In February, I finished watching the new film Farewell My Concubine in Beijing. A few days later, I went back to the theater to watch the new film, which was deadly. However, it was as good as going through this door and continuing to sit on pins and needles all night. It was like a group of people carrying buckets of dog blood and splashing on the stage. It didn’t matter if his iron helmet and hat were all wrong. The embroidered skirt of the counselor was no longer a divinatory figure, but the back of the famous Hua Yun was embroidered with Mei Lan Zhu Ju, who was not afraid of reflecting my light.
I only closed my eyes, but then I saw a real star Huayun in anger and galloping. If he had to cross the rivers and mountains and lead troops into the city and break into the theater, he would shoot off the purple and gold crowns on their heads and tell them that there are three things in this world besides light. They are afraid of discipline.
You are not there every time you wake up.
One morning in March last year, when I was drinking all night, I suddenly saw a lot of colorful words written on the wall next to the community. In fact, they were already there, but I never paid attention to them. I suddenly saw a word and every time I woke up, you were not there.
For a moment, this word touched me and reminded me of a sentence I saw when I wandered in Gansu and Qinghai in Jiuquan the year before last. I don’t know how long it took someone to blow people over the west wind, which is called a tiny Gobi stone. Every word is one person tall. This sentence is Zhao Xiaoli, I love you.
After that, for a month, I would go home after midnight and sit across the wall and smoke for a while, but I waited for him.
But I was still shocked. It wasn’t someone else who installed me with a temporary job in the broadband letter office. He hadn’t seen me for a year. I heard that he didn’t work in the letter office, but he was working as a painter a thousand paces away from me, and he worked on the fence of the construction site after midnight.
Today, it’s been more than a year, and the old road has long since stopped being a painter. Yesterday, he left Wuhan. Actually, he was born and raised in Wuhan. It is conceivable that he came to me to accompany him to Yuansi for a sign, so he accompanied him to the old road and asked for a sign until he came back. The old road was still immersed in excitement and drove past the Yellow Crane Tower. He told me that this was the first time he had asked for a sign in his life.
The old road was born in 1996. After graduating from junior high school, the military family joined the army less than a year ago and went to fight back against Vietnam. From the battlefield, they came to work as workers, got married, gave birth to children and divorced, and their ex-wives flew away. Before leaving, they sold their houses. There was no way for him to get back to his parents’ eaves and live by working. It was a shame for a man who lived in his forties and didn’t have his own house. He once said this to me.
Meet again at the fence of the construction site. He will come to me when he is looking for a job frequently. I have never seen a 45-year-old man in a panic like the old way. When he sits, he wriggles anxiously. It seems that he is ready to get up and leave at any time. His eyes are always worried and he always looks around uneasily. When he comes into the room with me to find a way, he either knocks over the table, cups or keys in his trouser pockets fall to the ground three times.
How can a person who refuses to sit anywhere tell him not to panic? Every time I meet him, he seems to be looking for a painter. After work, he worked as a dishwasher, sold a strange therapeutic instrument to the countryside, sold rapeseed and finally went back to the city to sell telephone cards. In the most difficult time, he thought of writing novels like me.
I’m reunited with my old road. The fence has long since disappeared, but his problems have not subsided. Before leaving Wuhan, he took a ballpoint pen with him. Wherever he went, he would consciously write and draw where he could write. I can probably help him write and draw better. Then write and draw more.
With a little recognition, you can see that the old road is full of ancient poems, ten years of life and death, and two vast stories. It is not surprising that that hearing first your surname, I thought you a stranger called remembering the past a murder sentence. I have read a lot about the old road. What interests me is that I saw that word at first, and you were not there every time I woke up. I never saw him write it again.
At that time, I joked with him in the pub on Dongting 2 nd Road that he might really be able to write a novel, and an ordinary word was written by him. I don’t know which woman he thought of.
The old road didn’t talk. He was silent and drunk for three rounds. He cried and said that the word was addressed to his son. At that time, who could listen to a middle-aged man crying and let me talk in Rilke? He shouted who could hear him from the sequence of days. At that time, every day, I didn’t know that the old road was taken to Chengdu by his ex-wife and died in a car accident.
Brother Wu is a villain.
It was nearly noon when the freezing rain hit the town for half an hour. In the past, a Chimonanthus praecox on the bank of the Yellow River disappeared, but it was covered by gray rain and fog. But after all, it was New Year’s Eve, and the children finally couldn’t bear to shout and run in the street. The last batch of people who bought new year’s goods also gradually appeared in the rain and fog. Huge firecrackers rang in half an hour, and the freezing rain suddenly stopped, and smoke rose to the roof. The Lunar New Year was finally a prelude.
However, the louder the firecrackers sounded, the more frantic I became. I came here as a crew member to help them change the play again. I didn’t expect that I would be dissolved when I reached the back of the crew. I was ready to pick up my luggage and was directly taken by the crew in a small building when I picked up my luggage. I couldn’t walk anymore, but I came to the crew and owed a lot of money to shoot. I don’t know when the filmmakers escaped with most people, but I was the only one.
