……

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, not passing it to his mouth.

The soot slowly grew longer, like a burning hope.

The wind was blowing, and the wind was blowing from afar against the ground, sweeping through the verdant vegetation and the past, blowing away the long soot and the wisps of smoke that rose.

The family arranged a blind date for him, and the top students came back from the big city, which was always very popular, 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 that it was a psychological problem, and he didn't know if this psychology was the sequelae of being fostered, or because of the child who was taken away by Xu Wei, or because of something else.

In short, he can't do it anymore, and he doesn't want to do it anymore.

Yes, such a he, no matter who he marries in the village, it will ruin the family.

So it's a matter of course to be treated as a monster -

He couldn't say that he still had two children outside, a son and a daughter.

He hadn't even seen them in person, he didn't know where they were, he didn't know how they were doing, he didn't even know what their birthday was, he only knew that it was probably winter.

Maybe he's a monster...... Sun Wen himself felt that he didn't live like a person, he tried his best to get out of the exam, went out of the mountain village to the big city, wanted to get ahead, and wanted to leave this small mountain village forever.

Eventually, however, he returned, scarred from outside, and turned into a monster.

After going around for more than ten years, and finally returning to the original point, what is it for?

He couldn't figure it out.

The original dream now looks like a joke, if you can do it all over again, maybe you shouldn't have gone to any university from the beginning, stay here and find a woman to get married and have children, continue the circle of your father's generation, plain and stable, is the best choice.

The wife and children are hot on the kang, which is very good, but it is also a luxury for him now.

The last bit of spark left on the cigarette butt between his fingers, Sun Wen raised his hand and took a hard puff, the spicy smell of the burning filter poured into his throat, making his thin face wrinkle, but he didn't spit it out, but took a deep breath, felt the spiciness, threw the cigarette butt to the ground and crushed it fiercely, and then patted his ass and stood up.

But in his thirties, the back of the strong man who was fit was already a little rickety, his clothes were loose and hanging on his body, and his face no longer had that vitality.

Ignorance is a kind of happiness, because they don't ask for much, the price of wheat has risen by three points, and the pork has dropped by more than a piece, which can make them happy—Sun Wen now envies them, those people in the village, those people he looked down on before.

The smoke rose from the ruined temple in the distance, he looked down the hillside, raised his feet and walked over there, this habit was learned from Xu Wei, she always went to the Datong Temple on the outskirts of Los Angeles on the fifteenth day of the new year to put two pillars of incense, he used to scoff at it, but now he has also become a devout believer.

Because there he could feel peace of mind.

Whenever in the dead of night, he always thinks of the two children when he can't sleep, imagining the two dolls called Dad, with little short legs and small arms, crawling around on him, and then his heart twitches and hurts, as if he was pierced by a knife on the tip of his heart and slowly rotated, and the blood dripped out, cold.

The night was like a big hand squeezing him, making him breathless, curling himself into a ball, trying to shrink into the dust.

Only the compassion and solemnity in front of him, the solemn statue of Baoxiang can make him feel a trace of warmth, Sun Wen lit a small handful of incense candles, gently waved twice to extinguish the flames, stepped forward to insert it into the incense burner, and watched the curling green smoke rise and float to the Buddha statue.

"Do you want to eat together?"

At this time, it was almost dusk, and the dishes in the temple had been prepared, a porridge and a dish, and the old monk had only made his own share, but now he was ready to divide half of it.

"Thank you."

Sun Wen did not refuse and followed him to the backyard.

The vegetables are Chinese cabbage, which the old monk himself planted on the hillside, and the porridge is millet porridge, which is bought at the bottom of the hillside - or half bought and half given.

There are people in the nearby village who believe in Buddhism, there are also people who don't believe, and there are half-believers, occasionally when they want to do something, they will always send some steamed buns or rice noodles when they meet the old monks, and instruct a sentence: The master asked the Buddha to bless me to sell more money / Let the Buddha bless my child to take the first exam, etc., which is a thought.

There is not much porridge, and there is even less when two people share a bowl, Sun Wen can even drink it in two sips, but he didn't do that, took the cold steamed bun handed by the old monk, took a bite of the dish with chopsticks, a mouthful of porridge, and chewed slowly.

When he was in Los Angeles, he also went to Datong Temple with Xu Wei to eat vegetarian food, but the food there is much better than here, vegetarian chicken and duck, and the variety of dishes is not much inferior to that of the hotel.

It's just that there's no tranquility at the moment.

At dusk, two people were sitting on a small wooden bench in the backyard of the dilapidated temple, eating dinner quietly, and the wind blew in from the door, bringing a touch of coolness to the summer dusk.

Putting the last mouthful of porridge into his mouth, Sun Wen got up and went to the side to wash his bowl, and saw that there was not much water in the bucket, so he fetched two buckets of water from the well - now the village has been connected to running water, only this old antique is still here, and it is not easy to use, occasionally there will be no water, and then it will be necessary to go to a distant village to carry water, and use a small wheelbarrow to push it back.

The outside world is changing with each passing day, but it has not affected the small temple in this remote ravine, everything is stuck in a few decades ago, which makes Sun Wen feel unreal about returning to his childhood.

He likes it.

"In this world, is there really a fairy Buddha?"

After that thank you, Sun Wen said 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 ...... here" Sun Wen pursed his lips, not knowing what words to use.

"I'm just used to it." The old monk understood what he meant, and patted his patched clothes, "Otherwise, where else can I go?" ”

“……”

Sun Wen was speechless.

I thought he was a reclusive cultivator, but I didn't expect it to be just an old man who was powerless to struggle in his last years.

Habit is really a terrible thing, and you can't ask for it when you want it.

He also wants to get used to his current life, but he always thinks about the things that have been left behind.

"You can see 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: "There are some things, maybe you can tell me about them, anyway, I am almost going to enter the ground, I can't take anything with me, I can't leave anything." He glanced sideways at Sun Wen, "I haven't seen what the outside world is like." ”

"Outside...... It's all demons and monsters out there. ”

Sun Wen smiled, the corners of his mouth twitched at his face, and he looked a little stiff.

He looked left and right, pulled a futon, and sat down in front of the door, leaning his back against the door frame, his expression flashing with memories.

Ever betrayed a partner.

He has ruined other people's marriages.

I have left behind my dignity.

Make black with competitors.

There are also two children who can't be recognized.

and a free and dashing woman.