Weeds Scenery | April in Dali - Diary

2025.04.09

At 12:30 in the morning, after Xiaoqi finished making the bed for Li Zhenhao's van, he didn't plan to stop. He wanted to continue modifying Yang Mi's van. From noon until now, he had hardly rested. Except for the takeout he had at 11 PM. Yang Mi and I originally wanted to persuade him to stop and do it tomorrow. But He Chen, sitting nearby, said, "The more you let him rest, the more he will want to work. Just let him do it." Yes, after these days of getting along, I understand Xiaoqi much better. If he wants to do something and hasn't finished it, he won't feel at ease.

Yang Mi and He Chen stayed at Xiaoqi's house the whole day today. Xiaoqi was cutting wood boards and measuring dimensions, and sometimes needed help. But most of the time, the two of them were idle. When Xiaoqi said, "Get me pliers or something," Yang Mi and He Chen would rush over, as if whoever found it first would win. When I was there, I would join the competition.

When Xiaoqi was nailing cloth to the bed board, he said, "Pass me that thin piece of wood." Because I had experience, I immediately understood that he wanted to use a straight stick to align the cloth. I beat He Chen, picked up two pieces of wood from the ground, one long and one short, and ran over to hand them to Xiaoqi. At that time, He Chen was still rummaging through the tool bag on the floor. I guessed he still didn't know what Xiaoqi wanted. However, I didn't get the credit either. Xiaoqi said the thin wooden strip was in the warehouse, and the two pieces I brought were too thick. As he said that, he quickly ran into the warehouse and took it out himself. Yang Mi was also about as clumsy as us. During the day when I wasn't there, it was said that when she handed screws to Xiaoqi, she spilled them all over the floor, and then frantically called He Chen, who was sitting in the living room, to come out and pick up the screws.

2024.04.10

I got home around 11:30 PM.

Today I also stayed at Xiaoqi's house all day. Usually when I go out to play, I casually put the fruits I pick in front of the driver's seat, but the van's shock absorption is poor, and with a little bump, the fruits roll off. I asked Xiaoqi if he could install a wooden strip to prevent them from rolling down. After I said that, he immediately measured the size and made a square wooden frame for both me and Yang Mi. I thought the wooden frame looked too hard, and it would be better to wrap the wooden blocks with cloth. So Xiaoqi spent another 20 minutes cutting some of the red cotton cloth I brought from my home, and stretched it neatly over the wooden frame. He was very serious about stretching it, but the finished product looked like a candy tray used for a bride on her wedding day, which was really funny. We thought it was ugly, but Yang Mi was too embarrassed to say so. I thought, if I just loosely placed the cloth on the wooden frame without stretching it, it might look more natural. Xiaoqi had a good temper and actually wanted to make a more satisfactory product. So he continued to modify it for us on the stretched red cloth frame, and even deliberately fixed some wrinkles. After it was done, he went to do other things.

I wanted to sew some line decorations on the cloth frame with cotton thread. During the sewing process, I realized that this rectangular wooden frame was very similar to the structure of a children's loom. So I removed the cloth again and planned to weave with hemp rope on the wooden frame. This might be lighter than wrapping cloth blocks, I thought. So, for the rest of the afternoon, I was weaving on the wooden frame.

While I was weaving, Yang Mi was sewing a vest with the remaining red cotton cloth. Yang Mi is completely different from Xiaoqi when it comes to handicrafts. She is very casual and not very careful. For example, when cutting the cloth, she cut the collar wrong. The two of us sat sideways on the almost completed bed van, sewing and mending, while Xiaoqi was busy with the remaining work nearby, sometimes calling us to get out of the way and not block his work. Yang Mi, while sewing, observed Xiaoqi so she could appear when he needed help.

Yesterday, when Xiaoqi and He Chen went to the express station, Xiaoqi lost his phone and hasn't found it yet. In the morning, he rode his motorcycle with Yang Mi to go over the places they passed yesterday and looked again, but didn't find it. At noon, when sitting at my house, Xiaoqi did a fortune telling for the lost phone and said, "In three days, the phone will appear on its own." I said, "If it comes true, I'll start believing in superstition from now on."

2025.04.11

Today I didn't want to spend the whole day at Xiaoqi's place again. At noon, I delivered the goggles to him and then returned to my own home. I cooked some corn, made some soy milk, and just had a simple meal. I didn't feel like cooking. I listened to a lesson for a while, and soon it was 3 PM. I had promised Sister Feibi to accompany her to check out the route for the "painting stones" experience.

I parked my car on the roadside and waited for Sister Feibi to park. Sister Feibi's car has been driven for over a year, but she still acts like a novice driver. On a very wide road, when pulling over, she reversed for quite a while before getting in. Recently, my rhinitis has become very severe. I wonder if this is the reason I've been more irritable. On the way up the mountain, my eyes were very itchy, and I sneezed more than a dozen times in a row. But I've been tested for allergens, and I'm not allergic to pollen.

In the fields we passed, Dian yingzi cao, firethorn flowers, and small sparrow flowers were blooming all over the mountains. The most abundant was the Crofton weed, so much that I worry that in a few years, on Cangshan Mountain, apart from Crofton weed, other plants will disappear. Sister Feibi said, maybe we can cultivate many natural enemies of the Crofton weed - the Crofton gall fly, and let them bore into the Crofton weed to destroy it. That sounds reasonable.

