Soon after Jiang Sheng left, rumors began to spread in the school, some said that Jiang Sheng offended people and was sent to the front line, and some said that Jiang Sheng was killed halfway.

A month later, Jiang Sheng sent a letter to Xiao Wu to report his safety to his family.

Jiang Sheng didn't say how cruel it was on the battlefield, he just told Xiao Wu how many people he had saved and which comrades-in-arms he had met, and asked Xiao Wu to tell his mother that he was safe and didn't have to worry.

But Jiang Sheng never said a word to me in his letters.

On the day of the New Year, I tossed and turned, remembering the year when Jiang Sheng first came to Sanlitun, he took me and Xiaowu to the street to buy a cake for my birthday, and my heart was sour and unbearable.

Until the beginning of spring of the following year, Xiao Wu sent me a bottle full of colorful paper tubes, he said that this is a wishing bottle, as long as he writes his wish on paper and stuffs it in the bottle, the wish can be fulfilled.

Xiao Wu and I both wrote down our respective wishes, and in the evening, I secretly watched Xiao Wu's wishes, and Jiang Sheng came back.

Exactly the same desire.

I lay on the edge of the bed in the women's dormitory, looking at the courtyard where the laurel trees parted their branches and forks, casting a mottled shadow that shattered the silver moonlight and fell to the ground.

That year, it snowed heavily in Beiping City, and I would often go out of the classroom, naughtily stepping on the snow, and it was very pleasant to hear the sound of creaking in the snow, just like the sound of the person I was looking forward to when he was about to return, and I only needed to turn around to see him.

I don't know when I started to lose sleep all night long, sometimes with dark circles under the endorsement of exercises, high school courses are very intense, especially arithmetic, linear algebra and functions have always been my weaknesses, I have to do exercises day and night to cope with the increasingly difficult exams, there used to be places where Jiang Sheng would always teach me, but now I am the first in the class, some problems I can only remember the solution, I can't understand at all.

As long as I stopped, I naturally thought about Jiang Sheng in my mind, I don't know how many times I asked Xiao Wu when Jiang Sheng would come back, I don't know how many times I heard footsteps and looked back at all I was lost, I don't know how many times when I woke up late at night, I would feel very confused when I looked at Jiang Sheng's bed was empty.

I don't know when I started to like noisy temperament became very quiet, just like Jiang Sheng, who liked to be quiet back then, every time I returned to Sanlitun from school, I would go to the north slope behind Sanlitun to see if there was a familiar back, to see the babbling river, and the rhythm of the woods in the distance.

I sometimes dream of my father, and I dreamed that his big hands touched my face, and I woke up suddenly and saw a big mouse next to the bed, and I screamed in fright.

When my mother heard the movement, she would come from next door, and Xiao Wu was also awakened by my scream, and he listened to my cry and picked up the flat pole at the door to shoot the mouse, and when my mother saw that I was fine, she blamed me for making too much fuss, and then went back to the house.

After my mother left, the house soon became quiet again, and I didn't let Xiao Wu blow out the kerosene lamp, so I watched the fire burn until I fell asleep.

I was dazed and heard Xiao Wu calling my name, as if to test whether I was sleeping, I didn't answer, and then I heard Xiao Wu sobbing, Xiao Wu said, "Just now I thought it was my mother who came to look for me." ”

In the first year after Jiang Sheng left, everything was as usual, the people of Sanlitun were still rising and setting at sunset, the primary school in Qiantang Town still heard the sound of children's reading every day, the business of the Qin family's Tangkou was thriving, and the Peking opera in Liyuan had nobles cheering every time they opened their voices.

In that year's exam, I finally got my wish to get the first place in the school, my mother was very pleased, and took me to kowtow to Lao Jiang and my father during the Qingming Festival, and by the way, I also kowtowed to Zhang Guangzhu, thanking him for his Arowana so that I could get into the first place in the future and gain fame.

Although some old people in the village who like to listen to books say that women are virtuous if they are not talented, my mother has always ignored such fallacies, she makes money for us to study alone, and my grades will make her understand whether her hard work is worth it, and my mother wants to prove that she is not sorry for her father, to prove that she is not worse than others, and that she can cultivate champions and live proudly.

In the second year when Jiang Sheng went to war, I, Xiao Wu and Zhao Dahai were all in the second year of high school, and that year there was a boy who liked me, and he wrote to me to confess to me, and I agreed.

At that time, Xiao Wu knew that I was in love with that boy and often had emotions with me, and sometimes he would go to the boy for trouble after school at night and ask him to stay away from me.

The boy loves to be clean, wearing a white shirt, and his eyebrows are shallow, like Jiang Sheng.

But our relationship only lasted for two months and ended without a problem, firstly, because Xiao Wu's got in the way, and secondly, because the schoolwork in high school was too intense, and I didn't even have much time to eat with him. I had endless exercises every day, and the boy only held my hand twice in the end, and never even kissed me.

In late May, the Chinese and North Korean armies fought the fifth campaign together, driving the enemy from the Yalu River to the vicinity of the 38th parallel, forcing the US troops to switch from strategic offensive to strategic defense.

In mid-July, when peace talks were held in Kaesong, Jiang Sheng sent a letter saying that the war was about to end and that he was about to return.

Xiao Wu and I couldn't sleep excitedly, and told my mother the news that Jiang Sheng was coming back, my mother was so happy, he looked at Jiang Sheng coming back every day in those days, and as soon as he heard a movement at the door, he immediately put down the dishes and chopsticks, and said: "It may be that your brother is back, you eat, I'll take a look at the door." ”

But her mother returned with a loss every time, she tried her best to control herself from showing it, but there was a grievance in her eyes that could not be hidden.

