We are two orphans

Families were formed

There will be another orphan left

In that long

The shadow is pale in the ranks of orphans

All the hustle and bustle of flowers

will turn out

There is no peace in the world

The wings of the earth have fallen off

The orphans flew into the sky

- North Island, "Orphans"

In March this year, late at night in Beijing, in the west of the Lama Temple, a friend gave me a copy of Zhang Chengzhi's "History of the Soul". Touching this book, my heart was full of joy, the first page I opened, the first line I read, my heart beat faster, and my eyes were almost moist -

I stand at a watershed moment in my life.

And I think I've been standing on this ridge for a long time since "Murder Like Water". However, anyone who wants to cross this watershed is as difficult as crossing the river of life and death.

Therefore, the postscript of this "River of Life and Death" should start with me looking at this ridge.

Just like the name "Si Wang", in addition to the homonym that can be known at a glance, it is also because of such a distant view.

In 1985, when I was in the first grade of primary school, I was in the North Suzhou Road Primary School in Shanghai, located in an alley by the Suzhou Creek in Zhabei District, near the old Zhaqiao (Fujian Road Bridge). I remember that there was a school building in an old bungalow, and my mother enrolled me in an art class, which was also in this elementary school, called Feifei Art School. A few years ago, the North Suzhou Road Primary School and my grandmother's old house where I lived were all demolished.

When I was in the third grade, I moved to Changshou Road No. 1 Primary School in Putuo District. Behind the school is the Suzhou Creek, and there is still a small pedestrian bridge. When I was a child, I felt very tall when I looked at everything, but when I grew up, I felt very small when I came back to see it. In the library of our elementary school, I read the first novel Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", albeit in an abbreviated picture book. Deep in the school, a winding path leads to a small courtyard where a three-story school building is hidden. I spent four or five years there. Next to the school building is a private house, I remember that there are many bamboo and fig trees planted outside the window of the private house, and there is a kindergarten next door.

In 1990, I entered the preparatory class of Wuyi Middle School in Putuo District.

Suzhou Creek is just behind the school, and there is a small playground at the entrance, with school buildings to the right and in front, a cinder track to the left, and a row of low-rise two-story houses. It was like a long island, far away from the school building and everyone. The infirmary was on the first floor of that row of houses, and every time I faced the eye chart, I didn't have much confidence in myself, because I dedicated my eyes to all kinds of novels all the holidays. There is also the PE teacher's office, where the boys always like to take PE lessons, and some of them have a good relationship with the teacher and practice the long jump in the sandpit next to it. The music room is also there, the walls are soundproofed, and the doors and windows face the large playground, overlooking the light green school building. There was an old piano in the classroom, and the wood felt quite like an organ. In the first year of junior high school, a young and beautiful music teacher came to the school, who had just graduated from the normal school and was assigned. Her surname is Zhu, and I still remember that nice name. Every music teacher can play the piano, and of course the teacher also plays the piano well. At that time, the school did not pay attention to music and art classes, and in the third year of junior high school, I rarely took them again, and my impression of music lessons was only the time when I was hidden in the back row and listened to her play the piano. At that time, I learned to play the flute at home, and I performed at school twice, but Teacher Zhu didn't notice my specialty, and I was shy and never took out the flute. There are already staves in junior high school music textbooks, and I have been using these notations for a long time to practice the flute. The last music class exam was for each person to sing a song with the accompaniment of the piano of Teacher Zhu. It stands to reason that the songs in the textbook should be sung, and a few boys sang popular songs at the time, such as "New Mandarin Duck Butterfly Dream", such as the Four Heavenly Kings, and Zhu Teacher calmly accompanied the piano. I chose a song from the textbook "My Motherland", although it seems very old-fashioned, but I think the melody of that song is very beautiful. Unfortunately, I was embarrassed to continue halfway through the singing, but Teacher Zhu thought that I sang well at the beginning, as if I had given me a medium score.

After graduation, I never saw Teacher Zhu again.

Upstairs from the music classroom, is the school library. I often come and go with a young female faculty member, I don't know if it's a teacher or a librarian? The deepest impression she made on me was when it was very cold in winter, and she wore a miniskirt with her slender snow-white thighs, which made the senior boys around her scream. You must know that in those days, even in the hottest summer, there were not many girls wearing miniskirts on the road. When I was a freshman year of junior high school, I crept up the steps on the second floor and into the small library, which had only three or four rows of bookshelves, but it was enough for me. I excitedly looked at the yellowed spine and picked out a copy of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. I touched the book as if I had found it, wrote down my name on the library card, and cautiously walked downstairs. As a result, I was stopped at the top of the stairs by two senior boys, who looked at my book and said, "I've read this book, it's very good!" So, I was even happier and went back to the classroom with the book in my hand.

