Chapter 34 A City in Memories - Not an Epilogue of an Epilogue

1 I looked back at the path of my own growth, watching day by day, I stood alone on the side of the road with my hands in the pockets of my windbreaker, I saw countless people walking past me expressionlessly, occasionally Someone stopped and smiled at me, as bright as a peach blossom.I know that these people who stay will eventually become the warmth in my life, seeing them, I will think of never leaving. 2 When I was young, young enough to talk, live, and do anything willfully, I once wrote that my friends are my courage to live, they give me the ability to live, let me face this The world will not be in a hurry.

This postscript is dedicated to my friends, to those friends who used to be crazy and sad together with me and rode bicycles through our thin youth. I think we all remember how the wind in those green years came to us Sadness and sadness are carved on his face, and there are traces that cannot be erased by the years. Let us sigh the traces of sighing after a long, long, long time. Sigh that I have been so soul-stirring.Sigh that time flies by so quickly.In a daze, as soon as we turn around, we are getting old so quickly. 3 Little A is in Japan and studied economics in Waseda.He always sends me his photos and writes long, long letters. Seeing the time on his E-mail, I know that he is still used to writing late at night. When he was in China, he always wrote on white A4 paper. Writing to me on the Internet while leaving China, he started tapping away at his keyboard in the middle of the night.

Little A is a bright person, living happily and simply under the sunshine, pure and majestic, but peaceful and indifferent to the world.He is not a writer, he doesn't like literature, the only thing he read about literature is the messy words I wrote.Such a boy is pure and happy.I always believe that children who are involved with literature will never be happy. Their happiness is scattered in some unknown place, just like naughty children wandering to the sky, and after wandering to the sky, they still refuse to come back.He said that he always feels sad when he reads what I write, because I have never found my own happiness.I said, little A, don't worry about me too much, one day you will leave me, I don't want to get too used to your care.

I was in my first year of high school when I said this, and when I was a freshman, he really separated from me across the border, wrote me an E-mail late at night, and then went to bed.Walking alone in the wind of Waseda during the day, but still smiling. He can live happily alone. And I can't. Little A in the photo is smiling brightly, standing under the cherry blossom tree, the sun is like mercury scattered on his white long windbreaker, under the photo he wrote: Siwei, this is my favorite cherry blossom tree. I vaguely remembered the phone call Xiao A gave me before he went to Japan, and I heard the voice that used to accompany me every day say to me, I am very sad.I am afraid of standing alone on the horizon without friends.I know that the friend Xiao A mentioned is me, because I am his only friend.

That day, little A kept talking on the phone until the phone ran out of power. I never knew that little A would talk so much. He has always been a quiet person.I held the phone and listened more and more sadly. At the last moment before his phone was powered off, he told me that if one day we are not together... Then suddenly the phone was disconnected, and the rustling sound was like the rain outside the window. I put down the phone and continued talking softly, as if we were together.Then I fell on the bed and fell into a deep sleep. And time still flows.I finally grew up alone in the wind, but the child with a bright smile at the beginning had an indifferent face.Just thinking about it makes me sad.

Standing at the age of nineteen, at the turning point of youth, at the gap between one life and another, I finally burst into tears. 4 Wei Wei is a very spirited girl who has studied painting for 12 years since elementary school.I have seen her draw beautiful landscapes with very simple pen lines, but she doesn't draw anymore.Because of the college entrance examination.She gave up the brushes and paints she had relied on for 12 years when her dad told her you had to give up.I don't know if she didn't hesitate when she made the choice. I only know that when I chose science, my right hand hurt sharply.After that, Wei Wei never talked about her painting again.It's just that I know that she never participated in the school's art festival again-even though she easily won the first place.One of the scenes that impressed me the most was that she stopped suddenly when she passed the admissions brochure of Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University. Five minutes later, she turned to me and said, "Let's go."I looked at Wei Wei's back from behind, her black windbreaker was suddenly filled with the cold winter wind, I don't know why, I suddenly felt very sad.But I didn't tell her, so I ran up smiling.

And this happened a long time ago, so long ago that my memory is blurred, like a large piece of bus glass in the fog, when I stretch out my finger and swipe, there will be a clear trace, just along the finger, there will be There were large drops of water falling down.Just like the unsparing tears when we were young. That day when I went out alone by car, I leaned against the tall glass windows of the bus. The car was on an elevated bridge and passed through the tunnel. Suddenly I saw another bus passing by. There was a sentence printed on the back of that car: Twenty years Gone, but youth has never disappeared.

