This year's winter came very suddenly, and the temperature dropped as soon as it fell, as if it was only overnight, and it became cold everywhere.
There are many rivers and water in Changyang District, and a very thin layer of ice formed in the early morning when the cold was the heaviest.
There were very few pedestrians passing by the river, and when you opened your mouth, you could breathe out a cloud of white steam. The steamer at the breakfast stall was misty and sparsely lit.
This time is too early, the city has not yet woken up, and the residential area is quiet.
Occasionally, someone who just got off the big night shift will park a small electric donkey in the garage and hurriedly walk past it. When they pass by Building 9, they will turn their heads and take a look.
There was a white shed in front of that building, and no one could survive this cold winter.
There are many elderly people in this community, and this kind of thing often happens on the coldest and hottest days. Some are acute illnesses, some are dead.
No matter what, there will always be some people who mourn and some who mourn.
The people in the shed haven't come yet. On the wall of the shed are the white linen filial robes and white linen hats that were put away last night, tied up in a bag with a hastily written name. There are family members, there are neighbors, and one is blank, as if waiting for someone to fill in.
This white affair lasted for several days and ended last night.
The rest of the shed will be demolished today, leaving no traces afterward. The blank piece of paper was blown by the cold wind for a long time, and it would be thrown into the last fire together with the bag.
If you ask someone who knows this family, who the blank piece of paper should belong to. They would say that the person who didn't catch up with this white affair was called "Lan Lan", the granddaughter brought up by the old man. The reason why it is called this nickname is because the old man's favorite flower is the onion orchid.
There is a large area of flower beds in front of Building 9, all of which were planted by the elderly. It just happened to miss the flowering period, and none of them bloomed.
Like the girl named "Lan Lan" didn't make it to the scene—
It's not because of any contradiction, it's just a delay. So I missed the last time with the old man and failed to say goodbye seriously.
Similar to many things in this world... It seems that there is always such a regret.
But what outsiders don't know is that Lan Lan is actually back. When she arrived home in the early morning, she saw the black cloth with the word "Dian" written on it at the door, cried and called "Grandma open the door", and then stepped into a dream.
- She is caged.
It was not clear whether it was because she was heartbroken and could not let go, or because her grandmother had been waiting for her.
Maybe both.
After all, joys and sorrows always go both ways.
This is the ninth cage Wen Shi and the others have entered this month. It is not special or complicated, just like the countless cages they have experienced before.
Even the reasons for forming a cage are just as small, to those who don't understand, they don't even understand why a cage is formed. But when I smell it, I don't understand it.
Because this is the norm in the world.
Happy for the little things, sad for the little things, unable to let go of someone for the little things, lingering over the little things.
It's like this early morning before dawn, in that cage that ordinary people can't see. Chen Dao lowered his hand, closed the puppet line when he smelled, and stood quietly a little further away, waiting for the old man to hold Lan Lan's hand, rubbing and saying goodbye.
Looking at the young girl's continuous tears, she wanted to fetch a handkerchief from her pocket, but found that her clothes had already been changed to a shroud, with no pockets and no handkerchief.
So she could only wipe it with the back of her hand and coaxed, "Oh, don't cry, don't cry."
"Grandma has been waiting for you. How could grandma leave without seeing you?"
"You were brought up by me. From a little to such a height, you will grow into a big girl with a hula. It is so cold this year, and you are so far away alone, grandma is worried."
"I told your parents not to tell you that you were looking for a job recently. You said that you would take your grandma to eat delicious food after you got your first salary. I thought... Maybe you will have the strength to endure one after another. , I can go out with you."
The tip of the girl's nose was red, and she held her grandmother's hand to her eyes, so choked that she couldn't say a word. Finally, with a cry, he said, "Then you wait for me."
"I've found it, and I'll have the first salary in a few days. Why don't you wait for me..."
"Isn't this waiting?" the old man said. "Actually, there's nothing to do. I just want to see you more. That night, they all gathered in my room and cried. All I know is that they can't open their eyes. …”
"At that time, I thought, what should I do, Lan Lan hasn't settled down yet, and I don't even know where my baby will live in the future."
The old man held the girl's face and said, "Grandma will not recognize your future home."
"Guangyuanli..." The girl broke down in tears after hearing this, and reported the address sobbing: "Unit 2, Building 2... 504, I... just rented it, I won't change it. There is a tree in the flower bed downstairs... There is a tree. The magnolia tree like the one downstairs is very big."
"Okay." The old man nodded.
