I got a good writing job when I was twenty-four, and now it's been ten years. It wasn't until I attended a class reunion that I realized that a few old irons in the literature class had already gone to the sea now, and they were running passionately on the front line of their careers every day. So much so that even the slogan of the alumni association has been changed to "mass innovation, mass entrepreneurship." ”

According to them, I am the only one who is still engaged in literary work, and they laugh that I have entered the rhythm of life of old cadres in advance, and I just write, drink, and drink tea every day. They said that it is difficult to predict what I will achieve in literature in the future, but I am definitely a senior in terms of health.

When I listen to these ridicules that I don't know whether they are good or bad, I always show an innocent smile that only children's channels can see. I would tell them that in fact, my job is not bad, 7,000 yuan a month, and although I can't make a fortune in a small fifteenth-tier city like ours, I can't starve to death.

In exchange for a nod of approval, when I was alone, I only understood in my heart that writing was actually a job of exchanging "life" for money. Although I put quotation marks in the proposition, I really don't brag when I say this. When I write for a long time, it's like drinking urine brewed from seven taels of rice, and my head is dizzy. So for the sake of good health and longevity, running has become a must-do for me every day. This thing is rain or shine, and the thunder cannot be moved.

I've been running around the lake in front of my house that hasn't yet impressed the developer, and I've been doing this for three years. Every morning, when I wake up, I drink a glass of honey water, smoke a cigarette, and then change into my sportswear that is more earthy than my uncle, soak up the sun and breeze, and go for a run by the lake like a groom rushing to get married.

This calm has lasted for three years, but a strange thing happened a month ago.

There are only a few people exercising by the lake every morning, and these old faces are like watching a happy base camp. But a month ago, there was one more person among these old faces, a lean old man who always liked to wear a black coat that could only be seen during the Cultural Revolution. This old man's appearance is a little sloppy and vicissitudes, he never exercises, he is like the stone lion at the door of the food stall when I come to the class reunion, and he sits quietly by the lake all day long.

To be honest, it doesn't matter if he's in a daze or jumping into the lake, it doesn't matter much to me. It's no wonder that this old man never pays attention to others, but he loves to smile at me. Whenever I passed him after a lap, he had to smile at me, which made me feel uncomfortable. I'm an average person, not cold, but not so bad that I can't talk to strangers. He smiled at me, and I smiled at him to see who could have the last laugh. The result is good, this bad old man has laughed at me from the late autumn of the lunar calendar to the small cold of the lunar calendar.

I remember that day it was cloudy and windy, and it was so cold that I was willing to drill into the old widow's quilt that sold duck necks in the neighborhood next door, and this bad old man was still wearing that thin black coat, and the fish in the lake were frozen to death, and he didn't look so cold.

I ran two laps and stopped on lap three.

As a good citizen of medium to upper character, I really couldn't bear to see a lonely old man sitting alone by the lake, coupled with the curiosity I had saved in the past month, so I took a deep breath, walked to the old man in a black coat, handed him a hibiscus king, squeezed out a smile like squeezing toothpaste, and then asked him: "Old man, why don't you go home and stay here alone on this cold day, you look at this gust of white hair, I have to wear a three-layer sweater and pants as a young man, You can put on a gown that you wear in early autumn, and you are not afraid of freezing to death. ”

After I said this, I secretly scolded myself for my mother's low emotional intelligence, obviously I cared about other people's words, and from my mouth of drinking bee feces every morning, it was like cursing people to death. The old man took a puff of cigarette with a smile, and said lightly in a hoarse voice: "Life is also death, and death is also life." ”

The old man's words, I was shocked at the time.

I have the impression that such unfathomable quotations usually come from the mouths of Hegel or Shakespeare, and at the very least, they must be some kind of eminent monk or an immortal who has long seen through the red dust.

I thought the old man would say something like, "It's okay, I'm not cold." Or "You young people are really not as good as us old guys" and so on, but I didn't expect this old man to play his cards completely out of common sense, and actually said such a profound insight, which made me suddenly respect him.

Then the old man said, "It's going to rain, let's go home early." ”

I was stunned at first, but I didn't think that it was not good to take the initiative to talk to him this time, and I was caught off guard by two sentences in a row, and I answered: "Old man, how can you see that it is raining on this day?" I was afraid that he would have bad ears when he was old, so I deliberately approached and shouted: "There is no rain today, I have checked the weather forecast." ”

The old man smiled and did not speak.

I saw him looking blankly at the lake like a stone lion again, and he didn't seem to have anything to say to me, so I could only smile awkwardly and say, "Then you are busy, I will continue to run." ”

I met this old man in a black coat, and I didn't know each other before. Now I should remind him, even if he is really frozen, I can be regarded as having a clear conscience. But before I had run half a lap, the soybean-sized raindrops fell with a clatter, and I remembered the old man in the black coat who reminded me before, and I was immediately shocked, and my admiration for him immediately became even stronger. How did he know that the sky was going to change and that a rainstorm was coming?

This old man in a black coat only said two words to me, but I dared to pat my chest and bet on the old hen of my fourth aunt's house, this old guy is definitely not an ordinary person.

The rain became heavier and heavier, as if someone had poured water down from the sky, and I stood under a big tree to hide from the rain, shivering from the cold, thinking that I would rush home in one breath. At this time, a person came out of a dilapidated house not far away and waved his hand to me, and I fixed my eyes to see if this was not the old man in a black coat.

I figured out what the old man meant, and he seemed to want me to go inside and take shelter from the rain. I stood under the tree and my upper and lower teeth began to jump, and when I saw the situation, I immediately ran over like an orphan.

After entering the house, the old man didn't treat me as an outsider, but said "sit casually", and then busily boiled water to make tea. I thanked him one by one, and hurriedly took out another cigarette and handed it to the old man.

I sat on the bench and looked curiously around the room of the old man in the black coat. This look, my heart is so sour that I almost didn't shed tears. I've seen a hard time, but I've never seen someone as poor as him. This is said to be a house, but in fact, it is a simple shack built with a few broken asbestos tiles, and the chicken coops of free-range chickens in the countryside are stronger than this. Except for a broken wooden bed and a small table, all that was left of the room were the odd paintings on the walls......