Chapter 4 Chapter Four

Thirty years later, a group of writers and I went to Nanjing to receive a high-level literary creation award. When the writers got together at night to talk about their personal experience of first love, I had nothing else to show off, so I said this The story of the neck.All the friends here sniffed at each other. They said that I was not in love with that charming little girl but with a "one" neck; what kind of "first love" was that, it was just a ridiculous "neck complex". !I am very disgusted with their use of the quantifier "a root". They have desecrated the only aesthetic object that can be remembered in my childhood, and greatly lowered my estimate of the taste of these writers. Noble spiritual activities are often preceded by a low-level word "engagement".But Midnight asked themselves, compared with their colorful, bizarre, tender, lingering, two-sided childhood sweethearts' first love, I couldn't help but feel ashamed: I had very little contact with the opposite sex during my "adolescence".If I had been able to make friends as widely as they did and have a broad view, there must have been many things around that attracted me more than that triangular area.But fate is so stipulated, my character determines that I prefer some details that others don't pay much attention to.This is probably why I was able to earn a living by writing novels later on.

A grass-seed breaks out of the poor soil, and if no other vegetation grows around it, it will be a dazzling tree on the Bald Hills.This is not the case with my nostalgia for the white triangle.After that dazzling light, no other luminous body shone on me, so I cherished my broom just like my grandfather. In the years that followed, I went in and out of the labor camp, and I always cherished my love for her.It is a tree in my barren heart that lacks the nourishment of the opposite sex.Now that I'm back in Nanjing, of course I'm going to pay my respects. I still remember where she lived.I said that one of my early crimes was that I had stalked her.I can still vaguely see her big black braids swaying properly, which was discovered on the way home from school more than 30 years ago.But I didn't mean to follow her, but she took the initiative to attract me. I don't know why I follow her as I walk.Later I realized that many things in the world are beyond my control.I can guarantee that I haven't followed another woman since, because no woman has hair like that.Growing up I heard that women's hair tends to split at the ends as it grows, and many shampoos are now advertised as a solution to this problem.But at that time, I thought her hair was absolutely the most perfect in the world, and each hair could be picked out individually to make a specimen. No wonder the ancients compared it to "blue hair" in poems.Although I had already worn myopia glasses at that time, it was strange that I could still see the fair skin at the base of her hair from a distance, which was the derivation of the charming triangle.It was the first time I went home with her, and I got used to it after that.It turned out that her house was very close to my house. After she got home, I walked another 200 meters to my house.Tracking is really nothing more than a drop in the road.Her home is in front of a vegetable market, and the vegetables I eat every day have to be passed by her door.

Talking about the second day of my first love with my writer friends, I said that I was going to "find my roots" and see how my grandfather's big garden is now.As one of the hosts of the award ceremony, the friend mentioned above—the famous writer and screenwriter, mobilized a few friends to go with me.So everyone took a van and went straight to my home more than 30 years ago.According to the exact address I provided: No. XX, XX Road, the driver can easily find the place, but my home has become a factory for manufacturing motors, but the house number has not changed.On the doorpost where the pull union was hung earlier, there is now a factory sign on one side and a trade union sign on the other, which is very symmetrical.The gate is no longer the original gate.I remember that the original door was a heavy Bento door with rows of brass nails and two brass rings.Now the greatly reduced black iron gate is inexplicably painted with a lot of red and white paint, the gate seems to have become a palette of painters, and it looks like the works of abstract painting from a distance.Several writers took a closer look, only to recognize the faded slogans of "Great Leap Forward" and "Cultural Revolution".For a moment, I was a little dizzy. Several historical periods were superimposed together, compressing so many joys and sorrows in the world!Time flies by so relentlessly, no matter how great, important and thrilling things are to the country, society and individuals, they will pass and become old things.

My good friend is a well-known person in Nanjing. As soon as he told the old man who guarded the gate, the old man led us to file in through the small gate next to him.Unsurprisingly, the garden that used to be my home has long since changed beyond recognition. The buildings, pavilions and pavilions have disappeared without a trace, and the green trees and flowers have been blown away by the rain and wind.The creek turned into a flat asphalt road. The old man at the gate said that a sewage pipe was buried under the road, which was probably the clear creek in my memory; the lotus pond was pressed under the workshop, and the greenhouse was rebuilt into a row of bricks and wood Structure of a simple bungalow.The old man still remembered that after the flowers were removed, they all died: "There is not a single tree left!" The old man would also sigh.It seems that people are much more survivable than flowers and trees.

The old man seems to be the Virgil in the movie,—show me what and when it was remodeled.The remodel was really thorough!The living place of the family has become the production place of the public.However, the factory has been in a downturn in recent years. It has fallen to the same level as my big family during the Anti-Japanese War. The workers are required to find their own way of life. The old man said that this place will be bought by Hong Kong businessmen. It is really "Thirty years in Hedong and thirty years in Hexi". ! The workshop was quiet, with no noise from workers or machines.Piles of rusty motors are half buried in the desolate weeds, which are probably the products of this factory.The garden fell, and so did the factory.Whether it is a garden or a factory, whether it belongs to a private company or a Hong Kong businessman, people are busy on the land, it is just the wind that comes and goes, this land is still this land.Friends wondered if you made a mistake, and someone joked, pointing to a spot of urine in the workshop, saying that you probably fell into the grass here.I suddenly thought of the meaning of the word "Luocao": it refers to both the birth of a baby and the going to be a robber.The sense of sacredness was immediately replaced by a suggestion: Does one have to be strong at birth, or else one cannot bear the fate of the future?