Then I became a prisoner in a border town, and I couldn’t think of any other way except to call the filmmaker again and again every day until the filmmaker completely stopped answering his promise to save him. At this time, I came to the New Year’s Eve to watch over us. People always had to go home for the Spring Festival, and my accomplices couldn’t escape here. Unexpectedly, it was impossible for us to escape. This place was surrounded by mountains, and the only way to the outside world was the Yellow River ferry, which had been frozen for three days.
It’s like a group of gloomy wandering souls walking back and forth in the dilapidated streets several times, perhaps because of resentment or dislike for each other. Almost everyone gradually became separated. After I finished speaking to my relatives thousands of miles away, I pushed out the feeling of desolation and strolled along the Yellow River embankment. I probably wanted to see the wax plum hidden in the thick fog. I never thought that when I stepped on the embankment, I heard people singing not far away, and I met a rhubarb wind flashing straw hat.
Jude was struck by a lightning strike, and my heart jumped violently. I remember correctly that I heard this flower ten years ago in Qinghai, and it was also in the winter. A group of farmers sang it to me in the snow. At this moment, I suddenly heard that my soul was confused and looked around, but the exact song broke through the fog again. The elder brothers were too shabby and so expensive. The living are poor and blushing flowers. Listen to your big brothers walking, and the liver flower sister is a villain.
In an instant, I stopped hesitating and ran in the direction of the song. After running for three or two minutes, I saw the singer in an almost abandoned dock on the bank. A group of men, old and young, mostly young and middle-aged people, either sat on the steel beam or leaned against the ship’s rail and saw me running, but they stopped singing and looked at me with a smile. However, almost in an instant, those black and red knife-cut faces caught my eye. In an instant, I was roughly white. They should have come to Gansu or Qinghai. Maybe it was better for their brothers to sing to me in the snow ten years ago.
When I was at the end of the road, I recognized them as my distant relatives in my heart, and then stammered to tell them that I was almost a northwest folk custom. I sang flowers in Huangzhong River Valley and drove through the night road in Hezhou City. When I lingered for half a month in a village in Helan Mountain, I could almost recognize every lamb in the village. At this point, my distant relatives laughed again. The shyness from burying one’s head in this sudden opportunity slowly faded, and I approached a brother. Then we were in a rust before we gathered in the distance.
Gradually, the wind is getting stronger, and I will never ask them if they will still be in this lonely town on the New Year’s Eve like me. Even if so many brothers get together in one place, a reunion dinner should always be prepared. Speaking of which, I finally know the answer, but I am trapped here like my distant relatives. In the spring, they were forced to contract with a family member from their hometown. We are now in the shipyard for a year and everything is safe. The only exception happened more than 20 days ago when a brother was seriously ill. If you want to save your life, you have to go to the provincial capital for treatment. However, even if your family sells things and can sell them in the shipyard, it is far from enough for treatment. So everyone of these distant relatives, old and young, who are present here has brought the money they have put on their soles. Although the seriously ill brother and his family have been gone for more than 20 days, there is still no sign of coming back, but the shipyard has sold them, so that they can work and live separately and find some eaves to sleep separately. Of course, it is not enough for this star to go home for travelling expenses. Even the mobile phone can’t afford to talk. Today, although it’s New Year’s Eve, everyone is gathering at the shipyard, but they don’t have a reunion dinner. They just say a few words as they do every day and take a look on the other side of the Yellow River. They will disperse and suddenly feel homesick. They just sang flowers.
It’s already noon, and the weather is getting colder and colder, but while I’m listening to them, a great eagerness is boiling, but it suddenly breeds from the bottom of my heart. This cold wind shows that I’m no stranger at all. Strangers in Wuwei City have been very sleepy. I handed over a bowl full of hot wine, and the old man who herded sheep in Huangzhong once left me to sleep in his tent, but he himself slept in the flock all night. Yes, in those barren rivers, promises are as hard as stones, and friendship is as simple as knives. These distant relatives have put stones thousands of miles away. The head knife moved here with a promise and friendship, and they were willing to draw a dungeon while waiting in poverty. This place is either Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia or Xihaigu Helan Mountain Hexi Corridor.
This idea floated from my mind. I should have a reunion dinner with my distant relatives. I immediately told them that although I was poor and in an inexplicable bet, I still had to remember a table of food and a few bottles of soju. We deserved to be close to each other. What’s worse, I had already recognized the northwest customs and just wanted to oppose me, but I had already thrown my mobile phone to him and asked his brothers to report peace thousands of miles away. Without saying anything, I pulled up two boys and ran to the embankment against the west wind, full of thoughts.
For so many years, this is the only one I haven’t spent the Lunar New Year with my relatives, but I’m sure that in the future, this Lunar New Year will be carved on my body like a rock painting, because it’s not something else, it’s grievances that are erased, it’s emboldened, and it’s a road to death.
