The banana branches rustled in the breeze.
On a hardened village road of Qiaonan Village Committee in the big town of Danzhou, Hainan, two old people are taking hook knives to remove weeds from the roadside.
There is a monument beside the road, on which the history of this road called "Xiude Road" is written. The passing villagers will stop for a few seconds habitually. "Since 2009, two elderly people, Wu Changru and Jiang Shaoman, have been building roads for the convenience of villagers' travel without complaint and regret. In 2016, the road built by two elderly people in the construction of rural roads in Danzhou was hardened, so the two elderly people 'transferred' and began to take charge of road maintenance again."
Xie Yilin, deputy secretary of Qiaonan Village Committee, said that in order to learn from the selfless dedication of the two old people, everyone named this road "Xiude Road". Villagers said that the old people not only built roads, but also served the villagers.
Wu Changru is 93 years old and Jiang Shaoman is 73 years old. Both of them are local villagers. When talking about the voluntary road building in those years, the two elders said that they had nothing to do and hoped to do something within their power to facilitate the villagers' travel.
Beside the village, the main canal of Songtao flows slowly like a jade belt, raising generations of villagers. Grass grows on the side of the dike of the canal. It can be seen vaguely that this is an abandoned village path.
"The soil of the dam is loess, and it will be muddy when it rains. If you ride a motorcycle or bicycle on it carelessly, you will stumble." Xie Yilin said that before, there were two roads from Qiaonan Village Committee to Xilianju (Xilian Farm), one was the soil road beside the dam of Songtao Trunk Canal, with a length of about 2km. Once it rained, there was a serious safety hazard, But the distance is relatively short. The other way is to detour from the village committee to Beibu Gulf Avenue, which is safe and easy to walk, but about 6 kilometers away. In order to save time, many villagers took the risk of taking a shortcut.
Some villagers died, including Wu Changru's friend Lao Lai. On the day of the accident, Wu Changru came to the scene of the accident and saw Lao Lai's bicycle lying on the side of the canal. After salvage, the body of Lao Lai was found downstream of the canal.
"How can it be so sad to lose it?" Wu Changru said that his friend's unexpected death made him sad. Soon, he discussed with Jiang Shaoman, hoping to help villagers find a safe and convenient way to travel.
The two elders decided to take the firewood knife to open up the mountain road abandoned by the village in the early years.
Although the "Xiude Road" is only about one kilometer long, each stone was bought by two elderly people from the nearby construction site or villagers' homes. "We heard that in order to pave the road to facilitate the travel of villagers, we are very supportive." Wu Changru said that after obtaining the consent, he and Jiang Shaoman pushed a cart and carefully selected each paving stone. Unconsciously, the originally pitted mountain path was covered with "hundreds of stones".
"It's hard to pave the road, but we feel very satisfied to see everyone go home safely," said Wu Changru.
In August 2014, a 220cm long and 210cm wide marble tablet was erected on this road. The stone tablet was erected by the town government and named "Xiude Road". It outlines the good deeds of the two old people in building this road of virtue. The words are filled with praise.
In 2016, the hardening construction of rural roads was settled in the village committee of Qiaonan, and blocks of subgrade stones were lifted. The original mottled roads were rebuilt and hardened. Wu Changru and Jiang Shaoman volunteered to be highway maintenance personnel again.
Wu Changru said that in the future, they will do what they can to do for everyone.
