Chapter 20 Twenty, void

Only those who have lost it will understand how unpredictable life's accidents are.How many people would rather not communicate with each other for the rest of their lives, and prefer that the whereabouts of the other party remain unknown, so that at least it can be imagined that he is still alive. Years have built an illusory and beautiful rainbow on the sea. Whose dynasty does the rising red sun hold out?How many emperors and hegemonies have been paid to Cang Yan. In the face of the heavy history, we are so overwhelmed.The drama performed with a lifetime of enthusiasm has become a joke for others, and the book of life in which all painstaking efforts have been devoted is used as a fire starter for cooking tea by future generations.Because we believed in Canghai's oath, we were treated coldly by Sang Tian; because we promised to meet again in the future, we were ruthlessly chased by time.

Whenever Su Manshu calms down, his enthusiasm for pleading for the people is like a tired boat, which needs to be moored in a harbor where the wind and rain are hidden.The hardest thing to let go is the romantic cherry blossoms in that remote island country, and the eager call of my adoptive mother.A loving mother's heart is like a needle threaded through a thread, always sewing care and warmth to a wanderer far away.When the thread is exhausted and the needle is broken, we should go back in full swing. Any missed appointment may be a lifetime of regret. No matter where Su Manshu went or how far he wandered, after a long time, he would want to go home.The home he wants to return to is not the deep house compound in Lixi Village, Xiangshan County, Guangzhou. Although there is a rich family of Daiwa there, it brings him a painful and cold memory.He can't even remember what lived in that house and what it looks like now.The dark memory of that childhood was deleted from his mind, and from a certain day onwards, it was completely gone.However, he has always had an inseparable love for his Japanese adoptive mother, Hehexian. Even after Hehexian married another woman, Su Manshu's attachment to her remains the same as before.After wandering for a long time, he often felt so lonely and helpless, and what he thought most at that time was not Buddha, but his adoptive mother Hehexian.That maternal tenderness can make him forget all the coldness in the world, and he just wants to snuggle in her arms and listen to a red nursery rhyme.

This complex always grows in the bottom of my heart when the cherry blossoms are in bloom, so the cherry blossoms are a disaster that Su Manshu cannot escape in this life.When the spring is in full bloom, he feels uneasy and longs to go back to a cherry tree to express his feelings.The torrential waves of the world have taken away too many good times, always thinking that the pain of the past will fade away with the passing years, but tragedies are always tragedies, and will not be rewritten because of age.Su Manshu felt that his wound was covered with moss marks, so at a certain time, he needed to clean it up, remove the overgrown weeds, and keep his heart clear.Regarding Chrysanthemum and Baisuke, these two Japanese girls are the moss in his heart.He buried them under the cherry blossoms, and every time he hurried to the spring banquet, it was to commemorate the lost love.

The days of getting together are always too short. When Su Manshu was still yearning for the warm breath of her adoptive mother, the delicious meals she cooked, and her gentle reminders, Lanzhou at the ferry was already urging her to go.Looking at the aging face of his adoptive mother, he understood that once we say goodbye, the chance of seeing each other will be lost again.He was afraid that his close relatives would grow old quietly one day, and he was afraid that there would be too many regrets at that time.Despite this, Su Manshu still made many unforgivable mistakes and hurt many people who shouldn't be hurt.When everything is irreversible, I can only stand alone on the roof of the building at sunset, sighing sadly for the past.

In May, when the cherry blossoms were all gone, Su Manshu returned to Shanghai from Japan.We see that he always travels back and forth frequently from east to west, north to south, but we don't know that every time he migrates, there will be impacts in his heart. He often sings a few lines of poems in the middle of the night when no one is around, and weeps quietly.He is lonely, maybe there is no shortage of visitors around him, but none of them belong to others.On countless cold nights, he sat alone at his desk, picking up all the lanterns all night, and the woman with red sleeves was just a beauty in the mirror.