"I also bought a lot of flower pots. When I go back, I go to buy onion orchid." The girl said, "I... put them all on the balcony and put them in a row, so you can recognize them at a glance."
"Okay." The old man smiled: "Good onion, grandma remembered it."
The girl named "Lanlan" cried for a long time, crying to the point that she had no strength and was shaky. And the old man kept holding her face, covering her hands, and tucked into his arms like countless old people love to do.
In the end, the old man patted her head and said slowly, "Grandma waits for you and is satisfied, it's time to go..."
She looked up in the direction that Wen Shi and He Chen couldn't reach, nodded amiably, and said, "Thank you."
Wen Shi also nodded at her, then turned to look at Xia Qiao, who was squatting on the side. Maybe he also remembered an old man who used to be, and cried for an unknown time.
Wen Shi was silent for a while, then stretched out his hand and gently pushed his back: "This time you are here."
When he turned back, he met a warm gaze that could not be seen in the dust.
This is the first cage that Xia Qiao solved by hand.
When he put his fingers on the old man's shoulders, strands of black mist poured into his body along the fingertips, just like when smelling and Chenbuo had done it countless times.
Many people who don't understand it think this kind of complicated and thick black mist is "dirty", but for them, this kind of thing is called "mortal fate", and it is the concern of mortals.
He could taste everything from it.
It was someone's life, and it was a moment when the cage was gone.
At that moment, a vague suona sounded out of nowhere. The judge's name tree, which had been frozen for a long time, finally had a name, just after Shen Qiao.
***
It has been two days since Xia Qiao noticed the change in the famous tree map.
They packed their bags that day and were about to leave Xi'an and return to Ningzhou. Before leaving, Wen Shi took him to see the place where Shen Qiao once lived in Xi'an.
The place has been turned upside down, the old district has been turned into a shopping mall, and it is very lively in the cold winter, and there is no shadow of the past.
But Xiaqiao still lingered there for a long time.
So long that they even met someone.
—The girl named "Lanlan" was wearing a white down jacket, a red woolen hat, and a matching scarf that covered her chin. The tip of her nose was red from the cold wind.
It's a bit of a laugh and cry. Lanlan in the cage is crying and her head is halfway down. They don't have a deep impression of her facial features.
Her eyes were still slightly swollen, and she had cried a few times in the past three days, looking a little absent-minded and tired.
It wasn't until she passed by Wen Shi that the girl suddenly woke up. They stared at Wen Shi for a long time and almost bumped into other people oncoming.
Like many people who have been in the cage, she doesn't actually remember the things in the cage, only vague impressions.
In my impression, she had a dream in which she saw her grandma, and it seemed that a few people accompanied her to send her grandma.
But she didn't remember what the person who accompanied her in the dream looked like, but she only occasionally saw a pedestrian on the street and felt a little kind-hearted, as if deja vu.
In the end, Lan Lan still didn't speak to stop anyone.
She just stood there for a while with a trace of doubts she couldn't grasp, then shook her head, turned and disappeared into the sea of people.
This was an extremely accidental moment for her, but it was the norm for Wen Shi and Chen Buu. After all, they had sent too many people away, so it was not surprising.
It was just a day in a quiet life, nothing unusual.
Chen Dao didn't know what to do, so he picked a queue near the mall and went to the old pastry shop, and took Wen Shi to buy some snacks. While laughing, he admired the face of the ancestor of the puppet art that said, "It's stupid to line up like this, but some people want to eat it and I can't rebel."
But it was soon returned with revenge—
The puppet ancestor took out his not-so-good tricks, using "there is a century-old restaurant in Xi'an that he used to go to often. The food tastes very good, and he misses it very much." This is not like the evil he said. Nonsense, I can't even deceive the dust and nod and agree.
Then, relying on his memory from more than 20 years ago, he found the so-called century-old restaurant famous for its beautiful (spicy) taste, and let the patriarch who did not touch any spicy food accompany him to eat a big meal.
There are only three words to describe that table: Man Jiang Hong.
And Chen Dao's evaluation of this meal has only one sentence: one thousand damage to the enemy and eight hundred to damage oneself.
…
Because someone can't actually eat spicy food.
They planned to go directly back to Songyun Mountain that day, because it wasn't long before the white plum blossoms bloomed, so they had to guard the spiritual formation. But in the end, the front door opened to the living room of the Shen family villa, facing the refrigerator.
When he landed, Xia Qiao was stunned.
He faced the refrigerator that was as tall as a person, then turned his head and asked seriously, "Brother, are you hot or hungry?"
