Chapter 35 Flowing Scene and Idle Grass

You missed my middle age, old age. The long river of life, the inadvertent turn, And the plains that flow quietly. —— Su Lai Just as Qingzhu and Yaju are the body and appearance of China, cherry blossoms are a waka that is sung by an island country that overlooks the mountains and the sea for many years.In the days and nights of late spring, the white petals are like the dust stars of the galaxy falling in the end. In the second year after I came to this northern city, I rented a house.There is such a tree of cherry blossoms in the yard.It is spring.The cherry blossoms are in full bloom, and the ground is covered with a layer of soft white petals.This scene is full of hints of a certain memory, and I like it immediately.I also thought of such a story. In the Meiji era in Japan, a young woman committed suicide by jumping off a waterfall.It wasn't because she was broken in love or world-weary, sick or desperate, but because she felt that youth was too beautiful and didn't know what to do after losing it, so she might as well die at the most beautiful moment like cherry blossoms.

The house is an old building from the past colonial era.Local chronicles record that this house is characterized by the fusion of three architectural styles.It was designed by a German-born architect for the French.It was later bought by a Japanese.I have stubbornly guessed that the cherry blossoms in the yard were planted at that time.However, after years of remodeling and repairs, the exterior of the house has changed beyond recognition.The interior is obsolete, and everything has a warm feeling of being caressed by time.The light is blocked from the soft curved windows at the top, and only a narrow strip of warm color is cut on the peeled and rough old wooden floor.It was very dark inside.The rust of the wrought iron fence was washed away by the rain, leaving tear-like marks on the moss-covered wall.

Here I am, with only one room and one ray of light.The room was like the deserted ear-chamber of an old cathedral, and it received religious light all year round from the tall and narrow glass windows at dawn. A girl next door is a student of the Academy of Fine Arts.She described this place very affectionately with Zhang Ailing's tone: In the early morning, the old cook who sells breakfast rides an old bicycle with a bell on it. I always remember the day when I moved here, the spring was very good, and in the warm air with catkins floating, there was a sunny smell everywhere.After tidying up the house and walking out of the courtyard, the sunlight blinded my eyes.The blue of the sky was washed white by the rain during the Ching Ming season, as light as the floating blue and dark lines on the skirt.In the yard, there is a tree of cherry blossoms, which looks like falling snow, and what is sprinkled is the sorrow of things in ancient Japan.

I stayed there for a while, and the girl next door came out too.At that moment she raised her hand to block the strong light in front of her eyes, and I saw the silver ring on the four fingers of her right hand. Back and forth, we gradually became familiar with each other. After a few small talk, I asked about her ring.She was slightly suspicious and took it down to show me.She said she made it at a silver shop while traveling with a boy to Lugu Lake.I made two, and engraved each other's names on them in ancient Naxi characters.She pointed it out to me again, and said softly that there was a crack in my ring.Maybe it was too much force when it was built.I told him that emotions are overstretched and full of cracks.When it breaks, we will break up.

His gloomy temperament really matched his reading preference. He took down a copy and said, This is Qing Shao Nayan's essays, I like it very much, and I give it to you. When I got home, I opened the book and saw a letter inside.The handwriting is quite beautiful, as I have long known.I glanced at it hastily, because I was worried about the ominous ending, but I couldn't help but look forward to it, so I mustered up the courage to turn to the last page of the letter. Sure enough, it said "very sorry" at the end. There was a momentary blank in my mind at that moment.Just like in those vulgar martial arts movies, the sharpest knife will always make people fall after a short period of time after leaving the wound, and it will take a long time before you can see the blood flowing.

That summer just faded out of life, just disappeared as a part of memory. See you again at the class reunion many years later.We would still drink beer together, sing songs, and when we parted at the end, we would all hug each other. When it was his turn, the teenager who once occupied my heart hugged me tightly.His clear and scorching heartbeat beat the tympanic membrane of my ear, which made me suddenly feel sad and burst into tears.What flashes in my mind are those two years of lonely and humble teenage years.I am now buried in the arms of a person who once waited.But because I embraced the waiting once again, I finally understood the meaning of growth.The luxury of youth lies in being able to have a clear enough mood to write an insincere letter to a person who does not belong to the future in more than seven hundred nights.

In the following life, maybe I will no longer spend two years practicing writing a letter for a person. I will no longer follow him, watch him go home, and look at his back, full of sentimental joy. I will no longer secretly pray to meet in the most beautiful way, but actually cry heartbroken at the moment of hastily turning around. A few years later, by mistake, I majored in English.Many people praised me for my neat and beautiful English calligraphy.I smiled slightly, and always thought of him suddenly at that time. At that time, under the lamp, I copied round characters on white paper over and over again, and my youthful years were eaten by a blurred afterimage of a teenager, and I will never have it again.

The neighbor girl accidentally gave me this same book that night. When I was struck by the memory and fell silent, she still stood at the door and did not leave.After a while, she said, she called him just now to say that they had broken up.Because this morning, my ring finally broke. She held up the fingers of her right hand, and I saw the cracks in the ring, broken inconceivably.She said, can't sleep, let's talk. We sat on the floor looking for tear gas to watch, watched "Heartbeat", "The English Patient" and the end of "Bridges of Madison County", and tears flowed down our eyes.After the movie, we turned off the lights and drank and chatted in the dark at 3am.She kept telling me about the boy she liked.I was exhausted, and the only thing I remembered was the story she told me in this way.

She had always loved playing with that boy since she was in kindergarten.One day, this best playmate told her mysteriously that yesterday he found a castle, which was very magical, and promised to take her on an adventure together after nightfall... So from that day on, she would look forward to the nightfall every day, hoping to go to the "castle" with that boy.And her wish came true again and again, because every night when she softly touched the boy's bedside, she always found that he had already fallen asleep beautifully, with an indescribably happy expression on his face, which was extremely sweet.

She wakes up every night, waiting to go on adventures with him, only to be disappointed again and again.He sleeps so deeply forever.Finally, the girl felt infinitely sad.Gradually estranged completely from him. I have loved him for nearly twenty years, she said.He's always in his castle, but never with me.I'm so tired.I don't want to go on like this anymore. Towards daybreak, the friend finally went to her own room. I had a headache, so I took a cold shower. Amidst the buzzing sound of the air conditioner, I opened the blinds and saw the blue sky slowly approaching the edge of dawn.

I began to think of him and wrote to him by the lamp. Those smooth, flower-like round characters flowed out of the pen again after many years of absence.The tip of the pen rubs against the white paper to reveal the long-standing memory.These are all fragments lost in the dust again. I took down the book he gave me that year from the bookshelf, and opened it, and it seemed that there was still a distant youthful atmosphere. Many years later, I am convinced from other people's words that the things he tried to hide from me in that letter were indeed true.I've come to believe that everyone has their own cross to bear. I am glad that because of his trust in me, I became the first person who knew his inner secrets.He was a boy who liked boys, and when I missed him lonely and sadly in those years, he also missed, even more arduously, another unattainable person. One morning after a sleepless night at the age of twenty, the world woke up.I saw those youths who had nowhere to rest and were about to overflow with life, what a beautiful and extravagant way they once gave us to modify the ordinary and lonely life. I will only see a house full of old charm after a few years, because the tree in its yard immediately reminds me of the cherry blossoms of that boy, so I decide to live in it without hesitation. down. Live in the memories that are gradually made up by fantasy. Some people say that if one's dreams cannot be realized, then only one action is good. For example, put a flying posture, or say a word of blessing to see the sea in your dream before going to bed.