At that moment, I almost shed tears. Like a beautiful crystal ball, that is the dreamland that all our children once had, like Alice in Wonderland.However, the grown-up Alice lost the key. Should she squat down and cry sadly, or should she continue to move forward bravely? Wei Wei lives alone in Chongqing, another city not far from the city where we grew up. If she wants, she can even go home every week.But she said, I have to get used to being outside alone, because one day, we will not be together. I remember when we graduated from the third year of high school, we let loose, pulled away with a splash, swayed, and the room was full of beer foam.All the people talked and sang so loudly that they almost lost their voices.A large group of people swayed on the street late at night, until late at night or early in the morning when there were no people left.In the end, there are usually only a few people left, all good friends, Weiwei, CKJ, Xiaojiezi, ABO and me.

Later, everyone lay on a bench in the garden in the middle of the street, laughed head to head when drunk, and then cried sadly.Talk to each other, but forget what you said.We used to lie on those benches on those nights and watch the dark sky light up. When I left the city where I grew up and came to Shanghai, Wei Wei gave me a book, I opened it on the plane, and then saw the beautiful font written by Wei Wei on the title page: to 4D The friend who gave me the most warmth and comfort in the third year of high school. When we listened to songs together before, we heard a sentence "In that cold season, everyone avoided the wind and frost, and only you sang with me."

This is the most memorable sentence I heard in my third year of high school, and we always said: After this July, everything will be fine, and everything will be there. And now we finally escaped the purgatory of senior year, and then it seemed that everything was going to be okay, everything was going to be, but in the end I found out that it was not.Everyone will leave after this July, and I even start to miss all the things in the past year, including our two extremely failed touches, many, many noon and evening self-study, the watermelon ice I drank at the school gate, and There are all the words we have said, including happiness and sadness, quarrels and anger.

