I am taking my own detour, and I don't know what kind of inspiration I can get after experiencing many disappointments, and maybe I can only set up more 'this road is not working' for future generations. In order not to let excessive introspection hurt my will, I insisted on contacting Qin Hong every day. His words were a great comfort to me. Thank you for his willingness to act as a retreat for my soul in a foreign land.

Last time you wrote to me and asked me what kind of man is reliable. Does that mean I can congratulate you guys? It's too shallow to answer this question with my qualifications, so I'll tell you the story of the landlady.

Forty-seven years ago today, she was a young girl, and she would be nineteen years old in two months. How would I describe her to you? You may be able to get a glimpse of what it's like from the last photo you posted. When she was younger, she looked like Ingrid Bauman, and I hope you still remember the famous actress's image in Casablanca, but Yona never thought of herself as half like a Swede.

At that time, her hair was still blonde, and her blue eyes were not covered with gray rings. She is full of confusion about the future and is obsessed with young love. Yes, her first husband was her middle school classmate. They got married right out of high school. The law has allowed, and the two sides have fallen in love with each other, and everything is just a matter of course. However, the young couple didn't stay happy for long. Problems keep popping up between them. At first, it was a matter of livelihood, but then the birth of their first child worsened their relationship, and the differences in their personalities were exposed in the face of conflict. He began to drink heavily, stayed up at night, and ignored her and their children. She wanted to improve her family's financial situation, and she worked odd jobs everywhere, and she was exhausted all day. This life finally came to an end in a domestic violence, and she divorced with her son, who was less than three years old.

After her son went to school, she changed to a full-time job, where she met her second husband. They were both divorced, but he had no children. After they got married, they had two more children, all sons, and the lack of daughters became a regret in her later years. However, this time the happiness lasted less than seven years, and she once again became alone due to domestic violence, thinking that she had a home.

By the time she met John, she was forty-two years old. In China, most divorced women of this age have given up their plans to remarry. She was exhausted by two failed marriages. John was constantly present to her, and she could sense his thirst, but she was afraid of repeating the mistakes of the past and did not want to experience another injury. Thankfully, he didn't give up. He made excuses to visit her, take care of her sons for her, and help her with the chores of life. He knew about her past from the child's mouth, and he took the initiative to talk to her, analyze the individual differences between people, and prove to her that not all men would punch women.

I don't know what specific things he did to gain her trust and give her the courage to believe in marriage again. In short, they have been living together for many years now, having spent their porcelain wedding anniversary in Spain last July. She had been to the country by chance when she was younger. They stayed there for a month, visiting all the places she remembered. She showed me a lot of photos, in black and white and color, and you can easily tell the age of the shooting. In recent photos, I saw John holding her hand tightly, carrying her backpack and guarding their common luggage at the train station. She happily took many pictures of him snoozing in different places, in hotels, by the steps of the park, and in the seats of sightseeing yachts. The joy of taking pictures was conveyed through the photos, and she couldn't help but laugh when she told me about it until tears welled up in the corners of her eyes.

Her appearance reminds me of a poem I used to read lately. I have only read the original English manuscript, and the level of translation is limited, if you can find other translations, you can also refer to it, to the effect that:

Every traveler has to knock on every strange door,

to find their own door.

People will wander around the seas,

Finally, you can enter the deepest inner sanctum.

My eyes look round out into the open space,

Then he can close his eyes and say, "So you are here."

About a week ago, I received some hyacinth bulbs from Wang Yi from Germany. I keep these asparagus plants in a couple of plastic bottles with truncated mouths. Now that they have grown thin white roots, sucking life-sustaining water from the bottom of the bottle, the leaves are a finger's width wide sticking out from the tips of the bulbs, and I have not yet been able to see the middle inflorescence. He said that with careful cultivation, they will produce white or purple flowers. I wrote back curly to express my gratitude, without any other words. I haven't met him since the plane parted. Everything from the past came to mind from time to time, the drinks provided by Anonymous in the exercise class, the clothes that were covered in front of him when he woke up in the car, the atmosphere of the accidental change and the intertwined eyes, all of which were explained.

I don't want to nourish his imagination or make room for his thoughts. Maybe I don't have the experience to deal with these things, maybe I'm blocked by the moral threshold I have set for myself, and I'm afraid to see him or know about him. I am already powerless to be separated from Qin Hong, and I don't want to add suspicion and trouble to each other. There is no room for three people in this small world, and I hope to love only one person from beginning to end until I am choked by the neck and unable to breathe in real life.