The day Miss Xia left was the last day of June. I didn't go to see her off. At that time, I was standing in front of the full-length mirror changing clothes. I was going to Egong Village to attend a birthday party at noon. I heard the living room door open and close. After that, there was silence in the house. I was carefully painting my eyebrows in front of the mirror, and the cicadas were singing softly outside the window. I asked the cicada: "Will we continue to see each other next summer?"
"See you someday, until next year."< /p>
"For cicadas, the next year is the next life."
These two sentences rang in my ears.
Those are what Yanxing said to me five years ago while standing on the bank of the stream after leaving the mountains and returning to Huzhou. He comes in the summer and leaves in the summer.
At the beginning of every summer, the dew is still lingering, the showers are falling, the clouds come and go, the sound of cicadas echoes through the mountains, the camphor trees on the roadside are thick green in the sun, and everything looks like It all seems endless. There are always people coming by the wind, looking forward to a thrilling adventure. However, the vegetation grows, the stars rotate, and the vast summer drifts away in the quiet days when the winery is not brewing, and nothing happens.
I live in the countryside. Sometimes when I walk in the fields, I see rushing clouds in the sky and long, quiet days. I don’t know what is going on outside, and I want to draw my sword and dance, but I still live in silence in this countryside. Zhuangzi wrote, "A man hides a boat in a ravine, and hides a mountain in a marsh. It is said to be solid. In the middle of the night, those who are strong can carry it and walk away. The ignorant do not know it." That's all, no matter what the world's trend is, only after you find your own spiritual source and origin can you be truly happy and become a person who can truly carry the mountain away.
It was at this time that Sima and Miss Xia came to the mountains. They came from thousands of miles away to spend the summer with me. They reunited with Sima and Miss Xia. It was a mixture of joy and sorrow. I had a romantic feeling to express, "General There are a few things in this world that fill my dreams."
I met them in the spring and summer four or five years ago.
Five years ago, the spring was romantic, the apricot blossoms were in the mist, and Sima came to the mountains to drink, but after drinking, he lost one of his shoes. When I went back, I had to go out of the mountain in disposable slippers, walk to the stream bank, and shout loudly: "Goodbye!"
Four years ago in the summer I was learning flute in Suzhou, and Miss Xia came to see me, and we made an appointment. Meet at Cat's Sky Castle. While she was waiting for me in Cat's Sky City, she met a boy who lent her a charger. She said he was pretty good-looking. Miss Xia and I sat in the bookstore all afternoon, but we didn't notice this good-looking boy. At dusk, Miss Xia and I went for a walk on Shantang Street. She returned the charger without asking for the boy’s contact information. She was upset when she missed the boy in the bookstore. That night, Miss Xia tossed and turned in bed, and she said to me: "I want to find him."
They are all such lovely girls who define romance with their lives. People who are not gregarious at first, but feel inexplicably comfortable when they get together. My unwillingness to be gregarious is my pessimism about human relationships; my willingness to interact with them is also my cherishment of human relationships.
In June of this year, Sima came to the mountains to read a poem to me, a very long poem. When the mountain rain fell late at night, the verses seemed to have been soaked by the rain and were wet: < /p>
"A city without substance,?
Under the yellow mist of winter dawn,?
A group of people flowed across London Bridge,
The number of people is so great,?
I didn’t expect death to destroy so many people?
Sighs, short and sparse, spit out,?
< p>Everyone's eyes are fixed on his own feet?"Eliot's "The Waste Land" has been rippling in the mountains and rain for hundreds of years.
Sima stayed in the wine shop for a few days and celebrated Children's Day. Changqing came to the wine shop for a drink and asked Sima and I: "What are your wishes for Children's Day?"
"Balloon, we want a flying balloon." Sima and I replied.
Changqing promised to send us flying balloons on Children’s Day. On Children's Day, Changqing said that there were no helium-filled balloons in the county and they couldn't fly. Sima and I’s wish to “have a flying balloon” came to nothing. This result is expected.
I spent my childhood in the countryside. Going up the tree to dig out bird's nests, going down to the river to catch fish and shrimps, swimming in the stream, and eating the garlicky watermelon cut by my grandma. Now it seems that these fascinating days are not as good as having a man who can fly when I was a child. happy balloons.
