Lovers (novella) Zhang Baotong 2017.8.6

Sometimes, I often wonder why we see so many people every day, and thousands of people in our lifetimes, but why a girl or woman occupies our hearts like the sun and we can never forget her. This question has been hazy in my mind for many years, but I can't figure it out, and later, when I grew up, I slowly realized that it was a piece of sunshine in our hearts, a piece of spring love, a piece of beauty, and a piece of longing that can never be forgotten. It underpins the beauty of our lives and the expectation of life. In this sense of beauty and awareness, you can feel free to pull the lens of time back a long time ago, to your teenage years, childhood, school days, to your ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, and even to your four. And you in the lens are forever shrouded in an aura and brilliance. Because of this, the blandness and suffering you experience will be endowed with an intangible beauty.

At the age of four, I suddenly had an impression and memory of the world. Before that, I was just a baby or a toddler, and everything was chaotic to me, except for some behaviors and habits that were natural and instinctive. Maybe I can only eat, drink, and sleep, and even see things with my eyes, hear sounds with my ears, and recognize my parents and older sisters, but I don't have a mind yet, I don't have a memory. So, everything that happened before the age of four was not in my mind's eye, as if everything had nothing to do with me.

I don't know what day, I suddenly opened my eyes like a sleeping baby, and what appeared in front of me was a clear and quiet world, and there was a meandering river between heaven and earth. The river stretched and flowed briskly, and on both sides of the valley were the high slopes of loess, which were vast and flat, as deep and desolate as the old earth, and the sound of the wind swept over the sunlit fields of wheat like a baby's groan, and blew uninterruptedly towards the river, and there was not a single figure to be seen for many miles. It's a bit like the eternal wilderness when the heavens opened the world.

As the river flows through the yellow earth between Pucheng and Dali in Shaanxi Province, the river becomes wide and slow, and more than a dozen piers made of reinforced concrete tens of meters high rise above the riverbed. Next to the piers, a small makeshift wooden bridge for bridge builders to travel back and forth between the two banks. These are the approximate impressions I had when I first woke up from my memory.

My memory was still very monotonous and focused, and I only remembered some of the images that were impressive, and the things that I didn't pay much attention to were blurred. I can't even remember the workers who walked back and forth on the wooden bridge and on the piers. I only remember that there was a wild silence between the valleys that were shining brightly in the sun, there was no sound, under the vast sky, the river could not see the end, the barren land could not see the edge, and I was the only one playing by the river under the whole sky, as if I was the Adam created by the Creator, waiting for the Creator to create another person for me to accompany me.

Time seemed to move slowly in the sky of Eden, and I waited by the river for a long time, and I had lost my patience for a long time. I went up the slope of the riverside embankment to the small wooden bridge in search of new pleasures. The wooden bridge was built so easily that no one was allowed to go up to the bridge except for the construction crew. However, on this day, the workers were on holiday, and the entire construction site was empty. So, I went up to the bridge and jumped and ran around on the little wooden bridge. Then I lay on the fence of the wooden bridge and watched the river flow into the distance. Because of the heavy rain for the past two days, the river rose a lot overnight, and the yellow muddy water rushed from the surface of the river with branches and debris.

Suddenly the fence of the wooden bridge collapsed, because the fence was nailed with very thin sticks, which did not have much bearing at all. I fell into the river all at once. I was up and down in the river, and I was terrified. The river was fast, but luckily there were piers in my way so that I would not be swept away by the water. I've been floating between wooden bridges and piers. I tried my best to reach the wooden bridge with my hands, and as long as I reached the wooden bridge, I could hold on to the wooden bridge tightly without being swept away by the river and not sinking in the river. In fact, people are not drowned as soon as they fall into the water, water is buoyant, it will sink your whole body into the water, and when you struggle in the water, the water will float your head to the surface. Although the time it takes to float is very short, about a second, it is this second that can make you breathe out. However, I was only four years old at the time, and it was terrible to sink and float in the river. Whenever I floated up from the water, I tried my best to grab the wooden bridge, and as long as I grabbed the wooden bridge, I would be saved.

