Lin Zhaoxi was suddenly cold, and felt that the night was bottomlessly dark.
Lao Lin was sitting on the stone bench, smoking a cigarette with a peaceful expression, without showing too much sadness, Lin Zhaoxi's heart gradually warmed up.
Lao Lin said that the old friends he knew should be just the old friends he knew, and Pei Zhi's mother was obviously not among them.
At the same time, she silently crossed off the titles of grandparents and grandparents from the list in her heart.
"Who is that old man who passed away?" She sat down opposite Lao Lin and asked.
Lao Lin cast a glance at her, meaning that you seem to have too many questions today.
"Ah, are you hungry? Shall I get you a bowl of noodles?"
Lin Zhaoxi stood up as she spoke, and if Lao Lin was unwilling to answer, of course she would not ask.
"The former gatekeeper of the school."
Lin Zhaoxi was surprised: "Grandpa, the school guard?"
"When I was a part-time student, I was in charge of sending and receiving letters in the guard room. The conditions were not good at that time, and the old man would occasionally stuff me with steamed buns. The guard room was very cold in winter, but whenever I was there, he would light the stove and warm me up. people."
Lao Lin briefly described his past with the old man, and Lin Zhaoxi sat quietly opposite the stone table.
He recalled briefly, and after he finished speaking, Winter Night fell into a long silence.
Lin Zhaoxi could feel Lao Lin's emotions, including sadness, nostalgia, and unspeakable deep thinking. But she didn't know what Lao Lin was thinking, let alone why this past made Lao Lin smoke one after another.
They were relatively silent until the cold wind made her sneeze.
"It's cold, go back to your own room." Lao Lin said.
"Then you are alone."
Lin Zhaoxi stood up obediently.
Lao Lin looked up: "I will go to Yongchuan in a few days."
In the dark night, when everything was silent, Lin Zhaoxi thought of Hanamaki's phone call, and turned around to ask, "Will you go to the memorial service of the guard's grandpa?"
"The old man's son called me. When he was packing up his father's belongings, he found that he had written me a letter and wanted to send it to me. But I think it's inappropriate for the old man to send me a letter after so much difficulty. I still You have to get it yourself."
"When are you going? Can you take me with you?" Lin Zhaoxi thought about it and asked tentatively.
"Yongchuan's habit is to have a memorial service tomorrow, but I haven't finished my things yet, and with your body, I don't feel comfortable going out. So I chatted with him, and next Sunday, the old man's first seven days, I just happened to go there. "
"Okay, will you take me with you when the time comes?"
"Can."
Hearing Lao Lin's answer, Lin Zhaoxi heaved a sigh of relief, as if another big stone had been lifted from his heart.
She was just about to talk about Pei Zhi's mother, and at about this time, a timetable flashed in her mind.
She has been living with her fingers every day recently, and she can instantly know when next Sunday is.
December 21, the day of Lao Lin's car accident.
A grand destiny falls from the sky in the dark night, with an irresistible will.
Lin Zhaoxi felt as if struck by lightning, she didn't even know what was going on.
She was sure that in the real world, Lao Lin fainted in Anning and was sent to the hospital, so she thought that the place where his car accident happened should be in Anning.
Dan Yongchuan
She never thought that Lao Lin would plan to go to Yongchuan on 12.21.
Lin Zhaoxi's brain was running fast, recalling the past in the real world.
It seems that in the winter of her last freshman year, she also had a cough for a long time, and the heart-piercing feeling is still fresh in her memory.
So in the real world, Lao Lin did postpone going to Yongchuan because of her health, and chose the day of 12.21
Thinking slipped into the dark abyss, Lin Zhaoxi couldn't help thinking of another possibility.
The car accident itself happened in Yongchuan. Is this why Chen Zhu's father didn't investigate the scene of Lao Lin's car accident
She felt completely cold all over her body.
Lin Zhaoxi really wants to write down e=mc^2 right now, and go back and ask Lao Lin from Strawberry World, where exactly did you have the car accident on December 21st
But she knew very well that after Lao Lin woke up from the car accident, she and Chen Zhu's father who was in charge of investigating the car accident repeatedly asked him about the details of the car accident, but Lao Lin couldn't answer anything at all.
There is no information and details about the car accident, which is the fundamental reason why she spent all her energy learning python and writing prediction programs.
And now, all her efforts were in vain because of the change of this detail.
She wanted to be like the protagonist in the TV series, shouting to the night sky: God, you are fucking playing with me.
But at this moment, she could only force herself to calm down again.
Because Lao Lin, the person sitting on the stone bench, is the man who would smile and say "everything in the world can happen to anyone, so it's no big deal" after he suffered from Alzheimer's.
No big deal, no matter how difficult things can be solved, there is no time to despair.
Lin Zhaoxi kept repeating this sentence in her heart.
Under Lao Lin's surprised gaze, she sat back on the stone bench again, and she knew that her face must be extremely ugly.
"What's the matter, what's going on next Sunday?" Lao Lin asked with concern.
