Chapter 119 Section VI

Regarding the reality, he can only keep silent, or escape, and abscond to his hometown. Could it still give her shelter?Or did it only exist in dreams?The real home that once belonged to him and her.He followed her footsteps to find... A small courtyard fenced with elm branches, apricot trees and acacia trees grow in the yard, and in the shade of the trees are old houses with carved beams and painted buildings.In spring, the branches and leaves of the pagoda tree are dense, the white apricot blossoms sway in the wind, and the bees linger among the flowers and leaves;Grandfather, father and him were all born in a house with carved beams and painted buildings, and it was their paradise.

One early summer, when the pale yellow apricots were just hanging on the branches, a group of crazy people rushed in, dug three feet, destroyed the trees in the yard, and looked for the "poisonous roots" of the three generations.The house became their natural headquarters, and some locust trees were replanted. Grandfather died that summer. The father disappeared with the explosion at the reservoir site. His mother took him to live a difficult life in the countryside. Many years later, he graduated from university and returned to Sand City with several "isms" in his arms.

In the season of the fragrance of Sophora japonica, he accompanied his mother to the county seat.The house is still there, the carved beams and painted buildings are still there, but the face is old and blurred.He pushed open the fence door and saw her at a glance.She was sitting in the yard reading Zhang Ailing's novels, thinking that he and her mother were just passers-by asking for directions.She said her name was Maisui and she was the owner of the yard.It turned out that in a certain year when civil and military warfare was out of fashion, the "headquarters" resumed its function as a residential building.She is the daughter of the "commander" Mai San.When he was discussing with his mother whether to take back the house, he looked at her so beautifully, and suddenly thought that the yard only needed her now—under the acacia tree, a girl as elegant and fragrant as a pagoda tree accompanied it.He disobeyed his mother and decided to abandon the yard.In his heart, the moment he saw her for the first time, he believed that his future belonged to her, and of course the yard belonged to her.In a rage, his mother returned to the place where they had wandered, and he returned to Sand City alone.

He found the jade bracelet that had been hidden for many years in the yard and handed it to her, just like his grandfather solemnly put a pair of jade bracelets on his grandmother.Unfortunately, there was a broken crack in the bracelet, which he filled with pewter and a coat of green.She didn't dislike its brokenness, and she put it on happily. Soon, her only relative, grandmother, died, and she came to Shacheng in a daze, to his hut, and she said she only had him.He told her that he would accompany her on the future journey, but he could not escape the arrangement of fate after all.She chose to escape.

Bulldozers rumbled over the small town.Everything old and old fell apart, and tall buildings and buildings rose one after another.The county town disappeared, and so did the small courtyard with the fragrance of Sophora japonica.He could never find her again. He knew that she couldn't escape the rumbling pursuit of bulldozers, the erosion of the city, and the pursuit of fate.Neither can he.He was very angry, even tyrannical.This is their confrontation with fate, and there is no ultimate winner. He didn't realize until today that this city really doesn't belong to him, nor does it belong to her.That remote fenced yard was their real home.

But they can't go back. He once stood in front of the dilapidated house, looking beyond the ruined walls, in the barrenness where the fence collapsed, the weeds lingered, and the rubble was everywhere, he finally saw the old locust tree.All that remains of it is a stump, but every crack and scratch, and the vicissitudes of life it has endured are all there.It looked at him with its unwilling heart.He stood before it, tears streaming down his face.He seems to have heard its looming, intermittent wailing, and his tears, making the final elegy in the last habitat of him and her. Just the same cracks on the stump, the same scratches, the same wrinkles... darling, I don't know if it's still the same...