In my eyes, this was the wildest and most uncurbed part of the Xiangshui creek. Here it flowed through a wide river valley. One could hear the booming sound of the Diaoshuihu waterfall which was still a little less than a mile away. Upstream from the waterfall, the creek was forced into a violent spurting torrent as it flowed through a narrow gorge. As it tumbled from the top of the steep cliff into a deep pool below, it abruptly slowed down in its frantic rush and enjoyed the comforts allowed by the spacious river bed. Here the river bed was made up of football-sized boulders identical in colour. As the swift current collided with one boulder after another it exploded in sprays of snow-white waves. Looking from afar, the white waves, shimmering with a silvery light under the rays of the sun, appeared like a drove of mountain hares leaping in the swift current. In my mind, I chose a name for this type of wave: the mountain hare wave.
Pleased with myself, I shared my discovery with Lao Bu only for him to chuckle saying that it had already been named that before. Almost every one of the 98 bends on the Xiangshui creek has a name such as The Freezing Beach, The Island of Drifting Fish, The Sickle River Branch, The Gourd Pool, and many many more. Only somebody who has spent seventy or eighty years roaming the mountains can recount them all.
When I walked up close to the shore, I was surprised that the roaring sound did not seem particularly loud. The sound of the rushing river and the booming sound of the waterfall intertwined, forming a clear and regular clamouring sound. After standing on the bank for a long time it made one feel as if this clamouring sound had always been an inherent part of this river valley. It was as if the creek, the valley and the sound of crashing water formed an inseparable body. And of course, there is also the unusually clear air and bright sunshine.
Suddenly, the clear sound of a bird cry came from further downstream. It cawed again and again, making its way upstream towards us. I gazed at the sky, eager to spot the bird. It was only after gazing around in a full circle that I glimpsed the sight of a shiny black bird fluttering about two feet above the water surface. It looked like a tiny wrought iron cannonball. It flickered with a shiny lustre, flapping its wings frantically as it brushed past and headed upstream, facing the sun, in the direction of the Diaoshuihu waterfall.
It was a brown dipper, one of the diving birds that, similarly to the otter, has no fear of freezing water. When I was small I read about it once in Bianki's Forest Newspaper for Every Year. It left a deep impression on me as it dived into the bitterly cold water in search of insects. It was covered with tight plumage and smeared with a thin layer of oil. After diving into the water, its whole body was shrouded in a pool of silvery bubbles. It looked as if it was draped in a transparent cloak decorated with pearls. It used its wings to row through the water, half swimming, half walking, on the river bed, swiftly upturning small pebbles with its claws, looking for water bugs and tiny snails. I would never have imagined that its cry was so crisp and loud. The pure happiness that emanated from it pierced clearly through the clamour of the water. I have never heard any ornithologist say that the brown dipper is a masterful singer, but to me its melody lived well up to the standards of a winter tune. Its cry resounded through the valley and I almost felt that it made the bright patches of sunshine which penetrated through the crown of the trees shimmer with the echo. Even after its call died away, these pleasing flickers of light lingered long after. Of course, the bird sound will, like a lifelong companion, stay engrained in my memory forever.
The flowing of water is eternal, it never pauses to rest; the cry of a bird, however, is only momentary. But if a bird in flight breaks into a song, its echo lingers around the valley for a long time. If only the perpetual inhabitants of this valley could trill their songs forever, generation after generation, and let every person that wanders here feel the happiness and the sunshine that emanates from their merry chirping. At that moment I thought that even though this tune could be considered elaborate or magnificent, even though it did not employ complicated fluctuations of note, even though it was probably the simplest and least adorned bird chant out of all the bird songs in the wilderness, it still felt like a treasure to me as it was the sole bird cry that I could hear on that winter day by the side of the creek. At that moment I decided that in the future I would record and collect bird sounds. I would make it into my hobby and I would often come into the mountains to listen to bird cries. Then, on lonely days, I would replace smoking with bird song as I sat reading a book with the chanting of birds for company.
"Coo, coo, coo" , it returned, cooing as happily as before. It fluttered around in the air, up and down, as if it was riding on one of the waves below. Every time it beat its wings it sprung forward and up as if driven by the freshness of youth.
