First Stirrings of Love

The place where I performed on the tightrope for the first time is called Luojiawa, and I still remember it now because that's where I met a little girl named Nizi.

Nizi and I were not meant to have a story because I was a wandering performer, with no fixed abode or roots, like a leaf boat, and Nizi was a tree on the shore. How could a leaf boat and a tree have a story together?

Nizi was probably about the same age as me. Her family should have been well-off, as she wore a silk-cotton jacket and had two thick black braids and sparkling eyes that were very pretty. At that time, although I had only a vague sense of sexuality, I knew which girls were pretty and had a natural affinity for them.

When I was setting up the stage at the wheat field in Luojiawa, Nizi stood next to me watching and asked, "Can you perform?"

I held a rope in my hand and said, "I can. Everyone here can."

She blinked her big eyes and asked, "What can you perform?"

I deliberately teased her and said, "You'll see in a moment. It's guaranteed to be very exciting."

As I moved chairs, tied ropes, and dug pits, Nizi followed closely behind me like my tail, asking this and that with great curiosity. She asked, "Where are you all from?"

I pointed to the sky and said, "We come from there."

She looked at the distant mountains seriously and asked, "From over the mountains?"

I said, "Even farther than over the mountains."

She asked, "What's beyond the mountains?"

I said, "The plain."

She asked, "What's a plain?"

I didn't know how to explain the geographical concept of a plain to her, so I opened my arms and gestured, saying, "The plain is this big..." Cui'er heard our conversation and ran over. She said to the girl, "Do you want to see the plain?"

The girl said, "Yes."

Cui'er said, "If you want to see it, come with us."

The girl said, "You guys aren't my family, my parents will be sad if I leave."

Cuier pointed at me and smiled at the girl, saying, "This is your man, he is your family."

The girl blushed, turned around and ran away, her two braids swaying like tails behind her. I also blushed. I secretly thought, "If only this girl could be my wife, that would be great!"

Because of this girl, I remembered the village called Luojia Wa.

The circus performances have a certain order, and the first two performances are the monkey riding a horse and the monkey climbing a pole. Whether in the mountains or on the plains, people rarely see monkeys, so as long as you lead the monkey and hit the gong while walking around the village, all the children in the village will come to the threshing ground to watch. After the two performances on the tree trunk, it was the silver spear stabbing in the line pole and the tall forest. The shiny silver spear was placed at the throat, and this thrilling performance was sure to attract all the adults in the village to come and watch. Then there was stool acrobatics, which was a short performance aimed at attracting everyone's attention. Finally, it was my turn to walk the tightrope.

By the time I walked the tightrope, the square was packed with people. I stood on the high wire and looked down at the village. The courtyards of every household were clearly exposed to my eyes, and even the copper locks hanging on the doors of each family's yard could be seen clearly. I saw the third house on the left with a tall gatehouse, high courtyard walls, and a taller paulownia tree growing under the courtyard walls with a magpie nest on it, and two magpies flying up and down on the paulownia tree. Inside the courtyard walls, there were two kiln caves, lattice windows, red-edged kiln doors, and the kiln door was actually open and not locked. On the empty ground in the courtyard, there were bamboo products such as dustpans, and the dustpan contained dried white bread. This was a wealthy family, as evidenced by their food and architecture.

I stretched out my left hand and shook it a few times in the air, then blew a long whistle. The spectators below the tightrope all exclaimed and applauded, thinking that I blew the whistle to liven up the atmosphere.

I stepped on the tightrope and slowly walked forward. I had practiced this kind of walking thousands of times, so I wasn't nervous at all, and I walked on the tightrope as if it were flat ground. I continued to look towards the village, and I saw a thin and lean person running quickly to the front door of the third house on the left from somewhere. He took out a hook connected by a rope from his clothes, swung it, and hooked it onto the paulownia tree branch that stretched out from the courtyard wall. Then he jumped up and climbed over the courtyard wall like a gecko, flipping over and disappearing into the courtyard.

That is Bodhi, the one who always remains silent and looks sinister.

I looked down and saw everyone looking up at me with wide eyes and open mouths. In the crowd, I saw Nizi, whose eyes were filled with terror. I squirmed uneasily, knowing she was worried about me.

But did she know I was a thief? And what if I stole from her house?

I walked back and forth on the rope, stretching out my arms and walking like a rooster with drooping wings on a wall. Even I knew I was walking clumsily, not as graceful as a tightrope walker. But the people below still exclaimed and praised me.

I became dizzy and almost fell, but finally saw Bodhi emerge from a cave with a colorful cloth bag on his back. I quickly walked to the pole, hugged it, and breathed a long sigh of relief.

I slid down the pole and the tall trees looked at me with searching eyes. I nodded to them, giving the signal of success. High Tree Forest waved his hand and everyone quickly packed up the props, dug out the pole, and coiled up the rope. The spectators left slowly, still not satisfied.

Only Nizi remained with us in the wheat field. She looked at me with watery eyes, full of love and admiration.

We got on the carriage and Tree Stump raised the long whip. With a crisp sound, the carriage drove away lightly. When I looked back, I saw Nizi still standing at the edge of the wheat field.

My heart was also in pain, but I couldn't get off the carriage, nor could I come back again.

Nizi lightly touched the most delicate nerve in my heart.

If this was love, then this was my first love.

I never forgot Nizi my whole life.

When we were two or three miles away from the village, Bodhi walked out of the woods. He still had the colorful cloth bag on his back and looked around with his beady eyes. Seeing no danger, he got on the carriage.

I also looked around and saw no one but the wind rustling through the grass.

Bodhi handed the cloth bag to High Tree Forest, who took it casually like a school bag and threw it into the carriage. He didn't even bother to look at it, as if it contained textbooks and exercise books instead of gold and silver.

But I knew there must be gold and silver inside.

As dusk fell, we arrived on a vast wilderness with no village or store in sight, not even a large forest. On the plains, wherever there were forests, there were usually villages, and wherever there were villages, there were certainly forests. We couldn't find a place to stay, but we saw a zigzag-shaped melon hut on the roadside. The zigzag-shaped melon hut was built by the melon watchers who lived in it at night to prevent people or animals from stealing the melons. There were many animals that liked to steal melons, such as foxes, field mice, and badgers. On moonlit nights, if the melon watchers heard the sound of nibbling from the moonlit ground, they would walk out of the melon shed and see little animals scurrying away like arrows. These were the melon-eating animals. Eating a watermelon was not scary, but what was scary was that these little animals would never eat just one watermelon. They would eat dozens of watermelons overnight, taking only a few bites from each before moving on to the next. These clever little animals only found the largest and sweetest ripe watermelons.

Therefore, wherever there was a watermelon field, there would definitely be a zigzag-shaped melon hut.

We stayed in the zigzag-shaped melon hut.

That night, while everyone else went into the hut, Gaoshulin called me outside. We sat on the edge of the field, and I looked at the low-hanging sky in the distance, where the stars had already merged with the distant mountains, making it look very beautiful and dreamy. I felt like I was in the sky.

A shooting star streaked across the sky. I was staring at the shooting star when Gaoshulin said, "You did well today, pointing out the yard of the wealthy family. Keep up the good work."

I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. I was still thinking about that girl with two thick black braids.