I have been thinking about how our friends will live in the future. At least you went to Shanghai, where we wanted to go, but I had to spend my college life in Chongqing, which I didn’t like at all.I can no longer hang out with you and Xiaobei after class, I can't pull you to accompany me when I miss you, I can't run downstairs when I am sad and call you downstairs. Things are different. Every time I see this word, I feel very sad.After all, there is so much happiness together, so warm. I've been with you for so long, but you still haven't taught me how to play badminton in the end. I always said that I should train your sketch well, and it never came true. Everything was caught off guard, and I was not even given a chance to choose and struggle. Xiao Si, as I have always said, you, you, all my friends should be happy. 5 When I wrote the first part, I was still in the third year of high school, but when I think back, everything became very blurred, and the only thing that was clear was the hot weather and the bright sun that was so bright that it was dazzling.Wei Wei and I always walked through our school full of tall camphor trees with a smile on our face or exhausted, sometimes we talked in long paragraphs, sometimes we were so sad that we didn’t say anything. We often took out our wallets to buy Coke in the canteen, and then walked to the playground from a side path. The evenings flowed away in such a leisurely and sad way. In that summer, I began to know how tough life needs, because the third year of high school is really like purgatory. At that time, I replaced the movie poster I put in the photo frame on the desk, and put in a piece of white printing paper with my favorite sentence written on it: Even now there is still hope left.Many nights I always look at the black writing on the white paper like this, and then tell myself, don't be afraid, don't be afraid. Then the days just endured like this. At that time I started writing, because life was too monotonous and boring, Wei Wei said that this kind of life is like a constant rewind and replay, I don’t know if those films will be interrupted as they continue to go backwards and forwards, and then we will hear There was a click when life stopped.I looked at Wei Wei, the vast sunset cast a deep mist on her face, and the sadness in my heart overflowed from watching. At that time, there was still evening self-study, and there were exams every night, and there was chaos.I began to get used to doing questions quickly with a pen in the dark under the bright white lights of the classroom, and I wrote down ABCD smoothly.But my heart is very empty. Sometimes I raise my head to look at the dim lights outside the window, and I feel so sad and melancholy that I forget the words. Before evening self-study, Wei Wei and I always eat together, then buy a glass of watermelon ice at the stall in front of the school, then wander into the school, sit by the lake and enjoy the breeze, and they will play turtle cards together when they meet DRAM.Then when the class bell rang, I ran upstairs to take the exam. Wei Wei took the liberal arts comprehensive test, and I took the science comprehensive test.Wei Wei wrote essays and inscriptions until my hands gradually became sore, and I twisted my hands to use the left-handed rule and the right-handed rule from various unimaginable angles. This is my life, so simple that I don't believe I ever had such a simple time. That summer seemed to last forever, I just remember the cicadas were loud and the waves were higher than the waves, rushing to me with the scorching heat of the sun through the thick shade of trees.But one evening, when I stood at the gate of the school for the last time, those chirps that once existed like air suddenly disappeared, and I stood in silence and heard the sound of time breaking. That day was the day I went to school to get the university notice and I left school. 6 I want to walk like this, I want to walk alone like this, without care, without restraint, I will live happily alone. But why am I suddenly silent amidst a large group of people laughing and joking?Why is it sad to see a familiar figure from behind while riding a bicycle?Why can't I stop being sad when I read a book or a movie I have seen?Why am I still used to standing alone on an empty lawn and looking up at the hazy sky at forty-five degrees? In whose hand is the crystal ball?I want to ask for clarification. 7 I am in Shanghai, watching the sunset on the open space of one million square meters in Shanghai, sometimes lonely, sometimes very lonely. I got off the plane and saw the smiles of Qinghe and Kun. They sent me to the university. I laughed and talked happily along the way. I felt as if I hadn't gone far away, and I wasn't as sad as I imagined.However, when they left, my world suddenly became quiet, and I started eating alone, wandering alone, and looking for classrooms alone. I knew that one day my day would come, I just didn't think it would be so soon. Gradually, I began to understand a passage written by a student author I liked before. She said that a person always has to walk a strange road, see a strange scenery, listen to a strange song, and then at a certain inadvertent moment, you will find that, Things that I tried so hard to forget were really forgotten. 8 There is very little shade in Shangda, because it is a newly built campus, so there is no rich green.Also, in the winter there won't be clumps of trees dropping their leaves like crazy. When I ride through the white cement road with only small trees on both sides, I always think of my middle school. In that place, there is a thick shade of trees, and there is never a whole piece of sunshine.But the scene in front of me is like a gorgeous and extravagant dream. I travel through the past, just like the earth passing through the tail of a comet, it doesn't matter. I finally started a life alone, running alone, typing late at night alone, standing on the roof alone looking at the empty and deep sky.I heard the sound of cracking and chipping when life turned bluntly, and my life was gradually damaged in the constant running-in. And that's what I don't want to see. Only when I receive letterheads, see photos, hear old songs, and see similar plots, will I feel sad for a moment.Then he laughed happily again, just so silently. Occasionally when I am sad, I will post on my forum, and then I know Wei Wei and others will read it, and my friends will read it. In my first days at school, I was sad.I was the first one to leave among my classmates. I had already started my course in September, while Wei Wei stayed at home until halfway through October before leaving the original place. In those days, I always told Wei Wei how unhappy I was, and Wei Wei always posted on my forum to comfort me. I remember one time her post read like this: When I called you yesterday, your side was very noisy, and mine was very quiet, just like when we were in the third year