At that time, I had just finished my summer vacation. I often fantasized about having a flying balloon. I would tie the balloon to my finger and run in the fields. The balloon would slowly grow bigger and carry me away from the ground. Travel across mountains and seas to explore the unsolved mysteries of the world. It’s like the world of Doraemon and Nobita. There is an adventure every summer. I have plenty of time to cultivate fantasies and endure their ruin.
The most daring adventure I ever took was when I was eight years old. I followed my neighbor’s sister silently on a shuttle bus to her classmate’s home in a mountain village a hundred miles away. I thought something big and thrilling would happen, for example, I would be recognized by an old man on the mountain and kowtow to me: "Young Master, you are finally back."
"
He will call all his fellow disciples to help me clean up the dust, and tell the elders and disciples that I am their long-lost young master. He is looking forward to them shouting together: "Please young master to take charge of the overall situation for us. , the young master cultivates martial virtues and lasts for thousands of years..." The little girl is responsible for the rise and fall of a sect. She is under great pressure, but she cannot postpone it. She was about to say: "Elders, you can't do it, you can't do it! "A big black dog rushed out and barked at me. I was so scared that I urinated on my buttocks and ran away with my head in my arms.
The sunset burned the hills red. No old man appeared, only one behind the sister's house. The mute uncle, who couldn't speak, blocked the big black dog for me and smiled at me. He gestured for a long time. I shook my head dejectedly. I looked forward to going on a big adventure in a flying balloon. Those distant summers.
I was making wine when Sima left the mountains. The night before, I took her to Beidamen for a barbecue and sat on the side of the road, with the pig tails burnt on the grill. , smoking. Sima said amidst the smell of oily mutton: "I'm going abroad. ”
I just listened, and I knew that she was saying goodbye to me. Like many people who have met me in the mountains, when they want to leave their familiar homeland and do something they have never done before, After making up my mind about what happened, I made a bag of ideas and brought them to the mountains to keep them here. Coming to the mountains to say goodbye to me is also saying goodbye to the past.
"I am going to college. . ”
“I graduated. "
"I'm going to be a soldier. "
"I'm getting married. "
"I'm going abroad. ”
“I am lovelorn. ”
Their moods in coming to the mountains are similar, and their reasons for saying goodbye are different.
These reasons are enough to support people to take an adventure in the mountains and gain some happiness for a short period of time. Forget identity, my heart became free.
When Miss Xia came to the mountains from Jiangsu, I was distilling the last batch of wine in the first half of the year. She said that she had walked a long way to see Xiangjian. This is the farthest journey she has taken in 33 years. She came to the wine shop to dance, like Sima's poem, which is a gift for the reunion.
Miss Xia is like a crystal. Translucent and fragile. She has her own sorrow, and she falls for love. I can't give her the answer she wants. She is trapped in love and sinks. I can't bear to break her dream. Bubble, her love is both flamboyant and humble, pretentious and silly. The sentence she said to me the most: "Muyang, I can't figure it out. ”
There is reluctance and helplessness, just like us who are chasing love at the age of eighteen. We are looking forward to unexpected encounters, looking forward to heart-stirring encounters, and wishing to win the heart of another person and never see each other again.
Who hasn’t come across the love words of “Fuck you at dusk, and make porridge with you”?
After all, we have grown up, and the years are like this. The needle burst these dreamy bubbles. The understanding of love has long been changed. Deep love is about two marginalized people hugging each other and redeeming each other; it is sympathy, but love is never said to be a luxury. I may only be able to fall in love with this. Of course, I know that there are thousands of ways to look at love, but I can’t accept that sticky, stable emotional pattern of happiness. .
When it comes to love, everyone has different answers. There is no unified standard for how to love and get along with your lover, but if you use love to bind a relationship, the original intention of love will not last. It’s to make the other person happy. I love you, but you are free, rather than using love to deprive you of your freedom. A good relationship requires each other, helps each other, and is independent of each other.
After Miss Xia left, I I often dream, in my dreams, that in July of that year, the sun shone slantly through the hillside and fell on the stream, making waves, and Yan Xing dragged his suitcase away from the mountains. I always remember the summer when Yan Xing left. .
