In the deepest corner of memory, Red Mud Village is a piece of land gently wrapped by time — no noise, no calculation.
It was a small paradise that seemed to belong to all of us when we were children. Back when the internet still felt like a rising sun — warm, bright enough to guide you, never harsh — Red Mud Village was one of its softest beams, lighting up countless innocent faces.
I still remember the afternoon I first found it. Sunlight slipped through the curtain and fell in broken patches across an old computer screen. I had quietly opened one of my father’s most prized possessions, and every click felt careful, almost solemn. I kept checking the crooked pencil letters I had copied onto the back of a notebook, afraid that one wrong character would lock me out of that strange new world forever.
Then the screen opened. Color rushed in first: bright pictures, friendly cartoon figures, children from all over, each of us carrying a small dream. We ran across virtual fields together, explored forests of knowledge, and used our clumsy writing to build stories about courage, friendship, and love.
Red Mud Village was a world so clean it almost seemed transparent. There was no scheming, no endless chasing, no pressure to become anything other than what we were. What remained was the simplest happiness and the most honest exchange of feelings. We shared tiny secrets, cheered when a friend gathered the right piece of “mud,” and cried over the misfortune of Science Wolf. In today’s fast, high-pressure life, that kind of innocence feels distant, almost mythical — like some precious stone from an old legend.
Time moved on too quickly. The internet grew up at a speed we could barely follow, and commercialization came in with unstoppable force. So many places that once gave us joy and dreams were slowly swept away by the tide. In their place came crowded product suggestions, endless information, and content that looked lively but carried less warmth. We seemed to lose something important: the ability to slow down, to taste things carefully, to feel them deeply. Along with that loss came a vague unease, a kind of restlessness that settled quietly in the background.
It would be unfair to reject commercialization completely. Business helped push technology forward. It made the internet easier, faster, and in many ways more colorful and convenient. But late at night, when everything is still, I still feel that hollow ache. Why does Red Mud Village keep coming back to me? Probably because I miss how simple it was, how pure, how free from anything mixed in.
The commercialization of the internet is probably an inevitable path. That truth brings both resignation and a little relief. I can’t explain the feeling cleanly, because some part of me still feels as if I never left the village, still standing inside that clear and beautiful Red Mud Village. Times have changed, and I have changed with them. The wheel keeps turning; if I insisted on preserving that original purity forever, I would only be fighting the current. So what can I do? I can keep speaking up for the things worth protecting, and I can also accept the convenience and pleasure the internet now offers. But please don’t forget this:
the longing for beauty, and for innocence
Sometimes I imagine a wide sky filled with white clouds, drifting over an almost washed-clean blue. For one brief moment, it feels as if I’m about to touch the Red Mud Village stored in memory — that small place inside me that was clean, warm, and full of love. Maybe it is only a wish. But I still believe that where there is love and there are dreams, there is hope. Red Mud Village has long since receded into the distance, yet the innocence and beauty it left behind remain carved deep in memory, becoming one of the most precious things we carry.
And in the end, I’m just grateful to remember the name Xiao Shi.