We waited for Jiang Sheng's return in this torment, from summer to autumn, from autumn to winter, until the night of the Chinese New Year's Eve, my mother made a lot of dumplings, I remembered that when my father was alive, Jiang Sheng was also there, and every time I gobbled up the dumplings in my own bowl, Jiang Sheng would divide the dumplings in my own bowl in half.

I looked at the hot dumplings on the table and couldn't speak, Xiao Wu was telling jokes on the side, chatting with my mother about interesting things at school, I turned around and ran out of the door after eating the dumplings, tears flowed uncontrollably.

I don't understand, why does the newspaper clearly say that peace talks have begun, why haven't they been talked about for half a year, and Jiang Sheng himself said that he was coming back soon, and now he hasn't sent a letter back home for half a year?

The negotiations lasted from July 1951 to October 1952, during which there were many battles and frictions, first the summer offensive, then the autumn offensive, and even the use of bacteriological weapons, until the battlefield shifted to Shangganling.

The war was no longer enough to describe the tragedy, the war correspondent took a photo of the wind and snow shrouded in Shangganling, in the photo, rows of soldiers lying on the trenches were frozen into ice sculptures, I told myself that Jiang Sheng was the least afraid of the cold, such an environment was nothing to him, and he should be a medical soldier, and he would not be trapped in the wind and snow with the soldiers on the front line waiting for death.

Sometimes when I got out of class, I would go to Xiao Wu and ask Jiang Sheng if he had any letters, and ask him to go to the school's mailbox to look carefully, and sometimes I would block next to the school's mailbox, for fear that a girl who had a crush on Jiang Sheng at school would take the letter away when she saw Jiang Sheng's name, and over time, I and the person who sent the letter also got to know each other.

I have known the messenger for more than a year, and I have asked him for more than a year, but he has never seen the names of Jiang Sheng, Jiang Rong and Ma Xiaowu appear.

In the third year after Jiang Sheng left, I was seventeen, and I was seventeen years old.

Xiao Wu and I finally entered the third year of high school, and the tension of the course made me have no time to think, I had to memorize and take notes every day, and I was overwhelmed by the mountains and seas of exercises every day.

In May, the school held a school-wide pre-examination mobilization meeting, and analyzed the current college entrance examination admission scores of various universities and the development direction of future disciplines.

At that time, science and literature were more popular, and the development of the country needed to be driven by science and technology, and countless angry young people hoped to become writers and poets.

As a native of Beiping, it is naturally excellent to be admitted to Peking University and Tsinghua University, but the score line of these two universities is too high, only 30 points away from the full score, if the last question of arithmetic can not be done, the slightest mistake in other subjects will be Sun Shan, and at that time Shanghai National Fudan University was also a famous school, the school teacher and I discussed for a long time, I and my mother also discussed for a long time, and finally decided to apply for Shanghai National Fudan University.

I seemed to have forgotten a person in the hectic and longing for the future, until the beginning of June, when suddenly one day, the head teacher asked me to go to the school teaching office to answer the phone, the call was made by Shen A-Niang, she said that my mother was hospitalized.

My mother's health has always been healthy, and the sudden hospitalization is likely to be related to the construction site, and various accidents often occur at the construction site, and Xiao Wu and I are often worried, for fear that something will happen to my mother, so we hurried to the Qiantang Town Hospital where my mother is.

In the ward, my mother was lying on the bed, her face was very bad, and she had a hanging bottle on her head, and she watched me and Xiao Wu come in in a daze.

"Mother, what's wrong with you?" Xiao Wu asked eagerly, looking at his mother on the hospital bed, for fear that she would break her leg or be injured somewhere.

"Don't worry, your mother is fine, it's just heat stroke, and I haven't rested for a long time." Shen A-Niang said.

The mother's expression was very tired, and she fell asleep without saying a few words to us, Xiao Wu was not at ease, so she personally asked the doctor about her mother's condition, and learned that her mother was overworked and a little relieved.

In the afternoon, I went back to school, and it happened that the school informed me that there was a three-day holiday before the exam, and my mother was discharged from the hospital the next day.

Today's Xiao Wu is not only tall and strong, but also cooks good food. My mother is sometimes closer to Xiao Wu than to me, and when I talk to Xiao Wu, my mother has always been towards Xiao Wu.

The next day, my mother went to the next village to get a haircut early, and I woke up from my sleep and habitually looked at the empty ground around me.

I suddenly panicked and ran to the back room to carry Jiang Sheng's bed out.

Xiao Wu looked behind him and asked, "Jiang Rong, what are you doing lifting the bed if you have nothing to do?" ”

I ignored it, grabbed the head of the bed and dragged it out of the granary room, Xiao Wu stepped forward to help, but I pushed it away, she saw that my hand was pricked by sawdust and bled blood, frowned and said, "Jiang Rong, your hand is bleeding." ”

I couldn't lift the bed, I only felt tightness in my chest, Xiao Wu pulled me out of the house, I beat Xiao Wu's chest, pushed him away, at that time my mother just came in from outside the door, saw that I was going to carry the bed, and asked me what nerves I had.

I glared at my mother and said, "Jiang Sheng is not dead, why are you putting away his bed!" ”

In my mind, I suddenly remembered Jiang Sheng's voice and smile, and remembered his bits and pieces in Sanlitun, which was difficult to suppress, and the river burst its banks.

I sat on the ground and cried aggrievedly: "It's been three years, why hasn't Jiang Sheng come back yet?" ”