Before his brother opened his mouth, the patriarch said, "He's so hot, he wants to steal your drink."
When smelling: "… "
What's in your own home is a steal.
When he smelled it, he turned his head and stared at the dust.
He was simply fed up with blood, and they were all people who didn't eat spicy food. It stands to reason that it is not dusty, let alone spicy, and things are not often eaten. Shouldn't it be more reactive? Why is he the only one whose lips are red
This stare only lasted a few seconds.
But when he smelled it, he turned around and opened the refrigerator door. He found that the entire refrigerator was empty, and there was not a single can of beverage left.
Ghosts don't know where they went.
The old ancestor did not believe in evil, and frowned and pulled away the frozen layer, and found that even the popsicle ice cream disappeared, as if the world had evaporated.
Old Ancestor: "..."
"Fuck, where do I drink snacks?!" Xia Qiao was stunned, not realizing what was going on for a while.
Only Wen Shi can understand people. After all, I have been tricked many times since I was a child. Besides dust, who else can do something like this
He licked the crack of his hot lips, and stood for a while, holding the refrigerator door expressionlessly, feeling that the day would be over.
So he threw Xia Qiao "go", turned his head and disappeared.
Before Chen Chen opened the gate and returned to Songyun Mountain, Lao Mao and Xiaozhao stood guard on the mountain road. Seeing that the puppet master didn't even say hello, he didn't move, his face was sullen, like three welcoming pine trees.
"Where's the man, are you back?" Chen Buu.
The corner of Dazhao's mouth twitched, as if he wanted to explain, but he held back: "Well... I didn't reply."
Xiao Zhao followed: "Really... I didn't return."
Lao Mao silently rolled his eyes and obeyed these two girls. I don't know how to lie and I don't know who it is.
Chen Bubu glanced at the closed door not far away, and said with a smile, "Are you so angry? In my room or in his own room?"
Da Zhao twitched again and said, "Well... in his own room."
Xiao Zhao silently gave himself a mouth.
Lao Mao gave up, endured the second white eye and said, "In your house."
Obviously, with the ability of the master and the apprentice, they knew where to hide a bird in the mountains. One was not allowed to speak, and the other asked.
Make it look like the real thing, what a new way to play.
"Oh." Chen Dao nodded solemnly and walked towards the house with his feet raised.
When he first returned to the mountain, he still had a suave and modern appearance, with short hair and a shirt. In the process of walking towards the door of the house, the hair changed from short to long, and the dark red burqa and the snow-white underclothes swept across the rocks and grasses, as if the shadows of the blinding eyes were faded under the gradually coming moonlight.
He leaned against the door, raised his hand and knocked a few times.
At that time, Wen Shi was sitting in front of the table, and he took a cup from the bamboo plate with a sullen face, and placed it in front of him, neither too light nor too heavy.
There is a small stove beside him, and water is bubbling on the stove, and the faint scent of tea is diffused along the mist.
When the knock on the door rang, he replied "deaf, can't hear" in his mind.
But after a moment, he still looked up.
The people outside seemed to be able to sense his movements, and the door opened with a "squeak" the moment he raised his head. It's just that it's not the dust that came in, but a row of shorties.
"… "
What the hell
With the moonlight coming in from outside the door, he finally saw the "guest" when he smelled it.
It was a rabbit made of seven or eight puppets, round and round like a pile of little snowballs. They are in a posture that normal rabbits can't do, with their paws raised, ice coke on their heads, neat and aggressive... lined up in a column to roll towards Wen Shi... No, come.
The leading one was a little different. There was a note on the Coke it held high, and on it was a very strong line of words: Apologize, smile.
When smelling: "..."
This is what the grandfather of the judge did.
Wen Shi sat indifferently for a while, and then the snowballs started crawling towards him by grabbing his robes.
After a few more seconds, he grabbed the collar so that the rabbit wouldn't pull it off. Then he grabbed a can of iced Coke, snapped the tab and took a sip before raising his eyes.
Seeing Chen Buo leaning against the door, with the moonlight behind him, his eyes swept across the table and the red fire, and said to him, "I'm here to ask for tea."
***
At that moment, Xia Qiao was standing by the wall of the living room of the Shen family, withdrawing his hand from the end of the famous tree. He wiped his name, but no more ink marks were left on his fingertips.
Because this time, the word "Xiaqiao" was no longer forcibly added by him.
He looked at it for a long time, then walked back to the bedroom.
He sat down at the table by the window in the bedroom, took out a notebook from a drawer, turned to a blank page, grabbed a pen and started writing.
