A man over the age of 50 still vividly remembers the scene when he heard the first train whistle in his life.

He had just put on his first red belt. It is a mascot for the people of the hometown to avoid disasters and pray for peace and well-being when they encounter the natal year, and both men and women, young and old, regardless of dignity, must wear their pants on the morning of the first day of the natal year. It was made by my mother from four strands of self-spun cotton thread, washed by pulp, boiled and dyed in bright red color, polished with beeswax, and then woven between the knees. As early as when my mother was kneading cotton twists and spinning threads, she kept chanting: "The baby's natal year is approaching, and I have to weave a red belt." "Before the arrival of the last month of the year, which marked the end of the year, his mother had knitted a red belt, and only let him try to strangle it and hide it in a wooden cabinet, until the evening of the Chinese New Year's Eve, took it out and put it next to his pillow, and told him to tie the red belt when he got up in the morning to change into new clothes and trousers. He was only excited by the novelty of the scarlet ribbon, but he could not realize that the second twelve years of his life would begin tomorrow morning......

Half a year later, the red belt around his waist had turned purple and black, and the bright red was soaked in sweat and urine and faded black pants to lose its original color. He still took this life away from the town where the primary school was located in his hometown, and went to the historic town of Baqiao, thirty miles away, to apply for the middle school. He was led by a homeroom teacher in his 40s, surnamed Du, who was accompanied by more than 20 classmates, some of whom were already married, because they had only been given the opportunity to study after the founding of New China, and he was the youngest and shortest among them.

It's a real journey of a lifetime.

I walked out of the back door of the town's elementary school and stepped onto the road. This is a national highway, starting from Xi'an in the west, along the Bahe River Road, and then entering the Qinling Mountains, circling in the Qinling Mountains and rocks, winding all the way to Hubei Province. It was his first trip three kilometres away from home. He was so excited and frightened last night that he could barely sleep. He carried a schoolbag on his shoulder, which contained textbooks, a brush and an ink cartridge, mixed buns from several students' stoves, and a cloth towel for wiping his face, which was also a handmade cloth towel woven by his mother on a loom...... But there was not even a penny in his pocket.

He started to walk with his teachers and classmates, and he didn't feel tired after walking for more than ten miles, most of the classmates were from the villages near the town, and no one had ever gone far away, and they were very interested, full of energy, talking and laughing all the way. Later tragedies struck from under the feet. He felt a little pain in his heel, took off his shoe and looked at it, the sole of the shoe was worn through, the red flesh on the heel was dripping with blood, and the blood soaked the sole and upper of the shoe. The first thing he cursed was the sand on the national highway paved with sand, and he didn't think that the soles of his mother's cloth shoes could not withstand the grinding of the sand, and then he realized that they were the soles of a pair of old cloth shoes that had long been worn thin. He was able to hold on to his feet before he noticed that his shoes were broken, and when he saw the flesh on his heels, he was timid and slowed down.

It seems that not only is there something wrong with the heels, but the whole body has become sleepy and weak, and the legs have lost the courage to take a step forward, and every time they lift their feet and move, they are afraid of the flesh and blood caused by landing. He saw Teacher Du waving to him, and he heard his classmates calling him in front of him. He burst into tears, feeling that he could no longer catch them. He hoped to bump into a carriage being driven by an acquaintance, and it suddenly occurred to him that he didn't know any of the handlebar styles.

When he saw Mr. Du and a married elementary school student chasing after him, he immediately wiped away his tears. The care and encouragement of teachers and classmates did not alleviate the pain in my feet and the fear caused by lifting my feet and touching the ground. Teachers and classmates can't just wait for him to go forward. He didn't say anything about the soles of his shoes and the heels were worn out, not out of strength but purely because of his love for face, and he was afraid that his classmates who could wear wearable rubber sneakers would laugh at him for being sour. I don't know when this kind of face-loving psychology was formed, so that it affected his entire life course later, and he was unwilling to cry poor in front of anyone, even in front of the party. The words left for him by the teacher and his classmates before leaving was: "Don't dare to stop when you go forward, it doesn't matter if you slow down, you just don't dare to stop." We are waiting for you ahead. ”

He couldn't see the small team led by Teacher Du anymore. He expected to pick up a rag to cover his heel on the road, and was disappointed that he didn't find even a rag the size of a palm. He took a handful of leaves from the poplar tree on the side of the road and stuffed them into the socket of his shoes, and it only took about two minutes to get comfortable, and it was only a dozen meters before he walked out of the short period of beauty and childishness. He finally took out the cloth towel used to wipe his face from his school bag, which was twice the size of a textbook and could only cover one foot. Washing and wiping your face is no longer very important, and you can use it instead of a cloth towel by lifting up the placket. Wrapping one foot in a cloth towel relieves pain by eliminating direct rubbing of the sand and stones, and allows the other foot to stand on tiptoe and avoid landing on the heel. He limped forward on tiptoe, and sure enough, he sped up. After walking an unknown number of distances, the cloth soon wore out again, and he turned it upside down and wrapped it around his feet until it was worn out and useless by the treadmills. He finally took out the textbook from his school bag, first arithmetic, then Chinese, and tore it off one by one and stuffed it into the socket of his shoe...... As long as he can walk into the examination room, he is confident that he can pass the exam without flipping them, and if he falls behind, these textbooks will become useless waste, whether it is language or arithmetic. The paper of those textbooks could not withstand the rubbing of sand and stones, and was soon trampled into splinters and scattered from the sockets of shoes and scattered onto the sand and gravel national highway, like paper money thrown along the road when burying the dead. Until the textbook was torn naked, he was almost completely desperate, the pain in his heel gradually intensified to the point that he would be terrified with every lifting of his foot, and the last shred of courage to walk into the examination room was finally broken. He stood and sat down again, waiting for a carriage to catch on the way back, begging even for a strange coachman. He doesn't seem to have a clear goal for middle school, and it's not necessarily bad to go home and mow grass and collect firewood...... The great turn of events happened just as he had just sat down after a complete breakdown, when he heard the hissing of a train whistle.

