…
Sun Wen sat alone on the hillside, with his hands on his knees and a cigarette between his fingers, but he just kept holding it and didn't pass it to his mouth.
The soot slowly grows longer, like the hope that is burning is gradually fading.
The wind is blowing, and the wind is blowing close to the ground from a distance, passing over the verdant vegetation, blowing past the past, and blowing away the long soot and rising wisps of smoke.
The family arranged a blind date for him, high-achieving students who came back from big cities were always in demand, but none of them could make it - he really couldn't do it.
I secretly went to the hospital to see it, and the doctor said it was a psychological problem. He didn't know if it was a sequelae of being raised, or because of the child taken away by Xu Wei, or because of something else.
In short, he is dead, and he doesn't want to do evil anymore.
Yes, for him like this, no matter who he marries in the village, it will ruin his family.
So of course it was treated as a monster—
He couldn't say that he had two children outside, a son and a daughter.
He didn't even meet them, he didn't know where they were, how they were doing now, he didn't even know when their birthdays were, he only knew it was around winter time.
Maybe he is really a monster... Sun Wen himself felt that he didn't live like a human being. He tried his best to pass the exam, walked out of the mountain village to the big city, wanted to be famous, and wanted to leave this small mountain village forever.
However, in the end he came back, with many scars outside, and turned into a monster.
Going around for more than ten years, and finally returned to the original point, why
He couldn't figure it out.
The original dream now looks like a joke. If I could do it all over again, maybe I shouldn’t have gone to any university from the very beginning. I stayed here to find a woman to marry and have children, to continue the circle of my parents’ generation. is the best choice.
It's good to have a wife and children on the kang, but it's also a luxury for him now.
The last spark remained on the cigarette butt between his fingers. Sun Wen raised his hand and took a deep puff. The acrid smell of the burning filter poured into his throat, wrinkling his thin face, but instead of spitting it out, he took a deep breath. , Feeling the pungentness in his lungs, he threw the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it hard, then patted his buttocks and stood up.
But in his thirties, the back of the strong fitness man was already a little bent, the clothes were hanging loosely on his body, and the vitality was no longer on his face. The wind and the sun turned him into a rough man, leaving only Vicissitudes.
Ignorance is a kind of happiness, because they don't ask for much, the price of wheat has risen by three cents, and the price of pork has fallen by more than one yuan, which can make them happy-Sun Wen is very envious of them now, those people in the village, those who were looked down upon by him before people.
Smoke rose again from the ruined temple in the distance. He looked down the hillside and walked over there. This habit was learned from Xu Wei. She always went to the Datong Temple on the outskirts of Luocheng on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year. He used to sneer at offering two sticks of incense, but now he has become a devout believer.
Because there he can feel the inner peace.
In the dead of night, when he couldn't sleep, he always thought of those two children, imagining the appearance of the two dolls calling Dad, with short legs and arms so thin, crawling around on him, and then his heart twitched. The throbbing pain was like being stabbed by a knife on the apex of the heart and spinning slowly, the blood trickled out, cold.
The night was like a big hand squeezing him, making him breathless, curling himself up into a ball, trying to shrink into the dust.
Only the solemn and compassionate statue in front of him could make him feel a bit of warmth. Sun Wen lit a small incense candle, lightly waved it twice to extinguish the flames, stepped forward and inserted it into the incense burner, watching the curling green Smoke rose and floated over the Buddha statue.
"Want to eat together?"
It was almost dusk at this time, and the vegetarian food in the temple had been prepared. One porridge and one dish, the old monk originally only made his own portion, but now he was going to share half of it.
"Thanks."
Sun Wen didn't refuse, and followed him to the backyard.
The food is Chinese cabbage, which the old monk grows on the hillside himself, and the porridge is millet porridge, which is bought at the bottom of the hillside—or buy half and give half away.
There are people in the nearby villages who believe in Buddhism, some don’t believe it, and some are dubious. Occasionally when they have to do something, they will always send some steamed buns or rice noodles when they meet the old monk. The Buddha blesses my child to get the first place in the exam, which is a thought.
There is not much porridge, and it would be even less for two people to share a bowl. Sun Wen could even drink it in two mouthfuls, but he didn't do that. He took the cold steamed buns handed over by the old monk, took a bite of vegetables and porridge with chopsticks, and chewed slowly with.
When he was in Los Angeles, he and Xu Wei went to Datong Temple to eat vegetarian food, but the vegetarian dishes there were much better than here, vegetarian chicken and duck, and the various dishes were not inferior to those in hotels.
Just not the peace of the moment.
At sunset, the two sat on a small wooden bench in the backyard of the dilapidated temple and had dinner quietly. The wind blowing in from the door brought a touch of coolness to the summer evening.
Putting the last mouthful of porridge into his mouth, Sun Wen got up and went to the side to wash his bowl. Seeing that there was not much water in the bucket, he fetched two more buckets of water from the well. This old antique is left, and it is not easy to use. Occasionally, there will be no water. At that time, you need to go to a distant village to fetch water and push it back with a small wheelbarrow.
The outside world is changing with each passing day, but it doesn't affect the small temple in this remote mountain valley. Everything stays decades ago, which makes Sun Wen feel unreal as if he had returned to his childhood.
He likes it.
"In this world, are there really gods and Buddhas?"
After that thank you, Sun Wen uttered the second sentence, breaking the tranquility of the ancient temple.
The old monk glanced at him, shook his head and said, "I don't know."
"Then you are here..." Sun Wen pursed his lips, not knowing what words to use.
"It's just getting used to it." The old monk understood what he meant, patted his patched clothes, "otherwise where else could we go?"
"..."
Sun Wen was speechless.
I thought he was a person who practiced in seclusion, but I didn't expect that he was just an old man who was dying and unable to struggle.
Habit is really a terrible thing, when you want it, you can't ask for it.
He also wants to get used to the present life, but he always thinks about those things left outside.
"It can be seen that you are different from them."
The old monk took a tattered futon and put it at the door, sat down to enjoy the shade, looked into the distance and said: "Some things, maybe you can tell me, anyway, I'm about to go to the ground, I can't take anything with me, I can't take anything with me." I can’t stay.” He glanced sideways at Sun Wen, “I haven’t seen what the outside world looks like.”
"Outside...there are some demons and ghosts outside."
Sun Wen smiled, and the corners of his mouth moved his face, looking a little stiff.
He looked around, pulled a futon, put it in front of the door and sat down, leaning his back against the door frame, memories appeared in his expression.
Betrayed a partner once.
ruined other people's marriages.
Abandoned his own dignity.
Make black with competitors.
There were also two unrecognizable children.
And a free and unrestrained woman.
(end of this chapter)