While in Shanghai, Su Manshu read "Anecdote of La Traviata" translated by Lin Shu, thinking that it was "fragmented and inaccurate", and planned to retranslate it, but was delayed by trivial matters.In mid-June, Su Manshu and Ma Xiao visited Liu San and Lu Lingsu.In a few days, I crossed the ocean again to the mother of the Japanese province.This time, he stayed in Yokohama, Japan for four full months.For four months, Su Manshu did not write poems, paint, practice Zen, or talk about love, but only accompanied her adoptive mother Cheng Huan.In Su Manshu's heart, there was an unspeakable premonition. He felt that the chance of reuniting with his adoptive mother would be very slim. He didn't know that one day the gentle woman in front of him would fall with the wind like a cherry blossom, and his lone goose would also fall. I don't know which day I will be buried in the sea, buried deep in the mountains.

This is not unfounded worry. Only those who have lost it will understand how unpredictable life's accidents are.How many people would rather not communicate with each other for the rest of their lives, and prefer that the whereabouts of the other party remain unknown, so that at least it can be imagined that he is still alive.It is better to live a leisurely life in a certain city, in a certain courtyard, than to watch him completely disappear in this world and never appear again.Although birth, old age, sickness and death are the inevitable process and ending of life, we are still afraid that our loved ones will be taken away by the god of death, and there will be no news from then on.

At the end of October, Su Manshu bid farewell to his adoptive mother, He Hexian, and set sail to return to Shanghai.Shanghai, a city with endless turmoil, has become his home in China. No matter where he drifts to, he will eventually return.Hiding in this bustling city, no one will recognize you, and you don't have to worry about getting drunk on the street one night, in exchange for gossip the next day.In Shanghai, Su Manshu doesn't have to worry about being down and out, because this city has many confidantes and women who will take him in and give him a safe place in the world.Su Manshu has temporarily lived in the apartment of the kabuki he met before several times, and has always maintained a soulful love, never deviant.And these kabukis also had a different kind of affection for the young monk, and they were willing to spend their hard-earned money for him to eat and drink without any complaints.

In December, Su Manshu went to Anqing to teach in Anhui Higher School, with Zheng Tongsun, Shen Yanmou, Zhang Puquan and other colleagues.Here, he seems to have found the lost memory many years ago.After several years of running water career, after ups and downs, the luggage is getting heavier and heavier, but the heart is getting more and more empty.Since we can't return to the beauty of the peach blossoms' first reunion, why always dwell on the past and hang ourselves on a dead tree of the past. The 29-year-old Su Manshu is indeed much calmer than before. He does not lock himself in a small room to write poems and paintings, smoke cigarettes and eat candies as often as before.In his spare time, he plays with his students and talks about life with his colleagues.

The end of the year seems to have come very early, the trees in the whole city lost their leaves overnight, and the withered branches looked even more desolate in the fierce wind.Su Manshu seems to be resisting the arrival of the new year, because at the age of 29, he is about to enter the threshold of 30 years old.At thirty, he should have his own achievements and prestige by virtue, speech, and conduct.But in this chaotic world of mortals, Su Manshu felt that he still had nothing, and was even more lost than before.He began to feel that the years were approaching, that the drama of youth was coming to an end, and that he was so sad in the dream of time.Standing at the end of the year and hitting the shore, the past thirty years have been empty.

Su Manshu remembered a line of Su Dongpo's poem that he liked before: "Let's try new tea with new fire, and poetry and wine take advantage of the time." Reading it now seems so out of date.Ten years of ups and downs, how many stories are already old, the years are so dark, when you see Huafa born early, it is too late to regret everything.Su Manshu originally planned to travel to places like Hong Kong and Singapore at the end of this year, but he remembered Du Fu's poem: "Singing songs in the daytime requires excessive drinking, and the company of youth is good for returning home."Now the wine in his hand is a cup of bitter wine of life, and youth has burned to ashes.When the old man is far away, who can still be with him?Didn't he know that he had already lost his hometown, and in this world of mortals, he was destined to be a prodigal son who couldn't turn back. Years of snowflakes are falling silently, poetic and light, so beautiful that it makes people sad.Looking at the snowflakes flying all over the sky, Su Manshu suddenly wanted to be a plum blossom growing in the garden in the south of the Yangtze River, protruding through the wall, and conveying the news of spring to passers-by.He thought, if there is a dream that never wakes up, he will keep dreaming; if there is a person who will not grow old, he will always love; if there is a story that will never end, he will continue...