When he was very young, when he saw Shen Qiao sitting at his desk and writing a diary, he couldn't help but ask, "Grandpa, why are you writing this?"
Shen Qiao said, "I want to remember something."
"Then just use your brain to remember?"
"There are too many, and some will always be forgotten."
"Did you forget seriously?"
"It's not serious," Shen Qiao said, "but it will be a pity."
"why?"
Shen Qiao thoughtfully said: "Because some stories are actually very important, but the people in the stories may forget them when they wake up. If someone can remember some for them, it would be good."
Xia Qiao couldn't understand when he was a child, so after Shen Qiao's death, those diaries were broken.
Fortunately, he understood now, and continued those stories.
He wrote for a long time, remembering the people he met in Xi'an for a few days, the cages that were untied, the girl named "Lanlan", and the grandmother she had left.
Until the full moon slowly moved from the corner of the pane to the center, the silver-white light covered the entire table, and he could smell a faint scent from the gap in the window.
He was stunned for a long time, raised his head, and saw the white plum tree in the backyard standing quietly in the night, the top of the long, jagged branch, not when a flower bloomed silently.
… grandfather
His fingers trembled, and he put down the pen and hurried out.
The pen rolled around on the table, and a drop of ink smeared on the page.
Above the ink marks are the last few lines he has just written.
…
In the books I read before, it is said that all dharmas are impermanent, all omissions are suffering, all living beings are suffocating, and there are too few clear people in the world. And the reason why judges exist is to help people remove obstacles.
At that time, I had never been in a cage, nor had I released a cage, and there were very few people I met, so I misunderstood the meaning of this sentence. I thought that was hoping people would be okay.
It was only later that I realized I was wrong.
The judge did not go and care about it, but let those cares be placed somewhere.
Grandpa said that this is a long road with no end in sight. Someone has walked for more than a thousand years, and I don't know how long I will walk.
No matter how long it takes, I'll write it down like a grandpa, and it's proof that those stories happened.
It was Xiaohan the day before yesterday. A girl named "Lanlan" saw her grandma for the last time. Although she had forgotten what happened in the cage, her grandma knew where she lived and left no regrets. She was smiling when she left. .
This is the meaning of our existence.
On January 7, 21, the white plum blossomed.
Xiaqiao was in Ningzhou.
***
Maybe you don't remember...
You actually said goodbye to the person who left, some long night.
-End of text-
The author has something to say: I used to be afraid of writing a preface and postscript, but this article is a bit bumpy, and I think I should give an explanation to all those who follow it all the way to the end.
This year has not been a good year for me. In the first half of the year, one of the elders in the family has passed away, and the two are seriously ill. They have both lived in the same building in the same hospital. I've been running back and forth between the different floors of that building for a long time this year, and at one point there was a bit of a shadow there. Affected by these, the tone of this article is also very different from what I originally expected. It is really not a cookie, so I still want to apologize to everyone. The first time I asked for a long vacation at the end of September was because my grandmother was vomiting blood. I received a call and rushed back to my hometown. I received several critical illness notices that night. The doctor said that grandma is too old, the tumor has grown all the way from the lymph to the abdominal cavity, the lungs and stomach are in a mess, squeezing various organs, and there is no point of treatment. It is recommended that we prepare some things for the funeral as soon as possible. . The elders in the family are generally conservative in this regard, but I am not very reconciled, so there are some differences, so that I spend a lot more time and energy on this matter than expected, and I don’t know how to describe it in the middle. Reasons for asking for leave, estimating the length of the leave, in a bad mood and do not want to surf the Internet. I'm sorry for causing a lot of trouble and trouble for everyone because of the evasion and willfulness for a while. But I really want to thank you for your tolerance and understanding, which allowed me to travel to different cities for nearly two months to find more suitable hospitals and more targeted experts. At first, I didn't have any hope, I just felt that I should try my best, otherwise I would regret too much. Unexpectedly, I was lucky and met the right doctor. Now my grandmother is halfway through her second course of treatment, her condition is surprisingly good, and her tumor is shrinking. This is the happiest thing for me this year. In a few days, 2020 will pass, and this article has reached the "end of the text". Thank you for your company for eight months.
There will be an episode later, but it may take a while. Because the hospital beds are tight, my grandmother has been in need of pick-up and drop-off during this time.
The new article is an ancient one, and the general content and characters are similar, but the title of the article has never been suitable.
I used to think that the best blessing was "peace and joy," and I feel that way even more now. So, the New Year is coming, I wish you all good health, peace and joy in the long days to come.
good night~