Chapter 8 third quarter

"Focus Interview" is commenting on the illegal land acquisition.Luo Yang turned off the TV and didn't turn on the lights. He groped his way back to the study and sat quietly on the chair. Outside the window, the dark night was dappled and blurred by thin snow light and dim yellow lights.A kind of unfathomable anxiety and turmoil surrounded him, forcing him, and he felt his heart was full and blocked.The real pain was hitting him again and again. Pain makes people sober, soberly examine the ditches, thorns and rubble of the road.Luo Yang still remembers how he stabbed two people on a certain afternoon many years ago, that afternoon after the snow—a woman and himself.This is where the heartache begins.

It was the beginning of spring, and the late spring cold hit the sand city. It snowed all night, and the temperature dropped rapidly. Rare tree hangings appeared on both sides of the street, and everywhere was covered in silver, presenting a crystal clear world.The cold seems to pull people who just feel the spring back to the severe winter overnight.Although the sky is clear and the bright sun hangs in the sky, like a freshly cleaned bronze mirror, the sunlight is cold and lifeless, reflecting the gloomy light in the world of ice and snow.Luo Yang and several colleagues walked out of the gate of the court. Facing an abnormally cold world, they couldn't help but say, it's so cold!At this moment, Luo Yang suddenly saw a woman standing on the sidewalk not far away. She was wearing a black wool coat and a red scarf.Maybe it was the dazzling red scarf that caught his attention, he stared at that face and finally recognized her.Although her coat looked old, her red scarf was faded, and her face was much thinner than expected, Royan recognized her quickly.At this moment, she also recognized him, and those dark eyes lit up quickly.She took a few steps forward and called out in a low voice: "Luo Yang—?" He approached her, and called out in the same low voice and eagerness: "Wheat ears!" His hands trembled and moved, but they finally Did not reach out to her.He turned his head suspiciously, and explained to his companions that she was an acquaintance of his, and he represented her in a long time ago.Of course, this is a complete lie.Why should he lie?She seemed to understand something, her eyes dimmed, and her head was lowered.When she raised her head again, she stopped looking at him, and only said to a little girl about six or seven years old beside her, let's go home!

Luo Yang caught up a few steps forward: "Mai Sui, please..." He stood in front of her in a daze, but didn't say the following words.He wanted to say "please forgive me", and wanted to ask her about her current situation.But he didn't say anything, and stood still for a moment, then he patted the little girl's thin shoulder and said, "Is she your daughter?" "Yes. Her name is Maizi." When she said this, she gave him a deep look. "Oh, you already have a daughter too!" She took the little girl's hand and said, "Remember this Uncle Luo. Maybe, you will meet him in the future. Be polite when you meet him."

The little girl looked up at him and said hello uncle. Luo Yang looked at the little girl who greeted her.She was a very pretty girl, with big eyes, long eyelashes, and a doll-like face.Luo Yang remembered her all at once, and never seemed to forget her in the days to come.Probably because the little girl was her daughter—Royan often explained his amazing memory in this way later. However, on that afternoon after the snow, Luo Yang didn't ask where Maisui's mother and daughter came from and where they were going, and watched the black spots, one big and one small, disappear at the corner of the street covered with thick snow.It was a long time before he realized what his indifference to them meant.

From afar, Luo Yang watched two black dots, one big and one small, disappear around the corner of the street.Two strings of footprints were left on the thick snow, but the footprints were quickly trampled into disorder by the passing pedestrians.They just disappeared into the chaos. That afternoon, Luo Yang looked up, the sky was exceptionally clear, and the sun was shining brightly.He felt that the sunlight was like tiny and transparent steel needles, piercing his skin, his muscles, his bone marrow, and his heart.He was in so much pain that he couldn't walk a little.He didn't know where he should go.He bid farewell to his companions, subconsciously drove him to the bus station, and boarded a bus bound for Ping'an County.

