李兴民《盐官镇》

After merging onto the highway from Tianshui City and heading towards Longnan, we sped straight to Yanguan. Yet, my mind conjured a vivid scene from over three decades ago.

I remembered an old Dongfeng truck laden with hay and corn sacks lumbering along the road from Tianshui to Lixian. The highway was strewn with grain awaiting threshing. Inside the truck's open-air cabin, a man in his early thirties held the hand of a seven or eight-year-old boy, bouncing along with the truck's jerks. Chaff and dust from the threshing fields occasionally blew into their eyes. Midway, the Dongfeng truck stalled, and they switched to a farm tractor. As dusk approached, Yanguan Town was still far off.

Thirty years have flown by in a blink, and it takes about an hour to reach the Yanguan Toll Station. After more than three decades, this was my second visit to Yanguan to visit relatives with my father.

"I wonder if your Auntie is still alive," my father muttered, half to me and half to himself, as we hadn't been in touch for a long time. Auntie was nearing her hundredth birthday, and my father was eager to see his cousin, one of the few surviving elders from his generation.

My mind remained fixated on the late 1980s. Arriving at Auntie's house in the evening, she was overjoyed. She alternated between holding my father's hand, asking questions, and patting mine, saying how well-behaved I was. Auntie, the only daughter of my great-uncle from Huixian, had lost her father early. She and my grandfather were cousins, sharing the same grandfather, making my grandfather her closest relative. Despite living apart, my grandfather often thought of her and visited when passing through the South, bringing gifts and reminding her that her maternal family was her most outstanding support. Auntie always wept with joy at the sight of her maternal relatives. When my father told Auntie that my grandfather had passed away and that she couldn't be summoned due to the distance, Auntie broke into tears. She prepared a hearty meal of long noodles, warmed up the kang (heated brick bed), rummaged through her chests, and laid out new bedding set for us, urging us to rest well.

Thirty years later, I accompanied my father to revisit Auntie. Since Auntie lived alone and we hadn't been in touch for years, we didn't know her current condition.

"Let's go see where Auntie lives. If she's not there anymore, I'll still come to Yanguan to fulfil her wish of seeing me one last time," my father said, knowing Auntie's address well. Her house wasn't far from Yanguan's main street, making it easy to find in the countryside. To our delight, Auntie was still alive and surprisingly robust, though her advanced age had robbed her of her memory. The contrast between this reunion and my memories from three decades ago was striking. My father's illness prompted our visit to Yanguan. While in Tianshui for his treatment, he had been thinking of Auntie. Their reunion was poignant, with Auntie unable to recognise her nephew, now an elderly patient himself.

Time we had orchestrated this tranquil final meeting between father and cousin, bound by a slender thread of blood.

As we walked through Yanguan, my father pointed out villages and families, tracing their lineage to shared ancestors in Gansu or Ningxia. He even recounted the relationships between the ancestors of Yanguan's residents over a hundred years ago and how some families were distantly related to us. However, the ties had long been severed.

I had no idea my father was so familiar with Yanguan.

According to him, our ancestors once lived on the slope of Yanguan. Now, relatives scattered far and wide trace their roots back to that very slope.

In history, ordinary people, unlike noble clans, were more concerned with necessities than their origins. I wondered if Auntie, who spent her entire life in Yanguan, knew she had married into her ancestors' homeland. Perhaps she never mentioned it to her grandchildren, who were surprised and uninterested in her distant maternal family. It was half a century ago, and possibly unravelling it held little practical significance.

Our visit to Yanguan this time was rooted in my father's lingering affection for a distant branch of our family. The bond of kinship remains unfaded. When my father was young, my grandfather brought him to Yanguan to visit a distant relative of the same generation. Through inquiries with older people in Yanguan, my father learned that our great-grandfather had passed away many years ago, and his descendants continue to live there.

Uncle, a distant relative, was in Lixian discussing the apple business when he heard we were in Yanguan. He insisted over the phone that we stay and await his immediate return from Lixian. My cousin Longlong, a peer of mine, volunteered as our free tour guide, leading us on a grand tour of Yanguan. A college graduate, Longlong is embarking on his entrepreneurial journey in Yanguan, managing an apple cooperative with my father. They have leased vast tracts of land to cultivate apples. Standing amidst the boundless apple orchards of Yanguan, with our feet on the earth and our heads tilted towards the sky, we felt a rush of present and historical vibes.

Yanguan Town has long been renowned. Since the pre-Qin period, this place has played a significant role in politics, economy, and military affairs throughout history. Sa Haitao, a young Yanguan man, is pursuing his PhD at Nanjing University. Shi Yanwei, an editor at National Literature, introduced me to Haitao, and we have been exchanging insights on the past and present of Yanguan. Haitao mentioned that Yanguan is replete with historical anecdotes, particularly renowned for its military horses and salt along the Silk Road. Yanwei, who has conducted research on the historical culture and contemporary customs of the Hui people in Yanguan and the surrounding areas of Longnan, said that the immigration to Yanguan during the Qing Dynasty was similar to that of Botou, Hebei, giving rise to distinct ethnic and folk cultures in different regions of northwest, north, and northeast China, worthy of further exploration.

Moreover, Yanguan is a town nourished by poetry. The renowned Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu penned the famous poem "Salt Wells" while residing here:

"The brine-soaked grass and trees turn white,

And the bluish smoke rises from the official salt kilns.

With strict quotas set by the government,

The smoke of salt-boiling fills the river valleys.

Wells are dug year after year,

And carts roll out day by day.

From the public share of three hundred dollars,

Six thousand hu of salt are transported.

The virtuous know when to stop,

But the greedy suffer from clamour and bustle.

Why do I lament?

For the laws of nature are inevitable."

In contemporary times, some poets write about Yanguan. Here's an excerpt from a local poem titled "Yanguan, or A Small Town" by poet Baobao, published in the June 2010 issue of Feitian:

"In his towering chest, the past of this small town

Never ceases to roar: where the sun sets,

Where Qin Feizi herded horses,

A land abundant in salt and mules,

Where Mr. Zhuge divided the world into three powers."

"This is a town where salt nourishes majestic steeds,

A town where steeds helped build an entire dynasty.

The appearance of a steed here is never a coincidence."

The vast apple orchards of Yanguan are one splendid scenery after another. Longnan's sunlight shines on every apple. As my gaze follows the flickering light on the Yanguan apples, the more than two thousand years of history of this Qin-origin place and the glint of swords and spears during the Tongzhi era fleetingly flash before my eyes.

My cousin Longlong proudly shared that the apples produced in our region in recent years are exceptional, earning accolades such as "Pre-Qin Tribute Fruit" and "Qin Shi Huang's Tribute Fruit," and are highly sought-after in the market.