Zhang Shennian and his party, Huang Simimei started to get busy again.

The troupe lost three good seedlings who could perform independently, so Huang Simimei and Meng Huaxiang had to pick someone to train.

The work of Li Jin's studio also began to get busy.

Zhong Lihua led the sisters in Erxianling, both excited and sad: "Our grandma and mother's generation were all good at weaving brocade. In our generation, those who can weave brocade in the village, bye You can count them with your fingers, and in the future, none of our children will know how to weave Li brocade..."

Looking at Zhong Lihua's face with mixed expressions of loneliness and relief, Huang Simi felt the same way: Li Brocade, like Qiong Opera, is a treasure left by the ancestors and should be carried forward.

Traditional Li brocade is mainly made of cotton thread, supplemented by hemp thread, silk thread and gold and silver thread.

Its warp is generally dyed by valerian, that is, the tie-dyeing method. The warp is knitted first on a thread-tying frame, and then tied with yarn on the basis of the warp.

After manual dyeing, the tied yarns are removed to reveal a pattern of blue ground and white flowers, and then colored wefts are woven in.

In the newly built bamboo house in the backyard of the Oriental Tea House, traditional tools of Li Brocade Textile are lined up: Li Brocade routinely uses wooden hand-operated cotton gins, hand-rubbed seed-removing cross sticks, pedal spinning machines and looms and other tools.The dyes are made from wild or home-grown plants in mountainous areas. The dyes made from these plants have bright colors and are not easy to fade.The finished product of Li brocade perfectly integrates weaving, dyeing and embroidery techniques, with exquisite and vivid patterns and bright colors.

The Weavers added studios only as an intermediary for Dongfang Tea House. Now, we can see that each of them has been assigned a small cubicle. They also made a small bamboo bed alone in the room. Huang Simei said that they squatted for a long time and their backs hurt their bodies. After doing it for a while, they can lie down and rest for a while.

The Li brocade studio was getting better and better. The several batches of Li brocade finished products that Huang Simi sent to Sanya received good feedback from Wang Yunfei, and they were sold out soon.

This greatly encouraged Huang Simi, and Zhong Lihua and Zhiniang were also very happy.

For this reason, Huang Simei is preparing to build a Li brocade dyeing room: "In the future, when we make Li brocade, we must take an integrated route. Now that the dyeing room is built, it can be used directly. It will kill two birds with one stone, how wonderful!"

yes!How nice!
Zhong Lihua and a group of weavers, with tears in their eyes, nodded emphatically and promised: "Sister Mei, don't worry! We will weave the brocade well! Let the brocade from Erxian Village enter the city and go overseas!"

The most difficult thing about double-sided embroidery is that the front and back sides must complement each other and complement each other. Zhong Lihua's technique is already superb.

Huang Simei gritted her teeth and studied hard, and unexpectedly learned some of the essence, and then passed it on to the nine weavers who had a solid foundation, and the effect was surprisingly good.Now in Li Jin's studio, the sound of banging in Ririqiong's opera, and the "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" of the kindergarten next door have become another beautiful scenery of Dongfang Qiong Opera Troupe.

The weavers were skillful, and even Meng Huaxiang praised the clothes they wove: "The things handed down by our ancestors are all treasures! Our Qiong Opera and Li brocade are all good things." Wow! I just don’t know, when will these treasures shine?”

Huang Simei lowered her eyes, not daring to speak.

Meng Huaxiang’s wish is good, but the reality is cruel: Dongfang Qiong Opera Troupe’s original daily touring excerpts have been reduced from three performances in the morning, noon and evening to two performances in the morning and evening, and now there is only one performance in the afternoon when there are few people. .

Nowadays, the wooden attic is full of popular music from tape recorders all day long. Meng Huaxiang denounced it, saying that the music is like poppies to confuse people's hearts, but it can't stop the rolling wheels of the times.

She never thought that even if it was a publicity vehicle that attracted people, after drinking this tea for a long time, everyone's hearts would still change, and they still wanted to abandon the traditional Qiongju opera, which was puzzling.

Because the frequency of performing excerpts has been greatly reduced, and Huang Simimei is still thinking about land reclamation, she has no skills at all. The new actors and actresses in the troupe make frequent mistakes in performances, and are scolded and cried by Meng Huaxiang every few days.

Huang Simi knew that they had lost their ambitions, but there was nothing they could do: they ran around with the theater troupe since they were young, and this was the only skill they had learned, and they refused to venture out like Li Dongming and others. Even Li Jin, who had double-sided embroidery, They didn't like it either, and kept saying that men don't do women's handwork.

Huang Simi was so helpless that she could only let them cook like a frog in warm water.

(End of this chapter)