He was so shaken that he bounced off the ground on the side of the road. He was so frightened that he almost collapsed and sat down. His eardrums remained in a state of unconsciousness for a long time, and his ribcage trembled with the clanging of wheels. He looked around in a panic and panic, and finally saw a puff of white smoke shooting into the blue sky and a roaring train. He could identify trains with the help of a poor illustration in a language textbook. It was the first time in his life that he had seen a train, and the first time he had heard the whistle of a train. Tucked away in the folds of the original slopes, the only sounds of cows, mooing dogs, roosters and birds are heard throughout the year. The train sped past the field in front of him, green carriages, green curtains and white glass, open windows dangling the faces of vague men and women, and the faces of a boy with his hands sticking out of the window...... Until the train disappeared into the willows, until the blue smoke from the willow treetops faded to nothing, until the sound of a steam whistle sounded in the distance, which was no longer so shocking and melodious, he still could not understand what it would be like to be on a train and the people sitting in the train carriages. Especially the boy his age who was already traveling by train?

Oh my God! There are so many people in this world who run miles on a train and don't have to walk on their legs at all! He hurried with his feet, but he wore a pair of cloth shoes with worn soles and torn heels, and he stumbled and stumbled one step at a time! It seemed that an invisible divine power rose from that symbolic part of life, rushed through the belly with the red belt, rushed into the chest, and then rushed to the top of the head. He was unprovoked with rage, all hazy or clear feelings condensed into a single sentence, and he couldn't walk forever in rag shoes with no backsole...... He emptied the rotten cloths, leaves, and confetti that remained in the sockets of his shoes, gritted his teeth and walked again on the sandy and gravel road. The leg was strong, the heel was still bleeding and still hurting, and after a while, it miraculously didn't hurt, it seemed that the heel that was getting deeper and worse did not belong to him, but to another cowardly and cowardly bastard...... A mile or two away from the school where the exam room was located, he finally caught up with his teacher and classmates, but still didn't let them see his miserable two heels.

……

At the time of the catastrophe, which lasted ten years, he felt that he had come to the end of his life, although he was not completely overturned. That year also happened to be the time when he put on his second red belt to start the third round of 12 years. He was destined to end his political life by being drawn into Liu Shaoqi's line, and the literature he loved died just after his debut novel. Family disasters also followed, not alone, but ambushes on three sides. He entered society without any life experience and defense, and soon felt that he was in a desperate situation with no hope, and more than once walked to a well in the middle of the night in an attempt to end himself as a walking corpse. What didn't make him throw himself was that at that last moment he heard the whistle from within his life......

When he put on his third red belt and began the forty-twelfth year of his life, he happened to encounter another major setback. If the last encounter had nothing to do with the red belt and was not yet conscious, this time he was secretly surprised, is there a mysterious periodic cataclysm in human life itself, and he no longer judges it with the simple attitude of a simple atheist. This setback was purely self-inflicted, and he couldn't complain about the heavens, the world, and no one in the world, and he gained notoriety for writing a novel that made a simple and fallacious judgment about life. He once wanted to say goodbye to politics and literature, and return to school to become a rural teacher and make friends with rural children. At the critical juncture of that major life decision, he not only heard the whistle again, but also thought of the cloth shoes that had worn out the soles and worn out heels. What is there to be afraid of? I originally wore cloth shoes with worn soles into society, and in the end, the worst thing I lost was another pair of tattered cloth shoes...... He walked into the library, carried the novels of Maupassant and Chekhov back to his house, and embraced the two Europeans day and night.

He later became a writer. But not a famous writer. But he is always a writer. This writer has passed the age of "knowing the destiny of heaven", and when he looks back on the whole course of life, all the joys that have passed have ceased to be joys, and the pain caused by all the disasters and setbacks he has experienced is no longer pain, but has become a life experience that only he can understand. All that was left was a whistle on a life tape and a pair of cloth shoes with torn soles.

He wants to congratulate his friends who have just put on their first or second red belt in the flowering season, no matter what setbacks, grievances, and dirty things they encounter in the course of their lives in the future, they must not be shaken or justified. Go the path you have identified! Because any vacillation, including justification, will cost you your heart, time, and life, so don't delay your journey.

On June 18, 1993, the grass was in Xiaozhai

Revised on June 21