Soon after I graduated, Wuyi Middle School was demolished and turned into a nightclub, which is now a famous place in Shanghai.

My junior high school music teacher was assigned to another middle school nearby because of the school demolition. Later, one of the students led by Teacher Zhu became a famous singer, that is, Shang Wenjie.

Later, I went to study far away, in a desolate factory area with a blower factory next door, and we used to play soccer in the school, sometimes kicking the ball over the fence and picking it up. I heard that the factory was once a famous cemetery, and a generation of famous actresses Ruan Lingyu was buried in it.

After that, I went to work.

From 2002 to early 2007, I worked in the post office building on the north side of Sichuan Road and Bridge on the banks of the Suzhou Creek, an eclectic building completed in 1924 with Corinthian columns and a Baroque dome.

And then again, and then I will be what you see me.

Coincidentally, from birth to now, I have been living by the Suzhou Creek.

This is my river of life and death.

In June 2012, one night, I accompanied my family to Carrefour shopping, and when I sat down to eat at Yonghe Dawang, my mind suddenly jumped - what was the child's heart thinking? Burying secrets that adults can't imagine? Far beyond the child's life experience, or from another time and space - when the child is silent, it is reminiscing about the past in the previous life.

I turned to imagine: in fact, each of us came this way, even if we drank Meng Po soup under the Naihe Bridge by the Lechuan River, we still retain the memories of our previous lives when we were born, but in the process of growing up, we were invaded and polluted by the so-called "education", and we gradually forgot everything in our previous lives, from joys and sorrows to birth, old age, sickness and death......

Thus, "The River of Life and Death" began.

Half a year later, when the book was 80% complete and had been serialized in "Suspense World" magazine for 60,000 words, I suddenly thought of a better plan - a person you have not seen now, his name is Yu Lei, as the name suggests, is Yu Lian in "Red and Black", I found out that the real protagonist should be him, why can't he cross the river of life and death?

As a result, I was faced with an extremely difficult and cruel choice - either to follow the original writing outline and successfully complete the final ending; Either I changed the protagonist to another person, and changed most of the narrative perspective from first person to third person, and the result was that the whole book would have to be almost rewritten, and I would have to pay the price of dozens of sleepless nights.

It was a predicament I had never encountered, like standing on a small watershed, and walking back was a flat road, but it could only lead to Egypt when I came; Going further is a dangerous mountain climb, but it is possible to enter the promised land of Canaan, which the Creator promised.

However, I believe that it is a great blessing for a writer to encounter such a crossroads, no matter how he chooses.

I chose the hardest path.

It was during the Spring Festival of 2013, and I gave up all my rest and immersed myself in the second creation of "The River of Life and Death", that is, rewriting it from beginning to end.

So, this is the story you see.

At the end of March, I finally finished the first draft of "The River of Life and Death", and in my excitement, I mistakenly wrote the completion date in 2014, as if my life had traveled with Si Wang to a year later.

That night, I posted a Weibo -

"The River of Life and Death" is finished, I really want to cry out loud! It was as if I had crumpled my heart, glued it together and kneaded it again, and stitched it up with the last stitch. Ups and downs, cold and warm. Listening to You Hongming's "Meng Po Soup" in my ears. In the last sentence of the novel, allow me to quote Gu Cheng's poem. Tonight, I think, life is endless, novels are endless, and the pen will never be closed.

The poems of Gu Cheng mentioned here, you have already seen at the end of this book.

Thanks to the publisher of this book, Mo Tie Books, to the publisher Mr. Shen Haobo, to the planning and editors Liu Yi and Budi, and to you who saw this line.

I also thank every character in the book, you are all standing in front of me alive, experiencing the joys, sorrows, sorrows and sorrows of birth, old age, sickness and death in my heart. When Officer Huanghai died in the line of duty, I was also criing with Si Wang while tapping on the keyboard, as if cold raindrops fell into my eyes.

Last night, my friend who gave me "A History of the Mind" came to see me from Beijing. In a fit of excitement, I took him past my alma mater, the entrance of the primary school mentioned in "The River of Life and Death", and as soon as I turned around, I was on the side of the Suzhou Creek, where Si Wang found the jeep where the corpse was hidden by the river.

There is a pedestrian bridge here, and we step up the steps and look down on the Suzhou River. In the middle of the night, the spring breeze is blowing, and you can't see the water waves in the dark, but imagine the still water flowing deep under the bridge.

The son said on the river, the deceased is like a husband, reluctant to give up day and night.

Cai Jun

Wednesday, May 1, 2013 on the banks of Suzhou Creek, Shanghai