A wisp of pale cyan smoke, carrying a flavor, rose from the stilted building. When the morning wind blew, it rushed wildy everywhere along the beams. In just the blink of an eye, it had already fled into the cliff behind the house. This was the cooking smoke in the morning, filled with the bright morning dew in that smoke trace.
The wooden buildings in the village are all built along the mountain. The mountains are steep, the cliffs are high, the bays are deep, and there is hardly any flat land, so most of the buildings are stilted. But in front of the buildings are all kinds of flowers and plants, dark green bamboos, quiet old maples, tall pines, etc. These plants that grow on the cliff, either lower themselves under the tiles in front of the building, or their branches and leaves grow beyond the roof tiles. That pale cyan smoke emerges horizontally from this scenery. Smoke is the spirituality of people. They walk thread by thread on the tiles and go farther and farther away, finally disappearing in the mountain path.
When I was young, I really liked the smoke on the tiles too much. I always thought that the smoke on the tiles must be consistent with the habits of the people under that smoke. I often lay alone on the mountain pass behind the old house, waiting for the smoke to emerge successively from different wooden buildings. I always felt that the family whose cooking smoke rose early must be a diligent and thrifty family; the one whose smoke didn't rise until very late must be greedy and lazy, and even those who didn't see smoke rising all morning must be that there was no one at home. There are various possibilities for no one being at home, either the whole family has gone out to visit distant relatives, or the lazy people in a family have gone to other neighbors' houses to freeload, and of course it could also be that the whole family has gone out to do farm work. In the countryside, those people who are diligent in taking on farm work can only live a rich and happy life.
Often at noon, those families that didn't see smoke on the tiles in the morning suddenly saw smoke coming out, and also heard a series of voices coming from the house under the tiles, soft whispers, laughter, or whispers. In short, this was a diligent family that had returned home. This also supported many of my speculations, including my speculations about smoke, about people, and about some aspects of the whole village. Of course, it is this smoke on the tiles that effortlessly enables us to understand the diligence and likes and dislikes of the people under that tile smoke. To a large extent, these smokes represent certain characteristics of people. As long as you are a little more observant, carefully and repeatedly, and take a few more glances at the smoke on the tiles, you will gradually understand the character of the people under that smoke. In fact, most of the secrets in the countryside are implied in these subtle details.
In my memory, my father and mother are particularly diligent and kind. They have lived with the villagers for decades, but there are few times when they have spoken with red faces, and it is even more impossible to quarrel with others. My parents are like that wisp of smoke that rises regularly on the tiles every day. They get up early, cook, wash the school uniforms that we just dirtied the night before, mend the blue cloth schoolbags that we tore holes in when we were naughty, and then go out to do farm work. By the time we wake up, the figures of our parents can no longer be found in the house, but there is a table of steaming food, and if we don't eat it, it will soon be cold. We naturally understand the intention of our parents: eat earlier and go to school well!
Smoke also has a special meaning. The old people said that if the smoke on the roof tiles scatters and spreads out messily, it is just fine, but if the smoke emerges from the tiles and gathers into a straight line and refuses to disperse for a long time, it is a sign that an old person is about to leave us. Birth, old age, sickness, and death, for us mortals, who can resist it.