of high school, we called every night until 2 or 3 o'clock, then hung up the phone and continued to read. You said that now we are the only ones who depend on each other for life. In fact, for me, it was a long time ago.In Xiaoqing's words, our relationship is the third relationship beyond love and friendship. You said, Wei Wei said, the whole world has betrayed you and I will be by your side, if there is hell, we will go rampant together.That's right, that's right, I will accompany you wherever you go.If I am not here, I will be very sad when others bully you.I have said that no matter what my friends are going through, I will be there for them.Don't say that your side is empty, it won't happen. Xiaoyi will leave tomorrow, and Xiaoqing will leave today. What I am now is, I just grab a piece of clothing every day and go out to surf the Internet and hang out, wherever I go.My mother always told me not to be too slovenly.But how do I explain it to her. Siwei, you have always been such a child, stubbornly saying that I am happy and happy like a snail.You don't say you are unhappy.It hurts every time I see you like this.Someone told me that Siwei has always been happy.I smile.I asked them, what is happiness?Is it just to hide your sadness and laugh at everyone?Siwei, look, you are such a child in their eyes. You said before, Wei Wei, you have to understand that it will be difficult to find such a good friend in the future.So when Xiao F said that you will forget us after a long time, I quarreled with her, and I was not happy when she said that you were not good.In fact, I was also very unhappy yesterday, but you said you were unhappy and I didn't say so. Do you remember, on the title page of the book I sent you, it was written like this, for Siwei (the friend who has given me the most comfort and warmth).I am not sure at all, will I have a friend like you in the future, if I say I have nothing, I will have a friend like you, a friend who indulges me like this, a friend who will never leave me even when I am saddest. You have Qinghe and Moon now, but I still want to say that you should live well in Shanghai alone, because I am no longer by your side, and I can’t accompany you to eat, play badminton, hang out, and laugh at what you see.You can't run downstairs as soon as I call you on the balcony. There are many, many things that can't be done... But, four-dimensional, you have to remember that even in hell we are all rampant together. 9 I am in Shanghai, watching the chaotic silhouette of time under the neon lights. Sometimes Qinghe and I would wait for Moon to get off work in the hotel lobby where he played the piano. I always heard his sad piano music, just like the cello I listened to repeatedly in the last days of my senior year in high school.Compared with the piano, I prefer the cello because it is more bleak and ambiguous. During the time waiting for the moon, Qinghe and I took the light rail across the city, went to a certain place, and then turned back, like playing a game similar to fate and reincarnation.I looked at the colorful lights under my feet and felt that everything was like a phantom, only me and Qinghe's faces reflected on the glass were clear to each other. Qinghe smiled and said, look, we are more like angels flying over this city. At that moment, I fell in love with the light rail, because it doesn't make people feel hopeless like the subway.Black and deep despair. It gives a warm color, although still an illusion. 10 Some juniors and younger sisters from my previous school wrote to me, telling me that the school’s small playground had been converted into a cultural square, surrounded by white sculptures.They told me these things jokingly, but I felt vaguely sad when I saw them. 11 I'm used to seeing you in the car, and then I ran to the other side of the road to see you sitting quietly in the car I am used to buying desserts for you, seeing you smiling like a child I am used to walking on the road to watch the car for you, hold your hand and pull you across the road I am used to your sudden sad character, so I will not talk to you I'm used to the phone calls late at night, the pattering rain outside the window Get used to the smiling faces and angry faces in text messages I'm used to your poor memory, I always forget what I said I am used to your dependence on people even though I am also a child I'm used to your character of running around and always finding no one You who are used to freedom have endless concerns I'm used to you suddenly appearing in front of me and saying hang out together get used to the bright light in your eyes I'm also used to the deep darkness in your eyes Get used to writing notes to you when you're sad I'm used to texting you to remember to eat We are used to each other so we never leave We laugh together, cry together, fight together and drink together Take a pirate ship together and watch the beautiful lights together Let's eat watermelon together at the small shop in front of the school Playing cards by the lake at school even though there's an exam soon Stroll together in the bookstore until dark Look at the stop sign on the side of the road together to see where this car leads to in this city Because we are friends So we're getting closer and more dependent on each other 12 A person always has to forget some things so that he can remember other things. Just as someone wants to be close to oneself, someone must leave. I always didn't believe in such words before, because I believed that all people can be together happily.But it doesn’t seem to be the case, distance, time, and years are like walls, blocking each other, looking and looking can’t see through, just hear the sound of happiness passing by on the opposite side.So I also smiled happily. Just like XJ sent a text message to tell me, as long as I know that you are still living in this world, I will be fine. 13 Lonely people always remember everyone who appears in their lives, so I always think of you endlessly. 