In July five years ago, the grass on the stream bank was swaying in the wind, and the grass flowers were falling, like stars falling into the water. Yanxing and I were standing on the stream bank, waiting for the bus. After sending him to the station, we looked at the Parma flowers without saying a word. I wore earplugs and listened to music. He suddenly opened his arms and said to me: "Give me a hug." "
When he got in the car, "Visions of Gideon" came from the earbuds. It was the interlude of "Call Me by Your Name". It was the hottest movie about summer and love that year. .
One summer night, Yan Xing and I were sitting on the porch of the Songxue Tower at the foot of Xiufeng Mountain. Fireflies in the woods in front of the porch were flying freely, flickering bright and dark, like stars scattered in the sky. This magnificent scene was just right for the sunset. Wine. I drank one glass after another, lying on the bamboo chair when I was tipsy. Yan Xing asked me in the fluorescent light: "Do you feel bored living in the mountains and living a simple life?" ”
I said proudly: “I am with the mountains, rivers, sun and moon, and a handsome young man as my companion. Fireflies are scattered like snow. I don’t know how free and happy I am.” ”
That summer, Yan Xing asked me a lot of questions, and I often talked nonsense to him. I knew he wouldn’t live in the mountains for long, so he would ask me some questions every day in an interview style, and I would tease him. , I don’t know if he has been fooled by me. I still like him to sit quietly on the porch and listen to the rain, and the indifferent temperament that comes from him is fascinating.
Yanxing, like everyone else who has been to the mountains, will ask me a question: "How long will you stay in the mountains?"
In the early mornings of those days, we often walked on On some muddy mountain roads, the forest is quiet, and the chirping of birds is carried by the wind, which is clear and sweet. It was at this moment that Yanxing asked me this question. I knew he was leaving. The sun gradually climbed up, and the pale golden light was diffused by the lingering mist. The light and dark overlapped, just like my life in the mountains. As we walked, I looked up at him and then at the winding mountain road and said, "I will leave when it's time to leave."
Yanxing said, "I don't like life in the mountains, it's too much." If it is quiet, I will feel bored. I like urban life, the noise and excitement, and I want to make a lot of money."
Yanxing said goodbye to me on a bright morning in July. Before leaving, he went to the town and bought a bag of jelly. He said that if the jelly is placed in the freezer of the refrigerator, it will taste good when frozen. After he left, I took out a jelly from the freezer every evening and put it into plum wine. It was refreshing, sweet and sour, and had a long lasting flavor. After eating the last ice jelly, summer is over. Those evenings accompanied by ice jelly ended on the eve of the Beginning of Autumn that year.
Later, on many evenings, what touched me was not how beautiful the sunset was, but the amber-like glow, which was like the cups of jelly plum wine in my memory. Memories come in the glow, one-seventh are touching, and the rest are poems.
The day he left the mountains, I said to him: "Flying Geese, a few years from now, I may put on gorgeous brocade clothes and meet you in a bustling metropolis; or maybe, you will change into plain clothes. , met me in the mountains; at that moment, we both met the best of ourselves."
In fact, it won't take a few years for us to meet again, and we won't be able to play out the drama of half a lifetime apart in the novel. A year later, I wrote a book and published it. In the spring, I held a book launch conference in Suzhou. Yan Xing drove from Huzhou to Suzhou to meet me. It's a pity that I didn't wear gorgeous clothes that day. If I'd known it was the last time we'd see each other, I'd have dressed nicer.
In the bookstore, I stood in the crowd and saw his eyes twinkling, as if he had a lot to say to me. I had been communicating with readers and ignored him. After the press conference, the bookstore owner invited me to watch Cheng Bi’s concert. Yanxing sent me to the intersection of Xiatang Street in Changmennei. I asked him at the intersection: "Just now Do you have anything to say to me in the bookstore?"
He just said lightly: "I'm going back, I'm going to Guangzhou tomorrow."
I thought he was. I will stay one more day, wait until I finish watching the concert, and travel to Suzhou together. After that, we drifted apart and lost our books. In fact, after that spring, I passed by Changmen in Gusu several times, and I always thought of He Zhu's words: Nothing will happen if you pass through Changmen again.
Later, many people asked me if any of the stories in the book were mine. I shook my head. None of them were mine. What is written is a story, and what is kept in the heart is deep feeling.
People outside the mountains are passing by, and every summer is like an unfinished adventure. All the hopes and disappointments, all the excited rushes, all the inadvertent losses, all the brilliance that should have come but did not come, together constitute the grand summer and the final appearance of the mountain scenery.