But the wooden bridge was more than a meter above the water, and I couldn't reach it. Every time I pounced, the person would sink into the water again. I was just splashing in the water. With that, my head was once again peeking out of the water. However, I was unable to reach the wooden bridge several times. But I can't give up, and the result of giving up is to be swept away by the flood or drowned in the river. After about three or four minutes, I still didn't reach the wooden bridge, and I was terrified, because on this wild construction site, except for the workers who built the bridge, I didn't see a single person walking through it for many days, but the workers were already on vacation. I want to cry, but I don't want to cry at this time of life and death.

At this moment, a little girl walked across the bridge. The little girl was wearing a red blouse, like a bright red glow flashing in front of my eyes, which gave me hope for life. I gave up reaching for the wooden bridge, and instead stretched one arm high so she could see me. The little girl came over and watched me struggle in the water, calmly skimming a thin wooden stick about a meter long from the collapsed fence, and then stretched it out to me, and I grabbed it. She dragged me to the bridge with a stick, knelt on the deck with both legs, and pulled me to the bridge with her hands.

At this time, I saw that this girl was about the same age as me, neatly dressed, and her body was spotlessly clean, especially since she was really good-looking, and she was not a country child at first glance. The children of the country are always simple, coarse, shabby, and snotty. The girl pulled me to the bridge, got up from it, threw away the stick, patted the dust on her pants with her hand, looked at me, and then, without saying a word, walked towards the bridge.

Many years later, when I look back on these scenes, I feel like they were the prelude to my whole life. And there are only two characters in this prologue, of course, not Adam and Eve, but me and Lin Yuqing. Therefore, every time I see Lin Yuqing, I can't help but think of the little girl in red who rescued me from the river by the Luohe Bridge.

For many days after that, I sat on the bank of the river by the bridge, waiting for the little girl in red to appear to me again like a fairy. Actually, I really thought of her as a fairy sent by God to save me. In my memories when I first woke up when I was four years old, this beautiful girl in bright red clothes was the first person who magically appeared in my life memory. She was truly like the Eve that the Creator had sent for me. So, throughout my life, her figure has been like a tall goddess towering over my heart.

Of course, in my memory, there is my mom and sister, and my brother. My mom and my sister were the people I remember the most when I was old. They were as deeply etched in my young children's memories as the girl. That's probably why I grew up with a love for women.

At that time, our family lived in a cave on a hillside by the river, just like the Peking Man. The cave is not the kind of wide and wide cave we see in northern Shaanxi, but a hole of seven or eight square meters and a height of one person is dug near the hillside, and then a sack piece is hung at the entrance of the cave as a door. In fact, it is more accurate and appropriate to call it a cave. At that time, there were a lot of wolves, and at night, it was pitch black outside the cave, and under the starry sky, there was the sound of wolves howling everywhere, so frightened that people did not dare to go out at night. Sometimes, wolves would sneak under the sack into their holes, so my mother would often stay awake all night.

Originally, the families of the staff of the Agency lived in the vicinity of the bridge construction site, but later, the Agency built a railway family compound on the side of the Pinglong Temple, four or five kilometers away from the construction site, so the family members moved out of the cave. However, these were all things before I could remember, and when I really understood the world in front of me, we were the only ones left next to the whole construction site. Or, in the time and space I remember, there are often wild and wild and wild places. Yes, the sun rises again and again from one side of the mountain and sets the other side, and the river flows freely all day and night through the wide valleys under the blue sky. This is how my childhood was spent day by day by the Luohe River.

The girl in red who rescued me from the river seemed destined to have some kind of fate with me, to be closely linked to my life. I sat by the river, as usual, and waited for the girl to reappear, and strangely enough, I wanted to see her not out of gratitude, but for seeing her beauty again. My mom was busy all day long trying to make ends meet, my sister had to help her do a lot of things, and my brother was like he didn't exist, he went to school far away, he always went out before dawn, and he didn't come home until I went to bed at night. So, no one cares about me. I almost drowned in the river that time, and they didn't know it. I always play alone by the river all day and feel very lonely, so I always think about that beautiful girl and hope that she can be with me.

However, I didn't wait for the girl to appear again, but what I waited for was the destruction of our family.