In fact, the food on that rusty ship was cooled by the wind as soon as it was cooked. Fortunately, we drank three or two cups of wine to warm our bodies, and there were more household words. It happened that one of the fathers actually set foot in their village. My father grabbed my hand and quickly ordered my son to pour me wine. I even said several times that it was really a brother. So I would like to raise my glass again. Of course, I will drink it off and pay tribute to the other brothers several times. At this time, it will be late, and the ice on the Yellow River will break a little bit. Just when I was staring blankly at the Yellow River, my father, who called me a brother, sang flowers at the top of his voice. Guide, the Yellow River flowed south to Hutou Cliff, and a pair of phoenixes fell in your direction, crying and having no place to stay.
Holding hot wine in my hand, among the brothers sent by heaven, how can I not sing? So no matter whether I have heard it or not, I sang along with Hezhou Ling and Dongxiang Ling, kissed Sichuan and sang my sister Shandan Flowers and Laoyeshan Plum Blossoms. I sang one sentence after another, and my body was all hot, but I didn’t know it was evening, and it was like being drenched by boiling water in Gansu, and it was like being illuminated by moonlight in Qinghai. But I never stopped singing and sang again and again, and then I fell into this little indulgence. At this time, the sky was dark and I was slightly drunk. Fall into ignorance and hesitate to think about whether to have another drink. The phrase "I am familiar with it" rang again, with sand, soil and big stones on my back. Crimson flowers, you listen to your big brothers and sisters walk, and liver flowers and sisters sit on the door. In an instant, I am jealous and eager to drink another cup, and I quickly sing along, suffer from evil and suffer from popularity. Crimson flowers, you listen to your big brothers and sisters walk, and liver flowers and sisters sit on the door.
The tune that rings in this night is nothing but a disaster, a knife to dig one’s own heart.
That night, the reunion dinner didn’t come to an end until the freezing rain fell sharply again. How reluctant I was, my brothers left the riverbank and they had to find places to spend the night, while I went back to my small building to continue my prisoner’s life. I didn’t tell them that after the dispersion, I turned back to the boat and walked around without drinking, desperately remembering every sentence I had sung before. The situation at that time was like a mourner from afar looking for his own life in a ruined site, and it was like an amnesia patient repeatedly confirming whether he was really from a lost place.
Of course I came from a miracle, because it continued until the next morning.
In the morning, I was awakened by the freezing rain hitting the roof. As soon as I pushed the window, I saw an amazing scene. There were two people outside the iron gate of the building, none other than the father and son who were carrying a bottle of white wine in their hands yesterday. Although my father was holding an umbrella, it was too broken to stop the rain. Both of them were soaked through.
I was shocked for a moment, but I didn’t expect my father to answer me. Since I took him as a brother, he should take me as a brother. According to the etiquette of their hometown, when I was a junior, I should bring gifts to kowtow to my elders, but no one kowtowed to me. He took his son to kowtow to me, and the penis was already kneeling wet and kowtowing to me for three times. After that, he stuffed the bottle of white wine through the crack of the iron door and smiled at me again.
No one saw me tremble, but I was really shivering. I choked at the window and took turns to attack the package. Except for my jaw-dropping, I couldn’t say a word until my father and son left to watch their backs getting smaller and smaller in the rain and fog. I still didn’t know whether I should shout at them. I finally didn’t stare blankly for a little while. When I woke up from my dream, I ran upstairs and picked up the white wine by the iron gate. I thought and thought and even lifted the lid and drank it. I already knew that my brother had washed it, but he still sent this bottle of white wine to drink on the morning of New Year’s Day
After many years, I can still clearly recall the day when I drank a full bottle of white wine, but I stumbled and got high. Although the iron gate was locked, I didn’t feel resentful, saying that I didn’t know what to forgive, but I felt that everything should be forgiven.
Although the rain and fog still lingered on this day, when I went to the window again, I felt that the mountains and rivers were mighty, and that the banks of the Yellow River were covered with wintersweet and blossomed one by one. This was of course my wild dream, but once I had never rested, I really wanted to be detained in a secret place on the other side of the Yellow River. I told him that it didn’t matter if I was in deep trouble. Although An Ruosu would not be long before, even if the frost and cold night were heavy, you would be destined to meet your brother, and he would definitely find you.
Of course, I wouldn’t think that those daydreams in the daytime were verified in my body just at night.
Before nightfall, the guards came. After all, it was the New Year’s Day, and they all drank wine. Maybe it was because some people were still unable to get through, or maybe it was because they remembered their own destiny. One by one, they were furious at me and my accomplices in the courtyard, but one of us responded to each other’s insults for a while and then locked the iron gate and continued to go home for the New Year.
Not long after the guards left, I actually heard my name called. I was in a trance for a while. First, the rain came, and then I saw my brothers coming in the rain, not the father but the brothers.
Of course, I ran downstairs to the iron gate, but before I spoke, my brother actually told me that although the rain was still there, the temperature was not so low. It was almost feasible to thaw the Yellow River, and there was just an undamaged boat in the shipyard. They discussed it and decided to take me across the river to escape from here now. When the guards came, I couldn’t leave again.