Lin Zhaoxi forcibly stabilized his speaking speed: "A few days ago, Hanajuan called me, and he said that Pei Zhi's mother's health was too good, and she was admitted to the hospice hospital, which is in Yongchuan."
"So you want us to visit Peizhi when we go to Yongchuan?"
"Yes, if I have to wait until next weekend, I'm afraid it will be too late, so can I go to Yongchuan earlier?"
Lin Zhaoxi tried her best to keep her voice calm, but her fists under the stone table were tightly clenched, waiting for Lao Lin's answer.
Lao Lin pondered for a while: "Then let's go to the memorial service tomorrow. You take a day off and we drop by to see Pei Zhi."
Lin Zhaoxi hardly remembered how she walked back into the house.
She only felt that her knees were weak and her whole body was trembling the moment the door closed.
Now, she changed the time when Lao Lin went to Yongchuan, but would this change the car accident
She doesn't know the answer.
—
On December 16, six days before Lao Lin's car accident.
Lin Zhaoxi carried her schoolbag and took the train to Yongchuan with her father.
High-speed rail has cut a journey that would have taken several hours to just over an hour.
Yongchuan Station was crowded with pedestrians carrying large and small bags.
The whole space was filled with all kinds of voices, the smell of smoke was mixed, and the air was dirty.
Lin Zhaoxi got off the train, took a few steps forward, and took Lao Lin's hand.
It is a long way from the railway station to the funeral home in Yongchuan City.
They took bus No. 202 from the train station, got off at Yongchuan University City, passed through University Town, turned to No. 218, changed trains in the suburbs, transferred to a special line, and went to the funeral parlor.
Lin Zhaoxi carefully recorded every road they took, every bus they changed, and the time required for each journey.
If she can't change the fact that Lao Lin will come to Yongchuan on 12.21, then she must make a new plan in less than a week.
—
The scene of the memorial service for the elderly is not big, but there are many people.
Some people are dressed in suits and leather shoes, and they look like celebrities in society, and there are also very ordinary workers or teachers. Among these people were men and women, old and young, and the small mourning hall was packed full of them.
The leader of Yongchuan University in charge of the retired employees held the manuscript and recited the eulogy on the stage.
He said that Zhang Daming was a very ordinary school worker and had been the janitor in the reception room of Yongchuan University before his retirement.
Comrade Zhang Daming loves to help students when he is working. Every year, he sponsors a poor college student and is deeply loved by teachers and students.
He is a staff member, enjoys a pension, lives a happy life in his later years, and even falls in love with writing calligraphy. He has won the first prize in the literature and art competition for retirees of Yongchuan University.
Lao Lin was not considered a relative or friend of the old man, so when the school leaders read the eulogy, they stood silently at the end of the crowd.
Lao Lin's expression has always been very calm and indifferent.
Through the gap between the crowd, Lin Zhaoxi saw the serene face of the grandpa in the reception room lying in the coffin.
Listening to the eulogy, Lin Zhaoxi silently outlined Uncle Zhang's life in his mind.
She didn't know what kind of time Lao Lin and this old man had spent a few years ago, but it must be a very good person for Lao Lin to come over to see the old man off in person.
When the memorial service was coming to an end, the old man's son finally had time to say a few words to them.
They stood by the flowerbed outside the mourning hall, covered by the dense camphor trees.
"Thank you for making a special trip."
"My father was not in good health this year, so he wrote a lot of letters like writing a memoir. Everything is in the car. When the ceremony is over, please come with me to the parking lot."
When the old man's son mentioned "a lot", Lin Zhaoxi thought it meant the thickness of the letter. But when she and Lao Lin walked towards the parking lot after the memorial ceremony, they found many people walking beside them.
After the memorial service, many people have become acquainted. The sociable people began to exchange business cards with each other, and some people began to talk about each other's majors and names, but Lao Lin didn't talk to anyone.
The old man's son led them into the parking lot behind a white SUV.
The trunk opened slowly.
He took out a cardboard box from inside and put it on the ground, and the people surrounding the SUV let out a low exclamation.
The cardboard box was opened, and the old man's son took out letters one by one, and called them one by one according to the names on them.
"Wang Liang."
"Xu An."
"Liu Pengpeng."
The person whose name was called stepped forward to take the letter addressed to him, like a school teacher handing out homework.
The letters may be thin or thick, but everyone's name is clearly written in block letters on the envelope.
There was the rustling of letters being opened in the parking lot, but there was no other sound.
Lin Zhaoxi stood among the crowd, although the environment was eerily quiet, but she felt that the sun was very warm today.
"Lin Zhaosheng."
Lao Lin's name sounded.
He stepped forward like the others and took the letter addressed to him.
But different from others, Lao Lin didn't open the letter immediately, but directly put it in his arms.
He nodded to the old man's son, turned around and left.
Lin Zhaoxi was still immersed in the atmosphere of opening letters in the parking lot, she turned her head and saw that Lao Lin had already left, so she trotted a few steps to keep up.
"Don't you open the letter?" she asked.
Lao Lin looked at the sky, then looked deeply at her, and said, "Let's go."