Originally, this should be a palace in my heart, but in the dirty, messy and dilapidated factory building, I couldn't find any scene that moved me, and there was nowhere to shed the tears I was prepared to shed.I think I didn't care about "roots" before, and I was destined to be wandering like the wind when I was born.The question now is where to stop, that is to say, where to die; "root" has no meaning to me, and the grave is the future that I have to think about.If you can't grasp the past, try to grasp the present! Although "digging one's own grave" is a derogatory term, if you understand it from another angle, isn't it just a reminder to the old people rushing to the grave to dig their own grave comfortably and fit?Most people's graves are "digged" by others, and only those who "digger their own graves" have the autonomy to design carefully and tailor them to the individual.

My friend said that since I came here, I must leave some souvenirs. I took a rough look at the courtyard where I was born. I stood under a metal bicycle shed and took a picture. The expression on my face was distorted with embarrassment and helplessness.People who don't know will definitely laugh when they see this photo: Why do I have to hold a wooden sign that says "No cars outside the shed" to take pictures? What artistic value is there?I still remember that there was a tall sycamore tree in the densely forested courtyard. My mother was holding a photo of me in my skirt under the tree. It is hanging on the wall of my study today, but the sycamore tree was covered by a cement wall. The gray placards were replaced, and the two lines of red words "time is money and quality is life" are impressively in sight... All of these make me very happy to say "goodbye" to them in the current popular words.I have since been freed.Since "time is money", I will no longer have the slightest nostalgia for wasted time.The "money" spent can never be recovered, and the immediate problem is how to spend the little "money" in hand.

This "root-seeking" has instead aroused my spirit of "looking forward". The memory of my birthplace has completely disappeared, which is equivalent to giving me a new starting point.I was born again in this electric motor factory, and after living for more than half a century, I still have the right to have another "puberty".This made me dare to join the business world when I was approaching my sixtieth birthday. Forget it, let's go find the "root" neck!My friends encouraged me to say that I might find her again, and of course I already had a glimmer of hope.So I resolutely put this "root" behind me, and went to find that "root" with everyone.Farewell to Virgil, to Beatrice!Fortunately, I still remember her name, thanks to the lack of physical contact between me and her.So the van drove another 200 meters to the gate of Lai Market.

What surprises me is that the Lai market is still the same vegetable market, and it still has the same style for more than 30 years. The sewage flows out of the gate like a stream, and it leaks into the sewer beside the road.The small shop selling bean sprouts on the left side of the market gate is still selling bean sprouts, as if it can never run out of bean sprouts.Here I found the scene in my dream, which is really like the "inconceivable" said in the Buddhist scriptures.The thin bean sprouts that are dazzlingly white make me eager to see the round neck that is dazzlingly white.I said she lived above the bean sprouts shop, in this dilapidated wooden house with red color.The whole small building is still quite charming, like an exquisite gouache painting, although it is more dilapidated, it is also more dignified.The window faces the road, and the glass covered with tape is blurred, which makes passers-by feel ambiguous inside.I said that I have looked up from the window many times in the past, and the window has not changed except for the tape.My friend said you don't go in first, let me inquire for you first, let's say that we are old classmates from more than 30 years ago, why not come and see you?

The friend went in for about ten minutes and came out quickly, repeatedly calling out to let's go! In the car, my friend said that if there is such an old woman named by that name, you remember it right.But how can there be any "beautiful triangle"!I paid special attention to her neck, which was dark and thin, and there was dirt hidden in the wrinkled lattice.There is a broken briquette stove in the dark corridor, so smoky that it is impossible to stay in the room for a long time, but she is peacefully holding her grandson who is not yet one year old and feeding porridge, her hair is also gray and messy; Her image couldn't be more suitable for her living environment, it's purely leftover wilted leaves from the vegetable market.I asked her if she still remembered a middle school classmate named you. She said she couldn't remember without even thinking about it. All of them are not of interest.

"Forget it, you'd better keep your dream and don't let reality crush it. At our age, only dreams are the most precious." On the way to the State Guesthouse, all the writers were silent.A writer is like a writer at this time, and everyone has their own emotions arising from it.I don't know other people's feelings. I can imagine the wear and tear on her and the white triangle area. Maybe this woman has suffered more and deeper damage than me.Thinking of this makes my heart heavy.I have another female classmate from the United States who came to visit me at the same time. She also struggled in Taiwan. After becoming a rich woman, she painted her eyebrows, painted her eyes, dyed her hair, and underwent several plastic surgeries, but her old age still stubbornly emerged from under the skin. leakage.The carefully concealed oldness is even more chilling, making me, a friend who is watching, feel much older. I patted my friend's knee and whispered "thank you".I understand his kindness, he allowed me to keep some good memories after all, otherwise the experience of our generation would be too cruel. He squeezed the back of my hand tightly.For this world, we have tacit understanding.