Five years ago, when I still didn't know that Crofton weed was an invasive plant, seeing this large area of small white flowers spreading across the hillside, I thought it was quite beautiful. Now, it's not beautiful anymore. People always like to distinguish between good and bad.

These flowers reminded me of an evening five years ago when I was walking up the mountain with Chen. At that time, the hillside above the central area of the small courtyard hadn't been occupied by houses yet. Climbing up the small path from Cangshan Avenue, we could quickly enter the forest. On the way, we passed by a large bush of firethorn flowers. Although they were a cold white, because they bloomed so profusely, the white also had a gorgeous feel. We passed it and finally rested in front of a tombstone with the word "Seventeen" written on it. Chen picked up an empty glass wine bottle in front of the tombstone next to Seventeen's, walked to the ditch beside the firethorn bush, and filled the bottle with water. Then he wiped the tombstone of Seventeen with his hand. When we were about to go down the mountain, a large dark cloud appeared in the sky, and soon it started raining. The rain carried a strong smell of earth and flowers. I picked a few branches of purple sparrow flowers and ran in the rain. At that time, I was happy, yet not happy.

After going down the mountain, I showed Sister Feibi the bed in my car, but the buckle got stuck. Xiaoqi taught me last time that if I hit it with a stone a couple of times, it would be fine. I picked up a stone from the roadside and hit it several times, but it still didn't work. "Let's not show it today. I'll go back and ask Xiaoqi to fix it," I said a bit apologetically, then closed the car door. Before we parted, Sister Feibi took out a bag of snacks from her backpack and gave it to me. It was a big bag of vegetarian tripe. Every time I meet Sister Feibi, the gift-giving part is indispensable.

In the evening, I went to Xiaoqi's house. Xiaoqi was nailing the last piece of board on Yang Mi's van. Yang Mi asked, "Shall I go buy some liquor?" Xiaoqi replied, "Go ahead." After finishing the work, drinking some baijiu is a moment of relaxation for Xiaoqi. Yang Mi rode Han Han's motorcycle, carrying me, and went to the nearby small store to buy liquor. We bought Xiaoqi's favorite kind, a baijiu called "Barley Wine," which costs eight yuan per bottle. Yang Mi bought two bottles.

"Xiaoqi seems like an old man," I said.

"Yes, like my dad. My dad would do that too," said Yang Mi.

Back at Xiaoqi's place, he and Han Han were cutting some Russian pickled cucumbers that were said to have expired a long time ago from the fridge. Because we hadn't had dinner, I suggested going to my place to drink. Because I thought if we went to my place, I could cook. In the afternoon, Yang Mi and Xiaoqi hadn't had their first meal until after 3 PM.

I used four mini green sour papayas, cut into shreds. Pork belly, cut into shreds. Green chili, chopped randomly, and a cucumber I took out from my fridge, originally intended to make a cold cucumber salad. But after Xiaoqi saw it, he said he wanted to eat it raw. Yang Mi, seeing Xiaoqi eating it, also wanted some, but only half. So I shredded the remaining half of the cucumber too. I made only one dish. After stir-frying the pork belly, I added green chili and sour papaya. To make it go well with rice, I also added some dry-fried pickled beans made by my mom. Finally, I added the cucumber and took it out of the wok.

By the time I finished cooking, Xiaoqi had already drunk half a bottle of baijiu. He began to tease Yang Mi for being clumsy.

"While observing me, you suddenly handed me a nail, which made me even more confused. By the afternoon, you started yawning. When I asked if you were sleepy, you covered your mouth and said, 'I'm not sleepy.'" Xiaoqi teased with a smile, then stood up from the stool and imitated Yang Mi yawning.

Yang Mi, sitting next to Xiaoqi, laughed nonstop while hitting Xiaoqi's arm with her hand.

When the meal was finished, two bottles of barley wine were all drunk. I, Yang Mi, and Han Han each drank some. Xiaoqi was about to pour some liquor from my sour papaya wine jar. I was a bit worried, because last time he got drunk at my place, it was after drinking a cup of sour papaya wine. This was made with the 60-degree baijiu that Wanwan gave me.

Sure enough, just a few minutes after drinking the sour papaya wine, Xiaoqi asked me to take out the shiny disco ball. I thought to myself, oh no, the dancing is about to begin.

Writing here, I think it was probably this disco ball that gave me some opportunities to understand people. If that day I hadn't taken out the disco ball, everything would have been different.

2025.04.12

In the afternoon, using that piece of red cotton fabric and an old sock, I sewed an ugly doll. I originally wanted to sew many ugly dolls, but it was harder than I imagined.

After finishing the ugly doll, it was almost dark, so I went out for a walk.

For some reason, the air was very humid, even though it had only rained a few drops during the day. The humid air made my rhinitis feel much better. As I walked, I first smelled the scent of walnut catkins, and then the strong fragrance of rape flowers. When I reached the edge of the field, the moon happened to come out from the clouds, and there were some insect sounds around.

It had been a long time since my nose had breathed air this sweet and moist. I walked back and forth on the same ridge seven or eight times, not wanting to go home. The feeling I had standing in the air at that moment was very similar to the evening I thought of yesterday from five years ago.

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