The shuttle taxied cautiously on the snow-covered road.Along the way, Luo Yang saw construction projects breaking ground everywhere in the cold spring.Bulldozers and trucks roared, busy.Unawakened willows and poplars fell on the side of the road, exposing their stumps.In this cold spring season in Northwest China, the dreams of the fallen trees about a spring were crushed early by those huge machines. More than forty minutes later, the shuttle bus arrived in Ping'an County. Luo Yang came to the familiar courtyard, and in front of his eyes, the fence and firewood gate were gone, the trees in the courtyard were also cut down, and the open space was full of old things such as tables and chairs.The old house has been torn off the roof, leaving only ruins.On the two walls next to the gate, two large circles were written in white ash, with two cold, stiff but undeniable characters of "demolition" encircled inside.

This is an era in which everything is born and created with overexpansion, and it is also an era in which everything is destroyed and eliminated with lightning speed.The original streets and houses in Ping'an County are disappearing, and a new industrial zone under the jurisdiction of Shacheng has quietly sprung up. Luo Yang stood for a long time in front of the broken wall with two big characters of "demolition", and then walked around the wreckage of the courtyard, looking at the old floor tiles that had not been dug up and the fresh tree stumps that had just been felled. Like an aimless sleepwalker.He accidentally knocked over a wicker chair.He lifts it up.One leg of the wicker chair was broken, and there was a white hair in the gap on the chair surface, shining brightly in the sun.Seeing the white hair, he seemed to smell the breath of a long-ago home.If there is no mistake, that white hair should have fallen from my grandfather back then.When Maisui moved into this yard, she didn't abandon any original objects in the yard, including this wicker chair with a broken leg.For this he was infinitely grateful to her, because she had kept the feeling of home intact for him.Now she has to get rid of everything, including the entire yard.He didn't know what kind of helplessness and desolation she felt when she left.

Luo Yang turned around and was surprised to find a horn comb lying quietly behind the wicker chair.He picked it up, held it in his hand and rubbed it, and called "wheat ears" in a low voice.Yes, this is the comb for ears of wheat!A salty liquid rushed to his throat suddenly, making him dizzy for a while.In the dark, maybe this comb was given to him by God?Therefore, he was even more sure that the encounter between him and her on the streets of Shacheng was not a chance encounter.Maybe she came to see him to tell him that the hometown would no longer exist, or to leave him with information about where she was going.But he actually missed it, didn't listen to what she wanted to say, didn't ask her how she was doing recently, and even said that she was just an "acquaintance", not even a friend!This kind of despicable and cruel cover-up was like a blunt knife, from the moment she left, it gouged out his heart again and again.That kind of pain, the pain that only Luo Yang himself knew, often filled the endless night, and made him bear it year after year.

A handful of horns are combed into a symbol representing eternity.From now on, Luo Yang did not dare to look for it.Back then, Ping'an County had undergone earth-shaking changes, and it had become a new industrial zone in Sand City, and he could no longer find traces of the past.He only hopes to keep every snowy day, and in the world of snow, he is willing to cherish some kind of hope, which almost delays the rest of his life. In the next few years, there were many times when Royan would stop at the corner of the street in front of the court.There are more and more cars on the street every day, spouting choking exhaust, mixed with the pungent industrial waste gas floating in mid-air, enveloping the city; pedestrians seem to have also increased, and they walk forward mechanically , looking around in a daze, or hugging and chattering, leaving chaotic words and vague footprints in the city; occasionally three or two bright women stand in the dark at the entrance of the alley, with a cigarette in their mouth, They watched intently there, waiting until a certain man walked over, took their arms, and merged into the turbulent flow of people in pairs...

In this way, everyone in the city uses their own methods to push the years of the city forward with staggering and procrastinating steps.Everything seemed disorganized.Luo Yang, like other idle onlookers, often wandered around the corner of that street.However, Maisui and her daughter never appeared again.While waiting, Luo Yang thought of the story about two sparrows that Maisui told many years ago.He seemed to hear the mournful and desperate cries of the wounded on the ground, the fleeing footsteps of the undecided, and the noisy echoes left by the snow in the forest after being shaken by them. The vast wilderness seemed more empty amidst the noise.