14 Ah Liang is my best friend in college, just like my friends and I at that time, we ate together, rode bikes to class and bored together, and looked at me and I saw you getting more and more bored. Ah Liang also loves painting, I always want to introduce her to Wei Wei, I think they hit it off very well.Just like Wei Wei, Ah Liang always accommodated me infinitely, even sometimes I knew I was wrong, but she still didn't say anything. It’s just different from Wei Wei, she is a person who hides her emotions, she always says that I want everyone to be happy, so I always accommodate others, when others are sad, I will be sad, and when others are happy, I will be happy , but in the end, I don't know whether I am happy or sad. I suddenly remembered Xiaobei's character. She always told others about her happy side, but cried quietly by herself. She once said that people always say that I am happy, so I am really happy, even if I am not happy, I must be happy. I don't know how much pressure such a character has to bear, it's just how childish I am compared to them. A willful child who refuses to grow up. 15 After writing, the editor told me that I needed illustrations, so I asked Yang Shiyan and A Liang to help me draw illustrations.In the following many weekend nights, Ah Liang and I always stayed up late, doing CG on the laptop that Moon lent me. Moon is a very good person, taking care of me like Little A back then.He would send text messages to tell me that I was going to eat, and he would also run from Shanghai University to Shanghai University to give it to me after I accidentally said that I had a stomachache.He also brought me the specialties from his hometown that his mother brought to him, and even brought me the chili sauce from a roommate in his dormitory. These small and trivial things always move me the deepest. During those days of making pictures, A Liang and I were together almost every day, more than 20 hours.Sometimes I always feel sorry when I see Ah Liang's red eyes, but I am embarrassed to say that I still strictly ask her to make the effect I want, and if she does it wrong, she will do it all over again.And Ah Liang hardly said anything.I always say that I am the strictest boss and A Liang is the laziest employee. In fact, I understand better than anyone else that A Liang would agree to do illustrations for me absolutely not for the royalties of those illustrations. In the last few days after the completion of the project, our exhaustion reached a peak. Every night, I always go to bed first, and Ah Liang draws, and then wait until three or four o'clock when Ah Liang goes to bed, and I continue to do it.In this way, I watched the sky change from black to blue to white day by day, and I felt like a witness of time. Maybe many years later, I will recall this busy time with emotion. A Liang said, maybe when this work is over, we will feel that there is nothing to do. I said maybe and went back to normal life.I don't know if the normal life I'm talking about is a lonely day, because Ah Liang has transferred to the animation class, and I know that is her ideal all along.We finally separated. Ah Liang asked me if I would be lonely and like strangers to each other in the future, but I didn't say anything. Because the moment I bowed my head, I remembered that a long time ago, when I was divided into arts and sciences, Xiaobei and I went in two different directions.Xiaobei asked me, if two good people are not together, will they forget each other? I remember saying I would.Xiaobei continued, don't you even say hello when you meet? I said yes, and then for the first time I found that Xiaobei's eyes were very bright and beautiful. That was when I was seventeen.And now, I am already standing on the tail of nineteen years old. 15 By the end of writing, I was very, very tired.And there was a crisis in the interpersonal relationship around me that I couldn't control.My temper became surly, irritable, and always inexplicably sad. I would get angry because of a small thing, just like the inexplicable March sadness that appeared when I was seventeen.In those days of panic, those around me said how could I be so bad-tempered. At that time, it was A Liang who relayed it to me, and I was so sad that I couldn't speak.It never occurred to me that I was such a person.Because I think of my past, which was so peaceful and tolerant to people.I don't know what standard they use to measure everything, I just know that I was very sad at the time. At that time, it was in building D of the school. Ah Liang was still processing the pictures, and I told her to ask. Sadly, I sent a text message to ask Weiwei, am I an intolerable person? Wei Wei replied many text messages to me, and she said, "Actually, every time you are sad, I am by your side. Where are you, I will call you." "Don't be like this, I feel that I can do nothing for you." You do it, I always thought that my warmth alone was enough." "I told you before that everyone will leave you, but I won't. In fact, for me, having a friend like you is the greatest happiness." "Every time I see people on the badminton court, I think of your smile." I stared at the phone screen, tears streaming down my face. 16 Endless epilogue, I saw this title in the back of a book many years ago.And now, I feel that I am fulfilling this title. I remember that I used to write 5,000 words in the postscript, but now, I clicked on the "Word Count" in WORD and found that this postscript has exceeded 8,000 words. Like my title, this is an afterword, not an afterword.I'm just reminiscing, reminiscing about those who were once alive in my life and will always be alive, those who bring me warmth. Little A's letter said that having a friend like you is my greatest happiness. Even if I have traveled so far, I still feel warm.I can imagine little A in high spirits on the streets of Japan, standing under the shade of a tree in white clothes like snow, smiling sweetly like a child when he looks up.I can recall the days when he was by my side at any time, open water for me, buy stomach medicine for me, remember the movie posters I like, and detain me for food like a prisoner. You can see his smile when you look up. 17 I think I should be over, when this winter has come.The temperature has been dropping, and I was looking forward to snow in Shanghai, but my roommate told me that Shanghai has not had snow for several years. When I wrote the last few chapters, the first semester of the University had already ended, and now, as I write this postscript, my new semester has begun.The short-semester system in college made me feel that time is so fast and irreversible.In Shanghai University, an empty and uninhabited campus has become a place full of people. The sunshine outside the window is very warm, I think I can end this epilogue. I have always written prose. After writing such a long novel, I really want to write about my own life, just like I wrote those sad prose together. I stopped writing prose after such a long novel After a while, I suddenly started to write, and it was still handy. I couldn't help but feel happy and fulfilled.So I inevitably become chattering.Maybe prose is my favorite thing, and novels are just a coincidence.However, in any case, it is a very special work in my writing life, and I am deeply aware of the time and energy I spent on it. Thanks to all the people who supported me, and all the people who liked me, because of your encouragement, I can continue to write like this. Maybe it will be a kind of commemoration, commemorating my youth that is about to disappear, because it is my most gorgeous dream, with my purest and smoothest fantasy, that is mine, and it is also the dream of all of us when we were young. When I was very young, I had a dream of a prince and princess. 18 To all children with beautiful hopes and sorrows.For all children under the age of 19. In the torrent of time, we will always grow up.