Winter in Guoliang｜When the Taihang Mountains are sealed by snow, I hear the stones breathing!

The day I entered the mountains, the snow fell silently. Passing Huixian, the fog thickened, the white mist wrapping the dark green mountain shadows like a freshly painted ink wash painting gently shaken by someone. The navigation failed early, so I followed the two shallow tracks left by the car ahead, winding upward— Not heading to a scenic spot, but to an old appointment with the cliff. At the entrance of Guoliang Village, the stone mill lies quietly in the snow. No tourists in sight, only an old man in a dark blue cotton jacket slowly sweeping snow off the millstone with a broom. The stone mill is rough, the snow half melted, water droplets slowly dripping along the grooves, tapping softly on the frozen ground. He looked up at me, didn’t ask where I came from, just pointed behind him: “The door is open, the wind can get in too.” That door is the entrance to the "Guoliang Tunnel" carved into the sheer cliff— No archway, no ticket gate, just a dark, upward-tilted arched cut, Like a calm yet affectionate wound the Taihang Mountains personally carved open in the earth. Inside Guoliang Tunnel, dust and light float in the flashlight beam. I turned off my phone’s navigation and turned on a pocket flashlight. The beam pierced the darkness, and in an instant, countless dust particles rose, danced, and hovered— They weren’t drifting, but swimming, like deep-sea plankton silently migrating between century-old chiseled rock walls. My fingertips brushed the cave wall, rough and abrasive, yet warm. Guide Xiao Yang said, “Back then, thirteen households, relying on steel chisels and hammers, took five years to carve through 1,200 meters.” I said nothing, just gently pressed my forehead against the rock. At that moment, what I heard was not an echo, but a slow and continuous pulse coming from deep within the stone— It turns out even the hardest mountain has a heartbeat; the coldest winter also hides warmth. Tian Ti Cliff, a narrow path hanging above the snow line. Exiting the tunnel is the Heavenly Ladder. Not a tourist boardwalk, but a narrow icy ridge path made by locals, only wide enough for one person to pass sideways. On the left is a sheer cliff thousands of feet high, on the right a valley a thousand feet deep, the thin ice and snow underfoot fragile and shining. Suddenly the wind picked up, swirling snowflakes onto my eyelashes, tickling. I stopped and looked down at my breath, a wisp, then another, Lighter than the clouds below, more stubborn than the withered pine at the cliff’s edge. At that moment, a mountain chick flew across the abyss, its wings stirring the air, It didn’t call, just flew— Measuring the void that humans dare not face with its tiny body. I suddenly smiled: it turns out standing in the narrow crack between heaven and earth, Is not to conquer height, but to confirm that one still dares to breathe. Old village drying ground, frozen persimmons and unopened letters. The village drying ground is empty, a few corn stacks covered in snow, like crouching brown beasts. An old woman sat under the eaves shelling walnuts, the winnowing basket full of green husks, her fingers red from the cold but nimble as a butterfly. Seeing me take photos, she opened her palm, holding three frozen hard persimmons: “Want to try?” Biting in, the ice crystals shattered, the sourness hit my nose, but the tip of my tongue soon tasted honey sweetness— The wild mountains turned bitter cold into sweet. Her grandson ran out from the house, handing me an unsent letter: “Grandma wrote to her son working in the city, afraid the post office would close…” The handwriting on the envelope was crooked, the ink slightly blurred by the wind sneaking through the window crack. I helped her stick the stamp and dropped it into the rusty green mailbox at the village entrance. The mailbox opening was deep, like a small well filled with longing. Before returning, sitting at the cliff-hanging road viewing platform. The sunset melted gold, splashing on the opposite cliff, Icicles like crystal curtains, snowy ridges like silver dragon spines, And below, the cliff-hanging road, Winding like a shining silver thread, still unhealed. I didn’t photograph the grandeur, only an icicle in a rock crevice: Sharp, transparent, but inside wrapped with a star of withered grass and leaves— Just like us: Though life freezes us sharp and jagged, Deep inside we quietly protect a bit of undying green. The snow stopped as I descended. Car lights cut through the dusk, in the beam, fine snow fell again, Gentle, slow, neither competing nor rushing. It turns out winter in Guoliang never tries to please anyone with liveliness. It simply brews the thousand-year-old stone, the hundred-year snow, the ten-year silence, Into a texture— Warmth in hardness, calm in danger, In the barren cold, There is a living breath that refuses to bow.